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25 February 2010
Nani Tee-ta and Cousin Ryan come to visit
The kids were thrilled to see you both. ANY TIME! Ryan - we'd love
to see you tomorrow night for dinner! xoxoxoxoxo
More on Pthalates - and plastics - and autism
just saw this article and wanted to publish it on my blog right away.
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Do Toxins Cause Autism?
Autism was first identified in 1943 in an obscure medical journal. Since then it has become a frighteningly common affliction, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting recently that autism disorders now affect almost 1 percent of children.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Nicholas D. Kristof
On the Ground
Readers' Comments
Share your thoughts.
Over recent decades, other development disorders also appear to have proliferated, along with certain cancers in children and adults. Why? No one knows for certain. And despite their financial and human cost, they presumably won't be discussed much at Thursday's White House summit on health care.
Yet they constitute a huge national health burden, and suspicions are growing that one culprit may be chemicals in the environment. An article in a forthcoming issue of a peer-reviewed medical journal, Current Opinion in Pediatrics, just posted online, makes this explicit.
The article cites "historically important, proof-of-concept studies that specifically link autism to environmental exposures experienced prenatally." It adds that the "likelihood is high" that many chemicals "have potential to cause injury to the developing brain and to produce neurodevelopmental disorders."
The author is not a granola-munching crank but Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, professor of pediatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and chairman of the school's department of preventive medicine. While his article is full of cautionary language, Dr. Landrigan told me that he is increasingly confident that autism and other ailments are, in part, the result of the impact of environmental chemicals on the brain as it is being formed.
"The crux of this is brain development," he said. "If babies are exposed in the womb or shortly after birth to chemicals that interfere with brain development, the consequences last a lifetime."
Concern about toxins in the environment used to be a fringe view. But alarm has moved into the medical mainstream. Toxicologists, endocrinologists and oncologists seem to be the most concerned.
One uncertainty is to what extent the reported increases in autism simply reflect a more common diagnosis of what might previously have been called mental retardation. There are genetic components to autism (identical twins are more likely to share autism than fraternal twins), but genetics explains only about one-quarter of autism cases.
Suspicions of toxins arise partly because studies have found that disproportionate shares of children develop autism after they are exposed in the womb to medications such as thalidomide (a sedative), misoprostol (ulcer medicine) and valproic acid (anticonvulsant). Of children born to women who took valproic acid early in pregnancy, 11 percent were autistic. In each case, fetuses seem most vulnerable to these drugs in the first trimester of pregnancy, sometimes just a few weeks after conception.
So as we try to improve our health care, it's also prudent to curb the risks from the chemicals that envelop us. Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey is drafting much-needed legislation that would strengthen the Toxic Substances Control Act. It is moving ahead despite his own recent cancer diagnosis, and it can be considered as an element of health reform. Senator Lautenberg says that under existing law, of 80,000 chemicals registered in the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency has required safety testing of only 200. "Our children have become test subjects," he noted.
One peer-reviewed study published this year in Environmental Health Perspectives gave a hint of the risks. Researchers measured the levels of suspect chemicals called phthalates in the urine of pregnant women. Among women with higher levels of certain phthalates (those commonly found in fragrances, shampoos, cosmetics and nail polishes), their children years later were more likely to display disruptive behavior.
Frankly, these are difficult issues for journalists to write about. Evidence is technical, fragmentary and conflicting, and there's a danger of sensationalizing risks. Publicity about fears that vaccinations cause autism — a theory that has now been discredited — perhaps had the catastrophic consequence of lowering vaccination rates in America.
On the other hand, in the case of great health dangers of modern times — mercury, lead, tobacco, asbestos — journalists were too slow to blow the whistle. In public health, we in the press have more often been lap dogs than watchdogs.
At a time when many Americans still use plastic containers to microwave food, in ways that make toxicologists blanch, we need accelerated research, regulation and consumer protection.
"There are diseases that are increasing in the population that we have no known cause for," said Alan M. Goldberg, a professor of toxicology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. "Breast cancer, prostate cancer, autism are three examples. The potential is for these diseases to be on the rise because of chemicals in the environment."
The precautionary principle suggests that we should be wary of personal products like fragrances unless they are marked phthalate-free. And it makes sense — particularly for children and pregnant women — to avoid most plastics marked at the bottom as 3, 6 and 7 because they are the ones associated with potentially harmful toxins.
24 February 2010
baby playdate 2/23
so much!! I really love some of these picture of Evelyn and her
buddies. <3 Thought I'd share - enjoy!
22 February 2010
Chapel Hill Winter 2010
Ernie is already three. And Evelyn almost 1 - hardest to believe we've
been coming here for 7 years. The shot of Evelyn reminds me so much
of Dru at this age, when he could barely pull up on the pawn! There's
a fuller set of this series on facebook as a video.
19 February 2010
$10 off Filing - Turbotax 2009 return
after searching and clicking through lots of bogus links I finally found one that works. It's only ten bucks, but I'm happy to use it!! Make sure to close turbotax before using this link or it won't work - just keep going on your taxes and when you are ready, close the window and click the link below. I get NOTHING from this - I'm just posting it because I want my friends to be able to trust a source that isn't loaded with viruses or spyware. <3
And I thought you would like it too. I can't wait to get our refund!! wh00p!
15 February 2010
11 February 2010
Mostly Ernie + sissy
a friend of mine from forever ago. Thank you facebook! Anyhow -
after lunch we hung out in her hotel room & the lighting was so good I
couldn't resist. Gosh they're cute. And the love each other so much!
07 February 2010
Oh how I love my kids
I was just looking through some pix from the last week or so and saw these three gems and decided to blog them. Ernie, sleeping, Evelyn, after tasting steamed broccoli for the first time (she LOVED it), and Dru being his silly self at a friend's house. <3 you guys. You are such a blessing, and I thank GOD every day for your health. As an added bonus they are adorable creatures, each with its own personality. I'll post pix of Ev eating the broccoli separately. She would have eaten the whole head if given the chance!
05 February 2010
M's M's
Mommy I want some Ms Ms. Sorry, Ernie. No. You need to eat your breakfast first. Mommy I want Ms Ms. What about 3s or Ws or Es, Ernie? Mommy I want M's M's. Ernie, finish your breakfast. (I was exhausted and in bed at this point, Evelyn was down for her nap, Dru was too - he's the culprit in the exhaustion today, had me up all night - he's home from school again - new round of antibiotics, i was trying to catch a few Zs). Mommy I want Ms Ms. Gene was on a call the whole time. Ernie tried to whittle down daddy's senses. Daddy I want M's M's. Ernie, Mommy told you to finish your breakfast (oh, why you might wonder that it's this late in the day and he hasn't finished his breakfast? We're working on that - the whole finishing what you asked for thing) ... I pull the covers over my head and Ernie goes tearing out in the kitchen. Gets the stepstool. Grabs the jumbo bag of peanut M&M's. Gene puts it up higher and puts away the step stool. Ernie grabs a chair from the kitchen. Finds skittles (the same bag that's been there since I hosted church lady bunco in September - wish I could say the same for the M&M's) brings them to Gene. No, Ernie - not until you eat your breakfast! When Ernie saw Gene eating the Skittles - how fast did he start eating his breakfast!!! LOL!!
04 February 2010
A message from Dru (when he was almost 5, Ernie was a little over 1) March, 2008.
Mom thought you might like these pictures of me and Ernie. Ernie is
a stinker ... if mom hasn't told you that already. He loves Dave's
backyard. (and ours too!) M om likes the picture where his hands are
on his hips defiantly. And then there's me. In Dave's brother Paul's
big rig! Wow! I honked the air horn, used the steering wheel, sat at
the wheel with the engine running, and even turned the truck off! And
there's more! The picture where I have a huge grin wa taken while I
was in the top bunk! WOW!
Anyway, hope you are all enjoying this fine day.
Love, Dru and Ernie
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