The (im)possibility of trade marks being incognito (Netherlands)

In the battle to curry the favour of the fast-food consumer,McDonald's collided head on with its competitor Burger Kingat the beginning of this year; the key question in this disputewas whether Burger King was entitled to use the famous characterRonald McDonald in its commercials or whether, by doing so,Burger King was infringing the trade mark rights of McDonald's.     

Wilton Marion Krogman, Ph.D. (1903-1987): the end of an era

Dr. Wilton Marion Krogman was one of the major founders of physical and forensic anthropology in the United States. His extraordinary career spanned nearly six decades, and he was universally admired and respected for his scholarship, teaching, research, wit, and humanity. While studies based on human skeletal remains have long been used to assist the medicolegal system, the late Dr. Krogman can be credited with uniting these areas into the discipline of forensic anthropology. His "Guide to the Identification of Human Skeletal Material" (1939) in the F.B.I. Law Enforcement Bulletin became the foundation of this discipline; his monumental book The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine (updated with the author in 1986) solidified its establishment. The purpose of this paper is to pay tribute to this great man and outline his influence on the development and advancement of forensic anthropology.     

The structure of the conclusions in the forensic medical expertise of material evidence]

A new structure of conclusions including special chapter "Conclusion validity", which ensures their high availability for officials of legal investigation agencies is suggested. The examples of conclusion making on the basis of new form in case of blood, secretion and hair tests performed in two variants (known and unknown criminal) are presented.     

Complications following cell therapy

So far, the law in the Federal Republic of Germany still allows the injection of fresh-cell preparations from animals as a roborant to increase the vitality of the organism and to strengthen the body's immune defense system. The use of "sicca-cell" preparations was provisionally forbidden in 1987 by the Federal Health Organization (Bundesgesundheitsamt; BGA). Prohibition of fresh-cell injections would have exceeded the authority of this office, although the same serious reservations also applied in the case of this treatment method. Several publications that have appeared since 1955 have reported serious complications of this therapy, some life-threatening and some even lethal. Two further cases are now added: (1) A woman aged 69 had been receiving treatment with cell injections for 9 years. Immediately after an injection of sicca cells she collapsed and was hospitalized; 7 days thereafter she developed an ascending paralysis with increasing inability to swallow or breathe. She died 25 days after the injection as a consequence of central and peripheral respiratory failure. Autopsy revealed the alterations typical for acute Landry-Guillain-Barré-Strohl syndrome. (2) A 76-year-old healthy woman had been receiving treatment with fresh-cell preparations for several years. After an injection of cell suspensions a painful local swelling was observed. The symptoms were interpreted as the consequence of an iatrogenic local hematoma, and repeated punctures were performed to obtain blood. The patient was transferred to a surgical department for further therapy. Two days after the injection she suddenly died with signs of acute cardiovascular failure. Autopsy revealed the signs of a fulminating clostridial infection and also the characteristic signs of Landry-Guillain-Barré syndrome with involvement of the autonomic nervous system. In both cases the development of an inflammatory process in the peripheral nervous system could be interpreted as an immune-mediated allergic disease, related to the repeated injection of heterologous antigenic material containing nervous tissues. This hypothesis would also explain the two other cases already published and would be consistent with the observed perivenous leukoencephalopathy of the central nervous system. The human disease pictures correspond to the well-established animal models of EAEM (experimental allergic encephalomyelitis) and EAN (experimental allergic neuritis). The pathogenesis is discussed; the major role of the central and peripheral nervous system is stressed, with special reference to the risk of acute autonomic failure. The need for specific autopsy techniques for the investigation of the entire nervous system, including spinal cord, roots, spinal ganglia and peripheral nerves with sympathetic chains, is raised.     

On the waves: a new kind of surf in Rio de Janeiro

Surfmen are thus called young daredevils who climb to the roof of suburban trains in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and vie with each other in agility and prowess, some of them often falling on the railway tracks and being killed. The practice started as a need to hang on anything outside the crowded train and became a sport of sorts. Even though repressed by the railway authorities and punished by fines and imprisonment, the practice has been going on since the eighties and developed into a competition with rules, code of honour, grading of achievement. It became a means of improving self-esteem as well as securing leadership and social prestige by people who otherwise carry on lives devoid of any charm or ludic stimulus. A substitute behavior, it results from processes of cultural elaboration at work in the youth culture of our cities.