he international perception of bronzed Australians inhabiting a " sunburnt country " is under threat. Most Australians, including children, now sensibly avoid excessive sun exposure to reduce the risk of skin cancer. However, other Australians, particularly those who are older, disabled or institutionalised often do not receive even modest levels of sunlight exposure. This has led to the parado...

A six-month old boy from Ragama was admitted with vomiting and a bulging anterior fontanelle for three days. Symptoms started one day after receiving a vitamin A megadose. The child was on food containing carrots, but had no carotenaemia. He had no papilloedema. He had no vomiting after admission to hospital, and the fontanelle settled within 24 hours. Ultrasound scan (USS) of the brain was nor...

Some clinicians and alternative therapy practitioners advocate megadose intravenous and oral ascorbate treatment of cancer. Randomized control studies using oral ascorbate showed no benefit. Recent data show that intravenous but not oral administration of ascorbate can produce millimolar plasma concentrations, which are toxic to many cancer cell lines. We propose that ascorbate treatment of can...

I have read the report of Olivieri et al’ in the May 1, 1994 issue of BLOOD. Although the investigators stated that “in standard practice, treatment options are limited to two: steroid therapy or RBC transfusions,” they ignore our very good results obtained with megadose methylprednisolone (MDMP; initial dose 30 to 100 mgkg/d for 3 days followed progressive halving of the dose every 4 to 7 days...

Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) is an autoimmune disorder. Decreased platelet survival is the main pathogenesis of it, which is related to platelet antibodies (APA). The levels of these antibodies are correlated with relapse and remission which was shown first time by us. Although APA levels decrease in remission but not risappear as studied by us. Among the several approches about IT...

The induction of immune tolerance by specific agents, as opposed to general immune suppression, is a most desirable goal in transplantation biology. One approach to attain this goal is afforded by the use of donor-derived cells endowed with veto activity, which is the ability of a cell to specifically suppress only T cells directed against its antigens. A megadose of purified veto CD34(+) hemat...