Legends of the Fall

In a world where it seems like we’re finding something new to fear every day, isn’t it nice to learn that something is safer than we thought? Researchers publishing in the British Journal of Cancer now bring us a study of around 10,000 children followed from 1962 to 2007, finding that their risks of childhood leukemia were in no way related to their home’s proximity to a nuclear reactor. Children with two heads were counted as 1.5 individuals, and kids who glowed were interviewed at a distance of 100 meters, using a megaphone. Children whose genetic mutations gave them an uncanny resemblance to Brad Pitt were interviewed and then reminded never to be photographed at a stranger’s wedding party unless the groom shared the same rare disorder.

David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and  adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television, and Internet outlets.