Does childhood medicine cause allegies and asthma?

Take a closer look at the results of independent scientific studies, and you’ll notice that there may possibly be a link between the medicine we give our children and the rise in health problems that children are experiencing later in life—namely allergies and asthma. Of course, the federal government denies any such data, nor will the media talk about it. But they should, because the well-being of our nation’s youth could be at stake.

So, what’s really causing the rise in childhood allergies and asthma?

In one circle of health reporting, doctors in the media blame a rise in youth health problems on the hygiene hypothesis. This idea suggests that because more children are growing up in cities and suburbs, away from country farms and wildlife, their immune systems are unable to build up a tolerance to allergens, and therefore are becoming susceptible to many more immune disorders than ever before—namely allergies and asthma.

Another possibility for the rise in childhood health problems was delivered in mid-March 2006. Researchers from the University of British Columbia reported a possible link between antibiotics and asthma. Scientific data from seven studies suggests that infants under one-year in age, who had been given antibiotics—may be more likely to develop asthma when they get older.

Here’s one more possibility—vaccines. Some researchers believe that a child’s immune system needs to be exposed to the real allergen—not a smaller, controlled version of the allergen, as is administered in vaccines. The lack of exposure to the real thing could “confuse” the body’s immune system, causing it to attack its own tissue, which could lead to allergies, asthma and many other autoimmune disorders like juvenile diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and possibly even autism.

Again, the government and the media are not talking about these types of reports and the theories developed from the research. But we can’t overlook it, especially when our government suggests that all children receive a particular vaccination—like the MMR inoculation against measles, mumps and rubella—and shortly thereafter a major decline in childhood health occurs. Things aren’t measuring up. Maybe the truth is that medicine is trying to solve a problem that medicine created in the first place.

[Source: National Vaccine Information Center, www.nvic.org]