C M G Buttery

Despite all the Hoopla about a smallpox bioterror incident, this news from Imperial College, London today describes how a series of simple public health policies would be able to effectively contain the spread of smallpox if it were released into a population. Ccomputer models were used to test three main public health policies used to [...]

This new report from the WHO, Environmental Burden of Disease-series 13, , Global Burden of Disease of Solar Ultraviolet Radiation estimates that up to 60,000 deaths a year worldwide are caused by too much exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR). Of those 60,000 deaths, an estimated 48,000 are caused by malignant melanomas, and 12,000 by skin [...]

This press release from the Radiological Society of North America discusses the problem of radiographic diagnoses in obese people. The increase of obesity in the United States doubled the number of inconclusive diagnostic imaging exams over a 15-year period, according to a study featured in the August issue of Radiology. Researchers assessed all radiology exams [...]

This article published in the new “Journal of OB & Neonatal Nursing” concludes that providing low-income pregnant women with the option to choose a female friend who has received lay doula training and will act as doula during labor, along with other family members, shortens the labor process.

From Georgetown University today is this:Natural, also called fertility awareness-based, methods of family planning may be just what some women are looking for, but most physicians do not learn about them during medical school or residency training, according to Victoria Jennings, PhD, and Helain Landy, MD, of Georgetown University Medical Center. Their paper, appearing in [...]

Research from Imperial College, London, shows how certain genetic strains of common STDs can be used to track community spread of an STD and apply public health interventions. Rresearchers from Imperial College and the Health Protection Agency used molecular typing to analyse different strains of gonorrhoea. Out of a total of 2045 strains recovered in [...]

In “Protecting Young Women from HIV/AIDS: The Case Against Child and Adolescent Marriage,� (published by the Guttmacher Institute) Shelley Clark of McGill University et al. analyze data from national surveys from 29 countries and find that: Marriage exposes young women to frequent, unprotected sex, especially when the couple wants to have children. In most countries, [...]

This study from UC, to be published in September, calls for a ban on lead-based paints world wide. The researchers say that lead-based paint production poses a global health threat, and a worldwide ban is urgently needed to avoid future public health problems. About 50 percent of the paint sold in China, India and Malaysia—none [...]

All public health practitioners should read the policy forum in this week’s journal, Science. The forum discusses New York City’s public health plan to test all its residents for diabetes, using the hemoglobin A1C levels. If abnormal, the individual would be counseled about diabetes and referred to a source of care. If already under care [...]

If the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is to be saved from failure and privatisation its future should be planned by those independent of any personal conflict of interest, states the author of a Comment in this week’s issue of The Lancet. William Jeffcoate, a Contributing Editor at The Lancet, writes that this may well [...]