HIV-related deaths outside medical institutions in Stockholm

During a 3-year period (August 1st, 1985 to July 31st, 1988) a systematic investigation of medico-legal autopsy cases with regard to the presence of antibodies for HIV-virus was carried out at the Department of Forensic Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden. Prior to autopsy, blood samples were taken from femoral or subclavian veins and were investigated by use of ELISA-screening and Western blotting test. During the first year of study, HIV infection was demonstrated in 11 out of 3464 deaths (0.32%), during the second year in 29 out of 3483 deaths (0.83%), and during the last year in 13 out of 3107 deaths (0.42%). It was shown that 48 out of the total of 53 HIV positive cases were previously registered, but information about the infection was available to the autopsist in only 27 cases. Drug addicts dominated 41 of 53 cases. There were only eight homo- and bisexual males, two non drug addict Central Africans and two persons who received blood transfusions. Eight of the 53 persons died of natural causes whereas 45 deaths were due to violence and drugs. The causes of death of the HIV positive drug addicts were compared to the causes of death of the HIV negative addicts. The HIV positive drug addicts tended to die suddenly in connection with the intravenous administration of heroin and at lower blood concentrations of morphine more often than the HIV-negative addicts. No increase in the suicide frequency was noted in drug addicts in Stockholm during the studied period.     

South Africa: defiance campaign continues

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has continued its "defiance campaign against patent abuse and AIDS profiteering." In partnership with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), and with the support of Oxfam and the Council of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), on 28 January 2002 three TAC members returned to South Africa from Brazil carrying generic versions of the antiretroviral drugs zidovudine (AZT), lamivudine (3TC), and nevirapine (NVP). Some of the imported capsules contain a combination of AZT and 3TC.     

Pedicide revisited. The slaughter continues

Pedicide, a reliable indicator of interpersonal violence and severe child abuse, has risen in Cuyahoga County (Metropolitan Cleveland), Ohio, U.S.A., over the past quarter of a century, paralleling or exceeding the increase in adult homicide. However, neonaticides have decreased, a phenomenon mirroring a marked fall in fatal maternal criminal abortions. As previously noted, modalities of lethal violence in pedicide are significantly determined by victim age. An increasing proportion of pedicide victims, like their adult counterparts, have been killed by firearms. Pedicide victims are much apt to be killed by close relatives than are adult homicide victims. Similarly, perpetrators of pedicide are much more likely to commit suicide than are their adult-slaying counterparts. Fatally "battered" children, the victims of multiple, metasynchronous traumata, represent a significant fraction (22%) of the overall pedicide population and constitute a segment of the victims with a potential for being saved by intervention. Overall, pedicide remains a challenge to our profession and a threat to society as a whole.     

Sony continues campaign against PlayStation grey market

A parallel importer infringes UK intellectual property rightsin electronic products by offering to sell those products inthe UK and Europe via a Hong Kong-based website, where the rights-holderintends such products for sale and distribution in Japan only;no defence of exhaustion of rights, or that the website hadnot targeted the UK or European customers, is available in thecircumstances.     

Criminal record stigma,race, and neighborhood inequality

Justice-involved people experience high levels of housing instability and residential mobility, making the housing search a recurrent part of life. Little is known, however, regarding how criminal record stigma functions in the rental housing market. This article examines how housing providers use criminal records to screen tenants in the rental housing market and whether it varies by type of neighborhood. I conduct an online correspondence audit to test discriminatory behaviors and find an adverse criminal record effect on housing opportunities. Many housing providers disqualify all tenants with a criminal record, even without information about the severity or timing of offenses. The criminal record effect is significantly stronger in gentrifying neighborhoods and in neighborhoods where the proportion of Black residents is dwindling. Tenant screening emerges as a central obstacle faced by the justice-involved population, vital to understanding the web of disadvantages that traps so many in the wake of the carceral state.     

Court sets aside immigration employment authorization containing HIV-related job restrictions

In an order issued on 30 May 2003, the Federal Court-Trial Division set aside an employment authorization that prohibited an HIV-positive man from working in childcare, primary and secondary school teaching, health services, and agriculture. The court directed immigration medical officers to decide whether a new medical examination is required. This is a significant case for HIV-positive immigrants and refugees who are required to hold an employment authorization if they intend to work in Canada while their applications for permanent residence are decided, a process that can take years.     

Capital punishment in Poland: The debate continues

Throughout its modern history, Poland has not escaped controversies surrounding the use of the death penalty. Tracing the historical development of laws dealing with the issue demonstrates an evolution influenced by various legal, political, social, philosophical, and international factors, leading up to the current absence of the penalty from the Polish legal system. The debate in society revolves around some stereotypical views held by different social groups. One of the biggest challenges is how to reconcile those views with empirical evidence, especially on issues like the deterrent effect of capital punishment. The authors describe the death penalty debate in Poland from these perspectives and take a retentionist position with regard to some selected crimes. As long as there are individuals willing to take other people's lives in a premeditated and deliberate manner demonstrating callous contempt for another person's existence, death remains the only punishment satisfying a sense of social justice and upholding the value of human life.     

(MIS)Representing risk: Headline accounts of HIV-related assaults

The news media construct order by defining which events are sig-nificant and interpreting these events for the public. Sometimes, though, the media distort reality. The current study focuses on the media exaggeration of the threat posed by nonsexual HIV-related assaults. Although such assaults are widely perceived as serious threats, the likelihood of HIV being transmitted through a biting, spitting, or needlestick incident is quite small. Based on news accounts culled from 17 of the largest newspapers in the United States, the findings illustrate how headlines rely upon sensational language, negative stereotyping of offenders, and the cloak of “neutral and objective” court decisions to articulate a sense of order and morality while simultaneously exaggerating the threat people with HIV pose to the general public.     

Drug lords and narco-corruption: The players change but the game continues

This article examines the patterns and history of drug trafficking related corruption in Mexico. While the Bush administration has the efforts of the Salinas administration to fight both drug trafficking and corruption the author concludes that merely the players have changed, while trafficking and high-level corruption continue.