June 2020 Newsletter
What Will School Look Like in the Fall?
What will schools look like in the fall here in New York? Neither Governor Cuomo nor DOH Commissioner Zucker have said much about this. Recently, however, the CDC weighed in with some recommendations.

These include:
  • Cloth face coverings for both students and staff -- on the bus and at school
  • Lots of hand sanitizer, soap, and disinfectants
  • Increased spacing between desks and bus seating
  • Sneeze guards and other partitions
  • Closure of lunch rooms and playgrounds
  • Virtual field trips
  • Cohorting of students to minimize contact
  • Daily temperature checks
Of course, it will be up to state officials to implement any or all of these recommendations. It is certainly looking like school, like many workplaces already, will have a dramatically different look than they did last year.  
Practice News & COVID-19 Testing Update
1. Last week, Bambini received some good news from the National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA):  our certification as a Level-3 (the highest level) Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH-3) was renewed for the next 12 months.  Lot of work went into this!

Through the medical home model, primary care practices seek to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of the care they deliver while responding to each patient's unique needs and preferences.  Only about 7% of US physicians currently practice in an NCQA medical home.

2. Parents can now book both urgent visits (in the office) as well as telemedicine appointments (online e-visits) through the patient portal.  Have you signed up??

3. We have received several applications for our summer student volunteer positions at Bambini.  If the program is as successful as we expect, we may continue it on into the fall -- especially for students that are home-schooled and in a position to volunteer earlier in the workday.  Students with chronic health issues that might be aggravated by exposure to infectious agents should not apply at this time.  

4. Last week, we began performing Sophia rapid antigen testing here in the office for COVID-19!  This test has a number of advantages over PCR testing:
- rather than a deep nasopharyngeal swab, we only do a nasal swab (like we do for the flu, for instance).
- results in 15 min rather than 1-3 days

Imagine your toddler has a runny nose and you are due to visit your grandparents tomorrow.  A quick nasal swab for coronavirus might provide some peace of mind before you leave.  

Finally, speaking of coronavirus, our latest set of recommendations for both prevention and early treatment can be found here.
Benefits of Bee Pollen:  
Imagine a medicine with the following properties:
1. can be used as a food, as it contains 23% protein, including lots of essential amino acids.
2. also contains essential fatty acids like GLA.  In fact, it has pronounced anti-inflammatory properties -- rivalling, in fact, drugs like naproxen and indomethacin.

3. great source of B-vitamins, including folate, biotin, and inositol.  Also contains fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, and E.
4. contains quercetin and works great for allergies.  In fact, while there are prescription forms of this medicine like Oralair, this one is affordable and OTC.
5.  also has antifungal, antiviral, and antimicrobial properties.  In fact, it can be applied to an open burn to speed wound healing.

6.  this med has been show to reduce lipid levels in the blood by 20-35%!
7.  it has been used to treat depression, burnout, and fatigue.
8.  finally, this substance has been shown to increase the lifespan of experimental animals.

What is this combination superfood & wonder-drug?  You probably guessed:  bee pollen.  Little wonder that bee keepers have longer than average telomeres -- a finding that confirms their tendency toward an increased lifespan.  
Downside to Fish Oil?
This intriguing report was brought to our attention by none other than Jenn Sullivan CLC of Waddle & Swaddle. 

Almost all of us are aware that fish oil has pronounced anti-inflammatory properties.  And we assume that is a beautiful thing -- right?  It's got to be associated with healthier babies when lactating moms take it as a supplement -- of course?

Well, researchers from the University of British Columbia took a hard look at these suppositions and found the following:
1. fish oil lowered secretory IgG in lactating women
2. it increase IL-10, an inflammatory cytokine
3. was associated with reduced gut bacterial diversity and lowered ability of the microbiome to resist pathogen colonization.  

The findings, published a few weeks ago in Nature, are a little startling, aren't they?  We're going to have to see what the folks at Weston Price and other natural health experts have to say about this.   
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
If you do not already receive our monthly e-newsletter, click here or go to the
home page of our website and enter your email in the sign-up field.