posted 04-03-2002 10:23 PM            

Students at a middle school in Dennis, Massachusetts are complaining about the strange rash that forced the closure of the Wixon Middle School. Similar cases have popped up all over North America. "On Friday, the number was around 40," said Tony Pierantozzi, Supt. Wixon Middle School. "Monday we had very few cases, at Wixon, three, four maybe, yesterday it built back up and today it reached a crescendo that was disturbing, we had 60 students absent, and we had over 50 students who had to go home in a building that houses 720 students."

But it doesn't stop there; health officials all over the U.S. are trying to determine the cause of a mysterious rash among school children in 14 different states. In Nova Scotia the rash outbreak in Barrington is one of many complaints about schools in the province. The government admits schools are getting old but fixing them is a question of time and money. "I think we've made a good run at it unfortunately the demands are so great we're not able to keep up," said Dennis Cochrane, NS Deputy Education Minister.

Stu Gourley has been working with the province to conduct testing on Sir John A. Macdonald high school, which he says, has been successful so far. "This will answer the safety issues," said Gourley, School Advisory Council. "This will answer the air quality issues those kinds of things but what's the long term plan here." While the province will use information from the many U.S. rash cases, its focus is on seeking out the cause of the outbreak in Barrington. "If we can find what is needed for the solution to that we'll be applying it," said Cochrane. "And we'll find inside of our spending envelope money to deal with this in an emergency basis."

Nova Scotia's medical officer of health has sent a description and pictures of the Barrington rash to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta where testing is being done on the outbreak in the U.S. http://www.canada.com/halifax/globaltv/story.asp?id={A7C9C926-1CE1-458C-BA10-4258F57 E8B6B}

Mysterious rash breaks out again at Cape school
By Associated Press, 4/2/2002 08:16

DENNIS, Mass. (AP) A mysterious rash that shut down a Cape Cod middle school last week is continuing to keep some students out of school. More than 100 of the 725 students at Nathaniel H. Wixon School were absent on Monday and ''several dozen'' more were sent home with the itchy, red irritation that led the school to close Thursday, Dennis-Yarmouth Supt. Tony Pierantozzi told The Cape Cod Times. Pierantozzi said few of the rashes were serious, but students still flooded the nurses' office with complaints. The rash resembles a sunburn or hives and goes away in a day to two weeks. Its only symptom is discomfort.

The school was disinfected and tested for environmental toxins after closing Thursday. Forty-eight students were sent home with the rash the previous day. No problems were found, according to the Barnstable Department of Health & Environment. The air and water quality also tested at normal levels. Pierantozzi said part of the scratching could be psychosomatic, and some students could be trying to get out of school. Still, any students who show signs of the rash are immediately dismissed from school, he said. http://www.boston.com/dailynews/092/region/Mysterious_rash_breaks_out_aga:.shtml

Mysterious rash breaks out in Billerica, Cape Cod schools
By Associated Press, 4/2/2002 16:57

BILLERICA, Mass. (AP) A mysterious rash making its way through classrooms across the country has popped up in schools in Billerica, just days after it closed a Cape Cod middle school. Between 50 and 75 cases have been reported at Locke Middle School, as well as a handful of cases in the district's other schools, said Billerica Supt. Robert Calabrese. The rash shut down Nathaniel H. Wixon School in Dennis last Thursday so the school could be disinfected. But more than 100 of the school's 725 students were absent Monday and several more were sent home with the itchy, red irritation, according to principal Patricia A. Fitzsimmons. The rash resembles a sunburn or hives and goes away in a day to two weeks. Its only symptom is discomfort. The school, which sent home 48 students Wednesday, was disinfected and tested for environmental toxins after closing Thursday. No problems were found, according to the Barnstable Department of Health & Environment. ''All of our testing indicated that this situation is not the result of our school environment,'' Fitzsimmons said in a letter to parents Tuesday. The rash has not forced the closure of any schools in Billerica, Calabrese said. ''Our nurses and pediatricians are on top of it,'' Calabrese said, explaining it is believed the rash is caused by a virus. The schools and the town board of health have sent letters to parents, alerting them to the situation. Since October, 15 states have reported outbreaks of unexplained rashes in schools. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found no common cause for the outbreaks. http://www.boston.com/dailynews/092/region/Mysterious_rash_breaks_out_in_:.shtml

Billerica Students Come Down With 'Mystery Rash'
Tuesday April 02 07:05 PM EST

Billerica became the second Massachusetts town to deal with a mysterious rash among its schoolchildren Tuesday.

NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reported that the rash is similar to one that broke out in Dennis, Mass., on Cape Cod last week. "They need to find out what's going on with the schools," said Ana Homem, whose son, Craig, developed a rash Tuesday afternoon. School officials said that the rash was confined to Locke Middle School in Billerica, where 40 to 50 kids have contracted it. It has since started to spread to the other nine schools in the community. The outbreak came one week after a mysterious rash shut down a middle school in Dennis.

That school was cleaned and tested and found to be free of contaminants. "It's a funny thing," Billerica School Superintendent Robert Calabrese said. "We had one of our youth hockey teams down on the Cape recently in a hockey tournament. They were all swimming in the swimming pool where they were staying in the town of Dennis. That seems to be the only connection right now, but that's a stretch." Health officials sent home letters to parents explaining that the rash is very itchy and can be treated with calamine lotion or Benadryl. The rash typically lasts for a short time and causes no other ill effects. "The whole purpose of this letter is to let people know this is something that is not being ignored. We're looking into it," Calabrese said.

The state Department of Public Health said that the rash is not dangerous, and rashes are common this time of year. "A lot of them are due to weather changes," Dr. Bela Matyas said. "It starts to get warm outside, the heating system at the school tends to overwork on weekends, underwork at other times. There have been many, many situations reported in the literature of rashes caused by that hot, dry air." Matyas said that some rashes could signal a more serious condition, so parents should take their children to a doctor if they see a rash. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/wcvb/20020402/lo/1144132_1.html

Mystery rash continues to baffle school
The red, itchy ailment sends dozens more home from the Wixon School.
By K.C. MYERS

April 2 - DENNIS - The Nathaniel H. Wixon School's mysterious rash continued to send students home by the dozens yesterday. More than 100 of the 725 students were absent from the middle school, and "several dozen" more went home during the day with the same red, itchy irritation that forced the school to be closed Thursday, said Dennis-Yarmouth Supt. Tony Pierantozzi. "There were very few, if any, serious rashes today," Pierantozzi said yesterday.

Still, students flooded the nurses' offices with complaints of the itchy affliction, which resembles a sunburn or hives and goes away in a day to two weeks. It causes no serious symptoms besides discomfort. But discomfort is disconcerting to those who keep getting the rash.

Like many of her fellow Wixon students, eighth-grader Jennifer Russell got it for the first time last week. On Tuesday "this child looked like boiling hot water had been poured from her head to her toes," said Cheryl Russell, her mother. "The nurse at school was baffled. She said it's the worst she had seen. It was just unbelievable when I picked her up."

Russell was sent home again with a less serious case yesterday. "I certainly don't want to send my daughter back," Russell said.
A note to parents stated that there were no environmental problems with the school.
"But then why do they have it again, if there is nothing wrong with the school?" Russell asked.

When 48 students went home with the rash Wednesday, officials closed the school Thursday for disinfecting and tests for environmental toxins. None were found, according to the Barnstable Department of Health & Environment.The air and water quality also tested at normal levels.

Since the school's environment received a clean bill of health, the superintendent decided to open the school and keep it open, despite yesterday's complaints.

Students who had been fine over the extended Easter weekend complained of getting the rash once they returned to school yesterday.

No one is any closer to finding a cause.
No doubt, part of the scratching is psychosomatic, Pierantozzi said. And part of the reports could be from students who want to get out of school. But teachers are taking each case seriously. Anyone who shows signs of the rash is dismissed immediately to keep them isolated from the others.

Seventh-grader Jessica Ventola said "there were a big bunch of backpacks in front of the nurses' offices" as students with the rash waited to be picked up to go home.
Ventola said only 12 of the 22 students in her homeroom were in school yesterday.

The outbreak continues to follow a pattern reported at schools in 14 states around the country since October. Anywhere from 10 to several hundred students in an elementary or middle school break out in a rash. Schools close, get cleaned and tested, then reopen. No matter what, the rash continues for two weeks to two months. Then it fades. "It pretty much went away," said James Scanlon, superintendent of the Quakertown Community School District in Pennsylvania.

The rash spread to 250 students in nine schools in his district from Jan. 31 to March 9. The first outbreak hit 54 students at Richland Elementary School on Jan. 31. It spread for about two weeks, then began to fade - but slowly. By March 9, the number of cases dropped to only about four a day, Scanlon said.

It "ran its course" in 24 to 72 hours at an elementary school in Connecticut in late February, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The CDC, which studied the outbreak in Pennsylvania for two weeks, could not find the cause, Scanlon said. A CDC spokeswoman said there's not even enough evidence to confirm if all the outbreaks are the same rash.

"It seems to be time-sensitive," Pierantozzi said. "It's self-limiting. That is, over time, it goes away."

posted 04-03-2002 10:39 PM            

---That school was cleaned and tested and found to be free of contaminants. "It's a funny thing," Billerica School Superintendent Robert Calabrese said. "We had one of our youth hockey teams down on the Cape recently in a hockey tournament. They were all swimming in the swimming pool where they were staying in the town of Dennis. That seems to be the only connection right now, but that's a stretch." ---

A stretch but really not too much of a stretch especially when you take the next article into consideration.

Scientists Concerned About Swimming Pool Chemical
Wed Apr 3, 7:04 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists warned on Thursday that high levels of a chemical compound found in indoor swimming pools might pose a risk to pregnant women and their unborn babies.

Researchers at Imperial College London said they found levels of trihalomethanes (THMs), a by-product of chlorine, in London swimming pools that were higher than amounts found in tap water which had been associated with health problems. "There have been some previous studies carried out with tap water where they found some effects like spontaneous abortion, stillbirths and congenital malformations at lower levels of these byproducts," said Dr. Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, who led the study reported in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. He added that the by-product levels are relatively high but scientists do not know what effects THMs in swimming pools might have on pregnant women and unborn babies.

THMs are formed when chlorine, which is added to swimming pools to keep them clean, reacts with organic matter such as skin or hair. Nieuwenhuijsen said more information is needed about THMs, which can be swallowed or inhaled, and their impact on pregnant women. In the meantime efforts should be made to reduce the levels, he said. "The owners of swimming pools have to make sure they reduce the by-product levels because there might be a risk if they stay at this level," Nieuwenhuijsen said.

Chlorine is necessary to disinfectant swimming pools but the scientists said levels of THMs can be reduced by making sure people clean themselves before swimming. Filtering the water can also help to keep organic matter at low levels. The scientists examined 44 water samples from eight indoor pools in London and compared the levels of THMs found in the pools and in tap water. Although the amount of THMs varied according to the water temperature and the number of people in the pool, it was higher than levels found in tap water. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020404/sc_nm/science_pools_dc _1&printer=1

posted 04-03-2002 11:11 PM            

Eliminate red eye, rashes
In swimming pools, chloro-organic compounds and THMs may accumulate to very high concentrations. Red eyes and rashes are the most instant and obvious effects and should be considered signals of a much more serious risk to human health.

On average, the human body will absorb about half a litre of pool water every hour. The best pools have their water quality in compliance with the standards for drinking water supplies. http://www.envron.com/SP_Swimming_Pools1.htm

Chlorination
In my discussions with health club managers, the one thing everyone was sure about was that chlorine was used in large amounts in the pool and spa to kill bacteria. They seemed pretty confident that was a good thing, and was effective. This widely used, culturally-accepted chemical may be successful at killing most germs, but the method comes with a hefty price tag. The Material Safety Data Sheet on chlorine specifically says: "DANGER: POISON. Liquid chlorine is a severe skin irritant. Dermal contact will produce burns. Contact with the eyes will cause severe damage. Vapors are extremely irritating to the respiratory tract and may cause breathing difficulty and pulmonary edema."

In addition to its direct toxic effects on living organisms, chlorine also reacts with organic materials in the environment to create other hazardous and carcinogenic toxins, including trihalomethanes, chloroform (THMs), and organochlorines, an extremely dangerous class of compounds (the most well known being Dioxin) that cause reproductive, endocrine, and immune system disorders. Steinman indicates that there are medical studies which clearly link the amounts of pool chlorine to asthma attacks, skin conditions, rashes, and allergies. http://www.wholelifetimes.com/healthclubs.html

Chlorine attacks bacteria in drinking water, but in the process of disinfecting, new chemical compounds of chlorine are created. Chlorine molecules react with otherwise harmless organic material present in the raw water supply, creating a group of chlorinated chemical compounds called trihalomethanes (THMs).

THMs are tasteless and odorless, but they are considered human carcinogens. They also depress the central nervous system and can cause damage to the liver and kidneys. These chemicals, also known as organochlorides, do not degrade well and are generally stored in the fatty tissues of the body.

Organochlorides can suppress immune system function, interfere with the natural controls of cell growth, and cause mutations by altering DNA. Chlorinated tap water is a skin irritant and can be associated with many types of rashes, including eczema. http://www.thepeacefulplace.com/celltech/articles/tapwater.htm

Chlorination is the main method used to reduce the microbiological load in the water and to minimise regrowth in the pipeline. The aim is to ensure that a residual chlorine concentration is maintained. In very long pipelines which occur in a couple of rural areas in NSW and in some parts of the Sydney distribution system both chlorine and ammonia are added in a process called "chloramination". The disinfection by-products, namely trihalomethanes (THM) associated with treatment of the water supplies, have been associated with an increased risk of bladder and rectal cancer in the US. Levels of THMs are mostly below the guideline value of 0.25 mg/L in most of the larger NSW supplies, but, monitoring for THMs in many of the rural supplies is not routinely carried out. Studies from North America and Europe have found correlations between dementias and aluminium levels in drinking water.

However, WHO states that at present the balance of epidemiological and physiological studies does not support a causal role for aluminium in Alzheimer's disease (WHO 1993). Better designed studies which measure individual exposure and consider other sources of aluminium are required. As a result, there is no health based guideline for aluminium in water. However, WHO recommends a value of 0.2 mg/L to avoid discolouration of water (WHO 1993). In NSW levels of aluminium in water supplies mostly do not exceed the level of 0.2 mg/L set down for aesthetic reasons in the 1987 NHMRC Drinking Water Quality Guidelines (NHMRC & AWRC 1987). The use of alum as a flocculant does not increase aluminium concentrations in water significantly. The 1994 revision of these guidelines has left this level unchanged, but has advised that acid soluble aluminium be kept below 0.1 mg/L. http://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/soe/95/14_2.html

Now did someone just say something about correlations between dementias and aluminium levels in drinking water?

posted 04-04-2002 10:45 AM            

A report from a Canadian research foundation concluded that the much  discussed, but little publicized Chemtrails, may be an attempt to hide a  sickening military secret.

Professor Donald Scott, president of the Common Cause Medical Research
Foundation, claimed that Chemtrails are a belated attempt by U.S.  military and intelligence chieftains to stop the spread of a  debilitating disease first concocted in the early 1980s.

According to Scott's account, the military began developing diseases in  the 1970s which were infectious but not contagious. In other words, an  ailment which could be spread to enemy troops but would not pass into  other populations.

One such disease was based on a zoonosis, a disease which can be  transmitted to humans by animals, in this case brucellosis. Brucellosis  is a bacterial disease usually found in cattle, which can cause undulant  fever in humans. By manipulating this disease, researchers were able to  design a disabling bacteria which disappeared following infection.  Troops could be infected yet exhibit no signs of the bacteria when
examined by a doctor. In the early 1980s, secret government labs worked  to produce a brucellosis pathogen which could disable enemy troops  without the risk of infecting friendly forces. This pathogen reportedly  was based on brucellosis bacteria in a crystalline form first developed  by researchers in 1945.

According to Scott's report, such a bacteria was tested during the summer  of 1984 at Tahoe-Truckee High School in California, where individual  rooms were fitted with an independent recycling air supply. A teachers  lounge was designated as the infection target. Seven of eight teachers  assigned to this room became very ill within months.

The high school was only one of several locations where the specially  designed pathogens were tested, some distributed by aerosol sprays and  others by the use contaminated mosquitoes.

Scott reported that one hundred million mosquitoes a month were bred at  the Dominion Parasite Laboratory in Belleville, Ontario, during the  1980s, then tested by both Canadian and U.S. military authorities after  being infected with brucellosis.

Some observers believe the viral epidemic reported around New York City  in recent years may have been the result of these infected mosquitoes.  The testing of unsuspecting victims was conducted by both the military  and CIA, according to Scott, and monitored by the National Institutes of  Health as well as the Center for Disease Control. Encouraged by what  they felt was a successful test, military leaders reportedly passed the  brucellosis bio agent to none other than Saddam Hussein, who in the
mid-1980s was fighting a protracted war against Iran at the behest of  the CIA.

In 1986, with the approval of Vice-President George Bush, Saddam  received shipments of both brucella abortus, biotypes 3 and 9, and  brucella melitensis, biotypes 1 and 3.

After Saddam obtained a stockpile of the brucellosis, a terrible  discovery was made - these designer bacteria mutated and became contagious.

According to Scotts report, Saddam used this pathogen on American troops  during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, resulting in the illness referred  to as Gulf War Syndrome. More than 100,000 Gulf War vets now suffer from  this syndrome, which causes chronic fatigue, loss of appetite, profuse  sweating even at rest, joint and muscle pain, insomnia, nausea, and  damage to major organs.

Much of this information may be found in a 1994 report by Senator Donald  W. Riegle, Jr., titled, "U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-related  Dual Use Exports to Iraq and Their Possible Impact on the Health  Consequences of the Persian Gulf War."

Troops initially were told that no such infection existed and that the  problem was mostly in their mind. Slowly, over the years, authorities  were forced to admit that something had triggered severe illness in many  Gulf War veterans.  By then, a variant of the brucellosis had spread to the civilian  population. Many people began suffering from general debilitation and  tiredness. When it became know that the contagion was spreading into the  general population, top officials with the National Institutes of Health
and Center for Disease Control, as well as the Defense Department and  the Department of Health and Human Resources began a program of  misrepresentation of the disease to mask their role in its origin. The  illness was claimed to be connected to the Epstein-Barr virus and was  labeled "Chronic Mononucleosis." This has now become known as Chronic  Fatigue Syndrome. Like the veterans before them, victims of this ailment  were told it was merely a psychological condition.

One victim, Dr. Martin Lerner of William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak,  MI, told his peers in the American Society of Microbiology that his bout  with this mysterious disease left his heart damaged. Dr. Lerner and  others suspected that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is caused by viral  infection. Top-level officials, concerned both with the spread of the  contagion and with the risk that their role in its origin would become
publicly known, moved to counteract the pathogen. This program may  explain the mysterious Chemtrails which have been noted over major  population centers during the past couple of years.

As explained by Scott, "We have learned . . . that a patent was issued  in 1996 for an aerosol vaccination process which would permit the  vaccination of wildlife and domestic herds by spraying them or their  disease vectors (birds) from the air. . . .
"We have noted that many of the sightings of Chemtrails are over  migratory bird flight paths. We are currently preparing a report on this  subject for release in January 2001.

"The Chemtrails program may well be a belated effort by the U.S. and  Canadian governments to get the brucellosis genie back in its bottle."

posted 04-04-2002 10:02 PM            

Childhood Cancer Urine Test Studied
April 03, 2002
BOSTON (AP) - Using a urine test to screen babies for a relatively common childhood tumor can spot the cancers early but fails to save lives, a new study finds.

The test screens for a form of cancer called neuroblastoma that occurs in the adrenal glands and the sympathetic nervous system. The tumors usually develop before age 4 and can be fatal.

Researchers in Germany and Canada tested large numbers of babies. While the test found some cancers, they also missed some and overall did not reduce the number of deaths from neuroblastoma, the researchers said.

An international conference in 1998 recommended against routinely screening babies for neuroblastoma, and the test is not widely used.

Results of the two studies were published in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The Canadian study was directed by Dr. William G. Woods of Emory University and the German one by Dr. Freimut H. Schilling of Olga Hospital in Stuttgart.

The researchers theorize that there are two varieties of neuroblastoma. One often spreads and kills while the other frequently goes away by itself. Apparently, the test typically finds the less dangerous of the two forms.

The researchers say the screening may actually do more harm then good by diagnosing tumors that are destined to disappear. The discovery could result in children receiving dangerous but unnecessary cancer treatment.

The situation is far different from screening for adult malignancies, such as mammograms to detect breast cancer, because those tumors typically do not go away.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. George Cunningham of the California state health department said the latest studies demonstrate that new childhood screening tests should not be used until they are proven to save lives or improve the quality of life.

In the Canadian study, doctors screened all 476,654 babies born in Quebec from 1989 to 1994. The test found 43 cases of neuroblastoma. All of the babies survived, although two suffered severe side effects from cancer treatment.

However, 22 others whose cancers were missed died of the disease, and the overall death rate was no different from the rate in several other parts of Canada and the United States where no screening was done.

Results were similar in the other study, conducted on 1.5 million babies in six German states from 1995 to 2000. During the follow up, there were 1.3 deaths from neuroblastoma per 100,000 children in the places screened, compared with 1.2 deaths per 100,000 in other areas.

posted 04-04-2002 10:25 PM            

April 03, 2002
Mysterious rash hits city students
By BRIAN BOYD
NEWS STAFF WRITER

MARLBOROUGH - A rash appeared on up to 15 of the city's middle school students last week, around the same time an outbreak shut down a Cape Cod school.

A mysterious rash has been showing up in classrooms across the country, and this week appeared in Billerica schools.

The Nathaniel H. Wixon School in Dennis closed Thursday so the building could be disinfected.

In Marlborough, the rash vanished on all but two of the students within a day and has since disappeared, Superintendent Rose Marie Boniface said yesterday.

Custodians disinfected the classrooms the students had been in, and Ann May, the health services coordinator for city schools, spoke with officials at the state Department of Public Health, Boniface said.

But she said it is unclear whether the rash in Marlborough is related to the rash spreading through other schools.

"It would be hard to answer that question with any certainty," Boniface said.

Since October, 15 states have reported outbreaks of unexplained rashes in schools. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which monitors health issues in the United States, found no common cause for the outbreaks.

The rash resembles a sunburn or hives and goes away in a day to two weeks. Its only symptom is discomfort.

In Billerica, from 50 to 75 cases have been reported at Locke Middle School, as well as a handful of cases in the district's other schools, according to Superintendent Robert Calabrese.

The rash has not meant closing any town schools, Calabrese said.

"Our nurses and pediatricians are on top of it," he said. He said local health officials believe the rash is caused by a virus.

The schools and the town Board of Health have sent letters to parents, alerting them to the situation.

While the school in Dennis has been disinfected, more than 100 of the school's 725 students were absent Monday and several more were sent home with the itchy, red irritation, according to Principal Patricia A. Fitzsimmons.

The school, which sent home 48 students last Wednesday, was disinfected and tested for environmental toxins after closing Thursday. No problems were found, according to the Barnstable Department of Health & Environment.

"All of our testing indicated that this situation is not the result of our school environment," Fitzsimmons said in a letter which was sent home to parents yesterday.
http://townonline.com/35477060.htm

April 03, 2002
Rash persists at Wixon; cause remains mystery
By ADAM MARTIGNETTI
AMARTIGN@CNC.COM

For more than 200 students at the Nathaniel Wixon Middle School in Dennis, there are still no answers as to why they developed a skin rash.

The rash, which appears on the body as hives and can resemble a sunburn or poison ivy, is similar to one experienced in 15 other states and in Nova Scotia Canada, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. The cases at the Wixon School are thought to be the first outbreak of the rash in Massachusetts.

" This has been pretty well investigated in these other states and nobody knows what causes it, " said Stetson Hall, director of the Barnstable County Health Department.

The rash generally appears on the face and extremities, but, other than itchiness, has no additional physical symptoms. It is considered by public health officials to be self-limiting, and usually disappears after as little as three days or as long as two weeks. The rash also disproportionately affects girls. To date, 70 percent of the cases at the Wixon School have been among girls.

Some medical experts have termed the rash, " Viral Adolescence Hives. " Others believe it is a secondary response to a preceding viral syndrome. However, even the experts are grasping at straws for answers.

" It mimics several causative agents. It’s characteristic of viral contamination, but there is no fever and no headache which are associated with viral agents, " said Dr. Thomas Bourne of the Barnstable County Health Laboratory. " It also has some elements of environmental or chemical exposure. It’s an odd case study. There is no clear-cut causative agent. "

The cause, though, is exactly what school administrators, health officials and medical experts began look for on March 22. The day before, a seventh grade girl reported to the Wixon school nurse with red blotches on her face. By that Friday morning, 48 rash cases were reported and Dennis-Yarmouth Superintendent of Schools Tony Pierantozzi sent a memo home to Wixon parents.

" We would like to make you aware that a small percentage of Wixon students have experienced a rash, " the memo stated. " The rash appears as hives on the face, arms, and/or legs. Although the rash is uncomfortable, we have been told it doesn’t pose a serious health threat of any nature. "

After a few days in which the number of new cases abated, by March 27, 61 absences were reported due to the rash and 55 students left school during the day.

After consulting with Dennis Health Director Tanya Daigneault, Pierantozzi decided to close Wixon on Thursday. With the Good Friday observance looming, there would be four days to sanitize the building and try to ascertain the cause of the mysterious rash.

Marina Brock, environmental specialist for Barnstable County, was brought in and a slew of tests began at the school. By midday Thursday, March 28, samples had been taken of the school’s air and of various surfaces to determine if the rash had an internal, environmental cause.

Results were universally negative. Wixon’s air was determined to be ambient, with carbon dioxide levels close to atmospheric levels. Bacterial and microscopic tests were negative. Culture plates showed nothing unique, remarkable or unexpected, according to county health lab reports.

A district analysis of activities leading up to the rash outbreak showed that no new chemicals or cleaners had been introduced by the maintenance staff or the science department. Furthermore, there had been no application of fertilizers or pesticides in the preceding weeks, according to Pierantozzi, nor had there been the introduction of new foods or food additives.

The district began sanitizing Wixon on Thursday, March 27. Last Friday, the district’s special education buses were sanitized. The following day, 24 buses owned by the Northside Bus Company were sanitized.

There was nothing for the school administration left to do but wait until Monday morning. The rash continued to prove mysterious and inexplicable, however, as Monday saw 97 absences at Wixon due to the rash and 35 more students went home.

" The school is probably the cleanest it’s ever been, " Daigneault said. " It’s always been a clean school and we’ve never had a problem before this. This is probably, and most likely, just a viral rash. "

Monday night, Pierantozzi said additional medical personnel would be put at the Wixon school. Pierantozzi also said that parent reaction had been, expectedly, mixed.

" It’s been everything from ‘thanks for keeping it open,’ to ‘you’re nuts,’ " Pierantozzi said.

The county health department has no further testing plans for Wixon.

" We don’t know what’s going on for the most part. We need to gather additional information from the medical community and the parents, " Bourne said. " It wouldn’t be beneficial for us to go back to Wixon without more specific information. " http://townonline.com/capecod/35512568.htm

April 3, 2002

What to do if your child has a rash

With dozens of children showing symptoms of a mysterious rash, the Barnstable County Health and Environmental Department is offering some steps parents can take to deal with it.

* Contact a physician.

* Apply a topical lotion like calamine.

* Use Aveeno soap.

* In severe cases, use an oatmeal bath.

* Administer an over-the-counter antihistamine, such as Benodryl.

So far on Cape Cod, the rash has been seen only in students at the Wixon Middle School in Dennis. http://www.townonline.com/capecod/bourne/news/35486518.htm

posted 04-08-2002 12:52 AM            

I am kind of thinking that magneticlevity might be on the right track with the Brucellosis angle. I kind of have to wonder how and why the school boards seem to have so much power as if they were connected to some government agencies with some hidden dark agenda.

posted 04-10-2002 02:36 AM            

Strange Rash Causes Alarm

10 Ill In New Jersey Town
Affects Teens And Young Adults
Some Sidelined From School

(NEW YORK) (WCBS) July 5, 2001 8:30 pm
Sixteen-year old Jimmy Nonas has a mysterious rash that looks like inflamed stretch marks. His brother, Andrew, and sister, Athena, have it, too. Extreme exhaustion and crippling pain have forced all three to leave school.

"It's all over my stomach and on my back," he tells CBS 2's Paul Moniz. "It's all over my legs, tops of my shoulders, everywhere. My knees are killing me. I stand up and they crack and I walk and they crack."

Doctors have been at a loss to explain the syndrome, whose symptoms also include vision loss, confusion and depression. At least 10 young people aged 14 to 23 in the rural community of West Milford, N.J., have reported the wavy red discolorations and it is causing alarm.

"I see my children losing their whole teenage lives," mother Adora Nonas says of Jimmy, Andrew and Athena.

"It scared me," agrees Cynde Levans, whose son has the rash. "My first reaction was to call a dermatologist."

Most patients have been diagnosed with Lyme disease, presumably from the bite of a deer tick, but the wavy lines look nothing like the traditional bulls-eye rash characteristic of Lyme disease and despite traditional Lyme treatments, patients have been slow to improve.

Sixteen-year-old Harrison Levans has missed two-and-half years of school, sidelined by excessive sleep and confusion.

"Sometimes I will forget where I put my medication or sometimes I will walk into a room and forget why I am there," he says.

Most people are aware that tick bites can be dangerous, especially in wooded areas around much of the northeast, but doctors say there are many misconceptions. For instance, Lyme disease can be difficult to detect and treat. Further, tick bites may carry more than just Lyme disease.

Lyme specialist Dr. Richard Horowitz of Hyde Park, N.Y., studies deer ticks. He suspects the strange rash is somehow related to either Lyme disease or other lesser known infections. He says in addition to Lyme, deer ticks can release a bacteria that attacks white blood cells, causing an infection called ehrlichiosis.

"It's not just Lyme disease that has entered their body," he explains. "These ticks are containing multiple organisms. I'm extremely concerned about this because these tick borne diseases are spreading."

The ticks can also carry a parasite that invades red blood cells, causing a more serious infection known as babesiosis. Many doctors do not test for those infections.

The parents of the sickened teens say they have been subjected to a litany of misdiagnoses.

Sixteen-year-old Don Mobius spent 10 days in a psychiatric ward for depression actually caused by tick-borne infection. Oddly, it was Harrison Levan's mother who urged the Mobius family to get the right blood tests after spotting the wavy rash. It turned out that Don had all three of the tick borne infections.

"She saved my son's life because she told us what was wrong with him when doctor's couldn't," Bonnie, Don's mother, says.

Now, after receiving antibiotics and anti-malarial drugs, Don is starting to feel better. So is Harrison, who was also triple infected.

Dr. Horowitz says the tiny deer ticks may prove much more of a hazard than anyone ever imagined.

"There may be other viruses or other parasites that are getting into these people's blood that we don't know about at this point," he explains.

Patient advocates are calling on Congress to set aside more money for research and treatment of Lyme-related infections. Part of the problem is that blood tests are not always reliable. Patients could still have Lyme disease or the other co-infections even with a negative test result.

If symptoms persist, ask about DNA blood testing and make sure to see a specialist.

There will be a town meeting about the disease Monday, July 16 at 7:30pm at Pinecliff Lakes Club House in West Milford, N.J. Pat Smith of the Lyme Disease Association will be a guest speaker. http://cbsnewyork.com/healthwatch/StoryFolder/story_1310168362_html

posted 04-10-2002 08:45 PM            

Dukes’ return? On the trail of the mysterious rash in schoolchildren

Is our current epidemic a reappearance of Dukes’ disease or “fourth disease?”
by Philip A. Brunell, MD
Chief Medical Editor April 2002

In the July 14, 1900, edition of The Lancet on page 89, an article appeared entitled, “On the confusion of two different diseases under the name of rubella (Rose Rash),” by Dr. Clement Dukes. In this article, Dukes reports the outbreak of an exanthematous disease at the Rugby School where he was senior physician. He argues for the existence of a new disease that he believes previously had been confused with rubella. Sound familiar?

During the past few months, we have experienced an epidemic of erythematous rash affecting mainly schoolchildren. This disease appears not to be fifth disease, which many thought it might be.

The illness that Dr. Dukes described was subsequently designated “fourth disease.” However, the disease then disappeared, or did it? Is our current epidemic a reappearance of Dukes’ or fourth disease? The March 1 MMWR published a report entitled “Rashes among schoolchildren” — 14 States, October 4, 2001 – February 27, 2002.” The rash appeared to be “widespread in distribution” both in terms of the areas of the body involved and in the areas of the United States where it has occurred. It so far has affected mainly elementary schoolchildren, although a few middle, high and preschool children and some adults also have been involved.

In the cases described, there appeared to be little secondary spread in households. In two elementary schools, about 10% of the children appeared to be involved, while in a middle school about 25% were affected. The age distribution suggests to me that this very likely is an infectious disease that, as is true of many viral infections, has a high subclinical attack rate in the very young and tends to be more severe, ie, produces a rash, in older susceptible individuals. Most of the population probably is immune by virtue of having had subclinical cases when very young. The epidemiology is similar to that of infectious mononucleosis.

In general, the illness doses not appear to produce many systemic signs. It is characterized by a generalized rash, which is difficult to characterize from the reports. I was taught in dermatology to describe the distribution of the rash and more often than not, it will suggest the diagnosis. It is described as being on the “face, neck, hands, or arms” in one school, and in a second school as beginning on the face and spreading to the arms with exposed skin being mainly affected. In a third school it reportedly affected cheeks and arms, and another report described involvement of the trunk and extremities.

The rash is described as maculopapular erythematous highly pruritic, “reddish welty itchy … with smooth pink cheeks, bright red itchy or burning and macular, occasionally with an urticarial component.” The report continues with descriptions of the rash as “bright-red, itchy or burning and macular, occasionally with an urtical or papular component (pretty much covers all the bases), itchy and had a sunburned appearance” and “erythema and pruritis.”

Most described the onset as acute, lasting from a few hours to a few weeks. At this point one would call for help from the dermatologist. A group of dermatologists did examine one group of children and thought that it resembled fifth disease but had many atypical features.

Is this a return of the long absent Dukes’s disease or did Dukes’ disease never exist? Dr. Dukes’ job was much simpler in that he got to see all the cases at the Rugby School. However, he did not have the advantage of confirmatory laboratory tests that we now enjoy. Dukes’ problem was complicated by the presence of rubella and the coexistence of a scarlet fever epidemic. As scarlet fever has become relatively uncommon over the years and rubella virtually eliminated by vaccination, our concern was fifth disease. Children in a number of the school outbreaks have been tested for parvovirus B19, and this has been uniformly negative.

The most compelling argument for the existence of fourth disease as a separate illness was that children had rubella or scarlet fever either previously or subsequent to fourth disease. The coexistence of scarlet fever in the school may have obfuscated the description of fourth disease. The fever and desquamation of the rash, which was observed in some of the boys and the two deaths, may have been due to scarlet fever and not to fourth disease. The rash Dukes described in fourth disease was the first symptom to attract the attention of the sufferer, and “... in nearly every case was very full and quite characteristic of scarlet fever.”

posted 04-11-2002 10:28 PM            

4:32 p.m. EST March 26, 2002 - A skin rash affecting young children across the nation has shown up in Maryland.

Forty-five children at Perryville Middle School were treated for the mysterious rash and several of them were sent home last week.

Health officials say the itching can last a few hours to two weeks. They say there is normally no fever associated with the condition, which is popping up among younger children.

School officials aren't sure what caused the rash. However, they said there are no other medical symptoms related to the rash outbreak to make them think it could be an infectious disease.

State officials say the same sort of rash has been showing up in school districts in 17 other states.

Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report about 14 states that had reported investigations of schoolchildren who developed rashes between October 2001 and February 2002. http://www.msnbc.com/local/wbal/a1131616.asp

Some new cases, no answers on school rash
By K.C. MYERS

March 29 - DENNIS - More reports of a mystery rash trickled into the county health department yesterday while the Wixon Middle School was closed by an outbreak of the mysterious skin condition that has affected schools in a number of states.

Students from Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School in Orleans, the Ezra Baker School in Dennis, Hyannis East Elementary, Marstons Mills East Elementary, Barnstable Middle School at Marstons Mills and the Harwich Middle School reported a rash similar to the one described in Dennis. At those schools, however, the number of infected students has been limited to 12 at most.

The Harwich Middle School nurse sent home 12 students yesterday with a mild skin condition, Supt. Joseph Gilbert said. He said he didn't know yet if Harwich and Wixon students have spent time together recently.

All Cape schools are closed today in observance of Good Friday.

On Wednesday, 48 of the 725 students at the Wixon School came down the same skin condition, which resembles hives or a sunburn.

More than 100 students have complained of the condition in the past week at Wixon, said Stetson Hall, director of the Barnstable County Board of Health.

In the Barnstable schools, only a few students in each school reported the rash. Two students at the charter school in Orleans also reported it.

At the state level, the Department of Public Health has received sporadic calls from schools all over the state. The Wixon case is the first in the commonwealth to be considered an outbreak.

"It's not the first case in Massachusetts, said Ailish Wilkie, spokeswoman for the DPH. "It's the first case involving so many individuals." Wilkie said because the symptoms are not serious, and the numbers at other schools not high, the state also has not kept any records on the infection rate up until this point." I would assume we wouldn't track it because it was schools calling saying we have two itchy kids," Wilkie said.

Just like the cases nationwide, more girls than boys have the rash in Dennis, Hall said. It appears to cause no serious symptoms other than an uncomfortable itching and lasts anywhere from a few hours to two weeks. It affects mostly elementary and middle school children, but few adults, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The rash has broken out in elementary and middle schools in 14 states since October. Anywhere from fewer than 10 to more than 600 students have reported the rash in a single building. A few adults also have reported getting the rash.

A day of cleanup

Dennis-Yarmouth School Supt. Tony Pierantozzi closed the Wixon School yesterday so county health officials could check the air quality, and take samples for mold, mildew and bacteria.

A team of health officials found nothing wrong with the air quality or the ventilation system yesterday, Pierantozzi said. Samples of water, rugs, desks, lockers, and anything else students may touch are being checked in a lab for bacteria and other environmental factors. The tests take 48 hours. Meanwhile, health officials questioned food distributors to see if any distribution paths have changed.

Pierantozzi said no new cleaning products have been used, and no unusual chemicals have been added to lawns and fields.

As health officials moved through the school collecting swabs and samples, a crew of janitors scoured lockers, desks, tables and chairs with a bleach mixture. The lockers gleamed in the hallways, which smelled of bleach by mid-morning.

Today, buses that service the entire district, not just Wixon, will also be disinfected, Pierantozzi said. Only one staff member complained of a rash, but Pierantozzi said it was not same kind of rash the students displayed.

Harwich resident Russ Provost, the Orleans postmaster, said for three weeks he has had an itchy, red rash that his doctor could not identify. "I guess I'm just a big kid," he said.

Most rash outbreaks go away

"It looks like a mild sunburn," said Dr. Ken Colmer, of Bass River Pediatric Associates in Yarmouth, who has treated several students. "I've never seen it before. They say it's viral, but I would say it's something environmental from the school."

No one knows what causes the rash. All investigations and treatments have been local decisions and each district seems to be drawing its own conclusion, said Rhonda Smith, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At the Community Elementary School in Prospect, Conn., a rash that infected 25 students in February disappeared on its own in a few days, said Lorrie Moraniec, the superintendent's secretary. "It was viral," she said.

However, in Washington state, officials have kept the Artondale Elementary School in Gig Harbor closed since Feb. 12, after 50 students reported the rash. The air quality was found to be poor and mold was discovered in walls and ceilings. The building remains closed for renovations and cleaning.

According to the school Web site, the rash complaints appear to be linked to the school building environment. No one from the Artondale school returned phone calls yesterday.

So does this rash just go away?

"The short answer is yes," said Smith. The more detailed answer is, no one knows if these rashes are the same nationwide, because the duration varies from anywhere from a few hours, to a couple weeks, Smith said. The CDC has not been able to find any common denominator linking all the cases, she said.

The center has sent forms to every state health department to keep track of any new reports. Possibly, this isn't a new disease, but simply one that has never been reported, she said. That is, no one began reporting it until the outbreaks in Pennsylvania and Connecticut received a ton of publicity in February, Smith said. "The CDC does not consider rashes unusual in schools," she said. Barnstable County health officials could be the first to find a missing link in this mystery. But yesterday, Hall didn't sound hopeful. "We're groping in the dark," he said. http://www.msnbc.com/local/cct/m165222.asp

Number Of Students With Mysterious Reaction Grows

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio, 5:40 p.m. EDT April 9, 2002 - The number of Union Scioto students that have been taken to the emergency room for some type of mysterious reaction has grown and could reach even higher, officials said.

The emergency room lobby at Adena Regional Medical Center is completely filled with children and their parents, NewsChannel 4's Larry Roberts reported.

The apparent allergic reactions started Monday evening with 15 students being treated for red, itchy, burning eyes and now has soared to 75 children.

Roberts reported that number only includes students taken to Adena Medical Center and the hospital said they have received over 50 calls.

Other students have been taken to family doctors and the number of students experiencing reactions could reach into the hundreds, Roberts reported.

Classes were canceled Tuesday at Union Scioto. Fire and health officials are investigating the school and the school's ventilation system for possible contaminants.

Roberts reported that only students in kindergarten through sixth grade seem to be affected. There have been no reports of teachers from Union Scioto or parents suffering from the symptoms.

"Over the course of the evening, students developed more symptoms, some of them requiring emergency room treatment at the hospital. They had swelling and irritation to their eyes. In some cases their eyes were swollen shut," said Kelly Hill, the Union Scioto school nurse.

"He has a rash on his body and his nose is bothering him and he's been having headaches and nobody is telling us anything else," said Debbie Jones, mother of student.

School officials said that there was a special science assembly held Monday and that somebody was spraying what they call "fairy dust," Roberts reported. The school said that 900 students attended the assembly.

Officials also said that the school's grass was mowed Monday. They are looking into these two incidents to see if they are possible causes.

According to doctors, the children will make a full recovery, but will be out of school for a few days. Roberts reported that it is not yet known when the school will reopen.
http://www.msnbc.com/local/wcmh/a1156714.asp

Over 120 Students Experience Mysterious Reaction

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio, 7:44 p.m. EDT April 9, 2002 - The number of Union Scioto Elementary students treated for some type of mysterious reaction grew from 15 to over 120 Tuesday afternoon.

School was cancelled Tuesday and investigators spent all day trying to determine possible causes.

"We're going through the process of elimination," said Union Township Department Chief Jamie Stewart. "We're doing some air testing, some sampling. We're trying to pull some samples to make sure we don't have anything airborne."

NewsChannel 4's Larry Roberts reported that the mysterious reaction resembles sun burn.

Roberts said that one theory is that the contamination came from bubbles or a white powdery substance used as "fairy dust" in a school assembly Monday.

As the bubbles and fairy dust were being blown, students were looking up at a large cracked, overhead light for a long period of time. Roberts reported that investigators think the light might have emitted some type of UV rays and caused a sunburn effect.

But officials said that even students who didn't attend the assembly were sick, Roberts reported.

The emergency room at Adena Regional Medical Center started treating students Monday evening for red, itchy, burning eyes. By Tuesday afternoon, over 120 students had been treated at the E.R. and local doctors offices.

"When I was trying to get to sleep tonight, my eyes hurted really bad and I had to tell my dad," said J.C. Boltenhouse, a 7-year-old student at Union Scioto.

Boltenhouse's mother said that his eyes were swollen shut, he has been having headaches and he has a rash all over his body.

"It appears to be an irritated or chemical conjunctivitis which is an irritation to the eyes usually caused by chemicals or dust particles," said Dr. Steven Schneider, emergency room physician.

Schneider said that he has treated many of Boltenhouse's schoolmates with the exact same symptoms, but there should be no long-term effects and students should start feeling better over the next 24 hours.

Roberts reported that it is not yet known when the school will reopen. http://www.msnbc.com/local/wcmh/a1157165.asp

Mysterious Rash Afflicts Jackson Students
Rash Reported In 14 States

Students at one Jackson public school are among thousands across the country with a mysterious skin rash.

The rash is affecting as many as 50 students in Jackson and on the coast. The students have reddish spots on their faces.

It is possible the rash is a common ailment called "fifth disease," but health officials say they not certain.

Parents are demanding answers.

"Everybody is on alert," health department spokeswoman Mary Currier said. "People are looking for more things, and are suspicious of things and want them looked into and diagnosed."

The rash is red spots that suddenly appear on the face. They last from an hour to as long as a week.

posted 04-13-2002 09:01 PM            

Fibromyalgia in Children
Excerpted from Fibromyalgia: A Comprehensive Approach by Miryam Williamson

Until recently, fibromyalgia was considered an adult disorder; children were thought not to get it. Then, in a study published in the Journal of Rheumatology in 1993, a team of doctors in Israel reported that 6.2 percent of 338 healthy schoolchildren between the ages of nine and 15 met the criteria for the fibromyalgia syndrome. At nearly the same time, a rheumatologist in the US asserted that 45% of the children referred to him had FM. Of these 15 children, nine had been diagnosed incorrectly with juvenile chronic arthritis, three had been told they had growing pains, and two had been given a psychiatric diagnosis. Since then, doctors have been paying more attention to children's complaints of pain and are diagnosing FM with increasing frequency. [...]

Children's complaints of pain must be taken seriously, lest they grow up with untreated FM. Growing pains are a particularly pernicious myth. It should not hurt to grow, and the child whose pain is brushed off that way is a very unfortunate little person. FM is often a family affair [...]That is not to say that your children are sure to have FM if you do, but I hope it will motivate you to be extra vigilant. Children need us to take their complaints of pain seriously. Fibromyalgia can make a child's life miserable at school and on the playground. The child with FM needs a great deal of special help and understanding.

Many adults think of childhood as a carefree time, full of fun and excitement. Some find it hard to comprehend the depth to which children can feel pain, both emotional and physical. Small children want nothing so much as to please the adults around them, and to gain their respect and affection. If parents place a high value on stoicism, then their child will believe that the way to gain approval is to grin and bear it, and is likely to miss badly needed medical attention.

Detecting FM in Children

FM in children often starts with a flu-like illness from which the child seems never to have fully recovered. Sometimes, particularly in children before puberty, the ailment simply comes on gradually, without any obvious precipitating event. Very young children may not remember a time without pain, and thus may not complain at all. [...]

You should suspect fibromyalgia in a child who sleeps restlessly, kicks or twitches during sleep, and has a difficult time getting out of bed in the morning. [...] Insomnia coupled with pains or aches is a trouble signal and should not be ignored, particularly if one of the child's parents has FM.. Sometimes an alert teacher is the first to notice a problem. [...]Children with fibromyalgia often have trouble in school. A considerable amount of schoolwork requires memorization. The cognitive difficulties that often accompany FM may make this difficult, if not impossible.

FM for me as a child consisted of intermittent severe diarrhea, difficulty controlling my bladder, shooting pains in my legs, deep aches in my calf muscles that felt as though my marrow was burning, frequent severe headaches, lack of stamina, and insomnia. Some of my earliest school memories are of teachers joining in with my classmates to taunt me because I wasn't always sure where my feet were. Needless to say, I was never the first chosen for any team game. [...]

Children who squirm and fidget in class may be trying to keep themselves from falling asleep. They may also find it painful to sit in one place for long periods of time. Some symptoms of FM may manifest themselves in the classroom as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Not all children with ADD are hyperactive, as was once thought. There is a form known as "quiet-ADD." Some pediatricians say this may be an early symptom of fibromyalgia in some children. A sharp pediatrician can tell the difference between ADD and FM by performing a tender point examination.

[...]Another characteristic of children with fibromyalgia is that many of them have hypermobile joints — that is, they are "double-jointed." [...] Being double-jointed is not a sure sign of FM, but it should make a parent suspicious.

All parents, particularly those with FM, should see to it that their children are examined for fibromyalgia as soon as they are old enough to say if they feel pain during a tender point examination. Early intervention is important; proper treatment may save the child from a lifetime of suffering.

Tips for dealing with FM in children

Some doctors put children with FM on a very small dose of a tricyclic agent or muscle relaxant. Others prescribe Benadryl at bedtime for sleep. A child who learns good nutritional habits early in life, grows accustomed to going to bed at the same time every night, and is encouraged to take part in a suitable exercise program will be well equipped to avoid FM flareups throughout life.

If your child is diagnosed with FM, you will need to do some explaining. What you say and how you say it will have a profound effect on the child's reaction. Children are particularly vulnerable to thinking that anything that goes wrong is their fault. You must stress that FM is nobody's fault and that nothing anyone could have done would have prevented it. How much you explain about fibromyalgia will depend, of course, on the child's age and intellectual development. Above all, the child must understand that FM can be controlled. [...]

Raising a child who has fibromyalgia is a real challenge. You will need to remember that some days are worse than others, and allow the child to set the pace. Household chores should be adjusted to fit the situation, and flexibility should be the overriding principle. Teachers and school administrators should be informed about your child's FM. They must understand that the child can feel well one day and terribly the next, and that people with fibromyalgia almost always look better than they feel.

Any condition that interferes with a child's learning ability entitles the child to a special needs assessment and education plan, according to US Public Law 94-142, which provides for the education of children with special needs. If your child is having trouble with schoolwork, you may have to be persistent in getting the school to agree to this assessment, but it is your right and you will eventually prevail if you keep at it. Among the accommodations that have been granted to children with FM are two sets of school books so that the child need not carry books to and from school; a tape recorder to eliminate the need to take notes; and a flexible class schedule that allows the child to take her most difficult classes at the time of day when she is feeling her best.

If your child's classmates are making his or her life miserable with teasing, a word with the teacher is in order. Children generally take their behavior cues from their teachers. If the teacher makes an offhand remark about the FM child's clumsiness, or chides the child for being lazy when fatigue strikes, the teacher's attitude will surely lead to teasing by the other children. It is up to you to cultivate the kind of relationship in which your child can confide in you about such problems. An appointment with the school's guidance counselor can often set things right. Proper treatment can make a world of difference. [...]

There is evidence that fibromyalgia in children may not be a lifetime sentence. One study found that 30 months after diagnosis, 11 of 15 children with FM (73%) were no longer fibromyalgic. "We suggest that the outcome of FM in children is more favorable than in adults," the doctors who conducted the study wrote. Guaifenesen has been found to bring some children to a pain-free state, according to their parents. Early intervention seems to be the key in children with fibromyalgia. http://www.mwilliamson.com/children.htm

A Cognitive-Behavioral Approach in the Treatment of Children and Adolescents Diagnosed with Fibromyalgia
Reported by Karin Amour

This was the title of a November 13, 2001 session sponsored by the Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals. Over 100 professionals attended the session, the majority of which were pediatricians searching for any information that might help their patients afflicted with Fibromyalgia (FM), given the limited amount of research in the field.

The presenters were from Schneider Children's Hospital in New Hyde Park, NY and included: Gail R. McIlvain-Simpson, MSN, RN, CS; Beth S. Gottlieb, MD; and Pamela J. Degotardi, PhD. They covered the many aspects of a multi-disciplinary treatment program based on cognitive behavioral therapy.

Dr. Gottlieb discussed medication options and the role of the physician in treating FM. She began with an overview of factors that increase and decrease symptoms in children or adolescents with FM. Almost all defining physical symptoms were identical to those characteristic of adult FM. Behaviorally, the main difference was that the children/adolescents tend to "overbook" themselves and wanted to be as active as possible. The treatment program teaches pacing, symptom management, and problem-solving. Each patient is carefully examined for other conditions that could indicate secondary Fibromyalgia, such as juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, lupus or inflammatory bowel disease.

Dr. Gottleib reported that in their juvenile patients, the tender points were most often in the neck and shoulders, the medial fat pad of the knee, and the joint line of the wrist. She described diagnostic criteria for children and adolescents that differed mildly from that of adults. Whereas adults must have pain in all four quadrants of the body for more than three months, children must have pain in only three sites for a period greater than three months, in addition to five or more activated tender points and three of ten minor criteria--such as anxiety, poor sleep, IBS, fatigue, or headaches.

At the Schneider Children's Hospital program, the physician's most important role is not the diagnosis of FM as much as the explanation of the diagnosis and the discussion of treatment options with the family. They encourage going back to school, maintaining normal daily function with fewer extracurricular activities, learning relaxation techniques, adjusting sleep patterns, and seeing a psychologist to assist in identifying and implementing lifestyle changes. They have found that medications are the least important part of treatment in children.

At the Schneider program, the staff functions as a team made up of a rheumatologist, a psychologist, a physical therapist, and a primary care physician. Communication between team members and reinforcement of the treatment protocol by the primary care physician is considered to be of the utmost importance in the success of their treatment program. It has been proven that the early integration of treatment into a child's lifestyle has a very positive effect on life-long outcomes.

According to the presenters, several of the medications commonly prescribed for adults with FM--including NSAIDS, muscle relaxants, analgesics, and trigger point injections--were found to have little or no effect in children with FM. Instead, only tricyclic anti-depressants tend to have a good response rate in their patients. Aerobic conditioning three times a week is also recommended to decrease pain. Alternative therapies such as biofeedback, acupuncture and magnet therapy have showed some promise among their patients, but none seemed to have a long-lasting effect. Supplements such as Kava Kava, Sam-e, St. John's Wort, magnesium, and others were discussed; however, it was noted that no studies have been done in children or adolescents to measure the safety and effectiveness of these therapies.

The most interesting part of the session was a discussion of the parent's role in helping their children cope with Fibromyalgia. The presenters stated that many parents had to be encouraged to remain calm after a diagnosis of juvenile FM syndrome was made; and they have found that both child and parent need to be confident in the treatment protocol. Parents are taught to encourage their children to resume normal activities and avoid illness-maintaining behaviors (such as a mother with FM treating her child with pity and empathy rather than encouraging well behavior). Parents are also asked to advocate for their children in educational and health system issues when necessary. All of these factors along with basic parental guidance are essential to the success of the program.

The program at Schneider Children's Hospital has treated over 150 children with FM. Their initial session is two hours, and follow-up includes psychological booster sessions and monthly meetings for six months. In addition, they meet regularly with all members of the staff to determine improvement and areas that need attention. http://pages.prodigy.net/turnip/childrenandteens.htm

Who Gets Fibromyalgia?

Just a paragraph describing who gets fibromyalgia.

posted 04-16-2002 01:05 AM            

WASHINGTON- Hospitals should not feed powdered infant formula to most premature or sick newborns because the powder isn't sterilized and could cause a rare but dangerous infection, the government warned Friday.

This is not a risk for healthy, full-term infants, who are fine if their parents mix the powdered formula at home, the Food and Drug Administration said. "We need to be really clear we don't have evidence that full-term, happy babies at home are at risk here," cautioned FDA special nutrition chief Christine Taylor. But neonatal intensive care units should try to use sterilized liquid formula for the more vulnerable babies in their care, the FDA advised.

The warning comes two weeks after Mead Johnson Nutritionals recalled a batch of its specialty formula called Portagen, after a premature infant in Tennessee was tube-fed the product and died of a rare infection. The worrisome germ is called Enterobacter sakazakii, which can cause meningitis, bloodstream infections or a deadly intestinal inflammation in newborns, especially premature infants or others with weakened immune systems. It's unclear where the germ originates, but it's causing growing concern.

A number of outbreaks have occurred in neonatal ICUs around the world, and there is "compelling evidence" that milk-based powdered formula is one source of infection, the FDA said. One study tested 141 samples of powdered infant formulas from a number of countries and found the bacteria present in 14 percent, the agency said in a letter sent Friday to hospitals nationwide. A

nd when doctors investigated last April's death in Tennessee, they found the bacteria in nine other infants in the same ICU, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this week. Both government agencies advised hospital ICUs to use sterilized liquid formulas instead of powdered ones for at-risk infants. If they must use a powdered form, make it with boiling water and then cool it before feeding, FDA advised.

posted 04-17-2002 11:03 PM            

MOSCOW, Russia --Russia is to carry out a health check on all its 33.5 million children in an attempt to discover why they have become so sickly.

The health of the nation's youth has deteriorated by more than 20 percent since the collapse of the former communist regime, the government said as it launched its campaign on Monday.

A third of army conscripts are deemed unfit to serve while Russia has a mortality rate that is about twice as poor as the United States.In Soviet times, about half of all newborn children were considered healthy, but that number has shrunk to just 30 percent now, Deputy Health Minister Olga Sharapova was reported by The Associated Press as saying.An average Russian 18-year-old school graduate now has allergies and two or three other illnesses, most of them in the intestines and nervous systems, Sharapova told a news conference.

Every third conscript is pronounced unfit for military service for health reasons.The nationwide check-up will continue until mid-December, and will include ultra-sound, biochemical and immune tests.

The results will be used to help the Cabinet reform the nation's cash-strapped pediatric health system.

Low wages blamed
Russia's poor health has had a knock-on effect on its demography. Its population has dropped by 4.3 million since the 1991 Soviet collapse, to about 144 million.

The country's infant mortality rate reached a peak with 20 deaths per 1,000 births in 1993, then dropped to 14.7 per 1,000 births last year. This compares with the U.S. rate in 2000 of seven in 1,000 infants dying before their first birthday.Health treatment has been compounded by low wages for those working in the sector. Take home pay for doctors is on average the equivalent of $100 per month.The deterioration of the public health system combined with broad poverty has left an increasing number of women with illnesses that affect their newborn children.

"The main cause for the decline in children's health is the extremely high number of sick women," Sharapova said. "A sick mother can't deliver a healthy child."Another cause for reproductive problems has been the increase in the number of youngsters having sex." Children begin sexual life as early as 14 or 12 years of age, and that increases the number of sexually-transmitted diseases affecting reproduction," Sharapova said.

Russia has the world's highest abortion rate, with two of three pregnancies ending in abortion. In 2000, about 10 percent of those who had abortions were aged 19 and younger.

Alexander Tsaregorodtsev, Russia's chief pediatrician, said the increase in the number of illnesses among older children could be explained in part by the spread of modern techniques such as ultra-sound that were rare in Soviet times.

posted 04-19-2002 09:35 PM            

Aluminum Toxicity in Infants and Children (RE9607)

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS

Committee on Nutrition

Although aluminum is the most abundant metal in the earth's crust and is ubiquitous in its distribution, it has no known useful biological function. Even though the element is present in small amounts in mammalian tissues, its toxic effect on living organisms has become clear only recently. Aluminum is now being implicated as interfering with a variety of cellular and metabolic processes in the nervous system and in other tissues.

ALUMINUM EXPOSURE

Humans are exposed to aluminum from a variety of environmental sources. Because aluminum sulfate (alum) is used as a flocculating agent in the purification of municipal water supplies, drinking water may contain high levels of aluminum. Aluminum cans, containers, and cooking utensils, as well as medications that contain aluminum, are also potential sources of exposure.[1]

Although an increase in body stores of aluminum as a result of transfer through the skin is probably negligible, exposure is common from the use of deodorants containing aluminum. Aluminum inhaled from dust is retained in pulmonary tissue and peribronchial lymph nodes but is largely excluded from other tissues. The aluminum concentration in pulmonary tissues does not correlate with that in other tissues.

The average dietary intake of aluminum by adults is probably 3 to 5 mg/d, of which about 15 mug is absorbed.[2] Most of the aluminum absorbed from the intestinal tract is excreted in urine, leaving total body aluminum stores of less than 30 to 40 mg. Individuals with normal glomerular filtration rates who increase their aluminum intake by ingesting aluminum-containing antacids increase their absorption and urinary excretion of the metal.[3] Healthy individuals seem capable of increasing their renal aluminum clearance from approximately 5% to about 50% of the glomerular filtration rate.[4,5] The low aluminum clearance normally present is largely related to the plasma binding of aluminum by a saturable plasma component at blood levels less than 200 mug/L.[5]

Aluminum levels in tissue are generally low in adults with normal renal function who have ingested large amounts of aluminum-containing antacids for years [4]; however, elevated plasma aluminum levels have been reported in healthy infants given aluminum-containing antacids.[6] In contrast, in patients with chronic renal failure, total body aluminum can be markedly increased from the ingestion of antacids containing aluminum. Bone and liver are the tissues most frequently affected by increased absorption and/or decreased clearance of aluminum.

POTENTIAL FOR TOXICITY
Renal Disease

In 1976, it was reported that the brain tissue of patients dying of a neurologic syndrome called dialysis encephalopathy had high concentrations of aluminum in the gray matter.[7] Two years later, a severe form of osteomalacic osteodystrophy (fracturing dialysis osteodystrophy) and dialysis encephalopathy was described, which occurred in patients undergoing dialysis with a dialysate prepared from tap water that contained large amounts of aluminum.[8] The epidemic-like occurrence of these diseases was largely eliminated by removing the aluminum from the water used to prepare the dialysate.

The first reports of pediatric patients with progressive encephalopathy similar to dialysis encephalopathy described some children who had not received dialysis at the time their symptoms first appeared.[9,10] The children had congenital renal disease and had received doses of aluminum-containing phosphate binders as high as 240 to 800 mg/kg per day for 4 to 12 months. Aluminum toxicity also has been reported from bladder irrigation with aluminum sulfate.[11] Many of these studies do not include data on aluminum levels in plasma and tissue.

A report in 1984 described three infants with azotemia in whom aluminum intoxication developed after treatment with aluminum hydroxide.[12] Biopsies of the iliac crest demonstrated severe osteomalacia and massive deposition of aluminum in the bone. In the same year, another child who had chronic renal failure and normal neurologic findings at 2 years of age was described.[13] This child developed encephalopathy by 8 years of age. The child had not received dialysis but had received aluminum-containing phosphate binders for 6 years. High concentrations of aluminum were found in serum samples and bone biopsy specimens. Other studies have confirmed that children with chronic renal failure who receive aluminum-containing antacids for control of hyperphosphatemia have increased serum aluminum concentrations and bone aluminum levels.[14-16] The data from these studies show a direct correlation between the oral aluminum dose and plasma aluminum concentrations. Plasma aluminum levels greater than 100 mug/L put individuals at risk for aluminum toxicity.[2,12,15] The precise threshold for toxicity is not known, but it may be lower than 100 mug/L.

Alternatives to treatment with aluminum-containing phosphate binders are available. Calcium carbonate has been shown to be superior to aluminum binders in the control of secondary hyperparathyroidism in adults and children with chronic renal failure.[17] Calcium acetate also has been shown to be a safe, effective binder of phosphate.[18] Calcium citrate should not be used as a phosphate binder, because citrate enhances aluminum absorption from dietary sources.[19]

One study has shown that aluminum does not accumulate in infants with chronic renal failure who are not exposed to aluminum-containing antacids or contaminated intravenous solutions.[20]

Intravenous Therapy

High concentrations of aluminum have been found in the bone, urine, and plasma of infants receiving intravenous therapy.[21,22] It has been shown that commercial albumin solutions and a number of substances frequently used as additives in the parenteral fluids given to premature infants may have high aluminum concentrations, including intravenous calcium and phosphorus salts as well as dextrose and mixed parenteral nutrition solutions.[21-23]

Aluminum loading has been observed in patients with normal renal function who receive long-term parenteral nutrition with aluminum-contaminated fluids.[24] The Food and Drug Administration has recommended that concentrations of aluminum in parenteral solutions should not exceed 25 mug/L.[23]

Infant Formulas

Data on the aluminum content of human milk and a variety of infant formulas [25-29] are shown in Table 1. The aluminum levels in all infant formulas are higher than those in human milk. The formulas containing the highest levels of aluminum are those with additives, such as calcium salts and soy protein, which contain aluminum as a contaminant.

There have been conflicting reports on the possibility of aluminum accumulation from infant formulas. One group of investigators have proposed that the aluminum present in infant formulas played a role in the development of aluminum toxicity in two neonates with renal failure.[25] Later, the authors conceded that other unrecognized sources of aluminum, such as intravenous fluids, may have contributed to the excessive aluminum loading in these infants.[30]

Other investigators [20,28] have found no evidence of aluminum accumulation from infant formulas. Formulas for premature infants seem to contain higher levels of aluminum than do standard formulas for term infants.[27,28] Therefore, there is a slightly higher aluminum intake and plasma aluminum concentration in premature infants than in term infants.[27] A provisional tolerable intake recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization [31] is 1 mg/kg per day. Infants fed formulas with even the highest levels of aluminum, 2.35 mg/L, at intakes as high as 200 mL/kg per day would receive an aluminum dose of less than 0.5 mg/kg per day.[26-28] Currently, the data are insufficient to recommend against the use of specialized formulas in premature infants; on the contrary, the nutritional advantages of premature infant formulas clearly outweigh the concern about the higher concentrations of aluminum in these products. However, it seems prudent to seek further reduction in the aluminum levels of infant formulas and to investigate whether aluminum accumulates in the tissue of premature infants fed formulas.

TREATMENT OF ALUMINUM TOXICITY

Deferoxamine administered intravenously has been shown to reduce the body aluminum burden and to ameliorate injury to the bone and brain in adults receiving hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis.[32] Deferoxamine also has been used successfully to treat aluminum toxicity in children.[33,34]

Although new cases of aluminum intoxication should be preventable in most instances, deferoxamine therapy seems beneficial for those with established aluminum toxicity; however, this therapy is not without hazards. It may cause a number of allergic reactions, including pruritus, wheals, and anaphylaxis. Other adverse effects include dysuria, abdominal discomfort, diarrhea, fever, leg cramps, and tachycardia. Cataracts and neurotoxicity also have been described.[35]

CONCLUSIONS

Dialysis encephalopathy and fracturing osteomalacia, which occur in hemodialysis units that use dialysis fluid contaminated with aluminum, have largely disappeared. This has been accomplished by establishing standards for safe concentrations of aluminum in dialysates. Infants, children, and adults with chronic renal failure who are not receiving dialysis have been shown to be at risk for aluminum intoxication from the oral administration of aluminum-containing phosphate binders. This complication should be avoided with the use of phosphate binders that do not contain aluminum and the use of other measures to control hyperphosphatemia.

A number of substances commonly administered intravenously, including calcium and phosphorus salts and albumin, have high levels of aluminum. Premature infants receiving intravenous fluid therapy may accumulate aluminum and show evidence of aluminum toxicity. Efforts are being made to reduce the levels of aluminum in products added to intravenous solutions; these efforts must continue.

Some infant formulas may contain relatively high concentrations of aluminum. The reported concentrations of aluminum in soy formulas and premature infant formulas are higher than those in other infant formulas. The potential impact of these formulas on the aluminum intake of premature infants and infants with impaired renal function should be recognized, although it is not clear that toxic effects result from the use of the formulas in these situations.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Aluminum-containing phosphate binders should not be administered to infants and children with renal failure.

2. Continued efforts should be made to reduce the levels of aluminum in products that are added to intravenous solutions that are used for premature infants and infants and children with renal failure.

3. Continued efforts should be made to reduce the aluminum content of all formulas used for infants, but especially soy formulas and formulas tailored specifically for premature infants.

4. In infants at risk for aluminum toxicity (renal failure and prematurity), attention should be paid to the aluminum content of the water used in reconstitution of infant formulas. http://www.aap.org/policy/01263.html

Who is Looking After Our Kid's?

CHAPTER 8

Toxic heavy metals: lead, cadmium, mercury, antimony and aluminum

Although other metals can be toxic under certain circumstances, lead, cadmium, mercury, antimony and aluminum are generally considered to be foremost in public health concerns. There is far more awareness of the health hazards from these toxic metals than from the volatile organic compounds, and therefore there is considerable progress in toxic metals control. Nevertheless, they still remain a health threat to the public, especially to children.

Lead
Numerous reports have shown that lead exposures in children can result in Intelligence quotient (IQ) deficits. (1,2) The incidence of documented lead toxicity in children has declined substantially since leaded gasoline was phased out in the early 1980s. Six potential sources for lead exposure remain:

Flaking lead paint in older buildings: Houses or apartments built before 1950 are almost certain to have lead paint on their walls. When construction occurred between 1950 and 1980, chances are about 50-50 that lead is present (although lead paint from houses was banned after 1972). Do-it- yourself lead testing kits are available for between $35.00 and $50.00.

Tap water in older buildings with lead pipes or in newer buildings in which lead solder was used to seal connections in the plumbing.

Outdoor soil contamination as a fallout from earlier years when leaded gasoline was used. Incompletely washed fruits and vegetables may contain traces of this contaminated soil. Another major source is outdoor dust blowing into houses.

Activities involving lead solder.
Some art supplies. Although lead has been outlawed for most paints, it is not outlawed in artist's paints.

Prolonged exposure at pistol and rifle firing ranges.
Older houses should be checked for lead. If lead paint is present, alternatives include removal of the paint, which should always be done by professionals with protective gear, or to repaint the surfaces, sealing in the older paint (check with local building codes).

It is probably advisable to check tap water for lead, unless it is certain there is no lead in the plumbing. Fruits and vegetables should be washed thoroughly. Houses should be kept free of dust.

Cadmium
Cadmium, a neurotoxin, has been implicated in mental retardation. (3) Increased levels have been found in placentas of mothers who smoke and may cause low birth weight in babies. (4) Children and pregnant women should not be exposed to passive tobacco smoking from second-hand smoke. Cadmium may also come from tap water when cadmium alloys have been used for soldering plumbing joints.

Mercury
Mercury is a neurotoxin. It tends to accumulate in the body and is not easily expelled. The classical necrological and disordered behavioral symptoms of mercury poisoning are exhibited in Alice in Wonderland by the Mad Hatter. For hatters in the Victorian era, mercury poisoning was an occupational hazard.

In 1989, the EPA banned mercury from indoor paints after the case of a four year old boy made severely ill as a result of indoor paint exposure. However, exterior coatings are still allowed to contain mercury, and stored paint manufactured before the ban may also contain mercury. (National Pesticide Telecommunication Network at 800-858-7378 maintains a listing of older paints that may contain mercury.)

Perhaps the most controversial and lively issue concerning mercury today surrounds the silver/mercury dental fillings. According to reports, mercury constitutes about 50% of these fillings. Because mercury vaporizes above 10°F, an estimated 3 to 17 mcg of mercury are absorbed daily into the system from mercury amalgams. The new composite, porcelain, or ceramic fillings should be used for all future dental work.

Antimony
High levels of antimony, sometimes used as a flame-retardant in pillows and mattresses, has been found in children with autism with significant frequency, according to Jon Pangborn, PhD, in his research report delivered at the Autism Research Institute Conference in Chicago in June of 1996.

Aluminum
Aluminum is a relative newcomer to the list of toxic metals, long having been considered harmless. It has been implicated as a contributory cause of Alzheimer's disease. (5) Elevated hair aluminum in children, especially when attended with elevations of lead, have been found to cause decreased visual motor performance. (6)

We routinely recommend hair tests for ADHD children, primarily as a screening test for lead. Rather surprisingly, the most consistent finding is that of elevated hair aluminum.

Aluminum comes from foods cooked or stored in aluminum pans and aluminum foil. Leafy vegetables, rhubarb, and apples cooked in aluminum pans are prone to leach the metal from the pan. Pressure cookers are especially likely to impart metal into the food. Tap water may contain aluminum when it is used in water reservoirs to flocculate silt from the water. Other sources include antacids taken for stomach trouble, some antiperspirants, food additives, and milk substitutes.

Clinical Management of Toxic Heavy Metals

We employ the hair test in screening for heavy metals, although blood tests for lead should also be done in ADHD and learning disabled children. When elevated levels are found, the first responsibility is to seek and eliminate the source as much as possible. When blood lead exceeds 10 mcg, the child should be referred to a medical center for appropriate therapy. This, however, is increasingly uncommon-we have yet to see a single case with this level.

Except in the more severe cases of heavy metal toxicity, we believe treatment should be nutritional, which works slowly but effectively and safely. Even here, if a child is ill and heavy metals are suspected as a contributory cause, treatment should not be attempted without professional guidance.

Treatment measures may include, but are not limited to, the following:

Vitamin C: increases the turnover rate of toxic metals and reduces damage by scavenging free radicals generated by the toxins. (7)

Sulfur-containing amino acids from sulfur-rich food such as garlic, onions, beans, and lentils.act as chelating or binding agents for the heavy metals,forming relatively inert bonds with the heavy metals, in which form they can be carried out of the body. (8)

Vitamin B1 (thiamine) contains a sulfide-containing thiazole ring, which acts in a similar manner.
Sulfide-containing amino acids: glutathione may be the most valuable.
In addition to garlic seasoning in foods, garlic capsules can be given.
Nutrient trace minerals including calcium,magnesium, zinc, manganese, copper, selenium, and iron, given as supplements, are of utmost importance in treating the child with heavy metal toxicity for two reasons. First, such a child will almost invariably be deficient in these minerals and, second, these minerals (especially calcium, zinc, copper, and iron) tend literally - to push the toxic metals out of the body as they are replenished. (8)
Blue-green algae or chlorella, taken as oral supplements, may be the single most effective preventive measure against mercury toxicity. Taken in combination with garlic, these supplements provide a rich supply of sulfhydryl groups, which combine with mercury and help to move it from its intracellular storage positions while at the same time disarming its toxicity. Research, although still in its early phases, tends to confirm this role.

It may not be inappropriate to end this chapter with a true story told by an attorney, Jon Pangborn at the Autism Research Institute Conference in June of 1996: Some years ago, there was a company in which employees had been made ill by lead exposure. The employees sued the company. The company's defense rested on one man, more directly exposed than other employees, who remained perfectly healthy. The company's attorney argued that if this man were not ill, then lead could not be the cause of illness in the others. As it turned out, the man in question was a Mexican. What do Mexicans eat? They eat beans. In this case, they protected the Mexican from the lead. When this knowledge was revealed, presumably the other employees won their case. http://www.oneflesh.org/Child-chap%208.htm

posted 04-21-2002 07:36 PM            

The University of California, Los Angeles' Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture looked at hepatitis A rates among 2.3 million Latino children in Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, San Bernardino and San Diego counties from 1996 to 2000.

Latino children in the five-county area have an average infection rate of 36 per 100,000, which is 80 percent higher than the threshold rate at which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends vaccinations. The threshold rate is 20 cases per 100,000.

``It's hard to think of any other major public health problem that can be so easily prevented among Latino children as hepatitis A,'' said David E. Hayes-Bautista, director of the center and principal author of the study, which was funded by GlaxoSmithKline, which makes a hepatitis A vaccine.

Researchers said their concern extended to the entire community because Latinos make up such a large proportion of food-handling workers and the disease is infectious. Hepatitis A is a viral infection of the liver. Symptoms include fever, malaise, anorexia, nausea, dark urine and jaundice, but in some cases, particularly in children, the symptoms are not noticeable.

The virus is spread by household or sexual contact with an infected person or by eating contaminated food or by drinking contaminated water. It also can be spread by the fecal-oral route: an adult could become infected after changing the diaper of an infected child and then failing to wash his or her hands.

Hepatitis A can be prevented by vaccination, which would reduce public spending for treatment and lost school days for children and reduce the risk of the virus spreading to non-Latino populations, according to the study.

Los Angeles County, which has the largest number of Latino children among the five counties studied, had a rate of nearly 34 per 100,000. The highest rate of hepatitis A was found in Riverside County, where statistics found 51 cases per 100,000. The problem could well extend beyond the Latino community, Hayes-Bautista said. Food handlers in Los Angeles County are predominantly Latino - 53.7 percent, according to the study. These food handlers often work in higher-income, non-Latino areas of the country.

``I wouldn't say, Don't eat out, but we suspect there could be a risk and we need to keep an eye on it,'' Hayes-Bautista said.

But a Los Angeles County Health Department official said adult food-handlers might not necessarily pose a risk.

``Hepatitis A, generally speaking, is a common infection,'' said Mike Tormey, an epidemiologist with the Los Angeles County Health Department, Acute Communicable Disease Control. ``Maybe 20, 30 years ago, half the adult population (nationwide) would have had evidence of hepatitis A antibodies,'' Tormey said. Thanks to improved health and sanitation in the United States, that has changed, but levels in Mexico remain high.

Many adult Latinos are already immune because they had the virus when they were very young, Tormey said. Someone who gets hepatitis A won't get it again and isn't a risk to transmit the virus once he or she is well. But he agreed that vaccination for children is important.

``Over the past few years we've been trying to get legislation, not just in L.A. County but statewide, to require hepatitis A vaccines for children entering kindergarten and preschool,'' Tormey said.

Hepatitis A vaccines are not mandatory for schoolchildren, but parents can get them for their children at county immunization clinics, he said.

Hayes-Bautista also noted that studies have shown that almost 89 percent of Latino children in Los Angeles were born in the United States, making the high hepatitis rate not an immigration issue, but one for Californians.

``Hepatitis A in Latino children is a domestic issue, involving young U.S. citizens, and it requires a domestic solution,'' Hayes-Bautista said. ``Unlike (hepatitis) B or C, which can live chronically in the liver and cause longer-term effects, hepatitis A doesn't do that,'' said Dr. Arthur Gomez, associate program director for the UCLA San Fernando Program in internal medicine at Sepulveda VA Hospital and Olive View Medical Center. ``A is more self-limiting; the danger is during the acute infection.''

Because hepatitis A is caused by a virus, treatment consists of addressing the symptoms, including diarrhea and dehydration, Gomez said.

In very rare cases, the patient can develop fulminant hepatitis, which can lead to significant liver damage, but for the most part, doctors just treat the symptoms and advise parents to take extra precautions with hygiene to prevent the virus from spreading, he said.

Karen Maiorca, director of nursing for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said the 722,000-pupil district reported only 17 cases of hepatitis A since July 1, 2001. In comparison, there were more than 120 cases of chicken pox.

posted 04-21-2002 09:54 PM            

Amid growing concern that overuse of antibiotics is making some bugs immune, doctors have documented the first large outbreak of antibiotic-resistant strep throat, at a Pittsburgh elementary school.

Some doctors suspect the resistant germs may have spread to other parts of the country - and may have developed resistance to more than one antibiotic.

"It's important for us to find out how widespread this is," said lead researcher Dr. Judith M. Martin of the Division of Allergy, Immunology and Infectious Disease at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

The jump in resistance was detected early last year at a private school, where roughly half the strep throat cases were found to be untreatable with erythromycin. All 46 children who were sickened by the resistant strain or infected but without symptoms were successfully treated with other drugs.

"It definitely went from one kid to another in the school and it also spilled over into the community," Martin said. "Where it started, I don't know."

Until now, antibiotics have easily killed group A streptococcus, the bacteria that cause strep throat and life-threatening septic infections, so doctors at the hospital were startled by its sudden, widespread resistance to widely used erythromycin. The drug is commonly given to people allergic to penicillin and to other patients.

Doctors suspect the strep bacteria also are becoming resistant to other popular drugs in the same antibiotic family, the macrolides. Their use is growing because they require only one dose a day, compared with three for many other antibiotics.

The study was reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Chris Van Beneden, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the CDC plans to investigate what factors might have led to the problem.

"It may be occurring in other places across the country," she added.

Dr. Lincoln P. Miller, head of the Newark infectious disease outpatient clinic at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, said the findings show doctors should limit use of all macrolide drugs.

"This is an important article because it indicates the impact of our antibiotic use on the bacteria around us," Miller said. "I would hazard a guess and say (this resistance is) fairly widespread."

Doctors have warned for at least a decade that antibiotics are losing their punch because overuse is making some germs immune. Antibiotic resistance has been growing in another type of streptococcus that causes pneumonia, but a recent survey of half the states found that less than 3 percent of group A streptococcus samples were resistant to erythromycin and closely related azithromycin.

In 1998, Martin began tracking group A streptococcus at the private school, taking thousands of twice-a-month throat cultures from children. In January 2001, the doctors began seeing many samples of the same group A strain resistant to erythromycin - in all, 48 percent over that winter. Forty-six of the students had the antibiotic-resistant form of strep throat.

In addition, a random check of samples from children treated for throat infections at Children's Hospital found 38 percent had the identical resistant strain.

posted 04-22-2002 12:10 PM            

LONDON (AP) - Couples are more likely to have a girl than a boy if either of the partners smoked heavily while they were trying to conceive, new research suggests.

Some scientists consider the ratio of male to female births to be an indicator of a population's health, because male sperm and embryos are more fragile than their female counterparts.

The study published this week in The Lancet medical journal is the first to propose that smoking may play a role. Normally, boys have a slight edge over girls, with almost 52 percent of all babies born worldwide being male. The balance tends to even out later in life because females are better at survival. However, the comparative number of males has been declining in several industrialized countries over the past few decades and researchers suspect toxic substances may be partly to blame.

Dr. Henrik Moller, who has conducted extensive research on sex ratios but was not connected with the latest study, said the findings "fit with what is already known about certain exposures, certainly in the male." The sex ratio is the proportion of one sex to the other in a given population and is expressed as the number of males for every 100 females. The sex ratio at birth in most countries is between 104 and 106 males to 100 females. It fluctuates within a narrow range from time to time in some areas but the general trend of the last 20 years has been downward. "The decline is absolutely minuscule, but it's there. It's genuine," said William James, a researcher at University College in London who has also studied sex ratios. The proportion of males "has declined in most developed countries.

In the United States it has gone down in the white population but up in the black population," said James, who was not involved in the study. "It has gone down in Italian cities, but up in the Italian provinces. It's moving all over the place and I think nobody really knows why." In the latest study, Japanese scientists recorded the sex of 11,815 newborns delivered in their clinic between December 2000 and July 2001. Each mother was questioned about her daily cigarette consumption and that of her partner around the time of conception - from three months before her last menstrual period until the time the pregnancy was confirmed.

The overall sex ratio among babies in the study was 104 boys to 100 girls. That equates to about 52 percent male. However, when the couples were grouped according to their smoking habits, the ratio changed.

When neither the mother nor the father smoked, there were 121 boys for every 100 girls, or 55 percent male infants. When both partners were pack-a-day smokers the ratio was 82 boys to 100 girls, or 45 percent male. When one partner smoked, the ratio favored girls, but wasn't quite as low as when both were smokers.

Moller, a professor at Imperial College in London, said there is no way to tell whether the father's smoking or the mother's smoking has more of an influence on the sex of the baby, nor how smoking exerts its power. "It's quite speculative how these things might work," he said. "You might think that it happens by selectively knocking out the sperm cells that give rise to a son. You could also think of other mechanisms, such as the probability of implantation of a male fertilized egg and a female fertilized egg would be different, or the probability of an early loss of a male embryo could be increased. It could be anything."

The researchers hypothesize that sperm cells carrying the Y chromosome - responsible for male children - are more sensitive to damage caused by smoking than sperm cells with an X chromosome. http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/apr/18/041808422.html

Black Infant Mortality Rate Is Worse
April 18, 2002

ATLANTA (AP) - Black infants in major U.S. cities are up to five times more likely than white infants to die in their first year of life, the government reported Thursday.

A 1995-98 study of the 60 largest U.S. cities found a median infant death rate of 13.9 deaths per 1,000 live births for blacks, compared with 6.4 for whites and 5.9 for Hispanics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Depending on the city, black infants were 1.4 to 4.8 times more likely than white infants to die in their first year, the CDC said. The CDC report is in line with previous studies that have found higher infant-mortality rates for black babies.

Health officials believe a mix of social, biological and environmental factors account for the racial disparity. Black mothers were more likely to have infants with very low birthweight, accounting for about two-thirds of the gap, the CDC said. Overall infant mortality rates tended to be higher in cities in the Midwest, Southeast and Northeast. Rates were lower in the West. http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/apr/18/041807202.html

Parents Give Up Kids for Better Care
April 16, 2002

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - For two years, Donna Uhlmansiek tried to get her 10-year-old son admitted to a state mental hospital. Finally a health care worker suggested she go to court and give custody of the boy to the state. Uhlmansiek was horrified by the idea. Instead of giving up her son, she became part of a national movement to change state laws that encourage desperate parents - unable to afford mental health care for their children - to relinquish custody.

A dozen states recently have changed their laws to allow children to more easily receive mental health treatment without their parents having to relinquish custody, according to the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington.

Other legislatures are considering such changes. In Missouri, legislation would prohibit courts from taking custody away from parents when the only issue is the child's need for mental health care. Legislation in Nebraska would allow the state health department to provide treatment without taking custody of a child.

Middle-class families like the Uhlmansieks are most likely to relinquish custody of their children, experts say. That is because they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford doctors and hospitals when insurance falls short.

The Uhlmansieks, whose son suffers from manic depression and is mildly retarded, had private insurance. But like most plans, it provided only 30 days of inpatient care. That had already run out. "We had no place to go. We had exhausted every agency, every place that we were aware of. We were hopeless," Uhlmansiek recalled with a quavering voice. Ultimately, the Uhlmansieks decided they had no choice but to give up their son. But on the day they went to court two years ago, they met a juvenile court officer at the courthouse. And the officer pulled some strings to get the boy into a state mental hospital.

Unlike the Uhlmansieks, Barbara French of Beulah, Mo., decided to relinquish custody of her teen-age granddaughter, who was later diagnosed as manic-depressive and suicidal. "I had no choice in order to get her into treatment," French said. "I just had to do it."

Parents who give up custody lose any say over their child's upbringing. And if the child is ultimately released from the mental hospital, the youngster can be placed in a foster home or another institution. Often, parents are encouraged to give up their children by hospital employees or social workers. "People are floored when they hear this - they have no idea that people are asked to relinquish custody of their kids in order to get services for their kids," said Darcy Gruttadaro, an attorney for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, based in Arlington, Va. A nationwide study by the organization found that about 20 percent of families with children with severe emotional problems turn their youngsters over to state custody.

The Missouri Division of Family Services, for example, estimated that 500 children are in its custody solely because their families could not otherwise obtain mental health care.

In many states, for parents to relinquish custody, a judge must decide that they are unable or unwilling to provide proper care. While the steps vary, typically this involves a parent petitioning the court; in some states, like Missouri, parents who take such a step also run the risk of being charged with abandonment or neglect. "We love our child," Uhlmansiek said. "I was so angry that me and my husband would have to be charged with a crime just to get our son the care he needed."

Children's advocates said state legislatures should provide more money to mental health efforts that would keep children at home. But with many states facing budget deficits, that is unlikely to happen.

In Missouri, the state Department of Mental Health said it can afford to treat just 20 percent of the 53,000 children it estimates would qualify for services. "No parent should have to make the decisions to give up their child just to get them the help that they need," said Uhlmansiek, who lives in suburban St. Louis. "Things need to be changed." http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/apr/16/041603108.html

Child Traffic Deaths at an All-Time Low, Overall Fatalities Remain Flat
Apr 22, 2002
By Nedra Pickler
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of children killed in auto crashes last year was the lowest since the government started tracking traffic deaths 36 years ago, according to figures released Monday.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported 2,658 children under 16 died in 2001, down 5.4 percent from the previous record low of 2,811 set the previous year. "There has been a lot of emphasis on protecting children and I think those efforts are starting to pay off," NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson said.

Many states in recent years have passed tougher laws requiring that children be belted or ride in safety seats. And several major automakers have developed programs to educate parents about proper use of restraints.

posted 04-26-2002 08:13 PM            

Team finds faulty gene that gives girls rashes
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
ISSUE 1826 Thursday 25 May 2000

THE cause of a disorder has been found which causes a blistering rash, brown swirls on the skin, missing teeth, bald patches, visual defects, strokes and seizures in infant girls.

A team at Cambridge University that has taken part in an international collaboration reports that a defect in a gene is responsible for the hereditary disorder called Incontinentia Pigmenti.

Sue Kenwrick, of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Mechanism in Disease and the Department of Medicine at Cambridge, said the condition was difficult to diagnose. Sufferers could often be treated for entirely different diseases, such as herpes or sepsis, a kind of blood infection.

posted 04-26-2002 08:22 PM            

Incontinentia Pigmenti

Incontinentia pigmenti (IP) is a rare, genetic disorder characterized by unusual patterns of discolored skin. The disorder is caused by excessive deposits of melanin (normal skin pigment).

IP is divided into 4 stages, which frequently overlap or appear together.

During the first stage, which begins between birth and 6 months of age, there is inflammation accompanied by skin redness and spiral lines of small fluid-filled blisters.

The second stage gradually develops with rough, warty skin growths which appear on the arms or legs and, sometimes, on the head or trunk. These growths, which are often arranged in the same spiral or linear pattern as in the first stage, usually resolve during infancy or early childhood.

The third stage begins between 3 months and 2 years of age and is characterized by discolorations appearing in unusual patterns.

The fourth stage consists of diminished pigmentation or atrophy in areas of previous discoloration.

In rare cases of IP, hair loss with scarring and non-dermatological symptoms such as dental problems (delayed tooth growth or decay, missing or malformed teeth), diminished vision, seizures, muscle spasms, or slight paralysis may occur. Developmental abnormalities including dwarfism or short stature, club foot, spina bifida, skull and ear deformities, cleft lip or palate, atrophy on one side of the body, abnormal development of cartilage, congenital dislocation of hip, incomplete development of one side of the spinal bones, and extra ribs or webbed fingers may occur with the disorder but are not characteristic.

In a few cases of IP, extremely wooly or kinky hair and an immune system dysfunction may also appear. The skin abnormalities of IP usually disappear by adolescence or adulthood without treatment. Diminished vision may be treated with corrective lenses, medication, or, in severe cases, surgery. Dental and hair problems may be treated by a specialist.

posted 04-26-2002 10:33 PM            

MILAN, Italy- Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, in which apparently healthy babies die inexplicably in their cribs, may be linked to infection with a common bacterium, preliminary research suggests.

Researchers told a conference on infectious diseases Thursday that a shock-producing byproduct of E. coli was found in the blood of all SIDS babies tested, but in none of the infants used as a comparison.

Experts not connected with the research said the toxic infection theory is plausible. SIDS describes unexpected deaths that autopsies can't explain.

Despite decades of research, scientists remain mystified by crib death, the top killer of babies aged between 1 month and 1 year in the industrialized world. Among the threats it has been tied to are sleeping position, passive smoke exposure and genetic vulnerability.

Infection is not a new idea, but this is the first time the specific E. coli protein has been implicated. Many researchers favor a theory that brain-stem birth defects somehow affect arousal reflexes, so that babies don't wake up when breathing, heart rate, blood pressure or temperature problems arise. However, some experts believe that such brain abnormalities may not be enough to cause death on their own.

"Mainstream researchers have concentrated on respiratory obstruction as a possible mechanism, without any evidence that would support such a mode of death," said Dr. Paul Goldwater, who presented his study at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Milan. "Those researchers ignored autopsy findings that consistently show wet, heavy lungs in SIDS babies. This is never seen" in cases of suffocation, said Goldwater, a researcher at the Women's and Children's Hospital in North Adelaide, Australia. Such a lung condition is often seen in cases of infection.

Autopsies also consistently show small hemorrhages on the heart and lungs - which is rare in suffocation - and the blood of SIDS babies is unclotted, which is something never seen in suffocation cases, he added. Furthermore, he said, SIDS deaths captured on medical monitors have shown that these babies died of a shock-like process, Goldwater said. "The serum from babies who have died of SIDS is toxic to chick embryos and mice - indicating the presence of a toxin," he said.

In his study, Goldwater tested the blood of 68 SIDS babies and 60 other babies - some of whom had died of other causes and some of whom were alive - for infections that could explain the autopsy findings in SIDS babies. He started with the common gut germ E. coli because varieties from SIDS cases are more often toxic to cells grown in a lab than are varieties found in healthy babies.

Sometimes, E. coli bacteria produce a protein called curlin, which scientists suspect may help the bacteria compete for a foothold in the competitive germ environment in the intestines, he noted. The bacteria itself was found in the intestines of all the SIDS babies, but only in 80 percent of the healthy babies. However, curlin was detected in the bloodstream of all 68 of the SIDS babies and none of the others, Goldwater said. "This indicated that curlin could be responsible for SIDS deaths, given the fact that curlin causes shock in laboratory mice," Goldwater said.