Judge Newman has asked that we talk not about him today but about the federal courts. Naturally, I will honor his request, but I must also say that I can think of no better place to start such a discussion than with the exceptionally valuable contributions he has made over the past two decades in examining the institutional problems that confront the federal courts and in proposing thoughtful a...

In the previous study, a significant difference of body burden due to high concentrationshort term exposure, HS and due to low concentration-long term exposure to intermittent mercury vapor, LL has been experimentally studied1). Mercury concentration of the lungs was higher in the HS group than in the LL group after the 2 and 4 weeks exposure to mercury vapor and those of the remaining 10 visce...

We evaluated whether growth rates of six fish species correlated with PCB concentrations in a moderately-to-heavily polluted freshwater ecosystem. Using a large dataset (n = 984 individuals), and after accounting for growth effects related to fish age, habitat, sex, and lipids, growth correlated significantly, but positively with lipid-corrected PCB concentrations for 4 of 6 species. Remaining ...

We used a one-compartment, first-order pharmacokinetic model to predict the infant body burden of dioxin-like compounds that results from breast-feeding. Validation testing of the model showed a good match between predictions and measurements of dioxin toxic equivalents (TEQs) in breast-fed infants, and the exercise highlighted the importance of the assumption of the rate of dissipation of TEQs...

The consensus process was applied to addressing a public health topic; this was a novel endeavor. The following question was addressed: What role, if any, should sentinel health events play in the decision-making process for identifying the effects of environmental exposure? The panel developed three levels of sentinel health events lists: those that are clearly identifiable, those that are pot...

The core paper of this debate shows that persistent organic pollutant residues of the 12 chemicals targeted for a phase out under the Stockholm Convention are present in almost all categories of food in the US food supply. For dioxins, the study does not use measured data, but is based upon potential dioxin residues in selected food items. Polychlorinated biphenyls are not included in the study...

BACKGROUND Identification of family caregivers who are burdened by the caregiving experience is vital to prevention of poor outcomes associated with caregiving. The Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), a well-known measure of caregiving burden in caregivers of patients with dementia, has been used without being validated in caregivers of patients with heart failure (HF). PURPOSE The purpose of this ...

With an aim to devise a prophylactic and/or therapeutic approach for preventing internalization of radiothallium (201Tl), and more importantly by implication, its chemical analogue radiocesium (137Cs) during any nuclear emergency, different ex vivo and in vivo animal models were created to determine the role ofpH in absorption of 201Tl across jejunum/muscle tissue and whole body retention of 20...

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) have been measured in the home environment and in humans, but studies linking environmental levels to body burdens are limited. This study examines the relationship between PBDE concentrations in house dust and serum from adults residing in these homes. We measured PBDE concentrations in house dust from 50 homes and in serum of male-female couples from 12 ...

BACKGROUND Osteoarthritis (OA) is a debilitating chronic multijoint disease of global proportions. OA presence and severity is usually documented by x-ray imaging but whole body imaging is impractical due to radiation exposure, time and cost. Systemic (serum or urine) biomarkers offer a potential alternative method of quantifying total body burden of disease but no OA-related biomarker has ever...