The Vaccine War (A Frontline Documentary)

[Editors note: I will tune in April 27th at 9pm est to see if FRONTLINE is pushing Vaccinations or Alerting the public to the real dangers of Vaccines]

Public health scientists and clinicians tout vaccines as one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine. But for many ordinary Americans vaccines have become controversial. Young parents are concerned at the sheer number of shots--some 26 inoculations for 14 different diseases by age 6--and follow alternative vaccination schedules advocated by gurus like Dr. Robert Sears. Other parents go further. In communities like Ashland, Oregon, up to one-third of parents are choosing not to vaccinate their kids at all. And some advocacy groups, like Generation Rescue, argue that vaccines are no longer a public health miracle but a scourge; they view vaccines as responsible for alarming rises in certain disorders, including ADHD and autism.


This is the vaccine war: On one side sits scientific medicine and the public health establishment; on the other a populist coalition of parents, celebrities (like Jenny McCarthy), politicians and activists. It's a war that increasingly takes place on the Internet with both sides using the latest social media tools, including Facebook and Twitter, to win the hearts and minds of the public.

Read the Press Release »

Bad habits can age you by 12 years, study suggests

By LINDSEY TANNER

The risky behaviors were: smoking tobacco; downing more than three alcoholic drinks per day for men and more than two daily for women; getting less than two hours of physical activity per week; and eating fruits and vegetables fewer than three times daily.

These habits combined substantially increased the risk of death and made people who engaged in them seem 12 years older than people in the healthiest group, said lead researcher Elisabeth Kvaavik of the University of Oslo.  Read more...

An American Phenomenon: The Widespread Psychiatric Drugging of Infants and Toddlers

By Evelyn Pringle

The United States has become the psychiatric drugging capital of the world, medicating children at a younger and younger age.

The United States has become the psychiatric drugging capital of the world for kids with children being medicated at a younger and younger age. Medicaid records in some states show infants less than a year old on drugs for mental disorders.

The use of powerful antipsychotics with privately insured children, aged 2 through 5 in the US, doubled between 1999 and 2007, according to a study of data on more than one million children with private health insurance in the January, 2010, "Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry."  Read more...

Also read

• The Psychiatric Drugging of Children

Bible Aimed at Black Teens Begins With Black National Anthem

By Carmen Dixon

Far be it from me to criticize any effort to bring teens into a positive spiritual environment, but I'll admit that I was surprised to see that Bible-publishing powerhouse Zondervan had crafted a Bible designed to appeal to black youngster that starts with the lyrics of 'Lift Every Voice and Sing.' From Christianbook.com:

Our Heritage and Faith Holy Bible for African-American Teens in the New International Version helps teens understand their heritage and enables them to identify and interact with Scripture.  Read more...

US adoptive parents seek girls, non-black children: study

US parents looking to adopt a child prefer girls over boys, and non-black children over African-Americans, according to a new study carried out by a group of economists.
The team from the California Institute of Technology, the London School of Economics and New York University studied five years worth of data from 2004-2009 culled from a website run by an adoption intermediary.  Read more...

Muslim Woman denied being a Foster Parent. Why? No bacon in the home.

Contemporary Family Services, a Maryland-based private foster agency that is “authorized by the state to place foster children with families,” has rejected the application of Tashima Crudup, a former foster child herself, to foster a child. A social worker who visited Crudup reported that she was “accepting of religious practices other than their own” and was willing “to make arrangements to have a child attend the church of his or her own choice if so requested.” Nevertheless, Crudup’s application was rejected. Why? The agency expressed concern that Crudup does not keep pork in her house due to her Muslim faith...  Read more...

• Watch video

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  Opinion: Bacon Should Have No Bearing on Becoming a Foster Parent

• Foster Care Company Stands By Denial Of Mother
  

National Security Threat: Youth Too Fat To Fight

by Angela Kaye Mason

In a report that was released today by a group of retired armed forces leaders, it was stated that over a quarter of young adults are not able to meet the physical requirements for joining the military. And it is not because of unavoidable diseases, ailments or physical problems.

“It’s not drug abuse, it’s not asthma, it’s not flat feet — by far the leading medical reason is being overweight or obese,” said retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Norman Seip at a news conference.  Read more...

Volcano forces US out of world youth championships

The U.S. team has withdrawn from the world youth boxing championships in Azerbaijan because of the volcano in Iceland.

The start of the tournament already had been delayed until Sunday, but USA Boxing said Monday the team still would not have been able to arrive on time.  Read more...

Rapper Guru of Gangstarr Has Died

Rapper Guru has died aged 43 after a long battle with cancer, according to statements published online.

The New York MC - whose real name was Keith Elam - suffered cardiac arrest on March 2 and had been in a coma.

His death was announced on the DJ Premier Blog site. Premier and Guru made up the hip-hop duo Gang Starr, which released six albums between 1989 and 2003. Guru went on to release a series of "Jazzmatazz" albums featuring collaborations with Cortney Pine, Roy Ayers and Kool Keith.  Read more...

Gang Starr - Mass Appeal

Tobacco ‘mints’ tied to kids’ poisoning

By JoNel Aleccia

Smokeless products 2nd most common source of accidents

Nicotine-laced pellets, strips and sticks that dissolve completely in the user’s mouth — dubbed “tobacco candy” by critics — have joined chewing tobacco and snuff to become the second-most common cause of unintentional tobacco ingestion in kids younger than 6. Read more...

More U.S. babies born with syphilis

More U.S. babies are being born with syphilis, many of them to women in the South who use crack cocaine and work in the sex trade, according to a U.S. government report released on Thursday.

The troubling trend reverses a 14-year decline and shows the infection, already on the uptick among gay and bisexual men, is worsening in the heterosexual community, the team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.  Read more...

MSU study: US needs better-trained math teachers to compete globally

Math teachers in the United States need better training if the nation's K-12 students are going to compete globally, according to international research released today by a Michigan State University scholar.

William Schmidt, University Distinguished Professor of education, found that prospective U.S. elementary and middle-school math teachers are not as prepared as those from other countries. And this, combined with a weak U.S. math curriculum, produces similarly weak student achievement, he said.  Read more...

Understanding autism: African American children with autism are more likely to be misdiagnosed

by Kris Perry

A study by Dr. David Mandell in October 2005 reported that, on average, the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) was delayed by almost two years among African American children – to 7.5 years old – as compared to their Caucasian counterparts, whose autism is diagnosed at an average 5.5 years old. At this time, there is no cure for autism, but kids who are screened and diagnosed at a young age and visit a doctor regularly for treatment show significant improvement in learning and communication skills.  Read more...

‘Crack babies’ defy mother’s curse

By Theresa Vargas

Despite dire predictions, most are now thriving adults

Many of the crack-exposed infants ended up as boarder babies — abandoned at the hospital by parents who couldn't care for them. Some of these children have been troubled throughout their lives. But national crime rates, predicted to soar when the children came of age, have instead dropped to record lows. Despite decades of research, it can be hard to parse whether children born to crack-addicted mothers have struggled because of early exposure to drugs, troubled upbringings or simple teenage defiance.   Read more...

The Youth Scare

By TOLU OLORUNDA

Zero tolerance for guns! drugs! and crime! Hear the proponents’ cry. But behind this façade, Robbins writes, is zero tolerance for children—and the mistakes they make. School officials storm into students’ lockers any time of day—Fourth Amendment be goddamned—reinforcing how “little autonomy” students have “to resist and question” authorized abuse. And students wallow at the crack of school hierarchy, limiting attention to their concerns. For poor Black or Brown kids, the die is already cast: they walk into school Day 1, hate what they see, respond intelligently, and leave school grounds in handcuffs. And when any uppity activist or parent dares question why more money goes the way of suburban schools, officials gamely open up their special notebooks, and point out the number of tardy, absent, suspended, expelled, and arrested students as perfect justification.

Of course, as Robbins notes, racism wins again, for the “crimes allegedly committed by Black youth are presented as the consequences of biological pathologies or cultural deficits, whereas those allegedly perpetrated by White youth are typically framed as responses to middle-class alienation or the consequences of proverbial teen angst gone mad.” We hold this truth to be self-evident: that a “densely corporatized media environment has no interest in presenting youth as needy, well-intentioned, curious, meaning-seeking beings.”  Read more...

A Web Site You Should Know: One Potato

by Christopher Healy

The site sets its spotlights not just on new releases, but on any great picture book that deserves readers -- especially those that may never have felt the glory of sitting face-out on a cardboard, front-of-store display. And you can purchase any books on One Potato, via Amazon, by clicking on it right then and then -- no need to leave the site and shop around for the new title you just read about.

Jay Bushara, the man behind the Potato, scours bookstores every week -- both mega chains and local independents -- to find overlooked or forgotten gems. He also solicits suggestions from One Potato visitors, and some of his more interesting discoveries come about in that way.

Teen girls' drinking may lead to breast problems later

By Kathleen Doheny

Frequent alcohol consumption by teenage girls may increase the chances that they will develop non-cancerous breast disease in their 20s and possibly breast cancer later in life.

Research published online April 12 in the journal Pediatrics found that girls who drank the most alcohol during their teen years — daily or nearly every day — were five times more likely to develop benign breast disease as young adults than were their peers who never drank or drank less than once a week.  Read more...

Adopted Children Need Time to Adjust, Experts Say

by Honey Berk

After a Tennessee woman sent her adopted child on a plane back to Russia last week, the topic of adoption is both in the news and on people's minds.

What's important to understand, experts say, is that adoption itself is not the problem. Rather, issues can occur because of things that may have happened before the adoption ever took place -- including whether the child was abused or neglected, was institutionalized or lived in an orphanage in another country.  Read more...

Listen to my interview about Adopting Black Children

Adopting Black Children

Know4LIFE's Podcast

Brits Want to Hit the Panic Button Over Facebook

by Tom Henderson

Hey, boys and girls, someone messing with you on Facebook?

Hit the panic button!

What panic button? Oh, that's right. Facebook doesn't have a panic button.

That's enough to make British officials hit the panic button themselves. If they had their way, every kid's Facebook profile would have such a button. It would be linked to the government's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.  Read more...

Report: Colorado has fastest-growing child poverty rate in U.S.

BARBARA COTTER

The number of children living in poverty has been growing faster in Colorado than anywhere else in the nation, and El Paso County has experienced one of the highest growth rates in the state, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report, “2010 Kids Count in Colorado!”, says the number of Colorado children living at or below the federal poverty level of about $22,000 for a family of four rose 72 percent between 2000 and 2008.  Read more...

First Lady goes solo with trip to visit children in Haiti and Mexico

Giles Whittell

Excited Mexican children will be joined for their art classes and a PE lesson today by a black American woman with an inspiring message of empowerment, impeccably toned arms and a posse of Secret Service agents following her every step.

Fifteen months into her husband’s presidency Michelle Obama is undertaking her first solo foreign trip — a three-day visit to Mexico City that will reveal much about how she intends to use her unique position as a goodwill ambassador for the US.  Read more...

Charges of gang rape and abuse of children

According to the authorities, a 15-year-old girl went to a party in a vacant apartment and her seven-year-old sister tagged along. The older girl, who is still under the age of consent, reportedly had sex with some of the males in the apartment and then let the men pay to touch the little child.

The touching turned to outright rape, according to the police. At Final Call press time, four minors and three adults had been charged in the alleged crime. One of the minors charged and detained was the 15-year-old girl who allegedly offered up her stepsister.  Read more...

Parents may not recognize bullies

By Leanne Italie

Some common misconceptions may lull the parents of bullies into failing to recognize warning signs.

Bullies are often star athletes or popular girls considered charismatic leaders by peers and adults, experts say. What's often missed or passed over as minor is a consistent pattern of control and aggression against other kids — behavior that socially savvy bullies can sometimes slide under the radar of grown-ups.

"It's not what we typically think of. It's not always the kid who's pushing kids down on the playground," says Rosalind Wiseman, who wrote "Queen Bees and Wannabes," the basis for the movie "Mean Girls."  Read more...

Boy Scouts of America Found Negligent in Sex Abuse Case

A U.S. jury has ordered the Boy Scouts of America to pay $1.4 million to a former scout who was sexually abused by an assistant scoutmaster.

The jury in the northwestern U.S. state of Oregon found the Boy Scouts organization was negligent for allowing an admitted sex-offender to lead troop activities, including sleepovers.  Read more...

American College of Pediatricians’ Facts About Youth project

Facts About Youth (Facts) is a resource created by health professionals to provide policymakers, parents and youth with the most current medical and psychological facts about sexual development.

Amid debate in the medical and mental health fields concerning the causes and proper approaches to youth with non-heterosexual attractions, Facts is a non-political, non-religious channel presenting the most current facts on the subject. Facts is committed to advancing a school environment in which all students will experience the opportunity to achieve optimal health and safety, even in the midst of differing worldviews. Facts is intended to be a resource to promote the factual and respectful discussion of these potentially divisive issues. This is a web site for and about youth and their needs.  Read more...

Rwanda: Kagame Joins Youth in 'Walk to Remember'

Charles Kwizera

President Paul Kagame, yesterday, led thousands of youth in the 'Walk to Remember - East Africa', a march organised by Rwandan youth to pay tribute to the over a million Tutsi who were killed in the 1994 Genocide.

The walk was also attended by various cabinet Ministers and other senior government officials.  Read more...

Taking responsibility for youth justice ("Freed from prison, some juveniles have no place to go")

Tribune readers should have been shocked to learn that more than 10 percent of the youths in state prisons have served their sentences but remain locked up because the state agency responsible for transitioning them back into community life has failed them.

The article ("Freed from prison, some juveniles have no place to go," April 1, 2010) highlights the appalling inefficiency and lack of direction in the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice. Four years ago, concern about the high recidivism of juveniles sent repeatedly to the Department of Corrections led to the creation of a new Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), which was separated from the adult Department of Corrections and given a mission to turn the juvenile prisons into juvenile treatment programs and facilities focused on rehabilitating and returns these youths to society.

Resistance to change has been strong, and the new DJJ has fallen far short of its intended mission. Reports and media investigations document an increased rate of suicide attempts and an unacceptably high rate of sexual assaults on the youth in the juvenile facilities most of which still retain the adult prison culture.

Greater Cincinnati’s Service Symposium Celebrates Youth Service

By Jordan Huizenga

Do you want to be at the heart of youth service, be recognized for outstanding volunteerism and have the opportunity to share and collect ideas from hundreds of other youth? Then plan to attend the second annual Service Symposium for youth, parents and educators April 17 from 2-5pm at Duke Energy Convention Center and learn about the outstanding contributions of youth to our community.  Read more...