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HEalth&Science
TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2019. SECTION E EZ EEBY ROBERT C. CANTU
AND MARK HYMANI
f U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Ad-
ams asked for our advice (he hasn’t),
we’d recommend that he issue the
following statement:
SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING:
Tackle football is dangerous for children.
Children who play tackle football absorb
repeated hits to the
head. As adults,
they’re at higher risk
of suffering cognitive deficits as well as
behavioral and mood problems.
We’d suggest that, as the nation’s top
doctor, the surgeon general put this
warning on every youth football helmet
and place it in bold type on all youth
tackle football registration forms. A par-
ent or guardian wouldn’t be able to sign
up their child without seeing it.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of
these steps. It’s fair to say that millions of
SEE KIDS SPORTS ON E6PERSPECTIVEBrain injuries,
other dangers of
tackle football
BY MARLENE CIMONSD
avid Pitches, 74, a retired New
York architect, never came out to
his parents when he was a teen-
ager growing up in Yonkers. “We
were a silent family,” he says. “Coming out
to them seemed to entail a family intima-
cy that I never had, or cared to have.”
Even after his parents figured it out
years later, Pitches always felt they disap-
proved. “My father believed that gay peo-
ple should lead their lives in private, and
my mother never accepted it, even to her
dying day at age 94,” he says. “Growing up
in the ’50s was not a fun thing for a
dreamy little boy who was gay.”
Even if families sought to understand
the implications of their child being gay
SEE GAY SUPPORT ON E6For today’s gay
youth, a growth
in family ties
BY ERIN BLAKEMOREA
my Martin’s 3-year-old twins
were sick yet again — and the
Anacortes, Wash., mom was fed
up. “We were just getting cold
after cold,” she says.
Her solution: Dietary supplements. She
searched online for ideas, then picked up
a bottle of elderberry gummies.
She wasn’t alone.
Google logged over a half-million
searches for “elderberry for colds” in the
past year, and the market for elderberry
products is growing.
But Martin soon became disillusioned.
Making her sons eat the gummies was a
hassle, and they made no appreciable
difference in the frequency of her family’s
SEE SUPPLEMENTS ON E5Why children
should avoid
supplements
ERY BURNS
FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTMORE KIDS HEALTHTo prevent allergies, how dirty should you let your kids get? E4Some 20-somethings — and older — still go to the pediatrician. E5ALSO INSIDE Scientists unearth amulets of deities, skulls, phalluses at Pompeii. E2 | Municipalities nationwide grapple with bans on pet pigs. E2The mounting evidence against ultra-processed foods. E3 | Flight attendant dies of measles in global outbreak. E3BY DAVID LEFFLERA
t 9 on a chilly February morning
in Austin, Elizabeth Minne met
in her office with a former coun-
seling client and her mother. The
three were all smiles, catching up for the
first time in ages. As their laughter faded,
they recalled their weighty introduction
five years before, when Minne’s mission
to create a comprehensive mental health-
care system for Austin’s schools was still
in its infancy — and her client, Sarah
Luna Newcomer, was a teenager who
wanted to die.
The room in Crockett High School was
carefully arranged to evoke an atmos-
phere of calm for Minne’s clients, its walls
lined with colorful tapestries illuminated
by the warm glow of softly lit lamps.
Many of the people treated here are
coping with severe mental health condi-
tions and extensive trauma. For some,
this is the only safe place in their lives.
The abrupt ringing of the bell shat-
tered the serenity, a signal that Friday
classes were underway.
Newcomer, who is now 21, shuddered
SEE VIDA ON E4
Mental-health
clinics at schools
show their value
The Health & Science section will not
be published on Aug. 27. We’ll return
on Sept. 3.