The 2006 US Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act gave the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) new authority to fund the development and procurement of medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats. The legislation builds on the authority the HHS gained in 2004 under Project BioShield, which established a fund to procure medical cou...

BACKGROUND Hypothalamic hamartomas (HHs) are congenital lesions composed of neurons and astroglia. Frequently, HHs cause central precocious puberty (CPP) and/or gelastic seizures. Because HHs might express genes similar to those required for the initiation of normal puberty, we used cDNA arrays to compare the gene expression profile of an HH associated with CPP with three HHs not accompanied by...

Hoyeraal-Hreidarsson syndrome (HHS) is a severe form of Dyskeratosis congenita characterized by developmental defects, bone marrow failure and immunodeficiency and has been associated with telomere dysfunction. Recently, mutations in Regulator of Telomere ELongation helicase 1 (RTEL1), a helicase first identified in Mus musculus as being responsible for the maintenance of long telomeres, have b...

In the Competing Interests statement, the inclusion of Carmen Binder as a Roche employee is incorrect. The publisher apologizes for the error. The correct Competing Interests statement is as follows: U-PR, HHS and CGMM are employees of F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. None of the other authors have any competing interests to declare. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing da...

AIM Survival rates after out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest (OHCA) differ widely between EMS systems. Since hypertonic saline appears to improve long-term outcome after OHCA, some local EMS systems have included it in their treatment protocols for OHCA. Our first aim was to give a quality review of one of these protocols. Our second aim was to assess whether short-term survival improves when hypert...

Plasma sodium changes are commonly encountered in hospitalised patients, including diabetics. Nonketotic hyperglycaemic hyperosmolar syndrome (HHS) is mostly found in uncontrolled type 2 diabetes mellitus. This condition represents a metabolic emergency carrying a high mortality. HHS is characterised by extreme dehydration and neurological symptoms. Plasma sodium changes play a significant role...

In 2001, a major dengue outbreak was recorded in Chennai city, with 737 cases (90%) out of a total of 861 cases recorded from Tamil Nadu state. A KAP survey was carried out to assess the community knowledge, attitude and practice on dengue fever (DF), following the major dengue outbreak in 2001. A pretested, structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The multistage cluster sampling ...