Individualized microcomputer-generated emergency pediatric dosing guidelines.

PURPOSE: The participation of minorities in clinical studies is the subject of much discussion and has even become the subject of Federal law. The project known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and officially titled "The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male," is one of the great debacles of American medicine and a national shame. Despite the fact that its existence is well known, many do not know the historical facts of the study nor the context of the study. My purpose here is to recount the facts of the study and its historical context. METHODS: The history recounted here is taken from documents gathered during a U.S. Senate investigation of the study, original papers located in National Library of Medicine, and books about the trial. RESULTS: The trial began in 1931 as a survey of the natural history of untreated tertiary syphilis in Black men. This study enrolled 399 men with syphilis and 201 uninfected men to serve as controls. All were at least 25 years old at enrollment. The men were told they were in a study, but never educated about the implications. Later, men were not informed that there was a treatment for effective treatment for their disease--a treatment that was being withheld from them. This trial continued till 1972. CONCLUSION: Many of the issues that led to the study and caused it to continue for 40 years still exist. The lessons of the Public Health Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Untreated Negro include the dangers of paternalism, arrogance, blind loyalty, and misuse of science. "Those who do not appreciate history are condemned to repeat it" (Alfred North Whitehead).

Alabama↗

PubMed1998

Phages infecting Vibrio vulnificus are abundant and diverse in oysters (Crassostrea virginica) collected from the Gulf of Mexico.

Phages infecting Vibrio vulnificus were abundant (> 10(4) phages g of oyster tissue-1) throughout the year in oysters (Crassostrea virginica) collected from estuaries adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico (Apalachicola Bay, Fla.; Mobile Bay, Ala.; and Black Bay, La.). Estimates of abundance ranged from 10(1) to 10(5) phages g of oyster tissue-1 and were dependent on the bacterial strain used to assay the sample. V. vulnificus was near or below detection limits (< 0.3 cell g-1) from January through March and was most abundant (10(3) to 10(4) cells g-1) during the summer and fall, when phage abundances also tended to be greatest. The phages isolated were specific to strains of V. vulnificus, except for one isolate that caused lysis in a few strains of V. parahaemolyticus. Based on morphological evidence obtained by transmission electron microscopy, the isolates belonged to the Podoviridae, Styloviridae, and Myoviridae, three families of double-stranded DNA phages. One newly described morphotype belonging to the Podoviridae appears to be ubiquitous in Gulf Coast oysters. Isolates of this morphotype have an elongated capsid (mean, 258 nm; standard deviation, 4 nm; n = 35), with some isolates having a relatively broad host range among strains of V. vulnificus. Results from this study indicate that a morphologically diverse group of phages which infect V. vulnificus is abundant and widely distributed in oysters from estuaries bordering the northeastern Gulf of Mexico.

Alabama↗