As soon as I saw the look of horror mixed with hope on my 13-year-old daughter’s face last weekend I knew what must have happened: Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez have called it quits. According to reliable innuendo, the pop megastars have ended their two-year relationship, leaving the editors of Tiger Beat magazine scrambling for meaningful content.
The couple are being coy about the reasons behind their split, although their age difference can’t help in this May-later-May romance: Bieber has three years until, like Gomez, he can legally drink. As for what a Bieber-Gomez wedding might have looked like, now we can only “dream out loud” (I know that doesn’t make any sense, but it is the name of Selina Gomez’s new signature fashion line for K-mart). Saddest, I think, is that the two jejeune celebrities will never know the sort of wedded bliss enjoyed by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, or Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.
Digital Vision
Not fun, but very safe: Crash helmets and packing peanuts are one way to prevent concussions.
Smørrebrød
Have you ever found that something you thought was a problem was actually a solution, like how you’re having a hard time finding clothes for a date, and then you get dumped? New research on autism spectrum disorders (ASD) suggests that vaccines, repeatedly accused of causing ASD, may actually play a role in preventing them. The study, which looked at nearly 100,000 Danish mother-infant pairs, found a strong association between maternal influenza infections during pregnancy and children’s subsequent development of autism. Additional risk factors included prolonged maternal fever and maternal antibiotic use. Researchers had also hoped to measure the effect of maternal pickled herring consumption, but they were unable to find a control group.
While this study joins a growing body of evidence suggesting that maternal inflammation plays a role in the development of autism, the report still only proves correlation and not causation, yada, yada, whatever. Dr. Coleen Boyle, director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was quick to point out in an interview that most infants whose mothers contract flu during pregnancy don’t develop autism, after which she reiterated the CDC’s recommendation that pregnant women be vaccinated against influenza. While I understand that this is just one intriguing study, I like to dream out loud of the day we confirm that, at least in some cases, autism is actually a vaccine-preventable disease. In my dream, I’m standing next to Jenny McCarthy.
Getting Your Bell Rung
A new study from the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania (CHOP) surveyed pediatricians and pediatric emergency medicine docs within the CHOP Care Network about their comfort levels with managing concussions. The conclusion: if you have a child in Philadelphia, ensure she wears a helmet at all times. The highlights: 30% of primary care providers and 68% of emergency providers felt their practice settings were “not always appropriate for management of concussions...”. So where then should I go if my child has a head injury in Philadelphia, Independence Hall? Maybe this explains why Sylvester Stallone talks that way.
Other highlights: 83% of emergency providers were likely to refer a patient with suspected concussion to a trauma surgeon. Because nothing helps the injured brain recover like a splenectomy. Of providers who reported they lacked access to concussion decision support tools, 96% believed having such tools would be helpful; presumably the other 4% would just ask a trauma surgeon what to do. Of course the fundamental problem here is that managing concussions properly requires a comprehensive evaluation of neurological function, which takes well over the 10 minutes allotted each patient in most urgent care settings. That’s why I propose a solution everyone in Philly can embrace: print copies of a do-it-yourself Sport Concussion Assessment Tool on cheesesteak wrappers.
Hive Of Fashion
As the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us yawns ever wider, the rich keep finding more exotic status symbols. According to a new study presented at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology the new it-bag might just be...an EpiPen. That’s right, peanut allergies are the latest marker of wealth, a trend that supports the hygiene hypothesis: kids who are not exposed to enough dirt and natural infections are more likely to suffer allergic disease. And nothing wipes away dirt like full-time domestic help. How long can it be until street vendors are hawking imported knock-off Medic Alert bracelets? I admit it may not come to pass, but hey, a guy can always dream out loud.