Baby food industry interference with infant feeding international regulation-A case study on the standard for follow-up formula.

Introduction: Globally, first-food systems have changed and breastfeeding has decreased due to the increased growth in commercial breast milk substitute (BMS) consumption, which includes both follow-up and toddler formulas. These products are manufactured by a small number of corporate leaders in international BMS sales. Discussions for global regulation of these products take place in the Codex Alimentarius and are permeated by the strong participation of these corporations in the Codex committees.

Maternal education and age: inequalities in neonatal death.

Objective: Evaluate the interaction between maternal age and education level in neonatal mortality, as well as investigate the temporal evolution of neonatal mortality in each stratum formed by the combination of these two risk factors.

Methods: A nonconcurrent cohort study, resulting from a probabilistic relationship between the Mortality Information System and the Live Birth Information System. To investigate the risk of neonatal death we performed a logistic regression, with an odds ratio estimate for the combined variable of maternal education and age, as well as the evaluation of additive and multiplicative interaction.

Hybrid forum or network? The social and political construction of an international 'technical consultation': male circumcision and HIV prevention.

The technical consultation in Montreux, organised by World Health Organization and UNAIDS in 2007, recommended male circumcision as a method for preventing HIV transmission. This consultation came out of a long process of releasing reports and holding international and regional conferences, a process steered by an informal network. This network's relations with other parties is analysed along with its way of working and the exchanges during the technical consultation that led up to the formal adoption of a recommendation.

Male circumcision and HIV: a controversy study on facts and values.

We present a controversy study on the association between male circumcision (MC) and HIV. Our general goal is to shed light on the issue, unravelling and comparing different conceptions of scientific evidence and their respective world views. We seek to reconstruct, based on an analysis of the literature on the topic, key moments in the history of the controversy about the association between MC and HIV prevention, analysing more closely three recent randomised studies, given their relevance to the argumentative strategy employed by those who defend circumcision as a prevention method.

[Interobserver reliability of the international classification of primary care at a primary health care unit].

We evaluated the International Classification of Primary Care interobserver reliability for coding the complaints reported at a primary public health unit. The study sample consisted of 300 appointments. Reasons for appointment were registered by physicians on the medical record and coding was performed by two investigators.

How to identify science being bent: the tobacco industry's fight to deny second-hand smoking health hazards as an example.

Social studies of science have produced a critical description of science that challenges traditional ideas about "objectivity" and "neutrality". Given evidence that scientific tools have been used to undermine solid science against the interests of the general public as opposed to protecting society from findings prematurely declared to be facts, this article asks: how can one differentiate between the usual proceedings of scientists and deliberate attempts to distort science? In order to respond to this question, the author presents systematic studies of the distortion (or "bending") of science, with special attention to the role of public relation firms in the process. Drawing on examples from the tobacco industry, the article concludes that there are two key features of the tobacco industry case that indicate that distortions in science may have taken place: the fact that controversies surrounding tobacco has been centered in public forums, and legal or regulatory arenas more than scientific domains; and the presence of conflicts of interest in authorship and funding.

Informed consent for record linkage: a systematic review.

Background: Record linkage is a useful tool for health research. Potential benefits aside, its use raises discussions on privacy issues, such as whether a written informed consent for access to health records and linkage should be obtained. The authors aim to systematically review studies that assess consent proportions to record linkage.

[Brazilian live birth information system: a review study].

The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review of the use of the Live Birth Information System (Sistema de Informações de Nascidos Vivos--SINASC) in health research. MEDLINE, LILACS and SciELO databases were searched from 1994 to 2005 using the following combination of descriptors: "SINASC", "live birth", "Brazil". We identified 157 abstracts within the reference period, among which 44 were selected and classified according to specific criteria.

[The protocols and the medical decision: evidences based in experience or existence?].

The main purpose of this study is to understand the concepts and interests concerning the transformation of the practical quotidian knowledge produced by experience into probabilistic epistemological models. The object is the argumentation and practices surrounding consensus-forming which knowledge criteria are valid for diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. Our starting point is Ludwik Fleck's work, which states that facts are not objectively given but collectively and contingently created so as to adjust themselves to a style of thought.

The epistemological aspects in the historical works of Don Bates.

The object of this paper is to systematize an epistemological framework of analysis derived from Don Bates's extended essay "Medicine and The Soul of Science," and apply that framework to a number of problems connected to medical knowledge, addressed in previous research by the author. The paper also draws from Bates's earlier work, especially the two-part "Closing the Circle" on William Harvey and the reception of his ideas by his contemporaries, and from contrasting and comparing it to the work of philosophers and historians of science who tackled similar problems, most notably Ludwik Fleck, Thomas Kuhn, and Ian Hacking. The resulting framework is based on three main concepts: constructed coherencing, the unproblematic background knowledge (UBK), and the mechanical mind.

[The relevance of qualitative techniques in biomedical research].

On observing how qualitative and quantitative studies are reported in the biomedical literature it becomes evident that, besides the virtual absence of the former, they are presented in different ways. Authors of qualitative studies seem to need almost invariably to explain why they choose a qualitative approach whereas that does not occur in quantitative studies. This paper takes Ludwik Fleck's comparative epistemology as a means of exploring those differences empirically, illustrating on the basis of two studies dealing with different aspects of biomedical practices how qualitative methods can elucidate a variety of questions pertaining to this field.

[Vague and diffuse symptoms in biomedicine: a review of the literature].

The purpose of this study is to chart academic output on vague and diffuse symptoms in biomedicine. As methodological tool, we conducted a bibliographic study through the Internet ranging from 1990 to 2005. Forty papers were selected and five major theme areas were established for the survey: the nomenclatures assigned to vague and diffuse symptoms; their definitions; the relevance of the theme being addressed; the criteria used to diagnose vague and diffuse symptoms; and the therapeutic actions adopted.