Slashdot Mirror

It also found that the use of digital screens 2 hours, 1 hour, or 30 minutes before bedtime didn't have clear associations with decreases in adolescent well-being, even though this is often taken as a fact by media reports and public debates.

Though it seems like this study had a reasonably strict study design, and may be a welcome addition to the body of literature, this claim belittles the adverse findings in systematic reviews and clinical guidelines:

Screen time and sleep among school-aged children and adolescents: a systematic literature review., Sleep Medicine Reviews, 2015:

We reviewed 67 studies published from 1999 to early 2014. [...] We found that screen time is adversely associated with sleep outcomes (primarily shortened duration and delayed timing) in 90% of studies.

Effects of screentime on the health and well-being of children and adolescents: a systematic review of reviews, BMJ Open, 2019:

Findings of significantly shorter total sleep time with greater mobile device screentime were reported in 10/12 studies, with 5/5 reporting greater subjective day-time tiredness or sleepiness.

American Academy of Pediatrics Announces New Recommendations for Children’s Media Use, American Academy of Pediatrics, 2016:

For children ages 6 and older, place consistent limits on the time spent using media, and the types of media, and make sure media does not take the place of adequate sleep, physical activity and other behaviors essential to health.

The American College of Pediatricians is a right-wing shill group with perhaps 200 members. The real pediatricians' organization in the United States is the American Academy of Pediatricians, with around 60,000 members and which supports transition as an appropriate intervention for transgender people.

http://www2.aap.org/immunizati... (BTW, that would be the American Academy of Pediatrics site suggested by the CDC as a place to go for information on vaccines.

Q. Do vaccines contain fetal tissue?

A. No. A few vaccines involve growing the viruses in human cell culture. Two cell lines provide the cultures needed for producing vaccines. These lines were developed from two fetuses in the 1960s. The fetuses were aborted for medical reasons, not for the purpose of producing vaccines. These cell lines have an indefinite life span, meaning that no new aborted fetuses are ever used. No fetal tissue is included in the vaccines, either, so children are not injected with any part of an aborted fetus.

So you are correct in that while they do not contain fetal tissue, they are derived from aborted fetuses. As I said, personally I look at it as two who were considered "inconvenient" for reasons I do not know and really never wish upon anyone to decide, at least good has come from their existence in providing life for so many.

Just because the article is a terrible piece objectively and doesn't link to any hard data doesn't mean the data doesn't exist. There are plenty of data to suggest that tablet use isn't the best for kids' brains. Enough evidence to suggest that ANYTHING else would be better, including (OHMYGAWD) playing with LEGOs.

Take a look at the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics: "Television and other entertainment media should be avoided for infants and children under age 2. A child's brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens." http://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/Pages/Media-and-Children.aspx?nfstatus=401&nftoken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000&nfstatusdescription=ERROR%3A+No+local+token

> The blood only keeps for ten years

Not true. Cord blood stem cells can be stored indefinitely:
The New York State Health Department Guidelines for cord blood banking state that umbilical stem cells can be stored indefinitely under liquid nitrogen. The policy states, "There is no evidence at present that cells stored at -196C in an undisturbed manner lose either in-vitro determined viability or biologic activity. Therefore, at the current time, no expiration date need be assigned to cord blood stored continuously under liquid nitrogen." Current data reflects that cord blood cells that have been stored for fifteen years have the same composition as they did at the time of storage.(3) All science involving cryogenic storage of cells also indicates that the cells should remain viable indefinitely.

> the amount of blood in one umbilical cord isn't enough to treat an adult with

Also not true. The cord blood CAN be used by adults:
To date, umbilical cord blood has been used in more than 8,000 transplants for children and adults. In many cases, the cord blood was used by the baby's sibling. Other transplants have occurred for the newborn himself, the newborn's mother, father, and the newborn's cousin.

Some other poster said they couldn't be used for much, but CBR lists close to 100 diseases you can use cord blood treatments for.

And on the topic of the AAP article about why private banking is bad, this is from the AAP site:
. What is the difference between private cord blood banking and public cord blood banking?

Private cord blood banking is storing the baby's cord blood for his/her own future use or use for a family member should the need arise. Alternatively, public cord blood banking, or donating, means that the baby's cord blood is stored in a cord blood bank and is available to anyone in need of a transplant or may be used research purposes.

So the big difference is that if you donate it to a public bank, you might not get it back. Versus if you store it privately, it is yours forever.

Don't blame the private banks for the lack of cord blood in the public ones. There would be plenty of cord blood to go around if the hospitals banked it themselves:
Currently, only a small percentage of the four million births every year in the U.S. result in family-banked cord blood, and even if that percentage increases, there will always be a generous cord blood supply for the public banks-if funding is available. More than 90 percent of families do not have access to a public cord blood bank that accepts donations. Other factors also significantly limit cord blood donation eligibility, such as maternal exposure to viruses, tattoos, and international travel. In fact, recent reports from public banks convey that only 30 percent of donated cord blood ends up being banked. The limited cord blood supply in public banks is 100 percent due to lack of funding-not private banks.

Here are the options that I would say you base your decision on:
1. Do you have the funds?
2. If your kid gets sick later in life and you didn't have it, will you be ok or will you freak out and obsess over not having banked it?
3. Are you ok with the odds that your kid won't get sick? The odds are that you WON'T need it, so if you're not a #2, then you will probably be ok.
4. What's your opinion on stem cell research? If you think it's bad, then pay for your own private stem cell storage. Otherwise vote YES on laws making it legal for states to do stem cell research so the hospitals a

The American Academy of Pediatrics agrees - private banking is a waste. Go public banking, and you're more likely to save somebody's life.

http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/jan07cordblood.htm

Selling baby insurance to nervous expecting parents is like shooting fish in a barrel. Cord blood banking companies know this better than anyone.

I'll keep the biology lesson short. Umbilical cord blood is a source of stem cells. For about $5,000 parents can have this blood collected at birth and stored for 20 years (an optimistic appraisal of its shelf life). The dream sold to parents is that these stem cells might be used to cure their sick child, a sibling, or even the parents themselves of a horrible disease. The benefits promised are so spectacular that it seems downright negligent to not take advantage of this miracle of science, or so the promotional literature says.

When I was a nervous expecting parent about two years ago, I put aside the glossy brochures and did a little research on the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) web site. Here are a few facts I learned about cord blood banking and the stem cell treatments it promises:

• Since 1988 there have been about 3,500 instances of cord blood stem cells being successfully transplanted. This just means the cells were not rejected, not that the treatment was successful. In my mind this makes the treatments very experimental, even though I have had medical professionals say to my face that they are "mainstream."
• In the subset of stem cell transplant cases where treatment was successful in fighting a disease, especially a childhood cancer, the stem cells did not come from the patient in the majority of cases. This makes sense if you think about it; childhood cancers are often genetic, so why would you base treatment on cells with the same defective DNA that caused the illness in the first place? This is why the AAP strongly advises against banking for self-treatment.
• There are no comprehensive standards for collection or storage of stem cells. Different banking companies follow different procedures and there is little guarantee that the collected sample will be usable. Furthermore, while it may sound a little cynical, I don't have much faith in the internal controls of banks whose customers come back very infrequently for withdrawals. (The probability of an immediate family member being stricken with a disease for which there is any chance of a stem cell treatment is estimated to be 1 in 20,000.)
• Cord blood isn't the only or best source of stem cells. There are many kinds of stem cells, some present in adults. In fact, there have been breakthroughs in creating stem cells from adult cells. To me this suggests that cord blood stem cells are unlikely to be a silver bullet for any particular disease, and it's highly probable that other treatment options will exist.

Of course $5,000 sounds like a small price to pay for the promise of your child's well being, even if it's bet on a long shot. But I'll wager that putting that money in a college fund is a far better investment.

Remember that all children are different. Check out the American Academy of Pediatrics page on Learning to Read.

http://www.aap.org/publiced/BR_Read.htm

Note the ages mentioned there. While I won't question the poster's abilities, there should be no expectation that everyone should be at that level. What is important here, in my opinion, is to get her to read, not what she is reading. If games serve as a way to get he interested, all the better. However, don't quit doing the other things; read to her and ask her questions. Keep her engaged.

"Gets voted down"? The only thing pointed to by this article that could logically "get voted down" is the list of recommendations at the end of the report. I don't know how AMA proceeds on those sorts of things, so I don't even know if there's any vote involved. I suppose if someone wanted to propose that the AMA turn some or all of those recommendations into official Resolutions there would be votes?

But anyway, the recommendations, as Ars Technica pointed out, are fairly weak stuff compared to the rhetoric of legislators and Jack Thompson that we're used to. Here's a paraphrasing of exactly what the report recommends:

1. That the current video game rating system be reviewed and improved through industry, government, and civic group cooperation.
2. That physicians and families be educated on the current knowledge about "the public health risks of media exposure".
3. That the AMA officially endorse a recommended daily limit of 1 to 2 hours "total screen time" (which I assume includes both television and video games) for children, a recommendation already made by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
4. That the AMA "support increased awareness" of the need for parental supervision and age restrictions.
5. That they encourage hard research into long-term outcomes regarding gaming/Internet addiction and media violence.
6. That they encourage the next edition of the DSM-IV to formalize "Internet/video game addiction" as a diagnostic disorder.

See? Not terribly impressive; any legislator or judge trying to use that, or the largely wishy-washy findings reported in the body, as sturdy support for an off-the-wall law would have to twist words so far that the AMA would probably publicly respond. The AMA doesn't have a big axe to grind when it comes to video game violence; they don't really want to be anybody's poster child. The only thing there that bothers me is the last one. I readily believe that Internet/gaming addiction may someday have a place in the DSM, but if the same report is simultaneously pointing out that research is incomplete, then it's premature. Do your research, relate the specifics to the generalities already known about addicition, then put it in the DSM.

Which is why she is trying to find evidence that video games are bad, than, for example, campaigning to stop children from watching television, when there is plenty of evidence and an existing consensus that TV does a lot of harm to children:

http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/yourchild/tv.htm http://www.stanford.edu/dept/bingschool/rsrchart/b andura.htm http://www.apa.org/releases/childrenads.html

Even reseachers who say TV can be good, emphasise that only applies to VERY restricted viewing:

http://www.aap.org/family/tv1.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3506854.stm

Your (his?) claim that "There is no convincing scientific evidence that mass inoculations can be credited with eliminating any childhood disease" is refuted here and here, the latter of which links is an anti-vaccine site.
this link gives references to more scientific studies. And this link also responds to your claims.

And, it's blazingly obvious that smallpox, pertussis, and polio have responded to vaccine regimes. In areas that lacked polio vaccine, polio cases continued. When those areas began to receive the vaccine through WHO (including Europe), the cases reduced or stopped altogether. Case closed.

Vaccination also fits well with the established mechanism of disease resistance. Those who have received vaccination show an increased level of antibodies to the disease vaccinated against; the antibodies are the proteins used by white cells to identify and then destroy the invading pathogens.

I recommend getting your information from medical journals and sites instead of scare websites.

And if you have a child, PLEASE get your vaccination information from repuatable sources.

Your (his?) claim that "There is no convincing scientific evidence that mass inoculations can be credited with eliminating any childhood disease" is refuted here and here, the latter of which links is an anti-vaccine site.
this link gives references to more scientific studies. And this link also responds to your claims.

And, it's blazingly obvious that smallpox, pertussis, and polio have responded to vaccine regimes. In areas that lacked polio vaccine, polio cases continued. When those areas began to receive the vaccine through WHO (including Europe), the cases reduced or stopped altogether. Case closed.

Vaccination also fits well with the established mechanism of disease resistance. Those who have received vaccination show an increased level of antibodies to the disease vaccinated against; the antibodies are the proteins used by white cells to identify and then destroy the invading pathogens.

I recommend getting your information from medical journals and sites instead of scare websites.

And if you have a child, PLEASE get your vaccination information from repuatable sources.

See this link and notice that the statement is jointly signed by officials of the AAP, APA, AMA, AACAP, and AAFP. These links state clearly that the Surgeon General considers video violence an encouragement to violent behavior.

If you have evidence to the contrary, I would be interested in seeing it.

Google "I'm Feeling Lucky" for "children exposed to violence at a young age". There are a good number of references at the bottom of that page to start you off. You might also want to try the "non-lucky" Google search for even more information!

It's almost common knowledge now that children exposed to violence at a very young age, whether it be on TV, Games, Music, or in real life get pretty messed up by it. Friends of mine who were abused at a young age often have to go to psychologists and take medication. I've been lucky enough to have a trouble and violence free life, and I'm just fine and medication-free.

-Jesse

The interesting cases are not ones like computer science, which have always been dominated (numerically) by men. The interesting cases are ones like medicine, where in certain specialties -- gynecology and pediatrics -- the tide has shifted from majority male to majority female or a 50/50 split. What causes this change? Not evolution! In other words, nothing inherently biological.

Idiot posters aside, I think most people can agree that there are a combination of biological and environmental factors that contribute to the low percentage of female CSers. Fine. So what are the environmental factors, and how can we control them? That's the real (and interesting) question.

Even the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV in the first two years of life.

We haven't had TV since my daughter was born, and after about 3 months I din't miss it at all. Of the children we know, it's obvious which ones watch TV. The kids that don't have amazingly long attention spans by comparison.

Both links you provided, while interesting, appear to be extremely biased anti-circumcism groups. The last link did have one apparently unbiased source from the AAP, but the information I found on their website seems to say only that the risks of being uncircumcised are slight enough that the circumcism becomes an unnecessary operation. I personally like to increase my odds whenever possible, but I can understand the opposition to it even if it does appear to be mostly based on hearsay. Any information not linked to jewish or anti-circumcism sites would be appreciated.

This is getting off topic, but I feel compelled to respond to this anyway. I agree that we need to keep an open mind these things, but the problem with homeopathy is that is based on a shaky premise and employs flawed epistemological techniques. The basic idea behind homepathy is that "like cures like": homeo (same) + pathy (disease). For cases like vaccines that use small amounts of a virus to stimulate immune response, this makes sense, but in most other contexts it does not. For example, the The National Center for Homeopathy recommends treating children who accidentally ingest poison with ipecac, which is basically poisonous itself and is used to induce vomiting. A classic homeopathic remedy. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends against using ipecac for poison treatment. Apparently it doesn't often get rid of all the poison and may cause the child to vomit up antidotes that actually do work, making treatment more difficult.

I'm sure there are many folk remedies that do work, but homeopathy as a principle seems kind of silly.

Contrary to some of the comments here, a large body of research shows a link between exposure to media violence and aggressive behavior. There is a consensus among experts on this point (see this joint statement by the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, and American Psychiatric Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics). Much of the research to date has concerned television and movies; not as much research has looked at video games. But there is growing evidence that the influence of video games is at least as strong and may be stronger. If you want to read some of the research for yourself, the Lion and Lamb advocacy group has a helpful page of links. (I am not affiliated with the group.) The research evidence is high-quality and includes longitudinal surveys showing long-lasting effects of early exposure to media violence on later aggressive behaviors. In showing a relationship between media violence and aggression, the studies rule out other factors that might be correlated with violent-media exposure, such as low socioeconomic status, poor parenting, low intellectual ability, etc. Of course, many of these things can also contribute to a person becoming violent, and no single risk factor is likely to make a person violent. Still, the evidence is strong that exposure to media violence is one risk factor. One study (Johnson and colleagues, 2001) noted that the effect of media violence on aggression is larger than the effects of calcium intake on bone mass and childhood lead exposure on IQ. As for video games per se, an analysis of the results of several published studies (Anderson and Bushman, 2001) showed that the size of the effect of violent video games on aggression is about the same size as the effect of condom use on the risk of HIV infection. (The Johnson and Anderson studies are linked at the LL site.)

A firearm in the hands (or closet) of a lawful, responsible person is no threat to you, if you do not break into his home or otherwise attack him.

You make a number of assumptions that the weapons are properly stored, and that the owner is a mature, responsible, well-balanced person without any violent tendencies. Even then, guns can be stolen. The presence of guns in a house may pose a significant risk to the inhabitants of that household though. Most women who are murdered by their spouse are killed by guns. Another unfortunate side effect you ignore is the threat guns in the house pose to children. Some statistics from the American Acandemy of Pediatrics suggest that:

* In 1997 there were 32,436 firearm-related deaths, of which 4,223 of the victims were children and adolescents younger than 20 years of age.
* Handguns continue to account for the majority of deaths and injuries from firearms in the United States.
* In 1997, 85 percent of all homicides and 63 percent of all suicides for adolescents 15 through 19 years of age were committed with a firearm.
* The United States has the highest rates of firearm-related deaths (including homicide, suicide and unintentional deaths) among industrialized countries. The overall rate of firearm-related deaths for US children younger than 15 years of age is nearly 12 times greater than that found for 25 other industrialized countries, and the rate of firearm-related homicide is nearly 16 times higher than that in all the other countries combined.
* In 1994, the mean medical cost per gunshot injury was approximately $17,000, with the 134,445 gunshot injuries in the United States in 1994 producing $2.3 billion in lifetime medical costs, of which $1.1 billion (49 percent) was paid by US taxpayers.
* 1997, 306 children and adolescents younger than 20 years killed by firearms died as a result of unintentional firearm-related injuries.
* 10 children die each day from gunfire in America, approximately one every 2 1/2 hours. That is the equivalent of a classroom of children every two days.
* In 1998, nearly three times as many children under 10 died from gunfire as the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.

So, how about some facts to back up your rhetoric?

The choice should be no television, period.

On average, most people watch about 20 hours a week. (see here for a somewhat over the top interpretation about the effect on kids) That's a part time job. Think about the cost of the intellectual capital involved here when you multiply 20 hours a week times everyone who has a television.

Granted, there exists a healthy amount of interesting, educational, and entertaining programming. And the Net hasn't entirely replaced CNN yet as the chief means of disseminating American propaganda to the masses during times of crisis or hysteria.

But let's face it, for every hour of really enlightening TV you saw, you also sat there flipping around for at least two hours of Who Wants to be a Millionaire or some other crap. Not to mention 48 minutes of ads.

Wouldn't you rather spend all that time ... doing stuff? Like: hanging out with friends, reading, coding, skateboarding, writing, having sex, listening to music, designing cool buildings, reading /., rock climbing, eating, or even -- gasp, working?

Real life: it's better than HDTV.

Now I do agree with a lot of your points. There is a strong puritanic feeling in the USA but you may not forget the historic part of it: don't forget that the puritans were some of the first pioneers in the "New World", pursued for their religious beliefs here. So it seems quite logical that puritanic beliefs have still a big impact on the thinking of some Americans.
What I personally do not like with their puritanic feelings is the huge hypocrisy:

• one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates for a first world country
• Porn industy is huge
• Censorship on porn but not on violence

Your main point seems to be that it is up to the parents to educate their kids about sexuality. Sex is just so personal, and if parents haven't got a free mind about sexuality, you can't expect that they are able to educate their kids properly. As matter of fact, I think good sex education at school could be a very big help, in every country, be it US or Europe or Japan or name-a-country-yourself. I mean by good sex education, not the usual anatomical talk but the more practical (yeah! really!) talk: emotions, contraception, foreplay. It seems quite straightforward, but I think it would really help.

As for censorship, I can only say that I never ever fell on a porn site on the internet without searching it. Yes, porn, is out there and the worst kinds I can even try to imagine but that's not the point. It is not up to the ISP to regulate that (well, at least not by default) and laws are not very usefull for regulating that. If I happen to like blowjob pictures, there are a lot of places where that sexual activity is considered illegal. Furthermore, laws will be passed in the context of a certain ideology that reigns during the time: laws get obsolete very very fast IMHO and are unfortunately not kept up to date in a timely fashion.

Well, my points of view of course....

Luxembourg/Europe here (for those who don't know me....which is about slashdot minus andr0meda)

Bzzt. What studies are you referring to? Show me the URL.

I bet they were funded by either the US Govt war on drugs or by the tobacco industry or both. In reality hemp has almost no THC, and America's legal drugs are the real gateways:

• American Academy of Pediatrics
• Indiana University
• American Medical Association

APA Journal

AAP Web Site

Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children

These results are not the fault of the technology but the fault of thoes who use it. Gov. Bush may be using incorrect wording and blaming the internet, but there is a strong correlation between some internet content and the dark harts spoken of. If the media had no effect on anyone why do advertizers spend billion of dollars on ads?

Gavin

APA Journal

AAP Web Site

Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children

These results are not the fault of the technology but the fault of thoes who use it. Gov. Bush may be using incorrect wording and blaming the internet, but there is a strong correlation between some internet content and the dark harts spoken of. If the media had no effect on anyone why do advertizers spend billion of dollars on ads?

Gavin

I urge everyone to (gasp) read the policy recommendations for yourselves. As you can see, all their findings are backed by honest-to-goodness reasearch, and common sense.

Also, to all those people who whine about how this is an affront to the Holy First Amendment better check their medication, and by the way read the First Amendement and this report!

The recommendations made by the AAP are just that, and moreover are recommendations made primarily to parents and pediatricians. The only reference anywhere to involving the goverment was to encourage the goverment to expore and fund media education programs and further media research.

--Dave

Read the American Academy of Pediatrics' articles on kids and media. The AAP doesn't limit its recommendations to the viewing habits of 2-year-olds; it has a wide-ranging policy on curtailing or eliminating media exposure for all minors. (Regardless of whether this is good or bad, the AAP in general addresses children of all ages and has a similar message.)

What's with /.? Just because Katz has a lot of his own opinions to share with us doesn't mean he shouldn't include a link to the actual policy statement. Is this, or is this not, a web-based news source?

If the above link has already been posted, please moderate the first post containing it upwards.