Author: Liu

  Introduction Drug use has developed historically as part of wider social practices. Drug-related harms, including harms to health and social order, need to be understood in a sociocultural context, as do the regulatory frameworks that have developed to control drug demand, supply, and use. Contemporary drug policy reflects an uneasy balance between public health…

While QALYs have become the dominant outcome measure for cost-effectiveness analyses in health and medicine, there has been steady debate in the literature about the advantages and disadvantages of QALYs, touching on an array of issues – ethical, conceptual, and practical. A good list of references for these debates through the mid-1990s may be found…

The most important contribution of radiobiology to clinical radiation oncology is in the field of fractionation. Although conventional fractionation regimen is a debatable term, altered fractionation regimens (hyper fractionation, accelerated fractionation, hypo fractionation) have been employed in a number of tumor sites with success, improving local tumor control and overall survival, albeit with occasionally observed…

Although radiation therapy is frequently given as a single treatment modality, it is also used in combination with other treatment modalities. When combined with surgery, radiation therapy can be given either as preoperative or postoperative radiation therapy. The potential advantages of preoperative radiation therapy include eradication of subclinical or microscopic disease beyond the margins of…

The European Renaissance is conventionally considered to be the period covering part of the fifteenth century and the sixteenth. At the beginning of the sixteenth century a maritime quarantine center was opened in the French port of Marseilles. The selective concentration of quarantine stations in ports is typical of this period, since sea trade was…

Rabies is generally transmitted through the bite of an infected mammal to another mammal. Rabies is believed to be capable of infecting all mammals. Both historically and currently, rabies was and is transmitted to humans primarily by canines, as well as by agriculturally important species such as cattle, horses, and sheep. Unless prevented by the…

Starting with Lewontin (1972), studies have statistically apportioned variation in different genetic systems to different levels: among ‘races’ and within ‘races’ and smaller populations such as the Hopi, the Ainu, and the Irish. Lewontin collected data on blood group polymorphisms in different groups and races. He found that blood group variation between races statistically explains…

In part due to the emergence of social epidemiology in the later part of the twentieth century (Krieger, 2001), the impact of dietary habits, stress, work conditions, and other aspects of daily life on health are clearer to both professional and various publics. Part of the work in this field has pointed toward how life-long…

In the United States, where data on ‘race’ are routinely collected, researchers continue to find consistent, persistent, and usually marked disparity in nearly every indicator of wealth and health by race (Smedley et al., 2003). While there are some counterfactual findings and race-based health disparities that may be less glaring than in other countries, the…

Diarrhea is a very common illness, especially in the developing world, and is frequently experienced by travelers. Cryptosporidium, Cyclospora, Isospora, Giardia, amoeba, and Sarcocystis are pathogenic protozoan parasites that can cause these gastrointestinal illnesses. Commensal parasites are also relatively common in developing countries and less frequently identified in the developed world. Worldwide, Giardia is the…