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Floridation improves oral health

Everyone knows you should brush and floss your teeth twice a day. But did you know that even when common fluoride products such as toothpaste and mouth rinses are used, fluoridated water reduces tooth decay another 25 percent among children and adults? Studies show that school children in communities with better water fluoridation have, on average, two fewer cavities than children in communities that do not adjust fluoride in the public water. Fluoride naturally occurs in our drinking water. Based on more than 75 years of health research, some municipalities safely increase ...

As Christmas nears, good and bad news

Award-winning actress Kirstie Alley was diagnosed with cancer shortly before her untimely death at the young age of 71. Grammy award winning Celine Dion has recently been diagnosed with a neurological disease called Stiff Person Syndrome. The disease attacks about one in a million and is a very debilitating disease. She is 54 years old. Disease, death and bad news can attack anyone at any age and none of us are immune. Good news came to Britney Griner who spent 10 months in a Russian prison for allegedly having hashish oil in her suitcase at a Moscow airport. She was ...

No more empty seats at holiday tables

Where I live, the seasons change fast. We’ve barely put away our jack-o’-lanterns in Kansas City when a cold wind blows in from the prairie, bringing down leaves — and soon after that, ice storms and snow. But no matter how cold it gets, we always look forward to seeing family and friends over the holidays. We all want our homes to be filled with joy, comfort and the people we love the most. But many of us will miss someone at the holiday table, because our country’s overdose crisis now touches almost every family and community. Overdoses took over 108,000 lives this ...

PA hunters still being left at gate

The Pennsylvania Game Commission changed the most popular deer hunting weekend in 2019, moving the 60-plus year Monday after Thanksgiving opening day to the Saturday prior. As Thanksgiving is the most traveled family holiday of the year, you can understand how that created problems for hunters with family conflicts. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of hunters travel considerable distances to go to camps and hotels, and this rushed timeframe of losing two days breeds further contempt for the Saturday start. Businesses en route to hunters’ final destinations were no longer ...

Keeping children well for holidays

Like many children’s care facilities nationwide, Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital and our pediatric outpatient clinics have been at or near capacity since September. Two key issues are at play. The first is fewer pediatric inpatient beds in other hospitals. The second is the unprecedented early and lasting surge in viral illness in our children, particularly due to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a 15% to 20% reduction in pediatric hospital beds nationwide. Because Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s ...

When your kid asks for a phone

This time of year, children are making their list so Santa can check it twice. And chances are, there’s some sort of device on the list. Whether it be the latest smartphone, smartwatch or tablet — technology has become such an integral part of our lives, and children are asking for these devices younger and younger. Parents seem to be listening. Approximately 70% of people say they plan to purchase a tech-related gift for their child this holiday season, according to a recent survey by Recon Analytics. However, for many parents, the decision of when to give a child their ...