A recent study has found that the United Kingdom (UK) is experiencing a dramatic decline in the number of children who are being diagnosed with epilepsy. The results of this study have been published in the Archives of Diseases in Childhood.
“We’re getting better at diagnosing and deciding who should be treated, and then there is also probably an effect of factors like fewer cases of meningitis,” the senior author of the study, Dr. Ruth Gilbert, a professor in the MRC Centre of Epidemiology for Child Health, Institute of Child Health, at University College London, told the BBC.
Researchers discovered this decline when they looked at the records that were collected from the Health Improvement Network, which offers information on as much as 5 percent of the population in the UK. The data the researchers used were collected from over 344,000 children 0 to 14 years of age who had also been monitored from 1994 to 2008. What they learned was that the number of kids that were born between 2003-2005 were fewer than those born between 1994-1996 and that yearly epilepsy rates declines by 4 percent every year between 2001-2008. If the researchers were more specific in their search, epilepsy diagnoses declined by 47 percent overall and 9 percent yearly.
“The decline since the mid-1990s in epilepsy recorded in primary care may be due to more specific diagnosis, cessation of treatment for some forms of epilepsy, reduced exposure to risk factors or all of these factors,” added Gilbert.
While this research is positive, the rates of epilepsy in the UK still shows that millions of kids are affected by the condition every year. Epilepsy is often treated with dangerous anti-seizure drugs like Topamax, which is linked to babies being born with birth defects including PPHN, oral clefts, spina bifida and neural tube defects when the mothers take the pills while pregnant. Topamax use is often dangerous because doctors have to guess which dosage to use on patients in order to find the right one.
If your baby has suffered from birth defects after being exposed to Topamax in-utero, contact attorney Greg Jones today for a free consultation. I am experienced at fighting Topamax lawsuits and may be able to help you recover money for your child’s injury.