Children in single-father families in demographic perspective

The purpose of this article is to examine single-parent families headed by fathers. "We use specially constructed child files from the 1960-1990 Public Use Microdata Samples data from the Census of Population to address two general questions: (a) To what extent has both the likelihood and the demographic characteristics of these families changed over time? (b) What are the consequences for children of living in different kinds of father-only families? We find that single-father families are comparatively rare, but increasing rapidly, especially since 1980. Increasingly, these families are formed by fathers who are young, never married, with low incomes, and fewer children. Analysis of the 1990 data reveals wide diversity in living arrangements among children in single-father families. Furthermore, the social capital of children's fathers, the availability of adults, and children's economic well-being vary markedly across these types of families."     

Bladder Cancer and Arsenic Exposure： Differences in the Two Populations Enrolled in A Study in Southwest Taiwan

Objective Analyses of bladder cancer mortality in the Black Foot Disease (BFD) endemic area of southwest Taiwan conducted by Morales et al. showed a discontinuity in risk at 400 μg/L arsenic in the drinking water in a stratified analysis and no discontinuity in a continuous analysis.     

Tuberous sclerosis complex and Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome

This report highlights the association between tuberous sclerosis and Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. Ten patients with concurrent diagnoses of Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome and tuberous sclerosis were identified. Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome presented early in life, nine cases being diagnosed in the first year. Eight of the 10 cases were male. In eight cases, the syndrome was associated with supraventricular tachycardias, and in nine with cardiac rhabdomyomata. One child died from cardiac failure secondary to obstruction of the left ventricular outflow tract by a rhabdomyoma. Five of nine survivors showed resolution of Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome on follow up. The accessory pathway was localised in nine patients from surface electrocardiograms: six children had left sided pathways and three had right sided pathways.     

Presumed consent in emergency neonatal research

Current methods of obtaining consent for emergency neonatal research are flawed. They risk aggravating the distress of parents of preterm and other sick neonates. This distress, and the inevitable time constraints, compromise understanding and voluntariness, essential components of adequately informed consent. Current practice may be unjust in over-representing babies of more vulnerable and deprived parents. The research findings may thus not be generalisable. Informing parents antenatally about the possible need for emergency neonatal research, with presumed consent and scope for opting out, would address these problems. It would spare parents of sick neonates, already terrified by their baby's illness, further distress. Experience with opting out suggests that recruitment might increase, thus generating earlier results, without compromising parental understanding of the nature and purpose of the research.