Reye Syndrome

Reye Syndrome

Reye Syndrome
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 4 to 6
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	8.08

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		ammonia, aspirin, biopsy, coma, encephalitis, epidemic, irritable, meningitis, respiratory, thereafter, diagnose, diabetes, spinal, medical, affected, cases
	content words:		Reye Syndrome, North Carolina, Douglas Reye

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Reye Syndrome
By Jennifer Kenny

¹     Did you ever wonder why parents don't often give their children aspirin? Well, doctors don't normally recommend it for children under sixteen years old. That recommendation is based on the association between aspirin and a rare, mostly childhood, disease. That disease is called Reye Syndrome.

²     Reye Syndrome was first diagnosed in 1929. Then, in 1963, Dr. Johnson in North Carolina reported an epidemic of this illness resulting in sixteen deaths after a flu outbreak. That same year an Australian pathologist named R. Douglas Reye reported on the Syndrome in a study with his colleagues and thereafter it became known as Reye Syndrome.

³     Children who develop Reye Syndrome are often between the ages of four to twelve. It usually occurs about a week after a child has suffered from a virus such as an upper respiratory infection or chickenpox or the flu. In many cases, the child was treated with aspirin. It is important to note that there's a link to the aspirin but no proof that the aspirin causes the disease. Reye Syndrome occurs most during the winter. When there's a flu epidemic, there are usually more cases of Reye Syndrome.

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