* A "virtual" bar can help literary...

* A "virtual" bar can help literary institution [i]or[/i] seminary of learning students learn about the purports of drinking alcohol. The Associated Pres reports that the hundred Council, an organization funded according to distillers, is distributing Alcohol 101 Plus to many association campuses. Using this CD-ROM program, observers can visit virtual bars and fraternity houses, where they click onward drinks and watch their vital fluid alcohol levels rise, depending upon their weight and gender, and by what mode much they choose to "drink." Alcohol 101 Plus is an update of a CD-ROM that already is being used upon more than 1,200 college campuses. Targeted populations include freshmen sorority and fraternity members, and close examiners who have been caught violating association alcohol policies.

* Jails can be dangerous to the surrounding community. According to a application of mind published in the Southern Medical Journal, couple years after an outbreak of tuberculosis (38 inmates and five guards) at a jail in Shelby shire Tenn., a Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain was more prevalent in the community than it had been at the time of the jail outbreak. A total of 156 community cases of tuberculosis were reported to the shire health department between January 1998 and August 1999 Sputum improvements were positive for M. tuberculosis in 86 of the pulmonary cases. DNA fingerprinting was performed in succession 81 isolates: 19 (23 percent) had the fingerprint pattern of strain J which was the strain set in the jail two years earlier. Twelve of the family (63 percent) infected with strain J had no novel history of incarceration. This meditation highlights the importance of monitoring incarcerated populations for tuberculosis.

* Almost united half of Americans 65 years of age or older use five or more different medications by week. A cohort study published in JAMA point outs that preventable adverse drug marked occurrences are quite common among older somebodys in the outpatient setting. During a 12-month research period, 1,523 adverse drug marked occurrences were identified in Medicare patients at a multispecialty dispose practice. Of these adverse ends 421 (27.6 percent) were preventable. greatest in quantity of the events occurred because of errors at the monitoring and prescribing stages. Errors involving patient adherence also were common

* The universal cold is nothing to sneeze at. According to a studious mood published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, viral respiratory tract infections not related to the flu costliness the United States nearly $40 billion each year. Researchers analyzed telephone observe responses from more than 4000 adults and garner uped statistics on missed workdays for patients and caregivers to determine the direct prices ($17 billion) and the indirect outlays ($22.5 billion) of colds. The total preciousness of viral respiratory tract infections greatly go beyonds that of other acute conditions, like as allergic rhinitis, and is comparable to that of many chronic conditions.

* Nearly seven in 10 parents say "no" to toy fire-arms according to a survey published in Pediatrics. Parents and guardians filled revealed a survey on child-rearing practices and sociodemographics while they were waiting at common of three sites: a suburban private practice, an urban managed care clinic, and an urban children's hospital. In all, 67 percent of the 830 parents who complet the take a view of responded that it was at no time "OK for parents to lease their children play with toy guns" The inspect also found that parents who conception playing with toy guns was acceptable were more likely to be white, to be male, and to have male children.

COPYRIGHT 2003 American Academy of Family Physicians

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