Posts Tagged ‘child care’
Why Johnson Johnson Baby Powder Licence Revoked,
Excepting Pune Mirror,most of the English media were silent on the ‘process’ followed by Johnson & Johnson in the preparation of baby Powder.
Media was coy of disclosing that the product, baby Powder contained Ethylene oxide,a cancer causing agent, a Carcinogen.
This agent is used in baby Lotion,Baby Oil as well.
As I understand it is a chemical used to prevent the product getting spoiled.
This additive is used to increase the shelf life of the product.
But it causes cancer.
Many food and cosmetics contain this additive.
Am posting a blog on the ingredients to avoid in Food Products.
Check the product before you buy with this list.
Johnson & Johnson range of products,
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently cancelled Johnson & Johnson India’s licence to produce cosmetic products at their Mulund plant. FDA’s order will come into effect from June 24. According to FDA officials, the order was issued in a case dating back to 2007 when they found that 15 batches of Johnson & Johnson baby powder were sterilised by ethylene oxide, a known carcinogenic and irritant.
“While ethylene oxide can be used for sterilisation, the company did not bother to carry out a test after the process to check the amount of residue in the product,” said FDA joint commissioner KB Shende, adding that the company can appeal to the State government before the order comes into effect.
“The products are used for new born babies. It is must for the company to follow all measures,” said Shende adding that the traces of ethylene oxide, if any, should have been measured. The 15 batches in question consisted of 1,60,000 containers. When Mirror contacted Johnson & Johnson, the company spokesperson confirmed the FDA action.
“Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our products and health of the consumers. We continue to manufacture non-cosmetic products at the same site,” the spokesperson said, adding that the matter in question related to a limited number of batches produced in 2007, shelf life of which ended in July 2010. “The FDA raised concern about following ethylene oxide treatment, which was not included as part of the manufacturing process submitted to the FDA.
This method is widely used for medical devices around the world. This was followed as an exception and all internal safety protocols were followed to ensure that safety of the consumer was not compromised.
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Ethylene Oxide is very important material used in large-scale chemical production. It also produces ethylene glycol, one of the components used in plastics. Ethylene Oxide has been used globally to produce solvents, lubricants, paint thinners and detergents.
How Dangerous Is It?
At room temperature, ethylene oxide is very dangerous; the chemical is flammable, carcinogenic, mutagenic, and irritating. It is an anaesthetic gas with a misleading pleasant smell.
What Effects Can It Do to Humans?
Unprotected and constant exposure to ethylene oxide can cause genetic mutation or DNA alternation which leads to cancer. It can damage the lungs and the cardiovascular system. Physical manifestation after exposure includes headache, vomiting, dizziness, sleep disturbances, leg pain, weakness, stiffness, sweating, liver enlargement and suppression of antitoxic functions of the body.”
Additional Inputs from.
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Ethylene oxide is toxic by inhalation with an U.S. OSHA permissible exposure limit calculated as a TWA (time weighted average) over 8 hours of 1 ppm, and a short term exposure limit (excursion limit) calculated as a TWA over 15 minutes of 5 ppm. [29 CFR 19101.1048]. At concentrations in the air about 200 parts per million, ethylene oxide irritates mucous membranes of the nose and throat; higher contents cause damage to the trachea and bronchi, progressing into the partial collapse of the lungs. High concentrations can cause pulmonary edema and damage the cardiovascular system; the damaging effect of ethylene oxide may occur only after 72 hours after exposure.[17] The maximum content of ethylene oxide in the air according to the U.S. standards (ACGIH) is 1.8 mg/m3.[113] NIOSH has determined that the Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health level (IDLH) is 800 ppm.[114]
Because the odor threshold for ethylene oxide varies between 250 and 700 ppm, the gas will already be at toxic concentrations when it can be smelled. Even then, the odor of ethylene oxide is sweet, aromatic, and can easily be mistaken for the pleasant aroma of diethyl ether, a common laboratory solvent of very low toxicity. In view of these insidious warning properties, continuous electrochemical monitors are standard practice, and it is forbidden to use ethylene oxide to fumigate building interiors in the EU and some other jurisdictions.[115]
Ethylene oxide causes acute poisoning, accompanied by the following symptoms: slight heartbeat, muscle twitching, flushing, headache, diminished hearing, acidosis, vomiting, dizziness, transient loss of consciousness and a sweet taste in the mouth. Acute intoxication is accompanied by a strong throbbing headache, dizziness, difficulty in speech and walking, sleep disturbance, pain in the legs, weakness, stiffness, sweating, increased muscular irritability, transient spasm of retinal vessels, enlargement of the liver and suppression of its antitoxic functions.[108]
Ethylene oxide easily penetrates through the clothing and footwear, causing skin irritation and dermatitis with the formation of blisters, fever and leukocytosis.[108]
The median lethal doses (LD50, or a dose required to kill half the members of a tested population after a certain time) for ethylene oxide are 72 mg/kg (rat, oral) and 187 mg/kg (rat, subcutaneousinjection).[116]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_oxide
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Conclusion
The Committee notes that estimated current intakes of ethylene oxide from the few food
additives containing it, conforming to present specifications, are very low. However, since
ethylene oxide is both genotoxic and carcinogenic, intakes from food sources should be as
low as possible. The Committee has been informed that the currently achievable limit of
detection for ethylene oxide is well below the upper limits of 0.5 mg/kg proposed for EHEC
or the 1.0 mg/kg currently specified for E431-436. The Committee therefore recommends that
the specifications of additives manufactured using ethylene oxide should be revised to restrict
ethylene oxide as an impurity to below its current limit of detection.
The Committee will comment on 1,4-dioxane, ethylene chlorohydrin and mono- and
diethylene glycol as impurities in additives in subsequent opinions.
http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/sc/scf/out127_en.pdf
Related articles
- Johnson Johnson Baby Powder Banned (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
Johnson Johnson Baby Powder Banned
Couple of days ago, my daughter told me that Johnson and Johnson ’ the makers of child care products’ like Baby Powder,Baby Soap,baby Oil was banned.
Somehow I missed the news as it was not highlighted in the Media, such is the power of Advertiser finance to the Media.
Of course there are exceptions.
Johnson and Johnson’s Licence canceled
It is not merely Johnson and Johnson.
We have Complan claiming that children will go twice Taller(?,
Horlicks has ‘Brian Boosters”,’Is the Brain Dead? and what is this Booster?
Bournvita,’Twice the Stamina’-who has defined Stamina and how does one measure it?
Pepsodent sensitivity, ‘cures sensitivity twice as fast’
I can go on.
Johnson and Johnson was caught not for the misleading ads, or for the harmful effect of the products but for following a different process.
Easy to wriggle out in Court.
May be they have not paid enough to the people, they got caught as a waning to ensure prompt payment.!
Health officials have revoked Johnson & Johnson‘s license to make cosmetics at a plant outside Mumbai after they discovered the company had used an unauthorized process for sterilizing its baby powder.
J&J said in a statement on Friday that it is in “ongoing discussions” with Indian regulators.
“We understand their concerns and are diligently working with them to resolve the issue,” Peggy Ballman, a J&J spokeswoman, said in a statement, adding that there were no consumer complaints or adverse events reported due to its use of the process.
An investigation by the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration revealed that J&J, at its plant in Mulund, had used ethylene oxide – a substance used to produce industrial chemicals and to sterilize medical equipment – to kill bacteria in its baby powder and had not conducted mandatory tests to make sure there were no remaining traces in the powder.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, acute exposure to ethylene oxide can cause lung damage, nausea, vomiting and cancer.
Ballman said the plant has not been shut down and the company is appealing the decision. She said the sterilization process in question was used on a one-time basis on a limited amount of baby powder. Baby powder is made from corn or talc and is usually sterilized using steam, she said.
“For a brief time in 2007, we used an alternative sterilization process,” she said.
Ballman was unable to explain why the alternative process was used but said it is a “widely accepted and safe practice of sterilization used
Related articles
- Why the Hell Did I Not Know that Johnson & Johnson is Bad for My Baby? (leakingboob.com)
Career Re Entry Especially For Parents
I came across an interesting article in the New York Times , which is quite interesting and relevant for the young to-day.
I am posting the Excerpts with my comments .
Life is changing constantly and our plans for future, which includes career ,marriages and children, assumes only the quantitative aspect of Life.
One can not go by the experiences of others as the experiences of an individual in Life and his/her reaction is unique and these can not be predicted beforehand.
As the assumptions here are hypothetical so are the results.
So when a situation arises in Life, to deal with qualitatively and emotionally,’thinking’ is not a solution.
Feeling and the way we take and manage our feelings , they are important.
A mature approach to Life, which includes career and children, would be to take things as they come and take decisions at that point of time.
A ‘thinking life’ will be miserable..
Standard Deviation for Personality Score for women.
“Last week, Jennifer Romaniuk wrote the Motherlode with a passionate parental quandary. “I voluntarily walked away from a promising career,” she e-mailed. “I had no idea how long it would take to claw my way back.” The decision to stay home seemed like the right one when she made it. Spending more time with her children would be fun; ending the race between work and child care for her two kids would make life feel less daunting for her and for her fast-tracked husband.
¶But when the child-care pressures began to ease, Ms. Romaniuk was a different person in a different employment market, overqualified for the entry level but not experienced enough for senior positions, and facing businesses (in her case, law firms) who aren’t taking many chances on employees any more. Re-entry hasn’t just been hard, it has been making her regret the choice she made almost a decade ago.
¶It’s one peril of all the conversation that surrounds the choices parents make when their children are young (primarily mothers, but fathers as well): when we emerge, we may feel less like one person in the midst of a transition than like some sort of cautionary tale, or icon of the ways policy and culture undermine women and parents. It’s hard to view ourselves with compassion when judgments are more common than understanding. Parents moving in and out of the job search right now aren’t the only ones in transition. The ways we see work and gender and balance are shifting as well. The result is a world in which it’s nearly impossible not to find some way to regret our choices while at the same time being forced to contemplate how “lucky” we were to have the ability to make the choice.
It’s later — when the grumpy, hungry children are older, when the baby is walking herself to school, when the wild immediacy of life has calmed — that the full impact of the change intrudes itself. Even people who loathed their former jobs, or who left the business world planning an eventual shift to art or writing or entrepreneurship, or who are more than happy in an at-home role, can find themselves blindsided. When the baby is tiny, or the children are all under 5, or the special needs demand constant advocacy, we don’t have to find our place in the world — our place has got an iron grip around our knees. It’s only when that grip loosens that the onus is back on us.
¶And that’s the tough part. How many books have been written to ease us through transitions and change? How many poems and songs and odes and Web sites dedicated to figuring out who we are in the world? Oodles. One transitive moment is not the time to look back and assess — it’s anything but.
¶So my advice to Jennifer echoes the words of lynninny, AW, and CC Mom: try to take the long view (or maybe, for the moment, don’t take any view at all). It’s not just that “what’s done is done,” but that the way you really feel about your years and choices is colored by your current discouragement.
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/career-re-entry-for-the-at-home-parent/
Related articles
Day care centers turn on TV for toddlers, study finds
When you decide to have a baby, better be sure that you can take are of it.You must not delegate the responsibility of raising children to people who want to make money.Do not rue when your child turns out to asocial and anti social. , Children are also given sedatives to make them sleep.
(CNN) — Think your children are getting hours of playtime, story readings and stimulating lessons at day care? Maybe they are, but they could also be spending a chunk of their day watching TV or DVDs.
New research published in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics found that kids in child care settings could be watching as much as 2.4 hours of television on an average day.
A study from the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute examined 168 child care programs and found that 70 percent of home-based and 36 percent of center-based programs showed television to preschool kids.
“Most parents don’t know what happens at their children’s preschool,” said author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who directs the Center for Child Health in Seattle, Washington. “They really want to believe that they leave their children there, it’s preparing them for school, it’s a stimulating, enriching environment. And I don’t know that they’re aware that in fact, a lot of time is spent watching TV.”
Researchers surveyed licensed home-based and center-based day cares in Michigan, Florida, Washington and Massachusetts, that took care of children under the age of 5.
Christakis and co-author Michelle Garrison reported that on an average day, home-based programs showed about 1.6 hours to toddlers, compared with 0.1 hours for center-based programs, and 2.4 hours to preschool children compared with 0.4 hours.
Previous estimates that children spend about two to three hours a day watching television are inaccurate, because those numbers relied on parents to calculate the number, Christakis said. Many pre-school children spend their days away from their parents.
“Prior studies quantify TV that children watch at home, but no one quantified the amount they watch at day care,” Christakis said.
Since previous studies reported that children watch about two to three hours of TV at home, and this recent study indicated that some day care centers show about 2.4 hours of screen time, some American preschool children could be watching as much as five hours a day, Christakis said.
“When you consider they’re only awake 12 hours a day, they’re spending almost half their waking hours in front of the screen,” he said. “At that level of viewing, it really begs the question of what are these children not doing? What are they missing out on during the five hours they’re passively watching TV?”
Face-to-face interactions such as engaging with the children with toys or reading books are more stimulating, experts said. Extensive TV watching for young children has been associated with shorter attention span, childhood obesity and developmental issues such as knowing fewer words and being less prepared for school, doctors said.
When you consider they’re only awake 12 hours a day, they’re spending almost half their waking hours in front of the screen.
–Dr. Dimitri Christakis
“In terms of rapid brain development, TV is a relatively impoverished environment for stimulating optimal brain development,” said Dr. Michael Rich, a pediatrician and director of Center on Media and Child Health at the Children’s Hospital Boston, who is not associated with the latest study. “The kids are never forced to stimulate or use their own imaginations. They’re used to pre-processed fictional worlds. They often don’t develop the habit of imaginary play.”
Some day cares could be operating under the misconception that TV is beneficial, said Christakis, who is also a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Ninety percent of the surveyed centers reported that they used TV for educational or entertainment reasons.
“We as a culture still believe that TV time is benign, that it’s OK,” said Rich, an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “I think it shows how much we as a society need to learn about the effects of TV.”
Although it’s unclear why the home-based day cares showed more TV, possible factors include less staffing and lower education levels of owners who run home-based centers, Christakis said. The report found that 70 percent of center-based program owners had a college degree compared with 51 percent of home-based owners.
Since home-based day care typically cost less than center-based programs, this disproportionately affects children from lower income households, experts said.
While children could be watching educational programs like “Sesame Street,” pediatricians say TV viewing takes time away from more critical and interactive abilities that are more conducive to development.
Understanding Implications Of Prenatal Testing For Down Syndrome.
For parents of Children with Down’s Syndrome.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2009) — The addition of a “genetic sonogram” maximizes the accuracy of non-invasive testing for Down syndrome, said a Baylor College of Medicine researcher who was lead author of a landmark study in the current issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
See Also:
“We wanted to be able to definitively describe the detection and accuracy of noninvasive prenatal screening for the detection of Down syndrome,” said Dr. Kjersti Aagaard, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at BCM and the corresponding author of the report. “Using our data generated in the most comprehensive study performed to date (the FaSTER trial), we demonstrated that the addition of a genetic sonogram to all modes of screening in pregnancy allows for optimal noninvasive prenatal detection of Down syndrome.” (FaSTER stands for First and Second Trimester Evaluation of Risk.)
Noninvasive screening for Down syndrome (as well as the other major fetal genetic or chromosomal abnormalities in the developing baby) involves a specific early ultrasound and series of tests for biochemicals in the mother’s blood at particular times during pregnancy. Depending on the institution and clinic, tests are done during the first and/or second trimesters of pregnancy. Optimally, noninvasive screening also includes that a preliminary ultrasound to detect nuchal translucency takes place late in the first trimester. The test measures the clear or translucent space in the tissue at the back of the fetus’ neck. If there is an abnormality, fluid will accumulate in the back of the neck making the nuchal fold area larger.
In the first trimester, measured maternal serum markers include pregnancy-associated plasma protein A (PAPP-A) and free beta human chorionic gonadotropin (beta hCG). In the second trimester, physicians measure alpha-fetoprotein, beta hCG, unconjugated estriol and inhibin A. The tests ordered and the combinations vary among institutions and clinics. Often, these tests are used as a basis for counseling women on the option of the more invasive but definitive tests such as amniocentesis, which involves directly measuring the chromosomal material in fetal cells found in the fluid inside the uterus, and chorionic villus sampling, an earlier means of obtaining fetal cells from tissue found in the placenta. Each is the definitive means of testing for genetic or chromosomal disorders that affect the fetus.
However, each of these invasive tests carries risk for potential complications, and many pregnant women seek to avoid those risks if at all possible. Because of this, researchers have spent several decades optimizing non-invasive prenatal diagnostic screening. One major component of this screening program has come to include the ‘genetic sonogram’. A genetic sonogram is simply a sophisticated ultrasound that details the fetal anatomy in the second trimester, looking for the presence of major fetal anomalies or specific anatomic features (so-called ‘soft markers’) that might be found in a child with Down syndrome, said Aagaard.
“Because we build off of the FaSTER trial, our reported adjusted risk measures we describe in this manuscript serve as definitive evidence that the sonogram improves the sensitivity of detection (making it less likely that a Down syndrome diagnosis would be missed) and also decreases the false positive rate,” said Aagaard. “Combining this with first or first and second trimester screening for biochemical markers gives us the maximal capacity to detect Down syndrome in a noninvasive fashion.”
Aagaard and her colleagues screened over 8,000 of the nearly 39,000 pregnant women who took part in the FaSTER trial of screening for chromosomal abnormalities (aneuploidy). The detection rate of Down syndrome babies varied from 69 percent for the genetic sonogram alone to as high as 98 percent with certain combinations of the biochemical markers. More importantly, the improved detection rate was accompanied by a decrease in the screening tests false positive rates (or falsely reported risk of Downs syndrome in a normal pregnancy).
“We did not miss a single case of Down syndrome with our overall screening program, which included an option for invasive testing,” she said. “Based on our findings, it is our expectation that this will serve as the definitive study with which clinicians can reliably inform women of their risk in a noninvasive fashion with currently available technology. At the end of the study, we wanted to give women a very clear take-home message as to how a genetic sonogram will improve accuracy of screening and detection of a Down syndrome baby. Because we compared the detection and false positive rate of every available screening strategy with the addition of genetic sonogram, we allow for women and their providers the unparalleled ability to maximize detection and minimize false concerns. Moreover, our study justifies what many high-risk obstetricians have done for years and provides refined screening estimates. It completes the spectrum of ‘informed choice’.
Members of the FaSTER Research Consortium who took part in this study include physicians and scientists from Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland; Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, Washington; University of California, San Francisco, California; Columbia University, New York, New York; DM-STAT, Malden, Massachusetts; William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, Michigan; University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas; Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, New York; Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York; University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado; Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts; NYU Medical Center, New York, New York; Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island; and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Aagaard was an investigator with FaSTER at the University of Utah in Salt Lake during much of this study and completed the analysis since coming to Baylor College of Medicine in 2007.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091121093238.htm
