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The article presents the author's opinions on a paper from the American Association of Medical Colleges which argued that a shortage of physicians is looming in the U.S. and called for an urgent and immediate expansion of U.S. medical students by 30%. Arguments are presented which suggest that U.S. data does not show a clear positive relation between more providers and better medical outcomes and that many countries and health maintenance organizations provide superior care with fewer doctors per person than the current U.S. national ratio.

TRACT Objective To characterise current safety practices for the use of oral chemotherapy. Design Written questionnaire survey of pharmacy directors of cancer centres. Setting Comprehensive cancer centres in the United States. Results Respondents from 42 (78%) of 54 eligible centres completed the survey, after consulting with 89 colleagues. Clinicians at 29 centres used handwritten prescriptions, two used preprinted paper prescriptions, and six used electronic systems for most oral chemotherapy prescribing. For six commonly used oral chemotherapies, on average 10 centres required a diagnosis on the prescription, 11 required the protocol number, four required the cycle number, nine required double checking by a second clinician, 14 required a calculation of body surface area, and 14 required a calculation of dose per square metre of body surface area. Only a third of centres requested patients' written informed consent when oral chemotherapy was given off protocol. Nearly a quarter (10) of centres had no formal process for monitoring patients' adherence. In the past year respondents at 10 centres reported at least one serious adverse drug event related to oral chemotherapy, and respondents at 13 centres reported a serious near miss. Conclusion Few of the safeguards routinely used for infusion chemotherapy have been adopted for oral chemotherapy at US cancer centres. There is currently no consensus at these centres about safe medication practices for oral chemotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a research paper that was featured in "Clinical Infectious Diseases". Researchers involved in the paper indicated that they had found that adverse events related to the use of antibiotics result in more than 142,000 visits peer year to hospital emergency rooms in the United States. The paper also concluded that antibiotics were implicated in 19% of all emergency room visits for drug related adverse events, and that with every 100,000 outpatient prescriptions for antibiotics there were 10.5 emergency room visits.

States that a paper by Stanford University professor Lawrence Wein, which was written for "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences," was not published because of a U.S. government decision. Idea that the study informed terrorists about weaknesses in the milk distribution network; Indication the article was published online at a password protected website; Complaint from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Stewart Simonson; Removal of the paper from the National Academy of Sciences website.

Editorial. Offers a look at how personal feelings affect an individual's reading of a medical journal. Discussion of a paper by Jack Wennberg in the March 13, 2004 issue regarding death in highly respected American hospitals; Use of healthcare resources in the best hospitals in America; Reference to a paper in the same issue by Chibuzo Odigwe that claims children in Great Britain often feel ignored by the British National Health Service; Communication between children patients and physicians.

The article reports on a policy which has been mandated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is the chief public funding body for medical research in the United States. With the policy the NIH has mandated that all medical researchers publish their research results on an open access website and that all papers resulting from research that the NIH has funded be made freely available to the public no later than one year after they have been published. The policy was developed in an effort to promote open access to research findings.

The article focuses on the results of an anonymous survey published in the "New England Journal of Medicine" in 2007 concerning U.S. surgeons and needlestick injuries. The article states that surgeons in training suffer more needlestick injuries than other personnel. It mentions that over half of the injuries involved high risk patients, such as HIV or hepatitis B or C infections, or patients with a history of injecting drugs. It also stated over half of the residents fail to report the injury to their institution's employee heath service. Dr. Mark Sulkowski, coauthor of the article, stated the paper was a step in increasing awareness of the problem.

Focuses on the United States' boycott of French products and how this boycott may have spread to include scientific output. Investigation of whether the proportion of French papers published in leading U.S. journals differed in the periods before and after the French veto to military intervention in Iraq, which caused the boycott; Pattern that was found in the publication of French articles; Decrease in the publication of French medical articles after the boycott.

Editorial. Comments on a paper by Sargent, et al, in the December 15, 2001 issue of 'British Medical Journal,' and looks at steps that the motion picture industry in the United States can take to stop promoting smoking in the world. Discussion of the relationship that the tobacco industry has cultivated with Hollywood, using large payments to film studios and other methods; Evidence that the more that teenagers see smoking in films, the more likely they are to smoke.

The article reports on recommendations from the American College of Physicians concerning medical care in the United States that were included in a paper which the college released. In the report the college recommended that the U.S. develop a healthcare system that provides medical care for all Americans. The college suggested that the country develop either a universal health insurance system or a system that involves the government and private organizations. The college released the report in an effort to provoke discussion about medical care in the U.S.

This article presents summaries of papers from other medical journals. Studies done on bariatric surgery show that the surgery prolongs life in obese people. Research in the U.S. showed that preoperative ischaemia of the arm reduced heart muscle injury during bypass surgery. A study of hypertension in children and teenagers demonstrated that the condition is often unrecognised in children in the U.S.

The article mentions the "NIH Public Access Policy" from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The NIH policy on public access to research papers asks researchers to submit their peer-reviewed studies to the PubMed Central database for archiving. The NIH is a major source of funding for the biomedical industry.

Offers medical news briefs for four research papers that were published in JAMA or Lancet during 2005. Researchers found that erectile dysfunction could be a signal for cardiovascular disease in American men. Proton pump inhibitors and H2 receptor antagonists are being linked to the increased incidence of Clostridium difficile infections in the United Kingdom. A study on dementia found that it is a global problem that will aflict 81 million people by 2040. A study in Scotland found that sudden infant death syndrome is associated with complications in other pregnancies.

Reports that the British Medical Journal has been given a set of documents that were lost from a mass murder case 10 years ago. Documents which contain internal Pfizer company memos sent anonymously; Contents of the papers which indicate a link between a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and a side effect known as the "activation syndrome"; Background on the case of 12-year-old Christoper Pittman of the U.S. who confessed to shooting his grandparents after he was started on an antidepressant; Reaction from Pfizer.

Reports on the publication of a retraction in the United States journal "Science" of a research article on the drug commonly known as ecstasy. Admission of researchers that their results were invalid; Incorrect labeling of a bottle causing 9 out of 10 primates in the study to be given methamphetamine; Conclusions of the original paper; Questions about the peer review process; Comments from professor Colin Blakemore, the chief executive designate of the Medical Research Council.