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Hidden Infection Kills Millions of Children Each Year as Doctors Warn of Overlooked Symptoms
Globally, sepsis infection is the leading cause of death in children, taking more than 3.4 million lives per year, according to the Sepsis Alliance — and 85% of these deaths occur before age five. Sepsis among children is a very difficult and elusive problem for physicians to diagnose and treat, with almost 10% of cases missed in the emergency room.
When children are admitted with the infection, the average length of stay is more than a month, per the above source. Many people don’t know much about sepsis, according to Professor Elliot Long, team leader in clinical sciences and emergency research at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia.
With sepsis, the immune system has an abnormal response to an infection — either too exuberant or too minimal. “The immune response can be underactive, which leads to severe, overwhelming infection, or it can be overactive and the immune response itself causes damage to the body’s organs, which can be life-threatening,” Long told Fox News Digital in an on-camera interview.
Washington Schools Find Major Contamination Levels in Drinking Water
Data collected by the Washington Department of Health (DOH) has revealed that the majority of schools in the state had levels of lead in drinking water fixtures that were higher than the level the state considers safe enough to drink. A Washington DOH spokesperson also told Newsweek that children under the age of six are particularly at risk. “Their growing bodies absorb more lead than adults and are more sensitive to its damaging effects,” they said.
The metal can contaminate drinking water sources if lead pipes, faucets, and plumbing fixtures are used in the water system. Typically, older systems made prior to 1986 may contain lead, and in more recent years a number of federal rules have been implemented to stop the use of lead-containing pipes and plumbing fixtures being used.
The adverse impact of lead on both adult and child health is well-documented in studies, and it is widely agreed that there is no safe level of lead in blood identified for young children — meaning any exposure, no matter how small, to lead in drinking water is a health risk.
Alzheimer’s Drug Might Improve Social Functioning Among Kids With Autism
U.S. News & World Report reported:
“Participants who responded to memantine showed improvements in social competence and a reduction in autism symptom severity, although they continued to experience milder features of autism,” lead researcher Dr. Gagan Joshi said in a news release. He’s director of the Bressler Program for Autism Spectrum Disorder at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Memantine decreases abnormal activity in the brain caused by glutamate, an abundant neurotransmitter that plays a major role in learning and memory. It’s approved to treat people with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s, by blocking receptors that cause memory loss when persistently activated by glutamate, according to Drugs.com.
Some people with autism have abnormal levels of glutamate in their brains, which led researchers to think memantine might also help these patients.
PTSD Often Overlooked in Autistic People and Needs Better Diagnosis, New Analysis Finds
Autistic children and adults may be experiencing PTSD at higher rates than official diagnoses suggest, with their symptoms misdiagnosed or dismissed as being autism traits because of “diagnostic overshadowing,” finds a new analysis by UCL researchers.
The study, published in Clinical Psychology Review, reviewed diagnosed PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) rates in over 190,000 autistic people globally, and compared them with other evidence of PTSD symptoms prevalence.
The systematic review and meta-analysis pulled together evidence from 30 studies, 17 involving children and 13 involving adults. It found that among autistic individuals, clinical PTSD was diagnosed at rates similar to those in the general population. However, previous research examining the prevalence of PTSD symptoms independent of diagnosis reported much higher rates among autistic people.
For instance, formal PTSD diagnoses in autistic individuals as part of a clinical assessment are reported at rates similar to non-autistic populations (1.11% for autistic children or young people vs. 0.6 to 3.9% in the general population, and 2.06% for autistic adults vs. 2.8% in the general population). Yet screening-based reviews indicate that “probable PTSD” symptoms might be present in 14% of autistic children or young people and 44% of autistic adults.
WHO Estimates at Least 15 Million Teenagers Use E-Cigarettes Worldwide
U.S. News & World Report reported:
In its first global estimate of e-cigarette use, the World Health Organization (WHO) said more than 100 million people worldwide are now vaping, including at least 86 million adults, mostly in high-income countries. The figures come as global tobacco use continues to decline, with the number of tobacco users falling to 1.2 billion in 2024 from 1.38 billion in 2000.
As ever-stricter regulations help cut tobacco use, the industry has turned to alternative products such as vapes to help offset sales declines. Tobacco companies say they target adult smokers, aiming to help them quit and reduce the harm of traditional tobacco. But e-cigarettes are driving a “new wave of nicotine addiction”, said Etienne Krug, director of the WHO department for health determinants, promotion and prevention.
“They are marketed as harm reduction but, in reality, are hooking kids on nicotine earlier and risk undermining decades of progress.” Governments and health authorities are grappling with how to balance the potential benefits and risks of e-cigarettes, namely uptake by new nicotine users.
