Refined sugar (especially sucrose) and aspartame (α-aspartyl-l-phenylalanine-o-methyl ester) have each been considered a possible cause of hyperactivity and other behavior problems in children¹,². The presumed reaction to sucrose has been attributed to ...

Several analyses of data from pediatric registries¹ and retrospective studies²–⁴ have suggested that the progression of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) follows two patterns in children who are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (...

Diabetes mellitus or impaired glucose tolerance is present in up to 80 percent of patients with carcinoma of the pancreas when their cancer is diagnosed¹,². Diabetes was previously thought to be a factor predisposing patients to pancreatic cancer, but ...

Nucleoside analogues such as fludarabine and 2-chlorodeoxyadenosine are new and effective therapies for indolent lymphoid cancers. Among previously treated patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), 57 percent respond to fludarabine and 27 percent ...

Figure 1. Spontaneous Human Erythrocyte Rosette.

This scanning electron micrograph of a peripheral-blood lymphocyte from a patient with chronic T-cell lymphocytic leukemia shows red cells attached to the surface of the lymphocyte, forming a spontaneous ...

In the city of Los Angeles, drive-by shootings are an important cause of early morbidity and mortality among children and adolescents. According to the Los Angeles Police Department, more than 90 percent of such shootings are perpetrated by members of ...

Genes involved in the pathogenesis of cancer are thought to act by two general mechanisms. The first involves the structural alteration of a normal gene (a proto-oncogene) to generate a novel gene (an oncogene) whose protein product acts on the host cell ...

Ascites is the pathologic accumulation of fluid in the peritoneal cavity. The condition develops most frequently as part of the decompensation of previously asymptomatic chronic liver disease (Table 1). Ascites is the most common complication of such ...

Stage

A 38-year-old man came to the outpatient clinic complaining of symmetrical swelling and pain in his hands. Two months earlier he had been in Moscow as a tourist. One month later he contracted a flu-like illness, followed by generalized malaise, ...

Presentation of Case

A 34-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital because of a dry cough, exertional dyspnea, and interstitial pulmonary disease.

The patient had been well until three months earlier, when she experienced the insidious onset of fatigue ...

Although scientific opinion favors a genetic origin for most cases of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, this explanation does not necessarily exclude alternative causes or precipitating factors, such as common dietary components to which some ...

The two Sounding Board articles that follow address substance abuse. The first, by Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar, argues for relaxing the laws against drug use; the second, by Herbert Kleber, favors retaining them. Because these laws are confusing ...

After nearly 10 years of escalation, the government assault on illicit drugs has proved to be a costly failure. We have all been paying the price in misdirected resources, social tension, violent crime, ill health, compromised civil liberties, and ...

Most drug-abuse experts and historians agree that we are in the declining phase of a drug epidemic that began about 30 years ago. Still, drug abuse remains one of the nation's critical domestic problems, linked to crime, neglect of children, family ...

To the Editor: Kellermann et al. analyze gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home (Oct. 7 issue).¹ A matter related to the methods used in their study has bearing on its validity and, consequently, on the far-reaching conclusions made by ...

To the Editor: The family with Becker's cardiomyopathy described by Muntoni et al. (Sept. 23 issue)¹ and the two families described previously by Towbin et al.² strongly support the argument that 5' mutations in the dystrophin gene may cause a selective ...

To the Editor: We wish to point out a potentially confusing result in the work of Zangwill and colleagues (July 1 issue)¹. In the Abstract and Results section they state that the positive predictive value of the indirect fluorescent-antibody test for ...

To the Editor: The pathogenic role of Coxiella burnetii during pregnancy is controversial. In cattle, sheep, and goats it has been suspected of causing abortion, low birth weight, and prematurity. Cases of Q fever have occasionally been reported during ...

To the Editor: The Image in Clinical Medicine entitled “Metastatic Calcification of the Shoulder in Chronic Renal Failure” (Sept. 2 issue)¹ leaves readers with the impression that a noncompliant patient who “began to take his phosphate-binding ...

To the Editor: In Annas's excellent discussion (Aug. 19 issue)¹ of the detention at Guantanamo Bay of Haitians seropositive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the comparison of the prison camp with Cuba's sanitarium system is misleading in ...

For many of us, the shocking assassinations of John Kennedy in 1963 and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968 first made us aware that we had two problems: one with guns and another with a lobbying group opposed to even the most modest ...

Understanding and Preventing Violence contains much useful information on a wide range of topics. The chief value of this book is its encyclopedic nature. The discipline of violence prevention outside criminal-justice pursuits is young, and the book's ...

This comprehensive assessment of the evidence concerning causal links between firearms and violence is organized according to the principal issues in the debate over gun control and has something of a surprise ending. Professor Kleck is a sociologist who ...

As the title implies, this book frames the issue of gun control as a verbal duel between advocates with opposing views. The editor has organized 24 diverse selections, mostly written in the 1980s, into 4 loosely connected sections: “A Culture in Conflict” ...