Parent test, Bladder med warning, Vioxx returns, FDA cheese, HPV experimentation, Philippines polio, Food as medicine, Farm to table schools and MORE!

Oct 15, 2019 3-5PM ET

Tuesday on The Robert Scott Bell Show:

Pittsburgh Wants to “Predict” If You Deserve to be a Parent at the Birth of Every Child Imagine a day where every child born in a hospital gets ranked on whether or not their parents will be good enough parents to take care of them, and a risk score is attached to that child based on how the government views the child’s parents. If the risk score is too low, the parents do not get to take their child home. The child is seized by the government and assigned new parents through the multi-billion dollar foster care system. Does this sound like something terrible from a science fiction movie? Or something that might happen in other tyrannical countries where parents have little or no choice over how their children are raised? This system is actually already in place and is already being used in many states all across the U.S. Richard Wexler from the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform published an excellent piece last week on the topic of “Predictive Analysis” in child welfare, and how Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh and surrounding suburbs, is now using a system like this to label every child born in the county with a “risk score” which supposedly tells Child Protective Services how likely parents are to abuse their newborn children.

More evidence linking common bladder medication to a vision-threatening eye condition A drug widely prescribed for a bladder condition for decades, now appears to be toxic to the retina, the light sensing tissue at the back of the eye that allows us to see. After an initial report last year that Elmiron (pentosan polysulfate sodium) may be associated with retinal damage, three ophthalmologists conducted a review of patients at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California. They found that about one-quarter of patients with significant exposure to Elmiron showed definite signs of eye damage, and that this medication toxicity could masquerade as other known retinal conditions, such as age-related macular degeneration or pattern dystrophy. The research will be presented today at AAO 2019, the 123nd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

 Vioxx, Once Vilified Like Thalidomide, May Also Return To The Market Thalidomide holds a special place in drug discovery lore. Initially marketed in Europe in the 1950s to help pregnant women overcome morning sickness and to help them sleep, thalidomide was found to be a teratogen – a compound that interferes with the growth of a fetus thus leading to birth defects. Thousands of babies were born with severe deformities as a result of this drug. Fortunately, the FDA never approved thalidomide thanks to the diligence of FDA reviewer Dr. Frances Kelsey. Despite being approved in Europe, Kelsey demanded additional test data, delaying FDA approval and thereby sparing Americans the misfortunes experienced in Europe. As a result of her actions, Kelsey was awarded the President’s Award for Distinguished Civilian Service by President John Kennedy. In addition, due to the public alarm that arose from this horror, Congress passed the Kefauver-Harris Drug Act in 1962 that revamped and toughened the U.S. drug approval process.

Doctors Petition FDA to Require Breast Cancer Warning Label on Cheese “Dairy cheese contains reproductive hormones that may increase breast cancer mortality risk.” That’s the warning label the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine—a nonprofit with more than 12,000 doctor members—is petitioning the Food and Drug Administration to require cheese manufacturers to prominently display on all dairy cheese products. The petition is being submitted on Oct. 3, as Breast Cancer Awareness Month begins. Dairy products contain traces of estrogens from cows, and as milk is converted to cheese, the estrogens are more concentrated. While they are only traces, they appear to be biologically active in humans, increasing breast cancer mortality. The Life After Cancer Epidemiology study found that, among women previously diagnosed with breast cancer, those consuming one or more servings of high-fat dairy products (e.g., cheese, ice cream, whole milk) daily had a 49 percent higher breast cancer mortality, compared with those consuming less than one-half serving daily.

Hour 2

HPV Vaccine Being Tested on 4-6 Year-Old Girls in Latin America I have often feared that in the end babies and young children would be given the dangerous and increasingly unpopular HPV vaccines. I suspect that time is fast approaching. GlaxoSmithLine (GSK) the manufacturer of Cervarix has recently conducted a trial of its two valent HPV vaccine on healthy 4-6 year old female children in Latin America. The study involving girls from Colombia, Panama and Mexico was published in the current edition of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. Here is the stated rationale for injecting such young children with HPV vaccines: The burden of human papillomavirus (HPV) diseases is high in Latin America. HPV vaccines licensed from 2006 onwards offer protection against most HPV-related cancers, especially when introduced into national immunization programs. Barriers to optimal vaccine uptake are, however, lowering the impact of adolescent HPV vaccination programs. Immunization of children might overcome these barriers and be a strategy of choice for some countries.

Philippines begins mass vaccinations after polio returns Parents lined up from sunrise holding sleeping infants as the Philippines launched a campaign on Monday to vaccinate millions of children against polio, which has re-emerged nearly two decades after the nation’s last cases. Years of falling vaccination rates, made worse by the botched rollout of a dengue vaccine, culminated in an outbreak of the preventable disease in September. “This is for the welfare of my child,” Ruth Miranda told AFP after the vaccine was squirted into her child’s mouth at the Manila slum they call home. Miranda’s child is among scores who are unprotected in the capital of about 13 million people, where vaccination rates of young children plunged from 77 percent in 2016 to a mere 24 percent in June. The atmosphere at the event in Manila was festive—with ice cream vendors and music—but the stakes for the campaign are high. Polio, which can cause paralysis and can be fatal in rare cases, has no cure and can only be prevented with several doses of oral and injectable vaccines.

Food As Medicine : Interesting Facts You Do Not Know About Your Gut Mirobiome Gut health and its importance to overall well-being has become a hot topic as more people seek ways to manage their health by paying close attention to what they eat. As curiosity on this topic grows, different innovations emerge employing technology to better understand gut microbiome and how the food we eat affect our gut health, positively or negatively. To share interesting facts about gut microbiome for this article is Guru Banavar, the Chief Technology Officer at Viome. Viome is a company on a mission to redefine the future of healthcare and disease research. Their main goal is to readdress the healthcare system using nutrition as medicine. Guru will also be joining other scientists and food industry leaders to speak at the Food Health and Technology Summit on October 25th, 2019.

Farm-to-table movement goes to school There’s a healthy new twist in the farm-to-table movement: Getting farm-fresh food to school lunchrooms and even having students grow their own crops as part of learning. Colorado was a pioneer in passing the “Farm-to-School Healthy Kids Act” in 2010. The move was designed to increase the use of local farm and ranch products in school food service programs to both improve childhood nutrition and strengthen the state’s agricultural economy. Today, a handful of other states have similar programs. Some schools also have added programs for growing food to their curriculum. An example is in place at Community School 55 in New York’s South Bronx, thanks to the Green Bronx Machine. Educator Stephen Ritz founded the nonprofit as an after-school alternative program for high schoolers. It’s fully integrated into the core curriculum from kindergarten through high school. Students have grown tens of thousands of pounds of vegetables that go from classroom-to-community.

Remember Friends, The Power to Heal is Yours!