Whew! Fewer Problems to Worry About
I was relieved to read the pediatric headlines last week; they seemed to involve stuff we don’t have to worry about. That’s awesome, because the rest of the news provided plenty of fodder for anxiety. Not only is the European financial system teetering on the brink of collapse, the U.S. Postal Service is making major cutbacks in first-class mail delivery, and Ferrari enthusiasts in Japan managed to simultaneously total a whole fleet of the coveted roadsters. The only good news is that there are now about nine Italian supercars I might actually be able to afford.
Possibly the most reassuring announcement of all, at least for parents of tweens with cell phones (ahem), came with a pair of studies about sexting, the practice of sharing sexually explicit images via electronic media. It turns out that only around 1% of kids aged 10-17 have ever sexted, a number that compares favorably to other high-risk groups, like, say, members of Congress. Despite a handful of highly publicized cases, it also appears that the majority of arrests for underaged sexting involve “aggravated circumstances,” meaning mainly grown-ups being involved. Alarmists are now casting about frantically for something equally scary and titillating to obsess about. I have a suggestion for them: Madonna’s upcoming appearance at the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
We also learned this week that watching 3D television is no more likely to induce seizures than watching the regular 2D kind. Personally I’m relieved researchers got this study published before anyone other than a Ferrari enthusiast could actually afford to buy a 3D television. Kids in the study, however, did suffer one adverse effect: a deep and abiding concern that James Cameron’s 3D smash movie Avatar was a complete rip-off of FernGully: The Last Rainforest.
Finally, we learned this week that it’s good for kids to sleep a lot and get a little fever after they get vaccines, or at least the authors think it might be good if a string of assumptions about the associations between immune function, sleep, and core body temperature happen to all be true. As I read the results, we now know for certain that if elevated temperature helps kids sleep better after their immunizations, and if acetaminophen suppresses post-vaccine temperature elevation, and if more sleep engenders a more robust cytokine response to antigens, and if that response actually leads to better immunogenicity in the long term, then kids who get their vaccines after 1:30 PM might enjoy better protection from diseases if they don’t take antipyretics, maybe. From now on, I’m going to tell parents not to worry if their kids get a little fever with their shots, starting at 1:31 every afternoon.
I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly going to sleep better myself after all that. I’ll be dreaming of saving enough Euros to order a trashed Ferrari from Japan, but having it take forever to arrive by U.S. mail. Of course, if I really had that much money I’d buy a 3D television. The Super Bowl Halftime Show will be here before you know it!