Children's Health Issues

A newly published study in the The Lancet indicates that living close to freeway traffic can negatively impact lung development in children.

Children's lungs tend to grow rapidly between the ages of 10 and 18, and this most recent study concludes that steady exposure to airborne pollutants during this age range can lead to short and long term respiratory challenges.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning not to give over-the-counter cold and cough medicines to children 2 years of age or under without consulting with one's doctor.

This warning is the result of research that was conducted in response to the deaths of three infants in 2005; all of them were found to have dangerous levels of pseudoephedrine, a nasal decongestant, in their systems.

Jealousy. Nowhere is this emotion more evident than in a toddler who suddenly finds a new baby in the house to gobble up mommy's and daddy's attention.

My mother-in-law once told me about walking into a room to see her then-5-year-old son about to smother his infant sister's (my wife) face with a pillow. In the same breath of laughter, she went on to tell of another time when she was nursing her youngest, when suddenly, her baby screamed in pain. My mother-in-law wheeled around to discover that her son had pinched his baby sister on the arm while he was behind his mother's back.

Before my wife gave birth to our first son, both of us were determined to raise him in a way that would help him feel physically and emotionally safe from the very first second that he arrived.

A part of our plan to help him feel loved and protected as much as possible was to sleep together as a family on a large mattress. The last thing we wanted to do was to put him in a crib to "cry it out."

Several months ago, we had a young lady in her teens visit our clinic from the States for an eating disorder. Over the four-year period preceding her visit with us, her weight fluctuated between 70 and 165 pounds.

Preface

Having a son of our own, it was crushing to read the following story about a mother and father losing their precious baby. I greatly respect and appreciate the courage that it must have taken for Christine Colebeck to share her experience with others. Thank you, Christine, for sharing Laura's story with us. Read more »

Preface:

One of our newsletter subscribers sent me the following interview that a journalist named Jon Rappoport did with a retired vaccine researcher a few years ago. Many thanks to Jon for giving us permission to share this interview with our subscribers.

- Ben Kim Read more »

Upon reading yesterday's Toronto Star newspaper, I came across a disturbing article that talked about cigars being dressed up to look like treats for children. The sub-heading for the article states:

Teens are falling for mint-chocolate flavoured, honey-dipped, sugar-tipped baby cigars because they're sweet, they're cheap and they're easy to get.

These cigarillos, or "baby cigars", are sold individually, are often displayed among or close to the store's selection of candies, smell and taste delicious, and may be perceived by children and teenagers as being less harmful and addictive than "adult" cigars and cigarettes. And while it is illegal to sell tobacco products to underaged individuals, the fact of the matter is that store owners often don't bother to check I.D. or even care if they are selling to kids. Read more »

My first born child was vaccinated at age 3 months with Diphtheria, tetanus, whole cell pertussis and oral polio. These were the vaccines available at that time and I was clueless. My child had an adverse reaction and died a few hours later.

When my daughter died, I was already pregnant with my next child. This was almost 20 years ago, so there was no internet to get easy access to vaccine info. In fact VRAN was just forming and the USA just formed the NVICP. The only info I had at that time was what our attorney was able to dig up. Which was actually enough to prove liability in his pertussis-brain injury case, but he was not able to prove causality and in Ontario law, both liability and causality must be proven. Of course science does not even know how the immune system functions, so it is almost impossible to prove causality without this knowledge in science. Read more »

From Our Mailbag:

Dr Kim,

I know that this has nothing to do with health, but since you seem to enjoy writing about Korean culture, I thought I would ask...why is it that so many young children from Korea have attended our elementary school in the past 3 years? I have a cousin who is a teacher in Los Angeles and she tells me that the same thing is happening there.

Wendy Griffin
Vancouver, British Columbia Read more »