At this point we’ve all survived Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber-Monday, and Giving Tuesday (unless you didn’t survive, in which case, condolences). Since Thanksgiving already has dibs on Thursday, time is running out to name the two remaining days of the week. Before someone else gets to it, I’m proposing My-Gosh-I’m-Already-Broke Sunday and Can-We-All-Just-Get-Some-Work-Done-Wednesday. Oh, and don’t think of stealing those ideas. I made good use of Copyright-Registration Leap Day.
Void Where Prohibited
Don’t you hate it when you buy a product based on hype, and then it doesn’t do what you thought, like that time I shelled out $9.95 for a Smart Money Clip, and after a week my bills still couldn’t answer even the simplest question? Apparently the folks over at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) hate it too, especially when the product claims to save lives but actually does the opposite. Last week, rather than asking for a full refund (the free gift is yours to keep), the CDC joined the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in publishing a study of 13 cases in which infant sleep positioners (ISP’s) contributed to infant suffocation. You might imagine that retailers rushed to stop selling the positioners after the last CDC warning two years ago. If you believe that, can I interest you in a Smart Money Clip?
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You've survived Black Friday, but what about My-Gosh-I'm-Already-Broke Sunday?
This time around the CDC is calling in its big brother, the Food And Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA folks are also peeved; they have actually approved a handful of ISP’s for the management of specific conditions such as GERD and plagiocephaly. But many of the un-licensed ISP’s on the market carry claims about preventing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, improving overall health, and enhancing sleep comfort. Before you get all up in the FDA’s face talking smack that you can’t back up, you’d better go ask the infant decongestant people how that went for them. I think I know how this showdown is going to turn out. If you don’t believe me, just ask my money. It’s brilliant.
Bébé Sans Vin
I admit it: I’m one of those Americans who think that if the French do something, it’s probably better. French fries, French braids, The French Laundry, I just wish we had that stuff here in the States! But now a new study out of, where else, England, casts doubt on the very French idea that moderate alcohol intake during pregnancy is harmless for babies. The British researchers figured out a clever way to control for the problem that moderate maternal drinkers are more likely to be better educated and from a higher social class (in other words, more French) than heavier drinkers or teetotalers: they used genetics.
I was taken aback by their definition of “moderate” drinking. At less than six glasses of wine a week, the investigators set the bar at what we here in the South call “just getting started.” Even at that low level, it turned out that mothers who metabolized alcohol faster had smarter babies than those whose sluggish livers exposed their fetuses to higher peak blood alcohol levels. My hope is that one of our brilliant alcohol-free American babies will one day invent a food that is superior to French Toast. I would totally drink to that.
The Girl Who Kicked Methylphenidate
A large Swedish study suggests that investing more money in treating adult ADHD could save a lot on expenditures for law enforcement and incarceration. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute, looking for a way to pass the long, sunless winter, decided to track the criminal behavior of over 25,000 Swedish adults who had been diagnosed with ADHD. Their task was complicated by the fact that all crime in Sweden is conducted by ultra-wealthy, secretive families living on isolated estates. Nevertheless, they found that men who continued taking stimulants for ADHD were 32% less likely to commit crimes than those who stopped their meds; for women the number was an even more astonishing 42%. Researchers failed to comment on how many of their female subjects were psychologically scarred, heavily tattooed vigilantes, but I can only assume it’s 100%, and, meds or none, I wouldn’t mess with her, and neither would my money.
David L. Hill, M.D, FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro (AAP Publishing 2012).