The motivations behind science denial.

Across the world highly educated, science-literate parents are refusing to have their children vaccinated against contagious diseases. Decades of international, peer-reviewed climate science is being dismissed as institutional conspiracy. Activists troll and harass scientists who come to unfavourable conclusions in pet areas such as genome modification, childhood memory recall, chronic fatigue syndrome and even the hazards of smoking.

Prophylactic endovascular placement of internal iliac occlusion balloon catheters in parturients with placenta accreta: a retrospective case series.

Background: Endovascular occlusion balloon catheters can be placed preoperatively in internal iliac vessels of patients perceived to be at risk of major obstetric haemorrhage during caesarean section. Their safety and efficacy remains undefined, and we report our experience of 14 patients over four years.

Methods: We undertook a chart review of all patients who had undergone prophylactic internal iliac balloon catheters before caesarean section in our institution.

The effect of preoperative beta-blocker therapy on cardiovascular responses to weaning from mechanical ventilation and extubation after coronary artery bypass grafting.

The hemodynamic and electrocardiographic changes during weaning from mechanical ventilation and tracheal extubation were studied in 75 patients after elective coronary artery bypass surgery. Transfer from synchronized intermittent mandatory ventilation to spontaneous respiration through a T-piece was associated with an increase greater than 20% over baseline in systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure in 27% of patients, and in heart rate (HR) in 5% of patients. Although baseline SBP, DBP, and HR differed significantly between the patients taking chronic beta-blocker therapy and those not on beta-blockers (P values all < 0.