Culture

Washington, D.C. – The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues today released an ethics study guide based on the Commission's investigation into the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) experiments conducted in Guatemala in the 1940s. A Study Guide to "Ethically Impossible" STD Research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 is designed for use by higher education and other interested members of the public. It is free and available for immediate use in classrooms and elsewhere at www.bioethics.gov.

New York, NY, November 15, 2012—Two-thirds (69%) of U.S. primary care physicians reported using electronic medical records (EMRs) in 2012, up from less than half (46%) in 2009, according to findings from the 2012 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey, published as a Web First online today in the journal Health Affairs. Primary care physicians in the U.S.—the only country in the study without universal health coverage—stand out in the survey for reporting that their patients often cannot afford care (59%).

Improving water supplies in rural African villages may have negative knock-on effects and contribute to increased poverty, new research published today [14 November] has found.

Rural development initiatives across the developing world are designed to improve community wellbeing and livelihoods but a study of Ethiopian villages by researchers at the Universities of Bristol and Addis Ababa in Africa has shown that this can lead to unforeseen consequences caused by an increase in the birth rate in the absence of family planning.

Compared to the nation, a higher proportion of children in California are uninsured, one in every 10 children or more than 1.1 million in 2011. More of California's children have public health insurance and fewer through their parents' employer. And, over the past three years, a decade of advances in California children's public insurance enrollment has stalled, as coverage in Healthy Families (California's children's health insurance program) declined as a result of reductions in state government funding.

Not only is TV not endangered, but it also has a unifying social impact on the nuclear family across the country. This is the main conclusion of a cross-Canada study—Are the Kids All Right?—on the television viewing habits of families with at least one child aged between 9 and 12 years. The study was conducted by a team of researchers led by André H. Caron, professor of communications at Université de Montréal and Director of the Centre for Youth and Media Studies (CYMS).

Children whose mothers were overly stressed during pregnancy have been correlated to being victims of bullying at school by a new paper from University of Warwick psychologists showing that stress and mental health problems in pregnant women may affect the developing baby and directly increases the risk of the child being victimized in later life.

The study was published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and is based on 8,829 children from the Avon Longtitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).

If narrowed or blocked coronary vessels have to be widened or opened, a vascular support (stent) is usually inserted. Drug-coated stents are preferred for patients at high risk of renewed narrowing of vessels (restenosis). However, the use of antibody-coated stents has been increasing in recent years. Current studies provide indications that these new antibody-coated stents more frequently lead to myocardial infarction and make re-operation necessary.

Looks matter – even when it comes to money.

A new study co-authored by a University of Guelph professor has found that currency's physical appearance dramatically affects consumer behaviour.

People are more likely to spend dirty, crumpled currency and hold on to new bills, according to the study forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Research and available online now.

But in social situations – and especially when they're looking to impress someone else -- people reach for new bills even when they have older, higher-denomination currency on hand.

Chevy Chase, MD –– Patients with diabetes have a significantly higher prevalence of hearing impairment than patients without diabetes, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Study authors note that the finding is likely to be independent of the effect of aging or a noisy environment.

Sophia Antipolis, 14 November 2012: While it is well recognized that patients with diabetes are at risk of developing Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), on World Diabetes Day the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) highlights the fact that patients with CAD are also at great risk of developing diabetes mellitus (DM).

Early changes in liver function detected by novel techniques can identify severe infection (sepsis) hours after onset and so could have important implications for the treatment of patients who are critically ill, according to a groundbreaking study by European researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

Almost half of all people who develop severe sepsis die as this life-threatening condition often develops quickly and is often diagnosed too late to save the patient's life.

In an innovative move to help reduce the damaging health effects of tobacco, the radical proposal of a ''smoker's license'' is debated by two experts in this week's PLOS Medicine.

Simon Chapman from the University of Sydney in Australia and Jeff Collin from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland both agree that creative thinking is required to tackle the global smoking epidemic (especially as tobacco continues to kill millions of people around the world each year and its use is increasing in some countries) but disagree on the need for a smoker's license.

TORONTO, Nov. 13, 2012—A first-of-its-kind program at St. Michael's Hospital lowers risk of delirium in elderly patients admitted for trauma and decreases the likelihood they will be discharged to a long-term care facility.

The Geriatric Trauma Consultation Service is a program where every patient over 60 admitted to the trauma service is seen by a member of the geriatric team within 72 hours.

This is a big change from previous practice, where only 4 per cent of elderly patients admitted to trauma were seen by a geriatric team member during their stay in hospital.

Recent studies questioning the role of specialist heart attack centres produced misleading results because doctors tend to send the sickest patients to have the best care, according to new research.

Many heart attack patients in the UK are sent to a specialist centre for primary angioplasty - a surgical procedure to reopen the blocked artery. Randomised trials have found that angioplasty is much more successful than drug treatment alone, but research based on "real-world" data suggest that patients given an angioplasty don't tend to do better.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) — Two professors at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering have developed a new method that doubles the efficiency of wireless networks and could have a large impact on the mobile Internet and wireless industries.