Call 911: psychiatry and the new Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) regulations.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), enacted in 1986 as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, aims to prevent "patient dumping" by requiring hospitals to screen and stabilize patients who come to an emergency room seeking medical attention. For many reasons, recovery under EMTALA is rare, especially when psychiatric treatment is called for. New regulations of EMTALA went into effect on November 10, 2003.

Dissociation of photoreceptors from whole heads of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.

Photoreceptor cells that were mostly free of extracellular material and suitable for most electrophysiological study procedures were dissociated from whole heads of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, by a simple "smash" technique employing gentle chopping by a razor blade through Parafilm sheets. A variety of commonly available proteolytic and glycolytic digestion enzymes were tested as additions to the basic dissociation procedure described. With the aid of Nomarski interference contrast optics, periodic acid-Schiff staining, and fluorescent labeling and microscopy methods, it was determined that proteolytic enzymatic digestion does little to enhance the dissociation procedure, and instead, often damages the cells that one is attempting to recover.

Translating safety, efficacy and compliance into economic value for controlled release dosage forms.

Advanced controlled release (CR) dosage forms are relative newcomers to pharmaceutical markets, and few studies relate their efficacy, safety or compliance benefits to economic value. This literature review was undertaken to assess the cost effectiveness of CR dosage forms using such measures as purchase costs, total treatment costs, and economic value of improved therapeutic outcomes compared with those with non-CR dosage forms. Three therapeutic areas were examined: cardiovascular therapy, pain management and estrogen replacement therapy.