Forensic medicine experiences with methadone substitution in the Geneva canton

Methadone treatment for heroin addiction has followed three distinct periods in Geneva, Switzerland. The first period (1970-1979) corresponds to the beginning of the heroin addiction epidemic. Treatment was restricted to detoxification and did not succeed in reducing fatal overdoses. During the second period (1980-1989), methadone maintenance program was favoured but access to this program was limited. This period has brought a decrease of illegal heroin consumption and criminality but not of fatal overdoses. Finally, during the third period (since 1990), legislation was changed to allow easier access to methadone maintenance program. As a consequence there was a significant drop in lethal heroin overdoses and in deaths attributed to HIV.     

Recovery Rates of Human Fetal Skeletal Remains Using Varying Mesh Sizes

Human fetal skeletal elements of different gestational ages were screened with multiple mesh sizes (6.4 mm [1/4 inch], 3.2 mm [1/8 inch], 2.0 mm, and 1.0 mm) to determine their recovery rates. All remains were previously macerated, and no significantly damaged elements were used. The 6.4 mm mesh allowed a large loss of elements (63.2% overall), including diagnostic elements, while no diagnostic elements were lost when the 1 mm mesh (0.2%) was used. When using the 3.2 mm mesh, 16.2% of the bones were lost, including some diagnostic elements (primarily tooth crowns), while 7.5% were lost using the 2.0 mm mesh. The authors recommend that the potential loss of information incurred when utilizing larger mesh sizes be taken into consideration when planning recovery methods where fetal remains may be encountered and that a minimum of 1.0 mm mesh be utilized in recovery contexts known to include fetal remains.     

A demented world: Politics without politics,state without state

Johann Huizinga, the great Dutch historian, wrote: ‘We are living in a demented world. And we know it’, pointing to the Schmittian nationalist irrationalism. Nevertheless, this expression might be accommodated to stress a contemporary form of dementia: the dementia of marketing. We are obsessed, made demented, by consumption, and we know it because we go and hunt for it. Classical economics in its neoliberal shift becomes, now, bio‐economics. The institutional venue where this kind of bio‐political commitment has been strongest is that provided by the European Union. The European Union has failed to halt the process of depoliticisation underway in the government of public affairs, contributing, on the contrary, to its encouragement and acceleration. The picture that emerges seems to have thrown us back 100 years, overrunning the defences of the Welfare State against the excesses of the free market and financial capitalism.