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Cincinnati Children’s Responds to Vaccine Controversy
Cincinnati Children’s Wednesday issued a statement responding to the controversy over claims it had declined to put a 12-year-old girl on the heart transplant list because she was unvaccinated.
Janeen Deal, who is related by marriage to Vice President JD Vance’s half-siblings, said the hospital requires her daughter to receive COVID-19 and flu vaccinations, which Janeen and her husband are unwilling to do.
In its statement, the hospital didn’t directly address the girl’s case, but said organ transplants are incredibly complicated, and hearts available for transplants are rare.
“Our responsibility is to ensure that every donated organ is used in a way that maximizes successful outcomes for children in need,” the statement read.
Study Finds Rates of ADHD Remain High Into Adulthood Among Patients With Autism
In a large study of more than 3.5 million adults, researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Drexel University and George Washington University found that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was highly elevated among adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
Additionally, co-occurring ADHD was associated with worse health outcomes, though patients who received medications for ADHD had better outcomes. The findings are published in the journal JAMA Network Open.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, there are more than five million American adults with autism. Prior studies have shown that adults with autism experience suboptimal health outcomes and early mortality compared with the general population.
COVID Learning Losses
Schoolchildren in Massachusetts, Ohio and Pennsylvania are still about half a year behind typical pre-Covid reading levels. In Florida and Michigan, the gap is about three-quarters of a year. In Maine, Oregon and Vermont, it is close to a full year.
This morning, a group of academic researchers released their latest report card on pandemic learning loss, and it shows a disappointingly slow recovery in almost every state. School closures during COVID-19 set children back, and most districts have not been able to make up the lost ground.
One reason is a rise in school absences that has continued long after COVID-19 stopped dominating daily life. “The pandemic may have been the earthquake, but heightened absenteeism is the tsunami and it’s still rolling through schools,” Thomas Kane, a Harvard economist and a member of the research team, told me.
Philly Children Are Exposed to Dangerous Lead More Often Than in Other Cities, Analysis Finds
Close to one in 25 children under the age of six in Philadelphia have elevated levels of dangerous lead in their blood, according to a new study. That rate is more than double the average for a group of large cities Drexel University researchers examined in a recent analysis.
“It’s not surprising that [Pennsylvania’s] largest city would send out in this report, just because of the age of the housing,” said Rosemarie Halt, a health policy consultant at the nonprofit Children First PA and the Lead Free Promise Project, a coalition of Pennsylvania organizations pushing for policies that protect children from lead poisoning.
Lead can slow children’s development and cause learning and behavioral problems. The neurotoxin can lurk in peeling paint in old homes, plumbing and soil — and it’s a big issue in cities like Philadelphia with old housing stock. There’s no safe level in a child’s blood.
US Wildfire Suppressants Rife With Toxic Heavy Metals, Study Finds
The U.S. federal government and chemical makers have long concealed the contents of pink wildfire suppressants widely spread by firefighting aircraft to contain blazes, but new test results provide alarming answers — the substances are rife with cadmium, arsenic, chromium and other toxic heavy metals.
The suppressants are a “major” source of toxic pollution that causes heavy-metal levels to spike in the environment, and the products themselves contain metal levels up to 3,000 times above drinking water limits, the peer-reviewed research found.
The government and chemical makers have claimed up to 20% of aerial suppressants’ contents are “trade secrets” and exempt from public disclosure, so while there has been suspicion of the substances’ toxicity, the study is the first to confirm the metals’ presence.
The suppressants are a mix of water, fertilizer, and undisclosed ingredients, while the pink color comes from added dye to show firefighters where it has been sprayed. Metals are likely used as anti-corrosion agents to prevent the plane’s tankers from disintegrating, they authors wrote. The mix works by coating vegetation and lowering the amount of oxygen that could fuel the fire.
Probiotics Linked to Decreased Mortality in Preterm Infants
Use of probiotics in neonatal units was associated with decreased mortality in preterm and low-birth-weight infants, a Canadian retrospective cohort study suggested.
Among 32,667 infants born before 34 weeks’ gestation, probiotics were associated with decreased mortality rates (adjusted odds ratio 0.62, 98.3% CI 0.53-0.73), but not decreased rates of necrotizing enterocolitis (aOR 0.92, 98.3% CI 0.78-1.09) or late-onset sepsis (aOR 0.90, 98.3% CI 0.80-1.01), reported Belal Alshaikh, MD, MSCE, of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and colleagues.
For the 7,401 infants with a birth weight less than 1,000 g, probiotics were also associated with decreased mortality rates (aOR 0.58, 98.3% CI 0.47-0.71), but again not decreased rates of necrotizing enterocolitis (aOR 0.90, 98.3% CI 0.71-1.13) or late-onset sepsis (aOR 1.01, 98.3% CI 0.86-1.18), they wrote in Pediatrics.
Dozier Backs Legislation to Protect Children From Fentanyl
Washington State Sen. Perry Dozier (R-Waitsburg) is co-sponsoring legislation to add fentanyl to Washington’s child endangerment law. Dozier said the law was originally created in 2002 to go after people who were cooking methamphetamine with children nearby.
Senate Bill 5071 addresses the harm to children exposed to fentanyl by an adult.
If a child dies from exposure to fentanyl existing laws apply, but Dozier clarifies this legislation is different.
“This is about a child being injured due to fentanyl exposure,” Dozier said. “If we had a law about that, maybe it would act as a deterrent.” Dozier said the Senate passed this bill each of the past two years only to see it fail in the House of Representatives, so sponsors of the bill are giving it another try for a third straight year.
