tweetle beetle bottle puddle paddle battle recall muddle

When you put a beetle in baby bottle, you get a recall by a lab named Abbott:

WASHINGTON -- Drugmaker Abbott Laboratories said Wednesday it is recalling millions of containers of its best-selling Similac infant formula that may be contaminated with insect parts.

The voluntary action affects up to 5 million Similac-brand powder formulas sold in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Guam and some Caribbean countries. The company said the products may contain a small beetle or larvae, which could cause stomach ache and digestion problems.

The recall does not affect any liquid formulas or other Abbott-brand products.

A company spokeswoman said Abbott uncovered the insects last week in one section of a manufacturing plant in Sturgis, Michigan.

Good thing they don't sell noodles.

Protecting Your Children From Fire May Be Bad

The Wife is a philosophy professor. Her Dad is a more down-to-earth kind of guy. Of my wife's chosen career, he once said "Philosophy?! The cave men figured out all the philosophy we'll ever need: Fire good. No fire bad."

Turns out it's actually a little more complicated than that.

According to the Internet (actually, the National Fire Protection Association) in 2002 (the year with the lowest incidents ever recorded, mind you), children started almost 14,000 "structure fires" resulting in 210 deaths, 1,250 injuries, and $339 million in property damage ("that's coming out of your allowance!").

On the other side of the equation, companies have been dousing everything from clothing to couches to electronics with chemical fire retardants called PBDEs. The white coat activists at the Environmental Working Group conducted a study of 19 US families showing that in 19 of them, concentrations of the PBDEs were three times higher in the children and toddlers than in the mothers. The EWG had conducted an earlier study in 2003 and found that concentrations of PBDEs in US mothers' breast milk were 75 times higher than in breast milk from European mothers (the compounds are under much higher regulation in Europe). Although the studies are small, they are enough to cause great amounts of worry.

What's so bad about PBDEs? Apparently, when given to mice, they cause hyperactivity (and nobody wants hyperactive mice). The EWG recommends that until Congress enacts tough new regulations, children should really stay off the couch and stop using Daddy's computer.

With the NFPA's warnings in mind, I recently cautioned Cinderella not to play with matches. The conversation went exactly like this:

Cinderella: Daddy I need some matches.

Me: You shouldn't play with matches dear.

Cinderella: I'm not going to play with them! I need them to start a fire.

NY Times follows up on my Vitamin D story

The New York Times did a follow-up story to my earlier post about the dangers of too little vitamin D.

According to the Times, medical types have noticed an increase in the number of babies with problems they suspect are the result of too little vitamin D, including rickets, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and cancer.

Doctors suspect multiple causes, including exclusive breastfeeding (since the mothers are vitamin D deprived themselves), children drinking soda and juice instead of milk, and not enough time spent outdoors in the sun. Because we know that exposure to the sun will cause instant death, the recommended solution is to feed your baby vitamin supplements and cod liver oil.



But wait! According to Sydney Spiesel, a pediatrician and professor at Yale University School of Medicine, too much cod liver oil will actually do damage to your bones. Overdo the cod liver oil and you're likely to get too much vitamin A, which can lead to "liver damage to nervous-system symptoms that resemble the effects of a brain tumor," as well as bone mineral loss leading to osteoporosis.

Well, that certainly clears things up.