Useful Links

Throughout this site, drnorahanke.com, there are hyperlinks, which, when clicked, will take you to another page. Some links refer to pages at drnorahanke.com, some to other websites offering relevant supplemental information. These links appear as words that are in a shade of blue, as, for example, the hyperlink here for drnorahanke.com. If you place your mouse over one of these links, the text will be underlined and change to a lighter shade of blue, further signaling that it is a hyperlink. If you then click on the link, you will go directly to the linked page, which, in many cases, is at another site providing more information on the topic. To return to where you were in drnorahanke.com, click on the "back" button of your browser—it is usually in the upper taskbar.

Below are collected for your convenience a number of links to other web sites which provide further information that may interest you.

Medical News

Stories regarding the potential risks of bird (or avian) flu have appeared in the media recently. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has more information about it here.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is a respiratory illness that spread around the world after it arose in southern China in 2003. That outbreak was contained; as of May of 2005, the last known case was in 2004. For reliable, up-to-date information on SARS, you can go to the set of web pages and links developed by the CDC for both the medical professional and lay public.

Asthma

For stories about children who went from poor control to good control after their parents learned to recognize and treat asthma, see Dr. Tom Plaut’s site. Dr Plaut has also written about How to Choose a Doctor in his Asthma Guide. (Please note, my office carries copies of Dr Plaut’s very readable One Minute Asthma in English and Spanish, at reduced cost.)
For a technical summary of current guidelines used internationally, see The National Asthma Education and Prevention Program’s Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma.
For a much briefer review from the same source—also using technical lingo—covering recent reviews of topics of interest to parents, see Selected Updates 2002.
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has published a set of web pages starting at What is asthma? which provides the general reader a good explanation of what asthma is, its cause, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

Breastfeeding

Are you delivering in a baby-friendly hospital? What is a baby-friendly hospital? To learn about this World Health Organisation and UNICEF initiative to support breastfeeding in hospitals, see the slick UNICEF site.
A sophisticated site has been developed by La Leche League International, the well-known breastfeeding support network that offers meetings for local women at several sites. Though I am grateful for LLL’s widespread presence and support of breastfeeding, sometimes I don’t agree with their positions.
ProMoM, Promotion of Mother’s Milk, Inc., is non-profit organization dedicated to promoting breastfeeding and its acceptance by the public.
To search for lay and professional publications about breastfeeding from the American Academy of Pediatrics, you can start at their homepage.

Nutrition

Food Pyramids

You may review the current USDA and DHHS diet guidelines, at this Harvard School of Public Health Food Pyramids site. It provides commentary and a proposed alternative food pyramid.
For more radical and interesting food pyramids, including vegetarian diets, amongst others, see the Oldways’ Healthy Eating Pyramids.
For the American Heart Association’s topics on nutrition and physical activity for children, check their links here.

Fats

For information about trans fatty acids and dietary fat guidelines, see the American Heart Association’s Trans Fatty Acids page.

Obesity

The federal Centers for Disease Control consider obesity a chronic disease that we should care about.
A coalition of national organizations has teamed up to address the childhood obesity epidemic. See what parents and kids can do at the We can! website.
To learn about healthy eating and energy balance, send your kids to a website just for them, from the Department of Health and Human Services.
To become acquainted with the work of David Ludwig, MD, PhD, a well known Boston Children’s Hospital researcher in childhood obesity, see this item from that hospital.
If you have some time to read something longer, see this comprehensive review article (PDF) by Dr Ludwig and colleagues. It was written for health professionals but I think it should be understandable by many lay people, as well.

Smallpox

For an excellent resource on smallpox and government activities to protect the public from it, see the Centers for Disease Control’s Smallpox site.

Vaccinations

General

General and specific information on vaccinations from the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control can found at their National Immunization Program’s home page.
To review an immunization resource for parents and everyone else, see the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Childhood Immunization Support Program site.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common concerns about vaccines are presented in a question and answer format by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s (CHOP) Vaccine Education Center. (I have well-made videos from CHOP available for loan to practice families.)
Here are two sites that address media interest in a possible link between vaccines and autism, one, a scholarly article by a CHOP pediatrician and the other, a page of links to numerous articles on the topic.

Hepatitis B Vaccine

My favorite vaccine information source, the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) and Hepatitis B Coalition, provides a summary page of articles regarding Hepatitis B immunization.

The Choice Not to Immunize

A brief summary of risks, with links to other reputable sites for vaccine information is provided by the IAC here.
To read stories about unvaccinated children and adults who contracted vaccine-preventable diseases, go to the site Unprotected People.