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FDA Chief Details ‘Intense Investigation’ Into Alleged Child Deaths From Covid-19 Shots
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief Marty Makary said the agency is investigating whether the COVID-19 vaccines caused any deaths in kids, building on the government’s monthslong effort to question the safety of the products.
In an interview on CNN, Makary described the probe as an “intense investigation.” The FDA is relying on self-reported cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), Makary said. He added that the agency is following up with the parents of children claimed to have been killed, reviewing autopsy reports, and asking physicians to examine the data. Adverse events reported to VAERS alone are not indicative of a vaccine causing a particular side effect.
The investigation is the latest example of the federal health agencies aligning with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s broad mission to reevaluate the benefit and risk of COVID-19 vaccines. The FDA has already approved new formulas of the shots for the upcoming respiratory season, though for more limited populations than agency reviewers recommended. The vaccines were approved for adults 65 and older and those under 65 with a health condition that puts them at higher risk of severe disease.
Young Children Diagnosed With ADHD Are Often Prescribed Medication Too Quickly, Study
A new study released Friday found that young children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, are often prescribed medication too quickly. The study, led by Stanford Medicine and published in JAMA Network Open, examined the health records of nearly 10,000 preschool-aged children ages three to five between 2016 and 2023 who were diagnosed with ADHD.
“ADHD is a disorder characterized by difficulty paying attention, or what we call hyperactivity, which is sort of like kids that have a hard time sitting still, they have a lot of energy,” explained Jamie Howard, a senior clinical psychologist with the Child Mind Institute, which specializes in treating anxiety and mood disorders in children.
Howard, who was not involved in the study, said that when treating ADHD in young children, clinical guidelines call for starting with “behavioral intervention.” “We always want to start with the lowest possible harm,” Howard said. “It does very little harm doing a behavioral intervention.”
Environment Watchdog Buried Report on Lead in Children’s Blood to Placate Mining Companies, Emails Show
The New South Wales (NSW) environment watchdog sat on a report for four years linking elevated levels of lead in children’s blood to current mining, and promised mining companies they would not do any “finger-pointing,” new documents tabled in state parliament show.
The documents include internal emails released under freedom of information laws that show the scientist who produced the report into lead exposure in Broken Hill was at one point texting the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) every two days asking when it would be published.
According to an email from a manager summarising her briefing to the mining companies, when the agency did release the report, it told them the EPA would “quietly load it onto the LeadSmart website and not tell anyone”, and said they would ensure there was “no fanfare or media release” and that they were “not doing any finger-pointing at the mines”.
The NSW Greens said the documents, tabled in the state parliament last week, exposed a “concerning culture” within the EPA, with the party’s mining spokesperson, Cate Faehrmann, expressing alarm that it had taken four years before the research was finally published in late 2023, and accusing the EPA in parliament of suppressing it.
Binge Gaming in Kids Associated With Adverse Mental, Social and Academic Outcomes
A team of Hong Kong researchers has found that binge gaming correlates with poorer social, academic, and mental health outcomes in schoolchildren, with distinct patterns by gender. Internet gaming occupies a central place in much of youth culture, with prior work documenting recognition of internet gaming disorder (IGD) in DSM-5 as a condition for further study and as a formal diagnosis in ICD-11.
East Asia has a high IGD prevalence, and surveys in Hong Kong identify adolescents as a key affected group, particularly boys. Evidence has linked prolonged play with depressive symptoms, anxiety, and sleep problems.
In the study, “The roles of binge gaming in social, academic and mental health outcomes and gender differences: A school-based survey in Hong Kong,” published in PLOS One, researchers conducted a cross-sectional school-based survey to examine the prevalence of binge gaming, associated social, academic, and mental health outcomes, and gender differences.
The Health Risks From Plastics Almost Nobody Knows About
When Marya Zlatnik meets with women in the early stages of pregnancy, she gives them the standard advice: take prenatal vitamins; avoid alcohol, smoking and eating raw fish. But for certain patients, the maternal fetal medicine specialist at the University of California at San Francisco, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, adds another warning: Avoid plastic.
That’s easier said than done. Plastic permeates Americans’ lives — it’s in furniture, food packaging, clothing, electronics and even in the air. Zlatnik starts with the low-hanging fruit: Try not to eat or drink from plastic containers. Avoid heating plastic in the microwave. Stay away from highly processed foods. Some women are receptive; others are not, overwhelmed with too much information and not enough time. But for women who have had at least one premature birth, Zlatnik said, “I want them to have the information.”
She is one of a small number of medical practitioners across the country warning patients about the risk of a set of chemicals found in plastics. Known as phthalates, these compounds are found in the blood and urine of virtually everyone in the U.S.; nine of them are approved for use in plastics that come in close contact with food.
For the last two decades, scientists have gathered growing evidence that these chemicals are linked to a dizzying array of health problems, including premature birth, infertility and ADHD. And the greatest risks — and the most dangerous outcomes — are to pregnant women and their children.
Tiny Fish Open New Horizons for Autism Research
Researchers from Brain Research Institute, Niigata University, Japan, have revealed that environment influences social behaviors in autism. By using zebrafish that have a mutation in ube3a, a gene linked to Angelman syndrome and autism spectrum disorders (ASD), they demonstrate that sensory processing of environmental information is determinant in the outcome of socializing or not. The findings, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, suggest that environmental adjustment could hold therapeutic potential in ASD.
ASD is characterized by difficulties in social interaction and repetitive behaviors. While genetics are known to play an important role, environmental influences are increasingly recognized as crucial modulators of behaviors. Nevertheless, the interaction between environment and genetic predispositions remains largely underexplored.
Parents Could Get Alerts if Children Show Acute Distress While Using ChatGPT
Parents could be alerted if their teenagers show acute distress while talking with ChatGPT, amid child safety concerns as more young people turn to AI chatbots for support and advice.
The alerts are part of new protections for children using ChatGPT to be rolled out in the next month by OpenAI, which was last week sued by the family of a boy who took his own life after allegedly receiving “months of encouragement” from the system.
Other new safeguards will include parents being able to link their accounts to those of their teenagers and controlling how the AI model responds to their child with “age-appropriate model behaviour rules”. But internet safety campaigners said the steps did not go far enough and AI chatbots should not be on the market before they are deemed safe for young people.
Adding More Green Space to a Campus Is a Simple, Cheap and Healthy Way to Help Millions of Stressed and Depressed College Students
Stress on college students can be palpable, and it hits them from every direction: academic challenges, social pressures and financial burdens, all intermingled with their first taste of independence. It’s part of the reason why anxiety and depression are common among the 19 million students now enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities, and why incidents of suicide and suicidal ideation are rising.
In the 2024 National College Health Assessment Report, 30% of the 30,000 students surveyed said anxiety negatively affected their academic performance, with 20% at risk for symptoms that suggest severe psychological distress, such as feelings of sadness, nervousness and hopelessness. No wonder the demand for mental health services has been increasing for about a decade.
Many schools have rightfully responded to this demand by offering students more counseling. That is important, of course, but there’s another approach that could help alleviate the need for counseling: Creating a campus environment that promotes health. Simply put, add more green space.
