This Week in What Some May Call Health

Dr. Stephen Gangemi * Chapel Hill, NC

1)      Disney gives refunds for Baby Einstein DVDs – acknowledgment that sticking your kid in front of the TV is not educational and will not promote brain development.  The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends NO screen time for kids under 2 years old. They have linked TV use between ages 1-3 with attention problems by age 7. **Stick your kid in the sandbox, not in front of the TV; though our local news station thinks that TV is for reading – see photo below taken from their exhibit at the NC State Fair, taken just earlier today**

2)      The CDC increased their age recommendation for GSK’s vaccine Cervarix to protect girls 11-12 years old against cervical cancer as well as ages 13-25 who have not been vaccinated. Cervarix was just approved by the FDA last week and will compete with Merck’s Gardasil. Cervarix contains aluminum, (linked to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s), and raised concern last month after a 14-year-old British girl died within hours after receiving the vaccine. GSK later said the vaccine was not the cause of death as the girl had a “serious underlying health condition”.  **Doctors are supposed to know not to administer ANY vaccine if the patient has even a head cold, let alone has a “serious underlying health problem”. Unfortunately, many babies and children are given multiple vaccinations when their parent brings them to the doctor for some other reason than to vaccinate, just to save time and any inconvenience (to both parties). **

3)      Obama officially declared the swine flu a national emergency. The H1N1 death rate just recently surpassed 1,000 in the US and 5,000 worldwide. The regular flu kills approximately 36,000 Americans every year, on average, and between 250-500,000 worldwide. ** The CDC estimates that “many millions” of Americans have had the swine flu so far, yet only 1,000 have died. So we are at around 2-3% of the annual flu death rate and a fraction of a fraction of those who are dying from the swine flu. Panic?! 100 times more Americans (100,000) die every year from  negative effects of prescription drugs and more than double that number die each year from unnecessary surgery, hospital error and hospital infections, yet many take multiple drugs every day. Those numbers are more shocking to me. Check out my last e-newsletter article on the swine flu - click here.**

4)      Hawaii regulators just approved the first US tuna farm. They say it is going to be “clean” because of the 1,300 foot deep cages and they won’t feed the fish any antibiotics. ** Seriously? Tuna have their beneficial omega 3 fats due to their diet and high activity levels. Farms cannot replicate this. Either way, eating tuna, or most fish for that matter, more than one time per month is not very healthy due to their high mercury content, as well as PCBs. You should NEVER eat King Mackerel, Swordfish, or Shark due to their extremely high mercury contents. **