Slashdot Mirror

"Micro babies.." Talk about junk science. So the normal healthy baby weight range is 2500g to 4000g http://kidshealth.org/en/paren... . The natural variation range is 1500g, and they managed to find a statistical variation of LESS THAN 7% where the natural variation of healthy babies is 38% and some nitwit calls it micro babies caused by coal. Talk about complete lack of proportion or basic knowledge of the facts...

Going from memory, the standard rate (which I believe is odds in 1 year for a sexually active adult), the effectiveness of birth control is:
The pill (97% effective, 3% failure rate) i.e. 1 in 33 people who are sexually still active get pregnant every year.
condom (80% effective, 20% failure rate) i.e. 1 in 5 people who are sexually active still get pregnant every year.
No birth control (20% effective, 80% failure rate) i.e. 4 in 5 people who are sexual active get pregnant every year.

So 96% is right up there with the pill and a heck of a lot better than the other male alternatives.

These numbers are a bit more pessimistic for the pill and condoms. Note that these statistics reflect actual use and not "if it's always used correctly".
The pill (8/100 couples will get pregnant)
Condom (18/100 couples will get pregnant)

The only methods that get down to 1 or fewer preganancies per 100 couples are "emergency contraception" (i.e., morning after pill) and IUD.

Looks like they forgot to renew their domain last week.

More Info Here

I'm sure there are more mothers that have drowned their babies then there are geeks that have gone on murder sprees... So how about it mothers, care to apologize for your culture of violence and hate?

You are now aware that Sudden Infant Death syndrome is just a way to excuse parents for smothering their children. Let's look at some factors that are correlated to SIDS:

smoking, drinking, or drug use during pregnancy
poor prenatal care
prematurity or low birth weight
mothers younger than 20
tobacco smoke exposure following birth
overheating from excessive sleepwear and bedding
stomach sleeping

Hmm, young party-hard gals who didn't take care of themselves during pregnancy because they didn't want to be mothers... Hey, maybe it's not mothers, but Women we should have apologize. Or maybe Science should apologize -- I mean, why is the SIDS meme even around still if science says: "Nope, bitches be smotherin', yo" Oh, because we can't blame mothers. Ah, gotcha. It's Gynocentric Society that's to blame. The same Gynocentric society that blows up over some guy killing girls or girls being kidnapped while more guys are being murdered everywhere. ::Yawn:: Fuck this planet.

You also won't find any law prohibiting a child from nibbling his Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun, but a 6-yo was suspended from school for having a "weapon" - or anything which a mentally-disturbed teacher might think LOOKED like a gun. Yes, it happened.

ThisIsTrue.com is a weekly compilation of bizarre but true news stories; search for the "zero tolerance" ones.

But here are a few selections from a Google search for "parents arrested for leaving children alone".

http://stratford.patch.com/gro...

https://answers.yahoo.com/ques...

https://secure02.kidshealth.or...

http://www.lawandparents.co.uk...

How did people survive before ER visits for the flu? BTW, thanks for helping to drive up my premiums by taking your kids to the ER every time they get a fever of 101 F "just to be sure".

I hope the triage nurse makes you wait hours.

I mean, damn. What happened to a administering a standard children's dose of ibuprofen and monitoring the situation over the weekend? Are your kids pushing 104+ F? Having febrile seizures? Seriously dehydrated? Any legitimate emergent concern at all? Or is this more of a Munchausen by Proxy sort of deal?

Oops, messed the link up.
fixed

That's called infant botulism. . Californians must like dead babies though since it's most prevalent there.

Munchausen by Proxy

Not to mention the natural wake/sleep cycle changes as you age. Adolescence tends to shift the natural wake-up time back by a couple of hours. Yes, teenagers wanting to sleep in later than preadolescents (and stay up later) seems to have a biological basis. http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_body/take_care/how_much_sleep.html

All I asked in the begining of my post is "How many of you had taken all vaccine shots "offered" and " ordered" by the state? "offered" and " ordered" by the state ministry of health? For those who continue to just flame here is a list of imunizations http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/medical/immunization_chart.html Neither of you confirmed that you have taken all imunization offered. In the society of "profit" i do not beleive in benevolentan spirit of the vaccine industry. I also asked do the preachers of vaccination live by their words and vaccinate their loved ones with every vaccine that they offer to the rest of us on the table and again you did not at least point me to some data. So ,ok, call me names , but at least see on wikipedia what are the characteristics of that mental illness that you attach to my views. And have a good dose of flu vaccinations .

the flu averages about 36k deaths per year according to the CDC. though the number swings around quite a bit year to year.

and that in 1952 at the height of the polio epidemic there were only 60k cases and 3k deaths in the US. according to this

so even if vaccines were never developed you would still be more likely to die from flu than one of those "stable diseases".

All deaths are not equal.

An octogenarian dying from "flu" when he was already on death's door is not the same as measles killing a healthy 5-year-old.

the flu averages about 36k deaths per year according to the CDC. though the number swings around quite a bit year to year.

and that in 1952 at the height of the polio epidemic there were only 60k cases and 3k deaths in the US. according to this

so even if vaccines were never developed you would still be more likely to die from flu than one of those "stable diseases".

I knew I'd have to define this for you fine intelligent people, but here you go...

http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/relationships/healthy_relationship.html

I'll give you a hint, if a girl likes / loves you, she is much more likely to state that she has an STD (like 100% likely) and let you make up your own mind, than a random stranger looking to get laid not caring what happens to you? Is this human nature concept really that hard to understand? I bet most of the people in this thread are still EHMMM holding out for their 1st girlfriend.

I'd mod you for off topic since you missed the point by about a football field, but meh. We have a troll mod already :)

Numerous studies indicate that is is best to keep children under 3 away from all tv's, including dvd's, normal tv programming, movies, video games,etc... and to limit video exposure only increasing allowed hours per day gradually as the child gets older.

No tv under 2, limit to under 2 hours for 3 year No tv under 2

That's not research, that is extrapolation and interpretation (there's actually an important difference).

Numerous studies indicate that is is best to keep children under 3 away from all tv's, including dvd's, normal tv programming, movies, video games,etc... and to limit video exposure only increasing allowed hours per day gradually as the child gets older.

No tv under 2, limit to under 2 hours for 3 year
No tv under 2

The major difference in life expenctancy between the middle ages and today is the control of infections. In oh say 1200 AD, if you got a scratch on your finger and it got infected you were likely doomed. You would die from it.

Warfare was pretty horrible as well, because even a minor slash from a bladed weapon was pretty much a death sentance. It might take a couple of months, but you would almost certainly die.

Simple things that are easily treated today like impetigo could indeed be fatal.

We have had antibiotics of one sort or another since the late 1800s and they have steadily improved. Today you can pretty much be assured that you aren't going to die from a scratch or cut. The problem is that we certainly have gone too far with antibiotic use, especially for trivial things. But do not even think about "living without antibiotics" or some such nonsense. It has been tried and the results are lots of people die from really trivial stuff.

http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~agsafety/IRSHC/Docs/Fatality/Fatality.Summary.2006.pdf

Looks like 8 in indiana in 2006.

But the report does say "Since several other Midwestern states are reporting 3-5 times more fatalities than Indiana, it might also be concluded that we are doing something right. Is it a reasonable goal to de-clare that we never want to go back to the "good old days" of agricultural production when 60, 70, even 100 farmers a year died due to farm-related injuries, 30 or more farm chil-dren died annually and over 100 farmers lost hands or arms to corn pickers, balers and PTOshaftseachyear? Let's hope so!"

Here...
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/childag/docs/2001131a.html
It looks like an average of over 100 people under 20 die in farm work per year, every year. No national news for them tho like cops.
(also reported here http://kidshealth.org/teen/safety/safebasics/farm_safety.html)

Here...
http://www.agsafetyandhealthnet.org/Myers%20Old%20Farmers%20Conference%20Version%20071015%20Final.pdf
CFOI data show
that farm workers aged 55 years and older accounted for over half of all farming deaths between
1992 and 2004 (3,671 of 7,064 deaths), and had a fatality rate of 45.8 deaths per 100,000
workers compared to the overall farming fatality rate of 25.4 deaths per 100,000 workers. Most
common sources of fatality were "tractors" (46%), "trucks" (7%), and "animals" (5%).

---
Having a devil of a time breaking out farmer fatalities as one number. all the studies are picking slices.

---

There are as of 2006, 683,396 full time state, city, university and college, metropolitan and non-metropolitan county, and other law enforcement officers in the United States. There are approx. 120,000 full time law enforcement personnel working for the federal government adding up to a total number of 800,000 law enforcement personnel in the U.S.

The EPA states:

        There are only about 960,000 persons claiming farming as their principal occupation and a similar number of farmers claiming some other principal occupation.

That would make around 1.9 million primary and secondary occupation farmers.

So this means that farmers are dying at a higher rate than cops and in higher absolute numbers.

---

I tried to find some links on "Farmer Brutality" but apparently they don't stop and beat people up because they die a lot in a high risk occupation.

I hate to break it to you, but for the last 3 or so months that you were in the womb, you were floating in your own excrement.

You do not float around in your own excrement for 3 months.

Your first deuce comes after birth in most cases. It's called meconium.

If meconium is excreted in utero it can be dangerous as the baby may aspirate the meconium which can lead to serious complications. This is a big reason we suction the airways of babies immediately, before their first breath.

The so called "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" that you refer to is a set of symptoms associated with known causes, that being most commonly Myoencephalitis and is often accompanied with extreme pain (Fibromyalgia).

Most suffers have become afflicted by as a result of depressed immune system due to overwork.

Put another way, most sufferers get that way due to being workaholics.

It happened to a close friend of mine, and it nearly killed him, he was bed ridden for nearly a whole year. The guy is anything but lazy, runs his own IT consulting business full time, contributes to a number of open source projects, and is studying for his doctorate part-time, he also manages to squeeze in being a father somehow.

I have yet to see someone who can't do anything about their weight. I see people who eat 5 meals a day complain how hard it is. Or 3 meals, but require 3 full plate-loads in a meal But ANYONE 'CAN' get surgery/liposuction. So.. I disagree about being "helpless", and I agree with the GP. They get an extra luxury because of a "disability". How many other people do you see get an extra seat for claustrophobia? Zip, zilch, nada. Defining obesity as a disability nowadays is really sickening. Seeing people not having to work, or park far away because the threshold for "disability" being lowered is just sad. Soon they will have a disability that allows you to not work, just because you are too tired. Oh wait, they already have that!

I have yet to see someone who can't do anything about their weight.
I see people who eat 5 meals a day complain how hard it is.
Or 3 meals, but require 3 full plate-loads in a meal

But ANYONE 'CAN' get surgery/liposuction. So.. I disagree about being "helpless", and I agree with the GP. They get an extra luxury because of a "disability". How many other people do you see get an extra seat for claustrophobia? Zip, zilch, nada.

Defining obesity as a disability nowadays is really sickening. Seeing people not having to work, or park far away because the threshold for "disability" being lowered is just sad. Soon they will have a disability that allows you to not work, just because you are too tired. Oh wait, they already have that!

Rods and Cones The retina uses special cells called rods and cones to process light. Just how many rods and cones does your retina have? How about 120 million rods and 7 million cones â" in each eye! http://kidshealth.org/kid/htbw/eyes.html

Colors have a huge effect on how tired your eyes get, and how quickly they tire.

Your eyes interpret color through a number of cones. One way your eyes can become tired is when the cones in your eyes get too used to one specific color and begin having trouble interpreting the color on the opposite end of the color wheel. The same thing can happen to the rods in your eyes if you take in too much bright light. However, the worst offender is when your eyes are forced to interpret opposite colors on the color wheel at the same time. Think of it as trying to do two things at once that are about as opposite as you can get...like eating and running. Your eyes don't like to do it.

Ever been driving or at the movies and a bright reflection or flashes from the screen leave you seeing afterimages of what you just saw? You know, when you close your eyes and you can still see the general shape of what you were looking at or even, sometimes, pick out detail if you shut your eyes?

That's the rods and cones in your eyes tiring out from being overstimulated.

As a web developer and web surfer I personally found that the easiest way to keep your eyes from tiring out is to stay away from color schemes that utilize bright polar opposite colors. If you want an example, make a quick web page.

In the body tag include this property: style="background-color: #000000;"
In the page body include a h1 tag or two that say something in caps and include this property: style="color: #FFFFFF;"

Now look at the page in your web browser and stare at the header text for ten to twenty seconds and close your eyes.

Neat huh?

Now give your eyes a rest, change the color value in the header tags to #888888 and take another look.

Easier on the eyes right? If you want to play some more try it with bright red and bright blue. You'll get much the same effect.

Off-centering one of the colors avoids polar opposites on the color wheel and is much easier on the eyes.

I always had trouble working with word processors for long periods of time because the default color scheme was black text on a white background. If your monitor's turned up too high it's murder on your eyes; like trying to read or write on the beach without an umbrella or shade. Ever try reading in the sun? Almost impossible right? Same problem.

I fix the problem by changing the default background color to a light gray. Much easier on the eyes even if your monitor's brightness is turned up.

As long as we can figure out ways of supporting our population regardless of what happens to most of the species on this planet, we still win. In fact I do not doubt for a second that we will have to destroy most other complex large life forms on this planet in order to support our growing population. We will not be bringing anyone back to life, we will be working on our own solutions to our problems because we must, or we will die off just as well.

Now, your sentiment about me confusing correlation and causation. Look up mother at birth and child mortality rates before the industrial revolution and compare it to todays facts. The truth is that while we have fewer children in our life times (in developed countries anyway,) most of them survive. Also most mothers survive the child bearing and birth. This was not a fact of life at all. My wife had an ectopic pregnancy once, had she lived only 50 years ago, she would have died. Ectopic pregnancy was one of the major causes of death for young women most of our human history. It is no longer the case.

My great-grandparents had 12 kids, 5 of them died (at birth and in the first 3 years of life.)

If our population were reduced the technological advances would continue unabated, and the quality of life of people would increase at the same time. - this is absolutely false if you are talking about 'our' population. Are you in the USA? I am in Canada. If OUR population in Canada was reduced, there is no way in this world that we would enjoy the same life quality as we are enjoying today, nor will we have the same tech progress as before. Of-course, being the country of 33 million only, we rely on immigration to increase our population.

Now consider any other country with very large population, such as China for example. Should their population decrease dramatically, who is really going to win in that case? China is the largest manufacturer of cheap goods that the rest of the world is buying. Should their population decrease from 1.3 billion people, to 1 billion, we will not see a large difference. But if then you have to start looking at decreasing population in specific areas and not evenly across. Decrease their population from 1.3 billion to 300 million (like the States) by removing all of their farmers and all of a sudden more of their people have to start working at the farms. Since their tech levels are lower than ours, they will have to use much more than our 5% of population to feed themselves. No way in the world will they be able to cheaply mass produce the goods they are producing today. Our own life styles will suffer then, that we will not be able to buy as much goods with the same dollars as before.

If you look at the African countries, then the story is different, but they are not at all a technologically advanced continent. Much of their population is torn apart by wars and deadly diseases are destroying population in droves as well as bringing the total life expectancy down.
Sure, if you remove their population, it wouldn't make much difference to the rest of the world, however wouldn't it be better for those people at least if our tech advances helped them to overcome the epidemics their are experiencing. Of-course no amount of tech will help them with their political and social situation, this is a different story.

As far as I can see, any even decrease of population across the globe will diminish everyone's life enjoyment in one way or another. On the other hand if you start implementing eugenics and selective population controls depending on what you think is right, there is no way you will have support of most of the people, you will only cause more wars and carnage.

Certainly it could be great if everyone was smart and useful to the rest of society to the maximum but this kind of hope is an exercise in futility. Most people will never advance any of our tech, we have to have the mass, a hug

Yeah, I said your mama's so fat, she uses her boogers for bowling balls. Go back to sleep.

"Current wisdom?" Who is that?

From http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/infections/lung/p neumonia.html

"The viruses and bacteria that cause pneumonia are contagious and are usually found in fluid from the mouth or nose of an infected person. Illness can spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes on a person, by sharing drinking glasses and eating utensils, and when a person touches the used tissues or handkerchiefs of an infected person."

So essentially, try and avoid touching the mouse or keyboard if they're still wet with someone else's mucuus. Which is something I've been doing for years. Just in case it's not mucuus...

Care to back that up with a bit of fact?

Well, unless you're educated in eating a vegetarian diet, it can be very easy to become deficient in certain important nutrients. Getting enough protein, for example, can be tricky, and vitamin B12 is naturally only found in animal products (though it can be acquired in certain fortified foods, as well, not to mention vitamin suppliments).

Point being, people can't just magically switch to a vegetarian diet. It takes education and a fair bit of work to do it properly, which is why I always groan when I hear about people deciding to "become vegetarian" without doing any research beforehand.

And the belief that because the product is more than the poster wants to pay, why then it MUST be overpriced

Do Fry's or Best Buy ask themselves "perhaps the way to lower shrinkage is to lower our prices?".

But on Slashdot, pricing strategy is the alpha and the omega of the piracy industry.

I'm no expert in the field, but I'm pretty sure its in the region of 120 megapixels, but this site http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/eye-resolution. html begs to differ and states that it is in the region of 500 megapixels. This is based on a treatment of diffraction limited resolution based on theta = lamda/D (see here). But 500mp sounds is a HUGE amount and would require massive processing by the brain. This is a theoretical maximum of angular resolution based on perfect eyesight and a fully dilated pupil without abberation or imperfections. In the real world, we are unlikely to approach this figure by a long way. Even if the eye could resolve such small angles, we reach a limit based on the number of receptors (the rods and cones) which are somewhat less than 500 million - and according to this site http://kidshealth.org/kid/body/eye_noSW.html the number is around 120 - 130 million receptors so a resolution of around 120MP seems like a good ballpark estimate. You should bear in mind though, that we actually "see" very little of what we "detect".

whats wrong with sickle-cell anemia

It can cause you a lot of significant medical problems:

http://www.marchofdimes.com/professionals/681_1221 .asp
http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/heart/sickle_ cell_anemia.html

As about 1% of all teens attempts suicide and about 1% of those suicide attempts results in death, the average number would be 800 suicide related deaths in 8 million. I'd say that's freaking amazing suicide prevention. http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/mental_health /suicide.html

Just tie the women's tubes or something. Something reversible. To be honest I can't think of anything else reversible...

Did you miss all the sex-ed classes?

Then again, this is slashdot. Think about firewalls and try again.

There are differences (described in other answers) which may make cell phones worse, but driving with passengers *is* more dangerous for younger drivers (see http://kidshealth.org/teen/safety/safebasics/drivi ng_safety.html)

Then note that the study in the cell phone article was of younger drivers.

-Hil

"My babies bottom is typically surfaced in an unidentifiable brown pitted substance, and is far from smooth."

I thought they taught people to change diapers before they were allowed to take the baby home from the hospital!

I hope this link helps! Please, for the sake of your kid, check it out. Also, you'll find the kid doesn't smell as bad if you clean them up and change the diaper regularly.

BTW: The part about keeping something over a boy's penis while you change the diaper? They're not kidding! The little b******s will wait until your face is within range before they turn into little yellow fountains.

1) When people think of ..., or "mono," they often think of extreme tiredness as one of the major symptoms associated with this illness.

Ditto

2) Loss of appetite and generalized weakness also may be present, especially in adolescents. Nausea, hepatitis, jaundice, severe headache, stiffness, chest pain, and difficulty breathing can occur in some cases. A pink rash can occur all over the body in children who have been treated with ampicillin or amoxicillin.

ditto again!

3) Some may experience extreme fatigue, staying in bed for more than a week because they feel too weak even to walk around the house.

We're three for three (esp. after a failed Windows update session...)

4) 'Mono' is generally a self-limiting disease, which means it goes away on its own in most cases. Occasionally mono can cause complications

Need I say more...

5) Epidemic outbreaks in hospitals and workplaces have occurred.

` My biggest fear! Remember kids - practice safe computing!

Drinking (in reference to alcolic beverages) has always been subject to much debate. Most people say that drinking is bad for your health. There are some who even claims that it is good for you. Then there's also those who said that there's good and there's bad of it. These people promotes drinking in 'morderation'. Don't ask me what, I mean, what the hell is 'in morderation'. How much is morderate?

Personally, I don't drink.. At all.. Period! Never had! Not in my entire life.. But I've seen what happens to those who did, in excess!

I was hospitalised few months ago for acute infection of the lymphonode. Bad enough with high-fever, two days later, SARs hits asia and the doctors has been asking me whether I got coughing and sneezing too. Luckily I did not, otherwise I would have been isolated with the rest of the SARs cases, but I digress ;-)

Anyway, I was placed in a two bed room. The other patient in the bed next to me was there for kidney failure or something. His urine has turned blue in colour! Excessive drinking!

Two doctors attended to him, a physician and a psychytrist. I can stand the physician. Normally he'll just examine the guy and give comments and such on how to get better. It's the other doctor, he came and starts lecturing about the evilness of drinking and what he should do in order to wean off his drinking problem.

Okay-okay... That not too bad, it's when his favourite (my emphasis) uncle came and starts lecturing him on his problems, telling him to think about his family, his wife, himself, kids, father, mother and host lot more responsibilities. I mean, I'm the one who got depressed after hearing all these. Well, he is sitting on the other bed and you can hear everything!

This link "Is Alcohol Good or Bad for Your Health?" the Pros and Cons. Sort of objective though.

This one talks about Kids and Alcohol, a short article but quite okay for those who wants a quick look.

And finally, this one explains why hundreds of millions of people never drinks at all throughout their whole life. Me included...

Shooting and gun safety was on the things my education was seriously lacking in until I joined the Army.

Strange. :-| When I was a kid, the NRA literally taught us that stuff. We could get hunting licenses at 12 years of age but only on the condition that we got official safety instruction. (It was every night for about a week IIRC, and for example, with absolute humorlessness, we heard stuff like,

"Before climbing over the fence, don't just rely on the safety. All mechanisms fail, and the safety is just a little helper not to be relied upon--certainly not while taking the chance that a barb could click the safety off. Open the action, be it pulling back the bolt or pump or breaking a single shot or double barrel. Keep the action open!"

"speling". From Apache, the module which auto-corrects typos in URLs.

Go read this...

Especially since it makes the software sound like a feverish, phlegmy child.

Any freshly graduated advertising hire could tell you why this might be a bad idea.

That's not that bad as a name that suggests a disease that makes little kids sound like barking seals.

Umm... I hate to be the one to break it to you, but girls don't have an adam's apple. :)

But they do! Yes, I am serious! There's a condition often called 'lazy eye'. Where by one eye cannot focus and/or be controlled as finely as the other. One treatment for this is to cover the 'good eye' with a patch, forcing the 'bad eye' to 'practice'. Now here's the 'videogame treatment' angle; 20 minutes of viewing PONG is worth approximately 8 hours of 'normal' viewing on average. (yes, some videogames have more value in the matter than others) This is scientifically supported but I can also provide personal anecdotal evidence. My niece had a 'lazy eye' and the doctor said the condition was so progressed that it would probably take three years of wearing the eye patch to correct it. But in only 4 months with at least one hour a day of various videogames the doctor pronounced the condition cured. And yes, this 'videogame treatment' was done with the doctors full support.

Videogames to treat ADD/ADHD
Diffamblyopia (lazy eye)
Videogames and Parkinson's Disease
Videogames to treat inflammatory bowel disease and juvenile diabetes
National Institutes of Health and Videogames
Amblyopia (advice from another doctor)
more amblyopia advice
yet another doctor's opinion)
Reduce risk of getting Lyme Disease
Healthy anger management for kids
Avoiding/dealing with Nebulizer side-effects
still more amblyopia advice
Super Nintendo treatment for asthma (Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus)
Super Nintendo treatment for Diabetes (Packy & Marlon)
Super Nintendo anti-smoking (Rex Ronan)

But they do! Yes, I am serious! There's a condition often called 'lazy eye'. Where by one eye cannot focus and/or be controlled as finely as the other. One treatment for this is to cover the 'good eye' with a patch, forcing the 'bad eye' to 'practice'. Now here's the 'videogame treatment' angle; 20 minutes of viewing PONG is worth approximately 8 hours of 'normal' viewing on average. (yes, some videogames have more value in the matter than others) This is scientifically supported but I can also provide personal anecdotal evidence. My niece had a 'lazy eye' and the doctor said the condition was so progressed that it would probably take three years of wearing the eye patch to correct it. But in only 4 months with at least one hour a day of various videogames the doctor pronounced the condition cured. And yes, this 'videogame treatment' was done with the doctors full support.

Videogames to treat ADD/ADHD
Diffamblyopia (lazy eye)
Videogames and Parkinson's Disease
Videogames to treat inflammatory bowel disease and juvenile diabetes
National Institutes of Health and Videogames
Amblyopia (advice from another doctor)
more amblyopia advice
yet another doctor's opinion)
Reduce risk of getting Lyme Disease
Healthy anger management for kids
Avoiding/dealing with Nebulizer side-effects
still more amblyopia advice
Super Nintendo treatment for asthma (Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus)
Super Nintendo treatment for Diabetes (Packy & Marlon)
Super Nintendo anti-smoking (Rex Ronan)

But they do! Yes, I am serious! There's a condition often called 'lazy eye'. Where by one eye cannot focus and/or be controlled as finely as the other. One treatment for this is to cover the 'good eye' with a patch, forcing the 'bad eye' to 'practice'. Now here's the 'videogame treatment' angle; 20 minutes of viewing PONG is worth approximately 8 hours of 'normal' viewing on average. (yes, some videogames have more value in the matter than others) This is scientifically supported but I can also provide personal anecdotal evidence. My niece had a 'lazy eye' and the doctor said the condition was so progressed that it would probably take three years of wearing the eye patch to correct it. But in only 4 months with at least one hour a day of various videogames the doctor pronounced the condition cured. And yes, this 'videogame treatment' was done with the doctors full support.

Videogames to treat ADD/ADHD
Diffamblyopia (lazy eye)
Videogames and Parkinson's Disease
Videogames to treat inflammatory bowel disease and juvenile diabetes
National Institutes of Health and Videogames
Amblyopia (advice from another doctor)
more amblyopia advice
yet another doctor's opinion)
Reduce risk of getting Lyme Disease
Healthy anger management for kids
Avoiding/dealing with Nebulizer side-effects
still more amblyopia advice
Super Nintendo treatment for asthma (Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus)
Super Nintendo treatment for Diabetes (Packy & Marlon)
Super Nintendo anti-smoking (Rex Ronan)