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Rationale: Workers' exposure to metalworking fluid (MWF) has been associated with respiratory disease.Objectives: As part of a public health investigation of a manufacturing facility, we performed a cross-sectional study using paired environmental and human sampling to evaluate the cross-pollination of microbes between the environment and the host and possible effects on lung pathology present among workers.Methods: Workplace environmental microbiota were evaluated in air and MWF samples. Human microbiota were evaluated in lung tissue samples from workers with respiratory symptoms found to have lymphocytic bronchiolitis and alveolar ductitis with B-cell follicles and emphysema, in lung tissue samples from control subjects, and in skin, nasal, and oral samples from 302 workers from different areas of the facility. In vitro effects of MWF exposure on murine B cells were assessed.Measurements and Main Results: An increased similarity of microbial composition was found between MWF samples and lung tissue samples of case workers compared with control subjects. Among workers in different locations within the facility, those that worked in the machine shop area had skin, nasal, and oral microbiota more closely related to the microbiota present in the MWF samples. Lung samples from four index cases and skin and nasal samples from workers in the machine shop area were enriched with Pseudomonas, the dominant taxa in MWF. Exposure to used MWF stimulated murine B-cell proliferation in vitro, a hallmark cell subtype found in the pathology of index cases.Conclusions: Evaluation of a manufacturing facility with a cluster of workers with respiratory disease supports cross-pollination of microbes from MWF to humans and suggests the potential for exposure to these microbes to be a health hazard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the constitutionalization of torts in the U.S.; reports due process and the constitutionalization of punitive damages; and mentions the provisions of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment's imposition of due process constraints.

For a very long time, it has been an article of faith among liberals and conservatives alike that Lochner v. New York was obviously and irredeemably wrong. Lochner is one of only a few cases that constitute our "anti-canon," universally reviled by the legal community as the "worst of the worst." Our first claim in this Article is that the orthodoxy in modem conservative legal thought about Lochner is on the verge of changing. We believe that conservatives are ready, once again, to embrace Lochner--although perhaps not in name--by recommitting to some form of robust judicial protection for economic rights. Our second claim is that this impending change has been greatly facilitated by important modifications to the theory of originalism, which has served for nearly a half century as the intellectual framework for conservative legal thought. That intellectual framework has been evolving for decades, and it has now evolved to the point where it can plausibly accommodate claims that the Constitution protects economic liberty. These developments are revealing about how legal movements evolve generally. Sometimes the courts change the doctrine, and the theorists scramble to keep up. This is, roughly speaking, what happened with liberal legal thought in the second half of the twentieth century. Just when liberal legal theorists, reeling from the Lochner era, had settled on the view that the courts should exercise judicial review very sparingly--and perhaps never to enforce rights not specifically identified in the Constitution--the liberal Court began to exercise judicial review more frequently and aggressively, often to protect rights not clearly identified in the Constitution. Liberal theorists then struggled for years to develop an account of the appropriate judicial role that condemned Lochner but legitimized later cases protecting fundamental rights and vulnerable minorities. Modem conservative legal thought seems to be following the opposite progression: the theorists lead, the opinion leaders gradually sign on, and judges eventually follow. Whereas liberal judges created constitutional doctrine in the absence of a metatheory of constitutional interpretation--essentially building the house before the architectural blueprints were completed--conservatives have patiently waited for the theory to come together--for the blueprints to be drawn--before moving forward. But the plans are now largely ready, and we expect that it will not be long before the bulldozers break ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on judicial empathy and why it is an important characteristic in judges. Topics include constitutional law in the U.S., the rule of law, and judicial discretion. Information is provided on a judge's capacity for compassion, adherence to legal doctrine, and popular discourse on judging in the U.S.

The article discusses the originalism theory of interpretation in relation to the U.S. Constitution as of March 2011, focusing on an allegedly improved version of originalism, known as the New Originalism, and its impact on judicial constraint in the U.S. court system. According to the article, originalism was established following several rights-expansive decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justices Earl Warren and Warren E. Burger.

Originalists routinely argue that originalism is the only coherent and legitimate theory of constitutional interpretation. This Article endeavors to undermine those claims by demonstrating that, despite the suggestion of originalist rhetoric, originalism is not a single, coherent, unified theory of constitutional interpretation, but is rather a disparate collection of distinct constitutional theories that share little more than a misleading reliance on a common label. Originalists generally agree only on certain very broad precepts that serve as the fundamental underlying principles of constitutional interpretation: specifically, that the "writtenness" of the Constitution necessitates a fixed constitutional meaning, and that courts that see themselves as empowered to give the Constitution some avowedly different meaning are behaving contrary to law. Originalists have been able to achieve agreement on these broad underlying principles, but they have often viewed as unduly narrow and mistaken the understanding held by the original originalists-the "framers" of originalism, if you will-as to how those principles must be put into action. And originalists disagree so profoundly amongst themselves about how to effectuate those underlying principles that over time they have articulated-and continue to articulate-a wide array of strikingly disparate, and mutually exclusive, constitutional theories. In this regard, originalists have followed a living, evolving approach to constitutional interpretation. Our account of originalism's evolution-and of the extensive disagreement among originalists today-undermines originalists' normative claims about the superiority of their approach. Originalists' claims about the unique and exclusive legitimacy of their theory-that originalism self-evidently represents the "correct" method of constitutional interpretation-founder when one considers that originalists themselves cannot even begin to agree on what their "correct" approach actually entails. And their claims that originalism has a unique ability to produce determinate and fixed constitutional meaning, and thus that only originalism properly treats the Constitution as law and properly constrains judges from reading their own values into the Constitution, stumble when one considers the rapid evolution and dizzying array of versions of originalism; because each version has the potential to produce a different constitutional "meaning," the constitutional meaning that a committed originalist judge would find turns out to be anything but fixed. As originalism evolves, the constitutional meanings that it produces evolve along with it. Today's originalists not only reach results markedly different from those originalists reached thirty years ago, but also produce widely divergent results amongst themselves. Judges committed to the originalist enterprise thus have significant discretion to choose (consciously or subconsciously) the version of originalism that is most likely to dictate results consistent with their own preferences. As such, originalism suffers from the very flaws that its proponents have identified in its alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Philip Morris USA v. Williams, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution does not permit the imposition of punitive damages to punish a defendant for harm caused to third parties. This Article critiques the reasoning, but seeks ultimately to vindicate the result, of that landmark decision. It argues that, although the Court's procedural due process analysis does not stand up to scrutiny, punitive damages as punishment for third-party harm do indeed violate procedural due process, but for reasons far more profound than those offered by the Court. To reach that conclusion, the Article confronts the most basic and fundamental questions about punitive damages - questions that the Supreme Court has studiously avoided for more than a century: what, exactly, is the purpose of punitive damages, and how is it constitutional to impose them as a form of punishment in a judicial proceeding without affording the defendant the protection of the Constitution's criminal procedural safeguards? The Article argues that punitive damages are properly conceptualized as a form of punishment for private wrongs: judicially sanctioned private revenge. As such, it makes both theoretical and doctrinal sense to impose them without affording the defendant criminal procedural protections, which are necessitated only for the punishment of public wrongs on behalf of society. When, however, courts employ punitive damages as a form of punishment for public wrongs, they become a substitute for the criminal law, which thus makes an intolerable end run around the Bill of Rights. For that reason, Williams was ultimately correct that punitive damages must be limited to punishment for the harm done to the individual plaintiff, not the harm done to the general public. This reasoning suggests that contrary to the emerging conventional wisdom, Williams does not stand in the way of the imposition of nonpunitive extracompensatory damages of the type favored by law and economics scholars as a means of forcing the defendant to internalize the costs of its behavior in order to achieve optimal deterrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the opinion of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia that the display of Ten Commandments monuments in government property are constitutional because the Establishment Clause permits the government to favor religion over nonreligion. Analysis of the implications of the opinion of Scalia; Reason of Scalia for concluding that the Constitution permits the government to favor Judeo-Christian monotheism; Information on the opinion of Scalia in the case McCreary County versus American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.

This article focuses on the history, nature and the modern rule regarding uniformity constraint on the commerce power. According to the Court, the U.S. Congress is free to enact commercial regulations that apply in some states, but not in others, or that explicitly treat some states differently than others. In this article, the author first reviews modern cases articulating the lack of a uniformity constraint on the commerce power and criticizes the current doctrine as the product of a perfunctory textual analysis of a type wholly unsuited to constitutional decision-making. Subsequently, he briefly explores the notion of uniformity in constitutional law, examining the various types of uniformity that might be expected from federal laws and the various rationales for seeking them.

Presents information on a study which discussed the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of gastrointestinal basidiobolomycosis in Arizona, a rare disease caused by the fungus Basidiobolus ranarum. Materials and methods used; Serological and antifungal drug susceptibility testing.

Examines the findings of a retrospective analysis of patients with localized large-cell lymphoma treated at Stanford University Medical Center in California. Characteristics of patients with localized large-cell lymphoma treated primary radiation therapy; Univariate analysis of prognostic variables in patients with localized large-cell lymphoma; Factors with a significant effect on freedom from relapse after multivariate analysis in patients with localized large-cell lymphoma.

Background: In 2002 the American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society (ATS/ERS) classification of idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIPs) defined seven specific entities, and provided standardized terminology and diagnostic criteria. In addition, the historical "gold standard" of histologic diagnosis was replaced by a multidisciplinary approach. Since 2002 many publications have provided new information about IIPs., Purpose: The objective of this statement is to update the 2002 ATS/ERS classification of IIPs., Methods: An international multidisciplinary panel was formed and developed key questions that were addressed through a review of the literature published between 2000 and 2011., Results: Substantial progress has been made in IIPs since the previous classification. Nonspecific interstitial pneumonia is now better defined. Respiratory bronchiolitis-interstitial lung disease is now commonly diagnosed without surgical biopsy. The clinical course of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and nonspecific interstitial pneumonia is recognized to be heterogeneous. Acute exacerbation of IIPs is now well defined. A substantial percentage of patients with IIP are difficult to classify, often due to mixed patterns of lung injury. A classification based on observed disease behavior is proposed for patients who are difficult to classify or for entities with heterogeneity in clinical course. A group of rare entities, including pleuroparenchymal fibroelastosis and rare histologic patterns, is introduced. The rapidly evolving field of molecular markers is reviewed with the intent of promoting additional investigations that may help in determining diagnosis, and potentially prognosis and treatment., Conclusions: This update is a supplement to the previous 2002 IIP classification document. It outlines advances in the past decade and potential areas for future investigation.

Infections caused by the parasite Paragonimus westermani are endemic to Southeast Asia. Most infections reported in the United States are among immigrants who acquired the disease abroad. Due to the nonspecific nature of its presentation and rarity in the United States, the diagnosis may first be suggested by the pathologist on biopsy review. Definitive diagnosis may need serologic testing for confirmation. We report 4 cases of pleuropulmonary disease caused by United States-acquired P. westermani, which were identified in the consultation files of the authors. Patients (3 men and 1 woman; aged, 20 to 66 y) presented with pulmonary complaints and chest imaging abnormalities including cavitary infiltrates (2), lung mass (1), pleural effusion (1), and pneumothorax (1). Biopsies showed chronic eosinophilic pneumonia and organizing pneumonia in all cases. Other pathologic findings included granulomatous inflammation with geographic necrosis (3), vasculitis (3), and pleuritis (3). Paragonimus organisms and/or eggs were identified in 2 cases. Serologic studies were positive for P. westermani in 3 cases (2 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and 1 immunoblot). Three patients ate live crabs at sushi bars (including crabs in martinis, a previously unreported mechanism for infection). In 1 patient, the source of infection was uncertain. Paragonimiasis should be considered in the differential diagnosis of patients with eosinophilic pleuropulmonary disease in the United States. Although eosinophilic pneumonia was a consistent finding, the biopsies may be nonspecific as the organisms and/or eggs are not always visualized. Unusual features include marked pleuritis, foci of geographic necrosis and granulomatous vasculitis. A history of ingestion and targeted serologies are the keys to diagnosis.

This document is an international evidence-based guideline on the diagnosis and management of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and is a collaborative effort of the American Thoracic Society, the European Respiratory Society, the Japanese Respiratory Society, and the Latin American Thoracic Association. It represents the current state of knowledge regarding idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), and contains sections on definition and epidemiology, risk factors, diagnosis, natural history, staging and prognosis, treatment, and monitoring disease course. For the diagnosis and treatment sections, pragmatic GRADE evidence-based methodology was applied in a question-based format. For each diagnosis and treatment question, the committee graded the quality of the evidence available (high, moderate, low, or very low), and made a recommendation (yes or no, strong or weak). Recommendations were based on majority vote. It is emphasized that clinicians must spend adequate time with patients to discuss patients' values and preferences and decide on the appropriate course of action.