An Epidemic of Autism, ADHD, Obesity, Diabetes – A Tough Look at Health Issues Claiming America’s Children

STERLING, Va. (Business Wire EON/PRWEB ) February 17, 2007 -- In her bold and balanced new book, Suffer the Child: How the Healthcare System Is Failing Our Future, award-winning investigative reporter and UPI senior science writer, Lidia Wasowicz Pringle, provides urgent reasons why national attention must be focused on the health of our children.

“Our children are our future, and those who are healthy and suffering, are faced with an increasingly challenging and complex health care system. Lidia Pringle in Suffer the Child not only documents the ways in which we are failing our children, but what we can do to begin to effect change through improved communication, collaboration, and cooperation; reaching beyond the latest drugs to non-pharmaceutical treatment alternatives,” said David Riley, MD, Editor in Chief, EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing, Clinical Associate Professor, UNM Medical School; Founder, Integrative Medicine Institute.

Based on a two-year investigation of hundreds of documents and 250 interviews with pediatric specialists and advocates, the meticulously researched work paints a disturbing picture of our children’s health and an ailing system charged with its care.

Among the dramatic findings:

• Chronic conditions, including asthma and autism, are creeping onto pediatric patient charts at alarming rates. The prevalence of asthma alone has risen 232 percent in 30 years. No one seems to know exactly why.
• Health problems usually associated with adulthood, such as obesity and diabetes, are plaguing ever-younger age groups.
• Suicide and mental illness––from attention deficit to bipolar disorder––are marring what should be the carefree years. Black box warnings of potential suicidal thoughts in adolescents adorn antidepressant labels, casting doubt on years of assurances of the drugs’ safety and effectiveness.
• While some of the worst childhood scourges, such as polio and smallpox, have been eradicated, a new wave of insidious illnesses has emerged that neither time nor treatments can heal. Their reported incidence continues to rise, disabling at present more than 9 million minors.

In digging beneath the headlines, Suffer the Child explores such questions as:

• Is the increasing incidence of childhood ailments due to better diagnostic tools and clearer medical understanding or are these really burgeoning epidemics caused by environmental, familial, societal, genetic, or other factors?
• How much is known about the long-term effects of medicines given our children whose brains and bodies are still growing and developing?
• How does a physician decide on a treatment course, when some 70 percent of drugs used with children are not approved for children?
• Are we properly balancing preventive strategies, drug treatments, and non-pharmaceutical alternatives?
• How can parents weigh wisely whether a certain medication––be it vaccine or Ritalin or aspirin––will help or harm their child?
• How well is the medical community balancing protecting child research participants while promoting needed scientific inquiry?
• To what extent does pharmaceutical industry influence seep into the doctor’s, regulator’s, and researcher’s office?

With its unprecedented compilation of facts and information, Suffer the Child is a vital resource for policymakers, healthcare professionals, parents, and anyone concerned with the future of our children’s health.

About the Author. Award-winning investigative reporter, Lidia Wasowicz Pringle, joined United Press International 30 years ago while still an undergraduate student, working as a general news reporter, broadcast editor, and the first female investigative reporter in the UPI Pacific Division. Since 1982, she has served as West Coast Science Editor, Science Writer and, currently, Senior Science Writer, specializing in in-depth reporting of science/medical topics of interest to UPI’s worldwide clientele. Her most recent 15-part series on diets and obesity was nominated for the 2005 Communications Award, National Academies Keck Futures Initiative. This is Ms. Pringle’s first book. She lives in Mill Valley, California with her husband and two children.

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