Sudden death due to asphyxia by esophageal polyp: two case reports and review of asphyxial deaths

Asphyxia, not an uncommon cause of sudden death, may result from numerous etiologies. Foreign-body aspiration and strangulation are 2 extrinsic causes. Airway obstruction may also be caused by laryngeal edema, asthma, infection, or anaphylaxis. Chronic causes of asphyxia include musculoskeletal diseases (eg, muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), neurologic disorders (eg, myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis), respiratory disease (eg, emphysema, chronic bronchitis), or tumors. The manner of death in cases of asphyxiation may be natural, accidental, homicide, or suicide. For the death investigator, determining the cause and manner of death can often be quite challenging.We report here 2 cases of an esophageal fibrovascular polyp causing sudden asphyxial death, review of the literature, and discussion of other differential diagnoses in the case of asphyxial death.     

Public opinion and the politics of obesity in America

Health policy experts have recently sounded the warning about the severe health and economic consequences of America's growing rates of obesity. Despite this fact, obesity has only begun to enter America's political consciousness and we have little information about what average Americans think of obesity or whether they support obesity-related policies. Using unique survey data collected by the authors, this essay examines public attitudes toward obesity and obesity policy. We find that, contrary to the views of health experts, most Americans are not seriously concerned with obesity, express relatively low support for obesity-targeted policies, and still view obesity as resulting from individual failure rather than environmental or genetic sources. Given the absence of elite discourse on this problem, we also find that typical determinants of policy preferences, such as ideology or partisanship, are not good predictors of attitudes on obesity policy. Rather, with a low-valence issue such as obesity, the public utilizes other attitudinal frameworks such as their opinions on smoking policy and the environmental culpability for obesity. The implications of these findings for obesity policy and research on health-related public opinion are discussed.