Characteristics of parents of adolescent incest perpetrators: Preliminary findings

Twenty-seven parents of adolescent incest perpetrators were interviewed regarding demographic characteristics, prior victimization and abuse, and attitudes about their sons engaging in incestuous behavior. Results indicated that these parents: (a) under-reported physical and sexual abuse of their sons, (b) had a high incidence of being abused themselves, and (c) demonstrate a high level of denial regarding their sons' incestuous behaviors as reflected by the finding that only 50% of the parents totally admitted to their son's incestuous behavior(s).     

New communication technologies in tropical African development

New communication technologies may be a mixed blessing for tropical African states. They could foster development, by promoting health, education, agriculture, entertainment, business and tourism; and also enhance international trade and regional cooperation. However, these technologies might accentuate the gap between the rich and poor, creating a society characterised by an information-rich elite and an information-poor under-class. In an age when information is power, this could devastate countries that are facing the problems of poverty, disease, hunger, and political instability. Ultimately, these technologies might also jeopardise the sovereignty, security, human rights, and, consequently, the development of countries in tropical Africa.     

The importance of being dead: non-heart-beating organ donation

There is no definitive answer to the question of how long one must wait, after a person's heart stops beating, before concluding that the person meets the heart-lung criteria for death. This question has assumed new importance with attempts to remove transplantable organs from people declared dead using those criteria. An examination of the legal definition of death suggests that organs are indeed being procured from some of these people prior to their being legally dead. Moreover, the fact that the donors have consented to these procedures does not eliminate reason for concern regarding this state of affairs, since patient autonomy must at times be overridden in pursuance of important social goals.     

Book reviews

Ephraim Maisel, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy 1991–1926 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press 1994), £35. ISBN 1–898723–04–4.

Timothy P. Maga, The World of Jimmy Carter: U.S. Foreign Policy 1977–1981 (West Haven, CT: University of New Haven Press, 1994). 189 pp. ISBN 0–936385–23–0.

Michael Leifer, Dictionary of the Modern Politics of South‐East Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), xii + 271pp. £45. ISBN 0–415–04219–4.

Christopher C. Harmon and David Tucker (eds.), Statecraft and Power: Essays in Honor of Harold W. Rood (Lanham and London: University Press of America with the National Institute for Public Policy, 1994), 284pp ISBN 0–8191–8718–6.     

Presidential priorities,congressional control,and the quality of regulatory analysis: an application to healthcare and homeland security

Elected leaders delegate rulemaking to federal agencies, then seek to influence rulemaking through top-down directives and statutory deadlines. This paper documents an unintended consequence of these control strategies: they reduce regulatory agencies’ ability and incentive to conduct high-quality economic analysis to inform their decisions. Using scoring data that measure the quality of regulatory impact analysis, we find that hastily adopted “interim final” regulations reflecting signature policy priorities of the two most recent presidential administrations were accompanied by significantly lower quality economic analysis. Interim final homeland security regulations adopted during the G.W. Bush administration and interim final regulations implementing the Affordable Care Act in the Obama administration were accompanied by less thorough analysis than other “economically significant” regulations (regulations with benefits, costs, or other economic impacts exceeding $100 million annually). The lower quality analysis apparently stems from the confluence of presidential priorities and very tight statutory deadlines associated with interim final regulations, rather than either factor alone.     

Analysis of active ricin and castor bean proteins in a ricin preparation, castor bean extract, and surface swabs from a public health investigation

In late February 2008, law enforcement officials in Las Vegas, Nevada, discovered in a hotel room, a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook, suspected castor beans and a "white powder" thought to be a preparation of ricin. Ricin is a deadly toxin from the seed of the castor bean plant (Ricinus communis). The United States regulates the possession, use, and transfer of ricin and it is the only substance considered a warfare agent in both the Chemical and the Biological Weapons Conventions. Six samples obtained from the hotel room were analyzed by laboratories at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention using a panel of biological and mass spectrometric assays. The biological assays (real time-PCR, time resolved fluorescence and cytotoxicity) provided presumptive evidence of active ricin in each of the samples. This initial screen was followed by an in-depth analysis using a novel, state-of-the-art mass spectrometry-based ricin functional assay and high sensitivity tandem mass spectrometry for protein identification. Mass spectrometric analysis positively identified ricin and confirmed that in each of the samples it was enzymatically active. The tandem mass spectrometry analysis used here is the most selective method available to detect ricin toxin. In each sample, ricin was unequivocally identified along with other R. communis plant proteins, including the highly homologous protein RCA120. Although database searches using tandem mass spectra acquired from the samples indicated that additional controlled substances were not present in these samples, the mass spectrometric results did provide extensive detail about the sample contents. To the best of our knowledge following a review of the available literature, this report describes the most detailed analysis of a white powder for a public health or forensic investigation involving ricin.