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The Childhood Chronic Disease Crisis the Media and Big Medicine Won’t Talk About
More young Americans are being diagnosed with chronic diseases than ever before. Why do the media, the pharmaceutical industry, and the medical establishment not want to uncover the reason?
The prevalence of chronic conditions has skyrocketed to unprecedented levels over the past two decades, with almost 1 in 3 young people between the ages of five and 25 estimated to be living with a medical condition that significantly affects their lives, new research suggests.
No one knows exactly what drives the phenomenon, but there is an inexplicable resistance to uncovering the truth. This should not be surprising given the decades of misdirected research, destroyed evidence, and outright lies whenever researchers began to find answers about what was causing one of our most vital populations to become sicker. A concerted investigation is needed.
Chronic disease among children aged 5 to 17 rose from 23% in 1999 to over 30% by 2018. This represents a staggering annual increase of 130,000 additional children diagnosed with a chronic condition each year. This alone should raise alarms among government agencies, the media, and the medical establishment.
Half a Billion Young People Will Be Obese or Overweight by 2030, Report Finds
Almost half a billion adolescents worldwide will be living with obesity or overweight and one billion at risk of preventable ill health by 2030, according to an international report.
While adolescent mortality has declined by more than a quarter over the past two decades, comprehensive analysis of global data calculated that in five years, at least half of the world’s 10- to 24-year-olds will be living in countries where preventable health problems such as HIV/Aids, early pregnancy, depression and poor nutrition pose a “daily threat to their health, wellbeing and life chance.”
Young people’s health has reached a “tipping point,” the authors warned.
By 2030, 464 million young people will be living with obesity or overweight, up 143 million from 2015, the report by the Lancet commission on adolescent health and wellbeing forecasts.
The burden of excess weight is already being disproportionately felt in high-income countries; Latin America and the Caribbean; and north Africa and the Middle East, where more than a third of 10- to 24-year-olds are living with overweight or obesity.
The report also found a “significant decline” in young people’s mental health, and said the climate crisis posed “significant new threats” to their health.
Breastfeeding Provides Health Benefits to Both Babies and Their Mothers, According to New UF/IFAS Guides
Both the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that infants exclusively breastfeed during their first six months of life, but only 24.9% in the U.S. do, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. In Florida, the rate is 18.2%, above only Mississippi (15.6%) and West Virginia (13.8%).
“I worry that Florida’s low breastfeeding rates are due to the belief that infant formula provides the same health benefits of breast milk,” said Diana Taft, assistant professor of nutrition science in the UF/IFAS food science and human nutrition department. “I also worry the rates are a reflection of our failure to support the women who don’t understand the importance of breastfeeding.”
Taft is an expert on the infant gut microbiome, the community of microbes in the intestines that influences health throughout life. Her guides describe how breast milk — unlike infant formula — provides microbes that fight pathogens. If a baby becomes sick, the mother’s body produces antibodies, proteins to specifically target the pathogen-causing illness. The antibodies are shared with the baby through breast milk, and they can protect against diarrhea, respiratory infections and ear infections.
Judge Allows Lawsuit Alleging AI Chatbot Pushed Florida Teen to Kill Himself to Proceed
A U.S. federal judge on Wednesday rejected arguments made by an artificial intelligence company that its chatbots are protected by the First Amendment — at least for now. The developers behind Character.AI are seeking to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the company’s chatbots pushed a teenage boy to kill himself. The judge’s order will allow the wrongful death lawsuit to proceed, in what legal experts say is among the latest constitutional tests of artificial intelligence.
The suit was filed by a mother from Florida, Megan Garcia, who alleges that her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer III fell victim to a Character.AI chatbot that pulled him into what she described as an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship that led to his suicide.
Meetali Jain of the Tech Justice Law Project, one of the attorneys for Garcia, said the judge’s order sends a message that Silicon Valley “needs to stop and think and impose guardrails before it launches products to market.”
Increase in Number of Young Patients With Anorexia Nervosa Found in Japan After COVID-19 Pandemic
A research group analyzed large-scale clinical data to examine the association between the COVID-19 pandemic and the incidence of anorexia nervosa (ICD-10 classification: F50.0) in young patients in Japan. Their study revealed that the number of patients with anorexia nervosa increased after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This research was published in the journal Medicina on March 3. The study was led by Professor Takahiro Nemoto from the Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience and the Department of Social Implementation Psychiatry at the Toho University Faculty of Medicine.
While reports from Western countries have indicated an increase in the number of young patients with anorexia nervosa after the COVID-19 pandemic, no clear evidence has been established for Japan or other Asian regions. This study found that before the pandemic, the number of young patients with anorexia nervosa was gradually decreasing over time. However, after the onset of the pandemic, this trend reversed.
