The Government Has Your Baby’s DNA
February 5, 2010
CNN
By Elizabeth Cohen
When Annie Brown’s daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them: Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis.
While grateful to have the information — Isabel received further testing and she doesn’t have the disease — the Mankato, Minnesota, couple wondered how the doctor knew about Isabel’s genes in the first place. After all, they’d never consented to genetic testing.
It’s simple, the pediatrician answered: Newborn babies in the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it’s often done without the parents’ consent, according to Brad Therrell, director of the National Newborn Screening & Genetics Resource Center.
In many states, such as Florida, where Isabel was born, babies’ DNA is stored indefinitely, according to the resource center.
Many parents don’t realize their baby’s DNA is being stored in a government lab, but sometimes when they find out, as the Browns did, they take action. Parents in Texas, and Minnesota have filed lawsuits, and these parents’ concerns are sparking a new debate about whether it’s appropriate for a baby’s genetic blueprint to be in the government’s possession.
“We were appalled when we found out,” says Brown, who’s a registered nurse. “Why do they need to store my baby’s DNA indefinitely? Something on there could affect her ability to get a job later on, or get health insurance.”
According to the state of Minnesota’s Web site, samples are kept so that tests can be repeated, if necessary, and in case the DNA is ever need to help parents identify a missing or deceased child. The samples are also used for medical research.
Art Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, says he understands why states don’t first ask permission to screen babies for genetic diseases. “It’s paternalistic, but the state has an overriding interest in protecting these babies,” he says.
However, he added that storage of DNA for long periods of time is a different matter.
“I don’t see any reason to do that kind of storage,” Caplan says. “If it’s anonymous, then I don’t care. I don’t have an issue with that. But if you keep names attached to those samples, that makes me nervous.”
DNA given to outside researchers
Genetic testing for newborns started in the 1960s with testing for diseases and conditions that, if undetected, could kill a child or cause severe problems, such as mental retardation. Since then, the screening has helped save countless newborns.
Over the years, many other tests were added to the list. Now, states mandate that newborns be tested for anywhere between 28 and 54 different conditions, and the DNA samples are stored in state labs for anywhere from three months to indefinitely, depending on the state. (To find out how long your baby’s DNA is stored, see this state-by-state list.)
Brad Therrell, who runs the federally funded genetic resource consortium, says parents don’t need to worry about the privacy of their babies’ DNA.
“The states have in place very rigid controls on those specimens,” Therrell says. “If my children’s DNA were in one of these state labs, I wouldn’t be worried a bit.”
The specimens don’t always stay in the state labs. They’re often given to outside researchers — sometimes with the baby’s name attached.
According to a study done by the state of Minnesota, more than 20 scientific papers have been published in the United States since 2000 using newborn blood samples.
The researchers do not have to have parental consent to obtain samples as long as the baby’s name is not attached, according to Amy Gaviglio, one of the authors of the Minnesota report. However, she says it’s her understanding that if a researcher wants a sample with a baby’s name attached, consent first must be obtained from the parents.
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BPAs in Food Packaging
January 18, 2010
The New York Times
By Denise Grady
In a shift of position, the Food and Drug Administration is expressing concerns about possible health risks from bisphenol-A, or BPA, a widely used component of plastic bottles and food packaging that it declared safe in 2008.
The agency said Friday that it had “some concern about the potential effects of BPA on the brain, behavior and prostate gland of fetuses, infants and children,” and would join other federal health agencies in studying the chemical in both animals and humans.
The action is another example of the drug agency under the Obama administration becoming far more aggressive in taking hard looks at what it sees as threats to public health. In recent months, the agency has stepped up its oversight of food safety and has promised to tighten approval standards for medical devices.
Concerns about BPA are based on studies that have found harmful effects in animals, and on the recognition that the chemical seeps into food and baby formula, and that nearly everyone is exposed to it, starting in the womb.
But health officials said there was no proof that BPA was dangerous to humans.
“If we thought it was unsafe, we would be taking strong regulatory action,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the principal deputy commissioner of the drug agency, at a news briefing.
Nonetheless, health officials suggested a number of things people could do to limit their exposure to BPA, like throwing away scratched or worn bottles or cups made with BPA (it can leak from the scratches), not putting very hot liquids into cups or bottles with BPA and checking the labels on containers to make sure they are microwave safe. The drug agency also recommended that mothers breastfeed their infants for at least 12 months; liquid formula contains traces of BPA.
BPA has been used since the 1960s to make hard plastic bottles, sippy cups for toddlers and the linings of food and beverage cans, including the cans used to hold infant formula and soda. Until recently, it was used in baby bottles, but major manufacturers are now making bottles without it. Plastic items containing BPA are generally marked with a 7 on the bottom for recycling purposes.
The chemical can leach into food, and a study of more than 2,000 people found that more than 90 percent of them had BPA in their urine. Traces have also been found in breast milk, the blood of pregnant women and umbilical cord blood.
Reports of potential health effects have made BPA notorious, especially among parents, and led to widespread shunning of products thought to contain the chemical. Canada, Chicago and Suffolk County, N.Y., have banned BPA from children’s products.
The government will spend $30 million on BPA research in humans and animals, to take place over 18 to 24 months, health officials said at a news briefing on Friday.
Dr. Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said the research would involve potential effects on behavior, obesity, diabetes, reproductive disorders, cancer, asthma, heart disease and effects that could be carried from one generation to the next.
Activists on both sides of the passionately debated issue said they were disappointed in the government’s action. The American Chemical Council, which represents companies that make and use BPA, issued a statement saying BPA was safe, praising the health agencies as confirming that there was no proof of harm to people by it, but also saying, “We are disappointed that some of the recommendations are likely to worry consumers and are not well founded.”
Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, said the F.D.A. had not gone far enough, because its recommendations put the responsibility on families and not on companies making products containing BPA. In addition, Ms. Zuckerman said, the focus on safety should not be limited to children, because studies have linked the chemicals to heart and liver disease and other problems in adults.
Government evaluations of BPA have had a contentious history. The drug agency wrote a draft report calling it safe in 2008. But shortly after that, the National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, said BPA was cause for “some concern,” citing the same issues that the drug agency is now agreeing to: potential effects on the brain, behavior and prostate in fetuses, infants and children.
Then the drug agency asked an independent panel of scientific advisers to review its draft report, and the panel gave it a scathing review. It accused the F.D.A. of ignoring important evidence and giving consumers a false sense of security about the chemical. The drug agency promised to reconsider BPA, and the announcement on Friday fulfilled that pledge.
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Study Pushes Baby Formula For Profit Over Natural Breast Feeding
January 8, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
A recent study lauding the benefits of fortified infant formula has been greeted with skepticism by child development specialists, who suspect that the study is only the first part of an attempt to promote formula over breast milk.
“It is clear that the food industry fascination with nutraceuticals (strategically fortified food products) is now spreading into infant formula,” said Barbara Moore of Shape Up America! “This is a disturbing new development. We have parents thinking that sticking their tiny infants in front of a Baby Einstein video will improve their child’s mental development when the data suggest that parent-child interactions (and plenty of them) are the most critical factor for such development. Now parents will be encouraged to forego breastfeeding — which is optimal for both mothers and babies — in favor of a hyped up infant formula.”
A recent study concluded that children who consumed infant formula fortified with the omega-3 fatty acid DHA had higher cognitive function than children who consumed unfortified formula. Breastmilk was not included in the study, and the formula used in the study was provided for free by a manufacturer.
Miriam Labbok of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill said she was doubtful about the study’s findings.
“It might be reasonable from these industry-funded studies to consider that this would be a good additive to formula if you are forced to stop breastfeeding,” she said. “However, 1) none of these studies compare to continued breastfeeding, 2) you could also get these [nutrients] from other sources if you stop breastfeeding, and 3) there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other components in human milk that cannot be replaced.”
Pediatrician Lori Feldman-Winter of New Jersey noted that many mothers come to her believing that DHA-fortified milk is healthier for their infants than breastmilk.
“The marketing has actually dissuaded mothers from choosing exclusive breastfeeding, which is preferred from all the outcomes that we understand,” she said.
All major health and pediatric associations recommend exclusive breastfeeding for at least the first six months of life, if not longer.
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 12-29-09
Today, Kevin gives you his recession survival tips and ways to avoid the toxins that are giving you cancer. Suzanne Somers stops by to expose the truth behind improving your health to avoid and cure cancer without the use of chemotherapy! Plus, The Amazing Kreskin reveals the secret to being the world’s greatest mentalist and reflects back on his 50 year career.
The Only Answer to Cancer
Lead in Face Paint
Bug Spray Blamed for Infant Death
Healing Power of Apple Cider Vinegar
Transform Your Body
Contaminated Beef Solution
Manifest Your Desires
BPA Contaminated Foods
Secure Your Wealth
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Newspaper calls for Worldwide One Child Policy
December 11, 2009
Financial Post
By Diane Francis
The “inconvenient truth” overhanging the UN’s Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.
A planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.
The world’s other species, vegetation, resources, oceans, arable land, water supplies and atmosphere are being destroyed and pushed out of existence as a result of humanity’s soaring reproduction rate.
Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world’s leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation, thanks to its one-child-only edict.
The intelligence behind this is the following:
-If only one child per female was born as of now, the world’s population would drop from its current 6.5 billion to 5.5 billion by 2050, according to a study done for scientific academy Vienna Institute of Demography.
-By 2075, there would be 3.43 billion humans on the planet. This would have immediate positive effects on the world’s forests, other species, the oceans, atmospheric quality and living standards.
-Doing nothing, by contrast, will result in an unsustainable population of nine billion by 2050.
Humans are the only rational animals but have yet to prove it. Medical and other scientific advances have benefited by delivering lower infant mortality rates as well as longevity. Both are welcome, but humankind has not yet recalibrated its behavior to account for the fact that the world can only accommodate so many people, especially if billions get indoor plumbing and cars.
The fix is simple. It’s dramatic. And yet the world’s leaders don’t even have this on their agenda in Copenhagen. Instead there will be photo ops, posturing, optics, blah-blah-blah about climate science and climate fraud, announcements of giant wind farms, then cap-and-trade subsidies.
None will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed. Unfortunately, there are powerful opponents. Leaders of the world’s big fundamentalist religions preach in favor of procreation and fiercely oppose birth control. And most political leaders in emerging economies perpetuate a disastrous Catch-22: Many children (i. e. sons) stave off hardship in the absence of a social safety net or economic development, which, in turn, prevents protections or development.
China has proven that birth restriction is smart policy. Its middle class grows, all its citizens have housing, health care, education and food, and the one out of five human beings who live there are not overpopulating the planet.
Click here for the full report
Docs Not Giving Clear Advice on Infant Sleep Positions
December 8, 2009
WebMD
By Kelli Miller Stacy
Despite warnings that it is safest to place a baby to sleep on his or her back, the number of caregivers doing so has not increased in recent years, according to a new report.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s “Back to Sleep” campaign began in 1994 after compelling evidence showed that babies who slept on their backs had a much lower risk for sudden infant death syndrome ( SIDS). In the U.S., SIDS is the No. 1 cause of death in children under age 1.
Since the campaign began, the number of babies being put to sleep on their backs jumped from 25% to 70%. But the number of caregivers heeding the advice has not changed since 2001, say Yale School of Medicine researchers.
The researchers looked at how 15,000 caregivers positioned their babies to sleep since the campaign launch, using information from the National Infant Sleep Position Study, an annual telephone survey of about 1,000 households with infants. The survey asks nighttime caregivers of babies 7 months old and younger: “Do you have a position you usually place your baby in?”
The study also revealed a racial disparity in sleeping positions. “We … found that African Americans still lag behind caregivers of other races by about 20 percent in following this practice,” Eve Colson, MD, associate professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, says in a news release.
Choosing Sleep Positions
Colson and her team recently identified three key factors associated with a caregiver’s choice of an infant’s sleeping position:
* Whether the caregiver was told by a doctor to place the baby to sleep on the back
* Concerns for the baby’s comfort
* Fear of the infant choking while sleeping
While a third of the caregivers surveyed said their doctor did recommend putting their babies to sleep on the back, others said they either were given other advice or did not receive a recommendation at all.
More than a third of those surveyed said they didn’t think the baby would be comfortable sleeping on his or her back. Those who did not bring up this concern were four times more likely to follow the Back to Sleep guidelines.
Ten percent of caregivers said they thought their infant might choke while sleeping on his or her back. However, those who did not report this concern were much more likely to put their babies in the back position.
“For the vast majority of infants, concerns about choking while back sleeping are unfounded,” Marian Willinger, PhD, special assistant for SIDS research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), emphasizes in a news release. “Placing infants on their backs for sleep remains the single most effective means we know to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome.”
Willinger notes that in certain health conditions, a doctor may recommended against back sleeping, but only after carefully weighing the risks and benefits to the infant.
Click here for the full report
Vaccines are Like Loaded Guns
November 23, 2009
Dr. Tenpenny
We’ve all been taught that germs are bad and they are lurking around every corner, waiting to invade defenseless humans. Doctors and the media talk about swine flu as though getting the flu is an inevitable catastrophe unless, of course, we are injected with the life-saving flu shot. We go to great lengths to combat these potential invaders: frequent hand-washing, learning to cough in our sleeves and grimacing at the thought of eating a morsel retrieved from the floor. Is all this necessary? Or is there a different view?
When it comes to consent to medical care, the focal point of the debate over a minors’ access to confidential services and the right to determine his or her own care originated in 1970 with the passage of the Title X family planning program. Since its inception, services supported by Title X have been available to anyone who needs them without regard to age.
Minors can have access to all types of care, but even with parental support do not have the right to refuse.
Specific levels of…antibody post- (after) vaccination with inactivated influenza virus vaccine have not been correlated with protection from influenza illness. In some human studies, antibody titer of ≥1:40 have been associated with protection from influenza illness in up to 50% of subjects.
What this says, in plain language, is that developing an H1N1 antibody after getting an H1N1 vaccination has no correlation with not getting sick. And that a sizable antibody level (i.e. 1:40 or greater) only protects up to 50% of people from getting the flu.
Much concern has been generated over the upcoming new swine flu H1N1 vaccines that are being rushed to market. However, the problems with flu shots go beyond current concerns. The new manufacturing process, called cell-line technologies, are little understood and have the potential for serious, long term consequences.
The FDA has awarded H1N1 contracts to the following companies: CSL, Novartis, Sanofi Pasteur and MedImmune (FluMist) for use in the U.S. Their package inserts became public knowledge in recent weeks.
All four vaccines list hypersensitivity to eggs as a contraindication…While parents are instructed not to feed their infant eggs until 1 year of age, these same infants will be exposed to eggs by way of their H1N1 vaccine and/or seasonal flu vaccine beginning at 6 months of age.
Click here for the full report
Flu Outbreak Slowing in California
November 20, 2009
Los Angeles Times
By Rong-Gong Lin II
California health officials reported Thursday that flu- related deaths and hospitalizations slowed last week but emphasized that the H1N1 strain is still a major concern.
Deaths statewide remain in the double digits, and hundreds of people are still being hospitalized each week, authorities said.
“We are still seeing widespread disease throughout the state,” said Dr. Mark Horton, state health officer. But, he said, “we have not seen increases week by week.”
Many of the outbreaks are spreading in the schools, Horton said.
In California, 21 H1N1- related fatalities were reported last week, down from a peak of 31 the previous week.
In all, 689 people were hospitalized last week for the H1N1 flu, also known as the swine flu. That figure is higher than the previous week, when 560 were reported, but is down from a peak of 773 for the week that ended on Halloween.
The hospitalization figures include people not hospitalized when they died from the H1N1 flu.
So far this year, 318 people in California have died from the H1N1 flu and more than 6,000 have been hospitalized.
Delays in vaccine distribution continue to be a problem. Officials had predicted that California would receive 6.5 million doses of H1N1 vaccine by the end of October, but because the manufacturing process has been slower than expected, by mid-November the state had received only 5.8 million doses.
That amount covers about one-quarter of the population who are in priority groups for the vaccine, which include toddlers, children, teenagers, young adults, adults with medical conditions like asthma and caretakers of infants too young to get the vaccine.
“We are still seeing significant delays in vaccine moving to the state,” Horton said. “There will be shortages and delays at the local level.”
Almost all of the flu virus circulating in the state and across the nation has been identified as the H1N1 strain.
Officials cautioned against using the leveling off of hospitalizations and deaths as a predictor of how the flu would affect California for the next few months.
“What we’ve said about this pandemic, it is totally uncharacteristic to what we have seen in the past,” Horton said. “We are continuing to describe [what happens] on a week-by-week basis . . . but it would be inappropriate at this time to try to predict what’s going to happen.”
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BPA Effects Getting Closer Looks
November 13, 2009
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
The Endocrine Society has issued an official statement expressing concern over the health effects of the common industrial chemical bisphenol A (BPA).
BPA is widely used to make plastics products hard and transparent, such as in water or baby bottles, and is also used to line cans of food or infant formula. Research has shown that the chemical can leach from these materials into food, however, and a number of tests have found high levels of BPA in the bodies of both adults and children.
This is an issue of particular concern because BPA is a known endocrine disruptor, disrupting the operation of vertebrate hormonal systems.
Although the FDA insists that BPA is safe, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences issued a report last year expressing concern over the chemical’s effects on the development of the brain and prostate gland.
In new research presented to the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, scientists found that BPA can induce an uneven heart beat in female mice
“These effects are specific on the female heart. The male heart does not respond in this way and we understand why,” researcher Scott Belcher said.
BPA mimics the effects of the female sex hormone estrogen in the body.
Another study found that BPA can induce changes at the genetic level by binding to DNA and changing its function.
“We exposed some mice to bisphenol A and then we looked at their offspring,” researcher Hugh Taylor said. “We found that even when a they had a brief exposure during pregnancy … mice exposed to these chemicals as a fetus carried these changes throughout their lives.”
A third study raised concerns that BPA exposure may be even more widespread than previously believed. Researcher Frederick Vom Saal and colleagues from the University of Missouri found that monkeys are able to quickly clear BPA from their bodies, suggesting that humans with high blood levels are being repeatedly exposed to the chemical.
“We are really concerned that there is a very large amount of bisphenol A that must be coming from [unknown] sources,” Vom Saal said.
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Scientists Claim Cancer Can Pass from Mother to Infant
October 19, 2009
ExamHealth.com
By Deborah Mitchell
Researchers say they have determined without a doubt that in rare cases, cancer can be transmitted from a mother to her infant in the womb. The report comes after a team of scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research conducted a thorough investigation of a case in which a 28-year-old mother passed along cancer to her infant daughter.
Dr. Anthony Ford, of the Institute of Cancer Research and one of the authors of the study, noted in a recent interview on The World on Public Radio International that there have been only 20 to 30 reported cases of cancer passing from mother to infant in the last 200 years. This latest case is unlike the others, however, because scientists were able to determine how and why the cancer cells were able to pass to the fetus and develop into cancer.
According to Dr. Ford, the cells that normally would be prevented from passing to the fetus through the placental barrier changed their compatibility so that they resembled the infant’s own cells. Because the infant’s immune system did not recognize that the cells were foreign, it did not attempt to destroy them as it normally would do.
In this most recent case, the mother had undiagnosed leukemia during her pregnancy, died several months after giving birth, and then her infant daughter developed a tumor in her jaw that was detected at age 11 months. When the doctors conducted tests of the tumor, they found that it contained leukemia lymphoma cells, and that the cancer had spread to the child’s lungs.
The scientists also determined that the cancer cells of both mother and baby carried the identical mutated cancer gene, but that the girl had not inherited the gene. Using advanced genetic fingerprinting, the scientists were able to prove that the cancer cells were passed from the mother to her infant.
Professor Mel Greaves, who headed the study at the Institute of Cancer Research, noted in the release on the Institute’s website that “We are pleased to have resolved this longstanding puzzle. But we stress that such mother to offspring transfer of cancer is exceedingly rare and the chances of any pregnant woman with cancer passing it on to her child are remote.”
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