Childhood Strokes on the Rise

Plus: Brain fluid leaking out of a nose; more news on Mass. compounding pharmacies; and more health headlines.

Pretty much every midsize town in America has at least one child who has suffered a stroke, says Boston Children’s Hospital’s Dr. Ed Smith, a brain surgeon who recently operated on a 13-year-old girl. “One of the newer conditions, unfortunately, that we think is becoming increasingly a cause for stroke in kids is the same cause that affects adults — obesity,” he tells NPR. “Kids are getting … diabetes, blood pressure problems.” [NPR]

Brain fluid was leaking out of an Arizona moms nose. Her doctors thought that the clear, tasteless liquid coming out of her nose when she bent over was allergies, but really, it was brain fluid. Her brain was leaking cerebrospinal fluid through two cracks in the back of her sphenoid sinus, a condition that could have killed her without life-saving surgery. [ABC News]

Thirty-five pharmacies in Mass. prepare injectable drugs, according to the Department of Public Health. Why is this news? The state didn’t know which pharmacies were making injectables and had no way of finding out either. Todd Brown, executive director of the Massachusetts Independent Pharmacists Association, told the Republican that this kind of data was not collected before. “Before” meaning before the meningitis outbreak that killed 36 people. [The Republican]

A spoonful of sugar may really help the medicine go down, according to The Cochrane Collaboration, a group that analyzes medical data. The team reviewed 14 studies involving more than 1,500 infants that were going to the doctor for routine childhood immunizations or a blood test. The babies given a sugary solution to suck as they were about to be injected cried far less than those given water. [BBC Health]