Vaccination May Increase Risk of Rare Psychiatric Childhood Disorders, Study Finds
Children with anorexia nervosa, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety and tic disorders were more likely to have had a recent vaccination, according to a new study based on a database of privately insured children’s medical claims. Children with anorexia nervosa, obsessive-compulsive disorder…
Childhood Flu Could Predict Future Vulnerability
The press release subhead reads: “UCLA, Arizona researchers explain that birth year may largely determine people’s risk for serious illness in an influenza pandemic.” It sounds vaguely astrological, as if our birth date predicts our future health. In fact, it introduces an interesting scientific hypothesis for why some people are…
Naled Spraying in South Carolina to Combat Zika Kills Millions of Honeybees
Early on a Sunday morning this past summer, the noxious pesticide Naled was sprayed over Dorchester County, South Carolina in an effort to kill Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are believed to transmit the Zika virus. In collateral damage, the aerial spray also killed millions of honeybees. One local beekeeper, who lost 2.5 million bees in a matter of minutes, described the toll as devastating, saying her bee farm “looks like it’s been nuked.” Dorchester County administrator Jason Ward…
Sick is the New Normal
The alarming rise in incidence of chronic, inflammatory-type disorders among children cannot be fully explained by such theories as the hygiene hypothesis, poor eating habits or defective genes. Certainly, there is more to the root cause of food allergies, asthma, autism-spectrum disorders, type 1 and 2 diabetes, obesity, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) (otherwise known as fatty liver disease…
Sugar Linked to Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease
It is hard to comprehend the degree of damage perpetrated by sugar, one of the most wildly popular and ubiquitous ingredients in the typical Western diet. Consumption of sugar has already been identified as a leading risk factor in obesity, tooth decay, fatty liver disease, insulin resistance leading to diabetes and the metabolic syndrome, cancer, and heart disease. It has been likened to any other…
The Immune System: The Body’s Battlefield
We often hear the terms immunity, the immune system and immune response thrown around when discussing the topic of vaccination. But do we really understand how the immune system is designed, its mechanism and the impact of vaccination on its overall function? Immunology is a vast and complex field of study, however, it is important to understand the basics…