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’TIS THE SNEEZIN’
TFG EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JILLIAN SWARTZ TALKS TO PEDIATRICIAN, CELEBRATED AUTHOR AND PARENTING EXPERT DR. BOB SEARS ABOUT COLD PREVENTION AND GETS MUST-KNOW DETAILS ON THE STICK-Y SITUATION OF FLU SHOTS
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When TFG got the opportunity to interview Dr. Robert Sears, or
Dr. Bob, as he is known, I was so excited. As an editor and
business owner, I was thrilled to be able to bring his knowledge
to our readers, but as a mom of two little ones, I felt like I hit the
jackpot. What parent wouldn’t jump at the chance to question
one of the most revered and progressive pediatricians today?
After the interview, I felt calm, empowered and motivated to be more active in fostering and securing the health of my children. I’m currently reading his latest tome, The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child. Talk about a must-read, folks. And speaking of must-reads, here’s our first interview with the good doctor.
JILLIAN SWARTZ : At what age is it okay for kids to take over-the-counter cold medicine?
DR. ROBERT SEARS: Initially, it’s no cough and cold medicines for kids under 4 years of age. Children who are 4 years and older are still allowed to take cough and cold medicines. There are a lot of pediatricians, however, including myself, who don’t feel that a 4-year cutoff is appropriate. We’d like to see it for kids under 6 to not take cold medicines, or even under 12, because there has not been enough safety research for children of any age group under 12. We’re thrilled that the FDA and the cold medicine manufacturers have made it an official 4-year cutoff, but I would like to actually see the cutoff at least be 6 years.
JS: So in addition to the fact that there haven’t been enough tests, research or substantial findings, why are over-the-counter cold medicines potentially dangerous for kids 4 and under or even 12 and under?
RS: Well, first of all, when these medicines became approved many decades ago, the FDA didn’t have any children’s research protocols, so they never even tested the safety of the medicines for children way back when. They just approved them for adults and cut the dose in half for children without any safety research because that kind of research wasn’t required back then. Now research is required for anything new that comes out for children, and so the FDA is actually saying, ‘Okay, maybe we need to take a step back and put these medicines through some children’s research studies so that we can tell whether or not they are safe.’ What is dangerous about them is the decongestant can elevate the heart rate and it can cause heart arrhythmia, and that is one of the severe reactions we have seen from decongestants. Also, the heart is beating so quickly that it potentially suffers a little heart attack or a severe arrhythmia that is life-threatening, and we’ve seen some fatal reactions in that area of the decongestants.
Then we have the antihistamines and cough suppressants that sometimes will be too sedating. A kid could fall into too deep of a sleep and be put into a coma. Fortunately, these reactions have been pretty rare, but they do happen every year. Every year there are about a dozen or so such fatal reactions. And then there are thousands of nonfatal but severe emergency reactions that we are seeing every year, a couple thousand of them.
JS: That’s so scary. I have a 3-and-a-half-year-old and a 5-month-old, so it’s very real to me, as it is to all of our readers.
RS: The FDA just never put tens of thousands of kids through such research to determine what the safe doses are and what the safer age would be and exactly how common or rare such severe reactions are. We’ll see that coming up, though, within the next year, now that they have started to do that research.
JS: How do you recommend treating a child under 2 with a cold?
RS: Well, definitely no medications. There are a few real simple tips parents can try. Number one: Steam is definitely going to be your best friend. Run a hot steam vaporizer in the bedroom during the night. The humidity can definitely keep the nose clear and keep the cough down. Have the kid sleep a little upright. You can put a pillow under the head of the mattress so the mattress is at a slightly upright angle, and that definitely helps prevent the mucus from pooling too much in the lungs and in the back of the nose and helps it drain a little better. Steam the kids up in the shower every morning and then every night before bed. You can suck the nose out with a little bulb suction. You can use saline nasal spray to help drain out the nose. Those are kind of the basics.
JS: And this, basically, is good for kids from ages 0 to 12?
RS: Yes—actually a kid of any age. The one thing you can give kids 1 year and older is honey. A research project performed about a year ago showed that honey was more effective than cough medicine at quieting a cough.
JS: Wow, that’s quite finding.
RS: Yes, but it’s only for kids over 1. Of course, it wouldn’t help with the sinuses at all but it would definitely help with the cough.
JS: If you take better care of yourself while you have a cold, can you shorten the cold’s life span?
RS: You know, I think you can shorten it. There are a few things in my experience that have been shown to possibly shorten the life of a cold. Number one would be taking a lot of extra vitamin C. Number two would be taking some echinacea.
JS: How old do you have to be to bump up the vitamin C and echinacea? Is there a cutoff?
RS: This is kind of a gray area because, again, they haven’t done a lot of safety testing on infants and echinacea and vitamin C. Every time I get sick or my kids get sick, I’ll load us up on vitamin C, echinacea and zinc every day. In my mind, it really seems to shorten the duration of our colds. I feel like I’m not really sick for very long, I don’t get too down, I don’t have to take time off work, and the kids don’t have to take time off school.
JS: So let’s talk potential wives’ tales. You know, like the ones that our moms always said to us: Don’t go to sleep with a wet head and you’ve got to be bundled up in the cold or else you’ll catch a cold. Is any of that true at all?
RS: Those are pretty much old wives’ tales. People think if you go outside and it’s cold, you’ll catch a cold or your cold will get worse, and that’s really not true. That hasn’t shown to be true at all. The best ways to prevent colds during these next months are simply to wash your hands a lot, don’t share drinks, don’t share office supplies with co-workers. At school, have the kids know not to really share pencils and other toys. Just make sure you wash your hands several times throughout the day with soap and warm water.
JS: Are you an advocate of the antibacterial stuff?
RS: You know, I’m not. I’m not an advocate of the antibacterial; I think plain soap with water does a really good job. The antibacterial products are part of the problem leading to antibodies resistance. I like to just use plain soap and water.
JS: Well, that’s easy enough. Now let’s talk about Sinupret. I’ve read a lot about it and it sounds right up my alley in terms of it being all-natural. Tell me about it. How old do your kids have to be to take it? Why do you like it?
RS: You have to be 2 years and older to take it. They did extensive research for many years with children as well as adults and have never found a single serious reported side effect, which is a huge difference compared to pretty much all other types of products—definitely a great safety record.
Basically, Sinupret is a blend of five different herbs made by a company over in Europe. It’s been used for more than 30 years over there by millions of parents and kids every year. In fact, it is the No. 1 doctor-recommended natural remedy for sinus and respiratory support over in Germany. It just became available last year here in the U.S. I’ve always been looking for natural ways to help support my patients’ sinuses and respiratory systems and to help support their immune systems during the winter months. When I found this product about a year ago, I was actually very thrilled, and I started using it myself. During the winter months, we can use the extra sinus support, and I found that it works very well. Then I started using it on my patients and found that it really does a great job of helping drain the mucus from the sinuses and the respiratory track, helping improve airflow and helping kids breathe easier.
JS: So when do you suggest that you start giving it to your children?
RS: It’s not something that you really use on a daily basis. We don’t really like to claim it as a preventative. Whenever you notice that you or your kids need some extra support, you can start taking it three times a day. You’ll really see the dramatic improvement in the sinus function, airflow and mucus drainage.
JS: Well, that’s fantastic! I can’t say I’m looking forward to giving it to my daughter, but I know that when she does need it, I will appreciate having it. It’s exciting to see such progress of doctors, like yourself, taking the lead in this kind of alternative medicine approach. It’s progress: the melding of the traditional and the alternative. Parents nowadays are just bombarded with so much information and misinformation—this isn’t a good choice, this product is harmful, these toys aren’t safe, you have to do this, you have to do that. And every day there are new studies, new things to fear, new things to avoid, new things that you must do now. It’s a mad, mad world for parents, especially new ones. So to have somebody like you out there advocating on our behalf and on behalf of our children is very comforting, and to know that there are also products that our children can take that are safe, natural and effective also grants us some peace of mind.
RS: I’m always looking for the natural way to resolve the issue. Now, we should talk about something that’s very timely: the flu shot. There is a new recommendation this year for the flu shot. The government is now recommending it for all children through 18 years of age.
JS: What was the former recommendation?
RS: The previous recommendation was for kids through age 4, and then after age 4, it was more optional. Now the government is recommending that all children up to the age of 18 get it in hopes of doing a better job of preventing the spread of flu to the elderly and to young babies—the two main groups that are most susceptible to it. That’s the big change. They’ve raised the age level to prevent it, which is a big change.
There are a few things every parent should know about the flu shot before they get one, if they decide to get one. Number one: Parents need to realize the flu shot does not always work very well. Every year there are different strains of flu that go around, and manufacturers have to start making the flu vaccine a year ahead of time, so they have to guess which strains are going to be going around next year, and they put those strains into the flu vaccine. But we don’t know whether or not the flu shot is going to work until we know what strains are circulating during the current flu season. Last year, they actually guessed wrong and the flu strains that went around making everyone sick were not covered by the flu shot. So that didn’t end up working very well. The two years before that, they got it right and the flu shot worked pretty well. It’s really hit or miss, and so parents need to realize that the flu vaccine is not like other vaccines that work very well. There’s definitely no guarantee that it protects you against the flu.
JS: So basically it’s not a panacea but you do stand behind it.
RS: Yes, I think it is a good idea to get the flu shot but I also don’t try to talk any of my patients into it if they don’t want it, because I know it is kind of hit or miss. I like to just respect their decision because I know this year they could be right and it could end up not helping their kid at all.
JS: Is there mercury in the shot?
RS: The flu vaccine is now the only one that still has mercury in the vaccine. Mercury has been taken out of all the other shots. Now whether or not mercury actually contributed to autism or was a problem back when they used to have mercury in many of the shots, I’m not really sure. For parents deciding about vaccines now, the whole mercury issue is kind of a moot point because there isn’t mercury in the shots anymore, except for the flu shot. So whether or not all that mercury was harmful, I think ongoing research is going to give us the answer someday but it’s not much of an issue for parents to be worried about now when it comes to all the routine childhood vaccines. But with the flu shot it’s different, and I can tell you that the bottom line is that as long as you know how to stay away from mercury in the flu shots, you can actually get all the vaccines completely mercury-free. So parents don’t even really need to worry about whether or not there is a connection between mercury and autism because you can get everything mercury-free now.
JS: What about the flu shots that do have mercury in them? Is it just such a small dose that it doesn’t matter, or is that still something…
RS: Well, here’s the deal with the flu shot. Most of the flu vaccines that are produced every year still have a lot of mercury. In my opinion, it is too much mercury to be given to any infant or young child as well as to any pregnant woman. I think any mercury is too much mercury. Even the amount in just one flu shot, I am very uncomfortable with that; that amount of mercury going into the brain of the developing baby or, even worse, a developing fetus. Any mercury is not good during the years of brain development. Now for an older child or adults, when the brain is fully developed, maybe they can handle mercury a little better. But no one has really proven that the amount of mercury in the flu shots is a definite fix. There are some flu shots without mercury.
JS: And can you request them?
RS: Yes. You can ask your doctor and specify to make sure you are getting a totally mercury-free flu shot. For infants, young children and pregnant women, I think it is very critical that they make sure that they are given mercury-free vaccines. Fluzone is the only company that makes 100 percent mercury-free flu shots for infants and children. You have to be careful, though, because, if you notice, Fluzone has four different formulations. They make a large bottle that contains 10 doses, and the large bottle has mercury. If you notice that multi-dose bottle for infants, children and adults, it has a full dose of mercury in it. But you’ll see that the prefilled syringes and the single-dose bottles for babies, children and adults don’t have mercury. You have to make sure you are given the single-dose bottle and not the large bottle.
Most people wonder why not just make all flu shots without mercury. The challenge there is it costs more money and takes up more manufacturing space to make single-dose mercury-free shots. Every year the companies are scrambling to make enough flu shots to cover the whole country. The only way to make enough flu shots to cover the whole country is to put it in these large bottles, but then they need the mercury preservative. So, it’s kind of a dilemma. Do we only make mercury-free flu shots but then only smaller amounts of people can get them, or do we keep pumping out the mercury so that everyone who wants one can get one? And the bottom line in the meantime is just that pregnant women and the parents of young children need to make sure they are getting one of those single-dose Fluzones. There are some other companies, such as Fluvirin, that make a single-dose prefilled syringe that has a tiny, minuscule amount of mercury, which is harmless. The companies that make doses with very tiny amounts of mercury, I would consider harmless. The bottom line is to make sure you are not getting any of the flu shots that have the full dose of mercury.
JS: Okay, this is huge information. I have to call my doctor now to find out which shots she uses. Thank you for sharing your expertise with us. Really, I feel like we had this talk in the nick of time, as my kids are slated to get their shots next week. Phew! Really, thank you.
Want more info from Dr. Sears? Get more details on the flu shot and which ones are mercury-free now: www.askdrsears.com/thevaccinebook.
For more on Sinupret, go to
www.bionoricausa.com.
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