Objectives: To determine the drug use in injured Victorian drivers involved in motor vehicle collisions and subsequently transported to a major adult trauma centre in Victoria.
Methods: A blood sample was obtained from patients who had been taken to The Alfred Emergency & Trauma Centre (Prahran, Vic., Australia) following a motor vehicle collision.
The short term human exposure studies conducted on populations exposed to high concentrations of inorganic arsenic in soil have been inconsistent in demonstrating a relationship between environmental concentrations and exposure measures. In Australia there are many areas with very high arsenic concentrations in residential soil most typically associated with gold mining activities in rural areas. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between environmental arsenic and urinary inorganic arsenic concentrations in a population living in a gold mining area (soil arsenic concentrations between 9 and 9900 mg kg(-1)), and a control population with low arsenic levels in soil (between 1 and 80 mg kg(-1)).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA multi-center case-control study was conducted on 3398 fatally-injured drivers to assess the effect of alcohol and drug use on the likelihood of them being culpable. Crashes investigated were from three Australian states (Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia). The control group of drug- and alcohol-free drivers comprised 50.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this report, we describe in detail one fatality in which flecainide toxicity was considered to be the primary cause of death and discuss the possible contribution of flecainide in another case. The concentration of flecainide in postmortem specimens is discussed in relation to other drugs as well as some of the difficulties associated with the interpretation of postmortem drug levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA large number of drinking water supplies worldwide have greater than 50 microg l(- 1) inorganic arsenic in drinking water, and there is increasing pressure to reduce concentrations. Few studies have specifically considered low concentrations of arsenic in water supplies and the significance of other factors which may contribute to increased exposure. This study aimed to investigate risk factors for increased urinary inorganic arsenic concentrations, in a population exposed to 10 - 100 microg l(- 1) of arsenic in drinking water, as well as a control population with lower arsenic concentrations in their drinking water.
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