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Texas Pediatricians Face Paxton Investigations for Vaccinating Children
It was a bustling Monday morning at a little pediatrician’s office in central Texas. Children with rashes, fevers and runny noses cycled through exam rooms decorated with butterflies, planets and colorful maps. The doctor, who had been treating kids in the community for 20 years, was delighted when a woman she had cared for as a child came in with her newborn.
Until recently, she had planned to continue her practice for years to come. But this year, she has begun to reconsider amid the stress and legal costs of defending herself in a statewide investigation by Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, who has accused doctors, drug companies and insurers of conspiring to push parents into vaccinating children. She agreed to be interviewed and allowed a reporter to visit her practice but asked to be identified by her middle name, Rachel, to protect her from retaliation.
In December, Dr. Rachel received a letter from the attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division demanding her vaccine purchase records over the past 10 years. “The division believes that you are in possession, custody or control” of material, “involving potential misleading or deceptive acts regarding incentives associated with the administration of childhood vaccines,” it said, adding that such acts could be in violation of the state’s deceptive trade practices law.
Study Finds Sharp Increase in GLP-1 Use Among Children Ages 8 to 11
While it is still relatively rare for young children to be prescribed GLP-1 medications, researchers say their use is increasing quickly. A study published in the journal Pediatrics examined more than 3.5 million children nationwide. Researchers found that the percentage of children ages 8 to 11 without diabetes who were using GLP-1 medications rose from 0.3% in 2019 to 9.3% this past summer.
Over the seven years studied, that amounted to about 20,000 children in the 8-to-11 age group. The overall number remains relatively small, but the researchers said the sharp increase warrants attention as more families and doctors consider the medications for children.
Children Taking GLP-1 Drugs May Face Nutritional Deficiencies, New Study Finds
GLP-1 medications usually make headlines as an adult story. But children are taking them too, prescribed for weight loss, prediabetes, and type 2 diabetes. Now, a new study is looking at what that means for bodies that are still growing, and whether nutrition support is arriving soon enough.
Researchers at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago examined national health-claims records from 2017 to 2022, then followed patients ages 10 to 17 for a year after they started one of these drugs. The study raised a nutrition concern and a timing question: By the time deficiencies appeared in patients’ records, had families already received help with food and nutrition?
Published in the journal Childhood Obesity, the study comes with an important caveat. Claims data show what was documented, so they can’t prove the medications caused the deficiencies. Still, the timing of diagnoses deserves a closer look.
Should We Keep Children Away From Sugar for Their First 1000 Days?
When I had my first child, I tried to minimize his sugar consumption. I made him a zucchini puree for his first meal (not a major hit) and politely declined on his behalf when anyone offered him sweets. By the time I had my second and third children, however, I had largely given up. I realised that trying to shield them from sugar was like trying to run through rain without getting wet, and I suspected I needed to chill out anyway.
My interest was thus piqued by a recent study that used a neat natural experiment to investigate the long-term health effects of sugar exposure during our first 1000 days. This was defined as the period from conception to age 2, a time that is increasingly understood to be a critical window in which dietary exposures have lasting repercussions.
From Nearsightedness to Self-Harm: Meta-Review Looks at How Digital Media Impacts Young People’s Health
Digital media has become inescapable, and there’s still a lot we don’t know about its effects on young people’s physical and mental health.
But we do have enough evidence of its harms to warrant government action, say the authors of a series on “digital determinants of health” published Oct. 4 in The Lancet.
The three-paper series and related meta-review, which analyzed existing research that included data from 9 million people younger than 25, were authored by experts from 10 different countries.
The study found consistent associations between problematic digital media use — meaning addiction-like patterns of use, rather than screen time alone—and various health outcomes.
Parents Accuse Netflix of Keeping Children Hooked to Collect Their Data
A new class action lawsuit alleges Netflix markets its service as safe for kids while secretly tracking children’s viewing habits to boost advertising income. Plaintiffs Kayla Mosley and Jonathan Austin, both Ohio parents, claim the company never disclosed the practice to families.
Mosley and Austin allege Netflix spent years marketing its kids’ profiles as safe and separate spaces designed to protect children. Despite those promises, Netflix collects behavioral information from children through the same logging systems used elsewhere on the platform, the class action lawsuit claims.
The parents argue Netflix monitors what children watch, rewatch, abandon, search for and pause to build behavioral profiles. Citing lawsuits by the Texas and Florida attorneys general, the complaint adds that Netflix has shared user data with brokers such as Experian and Acxiom since launching advertising in November 2022.
