Toxic Face Paint No Fun For Kids

Back in the day when Worried Dad was just Worried Kid, the biggest Halloween scare was the biggest thing we were afraid of was someone sticking a razor blade in an apple. Even though Snopes.com says there was some bits of truth behind these rumors, what kid in their right mind would eat an apple on Halloween?

Now the all-knowing Yahoo newsdesk has reminded us of a more modern worry: toxic face paint.

Besides the obvious warnings, like not dipping your candy in face paint, the FDA has these helpful tips:

• Read ingredient lists and don't buy any product that has non-approved colors. The FDA lists coloring agents approved for use in cosmetics. Worried Dad note: Laminate the FDA's fun 217 item chart and carry it with you every time you go shopping.



• Don't use products with fluorescent colors (D&C Orange No. 5, No. 10, and No. 11; D&C Red No. 21, No. 22, No. 27 and No. 28; and D&C Yellow No. 7) near the eyes. Worried Dad note: Turn these colors and numbers into a limerick to make them easier to remember.



• Don't use luminescent (glow-in-the-dark) colors (zinc sulfide) near your eyes. Worried Dad note: This may lead your child to permanently glow in the dark.



• Before using older products, check it against these two May 2009 recall notices for Fun Express children's face paints. Worried Dad note: How can a product called Fun Express be bad?
  

What's a worried parent to do? Two suggestions:

• Use a mask (free of BPA, of course). Except the stupid rubber bands that hold them up always break 20 minutes into the night.



• Just cover their faces in chocolate. Everybody wins!

Sour candy will kill your kid's teeth

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it turns out that candy is actually bad for your teeth, especially if it tastes good.

Studies by people in white coats from a few years ago (but recycled every year near the end of October for some reason) highlight the findings that sour candy (e.g. Sour Patch Kids, sour worms, sour Nerds, sour gummy vitamins -- okay, basically the word "sour" should be a tipoff) is as corrosive to the teeth of young children as battery acid.

The effects are particularly bad for baby teeth and adult teeth until they have been around for at least 10 years (you know, basically when you lose any desire to eat them)..

White Coat experts say that if a sour candy (with any kind of acid on the ingredient list: citric, lactic, malic, tartaric, fumaric, adipic, and ascorbic) should touch your child's mouth, DO NOT BRUSH THEIR TEETH right away. Either wash their mouth with water, or have them drink a glass of milk.

The good folks at the California Dental Hygienists Association (official motto: "You're not flossing regularly, are you?") suggests the following tactics:

"This Halloween, we are advising adults to think twice about buying sour candies for trick-or-treaters," said Erika Feltham, a Registered Dental Hygienist and CDHA member who has studied this issue for more than a decade. "We also are encouraging parents to comb through their child's bag at the end of the night to remove sour acid candies and replace them with a small piece of non-sour sugarless candy or gum."

Yeah, that'll work!

This kind of reminds Worried Dad about Cinderella's first couple of Halloweens. Basically Worried Mom and I dressed her up in really cute costumes, scored big time on the candy, and then ate it all as soon as she was asleep.

Celery will kill you

Worried Dad's daughter, Cinderella, has long contended that she is allergic to vegetables. Turns out she might be right.

Back in March, the Environmental Working Group declared that conventionally grown (i.e. NOT organic) celery topped their supermarket "dirty dozen." This means that with every bite of those crunchy green stalks, you are walking a chemical-laden path to a cancerous pesticide induced death.

Now, killer celery has claimed multiple victims in Texas: the count so far is 4 dead and two more sick. But the numbers are sure to rise. The culprit this time is listeriosis, a nasty little bacterium.

Okay kid, you can have a side of chocolate tonight.

Stink Bug Invasion

Just when we thought that the end of the world was coming thanks to staph infections and bedbugs, now it turns out that stink bugs are in the running for "Pest of the Apocalypse." Well, at least if you happen to be an apple.

While the bugs don't bite or carry diseases, they do emit a foul odor if squashed. There may even be a connection between this feature and their name, but I'm still working this out.

The bugs do like to nosh on peaches, apples, soybeans, corn, and ornamental shrubs and trees. Farmers are not amused.

According to the Washington Post, stink bugs appear to be one of the four insects of the Apocalypse, or a Cuban revolutionary conspiracy, or something:

"This is the vanguard," said Mike Raupp, a University of Maryland entomologist and extension specialist. "I think this is going to be biblical this year," he said. "You're going to hear a collective wail in the Washington area, up through Frederick and Allegany counties, like you've never heard before. The [bug] populations are just through the ceiling."

As with bedbugs, the Post reports (without any actual sources) that distraught homeowners are resorting to "burning them with propane torches."

The bugs seem to have arrived as illegal immigrants from Asia over a decade ago, and have since spread to 29 states.

Authorities recommend that homeowners stop bathing so that they won't notice the smell from the bugs if they accidentally step on any as they flee from their burning homes.

Some media reports have noted that the bugs are a delicacy when eaten in tacos in parts of Mexico. Stink Bug Tacos -- I think I have the name of my next band.

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.

Superbugs will kill you part three: It came from India

As reported back in 2008 by Worried Dad, the MRSA staph infection has been called a superbug that appears to be resistant to all known antibiotics, except fire.

Then just a few weeks ago, this blog reported on the spread of a new superbug, c. diff, another nasty bug that will be stopped by nothing in its quest to kill you dead.

If anyone is still alive enough to read this, it appears that there is a new contender for "the microorganism that will destroy humanity" comes to us from India -- or does it??

In a challenge to the "there is no bad publicity" maxim, the new superbug has been given the name "New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase," or NDM-1. New Delhians are not amused, and point out that the bug is really a close match to another superbug that's been making the rounds of US hospitals and back alleys for quite some time.

However, a spate of infected patients that appear to have originated in India have been spreading the stuff around the globe. It seems that globe-trotting healthcare bargain hunters have been going to India for cheap operations, getting some NDM-1 as a free souvenir, and then spreading Armageddon to the four corners of the Earth.

Basically, the NDM-1 stuff is resistant to all known antibiotics. People in White Coats blame other people in White Coats for over-prescribing antibiotics when we didn't need them, and now we need them, but they don't work anymore and we're all going to die. Also, you should wash your hands a lot and bathe nightly in Purell.

Aiming laser pointer at your eye can burn your eye out

In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, a very worried man in a white coat is warning about the latest craze turning the world's children to piles of ashes: super powerful laser pointers.

According to the wire reports:

A 15-year-old boy damaged his eyes while playing with a laser pointer he'd bought over the Internet, say doctors who warn that dangerously high-powered versions are easily available online.

One eye expert called it "a legitimate public health menace."

The boy's case is reported in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine by doctors who treated him at the Lucerne Cantonal Hospital in Switzerland.

It follows two reports in June of similar accidents. British doctors said a teenager damaged his eyes with a high-powered laser pointer, and a British physician said his vision was affected for several months after he was zapped by his 7-year-old son.

The lasers used in these incidents were of the European persuasion, and exceed the firepower of those allowed in the United States. However, the high-powered eye blasters can be found on the Internet.

The FDA has warned in the past that it has found laser pointers and toys that exceed the output limit of 5 milliwatts - five-thousandths of a watt. It rarely collects reports of eye-damage incidents like the case in Switzerland, said FDA health promotion officer Dan Hewett, so it's not clear how often they happen.

His agency recommends that consumers make sure laser pointer labels carry a designation of Class IIIa or lower, along with a statement of compliance with Chapter 21 CFR. Hewett suggests consumers should look on the label to make sure the power output is no more than 5 milliwatts, or 5 mW.

But he stressed that even a laser product that meets those conditions can cause eye damage if a person stares into the beam long enough.

"Just because it says 5 mW and Class IIIa, FDA is not saying you can grab this laser and stare at it," he said.

Researchers are still determining what the point of buying a laser is if you can't stare at it.

Reusable shopping bags will kill you

A recent study by some guys in white coats at the University of Arizona warns that those nifty reusable shopping bags (like the 20 or so I have in my trunk) are teaming with bacteria.

The researchers tested 84 bags collected from shoppers in Tucson, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area and found that just over half were contaminated with potentially harmful bacteria. Twelve percent of the bags contained E. coli, which indicates possible fecal matter and more dangerous pathogens.

According to the study co-author Charles Gerba, using a reusable bag is on a par with having your family play Russian Roulette (how do those Russian casinos keep attracting customers anyway?):

Well, it's sort of a random chance," he said. "Sometimes, there may be enough. Sometimes, there may be not. You're really always gambling with germs."

The biggest problems arise from people stuffing dripping hunks of raw meat into their bags and then leaving them in the trunk for a while.

Unacceptable alternatives include chopping down forests to create paper bags, and despoiling our pristine wetlands with offshore oil drilling to make toxic plastic bags. The study authors (who, incidentally, got $30k from the American Chemistry Council to conduct their research), recommend soaking bags overnight in Purell, or just skipping the bags entirely and stealing the store's shopping carts.

Your kitchen is a lethal weapon

Even if you've thrown out the eggs, it's still not safe to go back into the kitchen.

According to news reports, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health surveyed thousands of home cooks and concluded "Yuck!"

According to the report, discussed in my favorite Center for Disease Control magazine, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, one out of seven home kitchens would not get a passing grade if they were a restaurant. Only 61 percent of homes would get a grade of B or higher.

According to the report:

An estimated 87 million cases of food-borne illness occur in the United States each year, including 371,000 hospitalizations and 5,700 deaths, according to an Associated Press calculation that uses a CDC formula and recent population estimates.

Many outbreaks that receive publicity are centered on people who got sick after eating at a restaurant, catered celebration or large social gathering. In this summer's outbreak linked to salmonella in eggs, several illnesses were first identified in clusters among restaurant patrons.

But experts believe the bulk of food poisonings are unreported illnesses from food prepared at home.

Not drinking alcohol can kill you

Just when you thought it was safe to get on the wagon, new research by people in White Coats suggests that people who abstain completely from alcohol are more likely to die early from heart disease and diabetes than moderate drinkers.

The report, Late-Life Alcohol Consumption and 20-Year Mortality by Charles J. Holahan, Kathleen K. Schutte, Penny L. Brennan, Carole K. Holahan, Bernice S. Moos, and Rudolf H. Moos (with an acknowledgment to the friendly barkeeps at O'Dooley's Pub), published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, shows that moderate drinkers age 55 to 65 had significantly lower mortality rates than tea-totalers, and much lower than car-totalers. The findings held true even when adjusting for socioeconomic factors and other variables.

Apparently, the effect holds true regardless of what your, um, poison (?) is, according to an article in Slate.

I knew all those years of clean living would be the death of me.