CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal articles from December 2007

CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal archives from December 2007

Food for all/A manger pour tous.(Editorial)
December 4, 2007... Hunger. In Canada it's tough to diagnose, but it is a pervasive factor in the health of thousands across the country. Every month, some 753 000 Canadians depend on charitable handouts from food banks to stave off hunger or alleviate...

Ideological chasms divide US presidential hopefuls.(News)
December 4, 2007... For Americans, the choice is stark: put a Democrat in the White House in next year's presidential election and major health care reform will likely ensue, perhaps even an historic mandate to insure all residents. Elect a Republican and expect...

America's uninsured: as many as 1 in 3.(News)(Brief article)
December 4, 2007... The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world without universal health care. While spending more per capita on health care than any other country, the United States ranked a dismal 37th in health care performance in 2000...

India moves to improve black fever tracking.(News)(Brief article)
December 4, 2007... Hoping to improve treatment rates for kala-azar, one of the world's deadliest parasitic diseases, which infects as many as 300 000 people and claims as many as 20 000 lives in India annually, the government has introduced a new coding system...

Prescribing patterns drive up health care costs.(News)
December 4, 2007... In the wake of a controversial Industry Canada-commissioned report, a thorny debate has surfaced over the responsibility of physicians to consider cost as well as efficacy while making prescriptions, as part of the national effort to contain...

Searching for solutions to the North's quiet epidemic.(News)
December 4, 2007... Suicide has often been called the North's quiet epidemic. It's become a leading cause of death, particularly among Aboriginal youths, in the Northwest Territories as rates skyrocketed over the past decade to the point where they're now twice...

West Nile rates soar in 2007.(News)
December 4, 2007... Erstwhile hopes that the West Nile Virus may have been slowly disappearing in Canada dissipated this season as the country experienced the largest outbreak since the virus' arrival in 2001. A staggering 2260 human clinical cases were...

Gairdner winners honoured at Toronto symposium.(News)(David Allis, Kim Nasmyth, Harry Noller, Dennis Slamon, Thomas Steitz)
December 4, 2007... Advances in combating cancer and promising avenues of research highlighted the lectures of 5 newly minted Gairdner International Award winners at a University of Toronto symposium Oct. 25-26. The culmination of a nation-wide lecture series,...

Ratatouille.(News @ a glance)
December 4, 2007... Ratatouille: Lab rats. Peons. Minions. Grad students. Postdocs. The time has come to finally eliminate the interchangeability of such labels within British universities, says the UK Council for Science and Technology. Calling for a major...

Trial halted.(News @ a glance)(marketing of Trasylol suspended)(Brief article)
December 4, 2007... Trial halted: Drug giant Bayer Inc. last month moved to suspend worldwide marketing of the drug aprotinin (Trasylol) until the final results of a Canadian trial are compiled and evaluated. The multi-year, multi-centre clinical trial weighing...

Goats and sewing machines.(Dispatch from the medical front)(palliative care and funding for cancer patients)(Personal account)
December 4, 2007... It had taken our medical team 45 minutes to drive to the small, dusty roadside hut of our next patient. We entered and saw an old emaciated woman, lying on the bare mud floor. Her daughter and 2 grandchildren who were standing anxiously by her...

Pediatric hypocalcemia: making the diagnosis.(Teaching Case Report)
December 4, 2007... Case 1: A 2-year-old North African boy was brought to our hospital because of absent teeth development and failure to walk. The patient appeared to be well nourished and content. His body mass index was 19.1 kg/[m.sup.2] (90th percentile), he...

Necrobiosis lipoidica diabeticorum.(Clinical Vistas)
December 4, 2007... A 22-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes presented with a 10-year history of a yellow-red, telangiectatic plaque 7 cm in diameter with central atrophy on her left forearm (Figure 1). The edges of the plaque were slightly elevated and the wound...

Appropriateness of current thresholds for obesity-related measures among Aboriginal people.(Research)
December 4, 2007... Abstract Background: Despite the high prevalence of obesity and diabetes in the Canadian Aboriginal population, it is unknown whether the current thresholds for body mass index and waist circumference derived from white populations are...

Parental intention to have daughters receive the human papillomavirus vaccine.(Research)
December 4, 2007... ABSTRACT Background: Concerns have been raised that parents may be reluctant to have their daughters receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, because of a belief that doing so might be interpreted as condoning earlier and more...

Sex- and age-based differences in the delivery and outcomes of critical care.(Research)
December 4, 2007... Abstract Background: Previous studies have suggested that a patient's sex may influence the provision and outcomes of critical care. Our objective was to determine whether sex and age are associated with differences in admission practices,...

Sex matters: gender disparities in quality and outcomes of care.(Research)
December 4, 2007... In the not-too-distant past the 70-kg male was the paradigm for medical practice and women were systematically excluded from clinical trials. In a relatively short period, sex- and gender-based analyses have contributed to an exponential growth...

Equal for whom? Addressing disparities in the Canadian medical system must become a national priority.(Research)
December 4, 2007... When disparities in care within the Canadian health care system are demonstrated as Fowler and colleagues have in this issue of CMAJ, (1) we are disconcertingly reminded that we do not deliver health care in a vacuum. Rather, we deliver it...

Vaccination against human papillomavirus.(Letter to the editor)
December 4, 2007... My primary concern about the commentary on human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil by Abby Lippman and colleagues (1) is that the full burden of disease prevented by Gardasil is overlooked. Clinical trials have shown that the quadrivalent...

Advertisement.
December 4, 2007... In a recent issue of CMAJ(2007;177: 858), there is an advertisement for yet another testosterone product, Testim. This advertisement pictures a scantily clad young woman pressing her breasts against the windshield of a car and suggests the...

Vitamin D deficiency among Italian children.
December 4, 2007... We read with interest the recent article by Leanne Ward and colleagues on the incidence of vitamin D-deficiency rickets among Canadian children.1 Using our laboratory database at the University Hospital of Verona, Italy, we recently conducted a...

Correction.(Correction notice)
December 4, 2007... A recent CMAJarticle1 referred to the following website www.agreecollaboration .org, which is no longer being updated. The appropriate website for readers to consult is www.agreetrust.org. Similarly, the footnote to Table 2 should read "Details...

A cellular-telephone model of assessing frontal lobe function in physicians.(Research of a holiday kind)
December 4, 2007... Abstract As people age, they recognize that social conduct has become worse. This is not just a failing of the young but also a reflection of modern technology, notably the cellular telephone. We observed that the behaviour induced by the...

One giant leap for mankind? A cost-utility analysis of abolishing the law of gravity.(Research of a holiday kind)
December 4, 2007... Abstract Background: Canada's Neo Rhino Party, a joke political party created in 2006 as a successor to the Parti Rhinoceros, is planning a new regulation to repeal the law of gravity, which could have an important impact on diseases...

A clinical trial gone awry: the Chocolate Happiness Undergoing More Pleasantness (CHUMP) study.(Research of a holiday kind)
December 4, 2007... Abstract The randomized controlled trial is the "gold standard" for evaluating the benefits and harms of interventions. The Chocolate Happiness Undergoing More Pleasantness (CHUMP) study was designed to compare the effects of dark...

Exercising privacy rights in medical science.(Unsubstantiated opinion)
December 4, 2007... ABSTRACT Privacy laws are intended to preserve human well-being and improve medical outcomes. We used the Sportstats website, a repository of competitive athletic data, to test how easily these laws can be circumvented. We designed a...

The Goo Tolerance Index: a foolproof method for choosing a medical specialty.(Unsubstantiated opinion)
December 4, 2007... For most of us the holiday season is a time of good cheer--a time for feasts and merrymaking and good old-fashioned unbridled consumerism. But for senior medical students it is also a time of hand wringing and sleepless nights. Yes, for those...

Sound medicine: an introduction to cacophonology.(Auscultations)
December 4, 2007... The Canada Health Act proscribes extra billing for "medically necessary" services; however, the meaning of this crucial phrase remains obscure and its interpretation is clouded by the societal trend to medicalize all aspects of our lives. But...

A do-it-yourself stereophonic stethoscope.(Auscultations)
December 4, 2007... Years ago, I built a simple little listening tool. It seemed to me that we always listen to lungs from just 1 angle--the single, small end of a stethoscope. But why could we not listen from 2 ends, 2 angles? So, I fumbled around and put...

The purpose of illness.(Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease)(Book review)
December 4, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease Sharon Moalem, with Jonathon Prince William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; 2007 267 pp. $32.95 ISBN: 978-0-06-088965-4 I...

The ABCs of women's anatomy.(Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection)(Book review)
December 4, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection Katharine Park Zone Books; 2006 419 pp $36.95 ISBN: 978-1-890951-67-2 This year, my 10-year-old daughter received "the talk" at school....

It's elementary medicine, my dear Watson.(Evidence-Based Medicine in Sherlock Holmes' Footsteps)(Book review)
December 4, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Evidence-Based Medicine in Sherlock Holmes' Footsteps Jorgen Nordenstorm Blackwell Publishing 91 pp $22.95 ISBN: 978-1-4051-5713-1 Evidence-Based Medicine in Sherlock Holmes' Footsteps is useful; not particularly...

Hope springs eternal in the human brain.(The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science)(Book review)
December 4, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science Norman Doidge Penguin Group, 2007 448 pp. $31.00 ISBN: 978-0-670-03830-5 Patients who read this popular book will...

Body: know thyself.(Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life)(Book review)
December 4, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life Margaret Lock and Judith Farquhar, editors Duke University Press; 2007 688 pp. $34.95 ISBN: 978-0-8223-3845-1 Writing a coherent review of Beyond...

Add a dash of mystery, and stir.(The Fifth Vial)(Book review)
December 4, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Fifth Vial Michael Palmer St. Martin's Press; 2007 372 pp. $31.95 ISBN: 978-0-312-34351-4 As if we didn't have enough to worry about just watching the news, along comes Michael Palmer's 12th medical thriller...

Deaths.
December 4, 2007... Notice Readers are invited to submit brief remembrances of recently departed colleagues. Colourful writing is encouraged, but please limit your notice to 150 words. Send to pubs@cma.ca; fax 613 565-5471. Burrows, Derek Cecil Raymond,...

Pondering public health and purity.(Salon)(Viewpoint essay)
December 4, 2007... Last night, as I sipped my favourite beer, sampled turkey curry and searched for conversation among strangers, I read for the first time the label on the can of beer I was holding. It stated that this particular product met the standards of the...