All children will be able to receive whole genome sequencing at birth, under ambitions laid out by the Health Secretary.

Matt Hancock said that in future, the tests would be routinely offered, alongside standard checks on newborns, in order to map out the risk of genetic diseases, and offer “predictive, personalised” care.

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A critical chemotherapy medication is in short supply, and physicians say there is no appropriate substitute.

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State officials stripped Stuart Copperman of his medical license almost 20 years ago. Armed with a new law, his former patients hope to file civil lawsuits.

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A new smart phone app takes advantage of parents’ fondness for snapping pictures of their children to look for signs that a child might be developing a serious eye disease.

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The American Academy of Pediatrics issued new guidelines on Monday that uphold the central role of medication, accompanied by behavioral therapy, in ADHD treatment.

However, some parents, doctors and researchers who study kids with ADHD say they are disappointed that the new guidelines don’t recommend behavioral treatment first for more children, as some recent research has suggested might lead to better outcomes.

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Normally, parents make decisions about their children’s health care. But when it comes to the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and cancer, kids should have the right to protect themselves. That is why Senate Bill 3899A, which would allow teenagers, in consultation with their physicians, to receive vaccines against HPV (human papilloma virus), ought to become the law in New York.

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Ever since scientists created the powerful gene-editing technique CRISPR, they have braced for the day when it would be used to produce a genetically altered human being. Now, the moment they feared may have come. What’s likely to happen next?

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The children granted wishes were substantially less likely to visit the emergency department or to have an unplanned hospital admission within two years as compared with children who hadn’t received wishes. (Researchers matched the children’s personal and disease characteristics in the study.)

“My hypothesis is that these kids, when they come back, are more engaged with their families and medical providers, and perhaps they’re more adherent to their treatment plan,” says the study’s lead author Dr. Anup D. Patel, section chief of neurology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus.

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Nearly 70,000 children end up in emergency rooms every year after experiencing adverse reactions to antibiotic drugs, according to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published in August in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.

About 74 million antibiotic prescriptions are doled out to kids each year, the study notes, and past research has indicated that at least one-third of these pediatric antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary.

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