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With a rise in flu cases, what can be done to prevent, treat it?

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  • Dr. Ken Haller addressed how to navigate the flu including the symptoms, treatment and prevention.

    Dr. Ken Haller addressed how to navigate the flu including the symptoms, treatment and prevention.
    LARA HAMDAN | ST. LOUIS PUBLIC RADIO

The St. Louis County Department of Public Health reports 1,282 cases of influenza in the first week of January. The illness is also causing a low blood supply at local hospitals.

On Monday’s St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh discussed why the flu is so prevalent in St. Louis. Joining him for the discussion was Ken Haller, SLUCare pediatrician at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital and professor at Saint Louis University.

Haller addressed how to navigate the flu including the symptoms, treatment and prevention, period of contagion and effectiveness of the flu vaccine.

Q: Why has it been a bad flu season?

A: Frankly, this is a particularly bad strain of flu. This strain is called H3N2 and it seems to be the bad one hitting us this year. Unfortunately, the vaccine that was created for the United States does not hit that one directly.

Q: Does that mean that this year’s vaccines are ineffective?

A: It’s not totally ineffective and we still recommend getting it. The thing is, even if you get the H3N2 strain, [the shot] will make your illness less severe. While the vaccines change from year to year because the strains change from year to year, the immunity you get each year does tend to have a shadow effect for a few years after that. Even though you’re getting vaccines against certain strains this year, that will still give you some protection if those strains show up again in the future.

Q: How to prevent catching the flu if it’s in the air?

A: Do things that will keep your body’s defenses up. Drinking lots of fluids, getting lots of sleep, using saline spray in the nose to keep things nice and moist, that’s the kind of stuff that will be really helpful.

Q: What about treatment?

A: In terms of just treatment, listen to what your body is telling you. Cytokines, chemical messengers [in the body,] will give you those feelings of feeling sick. One of those reasons that they do that is that they tell you to stop, just be quiet, don’t run around, don’t go shopping, don’t go to work, just stay home and drink lots of fluids and do the things your body is telling you to do. Once you have the flu, try to take care of yourself and get plenty of sleep. Chicken soup is good; people will often crave fruits that have a lot of fluid in them like citrus fruits, listen to what your body is telling you. It’s also not a good idea to lay down all the time; it’s still a good idea to get up and move around because what happens with the flu is your body is producing a lot more mucus. If you just lay in one position that mucus will settle in the lungs which can block up air passages and bacteria will not be able to work their way out and can fester up and cause pneumonia.

Listen to the full discussion: Host Don Marsh discussed why the flu is so prevalent in St. Louis and what can be done to prevent and treat it.

St. Louis on the Air brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. St. Louis on the Air host Don Marsh and producers Mary Edwards, Alex Heuer and Lara Hamdan give you the information you need to make informed decisions and stay in touch with our diverse and vibrant St. Louis region.

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7 tips on when to give children their first phone

By ALEX HEUER

When should parents give children their first cellphone or smartphone? What factors should be considered? How do maturity, development and sleep considerations play into it all?

St. Louis on the Air host Don Marsh talked about the issues with two doctors:

  • Ken Haller, SLUCare pediatrician at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital
  • Mini Tandon, Washington University child psychiatrist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital

Maturity matters, not a specific age: “The issue is not an age, it’s not a grade. It’s actually the maturity level and the responsibility level demonstrated by that child.” – Dr. Tandon

Start early and build trust: “It’s common practice in our practice to hear ‘everyone’s doing it, everyone has one, how come our family is different?’ But everybody’s family is different. Again, it depends on what the purpose of the cellphone is and the responsibility level of your child. I think contextually, it’s true, if you’re using it just for safety purposes, why not, there’s going to be some embarrassment but you could also use it as a way to build trust and say, ‘look, yes you have this very archaic flip phone and yes, it may be embarrassing but what were’ trying to do is build trust. Once you can show us the responsibly level of just this bare skeleton version, as you age and as we can trust that you’re using it appropriately, maybe we build in the extra products that are available.’” – Dr. Tandon

“We have to start much earlier in terms of parents looking at their interactions with their children and when they put them in front of screens, how much time they put them in front of screens versus how much time they sit down and read them a book, and point out things and talk to them and just interact in that way.” – Dr. Haller

Maintain control: “You have to think about how smart you want that phone to be: what it can do and what it will have access to. If you have that conversation with your children and you decide that they can handle a cellphone, it really is important for parents to have controls where they have full access to everything on the cellphone.” – Dr. Haller

Model appropriate behavior: “If you want to model good behavior, you’re going to not text when you drive as an adult, you’re going to have to set some standards. If you don’t want your kids at the table during dinner on their phones than you might have to actually show that you can do the same.” – Dr. Tandon

Parenting style: “What we really want is more of an authoritative parenting model where the parents say to the kids, ‘We’re in a partnership here but I am your parent and there are certain rules I’m going to make in your best interest. You can ask me about that and I’m going to explain it but still the rules will be my rules and you’re going to have to meet certain standards and certain benchmarks in order to move from the flip phone to a more advanced phone.’” – Dr. Haller

Limit screen time: “I am amazed sometimes when I get kids in my office and they’re in for a regular physical and one of the questions we ask is how much time do you spend in front of a screen for recreation – this isn’t homework – this is computers, video games, various things like this, tablets – and some kids will go, 7, 7 hours a day!”

“I don’t think that’s a good thing. While this is a lot of time to be doing this one thing, my bigger problem is that it is cutting into actual time spent with friends, time spent with family, time spent with physical recreation.”– Dr. Haller

Develop a Family Media Use Plan: Dr. Haller suggests a tool developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Among the suggestions are:

  • Keep screens out of kids’ bedrooms.
  • For children under 2, substitute unstructured play and human interaction for screen time.
  • Take an active role in your children’s media education

St. Louis on the Air brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. St. Louis on the Air host Don Marsh and producers Mary Edwards, Alex Heuer and Kelly Moffitt give you the information you need to make informed decisions and stay in touch with our diverse and vibrant St. Louis region.

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For St. Louis pediatrician Ken Haller, the turmoil of the early AIDS crisis came close to home

By KELLY MOFFITT

  • Ken Haller shares his story at The Story Collider podcast event on May 2, 2017.

    Ken Haller shares his story at The Story Collider podcast event on May 2, 2017.
    SLEET PHOTOGRAPHY | ST. LOUIS STORYTELLING FESTIVAL

On May 2, St. Louis Public Radio hosted The Story Collider, a national podcast and live storytelling group, for an evening of personal stories about science told on stage under the theme of “Eclipse.” The event was sponsored by the St. Louis Storytelling Festival.

Ken Haller, SLUCare pediatrician at SSM Cardinal Glennon Childrens Medical Center and professor of pediatrics at Saint Louis University, shared a personal story from his first years as a doctor in New York City during the rise of the AIDS crisis.

Since 2010, The Story Collider has collected personal stories about science and shared them in live shows and a weekly podcast. Since the May show in St. Louis, the group has partnered with St. Louis Public Radio to produce future shows here through St. Louis Public Radio reporter Eli Chen.

The next event will be during the month of October. Have a science story to share? Reach out to stories@storycollider.org to participate.

St. Louis on the Air brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. St. Louis on the Air host Don Marsh and producers Mary Edwards, Alex Heuer and Kelly Moffitt give you the information you need to make informed decisions and stay in touch with our diverse and vibrant St. Louis region. 

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Fourth annual Briefs Festival showcases eight playwrights

By KATIE COOK

Dr. Ken Haller, far left, Joan Lipkin and John Schmidt are participating in next week’s Briefs Festival. The trio talked to ‘Cityscape’ host Steve Potter, far right, about the event on Friday at St. Louis Public Radio in St. Louis.
CREDIT ALEX HEUER / ST. LOUIS PUBLIC RADIO

What do a gay mermaid looking for love, a Jewish mother who competitively wants her single son to have the biggest wedding, and a lesbian version of Dr. Seuss have in common?

They are all themes in this year’s Briefs Festival of Short LGBT Plays, a festival that brings together numerous directors and actors to showcase the work of eight different playwrights under one roof.

The eight plays being performed at the festival on March 27-29 at the Centene Center for the Arts have been selected out of more than 170 submissions from across the country.

On Friday, “Cityscape” host Steve Potter talked about the festival with Joan Lipkin, the festival’s co-producer and artistic director of That Uppity Theatre Company; Dr. Ken Haller, a pediatrician and actor; and John Schmidt, a playwright and the winner of the Ken Haller Playwriting Competition for LGBTQ and Allied Youth.

Briefs: A Festival of Short LGBT Plays

  • When: 8 p.m. March 27, 2015; 4 and 8 p.m. March 28, 2015; 2 p.m. March 29, 2015; the Ken Haller Award Reception is 6:30 p.m. March 27, 2015.
  • Where: The Rialto Ballroom at Grand Center, 3547 Olive St., St. Louis
  • More information

“Cityscape” is produced by Mary Edwards and Alex Heuer and sponsored in part by the Missouri Arts Council, the Regional Arts Commission, and the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis.

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Vaccines, Outbreaks, and Personal Choice: Measles by the Numbers

By DURRIE BOUSCAREN 

Measles has not reached the St. Louis area this year, but that hasn’t kept it from stoking fears.

Local public health officials are encouraging parents to make sure their children’s vaccinations are up-to-date by checking with their individual health providers. With worries that last month’s outbreak in Disneyland could continue to spread, officials in Illinois are investigating the source of five infants diagnosed with measles at a day care center outside Chicago.

Though Illinois Senator Dick Durbin told a Chicago TV station that another suspected measles case had been identified in Madison County on Friday, the Illinois Public Health Department said they no longer consider it a potential case.

We decided to take a look at the numbers. In fact, vaccination rates are quite high for schoolchildren in both Missouri and Illinois—nearly every county in both states reported vaccination rates above 90 percent for most of the shots required by law.

Common reasons for non-vaccination include allergies, medical concerns, and religious objections. Children under the age of 1 are too young for the vaccine, and can be at risk during an outbreak. The map above includes children who have begun vaccinations, but are on a delayed immunization schedule.

How common are the measles?

Not very, but outbreaks have become more frequent.

644 cases of measles were reported in 2014, the most since the disease was declared eliminated from the US in 2000. More than a hundred cases were reported in January of 2015, most of them linked to an outbreak at Disneyland.

The abdomen of a patient with a measles rash.
Prior to widespread immunization, measles was common in childhood, with more than 90% of infants and children infected by age 12. Recently, fewer than 1,000 measles cases have been reported annually since 1993.
CREDIT CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

Over the past decade, outbreaks tend to be related to unvaccinated people contracting measles abroad, and spreading among communities of people who are not immunized.

95 percent of school children in the city of St. Louis are up-to-date with their immunizations, according to data obtained from the state of Missouri.

“It’s very disappointing that some parents choose not to vaccinate their children based on rumor and fear tactics, but it’s a very small percentage of people,” said St. Louis Health Department director Pam Walker.

Before vaccines were available, measles was quite common. The CDC estimates that between 3 and 4 million Americans contracted measles each year in the decade before the vaccine was developed, with up to 500 deaths a year.

By comparison, influenza killed 1,532 people in 2010, according to the CDC. (Pneumonia, which is often a complication of the flu, killed about 52,000).

What do measles feel like?

Dr. Ken Haller remembers getting the measles in 1962, at the age of 7.

“I remember being absolutely miserable for two weeks. My muscles were achey, I could barely swallow, the lights were too bright,” Haller said. “It’s just a really horrible disease.”

Today, Haller is a pediatrician at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center. He says he often talks to parents to allay their concerns about the safety of vaccines, which often stem from a 1998 study linking the measles vaccine to autism, which was later debunked. He published a review of available research in 2012, which can be found here.

 

 

“We really want people go get vaccinated, and get kids vaccinated, because you’re not just protecting yourself, you’re protecting other vulnerable people,” Haller said.

Symptoms of measles include a high fever, cough, a runny nose and watery eyes. After a few days, patients may develop a rash of flat red spots and small raised bumps. About one in 1,000 patients will develop inflammation of the brain, which can lead to a loss of hearing or permanent brain damage. The disease is fatal in about 1 in 1000 cases.

Mild reactions to the vaccine, such as a fever or rash, are relatively common. In extremely rare cases, children may develop a severe allergic reaction or other complications. Further information can be found on the CDC’s website.

Who isn’t vaccinated?

Missouri and Illinois allow two exemptions for non-vaccination when children attend school: medical and religious.

Children with immune diseases, blood disorders, or cancer are often unable to get the vaccine for medical reasons. Members of some religious sects, such as the Amish or Christian Scientists, sometimes oppose vaccination. (An outbreak among Christian Science students at Principia College in 1985 led to three deaths and a quarantine).

St. Charles-based chiropractor, Mackenzie Mcnamara, says her patients represent a range of opinions over the issue. Some choose to vaccinate, some choose not to, and others decide to vaccinate on a delayed schedule. Mcnamara separates herself from the ‘anti-vaccine movement,’ but says parents should be able to choose whether or not they vaccinate their child.

Measles are highly contagious, and the death rate if a person contracts the disease is 1 in 1000. But due to the abundant use of vaccines, deaths due to measles have been virtually eliminated in the U.S. Mcnamara says some parents worry about the possibility of side effects from the vaccine.

“Clearly there is a risk, and [parents] should be able to choose if they assume that risk with their child,” Mcnamara said. She adds that friends and clients have felt a sense of backlash against their opposition to vaccines since the outbreak in California.

“I think there’s a definite middle ground, I wish people would see that too,” Mcnamara said.

Follow St. Louis Public Radio’s Durrie Bouscaren on Twitter, @durrieB. 

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Meningitis symptoms discussed

By Bill Raack, KWMU

St. Louis, MO. – The death of a high school senior in Wentzville yesterday from bacterial meningitis has health officials reminding parents to be on the look out for symptoms of the disease.

Eighteen-year-old Eric Hamilton had complained of feeling ill just last Thursday.

Bacterial or meningococcal meningitis is a rare infection of the lining of the brain and spinal cord that can strike quickly. Cardinal Glennon pediatrician Dr. Ken Haller says the symptoms can be confused for the flu.

“Fever, headache, difficulty with exposure to light, what’s called photophobia, people don’t want to be around the light, neck pain, stiff neck and stiff shoulders,” Dr. Haller said. “Vomiting can be part of it too because as pressure increases inside the skull and the central nervous system, that can cause nauseous and vomiting.”

Dr. Haller says germs can be spread through secretions in the nose or throat and are transferred by close contact like coughing, sneezing and kissing.

 

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