In recent days, federal officials have acknowledged missteps in communicating the threat posed by the anthrax in the Daschle letter, and have since aggressively stepped up efforts at environmental screening and prevention -- a situation that President Bush implicitly acknowledged as he signed sweeping anti-terrorism legislation at the White House today.
This classification may allow us to focus preventive efforts and screening programs on individuals at high risk.
Concerned about the emerging picture, federal health officials have started pilot programs to bolster public awareness, increase epidemiologic surveillance and expand efforts to screen those most at risk — people with high blood pressure, diabetes or a family history of kidney disease.
Previous efforts at practice-based screening for diabetes have found fewer candidates for intervention (8).
An improvised bomb was found on a commercial flight within Iraq on Monday, The Associated Press reported, forcing new efforts to screen passengers and baggage at the Baghdad airport.
That effort begins with screening.
However, the effort to screen fracture patients at a younger age does raise concerns regarding selection bias, since the mean age of all fragility fracture patients at our orthopedics department is around 80. Our screening in the age group 50 75 years could be said to select fracture patients at lower risk of fracture instead of patients at an early stage of a sequence of fractures.
However, at this time efforts began to screen carcinogens and other chemicals for mutagenicity in vitro, starting with the use of a base-substitution strain of Escherichia coli by Demerec et al. (1951) and then by Szybalski (1958), who assessed > 400 compounds using filter-paper disks in a spot test with the same strain.
With regards to cancer mortality, data are important to monitor the effects of screening programmes, efforts at earlier diagnosis and treatment, and the effects of environmental and other causative factors such as smoking.
With current trends continuing, thermography would be a good option for large-scale screening efforts at the level of the patient or in primary care facilities.
