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States Offer Critiques, Advice On Reform
Various states weigh in about health care reform with particular concerns about financial difficulties and different reform models. Massachusetts looks to its own experience to offer advice.
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Second Edition Of 'Medical Ultrasound Safety' Released By AIUM
The American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine is pleased to announce the release of Medical Ultrasound Safety, Second Edition. All operators of ultrasound systems with an output display should review the information in this publication. The book consists of 3 parts: Bioeffects and Biophysics, Prudent Use, and Implementing ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable). With the information from this 64 page publication, users can better control the diagnostic ultrasound equipment and examination to ensure that needed diagnostic information is obtained with minimal risk to the patient.
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Washington, D.C., Officials Expand STI Testing Program To All Public High Schools
Washington, D.C., officials are planning to make testing for sexually transmitted infections available at all public high schools in the coming school year, adding D.C. to a growing list of cities that test students for STIs, the Washington Post reports. All 50 states and the district allow minors older than age 12 to be tested for STIs without parental consent.The new program requires all students to attend a lecture about STIs, after which they are escorted into restroom areas in groups of 15 to 20. They are then given paper bags with urine collection cups and go into the stalls, at which point they can decide whether to provide a sample. All students return the paper bags, regardless of whether they provided samples. Students give a password and can call a week later to receive their confidential results and, if necessary, treatment at the school or an STI clinic, which is paid for by the city. The district first offered the program two years ago at two charter schools, and eight high schools were included during the past school year.A 2007 study by the D.C. public school system found that 60% of high school students and 30% of middle school students reported having sex. According to the study, 20% of high school students reported having sex with four or more partners and 12% of middle school students reported having three or more partners.According to the D.C. Department of Health, the program at eight high schools last year found that 13% of 3,000 students tested positive for an STI, most commonly chlamydia or gonorrhea. Fifty percent of the chlamydia and gonorrhea cases in the district are among teenagers.According to the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, the new program is an important step toward curbing the district"s HIV/AIDS rate, which is among the highest in the U.S. Walter Smith, executive director of D.C. Appleseed, said, "If 13% of these students are testing positive for [STIs], those same kids could get HIV," adding, "A lot needs to be done to get the message out to the schools, ... and this very high [STI] rate is an indication that what we"ve been doing is not effective" (Fears/Hernandez, Washington Post, 8/5).
Cardiovascular

Exploring The Complexity Of Symbiosis In DNA And Cell Biology

The unique association between microorganisms and their hosts, whether insects, plants, or mammals, provides a fascinating view into how microbial symbionts adapt to changing biological environments. Insights into the diversity and complexity of symbiotic relationships are the focus of the current special issue of DNA and Cell Biology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The issue is available free online at http://www.liebertpub.com/dna "Symbiosis is one of the most rapidly growing fields in biology.... After decades of focusing on bacteria in pure culture, it is evident that to manage them for our benefit, we need to understand bacteria in association with the complex biological environments with which they contend in the natural world," write Jo Handelsman, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of DNA and Cell Biology, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and President of the Rosalind Franklin Society, and Guest Editor Margaret J. McFall-Ngai, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in their Editorial. The issue contains articles representative of the broad range of scientific topics and disciplines related to microbial symbiosis. These include "The Oral Microbial Consortium"s Interaction with the Periodontal Innate Defense System," which describes a process called "local chemokine paralysis," in which the membership and characteristics of the bacterial community that populates the gingival crevice in the human mouth affect the ability of the natural immune defenses in the mouth to detect the presence of harmful bacteria and orchestrate their destruction. Author Richard Darveau, PhD, from the University of Washington in Seattle, describes this phenomenon as "another mechanism by which the action of a single bacterial member of the oral consortium can affect the host responses to a wide variety of different bacteria." The term "symbiont plasticity" describes the mechanisms by which symbiotic microbes adapt to changes in host development, immune responses, and the changing external environment. Jennifer Wernegreen, PhD, from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, MA, and Diana Wheeler, PhD, from the University of Arizona, in Tucson, use the example of mutualism between Blochmannia and their ant hosts to illustrate how the bacteria rely on genetic, ecological, and physiological means to maintain the functional flexibility that allows them to meet the needs of an ant colony rather than the individual ants that make up the colony. Their thought-provoking review of the impact of symbiotic lifestyle on genetic variation and microbial adaptation is entitled, "Remaining Flexible in Old Alliances: Functional Plasticity in Constrained Mutualisms." Adam Silver and Joerg Graf from the University of Connecticut, in Storrs, explore the role of virulence factors and specific toxins produced by members of the Aeromonas veronii bacterial group in the article "Prevalence of Genes Encoding the Type Three Secretion System and the Effectors AexT and AexU in the Aeromonas veronii Group." These bacteria can cause a range of infections, from diarrhea and wound infections to life-threatening septicemia and meningitis. The authors demonstrate the presence of the type-3 secretion factors AexT and AexU in a variety of Aeromonas veronii strains and propose different functions for these two toxins. Vicki Cohn Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News


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