American Academy Of Pediatrics

A coalition of medical groups and child advocates called Friday for guidelines that would prevent Internet companies from tracking the behavior of minors online, contending that many adolescents are divulging more than they realize and aren't digesting complex privacy policies. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Assn.

The nation's largest group of pediatricians is recommending for the first time that all suspected cases of sudden infant death syndrome be investigated by a child abuse expert because of growing fears that some such deaths are homicides. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the government already recommend death-scene investigations and autopsies for SIDS cases.

The American Academy of Pediatrics issued its first guidelines for treating attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, suggesting that stimulant drugs may be most effective but that behavior techniques also should be used. The guidelines for children ages 6 to 12 follow the academy's first-ever recommendations for diagnosing the disorder, published last year.

Drinking more than 12 ounces of fruit juice a day may make preschoolers fat or stunt their growth, a study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in Chicago suggested. No single juice was implicated in the study of 168 healthy youngsters, but those who drank more than 12 ounces daily tended to be shorter or fatter than other preschoolers.

Pediatricians unable to trace the cause of bleeding lungs in infants should ask parents whether they've had severe water damage in their homes, a national pediatricians group recommended Monday. Severe water damage in wood, wallpaper, ceiling tiles and paper products can sometimes give rise to toxic mold called "stachybotrys" that can attack the lungs of infants and cause bleeding, the American Academy of Pediatrics said.

When Jason Nhat Pham of Canoga Park left Vietnam four years ago to come to the United States, he knew he was being given an opportunity to receive an education not available to him in his country. But first he had to learn to speak English. He carried a Vietnamese-English dictionary and painstakingly translated everything he was assigned by his teachers at Cleveland High School in Reseda.

After years of taking a neutral stand on whether circumcision should be performed on male newborns, the American Academy of Pediatrics on Monday issued a strong statement saying there are too few medical benefits to justify recommending the procedure. The academy said its review of medical data suggests that circumcision is not necessary, but added that families should continue to follow personal preferences, including religious traditions.

After 4 1/2 years of disappointing results in thS. baby-formula market, Nestle U. S. A. Inc. alleges in a lawsuit that the American Academy of Pediatrics conspired with the nation's two dominant formula makers to stop Nestle from getting a bigger piece of the market. The Glendale-based unit of the giant Swiss food company, Nestle S. A., contends the medical group helped Abbott Laboratories and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.

Too many hours of television viewing is one cause of violent or aggressive behavior in children and contributes substantially to childhood obesity, the American Academy of Pediatrics said Monday. In its first policy statement on children and television since 1984, the 39,000-member academy called for parents and pediatricians to restrict children's viewing, urging that time spent in front of the tube be cut in half.