Racial differences in overdose training, naloxone possession, and naloxone administration among clients and nonclients of a syringe services program.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate racial (Black/White) differences in overdose response training and take-home naloxone (THN) possession and administration among clients and nonclients of the Baltimore syringe service program (SSP). METHODS: The study derived data from a cross-sectional survey of 263 (183 SSP clients, 80 nonclients) people who inject drugs (PWID). The study recruited SSP clients using targeted sampling and recruited nonclients through peer referral from April to November 2016. RESULTS: In our sample, 61% of the participants were Black, 42% were between the ages of 18 and 44, and 70% were males. SSP clients, regardless of race, were more likely to have received overdose response training than Black nonclients (Black clients AOR: 3.85, 95% CI: 1.88, 7.92; White clients AOR: 2.73, 95% CI: 1.29, 5.75). The study found no significant differences in overdose response training between Black and White nonclients. SSP clients and White nonclients were more likely to possess THN than Black nonclients (Black clients: AOR: 4.21, 95% CI: 2.00, 8.87; White clients: AOR: 3.54, 95% CI: 1.56, 8.04; White nonclients AOR: 4.49, 95% CI: 1.50,13.47). CONCLUSION: SSP clients were more likely to receive overdose response training than their nonclient peers who they referred to the study, illustrating the utility of SSPs in reaching PWID at high risk of overdose. We also observed that Black PWID, who did not access services at the SSP, were the least likely to possess THN, suggesting the need to employ outreach targeting Black PWID who do not access this central harm reduction intervention.

Surreptitious observation of responses to hypnotically suggested hallucinations: a test of the compliance hypothesis.

Suggestions for arm levitation and for visual, auditory, tactile, and taste hallucinations were administered twice via audiotape to a group of high suggestible students and low suggestible simulators. During one of the administrations, participants were led to believe they were alone, but their behavior was surreptitiously recorded on videotape and observed on a video monitor. During the other administration, they were observed openly by an experimenter who had not been informed about group assignment. When unaware that they were being observed, simulators were significantly less responsive to suggestion and engaged in substantially more role-inappropriate behavior. In contrast, the responsiveness of nonsimulating students was not affected by the presence of an experimenter, and they exhibited little role-inappropriate behavior even when alone. These data indicate that the responses of suggestible individuals reflect internally generated changes in experience and are not due to simple intentional compliance (i.e., faking).

Patient-to-patient transmission of hepatitis B in a dermatology practice.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the study was to investigate infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among patients in a dermatology practice. METHODS: Historical cohort, matched case-control, and cross-sectional survey methods were used. RESULTS: The age-specific incidence of reported HBV infection in the practice from 1985 through 1991 was more than 12 times the expected rate. The dermatologist was not an HBV carrier. He practiced neither universal precautions nor sterile surgical technique. Seroprevalence of markers for HBV infection was highest (36.8%) among patients who had had surgery on the same day that HBV was apparently acquired by an index case; seroprevalence was near the expected background level for patients not exposed to index cases. Of HBV-infected patients with known dates of onset, 72% had had surgery during their incubation periods. All of 30 HBV antigen specimens tested were of the same subtype. None of the patients tested, including 74 patients exposed to surgery on the same day as a patient with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, had evidence of HIV infection. CONCLUSIONS: HBV, but not HIV, was transmitted from patient to patient by the dermatologist's failure to apply either universal precautions or sterile surgical technique.

A glycosaminoglycan inhibitor of thrombin: a new mechanism for abnormal hemostatic assays in cancer.

The isolation and partial characterization of a novel anticoagulant from the plasma of a patient with metastatic prostate cancer is described. The patient had a prolonged activated partial thromboplastic time, prothrombin time and thrombin time which did not correct by mixing with normal plasma. The reptilase time was normal and the prolonged thrombin time was corrected with protamine sulfate suggesting a heparin-like anticoagulant. A glycosaminoglycan anticoagulant (GAC) was isolated from the patient's plasma. The inhibitory activity of the GAC was destroyed by treatment with chondroitinase ABC. The GAC migrated on agarose gel electrophoresis between keratin sulfate and heparan sulfate. Purified GAC possessed only 2% (W/W) of the antithrombin III cofactor activity of porcine heparin. In assays using purified fibrinogen, the GAC was shown to directly inhibit fibrinogen proteolysis by thrombin. It is concluded that this glycosaminoglycan anticoagulant directly inhibits thrombin clotting of fibrinogen and is a new mechanism for abnormal hemostatic assays in cancer.

Toxic shock syndrome associated with use of latex nasal packing.

We treated a previously healthy young man who developed toxic shock syndrome 2 days after elective septoplasty with nonabsorbent latex packing. This case emphasizes that non-menstrual wound-associated toxic shock syndrome can occur after surgery that does not involve absorbent splinting or packing and should be considered in patients who present within a few days after surgery with fever, sunburnlike rash, hypotension, and multisystem complaints and laboratory abnormalities.

Antibody to nuclear material eluted from isolated spleen vessels in systemic lupus erythematosus.

Splenic blood vessels were isolated from surrounding cells by treatment with trypsin and the use of ultrasound. This procedure retained vascular-bound immunoglobulins which were recovered by acid elution of vessels isolated from a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus. These eluted immunoglobulins reacted with material from cell nuclei as demonstrated by immunofluorescence.