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Legalizing marijuana in California will not dramatically reduce the drug revenues collected by Mexican drug trafficking organizations from sales to the United States, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

The drug reboxetine is, overall, an ineffective and potentially harmful antidepressant, according to a comprehensive study of the evidence published on bmj.com today.

The study also shows that nearly three quarters of the data on patients who took part in trials of reboxetine were not published until now, and that the published data on the drug overestimate the benefits and underestimate the harms of treatment - all underlining the urgent need for mandatory publication of all clinical trial results.

An innovative experiment at the University of Leicester that involved studying rotting fish has helped to create a clearer picture of what our early ancestors would have looked like.

Prenatal treatment of congenital toxoplasmosis with antibiotics might substantially reduce the proportion of infected fetuses that develop serious neurological sequelae (brain damage, epilepsy, deafness, blindness, or developmental problems) or die, and could be particularly effective in fetuses whose mothers acquired Toxoplasma gondii, the parasite that causes toxoplasmosis, during the first third of pregnancy.

Wayne Hall, Rebecca Mathews and Katherine Morley discuss the limitations of genomic risk prediction for population-level preventive health care. Whilst genome-wide association studies and genomic sequencing have the potential to reveal susceptibilities to disease, they sound a note of caution about widescale implementation of such tests. In particular they point out that before genomic information is used in public health screening, it must first be shown that it predicts disease risk better than phenotypic information.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A study of peptide hormones in the brain of a seemingly primitive flatworm reveals the surprising complexity of its nervous system and opens up a new approach for combating a major parasitic disease, researchers report.

The study appears in the open-access journal PLoS Biology.

A sizeable proportion of patients with advanced cancer and a life expectancy of only a few years continue to undergo common cancer screening tests that are unlikely to provide meaningful benefit, according to a study in the October 13 issue of JAMA.

DURHAM, NC – Transfusion rates for blood products used in a common heart surgery range from no patients to nearly all patients, and vary by hospital, according to findings from a group of researchers from Duke University Medical Center. The study, which looked at data from 102,470 patients in 798 hospitals, examined the variation in transfusion rates for red blood cells (RBCs), plasma and platelets, but the team didn't reach conclusions about how well patients fared if they did or didn't get a transfusion.

Even after initial procedures to clear blockages in leg arteries, hospitalizations and associated costs in patients with peripheral artery disease increase as the condition progresses, according to research reported in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Cardio-metabolic risk factors such as high blood sugar and insulin, and low high density lipoprotein cholesterol that are present before pregnancy, predict whether a woman will develop diabetes during a future pregnancy, according to a Kaiser Permanente study in the current issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have found that a synthetic molecule they designed can block activation of a gene in liver cancer cells, halting a process that allows some of those cancer cells to survive chemotherapy.

Without the interference of this gene's function, certain liver cancer cells appear to be protected from the toxic effects of chemotherapy drugs.

Blocking the oncogene, called STAT3, prevents a protein from protecting the cells, the research suggests. As a result, more liver cancer cells succumb to treatment.

Xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus (XMRV) has been the subject of many studies since its discovery in 2006, but conflicting reports have created an unclear picture of XMRV's role in human disease. In three recent studies published in the November 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online, the evidence supports a possible link between XMRV and prostate cancer but not other links involving chronic fatigue syndrome, HIV infection, or hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. (Please see below for links to these articles online.)

(Boston) - Investigators from the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have reported that African American women who consume more vegetables are less likely to develop estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer than women with low vegetable intake. The study results, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, were based on data from the Black Women's Health Study (BWHS), a large follow-up study of 59,000 African American women from across the U.S. conducted by investigators at the Slone Epidemiology Center since 1995.

Despite modest economic gains, gloomy unemployment numbers and low workplace morale still loom large within corporate America. Whether or not companies can capitalize on the momentum of this fragile financial revitalization is dependent on more than enhancing consumer confidence or introducing new products to the marketplace—it falls largely on employees working for organizations and their level of commitment to corporate success.

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, October 12, 2010 — A research team at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Soroka University Medical Center in Beer-Sheva, Israel has detected a genetic mutation resulting in a progressive disease of severe mental retardation and epilepsy beginning at infancy. The research was just published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.