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April 2008 Health in the News Archive[ Monthly Index of New Briefs ]Yuma girl's autism case spearheads court fight April 2008 CNN reports that 13-year old Michelle Cedillo of Yuma, Arizona, is at the center of a court case pitting thousands of families of children with autism against the medical establishment. Theresa and her husband, Mike, say their only child was a happy, engaged toddler who responded to her name, said "mommy" and "daddy" and was otherwise normal until she received a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine at 15 months. They believe the MMR vaccine, combined with a mercury-containing preservative found in that and other vaccines at the time, drastically altered the course of their daughter's development. Within days of receiving the injection as part of the normal course of vaccinations, Michelle suffered from a high fever, persistent vomiting and problems with her digestion. Worse still, her parents say, Michelle stopped speaking and no longer responded to her name. Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, says the connection between vaccines and autism is nothing more than a sad coincidence. "About 20 percent of children with autism will regress between their first and second birthday," says Offit. "So statistically, it will have to happen where some children will get a vaccine. They will have been fine. They will get the vaccine, and they will not be fine anymore. And I think parents can reasonably ask the question, 'Is it the vaccine that did this?'" The answer is no, according to the CDC, the World Health Organization, and the Institute of Medicine. Michelle Cedillo's parents disagree. They've sued the government through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, established in 1988 to pay damages to those who have suffered as a result of vaccines. Funded by a 75-cent tax added to the cost of each vaccine dose, the program's trust fund balance is more than $2.7 billion. Michelle's autism claim is one of 4,900 in a single case before a special federal court, dubbed the "vaccine court," part of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The court picked Michelle's claim as the first of a total of nine test cases from the 4,900. At Michelle Cedillo's hearing last year, Dr. Marcel Kinsbourne, a pediatric neurologist who is a professor at The New School in New York, testified that he thought the measles vaccine was a "substantial factor" in causing the girl's autism. Traces of the measles virus were found in Michelle's gut, leading the Oxford University-trained doctor to conclude the girl's immune system had not rejected the virus. Kinsbourne told the court the measles virus invaded cells in Michelle's brain, resulting in her autism. Dr. Grout's Comment: What the CNN story did not reveal was Dr. Paul Offit's conflicts of interest. He is one of the patent holders of the rotavirus vaccine, the recipient of a $350,000 grant from Merck for its development, a consultant to Merck Pharmaceuticals, and a vocal spokesman for the pro-vaccine forces. Alzheimer's Risk Test identify the gene April 2008 A Pennsylvania company is about to go to market with a genetic test that will tell healthy people whether they are at increased risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. But the test is getting a mixed response from researchers. The test will be offered by Smart Genetics. For $399, healthy people will give a saliva sample and learn whether they have a risk of Alzheimer's that's 3 to 15 times higher than normal. The analysis is based on variations in the APOE gene, which is widely agreed to play a role in Alzheimer's risk and heart disease. Researchers express reservations about making the gene test widely available. They worry about the mental health consequences of telling people they may get a disease that's neither preventable nor treatable and is invariably fatal. "I think the benefits [of knowing your genotype] are trivial" and don't justify the emotional risks, says law professor Henry Greely of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who in 1997 co-chaired a working group on Alzheimer's genetic testing. The group concluded that genetic testing for Alzheimer's "is not appropriate for most people." Greely thinks knowing the results might help the roughly 2% of the population with the worst APOE combination: two copies of the deleterious E4 allele, which together confer a roughly 15 times increased risk of the disease. For them, Greely says, the risk is so great that the information may be useful in planning health care needs or retirement. But a much larger portion of the population, about 25%, carries one copy of APOE4; their risk of Alzheimer's is roughly three times higher than normal. Greely doesn't think these people need to know their APOE status, and Allen Roses of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who found the APOE-Alzheimer's link, agrees: "It isn't helpful if there's nothing you can do about it" medically. But Richard Watson, chief technical officer of Smart Genetics, argues that knowing one is at higher risk can trigger practical responses. Watson says these might include regular memory screenings or making certain financial decisions such as buying long-term care insurance. Dr. Grout's Comment: What disappoints me about this news article is its fatalistic overtones. Have we somehow missed hearing about the positive roles of Vitamin B12 and B3, and somehow ignored the negative effects of gluten, artificial sweeteners and colorings, chemicals and the like? I must have missed something in the last 15 years when all these things were being discussed and debated in more advanced medical circles. This article merely speaks to predicting and managing a disease. Study suggests life expectancy declining April 2008 Until recently, life expectancy had declined in only two instances in the last century: In sub Saharan Africa because of HIV-AIDS, and in the former Soviet Union, when the healthcare system there collapsed. But now, it's happening here in the United States, according to a study published in the Apr. 22 issue of PLoS Medicine. Nearly one-fifth of women in this country had their life expectancy fall, or stay the same between 1961 and 1999, compared with just four percent of males. Scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Washington found the majority of the counties that had the worst downward swings in life expectancy were in the Deep South, along the Mississippi River, and in Appalachia, extending into the southern portion of the Midwest and into Texas. Researchers examined data from more than 2,000 county 'units' between 1959 and 2001. The found that in about "1,000 of those counties -- mainly poor, rural areas -- life expectancy for women dropped starting in the 1980s, 'primarily because of chronic diseases related to smoking, overweight and obesity, and high blood pressure." The study also showed "increased death rates among women from lung cancer and emphysema, which probably reflects the fact that American women did not take up smoking in large numbers until tobacco companies started marketing cigarette brands for them in the 1970s." Dr. Grout's Comment: Could it be that our toxic world - our growing body burden of environmental exposures - is coming back to bite us? Children taking AD/HD drugs should be screened April 2008 Children should be screened for heart problems with an electrocardiogram before getting drugs like Ritalin to treat hyperactivity and attention-deficit disorder, according to a new American Heart Association recommendation published online in the journal Circulation. Stimulant drugs can increase blood pressure and heart rate. For children with heart conditions, the drugs could make them more vulnerable to sudden cardiac arrest an erratic heartbeat that causes the heart to stop pumping blood through the body and other heart problems. Data indicate that more than two dozen children taking stimulant drugs died suddenly between 1992 and 2005, prompting U.S. regulators to ask for warnings on all the drugs. About 2.5 million American children and 1.5 million adults take medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or AD/HD, according to government estimates. Stimulant drugs, like Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta, are given to help children with AD/HD stay focused and control their behavior. But Dr. Steven Pliszka, a child psychiatrist at the University of Texas in San Antonio, said he was baffled by the EKG recommendation. He said there's no evidence that sudden death is a bigger problem for children taking stimulants than for children who aren't taking the drugs. He noted that the heart association doesn't recommended EKG screening for young athletes to prevent sudden death. The group has said it wasn't feasible or cost-effective to screen all student athletes. Representatives for Shire PLC, which makes Adderall and two other AD/HD treatments, and Norvartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., which makes Ritalin, said the labeling already suggests patients be evaluated for heart problems and an EKG done if needed. "There's no new information here. And frankly, we're a little perplexed as to the purpose of the American Heart Assocation coming out with this statement at this time," said Shire spokesman Matt Cabrey. Dr. Grout's Comment: And we are STILL recommending drugs as first-line therapy for AD/HD? What is wrong with this picture? Diet and lifestyle and brain training are more effective, less dangerous, and much healthier. BOTOX may get to the brain after all April 2008 Newsweek's Sharon Begley reports that researchers have discovered, after millions of people have used BOTOX, that the botulinum toxin can travel along neurons from the injection site into the brain, at least in lab animals. Researchers at Italy's Institute of Neuroscience injected rats and mice with botulinum neurotoxin A in doses comparable to those used in people. They report this month in The Journal of Neuroscience that within three days, the toxin had migrated from the whisker muscles to the brainstem, where it disrupted neuronal activity. "The discovery was quite serendipitous ... and surprising," Matteo Caleo, who led the study, told the journal Science. "A significant portion of the toxin is active where it's not intended to be." That stands in contrast to the findings of earlier studies, which suggested the neurotoxin is completely broken down at the injection site into innocuous compounds and does not migrate beyond itor if it does, only into the bloodstream or lymph system. Botox's manufacturer, Allergan, said the older studies are more credible. Begley wrote: "Something else that can be seen in a different light is the hospitalizations and deaths that have been reported following Botox injections. In 2005 scientists at the FDA analyzed 1,437 such "adverse events" between 1989, when Botox was approved for eye spasms, and 2003. Most came from people who got Botox to erase their wrinkles, but the 28 deaths occurred in people who had received it for medical purposes. The FDA didn't do much in response, but since then it has been getting new reports of serious adverse reactions in people receiving Botox, and launched a safety review." Dr. Grout's Comment: So one more reason to be wary of trying to appear to be something other than what we actually are. Health and beauty come through good nutrition for body, brain and mind. If we are content with the current state of our lives, there is no reason for frown lines, and they do not have to be flattened by artificial means. Botox is a drug in fact it is a deadly toxic byproduct of the botulinus bacterium which used to be found in inadequately sterilized canned goods. Why would we want to inject deadly toxins deliberately into our bodies? Plastic's bisphenol A is a gender-bender  April 2008A new government report's findings on rat studies suggest a chemical used to make plastic baby bottles and shatterproof containers is linked to a range of hormonal and cancerous problems. The federal National Toxicology Program said Tuesday that experiments on rats found precancerous tumors, urinary tract problems and early puberty when the animals were fed or injected with low doses of the plastics chemical bisphenol A. More than 90 percent of Americans are exposed to trace amounts of bisphenol, according to the CDC. The chemical leaches out of water bottles, the lining of cans and other items made with it. While animal studies only provide "limited evidence" of bisphenol's developmental risks, the draft report stresses the possible effects on humans "cannot be dismissed." The group is made up of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and the Institutes of Health. However, the American Chemistry Council, which represents manufacturers, said the report "affirms that there are no serious or high level concerns for adverse effects of bisphenol on human reproduction and development." Among the manufacturers of bisphenol are Dow Chemical Co. and BASF Group. The FDA in November said there is "no reason at this time to ban or otherwise restrict its use." The agency on Tuesday did not immediately have any comment about the new report. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., called on FDA Tuesday to reconsider the safety of bisphenol, saying the toxicology report's findings "fly in the face of the FDA's determination." Earlier this month state lawmakers in New Jersey passed a bill that would ban the sale of all products containing bisphenol. Dr. Grout's Comment: Canada has now banned the sale of products containing bisphenol A. WalMart Canada pulled off the shelves baby bottles containing this toxic chemical. Interestingly, this did not happen in the United States. WalMart declared its intention to remove those products by early 2009. In the meantime, the products are still on the shelf. This reminds me of the thimerosal story in 1999 thimerosal was banned from vaccines as a preservative, but it was still permitted to sell the vaccines left over from the old manufacturing ways and so thimerosal did not actually come out of the supply chain until about 2002, when the old stores were finally used up. It is possible that there is a conflict of interest between our physical health and the financial health of big industry? Bats are dying like bees, it's a mystery April 2008 Something is killing the bats. And as was the case with the bees a couple years ago, no one knows for sure what. The epicenter of the annihilation so far is New York. Hikers noticed dead and dying bats littered outside the caves where they hibernate. Bats normally hybernate during the winter and do not fly during the daytime. The bats are also noted to be hibernating close the caves' entrances, in contrast with their usual inclination to go deeper inside. The loss of bats cascaded this winter to the point researchers fear extinction is underway. The cause is unknown, though there is a name for the phenomenon, White Nose Syndrome. It's a fungus that's particularly obvious on the nose and face, though it's found dotted all over the bats' bodies. It is believed to be just a symptom of an underlying problem, as yet unknown. A primary suspicion is the use of pesticides. The fact that there has been wide spread spraying of pesticides for West Nile Virus is a possibility. The president of Bat Conservation International, Merlin Tuttle, stated, "So far as we can tell at this point, this may be the most serious threat to North American bats we've experienced in recorded history." A wildlife biologist with Vermont's Fish and Wildlife Department, Scott Darling says, "Logic dictates when you are potentially losing as many as a half a million bats in this region, there are going to be ramifications for insect abundance in the coming summer." Translation: massive mosquito outbreaks. Crops also may be affected. Bats are significant controllers of many crop-destructive insects. Dr. Grout's Comment: The loss of bats may be an even worse concern than the loss of bees. Bats are the world's greatest insect eaters. A small brown bat can eat as many as 600 mosquitoes in an hour. The implications for agriculture are enormous. The spread of severe communicable diseases could be devastating. Diseases borne by mosquitoes include Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Malaria, Dengue Fever, and West Nile Virus. Health Insurance Mafia by Jonathan Kellerman April 2008 Writing in the Wall Street Journal 4-14-08, author Jonathan Kellerman points out that most discussions about the rising cost of health care emphasize the need to get more people insured. Excerpt: "But perhaps the solution to much of what currently plagues us in health care rests on a radically different approach: fewer people insured. "Any middleman interposed between seller and buyer raises the price of a given service or product. "Insurance is all about betting against negative consequences and the insurance business model is unique in that profits depend upon goods and services not being provided. Using actuarial tables, insurers place their bets. "Health insurers suck the lifeblood out of the supply chain with obstructive strategies. For that reason, there will be progressively draconian rationing using denial of authorization and steadily rising co-payments on the patient end; massive paperwork and other bureaucratic hurdles, and steadily diminishing fee-recovery on the doctor end. "Some of us are old enough to remember visiting the doctor and paying him/her directly by check or cash. The same went for hospitals: no $20 aspirins due to insurance-company delay tactics and other shenanigans. "A hefty proportion of health-care services office visits, minor surgeries would be affordable to most Americans if the slice of the health-care dollar that currently ends up in the coffers of insurance companies was eliminated. It is a fantasy that 'insurance is paying.' It isn't. There is no free lunch and no free physical exam. "If substantial numbers of health-care providers shook off the insurance monkey on their back, en masse, and the supply of providers was substantially increased by opening more medical schools, the result would be a more honest, cost-effective system benefiting everyone. Except the insurance companies. Dr. Kellerman, clinical professor of pediatrics and psychology at USC's Keck School of Medicine, is the author of numerous crime novels and three books on psychology. His latest novel is "Compulsion" (Ballantine, 2008). Dr. Grout's Comment: Right on, Dr. Kellerman! I could not have said it better myself. The assumption seems to be that insurance rather than the service delivered by doctor to patient is the more important element in the equation. Low birth weight, excessive adolescent weight is it low-grade inflammation? April 2008 According to a study published in the European Heart Journal, "small size at birth, and excessive weight gain during adolescence and young adulthood, may lead to low-grade inflammation." Paul Elliott, Ph.D., of Imperial College London, and colleagues, analyzed data on 5,840 people who were followed from birth to the age of 31. Researchers looked at the participants' levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) in their blood. Elevated levels of CRP can indicate a chronic, low-grade inflammation. The authors "found that those who were amongst the smallest at birth, but who then put on the most weight by age 31, had the highest average CRP levels." The rapidity of growth in adolescence appeared to be more important for inflammation than weight or BMI [body mass index] alone. The researchers wrote, "The finding that weight gain from adolescence to young adulthood appears to play a greater role in low-grade inflammation than weight in adolescence per se, could have important implications for the primordial prevention of cardiovascular disease." Dr. Grout's Comment: All the more reason to start our children out with very healthy anti-inflammatory foods meats, fruits and vegetables without additives or colorings or extra sugars. We could almost certainly prevent most of the healthcare spending in later life if we gave our children a good start in life, with food messages to their genes which promote health. Normal body weight may have high body fat - increased disease risks April 2008 More than half of U.S. adults of normal body weight may have high body fat, and may be at risk for disease, according to findings presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Chicago. The study specifically links so-called normal-weight obesity with risk factors like high blood cholesterol and metabolic syndrome. Moreover, those who fell "within a healthy weight range for their height a body mass index range of 18.5 to 24.9," were also "more likely to have risk factors for heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes." Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., collected data on 2,127 people who participated in the U.S. government's Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and found that "61 percent of the participants had levels of body fat that indicated 'normal weight obesity." In addition, the team noted "changes in blood chemistry that can affect heart and metabolic health, including high cholesterol" and "high levels of leptin, a hormone found in fat and other tissues that's involved in appetite regulation." Dr. Grout's Comment: This is called "sarcopenic obesity" meaning relative lack of muscle compared with total body weight. This is where measurement of the bio-impedance analysis (BIA) of the body is helpful, to gauge amount of body fat, muscle, intracellular water, and other parameters which help us to gauge how healthy or toxic a person may be. At the Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine we do this measurement on all our new patients, and then repeat the measurement periodically as they go through our nutritional program which is geared at restoring the body to health and eliminating the risk factors of hypertension, hyperglycemia, high cholesterol and metabolic syndrome. Mercury fillings banned - Norway and Sweden are first April 2008 According to the Journal of the American Dental Association, effective April 1st, 2008, Sweden banned mercury fillings. Norway banned them effective January 1, 2008. Other countries are contemplating similar moves. The American Dental Association is not on board. "Banning 'dental amalgam' is a political issue that will not only have no impact on total worldwide mercury pollution, but also removes a viable treatment option for dentists and their patients," argues Derek Jones in an editorial published in the Journal of Dental Research. "These bans clearly indicate that amalgam is no longer needed. There are viable non-mercury filling substitutes that are used everyday in the U.S.," said Michael Bender of the U.S. Mercury Policy Project. "By eliminating amalgam use, which is 50% mercury, we can reduce mercury pollution much more efficiently than end-of-the-pipeline solutions." Dr. Grout's Comment: Dental amalgam, or silver filling material, has been around for some 150 years. Yes, it's the same mercury you saw in thermometers as a kid and were warned never to touch. Mercury is a known toxin. From a dentist's perspective, it is a long-lasting material that is cheap and easy to use. It is estimated that half of all dentists still use mercury-based restorations in their practice. Measles reported in Pima County call for vaccinations April 2008 The Arizona Republic reports that nine cases of measles have been confirmed in Pima County since February. Four adults and four children have been infected. Officials say it could have spread out of Pima County. "One case of the measles in a community is an outbreak," Dr. Karen Lewis, a medical director with the Arizona Department of Health Services, said. "You don't know how well people are immunized or not immunized until you have one case." Most children are now immunized against the measles, and many adults born before 1957 had a case of the "hard measles" when they were young and are now immune, Lewis said. But health officials are concerned about a trend against vaccinating children, which Lewis said is born out of a belief in vaccines' links to other problems, like autism. She said studies have shown no such link. The disease is spread in the air, and people can become infected just by being in the same room or in a room with the same ventilation as someone infected. The first few Pima County patients were people exposed in the emergency room of Northwest Medical Center, where a woman from Switzerland was waiting to be seen. The Tucson outbreak follows one in San Diego last month in which 12 children were infected. That outbreak is believed to have been caused by a child who contracted the disease while visiting Switzerland, which has been experiencing a large measles outbreak. Dr. Grout's Comment: Let us ask, "What would be the harm in getting the measles?" A vaccine only protects a child for about 8 years; an actual case of measles confers protection for life. Measles in adults is much more serious. |
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Although mercury has been removed from most 
The Chinese use chess to help stimulate the brain. Chess, of all the possible games, utilizes strategy and planning both activities which originate in the frontal lobes of the brain. There is treatment for memory loss. Stay tuned, on this website, for news of a simple way to stimulate the frontal lobes of the brain to improve memory and concentration no drugs, no bad side effects, just increased mental clarity and memory. This therapy will be available at The Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine starting in July of 2008 the only place in the country for this particular kind of therapy in a medical setting.Serving the Phoenix metro area including Scottsdale, Mesa, Glendale, Chandler, Tempe,
Paradise Valley, Peoria, Cave Creek, Carefree, Fountain Hills, Ahwatukee, Queen Creek