As states deal with their fiscal crises and search for ways to close large gaps between revenues and expenditures, few states have yet enacted significant tax increases — with the exception of cigarette tax increases. So far this year, 14 states have increased their excise taxes on cigarettes, and cigarette tax increases are under active consideration in several other states. Before the year is...

OBJECTIVES This paper reports on the first nationally representative study on the prevalence of emotional, physical, and sexual victimization of children by school staff in Israel. The study identifies groups of children that are at higher risk for such maltreatment. We examine the differences in staff-induced victimization by the children's gender, age group (junior high vs. high school), cult...

QUESTION With the influenza season reaching a peak, I see numerous children in my clinic with fever and influenza-like illnesses. Parents are concerned and at times ask for antibiotic treatment in hopes that the treatment will shorten the duration of illness. What strategies can I use in order to minimize inappropriate prescription of antibiotics during the influenza season? ANSWER Use of ant...

Switching tasks prolongs response times, an effect reduced but not eliminated by active preparation. To explore the role of attentional selection of the relevant stimulus attribute in these task-switch costs, we measured eye fixations in participants cued to identify either a face or a letter displayed on its forehead. With only 200 ms between cue and stimulus onsets, the eyes fixated the curre...

Hyponatraemia is a common finding in patients with acute cerebral insults. The main differential diagnosis is between syndrome of inappropriate ADH secretion and cerebral salt wasting. Our aim is to review the topic of hyponatraemia in patients with acute cerebral insults and suggest a clinical approach to diagnosis and management.

This model involves four steps. First, a credible, independent body would review clinical evidence to identify potentially inappropriate treatments. Second, the same body would monitor use of those treatments. Hospitals providing the treatments more frequently than the national average rate would be advised of that fact. Third, if a hospital’s abnormal practice persisted, they would face an ext...

Mutations in the vasopressin V2 receptor gene are responsible for two human tubular disorders: X-linked congenital nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, due to a loss of function of the mutant V2 receptor, and the nephrogenic syndrome of inappropriate antidiuresis, due to a constitutive activation of the mutant V2 receptor. This latter recently described disease may be diagnosed from infancy to adult...

Sir, A survey of 100 attenders was undertaken at a north London casualty department which was experiencing problems owing to increasing numbers of attenders. Nineteen per cent of the patients had no knowledge of their doctor's surgery hours and 32% had no understanding of the emergency cover provided by the practice. Fifty per cent of the patients had made no prior attempt to contact their gene...

From the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension and the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Oregon Health and Science University and Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Portland, OR (D.H.E.); and the Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver (T.B.). Address reprint requests to Dr. Ellison at the Division of Nephrology and Hypertensio...