Forensics Talk

Do police Cameras Reduce Crime?

From: How Stuff Works
by Cristen Conger

         Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched? Walking down the street, do you sense that someone somewhere is keeping an eye on you? These days, chances are, you're right.  

A growing number of cities across the United States and abroad have installed networks of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras. Police monitor the video in an effort to prevent crime and catch lawbreakers in the act. You've probably seen the cameras; they're intentionally made conspicuous. Signs let you know your actions are being recorded.

     This law enforcement trend started in the United Kingdom in 1986 with three cameras in a 1-square-mile area in a town called King's Lynn [source: Nieto]. Today, England has more CCTV cameras than any country in the world, with half a million making up its network, nicknamed the "Ring of Steel" [source: Nieto]. Many U.S. cities, including New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, followed suit and began installing the police surveillance cameras in the early 1990s. Even the Jewish Holy Land in Jerusalem is wired with CCTV systems [source: National Institute of Justice]... More

Death Sentence Overturned

From Crime & Consequences:

     The Ohio Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of double murderer Clifton White as reported AP writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins. On Christmas Eve of 1995, White killed Deborah Thorpe and Julie Schrey. Prosecutors say he was angry over the break up with Schrey’s daughter. The Ohio Supreme Court agreed he should not be executed because he is mentally retarded. A lower court ruled he did not meet the U.S. Supreme Court’s three-prong test for mental retardation. Here’s the Court decision on this case.

    

Megan’s Law going International
CBS reports that Representative Chris Smith has expanded the federal ‘Megan’s Law’ by having a system that will notify government officials when a convicted sex offender has entered the United States or traveled abroad. Megan’s Law was adopted after the 1994 kidnapping, rape, and murder of seven-year-old, Megan Kanka of New Jersey.

    

Quadruple Murder Conviction Dismissed in Indiana
According to the AP story, in 1989 Jeffrey Pelley used a shotgun to kill his father, stepmother and two young stepsisters so he could attend his high school prom. Pelley was not charged until August 2002 and convicted in July 2006. The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled to dismiss the case with no retrial because he did not receive a speedy trial. A spokeswoman says, “The attorney general’s office plans to ask the state Supreme Court to take up the case.”

                                                       

 

                                                                             

 

Doctor's Offices Can Help Stem Narcotic Painkiller Abuse

Medical News Today

    

Every day, thousands of doctors around the United States walk a tightrope stretched between their duty to help patients in pain -- and the risk of abetting illegal and life-destroying drug addiction and dependence, and losing their medical license for doing so.

They walk this tightrope every time a patient asks for a prescription for a powerful opioid narcotic painkiller, such as Oxycontin or Vicodin. These drugs have eased the pain of millions, but have also become lucrative street drugs that are used by millions of people not for pain control, but to get high.

Now, a new study from the University of Michigan and the Ohio State University shows how doctors and their office staff might be able to keep their balance.

Today at the meeting of the Society for General Internal Medicine, a U-M physician will present the results of an approach she designed and implemented while at OSU.

The results show how a busy multi-physician clinic was able to get a better handle on which patients were misusing opioid medications and steer dependent patients to treatment through a policy that logged and carefully screened all patients who were receiving the drugs for non-cancer pain. The clinic also required patients and doctors to sign an agreement about conditions for receiving such medicines. The initiative helped identify patients who were using other illicit drugs, which can interact dangerously with narcotic painkillers...More

Hospitalization Linked To Increased Mortality In Heart Failure Patients

Medical News Today

    

Patients with heart failure are at increased risk of death if they are hospitalized for worsening heart failure symptoms, according to new research from UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham). The findings, published this month in the Journal of Cardiac Failure, suggest that a new emphasis on avoiding the need to hospitalize heart failure patients is required in medicine.

"Our findings show that hospitalization due to worsening heart failure, often thought to be due to non-adherence to regimens of salt or fluid restriction, or prescribed medications, may also represent progression of disease," said Ali Ahmed, M.D., MPH, associate professor in the division of gerontology, geriatrics and palliative care medicine and director of UAB's Geriatric Heart Failure Clinic and the study's lead investigator. "New strategies are needed to better manage heart failure before the disease progresses to a point where hospitalization is required."

Hospitalization due to heart failure is the leading cause of hospitalization among older adults, and with the aging of the baby boomers, the number of heart failure patients and heart failure hospitalizations are projected to double over the next couple of decades... More

Arizona Doctor Offers New Addiction Drug Treatment For Meth Addicts Showing More Than 60% Success Rate

Medical News Today

   

With Arizona facing a critical crisis of methamphetamine use, Dr. Gregory Ellison, Director of Advanced Medical    Center, has identified a very promising new addiction treatment option that shows high success rates and is performed on an out-patient (versus in-patient) basis in 10 hours over five sessions. As the only doctor in the state of Arizona licensed to administer the new PROMETA(R) treatment program, Ellison is encouraged with results of clinic trials which show more than a 60 percent success rate.

     In conjunction with the statewide television simulcast of Crystal Darkness on April 15th to raise awareness about meth, there is a mandate to    raise awareness about addiction treatment. Ellison's PROMETA(R) 30-day program targets the imbalances in the brain chemistry associated with substance dependence, cravings, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms and relapse with a three-prong treatment of medicine, nutrition and psychology. Patients receiving this treatment experience:

    --  Relief from cravings and anxiety

    --  Restoration of nutritional balance

    --  Improvement of mental capacity  Read More

Over! My! Med! Body!:Responding To The Anti-Vaccine Crowd

Check out a terrific medical blog with it's intelligent response to all the anti-vaccine hype on

Over! My! Med! Body!

Responding To The Anti-Vaccine Crowd:

A pediatric attending recently provided a great way to respond to the anti-vaccine folks, as she responded to an ad claiming a link between rates of vaccination and and rates of autism:

Just because 2 rates have risen in the same 25 year span does not mean that either causes the other. It also doesn’t imply directionality - so one could actually argue that we give more vaccines because rates of autism are rising, if you’re going to argue by this groundless line of reasoning. Please note that there are MANY other exposures that impact children that have had equally large rises in the last 25 years:

1. Mention of sex on TV
2. Computer screen exposure
3. Mean environmental temperature
4. Number of both contraceptive and fertility methods used by parents
5. Celebrity DUIs ... More

College Students Using Prescription Drugs Without A Prescription Are Prone To Drug Abuse

Medical News Today
Article Date: 08 Mar 2008 - 0:00 PST

    

A recent article published in journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine reports that compared to college students taking prescription drugs for medical reasons, those who use medications without a prescription are more likely to abuse drugs.

Motivation for the study comes from recent research that shows an increase in prescription rates of medications - such as stimulants, opioids, and benzodiazepines - that are likely to be abused in the United States. Author Sean Esteban McCabe, Ph.D., M.S.W. (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) adds, "These increases are likely the result of many factors, including improved awareness regarding the signs and symptoms of several disorders, increased duration of treatment, availability of new medications and increased marketing. The increases in prescription rates have raised public health concerns because of the abuse potential of these medications and high prevalence rates of non-medical use, abuse and dependence, especially among young adults 18 to 24 years of age." More

Risk Of Death From Acute Kidney Failure Reduced By 'Renal Assist Device'

Medical News Today
Article Date: 05 Mar 2008 - 5:00 PST

     For patients with acute kidney injury (AKI), an external device containing human kidney cells promotes recovery of the injured kidneys and significantly reduces the risk of death, according to a preliminary clinical study published in the May Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

The experimental renal tubule assist device (RAD) appears safe and effective for desperately ill patients with AKI. "Deployment of the RAD was associated with remarkably better outcomes for these patients - speeding recovery of kidney function and reducing risk of death by half," comments Dr. H. David Humes of University of Michigan, one of the study authors.

Patients with AKI have sudden loss of kidney function, resulting from a wide range of possible causes (such as blood loss or toxic injury). The goal of treatment is to replace lost kidney function through dialysis and related techniques until the kidneys have time to recover. However, even with treatment, the risk of death during an episode of AKI is 50 percent or higher.

In the new study, 40 of 58 patients with AKI were randomly assigned to treatment with the RAD, in addition to standard renal replacement therapy. The RAD is a conventional blood filter device lined with human renal tubule cells, grown from donor kidneys. "The cells are made available to carry out subtle metabolic and endocrine functions that the patient's failing kidneys can no longer perform, thereby staunching a cascading decline in the patient's health and allowing time for the patient's own organs to recover," Dr. Humes explains.

Outcomes were significantly better for AKI patients treated with the RAD. After one month, 33 percent of patients in the RAD group had died, compared to 61 percent of those treated with renal replacement therapy only. Patients who received the RAD were also more likely to be alive after six months. With adjustment for other factors, the risk of death was about 50 percent lower in the RAD group.

Patients in the RAD group also had a shorter time to return of kidney function. Overall, kidney function recovered in 53 percent of patients with RAD, compared to 28 percent without RAD. In both groups, about 20 percent of patients survived but never recovered kidney function, requiring chronic dialysis.

Although the initial results are encouraging, the benefits of RAD treatment need to be confirmed in larger studies. In addition, the researchers need to study the effects of changes in the design of the RAD, which are needed to accommodate mass production.

In addition to improving the outcomes of AKI, the results may point the way toward entirely new classes of cell-based and tissue-engineered therapies. "The ability to harness vital processes of cells, to target their living molecular machinery on restoring critical substances which have become disordered by disease, has vast implications for the future of medicine," says Dr. Humes. "Particularly, we are encouraged that we can develop a related device to treat chronic renal failure - a wearable kidney that performs natural functions unachievable through man-made technology alone."

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) is a not-for-profit organization of 10,500 physicians and scientists dedicated to the study of nephrology and committed to providing a forum for the promulgation of information regarding the latest research and clinical findings on kidney diseases. ASN publishes JASN, the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN), and the Nephrology Self-Assessment Program (NephSAP).

Source: Shari Leventhal
American Society of Nephrology

Crime & Consequences News Scan: Brain Scans and the Courts

Criminal Justice Legal Foundation

     Brain Scans: "Figuring out just what types of neuroscience are ready for the courtroom is one of the goals of a $10 million Law & Neuroscience Project funded by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation," reports David Caruso for AP. Brain scans have become common in murder cases, with impressive looking pictures that may or may not have anything to do with human behavior. While we tend to be skeptical of any effort funded by this foundation, the study group appears to have some appropriately skeptical members, including Stephen Morse of U. Pa. "When people see pictures of the brain, they tend to fall prey to what I call 'the lure of mechanism.' They tend to think that we are all machines," he said... More

US Says Contaminated Blood Thinners Came From China

Posted by chinaview on March 7, 2008

    

AFP, Mar. 5, 2008-

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Batches of the recalled blood thinner heparin, which contained an unidentified contaminant and has been linked to 19 deaths, have ingredients that came from China, the US government said Thursday.

The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which added that Germany has announced its own recall of heparin due to allergic reactions, has yet to prove that the contaminant was the cause of the deaths as well as other adverse health effects.

But the FDA said that all the US batches of heparin linked to health problems and deaths were made with ingredients that came from China.

“At this point, we do not know whether the introduction was accidental or whether it was deliberate,” said FDA deputy commissioner Janet Woodcock... More

Cities At Risk For Terrorism Identified By BIO5 Researcher

Medical News Today
Article Date: 05 Mar 2008 - 2:00 PST

     A University of Arizona researcher has created a new system to dramatically show American cities their relative level of vulnerability to bioterrorism.

Walter W. Piegorsch, an expert on environmental risk, has placed 132 major cities - from Albany, N.Y., to Youngstown, Ohio - on a color-coded map that identifies their level of risk based on factors including critical industries, ports, railroads, population, natural environment and other factors.

Piegorsch is the director of a new UA graduate program in interdisciplinary statistics and a professor of mathematics in the College of Science, as well as a member of the UA's BIO5 Institute.

The map marks high-risk areas as red (for example, Houston and, surprisingly, Boise, ID), midrange risk as yellow (San Francisco) and lower risk as green (Tucson). The map shows a wide swath of highest-risk urban areas running from New York down through the Southeast and into Texas. Boise is the only high-risk urban area that lies outside the swath.

The model employs what risk experts call a benchmark vulnerability metric, which shows risk managers each city's level of risk for urban terrorism.

Piegorsch says terrorism vulnerability involves three dimensions of risk - social aspects, natural hazards and construction of the city and its infrastructure.

He concludes that the allocation of funds for preparedness and response to terrorism should take into account these factors of vulnerability.

"Our capacity to adequately prepare for and respond to these vulnerabilities varies widely across the country, especially in urban areas," he wrote in an article about the research. Piegorsch argues that "any one-size-fits-all strategy" of resource allocation and training ignores the reality of the geographic differences identified in his study. Such failures, he says, would "limit urban areas' abilities to prepare for and respond to terrorist events."

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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The research, funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was published in a recent issue of Risk Analysis, a journal published by the Society for Risk Analysis.

Piegorsch was the lead author, in collaboration with Susan L. Cutter, director of the Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute and Carolina Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina; and Frank Hardisty, research faculty at the GeoVISTA Center at Pennsylvania State University.

Source: Deborah Daun
University of Arizona