Freedom to pay or freedom to choose? Private contracting and Medicare beneficiaries.
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Historically, non-combat injuries and illnesses have had a significant impact on military missions. We conducted an anonymous cross-sectional survey to assess the prevalence and impact of common ailments among U.S. military personnel deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan during 2003-2004. Among 15,459 persons surveyed, diarrhea (76.8% in Iraq and 54.4% in Afghanistan), respiratory illness (69.1%), non-combat injuries (34.7%), and leishmaniasis (2.1%) were commonly reported. For all causes, 25.2% reported that they required intravenous fluids, 10.4% required hospitalization, and 5.2% required medical evacuation. Among ground units, 12.7% reported that they missed a patrol because of illness, and among air units, 11.7% were grounded because of illness. The incidence of diarrhea and respiratory infections doubled from the pre-combat to combat phases, and the perceived adverse impact of these illnesses on the unit increased significantly during the combat phase. Despite technologic advances in warfare and preventive medicine, illness and non-combat injuries have been common during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, resulting in frequent transient decreases in operational efficiency.
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A health assessment survey was collected from US military personnel deployed to the Middle East taking part in the "Rest and Recuperation" program or on temporary assignment to Camp As Sayliyah Doha, Qatar, from January to December 2004. In addition, a concurrent clinic-based observational study was conducted to determine pathogen etiology and potential risk factors. From 28,322 health assessment surveys, overall self-reported incidence of diarrhea was 4.9 cases per 100 person-months. Disease incidence increased with rank and was higher in Iraq compared with Afghanistan. During this period, 109 US military personnel with acute diarrhea and 85 asymptomatic personnel were enrolled in the observational study. Enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) was the predominant pathogen (32%), followed by enteroaggregative E. coli (12%) and Salmonella spp. (6%). These data are consistent with previous reports implicating ETEC as the primary cause of acute diarrhea for military personnel deployed to this region.
Many lessons and experiences were learned during the global programme of smallpox eradication, the most important being those which could be generalized and applied to other health programmes. This does not mean imitating or implementing smallpox eradication techniques to other diseases, since each infection requires its own strategy. It is difficult to dissect out the single key element or to equate the various factors responsible for the success, as these always worked together, in combination, depending one on others. For global eradication, the element of essential importance was international cooperation and close coordination of activities between nations. This would be impossible without proper mechanisms dedicated to international cooperation in the field of health, provided by the World Health Organization, which also assured mobilization of world resources for national programmes and application of appropriate techniques across international borders. The established specific, practical and measurable goals, objectives and targets made every programme worker clearly understand what was to be accomplished and to find his own role in achieving these objectives. Operational techniques had to be flexible, modified appropriately from country to country to make them suitable to present epidemiological situations, local administrative and health structures as well as to demographic and geographic patterns. It was the effective system of surveillance and outbreak-containment that ultimately proved to have been the key to eradication. However, application of skillful management, sound epidemiological principles, advanced technology and adequate logistic support contributed significantly to the achievement of the final goal.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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The present study quantifies electromyographic (EMG) magnitude, timing, and duration in one and two degree of freedom elbow movements involving combinations of flexion-extension and pronation-supination. The aim is to understand the organization of commands subserving motion in individual and multiple degrees of freedom. The muscles tested in this study fell into two categories with respect to agonist burst magnitude: those whose burst magnitude varied with motion in a second degree of freedom at the elbow, and those whose burst magnitude depended on motion in one degree of freedom only. In multiarticular muscles contributing to motion in two degrees of freedom at the elbow, we found that the magnitude of the agonist burst was greatest for movements in which a muscle acted as agonist in both degrees of freedom. The burst magnitudes for one degree of freedom movements were, in turn, greater than for movements in which the muscle was agonist in one degree of freedom and antagonist in the other. It was also found that, for movements in which a muscle acted as agonist in two degrees of freedom, the burst magnitude was, in the majority of cases, not different from the sum of the burst magnitudes in the component movements. When differences occurred, the burst magnitude for the combined movement was greater than the sum of the components. Other measures of EMG activity such as burst onset time and duration were not found to vary in a systematic manner with motion in these two degrees of freedom. It was also seen that several muscles which produced motion in one degree of freedom at the elbow, including triceps brachii (long head), triceps brachii (lateral head), and pronator quadratus displayed first agonist bursts whose magnitude did not vary with motion in a second degree of freedom. However, for the monoarticular elbow flexors brachialis and brachioradialis, agonist burst magnitude was affected by pronation or supination. Lastly, it was observed that during elbow movements in which muscles acted as agonist in one degree of freedom and antagonist in the other, the muscle activity often displayed both agonist and antagonist components in the same movement. It was found that, for pronator teres and biceps brachii, the timing of the bursts was such that there was activity in these muscles concurrent with activity in both pure agonists and pure antagonists.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
In biomechanics, the calculation of individual muscle forces during movements is based on a model of the musculoskeletal system and a method for extracting a unique set of muscle forces. To obtain a unique set of muscle forces, non-linear, static optimisation is commonly used. However, the optimal solution is dependent on the musculoskeletal geometry, and single joints may be represented using one, two or three degrees-of-freedom. Frequently, a system with multiple degrees-of-freedom is replaced with a system that contains a subset of all the possible degrees-of-freedom. For example, the cat ankle joint is typically modelled as a planar joint with its primary degree-of-freedom (plantar-dorsiflexion), whereas, the actual joint has three rotational degrees-of-freedom. Typically, such simplifications are justified by the idea that the reduced case is contained as a specific solution of the more general case. However, here we demonstrate that the force-sharing solution space of a general, three degrees-of-freedom musculoskeletal system does not necessarily contain the solutions from the corresponding one or two degrees-of-freedom systems. Therefore, solutions of a reduced system, in general, are not sub-set solutions of the actual three degrees-of-freedom system, but are independent solutions that are often incompatible with solutions of the actual system. This result shows that representing a three degrees-of-freedom system as a one or two degrees-of-freedom system gives force-sharing solutions that cannot be extrapolated to the actual system, and vice-versa. These results imply that general solutions cannot be extracted from models with fewer degrees-of-freedom than the actual system. They further emphasise the need for precise geometric representation of the musculoskeletal system, if general force-sharing rules are to be derived.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent anthrax mail attacks, have had a profound impact on Americans' personal and professional lives and have sparked an active debate regarding the delicate balance between the need for national security and the pursuit of academic freedom. Although academic freedom can be defined in many ways, there are four primary tenets of freedom in an academic environment: freedom to research, freedom to publish, freedom to teach, and freedom to speak. Each of these tenets has come under attack in the wake of September 11, 2001. In this report the author further defines academic freedom and reflects upon recent events that have had a real or perceived impact on this freedom, including (1) attempts to categorize and restrict some research as "sensitive," (2) implementation of export control laws and select agent regulations, (3) limitations on the publication of research findings, (4) prohibition of certain foreign nationals from collaborating with U.S. researchers and receiving education and training in U.S. colleges and universities, and (5) restraint of faculty free speech. The author offers some suggestions as to how academia might achieve a proper balance between protecting our national security while promoting and maintaining academic freedom.
PURPOSE: To assess the advantages and disadvantages of six methodologies used in calculating seizure freedom rates in placebo-controlled, adjunctive therapy trials of new antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in partial epilepsy, and two methodologies for long-term follow-up studies. METHODS: Data from levetiracetam trials were used to illustrate the impact of different methodologies on seizure freedom rates. Seizure-freedom data for several new AEDs were identified from the published medical literature using MEDLINE and from a recent comprehensive textbook. RESULTS: Most randomized, placebo-controlled add-on clinical trials of new AEDs contain little or no information about seizure freedom. Importantly, the methodology used can profoundly affect results when calculating seizure-free rates. Seizure freedom data should be reported as well as the methodology used. The minimum duration for assessing seizure freedom should be the entire stable dose period in short-term trials and at least six months for long-term follow-up studies. It is proposed that the seizure freedom rates be calculated and reported with at least two different methodologies, one that considers patients withdrawing from treatment without having had a seizure as successes, and one that considers the same patients as failures. For an effective and well-tolerated AED, seizure freedom rates will be consistent across the two methodologies. CONCLUSIONS: Seizure freedom is the ultimate goal of AED therapy and should be reported for all clinical trials. Methodological differences among the few clinical studies reporting seizure freedom rates make it difficult to compare results across trials. Improved reporting of methodologies and seizure-free rates is warranted.