Obituary S eymour Benzer was born in 1921 in the South Bronx, New York, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants. He was the only boy in a family that included his three sisters. His friend from later years, the phage biologist Jean Weigle, called Seymour the " egg with two yellows " , an old European expression for a rare event. He went to public schools in Brooklyn like any normal New York City ki...

Amiodarone is commonly used to treat supraventricular and ventricular arrhythmias in various inpatient and outpatient settings. Over- and under-use of amiodarone is common, and data regarding patterns of use are sparse and largely anecdotal. Because of adverse drug reactions, proper use is essential to deriving optimal benefits from the drug with the least risk. This guide updates an earlier ve...

Controversy surrounds the recent 2007 WHO Classification of Tumours of the Nervous System. A number of nosologic issues remain to be resolved, some a reflection of conceptual disagreement, others the result of inadequate data to permit their definitive resolution. Among these and discussed herein are (i) the nosologic place of highly anaplastic oligoastrocytic tumors, (ii) the forms and signifi...

OBJECTIVE We evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of the WHO immunological criteria for detecting antiretroviral therapy (ART) treatment failure in a cohort of Vietnamese patients. We conducted a stratified analysis to determine the effects of BMI, peer support, adherence to antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, age, and gender on the sensitivity and specificity of the WHO criteria. METHODS We con...

OBJECTIVE To intensify the collaboration between WHO, the World Health Organization, and IMIA, the International Medical Informatics Association. METHODS Identifying key areas of collaboration and publishing a joint communiqué during Medinfo 2007 in Brisbane, Australia. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS WHO and IMIA have identified three key areas of joint work for the next three years: the Global Ob...

In the United States, cigarette use is the leading cause of preventable death, and most adult smokers started before the age of 18 years. Nicotine dependence maintains tobacco use and makes quitting difficult. Despite their relatively short smoking histories, many adolescents who smoke are nicotine dependent, and such dependence can lead to daily smoking. To examine the extent to which high sch...

The clinical and pathologic features of two glioneuronal neoplasms newly incorporated in the 2007 revision of the WHO classification of nervous system tumors are reviewed. These are the papillary glioneuronal tumor and the rosette-forming glioneuronal tumor of the fourth ventricle.

BACKGROUND People who inject drugs (PWID) have increased risk of morbidity and mortality. We update and present estimates and trends of the prevalence of current PWID and PWID subpopulations in 96 US metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) for 1992-2007. Current estimates of PWID and PWID subpopulations will help target services and help to understand long-term health trends among PWID population...

OBJECTIVE To assess the nutrition status of children and adolescents in China using the WHO growth reference (2007) in comparison with that defined by the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) and the Working Group on Obesity in China (WGOC). METHODS Overweight and obesity were defined by age-, sex-, specific BMI reference developed by WHO (2007), IOTF (2000), and WGOC (2004), respectively....