The ibogaine medical subculture.

Aim Of The Study: Ibogaine is a naturally occurring psychoactive indole alkaloid that is used to treat substance-related disorders in a global medical subculture, and is of interest as an ethnopharmacological prototype for experimental investigation and possible rational pharmaceutical development. The subculture is also significant for risks due to the lack of clinical and pharmaceutical standards. This study describes the ibogaine medical subculture and presents quantitative data regarding treatment and the purpose for which individuals have taken ibogaine.

Recruiting low-income healthy women to research: an exploratory study.

Objective: The study goals were (1) to assess the feasibility of using an existing telephone health information and referral service for low-income, ethnically diverse women to recruit women for research participation; (2) to assess the feasibility of recruiting low-income, African American and Latino men into health research through the women callers to the telephone service; and (3) to describe the challenges women face and the strategies they use when talking to men about the men's health and research participation.

Design: We recruited women for individual semi-structured qualitative interviews via the Every Woman Counts (EWC) telephone information and referral service, a California Department of Health Services Cancer Detection Program. This paper describes our eligibility and recruitment assessment, and our qualitative data from 23 interviews with low-income African American and Latino women who called EWC.

CONDITIONS THAT INCREASE DRUG MARKET INVOLVEMENT: THE INVITATIONAL EDGE AND THE CASE OF MEXICANS IN SOUTH TEXAS.

Research on drug trafficking has not been able to discern the exact nature of illegal drug markets and the relationship between their individual and group participants. This article delineates the role of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-American participants involved in the stratified drug market of South Texas. This article synthesizes ethnographic materials drawn from two previous National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) studies in order identify the different types of drug distribution behaviors that occur within the groups, the differentiated roles of individuals, the organizational framework, and most significantly, the processes that link market participants to others outside of the drug market.

The alloimmune response to the human platelet antigen-1a is not related to maternal-fetal killer immunoglobulinlike receptor/HLA-Cw combinations.

Background: Human platelet antigen (HPA)-1a fetomaternal alloimmune thrombocytopenia, responsible in the most severe cases for fetal or neonatal intracranial hemorrhages leading to death or survival with neurologic sequelae, was shown to be restricted to the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) Class II DRB3*0101-encoded molecule. Whereas more than 90 percent of alloimmunized mothers display the DRB3*0101 allele, the positive predictive value of the presence of DRB3*0101 is only 35 percent. Additional genetic risk factors may exist of which elucidation could improve the undertaking of incompatible pregnancies in at-risk families, encouraging an antenatal screening.

Polyadenylation site choice in yeast is affected by competition between Npl3 and polyadenylation factor CFI.

Multiple steps in mRNA processing and transcription are coupled. Notably, the processing of mRNA 3' ends is linked to transcription termination by RNA polymerase II. Previously, we found that the yeast hnRNP protein Npl3 can negatively regulate 3' end mRNA formation and termination at the GAL1 gene.

Understanding Latino adolescent risk behaviors: parental and peer influences.

Objective: To assess baseline factors associated with having ever drunk alcohol, smoked, and having had sex two years later among a sample of Latino adolescents.

Design: In a prospective cohort study, Latino adolescents completed telephone surveys assessing demographic information and health-enhancing and -compromising behaviors, administered 3 times (baseline, T2, and T3) during a two-year period.

Setting: Students were recruited between 1997 and 1998, from four middle schools within three Los Angeles school districts.

Aggressive crime, alcohol and drug use, and concentrated poverty in 24 U.S. urban areas.

The nexus between substance use and aggressive crime involves a complex interrelationship among mediating individual and community-level variables. Using multilevel logistic regression models, we investigate how community-level concentration of poverty variables mediate the predictive relationships among individual level social attachment variables and substance use on aggressive crime in a large national sample of male arrestees (N = 20,602) drawn from 24 U.S.

HPA-13bw neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia and low frequency alloantigens: case report and review of the literature.

Background: Fetal-neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (FNAIT) linked to rare or private antigens is not a rare event.

Study Design And Methods: Such a case discovered during the follow-up of a second child with jaundice with mild thrombocytopenia is reported here. Platelet (PLT) genotyping was performed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-sequence-specific primers method and PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis.

Psychographic segments based on attitudes about smoking and lifestyle among Vietnamese-American adolescents.

Purpose: Tobacco marketing campaigns target distinct psychographic segments of the population. We describe psychographic segments among Vietnamese-American youth and their relationship to smoking behavior.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey of 411 Vietnamese-American young people (aged 14-24 years).

Fetal and maternal vascular lesions.

Many commonly diagnosed disorders of the placenta relate to maternal and fetal blood flow and are thus common in the placentas of infants with adverse perinatal outcomes. Severe uteroplacental vascular disease may lead to extensive placental infarction and villous changes of reduced uteroplacental blood flow, a morphologic feature commonly associated with intrauterine growth restriction and fetal demise. Lesser degrees of villous change are seen in many infants with premature delivery, term, and multiple births resulting in admission to the neonatal intensive care units.

Missed opportunities: family history and behavioral risk factors in breast cancer risk assessment among a multiethnic group of women.

Background: Clinician's knowledge of a woman's cancer family history (CFH) and counseling about health-related behaviors (HRB) is necessary for appropriate breast cancer care.

Objective: To evaluate whether clinicians solicit CFH and counsel women on HRB; to assess relationship of well visits and patient risk perception or worry with clinician's behavior.

Design: Cross-sectional population-based telephone survey.

DNA vaccination against VEGF receptor 2 reduces atherosclerosis in LDL receptor-deficient mice.

Objective: Similarities between neovascular ingrowth in atherosclerotic plaques and angiogenesis in tumors suggest that antiangiogenic factors that target tumor expansion may prove efficacious in the treatment of atherosclerosis. This study examined whether an oral DNA vaccine against the murine VEGF receptor 2 (Flk-1) with demonstrated antitumor effect through inhibition of pathological neovascularization can prevent or retard progression of atherosclerosis in hyperlipidemic low density lipoprotein receptor-deficient (LDLr-/-) mice.

Methods And Results: Vaccination against Flk-1 resulted in T cell activation, suppression of neoangiogenesis, and a marked reduction in atherosclerosis which was independent of hypercholesterolemia in both male and female mice.

Maternal human platelet antigen-1a antibody level correlates with the platelet count in the newborns: a retrospective study.

Background: Maternal plasma and/or serum levels of anti-HPA-1a at delivery were compared to neonatal platelet (PLT) counts.

Study Design And Methods: Samples from HPA-1bb women who gave birth to children with thrombocytopenia or had anamnestic information about a previous child with neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (NAIT) were collected at delivery. A modified monoclonal antibody immobilization of PLT antigen method was used for quantification of anti-HPA-1a.

Smoking susceptibility and attitudes toward smoking among Chinese and Vietnamese American adolescents.

In California, 641 Chinese and 629 Vietnamese age 12-17 participated in a longitudinal telephone study from 1999 to 2001. Four attitude scales were constructed: acceptance of smokers, addictive nature of smoking, psychosocial reasons to smoke, and gender roles and smoking. Vietnamese American adolescents had more pro-smoking attitudes than Chinese American adolescents.

New mutation in the platelet beta3-integrin gene: implication for the diagnosis of fetomaternal alloimmunization.

Background: Fetal ventriculomegaly is a relatively common finding and fetomaternal alloimmune thrombocytopenia may be one of the causes.

Study Design And Methods: Such a case discovered at 21 weeks of gestation leading to platelet (PLT) immunologic testing is reported here. PLT genotyping was performed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-sequence-specific primers (SSPs) method and PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis.

Structural basis of transcription: role of the trigger loop in substrate specificity and catalysis.

New structures of RNA polymerase II (pol II) transcribing complexes reveal a likely key to transcription. The trigger loop swings beneath a correct nucleoside triphosphate (NTP) in the nucleotide addition site, closing off the active center and forming an extensive network of interactions with the NTP base, sugar, phosphates, and additional pol II residues. A histidine side chain in the trigger loop, precisely positioned by these interactions, may literally "trigger" phosphodiester bond formation.

Special issues in contraception: caring for women with disabilities.

Women with disabilities make up a diverse population of underserved clients needing skilled, sensitive, and culturally-competent contraceptive care. Barriers to care for these women are structural, attitudinal, and informational, and lack of attention to their needs is also reflected in limited research and clinical guidelines. Special techniques for a modified gynecologic examination can be employed, and disabled women can work in partnership with providers to promote comfort, respect, and safety.

Foetal and neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopaenia.

Foetal/neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopaenia (NAIT) results from maternal alloimmunisation against foetal platelet antigens inherited from the father and different from those present in the mother, and usually presents as a severe isolated thrombocytopaenia in otherwise healthy newborns. The incidence has been estimated at 1/800 to 1/1000 live births. NAIT has been considered to be the platelet counterpart of Rh Haemolytic Disease of the Newborn (RHD).

Characterization of stem cell-like cancer cells in immune-competent mice.

Recently, the cancer stem cell hypothesis has gained significant recognition as the descriptor of tumorigenesis. Although previous studies relied on transplanting human or rat tumor cells into immunecompromised mice, our study used the Hoechst 33342 dye-based side population (SP) technique to isolate and transplant stem cell-like cancer cells (SCLCCs) from the 4T1 and NXS2 murine carcinoma cell lines into the immune-competent microenvironment of syngeneic mice. 4T1 cells displayed an SP of 2% with a Sca-1(high)c-Kit(-)CD45(-) phenotype, whereas NXS2 cells contained an SP of 0.