Ideology and dangerousness: The case of Lisa Colleen neve

On November 17, 1994, a superior court judge in Alberta, Canada, declared that Lisa Neve was a dangerous offender (DO) and sentenced her to serve an indeterminate (life) term. A young Aboriginal prostitute, she had been in and out of psychiatric institutions and jails since a teenager; and was before the court for sentence on a robbery and assault with a weapon charge. Using a case study approach, this essay explores the issues of class conflict, racism, sexism, and sociology of psychiatric diagnosis. Her DO designation was subsequently reversed on appeal, revealing the fortuitous intersection of race, gender, and class.     

Cocaine-related deaths: an enigma still under investigation

In recent years there has been an increase interest in cocaine-related death reflecting the rising trend in cocaine use in Europe. Nevertheless it is still now very difficult to attribute a death to cocaine. We can affirm that cocaine can be responsible for the cause of death only when there is a reasonably complete understanding of the circumstances or facts surrounding the death. Isolated blood cocaine levels are not enough to assess lethality, and should be always considered and evaluated in relation to concentrations of cocaine and benzoylecgonine concentrations in body tissue compartments, especially in brain and blood. We have reanalyzed all of our cocaine-related cases from 1990 to 2005, applying the methodology used by Spielher and Reed over 30 years ago. Our aim was to try to validate this model and verify its applicability and effectiveness after 20 years.     

The enigma of the kula ring: Gift-exchanges and primitive law and order

There is no such thing there as a free gift.¹Exchanges are peacefully resolved wars and wars are the result of unsuccessful transactions. ²As long as ceremonial exchanges continued to take place assurance, that peace prevailed, the linked groups could continue to carry on other mutually advantageous activities, such as trade in ordinary goods …³     

"Spontaneous" coronary artery dissection. The challenge of detection, the enigma of cause

Sudden death secondary to acute dissection of a coronary artery is a rare, but increasingly recognized, cause of sudden, unexpected death in apparently healthy persons. It has been reported more frequently in women and has been associated with sudden death during the puerperium. It has also been reported that these involved coronary vessels contain increased numbers of eosinophils and often show areas of cystic medial necrosis. In this article, we report a case of sudden death in a 47-year-old white woman due to dissection of the distal segment of her left anterior descending coronary artery. There was marked involvement of the coronary arterial walls with cystic degeneration of the media with accumulation of glycosaminoglycans as demonstrated by Alcian blue staining. There was no eosinophilic infiltrate within the arterial walls. This case is unusual in that this woman's mother and brother both have had aneurysms, which stresses the importance of not only searching carefully for these lesions, but also of obtaining family history in such cases.     

Totipotent, pluripotent or unipotent stem cells: a complex regulatory enigma and fascinating biology

The search for sources of human stem cells has become a controversial topic from an ethical point of view primarily as it has required the destruction of human embryos. The development of alternative techniques that enable the generation of pluripotent stem cells from adult cells has opened new avenues of research but the generation of such cells has again been controversial since it requires the use of human eggs, using a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer. Since the cells so generated have a very small potential to generate an "embryo" and since the production of the cell lines requires destruction of that "embryo", a further ethical issue arises. This article discusses these issues and suggests a framework that may assist their consideration. Finally, the article reviews some recent developments that have the potential to remove the need for the use of eggs or embryos in the generation of stem cell lines and highlights the danger of developing legislation on only our current knowledge.