A gaggle of German scientists have reported that children with three
or more younger siblings face up to four times the risk of developing
a brain tumor by age 15 compared to children with no siblings.
"The
association with number of younger siblings, and not with number of
older siblings, suggests that infections or re-infections in late
childhood may play an important role in the development of pediatric
nervous system tumors," said lead researcher Dr. Andrea Altieri, of the
German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany.
The findings are published in the Dec. 12 issue of Neurology, which I read for the articles and certainly not the nudie centerfold pics of cancer researchers.
There are detractors who say the German study is unsatisfactory. Dr. Paul Graham Fisher of Stanford
University says the study's suggestion that infections may play a
role in brain-tumor development has been contradicted by other recent
epidemiological research. Also, the study is based on a sample of 13,600 Swedish brain tumor cases, yah?
"Maybe
it's because Scandinavian people have more children after the first one
is diagnosed with a brain tumor," he said.
Or
maybe it's because the horny scientists were so busy looking at the
yoddeling, blonde-braided, large-breasted Swedish women that they
weren't paying proper attention to the brain tumors.
