News of Interest for Late-in-Life Moms February 16, 2009

Court says vaccine not to blame for autism
Vaccines aren’t to blame for autism, a special federal court declared,saying the evidence “is weak, contradictory and unpersuasive.”

The U.S. Court of Claims, known as “the people’s court,” the U.S. Court of Claims is different from many other courts. The families involved didn’t have to prove the inoculations definitely caused the complex neurological disorder, just that they probably did.

More than 5,500 claims have been filed by families seeking compensation through the government’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and Thursday’s rulings dealt with the first three test cases to settle which if any claims had merit. The first cases argued that a combination of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine plus other shots triggered autism.




Ambidextrous may have harder time conceiving

A new study suggests people who are able to use both hands with equal dexterity may have harder time having a child than righties or lefties.
Researchers found that among more than 9,000 Danish couples, those in which one partner was mixed-handed tended to take slightly longer to conceive. The findings suggest that mixed-handedness and lower fertility may share a common cause.


When tots point a lot, words will follow
Toddlers who could convey more meaning with gestures at age 14 months went on to have a richer vocabulary as they prepared to start kindergarten, according to research.

Gesturing seems to be an important precursor to forming sentences, as children start combining one word plus a gesture for a second word.

Study: Pregnancy Doesn't Worsen Breast Cancer

Pregnant women who develop breast cancer do not have worse odds of death or of cancer returning than other young breast cancer patients, according to a new study published in Cancer.

Researchers analyzed data from 652 women ages 35 and younger who were treated for breast cancer at M.D. Anderson from 1973 through 2006. The study group included 104 women with pregnancy-associated cancers — 51 who had breast cancer during pregnancy, and 53 who developed the illness within a year after.
The study found that the rates of cancer recurrence, cancer spread and survival were about the same for the women with pregnancy-associated breast cancers as they were for the other women.