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Management Insights Study Warns That State Privacy Rules Reduce Electronic Medical Sharing
States that have passed privacy laws restricting the ability of hospitals to disclose patient information have seen the sharing of electronic medical records suffer by more than 24%, according to the Management Insights feature in the current issue of Management Science, the flagship journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).
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Scientists Report Stem Cells' 'Suspended' State Preserved By Key Step
Scientists have identified a gene that is essential for embryonic stem cells to maintain their all-purpose, pluripotent state. Exploiting the finding may lead to a greater understanding of how cells acquire their specialized states and provide a strategy to efficiently reprogram mature cells back into the pluripotent state, an elusive step in stem cell research but one crucial to a range of potential clinical treatments.
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Oral Piercings Pose Potential Health Care Risks
Like clothing and hairstyles, oral piercings give teens and adults a way to express themselves. While trendy, this fashion statement poses a number of potential oral and overall health care risks. It"s also important to note that oral piercings most commonly involve the tongue, and also the lips, cheeks, uvula or a combination of sites. Oral piercings have been implicated in a number of adverse oral and systemic conditions.
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Secondhand Smoke Threatens Casino Workers' Health

New research suggests that casino workers face a higher risk of heart disease and lung cancer because they work in buildings filled with tobacco smoke. By one scientist"s calculation, six of every 10,000 nonsmoking casino employees in Pennsylvania will die each year because of exposure to secondhand smoke. The estimate does not rely on the tracking of individual casino workers over time, nor does it compare them to workers who have not had smoke exposure. Still, the findings suggest a significant risk to the health of the workers, said study author James Repace, a Washington D.C.-area consultant who studies the effects of secondhand smoke. Casino workers "are really the most exposed group in society now," Repace said. "The only other group that"s exposed so much is bartenders," but many states have banned smoking in bars and restaurants. The Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute which has studied the risk of secondhand smoke to flight attendants when airlines allowed smoking funded the study. The casino findings appear online and in the August issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Nonsmoking mandates at casinos remain rare in the United States. As a result, gambling and smoking still have a strong connection. In the new study, Repace recruited volunteers to visit three Pennsylvania casinos for four hours. After the visits, he measured the levels of a byproduct of tobacco smoke in the urine of eight subjects. The levels were approximately 10 times higher than average. Repace also tested the air quality inside three casinos. He found that the levels of two indicators of tobacco smoke cancer-causing chemicals and particles small enough to inhale were an average of four to six times higher inside than outside. Both measurements led to the estimate of the number of deaths attributable to tobacco exposure in non-smoking casino workers in Pennsylvania; Repace said the total number of casino workers in the state is expected to soon reach 12,000. Scientists expect that more than 90 percent of the deaths will be from heart disease, with the rest from lung cancer, which is uncommon in nonsmokers. Repace said that an annual death rate of six per 10,000 is roughly five times the extra risk of death for mineworkers from Pennsylvania mine disasters. Holly Thomsen, a spokesperson for the American Gaming Association, a trade group for the casino industry, said its members are committed to "the highest level of safety and comfort" inside casinos. Casinos serve both smoking and nonsmoking customers, she said, and "we realize that balancing the needs of these two distinct sets of patrons, as well as those of our employees who don"t smoke, is of paramount importance." Repace, J. Secondhand smoke in Pennsylvania casinos: A study of nonsmokers" exposure, dose, and risk. Am J Public Health 99(8), 2009. Health Behavior News Service


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