Ped Ex:
Research, Training, Education

Defending the Right to Choose

Threats to Informed Health Care Choices:

When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we, in essence, accept that the state owns our bodies.
--U.S. Representative Ron Paul, MD

Senate Bill Voids State Laws, Prohibits Health and Safety Warnings and Undermines Your Health Rights and Your Privacy

Senate Bill 3, introduced earlier this year, uses emotionally charged homeland security language to undermine state’s and individual’s rights and privacy protections while giving pharmaceutical companies comprehensive liability protection and millions in government grants and tax credits. The bill, entitled “Protecting America in the War on Terror Act of 2005,” contains many troubling provisions.
http://www.citizens.org/hill/legislation/senatebill3.cfm

Vaccines, Mercury, Autism and Pending Legislation: Free Your Mind From the Vaccine Paradigm

Imagine the impact it would have on your family if the pharmaceutical industry knew it was immune from lawsuits. It could then cut corners on the safety of it's products. Currently your state government has the power to determine if a vaccine is safe. For example, If it were to decide that vaccines containing mercury were not safe, it could create a law to prevent its use. However, if U.S. Senate Bill 3 passes, that right will disappear. Other rights including your right to sue pharmaceutical companies for appropriate amounts will also be reduced or eliminated.
http://www.bodyecologydiet.com/newsletter/2005/mar/23/vaccines_mercury_autism_legislation.php

 

Pharmaceutical industry

Fourth Report of Session 2004-2005 ordered by the House of Commons

This is a most important document. You might want to read through the conclusions and recommendations beginning on page 97 of the report, then go back and read the entire document.

Please ensure that your legislators have a copy of this. The UK has provided an excellent blueprint of what can and MUST be done here in the United States with regards to restoring the proper balance between the pharmaceutical industry, it's regulatory agency, our political leaders and the public trust. As those who worked on this document conclude - the welfare and health of the people is of paramount importance. All decisions made should ultimately be to benefit the public health.

The problems outlined in this report are identical to those we face here in the USA, only ours is on a much larger scale.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhealth/42/42.pdf

Research:

Overuse injuries in pediatric athletes.

Children can be seemingly invincible, with inexhaustible energy. Even the elite young athlete, however, may lack the experience to realize when his or her level of activity is increasing the risk of sustaining injuries related to overuse. Coaches, trainers, parents, and physicians need to monitor the activities of young athletes, modify factors that may place them at increased risk of injury, and enforce periods of "relative rest" when necessary. Factors that can increase the risk of overuse injuries can be identified and modified if possible. Environmental factors include the use of sport-specific equipment (ie, running shoes instead of cleats for running activities) and properly sized equipment. Children of the same age will be of different sizes; "one size fits all" is not a good enough policy in this diverse population. Training factors include magnitude, frequency, and intensity. Children should be asked if they are participating in more than one team or sport simultaneously. Also, because the child's interest may exceed his or her skill level, young athletes optimally should be taught sport-specific skills to prevent injuries related to improper biomechanics. Finally, anatomic factors should be assessed, including alignment, laxity, flexibility, and muscle balance. These factors cannot always be changed, but coaches can modify training regimens and suggest strength and flexibility training to counteract specific weaknesses. Young athletes have a long future of activity ahead of them. Even if they never reach the Olympics or compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), the injuries that occur in young athletes can have significant repercussions long after they leave the competitive arena.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12974490

The placebo effect

DON'T try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away.

This is the placebo effect: somehow, sometimes, a whole lot of nothing can be very powerful. Except it's not quite nothing. When Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy carried out the above experiment, he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-relieving power of saline solution disappeared.

So what is going on? Doctors have known about the placebo effect for decades, and the naloxone result seems to show that the placebo effect
is somehow biochemical. But apart from that, we simply don't know.

Benedetti has since shown that a saline placebo can also reduce tremors and muscle stiffness in people with Parkinson's disease (Nature Neuroscience, vol 7, p 587). He and his team measured the activity of neurons in the patients' brains as they administered the saline. They found that individual neurons in the subthalamic nucleus (a common target for surgical attempts to relieve Parkinson's symptoms) began to fire less often when the saline was given, and with fewer "bursts" of firing - another feature associated with Parkinson's. The neuron activity decreased at the same time as the symptoms improved: the saline was definitely doing something.

We have a lot to learn about what is happening here, Benedetti says, but one thing is clear: the mind can affect the body's biochemistry. " The relationship between expectation and therapeutic outcome is a wonderful model to understand mind-body interaction," he says. Researchers now need to identify when and where placebo works. There may be diseases in which it has no effect. There may be a common mechanism in different illnesses. As yet, we just don't know.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524911.600

Chiro Connect:

In case you haven't noticed, we have an on-line clinical chat forum where you can post questions, cases, etc and discuss with other members. You can check it out here: http://www.icpa4kids.com/members/phpBB.htm

A notice from on of our members:

"We are currently looking for a young pediatric minded chiropractor/graduating-student to take over my wife's practice as she is devoting more time to her pregnancy. Do you have any prospective students or doctors that might be interested in working in the St. Louis area?"
- Cory Webb DC cawin8@charter.net