Happy Halloween! Just in case there wasn't enough to be scared about besides gay people getting married on the beach; Communist Muslim Terrorist Presidents winning in a landslide; lamp post-shimmying Phillies fans dropping from the sky; and the paralytic spasms of the global financial system, all kinds of preliminary research also shows that your kid's in terrible danger and you're a horrible parent! For example:
The NY Times headline says it all: Still Spooked by High-Fructose Corn Syrup. By which I mean, well, the findings described in the article itself about the health-related evils of HFCS are not actually all that concrete. The environmental damage caused by all that overfertilized, monoculture, industrial-scale corn, on the other hand, WHOA. Spooky. [nyt]
"Are Vaccines Safe?" read a rainbow-colored email I received this week, which promised to give chiropractor's wife and "expert" Mary Tocco's detailed answer on two DVD's, in exchange for just $24.95. The DVD's were put together using "27 years of research and organizing" and "true facts." Also a shitload of stock photography and royalty-free background music. I'll take a flyer and guess that Tocco's answer is gonna be "No." [uh-uh, no Google help from me, Mary]
My first assumption when I saw the headline about the 8-yo boy accidentally shooting himself in the head with an Uzi at a gun show: why the hell are the guns at a gun show loaded? But this wasn't one of those Holiday Inn ballroom kind of gun shows; it was at a shooting club. Still, it totally sucks. [ap/yahoo via freakout correspondent sara]
Attractive fathers do not pass their looks on to sons, reads the Telegraph headline. And as if to prove they're better off just reprinting the study's press release, the UK paper tries a bit of its own analysis: "Sean Stewart, the son of Rod Stewart and his first wife Alana, would probably be judged less attractive than his model sister Kimberly." 1) Rod Stewart looks funny, always has. 2) His daughter looks just like him, poor thing. So the genetic hand this Sean character's been dealt is not that great to begin with. [telegraph.co.uk via fellow expat newsletter subscriber jj daddy-o]
This just in from Mass General: Breastfeeding causes good behavior. "'This is an early finding, but it suggests that breast-feeding during infancy could have an effect on behavior during childhood,' said the study's lead author, Dr. Katherine Hobbs Knutson, a resident in the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston." That's fascin--wait, a resident? [healthday news/yahoo via sara]
A Swedish study found that preeclampsia [high blood pressure during pregnancy] might lower the risk of testicular cancer up to 70% for the sons. Having preeclampsia yourself lowers the risk of testicular cancer to zero. [healthday]
Despite what they say, four out of five sunscreens tested by the Consumers Union contain nanoparticles, constituting "a vast experiment as to the safety of these products." On the bright side, at least the industry's conducting a safety test. On the downside, nanoparticles! [consumers union letter to the fda; via healthday, which is a freakin' freakout goldmine]
Have you seen little Alastair Stewart (I think that's how you spell his name)... that little boy is absolutely gorgeous. Soooo...
so maybe his mom is a model?
Perhaps Alastair Stewart should be part of a study on not-so-handsome-at-all-almost-freaky-looking fathers NOT passing their looks onto their sons....
Lol -- I got that Rod Stewart is pretty freaky looking... but I was assuming the UK paper having used him as an example thought that he was "handsome" or something (though how they thought that we'll never know). I was just confused.
Of course, David Letterman's son is really pretty too... so maybe they should do a new study that shows that really old not so attractive looking fathers can have gorgeous babies if they just find a model mother to have one with...
ie; Angelina Jolie would could have had babies with I dunno... Gary Busey... they'd still be goregous.
Actually, Mary Tocca is a very well respected expert in the field of vaccinations. Just because you are into the whole mainstream medical thing doesn't mean you should discount her research and knowledge in the field. Not sayin' the DVD's are any good - I haven't seen them - just that she isn't some yahoo out of nowhere.