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Protective Vitamin Shots for Newborns on Decline
National Institutes of Health reported:
Babies at birth lack an important substance called vitamin K. This vitamin doesn’t readily pass from mother to child via the placenta. And breast milk contains only small amounts.
Babies need vitamin K because it helps the body form blood clots that stop bleeding. When blood does not clot well, small injuries such as a bruise can continue bleeding much longer than normal. Lack of vitamin K puts infants at risk of bleeding in the brain and throughout the body during the first six months of life. Although this bleeding condition is rare, it can be severe and even deadly.
In the 1960s, the U.S. began to routinely give newborns a single vitamin K shot into the thigh muscle. Injections of the nutrient are preferred over oral delivery, because a baby’s developing gut can’t readily absorb vitamin K. The vitamin shots essentially eliminated cases of bleeding from vitamin K deficiency nationwide. But in recent years some small studies have found evidence that more U.S. parents may be refusing vitamin K shots for their newborns.
Did N.J. Just Take Control of Your Children’s Health? What the ‘Vaccine Bill’ Actually Does.
Amid substantial changes in federal vaccine policy, New Jersey lawmakers passed a bill this week that would give the state Department of Health the authority to rely on expert recommendations beyond the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine panel.
The bill has received backlash from parents’ rights groups and Republican legislators who say the state Department of Health is trying to become the sole authority on vaccines and bulldoze parents’ decision-making power. But its supporters dispute that framing and argue that parents will remain in charge of what vaccines their children receive.
Assemblyman Paul Kanitra, a Republican who represents parts of Monmouth and Ocean counties, accused the bill’s supporters of being driven by “Trump derangement syndrome.” “This bill is attacking the federal experts, not because of science, but because you cannot accept that President Trump and RFK Jr. directed this review and that science supports their positions,” said Kanitra on Monday during the final voting session of the 221st Legislature. Vaccines are a subject of debate in a way they’ve arguably never been before following controversial changes at the CDC.
Nonmedical Childhood Vaccination Exemptions Are Climbing
Nonmedical exemptions to childhood vaccination requirements are on the rise, with substantial variation among U.S. counties and states, an analysis of county-level data showed. The median rate of nonmedical vaccination exemptions for personal beliefs or religious reasons increased from 0.6% in 2010-2011 to 3.1% in 2023-2024, while the rate of medical exemptions remained steady, reported Nathan Lo, MD, PhD, of Stanford University in California, and colleagues in a research letter in JAMA.
The COVID-19 pandemic was an exemption turning point. While the median nonmedical exemption rate rose by 0.11 percentage points every year from 2010 to 2020 (95% CI 0.10-0.12), it rose 0.52 percentage points annually from 2021 to 2024 (95% CI 0.48-0.57). During this later time period, 53.5% of the 2,842 counties with data available over both time periods reported an increase in nonmedical exemptions greater than 1%, and 5.3% of counties reported an increase greater than 5%.
Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals and Adverse Life Events During Pregnancy Affect Children’s Development
Research at Karlstad University shows that exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals and adverse life events during pregnancy can influence children’s behavior and brain development. “We know that exposures during this period can have lasting effects,” says Marlene Stratmann.
“My dissertation ‘The importance of prenatal environment for children’s neurodevelopment: Epidemiological studies on endocrine disrupting chemicals and stress’ shows that mixtures of endocrine-disrupting substances found in everyday products can be associated with behavioral problems in children at seven years of age, and that boys and girls were affected in slightly different ways,” says Marlene Stratmann, PhD student in Public Health Science at Karlstad University in Sweden.
These endocrine-disrupting substances can pass through the placenta and reach the fetus during critical developmental phases for the brain. The results come from the large Swedish SELMA study, where more than 2,000 mother-child pairs from Värmland, Sweden, have been followed from early pregnancy up to seven years of age. The SELMA study investigates how early environmental and stress factors can shape children’s health and development.
Denver Schools Blocking Students’ Access to ChatGPT Over Concerns About Group Chats, Adult Content
Denver Public Schools announced that starting this week, it is blocking students’ access to ChatGPT on school-issued devices and the district’s Wi-Fi network because of concerns about the artificial intelligence chatbot’s new features. Those features include the ability for users to start a 20-person group chat and the planned addition of adult content to ChatGPT.
In an email to families Friday, a top district official said DPS worries the new content could “potentially facilitate harmful interactions and/or the creation of content related to self-harm, violence and bullying.” The 20-person chat feature could lead to cyberbullying and academic misconduct, among other concerns, the email said.
