Experts: Childhood illnesses on the rise

By Keith Purtell
Phoenix Staff Writer

August 02, 2008 10:25 pm

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Marty Richerson suspected for years that something was wrong with her daughter Britney. It took years before Britney was diagnosed with autism, a disorder that is one of illnesses increasing in alarming numbers among children.
“She cried all the time, she wouldn’t grow, she wouldn’t suck,” Richerson said. “She didn’t walk until she was almost 2 years old.”
According to the National Institutes of Health, three of the most alarming childhood illnesses are becoming more widespread.
• Asthma incidence and mortality have more than doubled.
• Neurodevelopmental disorders like learning disabilities, dyslexia, mental retardation, attention deficit disorder, and autism affect 5–10 percent of babies born in the U.S. each year.
• The prevalence of childhood obesity is four times previous levels.
Richerson, 35, said Britney, now 9, had many developmental issues.
“She cried all the time, she wouldn’t grow, she wouldn’t suck,” Richerson said. “She didn’t walk until she was almost 2 years old. For a long time, I thought she was deaf. I would ask the pediatrician, ‘Does she have autism?’ It runs in her dad’s family. And she was running around all the time talking real loud. To talk to her, she’s still like a 4- or 5-year-old. She’s had speech therapy for the last five years. I finally got a team of doctors to help her.”
After her daughter was diagnosed with autism, a condition whose cause remains a medical mystery, she continued to feel like she was on her own. Then she read an article in the Phoenix that gave her new hope.
“The Christi Kellogg article in the paper two years ago said she was starting a support group (Muskogee Autism Support Network),” Richerson said. “I pulled out my cell phone, and I called her.”
Being with others who had faced the same problem made a big difference.
“In a support group you learn a lot, meet with other families who have been through the same thing,” she said. “There is a lot of laughing, sharing, crying; it helps to release that. We also share information about new research.”
Richerson said she believes support groups may be essential for parents of children with unusually difficult diseases.
“I think that with every child, whatever their disability may be, it only helps to have other parents to talk to because it’s a constant learning thing,” she said.
The NIH says there are some improvements for American children. For illnesses such as AIDS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and tuberculosis, have been better controlled with vaccines, antibiotics, and improved hygiene. Infant mortality has decreased by 90 percent. Life expectancy has nearly doubled.
And yet, the rise in other conditions have alarmed the medical community.
Dr. Timothy Holder, Maternal and Family Practice Associates Inc., said physicians and researchers are grappling with the issue.
“There is a lot of concern in the medical profession, and a lot of articles are being published,” Holder said. “There is a lot of information looking at children’s health.”
Holder gave an overview of what he has seen in his practice.
“Probably what I see more of is obesity and asthma; autism I refer to a specialist,” he said. “With obesity, a lot of studies have been done that show a lot of factors affect why children become obese. Why we eat, what types of foods are available, and activity levels.”
Holder talked about the healthy diet typical in Asia and what happens when an Asian person changes lifestyle.
“Studies of families coming from Asia who adopt the typical American diet show that after two or three years, their health status goes to that of a non-Asian person in terms of risk factors,” he said.
Muskogee pediatrician Dr. Mike Stratton also has noticed the trends in obesity.
“During the 15 years I’ve been in practice, I’ve seen twice as many obese children over that period of time,” he said. “Obesity increases are associated with lifestyle changes; young people are not moving around like they used to. They have a more sedentary lifestyle.”
Stratton said low-income people also are at risk for something called “food insecurity.”
“Food insecurity for a family with limited or inadequate resources will result in a situation where they don’t acquire appropriate foods,” he said. “That’s been going on since 1998. It forces people to buy less nutritious food.”
Then, there is asthma and the search for its cause or causes.
“I’m seeing more children with asthma, and sometimes it’s difficult to treat,” Holder said. “A child with asthma also misses more school and can fall behind academically. Why we have more asthma in children we believe is connected to the environmental pollution outside as well as inside our homes. There are airborne environmental irritants like chemicals, dust mites and animal dander.”
Dr. Stanley Handshy, in family practice in Tahlequah, said it is clear that the incidence of childhood asthma has been increasing significantly.
“The ‘why’ behind that could be a lot of factors,” he said. “Any time an illness increases one of the first questions we ask is ‘Are we simply looking harder and noticing it more?’ And partly that’s probably the case, however in the background we also have an increase in relative air pollution in the nation.”
One of those forms of pollution is tobacco smoke, Handshy said.
“Even though we’re gradually cutting into the cigarette smoking, you still have lots and lots of children homes with parents who smoke, and you have the old problems with the regular allergy problems which certainly haven’t gotten any easier,” he said. “They’re probably aggravated even farther by the increase in the air pollutants, so you put that together and you do see a significant increase.”
Handshy said there is also an in children with pulmonary disease from early birth.
“In the distant past they didn’t make it that long, and now most of them are, and they’re doing reasonably well except there is a high tendency to end up with increased respiratory infections, and probably quite a bit more asthma in those children also.”
In 1998, the President’s Task Force on Environmental Health and Safety Risks to Children recommended that a large study of American children be undertaken. In response, the U.S. Congress, through the Children’s Health Act of 2000, authorized the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development “to conduct a national longitudinal study of environmental influences (including physical, chemical, biological and psychosocial) on children’s health and development.” The study is now underway.
Key features of this far-reaching study — now termed the National Children’s Study — are that it will follow a representative sample of 100,000 American children from early pregnancy through age 21; a subset maybe recruited before conception. Exposure histories and biologic samples will be obtained during pregnancy and from children as they grow.
Each child will be screened genetically and follow-up will extend over decades.

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