What's being used to spike your drink? Alleged spiked drink cases in inner city London.

Objectives: To determine the incidence and character of drink spiking in an urban population of patients within the UK presenting to an emergency department concerned they had consumed a deliberately contaminated drink.

Study Design: Prospective case series determining the presence and quantity of sedative and illicit drugs, and ethanol in biological samples (blood and urine) obtained from consenting patients >18 years of age presenting to a large inner city London emergency department alleging they had consumed a spiked drink within the previous 12 h.

Results: Biological samples were obtained from 67 (blood) and 75 (urine) of 78 study participants.

Hepatitis B surface antigen in urine of hemodialysis patients.

As part of an extensive epidemiological survey of chronic hemodialysis patients in Michigan, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) was identified in the sera of 79 of 701 (11%) patients. Of these patients, 59 were carriers of HBsAg for three or more months. Urine samples were collected from 36 of 39 HBsAg carriers having urinary output.