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Weekly News Roundup
November 30, 2015
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Dennis J. Barbour, JD, Editor
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Misleading HPV vaccine websites are easy to find
Parents who go online to find out about the vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted disease that causes cervical cancer, may have a hard time finding accurate information, a recent U.S. study suggests.
The Internet, where the vast majority of Americans go for answers to a wide variety of medical questions, may be particularly misleading when it comes to facts about HPV, researchers report in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
When they searched for facts about this vaccine online, they found the top five to 10 results contained critical information only about a third of the time.
"In general, web pages that were against rather than neutral or supportive of HPV vaccination were of lower quality and had less complete information," said lead study author Dr. Linda Fu, a pediatrician at Children's National Health System and George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
"When web pages with inaccurate or incomplete medical information are ranked highly by search engines, there's a greater chance that more people are going to view them, which means they will stay highly ranked and continue to perpetuate misinformation," Fu added by email.
Reuters, November 27, 2015
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Deaths Persist In Youth And Student Football Despite Safety Efforts
We know more than ever about concussions, the permanent brain damage of chronic traumatic encephalopathy and the other physical risks of football. Yet so far this year, at least 19 students have died playing football, according to the University of North Carolina's
National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research
. Though participation is slowly declining, football is still the country's most popular high school sport. Over a million high schoolers played last season.
NPR, November 26, 2015
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Doctors divided on meningitis B vaccine They see benefits, but also worry about short safety and effectiveness track record
Dr. Mark Sawyer, an infectious disease specialist at Rady Children's Hospital San Diego who has helped set national vaccination policy, said the meningitis decision is more nuanced than it is for more routine vaccinations that have been around for decades. "Physicians are struggling with this because we do not have a precise guideline. I was just at a conference where there were over 500 pediatricians in attendance and we talked about this issue for more than a half-hour because this is a real gray area," Sawyer said. Indeed, the CDC's recommendation last month about the meningitis B vaccine pretty much lays the matter right in doctors' laps.
San Diego Union Tribune, November 25, 2015
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Boys 'affected' by early puberty hormones
Early hormonal changes in boys as young as eight are linked to emotional and behavioural problems, a new study says.The findings challenge the belief that puberty is implicated in the onset of mental health problems, says Dr Lisa Munday, lead author of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute study."(The) results show that early hormonal changes, which take place before puberty proper are linked with emotional and behavioural problems, particularly in boys," she says.
W9 News, November 23, 2015
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One in 10 US adults has a problem with drug use at some point during their lives, but it typically goes untreated, according to a survey reported today from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Contrary to the stereotype, today's person with a drug use disorder is more likely to be a young, white male, who is single and marginally employed.
American Journal of Managed Care, November 18, 2015
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The Weekly News Roundup is produced by The Partnership for Male Youth and is released every Monday.
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