#1 grandson is of course going to press once again for his favorite name – Cool Ass Mojo – and once again isn’t likely to prevail. That’s okay, he can name his own child thusly. Grandpa and I are just delighted, hoping this birth will be much easier on our sweet daughter who has proven herself to be an extremely good Mom. Her family is happily well-adjusted and for her good choices we are grateful.

Meanwhile, Grandpa’s intensive work schedule in various regional public school systems kicked into high gear when school started in August, bringing home more than ‘the usual’ season-change cold this year. Some of you may know that the new H1N1 flu is officially rampant here in the Southeast. Some wish to call it swine flu, but it’s also got elements of bird flu and Spanish flu – a regular Chimera. So I just call it the Unicorn Flu, in honor of the worldwide panic it’s engendered since its so-public appearance in Mexico City this past April.

Hubby at first thought it was an attack of allergies, though he did have a headache and some fever to go with his sneezing and coughing. But not bad enough to cause him to miss work, so he no doubt helped spread it around. A couple of days later I came down with the sneeze attacks, head and body aches, sore throat and fever. I told him it had to be the flu, since allergies aren’t contagious.

Flu instead of just the usual cold because the cold doesn’t knock you down. Or, it doesn’t knock US down. I was down for a full 24 hours with this, and the fever was high enough to signal something more than rhinovirus. Still nursing a nasty congested cough two weeks later, with enough of a leftover fever to suspect I’ve graduated to bacterial bronchitis or mild pneumonia. Haven’t gone to a doctor and so long as I’m on top of it, won’t. It’s harvest time here on the homestead, I’ve been keeping up with that and preservation, can still play 5 holes of mountainside disc golf without trouble, and have been drinking a lot of my anti-viral/antibiotic herbal tea both hot and cold, with raw honey. I think I’ll live.

Deal is, for all the super-hype for this flu, it’s not nearly as bad as some other flus we’ve managed to catch over the years. While I wasn’t inclined to eat anything, there was no nausea or vomiting like there was with the Hong Kong flu back in the ’70s. Which nearly killed us for sure, though we were healthy 20-somethings at the time. I’ve read quite a bit of alternative super-hype about the vaccines they’ve rushed into production for this flu, and that’s over the top as well.

The rampant paranoia about forced vaccination and quarantine is overblown, given that the first vaccine is still weeks away and the flu itself is rampant. Not even bad enough to close any schools, it’s making the rounds pretty much like your average cold and not causing serious absenteeism or an increase in hospitalizations on a par with the average flu season around here in January. I see no indications from CDC that they’re going to force us all to get shots now that a majority of us have already had the flu. What would be the point in that? If it ever was the plan, the vaccine is too little too late in a region where the epidemic has already taken hold (and just about over by now).

So. If you happen to live in one of the states where this flu hasn’t yet made itself rampant, you may well wish to get the vaccine. Especially if you are in the high-risk groups, which in this case includes healthy young people. I’ve advised younger daughter to get vaccinated a.s.a.p. because she’s pregnant – and pregnant women have depressed immune functions by purposeful nature so they don’t attack their own baby growing in the womb. They account for many of the deaths reported for this flu, so that’s a definite risk. We’ve got our fingers crossed that she’ll make it to when they release the vaccine, and is first in line. Prayers to that effect offered daily!

For the rest of us, don’t worry so much. It’s not that bad.

Today, April 2nd, is World Autism Awareness Day as declared by the United Nations after the UN ambassador from Qatar introduced the resolution last November. On the occasion of the very first Annual World Autism Awareness Day, this is a good time to take a look at some of the issues associated with this increasingly prevalent malady.

Autism is a complex brain disorder that inhibits the ability to communicate or develop normal social relationships, and often comes with behavioral problems that can be extreme. There is a range of autistic disorders from fairly mild to completely debilitating, so doctors call this the “Autism spectrum disorders.” It is currently being diagnosed in 1 of every 150 children in the U.S., with four times as many boys suffering the disorder than girls. That diagnosis rate has increased tenfold over the last ten years, and there is some dispute about why the rate is rising so fast.

Most researchers believe the causes of autism are a combination of genes, gene expression, and exposure to environmental triggers. Chief among suspects for environmental trigger has been mercury, a ubiquitous environmental neurotoxin released by coal burning and contaminating many types of fish consumed by humans. Mercury was also used until 2001 as a preservative and antimicrobial agent in vaccines [thimerosal]. There were significant increases in recommended childhood immunization doses during the 1990s, leading to a situation where it was possible for a 6-month old infant to have been exposed to a cumulative dose of organic mercury that exceeded certain limits set by government health agencies. Many parents of autistic children have connected this situation with the rapid increase in diagnosis of autism.

The annual flu vaccines still use thimerosal, and doctors recommend all children between 6 months and 18 years of age get the flu vaccine every year. 7,000 parents of autistic children have filed claims with the government’s Court of Federal Claims, which exists to settle claims using a vaccine-injury fund established for that purpose. In early March the family of 9-year old Hannah Poling of Georgia won the first settlement in those cases. For the first time, government officials have admitted that thimerosal indeed did cause neurological injury to young Hannah.

Hannah, unlike most other children, suffers a disorder that prevents her from eliminating mercury from her system through skin and hair. Other children have also been tested and shown toxic levels of mercury in their systems. If the government and drug manufacturers can be convinced to eliminate the use of mercury as a vaccine preservative in all vaccines (not just the usual childhood varieties), some medical statisticians expect the sharp rise in autism to stabilize and then sharply decline.

But researchers are not convinced that it’s all about mercury neurotoxin. There are many other neurotoxins in our environment and food supply. Agricultural pesticides, for instance, are so prevalent in our water systems and on fruits and vegetables that a recent study showed that breast milk in ALL women tested was contaminated. Pesticides are neurotoxins.

It is hoped that genetic researchers will soon develop a test to identify children with compromised immune and toxin elimination systems so their exposures can be carefully managed through life. Some parents are opting out of having their children vaccinated at all, and this situation could lead to renewed epidemics of the sometimes deadly childhood diseases that have been practically eradicated from our society.

Because I am old enough to be a grandma, I remember what it was like when mumps or measles, rubella, and whooping cough moved in waves through the student body at my school, sometimes shutting them down for weeks at a time. I remember being very sick, too, and not much enjoying it. Worse, I was born in the years before universal vaccination for polio was instituted. There were classmates and teachers throughout my education who had been crippled by that awful disease, which now strikes only rarely and only in sub-populations that traditionally eschew vaccinations of any kind (like the Amish).

At any rate, all expecting and new parents out there should educate themselves about autism, vaccination, and the issues of special needs children. Today is a good time to start, since it’s World Autism Awareness Day. And all you Grannies out there need to make sure your children are well versed on these issues too, for the health and future of your precious grandbabies!

Links:

Autism Speaks
World Autism Awareness Day
To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?

Newsweek Magazine published an article on its web page last week entitled Top Seven Health Myths, citing a study that demonstrated even doctors often fall prey to common medical misconceptions. And they do, too, sometimes for the basest of self-interested reasons.

I recall sitting at the breakfast table with my Mother-in-Law one morning back in the early 1980s, reading the daily newspaper. I came across an article about a formal position statement from the American Medical Association’s annual enclave, which stated as clearly and simply as possible that…

There Is No Evidence That Diet Is Related To Health.

Mom of course denied it vehemently even as I handed her the story on page whatever, in her own favorite newspaper. She’d been a medical transcriptionist all her working life, spent her days around doctors and medical laboratories and test results and autopsy reports and diagnostic conferences, so she knew a lot about doctors and a hefty amount about medicine. She simply couldn’t believe the AMA would make such an outrageous statement denying something that “Every Mother Knows.”

I tried to explain to her the political affiliations of the AMA as a professional lobby with ties to some notorious and insidious industries – pharmaceuticals, Big Tobacco and the increasingly monopolistic food/drink processing conglomerates peddling nutritional garbage to our children. To make the industry lobbyists happy, those doctors would swear on a stack of Bibles that smoking doesn’t cause lung cancer, that drugs are good for you, and that your diet has nothing to do with your health. You’ve just gotta take all lobbying organizations with a large grain of salt, because their political back-room dealings often completely contradict what their individual members know for a fact to be true.

Let’s face it… the primary health care provider in this world is mostly Mom. Grandmas, Aunts and even wise nurse-ly neighbors can help, but Mom is who mostly gets to kiss the boo-boos, bandage the cuts and scrapes, dish out the medicine and try to balance the family’s diet so they can be as healthy as possible while avoiding gross obesity or other nutritional deficits that lead to disease. Thus any Mom would have laughed (or indignantly sputtered) about the AMA’s ridiculously self-serving lie that year. And by the next year’s enclave the position was completely reversed based on rank-and-file objections to the lie.

The study Newsweek focuses upon was published in the British Medical Journal in December. It identifies the top medical myths and reports that a surprising (to them) number of practicing physicians believe in those myths…

Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight. This one has very little scientific support. It can cause temporary eyestrain, but that disappears quickly in the presence of bright light.

Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death. Nope. After death the skin begins to contract, which gives an illusion that hair and nails are growing. They are not.

We only use 10% of our brains. This one really is the product of snake-oil salesmen peddling magical elixirs of life from the back of wagons in the early 20th century. That supposed 90% of useless brain has never been identified by neuroscientists, who find our brains tend to be active no matter where they look.

Using cell phones in hospitals is dangerous. Despite the fact that hospitals have almost universally bought into this myth, studies have shown that normal cell phone use has little to no interference effect with medical devices. In 2007 a study using 300 tests in 75 different treatment rooms found exactly zero interference from cell phones.

You should drink at least 8 glasses of water per day. Actually, we get an ample supply of fluid in a typical daily diet including juice, milk and even coffee or soda. Drinking too much water can cause severe electrolyte imbalance and has been known to cause death. If you’re thirsty, drink. If you’re not, don’t worry about it.

Shaved hair grows back faster and coarser. Oddly enough, I found this one surprising. But research does show that the texture, color and growth habits of hair – even on ladies’ legs! – doesn’t change when it’s cut, shaved, waxed or chemically removed.

So there you have it. Old Wives’ Tales we can go ahead and leave behind us. Happy mothering!