"Recent evidence suggests that children likely have the same or higher viral loads in their nasopharynx compared with adults and that children can spread the virus effectively in households and camp settings."                                                      "This [closing schools early in the pandemic] may explain the low incidence in children compared with adults. Comparing trends in pediatric infections before and after the return to in-person school and other activities may provide additional understanding about infections in children."                                                               Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated COVID guidance

East College Prep High School senior Jocelyn Hernandez follows a remote Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus class while sitting in a community garden near her home, August 14, 2020 in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, Calif. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

Since the global pandemic struck the United States in early spring, numbers and rates of  coronavirus cases have risen markedly in children. It had been generally accepted viewing the results of infections that children were spared the worst symptoms that COVID-19 could raise, and they were being infected at substantially lower numbers than older people of all age ranges in the general population. That initial impression has since undergone a profound adjustment.

As a new school year approaches, after the precipitate shutdown of schools with the first wave of COVID, a growing awareness of the risk that young people and their families face is striking alarm. Emergency use authorization was granted for a saliva-based coronavirus test by the Food and Drug Administration. The test, developed by Yale University researchers, is recognized as a route to reducing turnaround commercial laboratory times.

Over one thousand coronavirus-related deaths are being reported daily in the United States, with health officials reporting 1,220 new deaths and 57,120 new infections on Saturday alone. The rosy confidence relating to children's low infection rate and non-threatening symptoms related to COVID that originally reassured the medical community and parents, is now recognized as a factor linked to the first-wave action of school closings.

That, and other public health measures such as social distancing certainly may have contributed to the low rates seen early on of coronavirus infection during the early days of the pandemic. Now, it is known that children between ages five and 17 test positive for the coronavirus at higher rates than any other age group, in accordance with CDC data; positive rates seen to be exceeding ten percent in public and private lab tests.

Children are recognized to experience a similar virus incubation period as do adults but are less likely by far to develop severe symptoms. On the other hand, roughly a third of children who are hospitalized for virus complications are placed in intensive care units at the same rate as are adults. With the anticipated start of the new academic year, concern turns toward new challenges that will most certainly arise.

Over 100 students and staff tested positive for the coronavirus in recent days and hundreds more were sent into quarantine in Mississippi, where return to school for in-person learning has been initiated. Cases have been reported in close to fifty percent of the schools in the state. The highest daily reported deaths in the country emanate from Mississippi, tracking by The Washington Post reveals.

Elsewhere, virus concerns have forced officials to cancel classes or reverse plans to introduce students to reopened schools where the academic year is set to begin. On Saturday, a school district in Nebraska held back opening for a week because three staff members had tested positive. Classes have been cancelled as well in schools in Georgia and Tennessee.

In Canada, provinces are attempting variants on both in-class and remote teaching, with parents asked to inform their school boards in advance which option they prefer for their children. This, at a time when parents are bedevilled by the choices; personal attendance three days a week, remote the other two days. And of course it isn't only parents uncertain whether or not to return their children to classrooms which even under new rules will keep students in one classroom for all subjects and will mandate no more than 15 students to a class, but teachers also, concerned over an elevated risk of infection.

Sound Nutrition Mandated for Good Health

"We must explain to the parents before compelling them, but we can no longer tolerate this endangerment."
"We are talking here about stunted growth and psychomotor delays, under-nutrition, significant anaemia. Some developments must be done at a specific time in life and if they are not done, it is irreversible."
"When we are children, the body manufactures among other things brain cells. That brings with it a major requirement for proteins and essential fatty acids. The body itself does not produce these, they have to be taken in from animal proteins. We are speaking here of retarded growth in height and weight, as well as retarded psycho-motor development, malnutrition an severe anaemia. Some developments have to take place at a precise moment of life. Otherwise, the delay is irreversible. It is not recommended, and may even be forbidden, to submit a child, in particular during periods of rapid growth, to a potentially destabilizing diet."
Professor Georges Casimir,  Queen Fabiola Children's Hospital

"What a load of ignorant codswallop! A well-planned vegan diet is perfect for babies and children."
"But as with any dietary regime, it's the parents' responsibility to ensure their child is getting all the necessary nutrients."
Dawn Carr, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

"It's possible to provide all the nutrients needed for growth and development without animal products."
"[It is] recognized that well-planned vegan diets can support healthy living in people of all ages, including infants, children, teenagers and pregnant and breastfeeding women."
Heather Russell, dietitian, The Vegan Society

"[The demise of 7-month-old baby Lucas was] the result of the systematic offer of food that was not suitable."
"[Because of that imposed diet], his health was seriously impeded and he eventually died [three years ago, weighing only 4.3 kilograms (9.5 pounds), barely 1 kilogram [2.2 pounds] more in weight than when he was born]."
"It is clear that the defendants have already been severely punished because they need to proceed with life in the knowledge that they are responsible for the death of their son, who they truly loved."
Judge Mieke Butstraen, Belgian court, June 2017

Professor Casimir was instrumental in leading the commission responsible for writing a report issued by the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium. It has the recognized authority of a legal opinion. And that legal opinion reached through a collaboration of medical and scientific professionals could very much influence future court judgements in Belgium where a number of deaths have occurred in schools, nurseries and hospitals, all traced to the fact that Belgian parents are placing their children on vegan diets.

The couple in Beveren, convicted of withholding a nutritious diet from their baby who died of malnutrition and dehydration, fed the infant vegetable 'milk' exclusively. Because the judge considered that the loss of their youngest child entirely the result of their choice of nutrition for him represented punishment sufficient unto itself, they were given a six-month suspended sentence. The seven-month-old's vital organs were considerably smaller than they should have been, with no fat surrounding them.

Estimates of the number of children in Belgium affected by their parents' decision to feed them a strictly vegan diet run to three percent. And because there has been a rash of infant and child deaths linked to the vegan diet, doctors in Belgium now call for prosecution of parents who persist in withholding a more normal diet from their children. According to the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium the legal opinion they have produced states it to be unethical to subject children to veganism.

A vegan diet is exclusive of animal proteins and vital amino acids required by growing children to aid in their development, and in the prevention of health problems. Should such a diet be complemented with medical supervision, blood tests and vitamin supplements, the diet could be made child-safe. But the opinion points out that most parents are not qualified to ensure that these provisions are seen to. The parents of the 7-month-old who died operated a vegan provisions shop and were obviously committed to veganism.

A Belgian official responsible for child protection initiated the study that resulted in the professional opinion. Bernard De Vos, in view of hospitals in Belgium reporting a growth in the number of children reporting with a range of ailments after being fed a vegan diet, felt the situation required a deep analysis and turned to the professional pediatric group for an opinion, feeling it incumbent upon himself to make that request as the country's children's rights commissioner.

A Belgian law dating to 1961 holds that no one can be convicted of "non-assistance to a person in danger", a crime carrying a sentence of up to two years in prison along with fines, if they are unaware they are placing someone in danger even though the recently issued legal opinion makes it common knowledge of the potentially lethal effects of a vegan diet. 

In other words, a public education campaign is required to ensure that all parents are aware of the situation, to refrain from placing their children in danger through an inappropriate diet.

© Pxhere

Feeding a child a vegan diet is “unsuitable and not to be recommended,” according to the Royal Academy of Medicine.

Instilling Civility

"I've had lots of conversations with people across the country, and one thing that people are thinking is that the kids aren't having as much time to be outside, and having free play, because they are spending much more time on screens."
"When you are playing outside with others, you have to develop patience, you have to learn how to take turns, and learn how to pretend, and all of those are things that help you develop the ability to stop, plan and think."
"I've seen kids have absolute meltdowns at 18 months to two years of age. You are out to dinner and the parents have brought along an iPad for the kid to play with so they don't have any second of boredom. They take the iPad away when the food comes, and [the child] has a massive melt-down."
"It's something we need to as a society really examine: are screens replacing face-to-face time?"
"If [teachers] are only focused on what reading level do they have, how many words do they have, then they miss this whole other part that interferes with everything about learning, and not just their own learning but the learning of all the kids in the class."
"I remember talking to a little boy, and the classroom had been cleared, and he said, 'I was so frightened being in that classroom all by myself. I didn't know what as going to be happening next. There was nobody there to help me'. That's how he experienced it."
"For a four-year-old, that's pretty frightening. ... What a four-year-old needs is an adult to come in and help co-regulate them, go in and stay with them. 'Buddy, come here, can I give you a hug?; Physical contact, help soothe them."
"One of the things that we know is that for younger kids -- I'm talking about kids under six -- physical touch, asking for permission to give a hug, soothing a child by allowing them to snuggle in, is very, very important developmentally. The boards that have no-touch policies really have to examine that for the early years."
Jean Clinton, child psychiatrist, clinical professor, McMaster University

"I was terrified my first year because we were told, 'You do not touch the children'."
"But they're little. Some of them are only three. They'll say, 'Can I have a hug?' Or I'm sitting on the floor and they'll put a head on my shoulder."
"They are little, that is what they need, that is what they want."
Early childhood educator, kindergarten class

Dr. Clinton feels that schools with "hands-off" policies, instructing their employees that they are not, under any circumstances to physically touch the youngest children in their administrative care should re-think this policy. Physical contact with permission to give hugs, and to empathize with a confused or frightened child through a gentle, caring touch, she feels could solve some of the alienating aspects of a very young child who might be feeling isolated or abandoned in the first few years of school and who responds by 'acting out'.

Nor is she a fan of the "evacuation" method used in some schools that when a child in the classroom acts out and is out of control, unwilling or unable or defiant to a teacher's instructions, they are left in the classroom on their own as a lesson through isolation, of the consequences of throwing books and furniture around, much less attacking other pupils or the teacher. All other children in the classroom are quietly escorted out of the room, and the obstreperous child is left on his/her own, presumably to think out why it is that he/she is left alone.

School boards are concerned that the old traditional method of teachers yanking unruly children about to impress upon them that their behaviour is unacceptable, is no longer representative of today's methods of dealing with problem children. Children whose parents, upon hearing that their child may have been man-handled will contact the news media to broadcast the 'assault', and even call police or launch a lawsuit against the teacher, the school, the school board.

It simply is not done. That old order to older children to 'go to the principal's office' where hand smacks are administered represents the dark ages of a bygone era.

In this era of public schooling, exposing children to the education system, it is strictly hands-off for teachers. And whether and how much that has contributed to young people from an early age on into their more mature years, knowing that whatever they do the punishment can only be as bad as a suspension, and even expulsion from school, see few restraints now on their compulsion to be violent, either toward other students or the teachers themselves. They know it is unlawful for them to be 'touched' by any adult.

Reports of "violent incidents" that school administrations and their boards must deal with now has doubled in the past two years. Incidents of violence that encompass children from all grades. Early childhood educators working in kindergarten, elementary teachers and educational assistants report having been bitten, punched, kicked, scratched, spat upon and sworn at by children, ranging from kindergarten age up to Grade 3.

Social skills, respect for others, ability to interact civilly, appear to have been lost in lock-step with the availability of and fascination with technological toys. Digital devices consume increasingly more of children's time, leaving them little interest in anything else. Even potty seats and bouncy chairs come with built-in pockets handy for storing an iPad. Instant gratification that digital devices can deliver is, notes, Dr. Clinton, "very, very enticing".

Parents seem to be failing their own grade in instilling in children civil values and behaviours. Either they lack those values themselves, or they are too inept and disinterested in ensuring their children are imbued with them. They neglect their parental obligations to their children and their society, send their children off to school, and expect those in the teaching profession to correct and ameliorate what they have themselves neglected. By which time it can be too late.

And in the attempt to imbue the children with needed discipline, too time-consuming for a teacher whose responsibility to an entire class cannot be consumed by one acting-out child. Mothers have traditionally been the parent expected for the most part, to teach manners to their children. With both parents now mostly in the paid workforce, little actual time is left for children to be taught directly; they emulate their parents, disengaged, focused on technology.



Teachers feel pressure from parents to prepare their kindergarten-age children for the next grade up when they will be learning the fundamentals of academic knowledge, leaving their play-time in kindergarten behind. Kindergarten is the time when children learn relationship skills, develop "social and emotional intelligence", reasonably enough. Or they don't. And that inability to interact civilly with others will follow them throughout their school years and into the future, if not developed adequately.

The situation has become so dire that some teachers leave the profession, unable to continue coping, while others take more time off because of depression and burn-out. Suffering physical assaults by children while trying to maintain professional composure and focusing on teaching children their academic lessons can be exhausting physically and mentally draining.

Johner Images - Kronholm, Susanne / Brand X Pictures / Getty Images

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder : Preventable

"Because of its social acceptance, we have lost sight of the fact that continued high rates of problematic alcohol consumption are [sic] leading to a wide-range of harms."
Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer, Canada

"Too many physicians in this country still advise women that it's okay to drink a little bit during pregnancy."
"But what does it mean to drink a little bit? Or is that just an enabling statement that says, 'Oh I really don't have to change my lifestyle because I'm pregnant'."
Dr. Kwadwo Oheme Asante

Originally from Ghana, Dr. Asante came to Canada on a student visa to study science at the University of British Columbia. Following medical school in the 1970s he set up practise as a pediatrician in a large area of northwestern British Columbia and the Yukon, the only pediatric specialist in the region. His intention was to remain in the vast area long enough to pay off his medical training debt.

Soon he began seeing patients that he hardly expected to be confronted with; babies with small heads, thin upper lips, flat cheekbones. These were children missing critical developmental milestones and who would never 'catch up' to what other, normal children were achieving in their development, physical and mental. His initial thoughts were that these were children symptomatic of a chromosomal or metabolic disorder. Nothing existed in the medical literature to describe his cases.

A colleague in 1973 alerted him to a new paper published in the influential journal the Lancet produced by two pediatricians at the University of Washington, describing children exposed to alcohol in utero -- exhibiting symptoms that Dr. Asante recognized immediately. This was an era when doctors might prescribe alcohol for morning sickness, when hospitals made use of ethanol drips in the prevention of early labour. When beer was considered a nutritional drink for expectant mothers.



The medical community viewed this new information with shock since the uterus had been regarded as a protective barrier, impenetrable by harmful agents, a trust that was only shaken in the early 1960s with the advent of the anti-nausea drug prescribed for pregnant women called thalidomide which went on to produce grossly malformed limbs in babies whose mothers trustingly used the drug.

Dr. Asante set out with a team of doctors across the country for the purpose of ensuring that doctors and their patients, policymakers and the press became alerted to the risks of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Later studies definitively proved alcohol to pass from mother to foetus through the bloodstream, with the potential to deleteriously impact development of the central nervous system as well as sensory and immune systems, among others.

The first large-scale study on FASD surveyed over 2,500 seven- to nine-year-olds in the Greater Toronto Area was released last year, its conclusion suggesting that up to three percent of the general population could be victims of the disorder. FASD could turn out to affect greater numbers in the Canadian population than does autism and cerebral palsy together. This, at a time when social culture has changed, when more women drink, more frequently than ever.



The most recent national survey out of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada estimates that 61 percent of women between ages fifteen and fifty have reported an unplanned pregnancy at a time when social drinking has been recognized as a symbol of female empowerment. A symbol that does not hesitate to lapse during pregnancy, as far as some women are concerned, resentful of being reminded that their social habit may harm their foetus.

A fifth of respondents to a survey of Canadian physicians on an online medical community, Figure 1, suggests that physicians may themselves be aiding in the normalizing of this reaction by women to alcohol consumption during pregnancy, by informing their patients that the occasional drink during pregnancy is safe. This, in startling contrast to the official position of Health Canada.

It has been well understood for close to a half century that drinking during pregnancy is harmful. Given the current social climate, it is little wonder that eradication of FASD has failed. Some children diagnosed with FASD resulting from their pregnant mothers imbibing alcohol are born with visible physical features typifying their condition, while others suffer with impaired motor and sensory control.

Embryonic stem cells exposed to low levels of alcohol "led to the abnormal development of parts of the brain responsible for executive function -- critical for self-control, organizational skills and goal attainment" according to a 2010 study out of the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta. Drinking appears to be most detrimental during the first three to eight weeks of gestation when cells are dividing to form the baby's organs.



And during the third trimester, alcohol consumption is similarly detrimental, at a time that the brain undergoes rapid development, and when specific organ functions are being determined. Research such as this with their definitive conclusions along with the dedicated work of campaigners like Dr. Asante have led most bars and liquor stores in Canada to post prominent signs outlining the risks of drinking during pregnancy.

In the United States, warning labels are mandatory by law to be placed on alcoholic beverages, informing and reminding women of the harms that drinking results in during pregnancy. Not all children of the estimated 10 percent of Canadian mothers who flaunt this cautionary advice are born with FASD. Many risk factors for the disorder -- genetics, maternal nutrition, exposure to other toxins, poverty and trauma -- also exist, but their influence is not settled.

Just exactly how much alcohol may cause FASD, or the type of alcohol -- 13 percent alcohol red wine as opposed to 70-proof tequila may make a difference in the threat, is also unclear. Leading, according to James Reynolds, professor of biomedical and molecular science at Queen's University to an impression that only "problem" drinking places a foetus at risk.

One Figure 1 user posted the statement that "I've known fellow medical professionals who are open about their own consumption during pregnancy".

A new report found up to three per cent of Canadians could have fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.   Ian Kucerak/Edmonton Sun

Suicidal Children

"We're seeing a significant increase in suicidal behaviour since 2014. Everyone is wondering why the rates of ideation [suicidal thoughts] and behaviour are increasing."
"It [isolation] contributes to disconnection. They're sleeping more poorly [teens].  Any peer issues at school are following them home. If you're being bullied at school, you're not getting a break."
"People want to make sure that when a teen is in distress, they get the help they need."
"Conversations with teens involve mostly listening. Avoid giving advice. A good night's sleep means good mental health."
"If you suspect your teen is thinking about suicide, ask him or her. Asking questions won't prompt a suicide."
Dr. Allison Kennedy, psychologist, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario

"A single suicide attempt is the strongest predictor of future completed suicide."
"Community and general emergency departments are not resourced to give these children the comprehensive assessments and follow-up they need for optimal care."
Dr. Brett Burstein, pediatric emergency room physician, Montreal Children's Hospital

Strelka/Flickr

"There is an overwhelming amount of data from many different sources, and it all points in the same direction: more mental health issues among American young people."
"This is always a tough question to answer, as we can’t prove for sure what the causes are. But there was one change that impacted the lives of young people more than older people, and that was the growth of smartphones and digital media like social media, texting and gaming."
"[While older adults also use these technologies], their adoption among younger people was faster and more complete, and the impact on their social lives much larger."
"[The way young people communicate and spend their leisure time] has fundamentally changed. They spend less time with their friends in person and less time sleeping, and more time on digital media."
Jean Twenge, professor of psychology, San Diego State University

"There’s a lot we don’t know, and we can’t say conclusively what’s driving these [mental health] trends. But in the real world when dealing with the health of children, you need to make your best guess and move ahead before things are unequivocally proven."
"It makes sense to pay attention to adolescent behaviors we know are changing and to target those behaviors for intensive scrutiny, and in the meantime to have [young people] engage in behaviors that don’t lead to poor well-being. There’s this overload of information and stimulation and a much bigger sphere of influence that they’re being exposed to."
"Given what we know about adolescent development and vulnerability and the intensive need for intimate and healthy social connection during these years, you can see how social media may not be developmentally appropriate."
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, professor of psychology and education, University of Southern California

"I think every generation of adults tries to pin a negative trend they see in young people on whatever the current technological fad is."
"[The data may show depression rising among young people, but he can't see] a clear cost [associated with technology or social media use]."
"Certainly there are some stressors that are inherent in social media use, but there are other stressors as well; [increased competition to get into college and] parents hovering -- It’s probably not one thing, but the cumulative impact of a lot of things."
Laurence Steinberg, distinguished professor of psychology, Temple University

A new study by researchers in Canada found annual visits to American emergency rooms for suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts among children between the ages of five to 18 almost doubled between the years 2007 and 2015, from 580,000 to a staggering 1.12 million. Dr. Burstein, a pediatric emergency room physician at Montreal Children's Hospital, the co-author of the study and his colleagues sampled 300 U.S. emergency rooms to analyze public health data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Among the findings' most disturbing conclusions was that 43 percent of children taken to an emergency room were aged between five and 12. There is no available comparable national Canadian data, but Dr. Burstein noted that at Montreal Children's Hospital a 55 percent increase in suicidal behaviour was noted between 2015 and 2018. In the U.S. study an eight-year period was involved whereas in the Canadian one a three-year period produced the results, indicating that the rise in suicide attempts is faster in Canada than in the U.S.

Health professionals, particularly those considered experts in the field of teen studies are uncertain how and what to attribute these figures to. Theories appear for the most part to centre around social isolation due to the rise and impact of technology-driven products where young people have turned increasingly to social media attraction which draws them away from personal real-world interaction, leading them toward an isolated lifestyle with few real social emotional supports.

This situation leaves teens spending more time by themselves. The more time spent on social media, the more time teens spend in their rooms, and consequently less time interacting with others, even with family members and that, even while they're at home. The disconnect between personal and one-on-one relationships in real time with real people has its isolating effect, leaving children adrift and lacking both peer and parental support.

This has led to the appalling realization that the second most common cause of death among adolescents in Canada is suicide, after accidents. Over 10 teen suicides for every 1,000,000 teens distinguishes Canada as one of five countries with the highest teenage suicide rates in 2015, according to a report by the O'Brien Institute for Public Health at University of Calgary. Twenty-two percent of teens between the ages of 13 and 18 had considered suicide in a 12-month period, according to a 2016 survey conducted by Kids Help Phone.

Of the children in the American study, fewer than 13 percent arrived in the emergency room for isolated suicidal thoughts; most -- 87 percent -- were present in the wake of an actual suicidal gesture or attempt; they had gone beyond thinking to action. To Dr. Burstein this suggests that an actual increasing burden of mental health problems among children is involved. Dr. Burstein points out the need for more community-based mental health resources, along with emergency department preparedness, as well as risk reduction interventions once the patient leaves the emergency department.

Signs of suicidal behavior in teens

As with many medical conditions, there typically is no single sign a family can point back to that explicitly indicated a teen was suicidal. There are several signs that may indicate suicide risk, including the following behaviors:
● Depressed mood/mood disorders
● Difficulty regulating emotions
● Difficulty with problem solving
● Hopelessness
● Impulsivity
● Hostility and aggression
● Quitting or struggling to enjoy favorite activities
● Social or interpersonal problems, interpersonal skill deficits
● High situational stress
● Insomnia

Medical Science Illiteracy

"If you are somebody who has not always understood why a flu shot works one year and not the next, or why some vaccines appear to be more effective than others, there can be some confusion about the clarity of the science."
"We're also in an era now that has a higher propensity, and a  higher level of skepticism toward the so-called experts. It may be that what we're seeing is the reflection of people saying, 'Well, no, I don't think the science is quite clear, and just because it's science doesn't mean that it is by definition clear'. We see this in the climate science debate and other debates as well."
"It's not as though there is a strong civil liberty or a libertarian view that is coming through wholly on one side of the political spectrum or divide."
Shachi Kurl, executive director, Angus Reid Institute

"These aren't hard-core anti-vaxxers -- these are people who are being exposed to the [prevailing] misinformation and want to do the best for their kids, but feel conflicted, and feel that the data isn't certain."
"The science around vaccines isn't unclear -- the science is tremendously well established."
Timothy Caulfield, professor of health law and policy, University of Alberta

A new poll has rendered results through an Angus Reid Institute online survey, that a full one-third of Canadians question the science behind vaccines. Of those polled, 29 percent feel the science on vaccinations against deadly childhood infections isn't "quite clear", with skepticism rising with age, leaving 36 percent of Canadians over 55 with the impression that the science involved fails to be entirely convincing.

Another one-quarter of those polled, representing 26 percent, believe a "real risk of serious side effects" exists from vaccinations, despite such hugely respected health authorities as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stating that side effects from childhood vaccines, by and large, are minor in character, with serious reactions exceedingly rare, occurring in fewer than one in a million doses with diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus vaccine, as an example.

Of those polled, the majority, coming in at 74 percent, agree people who campaign against vaccines are "irresponsible", while seven in ten Canadians, irrespective of whether they have children at home, state their support of instituting mandatory immunization which would effectively remove a parent's right to opt out of a universal immunization program.

Twenty percent of parents with children under age 12 feel permission to immunize should remain the choice of the parents.

The issue also reflects political influences, with Conservatives twice as likely as Liberal or NDP voters agreeing choice should belong to parents. And despite that a third of Canadians state uncertainty of the science of vaccines they fail to go so far as to feel it's wrong or misleading, more likely unconvincing and possibly too confusing.

Strangely enough, hesitancy on the part of those questioned doesn't appear to reflect whether they feel vaccines are effective, with nine in ten in agreement that vaccines are indeed effective in reducing risk of diseases spreading, while 83 percent claim they would not hesitate to vaccinate their own children, and five percent adamantly refusing vaccination for their children.

The Public Health Agency of Canada has issued a statement aimed at reminding Canadians that measles is a serious and highly contagious disease and that getting vaccinated is the best protection.   Eric Risberg/AP / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Experts have reported a global resurgence of measles cases; an increase of 30 percent since 2015, directly attributable to the anti-vaccine rhetoric seen everywhere on social media. The result of this resistance is that one in ten children in Canada have not been vaccinated, so that 750,000 young Canadians are bereft of immunity against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and measles.

What that means is that these children whose parents have denied them the protection of vaccination, become vulnerable to those diseases. Moreover, not only are these unvaccinated children in danger of falling victim to ill health and its complications, but in defeating the 'herd effect' aspirations of health authorities where sufficient numbers are vaccinated to slow down infectious transmission, they effectively place other children in danger.

As matters now stand, in Canada no parent can be forced to have a child vaccinated. Mandatory school entry laws require vaccination in Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick, yet all three permit non-medical exemptions on religious or conscientious grounds, and in Ontario, exemptions are on the rise. The response to which by almost a three-to-one margin, Canadians feel vaccinations should be mandatory, taking the choice away from parents.

Twenty-four per cent say vaccinations should be a parent’s choice rather than mandatory. Still from video, Global News

Revisiting The Bad Seed

"The rehabilitation of  young offenders is one of the primary goals of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, but it is not the legislation's only goal. In a case such as this the goal of protection of the public must also be stressed."
"He is only fourteen years of age and in desperate need of treatment and supervised control. He constitutes a danger to the public and [to] his grandmother."
"Based upon the reports I recently discussed, it is difficult to see how such a sentence [Crown and defence suggested a period of six months of open custody and supervision, followed by a period of probation] will assist in [the boy’s] rehabilitation or protect the public from him. It appears obvious that [the boy] is not ready to be placed back into the community."
Judge Wayne Gorman, Corner Brook, Newfoundland

"[He is an] out of control, violent, manipulative youth with no concerns for how his actions affect others around him or any regard for following court orders."
"[In my opinion only a secure sentence represents an outcome to provide any level of rehabilitation.]" "Without a period of secure custody being imposed [the boy] will likely continue to be involved with the Youth Justice System on a regular and escalating basis."
Presentence report

"[The boy stated that he] has been stabbed and has stabbed others, that he kicked his adversary on the ground and sometimes gets in street fights for no other reason than satisfaction."
Psychological report

He's considered a child as a young offender and his identity is protected under Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act. His behaviour is that of a sado-masochistic sociopath; he feels neither concerned compassion for others nor one iota of regret for his own harmful actions toward others. His commission of violent behaviour, his rejection of authority, his threat to society led to a ten-month sentence of secure custody and supervision.

Im Grade seven there were 125 "behavioural incidents" and in grade eight 66 such incidents logged against his conduct, at a time when he was in school for a mere hour daily. The sentence imposed on this boy takes into account multiple crimes committed this year, including breaking windows, break-ins, stealing lottery tickets from a mall kiosk. On September 21 the boy and a handful of his peers skipped school to go to an abandoned building.

They lured a twelve-year-old girl to accompany them. Once there the boys attacked the girl because they felt she was a "rat"; obviously believing she had "told" on them to school authorities. The boy placed a knife at her throat, she was forced to kneel and she was repeatedly kicked and informed the building was a "good place to kill someone", and their body would never be found. The boy placed a chokehold on the girl and she passed into unconsciousness.

When they left the abandoned building, he warned the girl that if she mentioned the incident to anyone he would kill her. The following day he was arrested. Six months of open custody and supervision with probation was the Crown and defence recommendation, one that the presiding justice deferred in favour of a more rigorous penalty in view of a need to protect the public and to make an effort to rehabilitate the boy.

This young boy has been diagnosed with partial fetal alcohol syndrome. Before he was a year old he was removed from the custody of his parents because of their inattention to the needs of a child, alongside their drug use. And he was placed in the custody of his grandmother, to raise. She informed officials of the limited control she had over the boy's actions. And she made no secret of her fears of her grandson's behaviour, that when he is released in her opinion he will represent a threat both to himself and to the public.

Concussion Awareness in Children

"In our study girls across age groups were more symptomatic [of concussion] than boys, and adolescent girls' symptoms change was slower than that of adolescent boys."
CHEO Research Institute/University of Ottawa study

"It's important to start figuring out what's causing these differences between male and female adolescents, because this is really significant."
"[Researchers] need to tease out exactly what's going on [to enable improved concussion treatment for young patients]."
"When you look at a pediatric brain, the brain of an 18-year-old is very different from the brain of a five-year-old. So the question is: Are the recovery patterns going to be the same?"
"Are they the same between males and females?"
Dr. Andree-Anne Ledoux, Research Associate, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario

uOttawa  New Research Shows Symptom Improvement after Concussion in Children Varies Across Age Groups and Sex

According to senior scientist at the CHEO Research Institute, and co-author of the study Dr. Roger Zemek, the findings give doctors a track to guide them in understanding whether a child's recovery from concussion is within expected ranges. One other finding out of the study was its acknowledgement that the rate of reported head injuries in North America during the past decade has increased two to fourfold. Making it even more important for treating physicians to try to fully understand all the variables of recovery from concussion.

This discussion resulted from a large, national study taken on by CHEO Research Institute and the University of Ottawa investigators. They concluded from the evidence they studied that over half of adolescent girls (aged 13 to 18) experience post-concussion symptoms following 12 weeks after the initial injury. Over half of all adolescent boys after four weeks following a concussion were free of symptoms, by contrast.

The study, published recently in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics found as well that age was a factor in concussion recovery, that symptoms had a tendency to last for a longer period in adolescents than they did in younger children. As the latest published research on the matter, it adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting girls are more vulnerable to concussions and slower to recover from them.

Data from 2,716 children and adolescents diagnosed with concussions at nine pediatric hospitals across Canada was examined by the researchers. Individuals were followed through the research period for up to a year, with patients reporting their symptoms based on a standardized questionnaire. Both the rate of change in symptoms and the point where patients claimed to be fully recovered were tracked. Across all age groups, the first week of recovery was the most critical, according to the study, with many symptoms resolving themselves within the first seven days post-concussion. 

In the youngest patient cohort (ages five to seven) individuals being tracked reported most improvement in the first week. Within that group, 63.8 percent noted their concussion symptoms had abated. Headaches, nausea. anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, memory or concentration issues and sensitivity to light or noises ranked among the symptoms identified.

In the older age group representing preteens (ages eight to 12) and adolescents (ages 13 to 18), symptoms had a tendency to improve markedly over the first two weeks, then for another two weeks, to plateau. Irrespective of their ages or sex, at least half of all patients fully recovered following four weeks post-concussion. Adolescent girls represented the sole exception as their recovery tended to be substantially protracted, most not free of symptoms a full three months following injury.

The reason for the differences between adolescent males and females in their recovery remains elusive to scientists. Dr. Ledoux hypothesized that testosterone may offer the brain protection of a kind, or that the hormones that puberty releases makes female more vulnerable to the concussion's effects. Other scientists are known to have theorized that adolescent girls are more likely to report their concussion-related symptoms than their male counterparts.

Concussion symptoms

Cognitive (thinking):

• Difficulty concentrating and paying attention
• Trouble with learning and memory
• Problems finding words and putting thoughts into words
• Easily confused and losing track of time and place
• Slower thinking, acting, reading and speaking
• Easily distracted
• Trouble doing more than one thing at a time
• Lack of organization in everyday tasks

Physical:

• Headache, neck pain
• Nausea
• Lack of energy
• Dizziness, light-headedness, loss of balance
• Blurred or double vision and sensitivity to light
• Increased sensitivity to sounds
• Ringing in the ears
• Loss of sense of taste and smell
• Change in sleep patterns, especially waking up at night

Social and emotional:

• Mood changes: irritability, anxiety, depression
• Less motivation
• Easily frustrated, overwhelmed, tearful
• More impulsive and lacking normal inhibitions
• Withdrawn, wanting to avoid social situations with lots of people
• See your family doctor if your child or teen is having trouble coping with moods and emotions. If things don’t improve, you may need to consult a mental health specialist.

Lifetime Brand Enthusiasts

"The numbers are shocking. These are not your grandmother's commercials. Food and beverage manufacturers have neuro-psychologists working with them. They use MRIs. It's hard to defend yourself against ads."
"We have seen a huge proliferation of ads online. Entertainment is blended with marketing. It's hard for children to understand that they're being marketed to."
"Children 11, 12 and 13 years old are doing the work of a marketing firm when they're forwarding [ads for their favourite products] things to their friends. To identify with a brand helps to define who you are. Kids love these brands."
"Children's exposure to food and beverage advertising has actually increased. People who work in marketing are extremely creative."
Monique Potvin Kent, assistant professor, University of Ottawa School of Epidemiology and Public Health

"There is no silver bullet, but this will help [Bill S-228 before Parliament]."
"The advertisers know it works [ads designed to capture children's attention, imagination and loyalty]. If you create a customer by the age of ten, you have a dedicated customer for life."
Nancy Greene Raine, retired Conservative senator, former Olympian

A single glass of apple juice contains the same amount of sugar as four or five apples do, without any of the fibre

Getty Images/iStockphoto

Dr. Potvin Kent led a new study by University of Ottawa researchers, the result of which concluded that 72 percent of children and youth, fixated on social media, get somewhat more than exposure to all the things that grasp the attention of the young focused on media stars, performing celebrities and the latest trends in fashion, when they are consistently and closely bombarded with advertisements by food and beverage manufacturers who pay the online freight for their 'free' access to those social media sites.

Within a ten-minute session on line the number of ads directed at children has appalled the researchers, for their prevalence and in-your-face boldness. For the backbone of their project, the researchers recruited just over a hundred children and teens living in Ottawa between the ages of seven and 15 from four community centres. Instructed to make use of their own smartphone or tablet in accessing favourite social media sites for two periods lasting five minutes each, the study began.

Wearing special eyeglasses to capture what the recruits viewed on line -- later reviewed by the researchers -- each of the participants saw 2.1 ads within each ten-minute snapshot. Young social media users, it was calculated from that base figure, would be exposed to over a dozen food and beverage offerings each hour online. The researchers identified fully 90 percent of the products the ads promoted fell heavily into an unhealthy category. As for example:

• A 'unicorn frappuccino' cake made by Rosanna Pansino on a Starbucks theme on YouTube;
• A 'memory test' on YouTube revolving around the brand logos of corporations like Burger King and Snickers;
• The YTV actress Torri Webster's Instagram account promoting points collections at Cineplex Theatres to exchange for concession snacks;
• An Instagram ad for McDonald's inviting users to list which friend they would share french fries with: "The #holidays are for sharing and so are our fries."

Video bloggers posting items on YouTube, points out Dr. Potvin Kent, become media personalities with those collecting large followings signing sponsorship deals to feature branded products "embedded" in their content like competitive eater Matt Stonie's celebrity status garnering profit via "food challenges".

A report from the Heart and Stroke foundation recommends curtailing advertising of unhealthy food to children. Photo: Jaclyn McRae-Sadik.

Children, studies confirm, through such exposure by age two can appreciate and identify brands. It takes an growing awareness by the age of six for children to understand that advertising represents a sales pitch, but it takes until age 11 or 12 before they begin critically evaluating what they see. Until then they follow their favourite products on social media, encouraging their friends to do so as well.

At the present time, food and beverage marketing to children remains self-regulated through the voluntary Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative. Through purely voluntary adherence to the regulatory guidelines companies pledge exclusive advertising of "healthier" products to children under age twelve. Yet through what is seen as lenient nutrition criteria and high audience thresholds of 35 percent children in the audience, the pledge is honoured more in the breach than reality.

The very day that Bill S-228 seeking to amend the Food and Drugs Act to prohibit food and beverage marketing directed at children thirteen and under, was being debated in Parliament, was the day the new study on children and advertising for food and beverages was released. Should the bill become law, Health Canada would be tasked with creating regulations to fit the bill.

The fact that childhood obesity has doubled since the 1970s in Canada and overweight and obese children become at risk of chronic conditions such as sleep apnea, joint problems, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease represents a spur that prompted Nancy Greene Raine, Canadian skier who won World Cup and Olympic gold in giant slalom in 1968, to sponsor the bill.

In Quebec, the provincial Consumer Protection Act prohibits commercial advertising targeting children under age 13. Chile announced tough marketing restrictions last February, inclusive of removing cartoon characters from cereal boxes and banning candy sales such as Kinder Surprise using trinkets to snare children's attention.

A McDonald’s cheeseburger Happy Meal with the new apple slices option is shown     (Keith Srakocic/AP)

Health Alert for Child Patients

"The way that it presents in children is with a pretty sudden weakness or paralysis of one or more of their limbs. So maybe an arm or maybe a leg or maybe an arm and a leg, and in this particular acute flaccid myelitis, it's usually on one side [that is affected]."
"Even with the spike of cases that we have at the moment, it's still an incredibly rare condition."
"When you think about how many kids will get a viral infection at this time of year, you're literally talking about huge numbers. So a tiny, tiny percentage seems to go on to get AFM [acute flaccid myelitis]."
"So there does seem like there's more to this than just the virus infection and there has to be some sort of genetic setup that makes these children vulnerable to that particular virus."
"We know from past experience that the prognosis and long-term effects of AFP [acute flaccid paralysis] can vary: Some patients recover fully and others experience a spectrum of long-term and even permanent effects."
"[The risk of a child developing the condition] is still incredibly low. But that said, because we are seeing quite a few more cases than we would normally see, we certainly want our colleagues … to be aware of what to look for."
"The message I would send out is there’s no cause for alarm." Dr. Jeremy Friedman, pediatrician-in-chief, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto

Toronto Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto. Doctors at the hospital are unsure what is causing a spike in polio-like paralysis targeting kids. (Doug Ives/Canadian Press)

"This year, more than half of all US states have had confirmed or possible cases of acute flaccid myelitis, the polio-like illness that can cause paralysis and mostly affects children, according to an exclusive CNN analysis."

"CNN reached out to health departments in every state; 48 states responded, plus the District of Columbia. Of those, 30 states said they had cases that were confirmed, suspected or being investigated -- including 15 states that said they had confirmed cases in 2018."

"In total, CNN found 47 confirmed cases and 49 more that were suspected or being investigated, for a total of 96."

"The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which releases only confirmed numbers, says 16 states had 38 cases as of September 30. It does not identify the states."

CNN, October 18, 2018

Four-year-old Orville Young, right, is is believed to be one of the first patients in the Minnesota cluster of acute flaccid myelitis patients.  Business Insider

 

 

 

An alarm has been raised by Dr. Friedman of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children of unusual instances in an admittedly rare, but dangerous polio-like condition affecting the health of some Canadian children. A condition called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) which causes muscle weakness and which typically manifests after a viral infection has doctors concerned and vigilant, even though it is rarely seen to affect children, and its onset mechanism is not quite understood, though it is thought that those affected have a genetic predisposition.

According to Dr. Friedman, staff physicians at Sick Kids have diagnosed fewer than twenty cases of limb-based paralysis since September, and of that number a dozen have been confirmed as acute flaccid myelitis. Canada is certainly not alone in discovering that this rare condition has suddenly begun to crop up in greater numbers than what is considered normal. Dozens of reports have been surfacing out of the United States within that same time period; early September to the present.

Although the condition is still considered rare, a vanishingly minuscule number of children being affected, even with this perceived 'outbreak' -- to place the matter in perspective -- Sick Kids sees a mere two cases of AFM annually, accounting for an annual incidence risk of about one case per million children, for the condition. What it is that triggers the onset of AFM remains unknown, however, other than that it follows a viral infection.

MRI imagining does disclose that children with AFM have an inflammatory abnormality in an area of the spinal cord called the anterior horn cell. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last week reported over 60 confirmed cases in 22 U.S. states in the last several weeks. In total, since the beginning of 2018, 127 cases of AFM have been reported in the United States, with one death occurring related to the condition.



Those seen with AFM at Sick Kids are all children under 14; though the average age of affected children is four, most onsets tend to appear with children of pre-school age. Some of the affected children at Sick Kids were treated in the ICU (intensive care unit) but fortunately, no deaths have resulted from the outbreak. According to a spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Canada, current surveillance data have not detected any surge in such cases recently.

A Mother's Challenge

"No regrets. I wouldn't change a thing. And I won't wonder about anything."
"You do anything for your kid. We were looking for quality. And the Mexican treatments were less invasive and gave her quality."
"I love all my girls for different reasons. I don't love any of my other girls for the same reasons I love Kaisy."
"She was the courageous one. The one who made me come out of my box. I said: 'You're doing it again, Kaisy. Making me do something I never thought I would do'. Then I busted out laughing."
"The funeral director looked at me like I was nuts."
Melany Knott, 40, mother of four girls, Mount Airy, Maryland

Kaisy Knott sits at Starbucks in August 2017, before heading to Mexico for experimental cancer treatment. (Jason Andrew/The Washington Post)

Daughter Kaisy, 13, the youngest of Melany Knott's four girls, turned to her mother and told her: "Mom, I can't do this anymore" on September 9, twenty-one months after she had been diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPG) a dread cancer known to be aggressive, inoperable, incurable: A 100 percent lethal brain cancer. Kaisy was given eight months, tops, to live. "It felt like I was being stabbed in the head", explained Kaisy at an earlier time.

A day later, Kaisy uttered the word "Mom", and then she died. Two days later her mother arrived at the funeral home, fearful, distressed, forlorn and desolated. Melanie Knott suffered from a deep aversion to the cold, irreversibly final aspect of a dead body. Now, her beloved youngest daughter was that dead body. And the mother had to muster the courage to overcome her fear for her daughter's sake; so she could braid her hair, as Kaisy loved it to be done by her mother, for the very last time as she lay in her coffin.

The plan was that Kaisy was going to have her hair braided that week as she prepared and looked forward to attending her first day of school. That was back a few days earlier when she felt fine, her usual rambunctious self before her diagnosis, before she died on September 10. Kaisy had a Facebook following of thousands; her page titled Kick Butt KK. After Kaisy's diagnosis of a fatal brain cancer the doctor told her mother: "go home and make memories".

That's just what they did, but not quite in the way the doctor and conventional medicine might have imagined they would. Setting about raising the required funds, the rural, farming family auctioned off goats and guns, chainsaws and other implements usually found on a farm. They ran fundraisers at the country fair, and they used up all their savings, including the carefully padded funds for their other daughters' education -- and they worked double shifts.

They had decided to take Kaisy to Mexico, to a medical clinic specializing in untested treatment for cancer. A mystery treatment for which there have been no published studies and for which the ingredients of the customized chemotherapy cocktails have been maintained in absolute secrecy. Miraculously, Kaisy became animated, swam in the ocean, went kayaking, rode roller coasters and showed her prize hog and steer at 4-H competitions.

Kaisy Knott and her mom, Melany, waiting at Reagan National Airport for their plane to Mexico, where Kaisy is undergoing experimental treatments for a lethal form of brain cancer. (Jason Andrew/The Washington Post)

The dramatic change in Kaisy's condition became public knowledge and she became a celebrity figure among others in similar medical conditions, leading other families to fly to the Mexico City clinic from Norway, London, Italy, Australia, to themselves take part in the experimental, controversial cocktail of drugs injected into children's arteries to buy time, precious time to continue living.

Kaisy and her family went off on holiday junkets to "make memories". The original eight months that Kaisy was given left to live by the diagnosing medical community in the U.S. came and went, and Kaisy felt great, went swimming, paddle-boarding, everything she wanted to do. When President Trump signed the Right to Try Bill, allowing people with life-threatening illnesses to have access to experimental treatments and bypass the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval, Melany cheered.

Kaisy, whose life was being enriched when her body responded so positively to the unknown cocktail of drugs from the Mexican clinic, loved having her mother -- who lived her entire life in rural Maryland on farms, companion to hogs, horses, steers and chickens -- accompany her everywhere. Her fearful mother was persuaded to get on a roller coaster with her eager daughter, to go to the beach, to take time off work, to take air flights, leave the U.S. to rent an apartment in Mexico.

Each of those treatment cycles at the Mexican clinic came with a price tag of $33,000. A total of $695,000 was spent altogether in the 21 months when Kaisy's life was prolonged, her symptoms of medical duress relieved so she could feel her normal ebullient self and savour those adventures with her mother. Melany Knott figured it out that they spend about $1,100 for each of those days that preserved her daughter's life just a little longer.

Worth it. Every penny.

Melany Knott and her daughter Kaisy on a roller coaster for the first time. (Family photo)