Pediatric health
terrasig | May 6, 2010Let me just say at the outset that I generally pay extra to purchase brand name medications, prescription or over-the-counter (OTC), because of concerns I have about federal oversight of generic drug manufacturers.
However.
On April 30, McNeil Consumer Products issued a voluntary recall of a litany of children's cold products under the Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl brand names.
McNeil Consumer Healthcare, Division of McNEIL-PPC, Inc., in consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is voluntarily recalling all lots that have not yet expired of certain over-the-…
terrasig | January 6, 2010The US FDA has released a statement based on finding from the Texas Department of State Health Services on December 23, 2009:
The Texas Department of State Health Services is warning consumers, especially pregnant or breastfeeding women, to avoid consuming a traditional product called "Nzu" because of the potential health risks from high levels of lead and arsenic.
Nzu, which is consumed as a traditional remedy for morning sickness, has been found by DSHS food inspectors at two African specialty stores - one in the Dallas area and one in Houston. It was also found at a distributor in Houston…
terrasig | May 19, 2009
Although I saw this obituary over the weekend, I didn't get to posting it until today. I was reminded by a local friend, an outstanding young scientist in her own right, of the impact that Dr Schanberg had made on so, so many lives in science, medicine, and our larger community.
I only had the honor of meeting Dr Schanberg once, shortly after his cancer diagnosis, while we were at a Duke Cancer Patient Support Center fundraising dinner. His wife of over 50 years, Rachel, is founder and former director of the organization which they started following the loss of their own daughter.
Among…
terrasig | May 25, 2008I missed this FDA warning in my e-mail box this week. But given the use of such products by breast-feeding women we know, I think this warning is worth publicizing here - chlorphenesin is a centrally-active skeletal muscle relaxant that is for some reason used in cosmetics but is not intended for oral consumption:
FDA Warns Consumers Against Using Mommy's Bliss Nipple Cream
Product can be harmful to nursing infants
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use or purchase Mommy's Bliss Nipple Cream, marketed by MOM Enterprises, Inc., because the product contains…
terrasig | April 12, 2008". . .you got marijuana in my lead."
Two great tastes that do not go great together (with apologies).
[Welcome Fark.com readers on 12 Oct 2008 - I comment on the recent story here and you can read our other posts on drugs of abuse here. Thanks for stopping by - APB]
A concise but fascinating medical detective story appears in the letters of this week's (10 Apr 2008) issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (free full text at the time of this posting.).
An astute group of physicians at Leipzig Hospital in Germany noted a local surge of young people presenting with classic symptoms of…
terrasig | April 4, 2008Actinomycin D was the first antitumor antibiotic isolated from Streptomyces parvallus cultures by the lab of 1952 Nobel laureate, Dr Selman Waksman, at Rutgers University. However, it took a young Chinese physician and the confidence in her by a future US Surgeon General for this natural product drug to positively impact the lives of children with cancer.
An unusually engaging Boston Globe obituary by Gloria Negri caught my attention this week that announced the death of pediatric oncology pioneer, Charlotte Tan (Hsu), MD, of pneumonia on 1 April in Brookline, MA. Dr Tan's 1959 paper in…
terrasig | February 29, 2008Bisphenol A (BPA) is currently one of the major lightning rods for controversy in consumer products and public health research. The compound is used in the manufacture of plastic bottles, polycarbonate (PC) in particular, as well as in the lining of many food and beverage cans. The compound has been recognized since the 1930s as having estrogenic activity but it appears to have developmental, carcinogenic, and neurotoxic effects at concentrations well below those at which it binds to the two forms of estrogen receptor.
Confused?
US governmental advisory committees can't even agree on BPA…
terrasig | February 19, 2008For more details on this story, you can go to Mark Chu-Carroll, Orac, Mike the Mad Biologist, or the Autism Blog. I just wanted to share my personal views on the need for childhood vaccinations and support a public information campaign from the AAP.
Until I started medical blogging, I had not realized quite how vocal was the community of individuals refusing to vaccinate their children, mostly at the urging of those who claimed that vaccines and related components caused illness in their own children. I will first say that no drug product, natural or otherwise, is completely and absolutely…
terrasig | January 23, 2008Via Berci Meskó at Science Roll, I learned that the medblogger-formerly-known-as Flea has just given his first detailed interview since shutting down his blog during his pediatric malpractice case. Fellow physician, Orac, had a characteristically complete commentary on the situation that included the admonition not to blog about one's own ongoing malpractice trial. I also recall being shocked at the time that Flea would make off-color comments about the plaintiff attorney's bedroom habits.
In his interview on Eric Turkewitz's New York Personal Injury Law Blog, Dr Robert "Flea" Lindeman…
terrasig | October 29, 2007Perhaps you've stumbled on this post late at night while tending to a child suffering from a cold.
Well, I've been reading a fair bit lately about the 18-19 October meeting of the FDA's joint meeting of their Nonprescription Drug and Pediatric Advisory Committees, trying to make sense about calls to restrict or prohibit the use of cough and cold medicines in children under age 6. There is so much material on the subject that I have hesitated to post on the issue until I received the following e-mail from an old friend, fellow scientist and parent, North of 49:
Okay, so I'm writing to you to…
terrasig | September 22, 2007Just one last comment on the recently passed FDA legislation. I know that Terra Sig readers must be tiring of this issue already, but this aspect was too good to pass up. I started writing this post on a lark but the topic actually has serious public health implications.
John Mack at his Pharma Marketing Blog made the clever observation that while DTC restrictions were not in the Senate bill, a provision "prohibiting the FDA from restricting the sale of turtles less than 10.2 centimeters in diameter as a pet DID make it into the bill (Title VII - Domestic Pet Turtle Market Access; Section…
terrasig | August 22, 2007This is just heart-wrenchingly sad:
A [Pittsburgh area] doctor was charged with involuntary manslaughter Wednesday for administering a chemical treatment that state police say killed a 5-year-old autistic boy.
The child, Abubakar Tariq Nadama, went into cardiac arrest at Dr. Roy E. Kerry's office immediately after undergoing chelation therapy on Aug. 23, 2005.
Chelation removes heavy metals from the body and is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating acute heavy metal poisoning, but not for treating autism. Some people who believe autism is caused by a mercury-containing…
terrasig | March 24, 2007Docs have a million of these kinds of stories, but pediatrician Dr Clark Bartram at Unintelligent Design put up a particularly moving reflection on a recent case.
terrasig | February 1, 2007Between the news offices for New England Journal of Medicine and NIH's National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), you have no doubt already heard the report that topical application of lavender and tea tree oil-containing products has been linked with gynecomastia in three boys.
Yes, imagine being a private practice pediatrician whose 10-year-old male patient presents with "firm, tender breast buds measuring 3.5 cm by 4.0 cm in length and width and 3.5 cm in depth, with stretching of the areolae." In fact, imagine being the parent...or the boy himself.
In all three cases,…