The courts,politics, and the ACLU

She is co-director of the Arthur Garfield Civil Liberties Program where she teaches and writes in the areas of family law, constutional law, and health law.     

Program-level predictors of antipsychotic medication adherence among parolees

This study examined the impact of three program-level factors (coercion level, type of antipsychotic prescribed, and guardian supervision) on antipsychotic medication adherence among parolees mandated to an outpatient psychiatric clinic. Overall, 70.7% of the participants tested positive for their prescribed antipsychotic. Older patients were more likely to test positive for their prescribed antipsychotic than younger patients, and African American patients (relative to all other race/ethnic groups) were less likely. With regard to program-level factors, perceived coercion was not significantly associated with medication adherence. However, being prescribed an atypical antipsychotic and having a guardian were independently associated with increased adherence, and combined, these two factors were associated with nearly a tenfold increase in the likelihood of patients testing positive for their prescribed antipsychotic agent, relative to patients who were prescribed conventional antipsychotics and were not under guardian supervision.     

Inter-Korean relations and the roles of the US and of the EU

The North Korean nuclear standoff has escalated since North Korea let slip that it was developing nuclear weapons while James Kelly, U.S. Assistant Secretary of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was visiting Pyongyang in October 2002. The Bush administration has acknowledged that the United States will not discount a preemptive military strike on the suspected nuclear development facilities, and North Korea has stood firm against any pressure to halt its nuclear development from the international community. Dialogue and meetings for international cooperation among the major countries concerned, including Korea, the U.S., Japan and China, have been activated to resolve the nuclear crisis in the Korean Peninsula, especially after the U.S. pronounced an end to its war against Iraq in early May of this year. In the middle of the rapidly changing situation on the Korean peninsula, the inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation initiated by the Sunshine Policy of the Kim Dae Jung administration and followed by the Roh Moo-hyun administrations Policy of Peace and Prosperity are not separable from the nuclear situation. This paper follows recent developments of inter-Korean relations, illustrates South Koreas stance on the issue and suggests the EUs role on the nuclear issue. This is a revised version of the paper presented at the Asia-EU Journalists Seminar organized by the Asia Europe Foundation and the Korea Press Foundation (KPF), held in Brussels, Belgium, May 22 2003. Financial support from the KPF is gratefully acknowledged.     

Study shows Aboriginals who inject drugs are at higher risk for HIV

One in five Aboriginal people enrolled in a Vancouver study of people who inject drugs became HIV-positive over a five-year period ending in May 2001. This is twice the rate among non-Aboriginal people in the study.     

Pediatric homicides related to burn injury: a retrospective review at the medical university of South Carolina

Many burn injuries are mistakenly referred to as "accidents" because they occur suddenly and seem unpredictable and uncontrollable; however, injuries often occur in predictable patterns. We reviewed all pediatric forensic cases referred to the Medical University of South Carolina Forensic Pathology Section over a 28-year period from January 1975 to December 2002. There were 124 cases with 121 fire-related fatalities and three scald fatalities. Ninety of the burn victims were in the 0-5-year age group. The manner of deaths showed 108 accidents and 12 homicides (four undetermined). Eleven of 12 burn-related homicides occurred at the home with all of the victims in the 1-8-year age group. The perpetrator of the home fire homicides was the mother in five cases and the sister in one case (two undetermined). Homicide involved a vehicle fire in one case in which the father caused an explosion with an accelerant. The three scald death perpetrators were the father, mother's boyfriend, and an aunt.This retrospective study and review of the literature may reveal patterns useful for evaluation of manner of death. By recognizing scene characteristics, potential perpetrators, and children at risk, we can better classify pediatric burn-related fatalities.     

Sex determination using nonmetric characteristics of the mandible in Koreans

The mandible is the largest and hardest facial bone and retains its shape better than other bones in the forensic and physical anthropologic field. The mandible can be used to distinguish among ethnic groups and between sexes. We examined the morphological characteristics of the mandibles of 102 Koreans of either sex. Of 13 nonmetric items of the mandible, the characteristic that best allowed the sexes to be distinguished was the contour of the lower border of the mandible: rocker-shaped mandibles predominated in males (68.1%), whereas most females (84.6%) exhibited a straight mandible. In addition, the mental region was shaped differently between the sexes: the shape of the chin in most males was generally bilobate or square (91.7%), whereas the chin in females was either square (45.5%) or pointed (54.5%). In this study, the positive predict values of male and female were 92.5% and 73.7%, respectively. Therefore, the nonmetric method used to analyze the mandible in this study can be used for sex discrimination.     

Pregnancy-associated deaths: a 15-year retrospective study and overall review of maternal pathophysiology

Pregnancy-related death is defined by the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the cause of death. In the year 2000, a collaborative effort involving World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and UNFPA estimated 660 maternal deaths in the United States. This averages 11 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births reported. Many pregnancy-associated deaths are not easily identified as such since the presence of a recent or current pregnancy may not be listed on the death certificate. Thus, the WHO estimates that in the United States, the maternal mortality is approximately 17/100,000 pregnancies. This is significantly higher than the goal set by the US Department of Health and Human Services in Healthy People 2010, which sets the target for maternal mortality at less than 3.3/100,000 live births. The most common causes of maternal death vary somewhat from region to region in the United States. They include pulmonary thromboembolism, amniotic fluid embolism, primary postpartum uterine hemorrhage, infection, and complications of hypertension including preeclampsia and eclampsia. Pulmonary disease, complications of anesthesia, and cardiomyopathy also are significant contributors to maternal mortality in some populations. The death of a pregnant or recently pregnant individual poses a wide scope of challenges to the forensic pathologist and investigator. The pathologist must have a broad knowledge of the physiologic and biochemical changes that occur during pregnancy, as well as the clinical and pathological manifestation of these changes. Conditions that may be "benign" in the nonpregnant individual may be lethal in the puerperal period. In addition, it should be kept in mind that deaths during pregnancy may be due to unnatural causes. Accident, homicide, and suicide must be ruled out in each case. The authors reviewed all forensic cases referred for autopsy to the Forensic Section of the Medical University of South Carolina from January 1989 through December 2003. All decedents listed as pregnant or postpartum were analyzed as to maternal age, race, past medical history, previous pregnancies and outcome, prenatal care, gestational age, fetal or neonatal outcome, location of delivery, placental findings, maternal autopsy findings, toxicology, cause of death, manner of death, and fetal or neonatal autopsy findings. The authors present this retrospective study to better determine the factors leading to maternal demise and discuss the autopsy/ancillary techniques useful in determining the cause of death in this challenging area.     

Analysis of the impurities in the methamphetamine synthesized by three different methods from ephedrine and pseudoephedrine

Organic impurities of methamphetamine may show different patterns by synthesis. In the present study, we tried to find the impurities reflecting the conditions of synthesis by comparing impurity patterns of the methamphetamine samples synthesized by different methods. Sixteen methamphetamine samples were synthesized from ephedrine and pseudoephedrine by the three different manufacturing methods of Emde, Nagai and Moscow. The synthesized samples were extracted with ethyl acetate containing four internal standards, and the patterns of the organic impurities were investigated by GC-MS and GC-FID . Through the investigation, we found 10 peaks appearing in the latter part of GC chromatograms are characteristic to synthesis. The areas of the selected peaks were converted to the variables suitable for the statistical calculation, and the synthesized samples could be classified into four groups through the resultant cluster analysis.     

Maintenance of the ENFSI proficiency test program on identification of GSR by SEM/EDX (GSR2003)

Within the framework of the ENFSI Expert Working Group "Firearms," every second year, a proficiency test on the detection and identification of GSR by SEM/EDX is carried out. This proficiency test is a development and extension of the previous proficiency test GSR2001. The test material was again designed by the organization panel and manufactured by an external company for SEM accessories. This time the participating laboratories were requested to determine the total number of PbSbBa containing particles on a test sample following their own laboratory specific methods of automated GSR particle search and detection by SEM/EDX. One synthetic particle sample (SPS) with artificial GSR particles was dispatched to all participants. This paper summarizes the results of the study and assesses the overall performance of the participating laboratories. Furthermore an extended statistical evaluation and a comparison with previous studies was carried out.