Jewish medical ethics in the care of the cancer patient

The care of the patient with cancer requires the development not only of a medical plan, but an ethical plan as well. This plan should integrate the physician's and the patient's perceptions of medical and ethical propriety. Jewish biomedical ethical principles are based on the teaching of the Old Testament and its various interpretations. In this paper, I discuss how these principles can be used to help guide the physician caring for the patient with cancer. Other ethical systems could be applied in a similar fashion.     

The precaution adoption process

This article presents a critique of current models of preventive behavior. It discusses a variety of factors that are usually overlooked-including the appearance of costs and benefits over time, the role of cues to action, the problem of competing life demands, and the ways that actual decision behavior differs from the rational ideal implicit in expectancy-value and utility theories. Such considerations suggest that the adoption of new precautions should be viewed as a dynamic process with many determinants. The framework of a model that is able to accommodate these additional factors is described. This alternative model portrays the precaution adoption process as an orderly sequence of qualitatively different cognitive stages. Data illustrating a few of the suggestions made in the article are presented, and implications for prevention programs are discussed.     

Attempted suicide in youth: Its relationship to school achievement,educational goals,and socioeconomic status

Twenty-six suicide attempters, 9 to 18 years of age, were compared with 725 nonattempters on measures of school achievement, educational goals, socioeconomic status, and depression. As has been found in studies using clinical samples, suicide attempters in our communitybased sample had significantly lower school achievement than nonattempters. The relationship between attempted suicide and low school achievement seemed to be explained by the effects of depression. Lower-SES youth tended to be more likely to attempt suicide than higher-SES youths. However, SES appeared to have little effect on the relationship between attempted suicide and school achievement. Results also suggest that children of mothers with low educational goals for them may be more at risk for attempted suicide than youths whose mothers have higher educational goals for their children.This research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, Grant No. MH36971.     

A maturation effect in response inhibition in the rat

The finding that there are maturational differences between the ability to learn and to perform a task requiring young Wistar rats to inhibit a response was examined. Using an operant task, different from that employed in the previous studies, it was established that the finding was not task specific. The relative contribution of different periods in the early training stage to later savings in learning was also examined. It was confirmed that there is an early performance deficit by weanling rats on tasks requiring them to inhibit a previously learned response in the presence of a discriminative cue. Rats given early training on the task during this period of performance deficit nevertheless showed significant savings in later learning of the task, indicating that they had learned as much in that stage as they would have if given the same training at an age when performance is at the adult level. It was revealed that despite age-related differences in performance it was not so much the age at which early training took place as the amount of training given that affected later savings. The results are discussed in light of evidence of similar differences between the learning and performance of discrimination tasks exhibited by young children.     

Modulation of male mouse genital sniff, attack, and mount behaviors by urogenital substances from estrous females

The modulation of attacks, genital sniffs, and mounts in male SJL/J mice by ovarian-dependent urogenital substances in the urine voided by estrous females was examined. Urogenital substances were applied onto the external urogenital areas of ovariectomized mice. When compared with urine voided by estrous females, which stimulated genital sniffing, mounting, and reduced aggression, bladder urine was ineffective. Genital sniffing and mounting was stimulated by estradiol-17 beta, vaginal fluids, and preputial extract. Aggression was reduced by estradiol-17 beta, urethral catheterized urine, and vaginal fluids. Preputialectomy reduced, but did not eliminate, urinary stimulation of genital sniffing and mounting. Preputial extract stimulated aggression. Urogenital substances from ovariectomized females were ineffective in reducing attacks and stimulating genital sniffs and mounts. It was concluded that the ovarian-dependent chemosignals in the urine voided by estrous females are contributed by the urethra, vagina, and preputial gland, perhaps in part through the excretion of unconjugated estrogens.