Health

Rhys Harris, a young boy who had suffered from Nemo — a very rare disease that destroys the body’s immune system — has been cured by undergoing a number of “space age” treatments. Yea, science!

In a desperate bid to save his life doctors sealed Rhys into a bubble of a space-age airtight chamber for two months.

Then Rhys’ entire immune system was killed off by chemotherapy - meaning even the most simple bug from a kiss by his mother would be fatal.

Rhys then underwent a bone marrow transplant to put a new immune system into his young body.
He is one of just seven young Nemo (medically knows as Nuclear Factor Kappa B Essential Modulator) in the world.

Rhys spent two months kept in the bubble sterile ward, separated from the outside world by three airtight doors. Special vents blew filtered hot air in to kill any bugs - and not even his parents Kevin and Dawn were allowed to touch him.

A new CDC report states that childhood cancer rates are highest amongst kids that live in the Northeast. But skeptics claim that the anomaly may be due to how the numbers were put together.

The study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is based on data representing 90 percent of the U.S. population. It found that cancer affects about 166 out of every million children, a number that shows just how rare childhood cancers are.

The highest rate was in the Northeast with 179 cases per million children, while the lowest was among children in the South with 159 cases per million. Some experts suggested that could mean cases were under-reported in the South and over-reported elsewhere.

The rates for the Midwest and West were nearly identical, at 166 cases per million and 165 per million, respectively.

The cancer incidence in boys was 174 cases per million, compared with 157 cases per million in girls. In white children, the rate was 173 per million, versus 164 per million in Hispanics and 118 per million in blacks. Teenagers had higher rates than younger kids.

A new study out of Buenos Aires reports that in one aspect — respiratory infections — girls benefit from breastfeeding more than boys.

They found that infant girls who were breast-fed were far less likely than baby boys who were breast-fed to develop serious respiratory infections requiring hospitalization.

A lot of research has shown that breast-fed babies enjoy a range of health benefits compared to those given baby formula beyond combating respiratory infections.

These include fewer ear, stomach or intestinal infections, digestive problems, skin diseases and allergies, and less risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. And some research has shown breast-fed babies are smarter, too.

“There are many, many different diseases that are protected against by breast-feeding. It’s a great source of nutrition. It’s important for development. Everyone benefits from breast-feeding,” Dr. Fernando Polack of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.

Cody Hall, a 15-year-old English girl that was born with hemangioma, a tumorous birthmark on her face that grew with age and caused disfigurement, has had 18 reconstructive surgeries and will now attend her first prom. Click through to the full story to see photos of the amazing transformation (not to mention a picture of her as a baby with Fergie! Score! Uh, this one, not that one.)

“Cody came to me several years back after she had undergone an initial procedure in San Francisco,” Hall’s surgeon, Milton Waner, told FOXNews.com. “She had some really bad problems at the time. It was a very difficult situation. She had excessive scarring from an aggressive hemangioma.”

Most of her 18 surgeries have been performed at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York.

“She had extensive tissue destruction and we performed several procedures to restore her face back to normalcy,” said Waner, who is co-director of the Vascular Birthmarks Institute of New York at Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Waner said hemangiomas are benign tumors of the stem cells. Although the tumors are not fatal, their complications can be.

The uproar about bisphenol A (BPA) continues, and now the lawyers are getting involved. Wonder what took them so long? Paging John Edwards!

An Arkansas woman has filed a federal lawsuit accusing a baby bottle maker of using a dangerous chemical linked to serious health problems.

The lawsuit against Playtex Products seeks nationwide class action status to represent what it says are thousands of people who bought plastic bottles containing bisphenol A. It claims Playtex failed to adequately disclose that its plastic bottle products are formulated using BPA.

The government said last month that there’s “some concern” about BPA from experiments on animals, and a possible effect on humans “cannot be dismissed.”

An Australian teen is fighting hard against Barth Syndrome, which has only been diagnosed 16 other times. It’s a debilitating and fatal illness that seems to only affect boys.

Growth and motor skills are reduced, the immune system is weakened and muscles around the heart slowly suffocate it.

Last year Robert [Chaiban], of Chintin, survived five heart attacks.

A conference in July in Florida, US, with other Barth syndrome sufferers offers hope for Robert and his family, who run a panelbeating business in Coburg.

“It will be really good to talk to someone that understands what its like,” he said.

It seems like every day we keep hearing about a new place scientists can grab stem cells that may lead to “miracle cures”. Experts are skeptical baby teeth stem cells are the answer, but hey, can’t hurt to look into it further.

To parents, it might sound like the best kind of health insurance — a personal bank of stem cells, obtained from a baby tooth, that would be available for the taking should their child develop a life-threatening illness years down the road.

The catch: The therapies that would use these stem cells have not yet been developed. Stem cell experts say such advances are years or decades away — if they ever come to pass.

And considering the cost of extracting and storing these stem cells — an initial price tag of $590, plus an annual fee of $100 — some experts say the slim chance that such stem cells would ever come in handy is not worth the expense.

Let’s hope this report is accurate, as it’s very good news. Hopefully next we will see a downward trend.

There was no significant increase in the prevalence of obese children and teens in the U.S. between 1999 and 2006, in contrast to the increase that had been reported in prior years, according to a new study.

“In the United States, the prevalence of overweight among children increased between 1980 and 2004, and the heaviest children have been getting heavier,” the authors write.

Cynthia L. Ogden, Ph.D., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Hyattsville, Md., and colleagues updated the most recent national estimates of the prevalence of pediatric high body mass index (BMI). Height and weight measurements were obtained from 8,165 children and adolescents as part of the 2003-2004 and 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which are nationally representative surveys of the U.S. population.

No statistically significant change in high BMI for age was found between 2003-2004 and 2005-2006. No statistically significant trend in high BMI was found over the time periods 1999-2000, 2001-2002, 2003-2004, and 2005-2006.

The Center for Disease Control is reporting that a common virus that’s generally considered to be mild is to blame for the deaths of 5 children.

The five deaths mark the first time an infection was found to be fatal, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tens of thousands of children get the virus each year, but it seldom causes illness, and then usually mild cases. Young children, with immature immune systems, are at the greatest danger from the virus, called Coxsackievirus B1.

It’s not clear that the virus has mutated to become more dangerous, said Steve Oberste, chief of a CDC laboratory that investigated the deaths. Perhaps the virus’s deadliness was revealed simply through better laboratory tests, he said.

“It’s probably not something that should panic people,” he said.

While it’s still not exactly health food, a new switch at McDonald’s might make parents feel slightly less guilty for that occasional Happy Meal purchase. That’s if they ever felt any guilt in the first place.

McDonald’s french fries are now trans-fat-free in all its restaurants in the United States and Canada, the fast-food restaurant chain said Thursday.

McDonald’s has lagged other restaurant operators in switching over to a zero-trans-fat cooking oil out of worries it would compromise the taste of its trademark fries. It has been under increasing pressure from consumer advocates and some public officials to make the change.

The new oil is canola-based and includes corn and soy oils.

Wow, it’s big awards day for medical malpractice lawsuits. A woman in Aurora, Illinois has reached a $15.35 million settlement with a hospital and doctor. She had sued because six years ago, her son suffered brain damage during delivery.

Vanessa Jenkins gave birth to her son, Cody Smithey, at Valley West Community Hospital in Sandwich in October 2001.

Attorneys for Jenkins in Tuesday’s settlement say the boy suffered cerebral palsy and mental retardation after the doctor unsuccessfully used a vacuum extractor device during his birth.

A jury has awarded a woman in Ohio $20 million after they found doctors negligent in leaving her baby stuck in her birth canal for over 13 hours.

[Heather] Grow’s attorneys argued during a medical malpractice trial that the baby suffered brain injuries. Doctors had told Grow months earlier that she had a narrow pelvic arch.

The lawyers say the now 10-year-old girl has limited use of her limbs, has vision problems and is mildly retarded.

The doctors organization Group Health Associates says Dr. Lisa Yang “did everything medically possible to facilitate a healthy delivery.”

On a side note, this incident to place in 1997. Isn’t there something wrong with the system when it takes over 10 years to resolve such things?!

A new study reports that women who use cell phones while pregnant have an increased risk of children with behavioral problems. Didn’t previous reports say that the phones would melt our brains? We’re strictly using the speakerphone feature from now on…

Mothers who used their mobile phone while pregnant were 54 percent more likely to report issues such as hyperactivity and emotional problems in their children, Britain’s Daily Mail and The Independent reported Monday.

The study was conducted by researchers at UCLA and a university in Aarhus, Denmark. The findings will be published in the July issue of the journal Epidemiology.

UCLA Professor Leeka Kheifets, who had previously been skeptical of reports linking mobile phone use to behavior disorders in children, concluded with her three co-authors that there did appear to be an association between mobile phone exposure and behavioral problems. However, they said, radiation may not be the cause.

Despite growing concerns about the safety of BPA — bisphenol-a — in plastic products like baby bottles, the FDA is refusing to speak out negatively against the chemical, saying it sees no reason to believe its current use is unsafe.

The FDA’s statement, released in a climate of heavy pressure from the chemical industry, is in contrast to developments in Canada. On April 19 the Canadian government began a 60-day public comment period on whether polycarbonate baby bottles should be banned in the country. Observers have said a comprehensive ban on polycarbonate is even possible up north in the near future.

For its part, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., makers of Nalgene bottles, have announced that they will stop using polycarbonate. Wal-Mart says it expects all baby bottles it carries to be free of the material by early next year, and Toys R Us has discussed a similar plan.

A new study purports that the parents of children with autism are twice as likely to have been hospitalized for a mental disorder. Is this getting scientists closer to proving some sort of genetic link?

The study looked at 1,237 children born between 1977 and 2003 who were diagnosed with autism before age 10. To be deemed autistic, the children all had to have received a diagnosis of autism disorder, Asperger Syndrome or pervasive developmental disorder.

Seventy-seven per cent of the children involved in the study were boys.

“These results support those of smaller studies that indicated an increase in psychiatric conditions among parents of children with autism, specifically schizophrenia, neurotic disorders and depression,” write the authors. “Identifying families with a propensity for rare psychiatric conditions may help uncover rare genes that contribute to the susceptibility of both disorders.”