Toxic environmental factors in sudden infant death (SIDS)

The increasing number of discussions on the influence of toxic environmental factors, including SIDS, prompted systematic postmortem chemical-toxicological investigations to be carried out on 54 SIDS cases and 2 control cases of the same age group. Tissue levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, and pentachlorphenol, as well as other organic noxious agents, were measured in several organs. In addition, the COHb concentrations were determined. In spite of the widely scattered values, the extreme levels measured and the arithmetic means and median averages of As, Pb, Cd, Hg, PCP, and COHb had no more range in concentrations than can be expected for toxic effects - according to present knowledge anyway. It was observed that infants from an urban environment showed no greater concentration of noxious agents than did infants from rural regions. There were also no differences between SIDS cases and the controls, nor was there a correlation between infections of the respiratory system that are often morphologically detected - including laryngitis - and higher concentrations of these agents in the organs of SIDS cases.     

The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 – Thirteen years in the making but was it worth the wait?

Despite a gestation period extending over thirteen years, the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 is a disappointment. It is limited in its scope, restricted in its range of potential defendants and regressive to the extent that, like the discredited identification doctrine before it, it allows its focus to be deflected from systemic fault to individual fault. As a result the Act may not curb the type of short-sighted risk management decisions that can lead to the deaths of innocent workers, consumers and members of the public. Further, by requiring DPP consent to prosecute, the Act threatens to entangle corporate manslaughter prosecutions in the political process to an unacceptable degree. Despite these weaknesses, the symbolic significance of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 may ultimately transcend its methodological deficiencies.     

Genotyping the future: scientists' expectations about race/ ethnicity after BiDil

The ongoing debate about the FDA approval of BiDil in 2005 demonstrates how the first racially/ethnically licensed drug is entangled in both Utopian and dystopian future visions about the continued saliency of race/ethnicity in science and medicine. Drawing on the sociology of expectations, this paper analyzes how scientists in the field of pharmacogenetics are constructing certain visions of the future with respect to the use of social categories of race/ethnicity and the impact of high-throughput genotyping technologies that promise to transform scientific practices.     

The Interpretation of Matching Trace Evidence: A Legal Perspective

本文描述了用于规范法庭科学证言的英美证据法,这些法庭科学证言主要是解释微量物证之匹配的重要性。本文根据即将出版的维基百科全书法庭科学卷部分改编。     

Is there a magical time boundary for diagnosing eyewitness identification accuracy in sequential line‐ups?

We examined whether eyewitness identification latencies for sequential line‐up decisions indicate an optimum time boundary that reliably discriminates accurate from inaccurate decisions. Participants (N = 381) observed a crime simulation and attempted two separate identifications from target‐present or target‐absent sequential line‐ups. As has previously been found with simultaneous line‐ups, the optimum time boundary identified did not reliably discriminate accurate from inaccurate identifications for both line‐up targets. Diagnosticity for choosers was, however, much higher at very high confidence levels than at lower levels. Possible reasons for why one index of signal strength (confidence), but not another (latency), might postdict accuracy within the sequential framework were presented.     

Book Reviews

Book Reviews in This Article:
America's Health Care Revolution. Who Lives? Who Dies? Who Pays? By Joseph A. Califano, Jr.
American Medicine: The Power Shift . By Eli Ginzberg
Health Services in the United States, 2d ed. By Florence A. Wilson and Duncan Neuhauser
The U.S. Health Care System. A Look to the 19905 . Edited by Eli Ginzberg.
Handbook of Health Care Risk Management . By Glenn T. Troyer and Steven L. Salman
Health Care Risk Management: Organization and Claims Administration . By Gary P. Kraus
Medicolegal Aspects of Critical Care . Edited by Katherine Benesch, Norman S. Abramson, Ake Grenvik, and Alan Meisel
Ethics and Critical Care Medicine . Edited by John C. MosLop and Loretta Kopelnian
The mentally disabled and the Law , 3d ed. By Samuel Jan Brakel, John Parry, and Barbaa A.