by Barbara Loe Fisher

The results of a 2009 survey evaluating the vaccine safety concerns of American parents was recently published in the journal Pediatrics (1). Out of the approximately 1500 parents, who took the survey, 23% believe that vaccines cause autism in healthy children. But more than 50% were worried about serious adverse health effects of vaccination. The vast majority said they believe that getting vaccines is a good way to protect children from disease and follow their doctor’s recommendations. Still, more than 30% of those surveyed believe that parents should have the right to refuse vaccines that are required for school for any reason.

Most parents want to trust what their doctors tell them about vaccination. Mothers and fathers depend upon their doctors to give them good advice; but when the health of their child or a child they know deteriorates after vaccination (2), parents logically start to ask questions. And when they are belittled or even threatened for asking those questions, (3, 4) the relationship between doctor and parent is never the same again. (continue reading…)

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Obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease rates are all higher among people in lower income brackets. Even with insurance and subsidized health care options through programs like Medicaid, people with lower incomes tend to get less preventative care. At the end of the day, people in the highest socioeconomic group have an average life expectancy more than 4 years higher than people in the lowest income bracket.

While the exact causes of income-related health disparities is open for study and debate, the results are clear: wealth buys health. (continue reading…)

If you or a family member or a  friend have been struggling with this for years, or if ADD/ADHD is new in your life, check out this article from Master Herbalist Brigitte Mars. In Natural Remedies for ADHD (Alternatives to Ritalin and Aderol), she discusses ten environmental, nutritional and herbal strategies to combat attention disorders. Among her suggestions:

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from nurspractitionerschools.org

Autism and its lesser-known relatives in the autism spectrum of disorders has found itself on the receiving end of a generous amount of attention lately. Affecting around 3.4 out of every 1,000 children between the ages of 3 and 10 every year, the controversies surrounding autism usually involve the mysteries behind the staggering rise of diagnoses over the past five years as well as its heavily disputed origins. Not surprisingly, a number of myths and misconceptions drown out the realities of individuals and families who confront autism on a daily basis. A proper understanding of what constitutes and how to work with and against autism and autism spectrum disorders allows patients to seek the necessary treatment and move on to live happy, productive, and stable existences.

1. Autism is a form of mental retardation.

Individuals with autism and autism spectrum disorders actually harbor average to above average intelligence. The conditions are considered neurodevelopmental in origin, and diagnostic criteria include communication issues, difficulty in social situations, and repetitive behavior patterns. At no point does mental retardation ever factor into an autism diagnosis – any possible cases where both conditions are present have nothing to do with one another. Some patients with autism perform excellently in some academic areas and very poorly in others, which some mistake as full mental retardation. (continue reading…)

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My daughter, Emily, was ten when she started having problems. She would be unwell, but we were not really sure what was wrong with her. She would then pick up and go back to school. She went from two years of full attendance at school to fairly poor attendance. Over the next couple of years she moved up to high school and things got steadily worse until she was struggling to walk even a few minutes down the road. Fortunately our doctor was very supportive; however some of the school staff seemed to think (and possibly still do) that there was nothing wrong with her and she was putting it on and I was silly to believe her.

The doctor said that there was nothing he could do but gave some guidelines, the main one being to do as much as she could, no more and no less – not very easy! We tried various complementary therapies. We worked on geopathic stress, electromagnetic radiation, diet, homeopathy and so on. Getting advice on the geopathic stress and the electromagnetic radiation seemed to be the most useful. (continue reading…)