Friday Roundup

Here are articles of interest that have been published within the last 7-10 days:

Health
1. Majority of Caesareans done before labor, August 31, 2010, New York Times
Brief Intro: "A new study suggests several reasons for the nation’s rising Caesarean section rate, including the increased use of drugs to induce labor, the tendency to give up on labor too soon and deliver babies surgically instead of waiting for nature to take its course, and the failure to allow women with previous Caesareans to try to give birth vaginally."

2. Returning to classrooms and to severe headaches, August 30, 2010, New York Times
Brief Intro: "Doctors say frequent headaches and migraines are among the most common childhood health complaints, yet the problem gets surprisingly little attention from the medical community. Many pediatricians and parents view migraines as an adult condition. And because many children complain of headaches more often during the school year than the summer, parents often think a child is exaggerating symptoms to get out of schoolwork."

3. Child's ordeal shows risks of psychosis drugs for young, September 1, 2010, New York Times
Brief Intro: "More than 500,000 children and adolescents in America are now taking antipsychotic drugs, according to a September 2009 report by the Food and Drug Administration. Their use is growing not only among older teenagers, when schizophrenia is believed to emerge, but also among tens of thousands of preschoolers.

A Columbia University study recently found a doubling of the rate of prescribing antipsychotic drugs for privately insured 2- to 5-year-olds from 2000 to 2007. Only 40 percent of them had received a proper mental health assessment, violating practice standards from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry."

4. Improving access to health care data, September 1, 2010, JAMA
Brief Into: "The April 2010 release of the Department of Health and Human Services' (DHHS’) Open Government strategy was a major step forward in expanding health data access. The DHHS developed the strategy in response to President Obama's Open Government Directive.."

Vulnerable Populations
1. Deal would provide dialysis to illegal immigrants in Atlanta, August 31, 2010, New York Times
Brief Intro: "Thirty-eight end-stage renal patients, most of them illegal immigrants, would receive the dialysis they need to stay alive at no cost under a rough agreement brokered Tuesday among local dialysis providers and Atlanta’s safety-net hospital, Grady Memorial."

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