Foster Youth Hit the Streets to Raise Awareness

Hamilton County foster youth will take to the streets of downtown Cincinnati Friday in an effort to raise awareness around foster care and child abuse during National Foster Care Month.

The May 28 event will feature a walk from the Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services, 222 E. Central Parkway, to Fountain Square. The walk starts at 11:30 a.m. and the foster youth invite anyone who supports the cause to walk along. The event is supported by the Hamilton County Foster Care Youth Advisory Board and the Higher Education Mentoring Initiative.

“We want to raise awareness so people will understand there are real people behind the words ‘foster care,’ ” said Laquita Howell, 18, a member of the Youth Advisory Board who has been a foster child for the past five years. “Every time a decision is made regarding foster care legislation or how tax dollars are spent in child welfare, we want people to think about the faces of our youth.”  Read more...

Olympic Gold Medalist Works To Close Racial Gap In Swimming

With Memorial Day just around the corner, this year’s beach and pool season is about to begin in earnest. But a new study released by USA Swimming shows that many Black Americans can’t safely join the fun: 70 percent of African-American children have little to no swimming ability, nearly twice as many as white kids, the report found. In addition, Black children 14 years old and younger are 2.6 times more like to fatally drown than white children in the same age group.

These disparities are what led USA Swimming to develop the Make a Splash initiative, which aims to reduce drowning statistics among minority youth by providing access to swim lessons at low to no cost for kids across the country. Olympic gold medalist Cullen Jones is their primary spokesman, and will spend this summer touring several U.S. cities to raise awareness about water safety among minorities.  Read more...

Gulf Coast Oil Spill: Health Questions

Dr. Gina Solomon provides answers to the health questions raised by the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig explosion and the efforts being made to contain it.

How do you think the health of local communities around the gulf will be impacted from the oil?

The petroleum vapors and mists can cause a variety of immediate health effects. There are also long-term health concerns because some of the contaminants from the oil will remain for a long time in the sediments and will accumulate in the food chain. Contamination in fish and shellfish—for many years into the future—may pose a significant risk of cancer and other health effects.

What’s actually in oil that could be hazardous to health?

Oil contains a mixture of chemicals. The main ingredients are various hydrocarbons, some of which can cause cancer (such as the PAHs or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons); other hydrocarbons can cause skin and airway irritation. There are also certain volatile hydrocarbons called VOCs (volatile organic compounds) which can cause cancer, and neurologic and reproductive harm. Oil also contains traces of heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic and lead.

How can these chemicals get into our bodies?

VOCs and some of the other hydrocarbons can be inhaled, causing lung problems and other health effects. Skin contact causes irritation and rashes. The oil will contaminate fish and shellfish, causing health risks from eating these foods that could persist for years.  Read more...

Controversial autism doc: ‘I’m not going away’

By Michael Inbar

The doctor who suggested a possible link between childhood vaccines and autism stands by his theory and said on Monday that he will continue his research despite having his medical license revoked Monday.

In a TODAY exclusive, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the most famous face behind the movement of those who believe autism is linked to the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), remains convinced that he is on the right side of the facts, and says he will not be silenced — even after England’s General Medical Council yanked his license to practice medicine. Read more...

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Guns as likely to kill kids in rural areas

By CARLA K. JOHNSON

Children in the most rural areas of the United States are as likely to die by gunshot as kids in the biggest cities, a new analysis of nearly 24,000 deaths finds.

Not surprisingly, murders involving firearms are more common among city youth. But gun suicides and accidental fatal shootings level the score: They are more common among rural children.  Read more...

Two-year-old toddlers being dosed up with antipsychotic drugs

David Gutierrez

Children between the ages of two and five are being treated with antipsychotics at twice the rate they were ten years ago, according to a study conducted by researchers from Columbia University and published in the journal Health Affairs.  Read more...

If ultrasound destroys sperm, why is it safe for a fetus?

by Mike Adams

Ultrasound is extremely damaging to the health of any unborn child (fetus). The natural health community has been warning about ultrasound for years, but mainstream medicine, which consistently fails to recognize the harm it causes, insists ultrasound is perfectly safe and can't possibly harm the health of a fetus.  Read more...

13-year-old American boy becomes youngest ever to conquer Mount Everest

By Agence France-Presse

A 13-year-old American boy on Saturday became the youngest person to conquer Mount Everest, his website said, setting a new but controversial world record.

Jordan Romero was one of more than 50 mountaineers who reached the top of the world's highest peak early Saturday, among them Apa Sherpa, who broke his own world record by summiting for the 20th time.  Read more...

In Texas, social studies textbooks get a conservative make-over

By Brad Knickerbocker

The Texas State Board of Education has approved controversial changes to social studies textbooks, pushing high school teaching in a more conservative direction.

In a move that has potential national impact, the Texas State Board of Education has approved controversial changes to social studies textbooks – pushing high school teaching in a more conservative direction.

The Dallas Morning news reports that the curriculum standards adopted Friday by a 9-5 vote along party lines on the elected board have “a definite political and philosophical bent in many areas.”“For example, high school students will have to learn about leading conservative groups from the 1980s and 1990s in U.S. history – but not about liberal or minority rights groups that are identified as such.  Read more...

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Readers: Children learn attitudes about race at home

In the study, white children had an overwhelming bias toward white, and black children also had a bias toward white, but it was not nearly as strong as the bias shown by the white children.
Many users of the site thought parenting was the issue behind the results, some thought the kids were too naive and others thought the testing method was flawed.  Read more...

Kids' test answers on race brings mother to tears

States' budget woes hitting programs for kids hard

By DON BABWIN

In Arizona, a program that helped blind high school students care for themselves and find jobs is suspended. In South Carolina, all five state-run group homes for kids closed and a program that helped paroled youths get jobs is shuttered. And in Hawaii, a program to reduce child abuse and neglect was cut so much that two years after serving 4,000 families, it now serves 100.

All over the country, the financial crisis has forced states to make historic cuts to close what the National Conference of State Legislatures found was an overall budget gap of $174.1 billion this fiscal year and has lawmakers looking to trim another $89 billion next year. That means slashing services to the one population they've long protected: children.

The scope of the cuts is unprecedented, child advocates say.  Read more...

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• Children Suffer as States Cut Health Budgets

Supreme Court bars some life terms for juveniles

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday it was unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life in prison without parole for crimes other than murder.


By a 6-3 vote, the nation's highest court ruled that life imprisonment without parole in such cases violated the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

An estimated 111 defendants in the United States have been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for crimes other than murder committed when they were under age 18. About 70 percent of them are imprisoned in Florida.  Read more...


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Detroit girl, 7, shot and killed by police

By NIRAJ WARIKOO and ZLATI MEYER

Officers were executing search warrant for homicide suspect

The scene Sunday outside Aiyana Jones’ home on Lillibridge was a mixture of shock, grief and anger as family and friends gathered to try to make sense of a shooting death they said was caused by over-aggressive law enforcement.

Police said they, too, are deeply upset by the second-grader’s death and are conducting a full investigation.

The shooting — which happened during a raid to catch a murder suspect who was found and arrested at the home today — is the latest high-profile death in a city where there is a growing sense that violence is spilling out of control.

Ron Scott, head of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, called Sunday’s shooting the worst he has seen in 14 years of working to stop police abuse.  Read more...

Study: ADHD linked to pesticide exposure

By Sarah Klein

Children exposed to higher levels of a type of pesticide found in trace amounts on commercially grown fruit and vegetables are more likely to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than children with less exposure, a nationwide study suggests.

Researchers measured the levels of pesticide byproducts in the urine of 1,139 children from across the United States. Children with above-average levels of one common byproduct had roughly twice the odds of getting a diagnosis of ADHD, according to the study, which appears in the journal Pediatrics.  Read more...

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Babies May Know Right From Wrong From the Beginning

Babies may have an instinctive reaction against immorality and injustice, according to research at Yale University. Credit: Getty Images

H.L. Mencken famously said conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.

Careful. That somebody might be your baby.

Parents spend a lot of time teaching their children to know the difference between right and wrong. The truth is, Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom writes in The New York Times Magazine, babies may have already figured it out.

His research suggests human beings might have an inherent sense of morality.  Read more...

No limits for teen without limbs

By ABBY HAIGHT

Dancer Kiera Brinkley survived bacterial infection at age 2

She doesn't let it get her down. She roams the halls of a Portland high school in a wheelchair, chatting with friends or taking in a hug or two. At home, she cares for her two sisters and a little brother, and makes them dinner.

Through it all, Kiera dances, a lot, in the living room with her mother as her audience, in a practice studio at New York's renowned Juilliard School and on stage with her high school classmates wildly cheering.  Read more...

Recalled children's Tylenol products were knowingly contaminated, says FDA

by Mike Adams
Only the drug industry could get away with this type of careless, reckless behavior with nothing more than a slap on the wrist from the FDA. In fact, the FDA did not even require McNeil to issue a recall after discovering the problem; McNeil did so voluntarily over "theoretical concerns" that were expressed by Deborah Autor, an FDA official who was quick to emphasize that the risk to consumers from the tainted products "is remote".

So let me get this straight. An FDA report finds that a pharmaceutical company is knowingly using contaminated raw materials to make children's and infants' medicines in a factory that is failing to maintain its equipment, properly train its employees and correctly measure and weigh drug ingredients, and FDA officials consider the problem to be "theoretical"?  Read more...

Negative Images of African Americans in the Media

 

Mass media is a powerful force in American pop culture. Images seen on billboards, television, magazines, and the big screen create lasting impressions. Sometimes these impressions have a negative impact. Mass media can be very detrimental to society if it is not criticized. Many groups of Americans are negatively affected by the images and content of mass media. African Americans are at the top of this list.

Images of African Americans in television, music, and film are often less than stellar. Black men are often portrayed as drug pushers, pimps, thugs, and dead beat dads, while black women are portrayed as poor, lazy, and promiscuous. This needs to stop! That is a given! Question is, how are these negative images going to be stopped? Several steps should be taken in order to prevent these negative images in the media. The origins of these images need to be examined, and modern racism and prejudice need to be exposed.  Read more…

FIFA: Iran's football girls back in Youth Olympics

By MICHAEL CASEY

The Iranian girls football team can compete at the Youth Olympics as long as its players swap their traditional head scarves for a cap that covers their hair, FIFA said Monday.

The compromise comes after FIFA initially barred the team from participating last month over its insistence on wearing head scarves. FIFA barred hijab scarves—which protect the modesty of Islamic girls and women—in 2007 for safety reasons and to prevent political or religious statements on the field.  read more...

The Playground Jail

Marian Wright Edelman

For years toddlers living in a violence-racked neighborhood in Brooklyn were encouraged to dream they were in jail at a city-funded playground. When the Reverend Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson, the executive director of the Children's Defense Fund's New York office, first heard about the design of the playground at the Tompkins Houses in Bedford Stuyvesant this spring, she had to visit and see it for herself. The photographs she took show the shameful truth: sure enough, the center of the play structure featured a bright orange square with the word "JAIL" in bold capital letters, cutout bars on a pretend window, and the image of an exaggerated lock on a child-sized door. She immediately called a local reporter to add her voice to the parents and community advocates demanding to have the playground jail removed. As soon as the story began receiving media attention, workers quickly arrived to try to paint over the words and images. But the damage had already been done.  Read more...

One-child rule may be eased in China

By ALEXA OLESEN

Government policy no longer necessary, experts suggest

Officially, the government remains committed to the one-child policy. But it also commissioned feasibility studies last year on what would happen if it eliminated the policy or did nothing. An official with the National Population and Family Planning Commission said privately that the agency is looking at ways to refine the limit — though not get rid of it.

A people shortage may seem unlikely in a country of 1.3 billion, the most in the world. The concern, though, is not with the overall number. Rather, as the population shrinks, which is projected to begin in about 15 years, China may find itself with the wrong mix of people: too few young workers to support an aging population.  Read more...

One-child rule may be eased in China

By ALEXA OLESEN

Government policy no longer necessary, experts suggest

Officially, the government remains committed to the one-child policy. But it also commissioned feasibility studies last year on what would happen if it eliminated the policy or did nothing. An official with the National Population and Family Planning Commission said privately that the agency is looking at ways to refine the limit — though not get rid of it.

A people shortage may seem unlikely in a country of 1.3 billion, the most in the world. The concern, though, is not with the overall number. Rather, as the population shrinks, which is projected to begin in about 15 years, China may find itself with the wrong mix of people: too few young workers to support an aging population.  Read more...