The national Minority Biomedical Support (MBS) Program, established in 1972 with National Institutes of Health funds, is described with emphasis on its role in increasing minority representation in biomedical research. (LBH)

Describes the decline in people's ability to focus their eyes as their age increases. Discusses probable causes of this effect including changes in the eye's geometry and biochemistry. Diagrammatically illustrates age related changes in the lens of the human eye. (CW)

Examines the evolution of health policies in the United States and their possible impact on public health. Reviews four periods of U.S. history (1776-1861, 1861-1931, 1931-1981, and 1981 to the present) with special emphasis on the significant increase in the federal role and the current attempts to reduce the federal role. (SK)

A foundation program to bring research on health services and policy issues into the domain of clinical scholarship is described. The principal approach is to train young clinicians for academic careers with major responsibilities in health studies at university health sciences centers. (MSE)

Research pertaining to female athletes' problems with secondary amenorrhea is reviewed. Studies point to stress, weight loss, anorexia nervosa, obesity, arduous athletic training, and age of onset of training as factors which may contribute to this disorder. (PP)

The debate about cost as it pertains to medical technology misses the mark by not pressing on the central problem of increased prevalence of chronic illness. Far from cost containment, what are needed are additional services which may in the end reduce total costs. (Author/MJL)

Industrial arts multisensory manipulative experience may provide a missing link in helping children, specifically learning disabled students, remediate their educational problems. Author examines research findings on right and left hemisphere functions and reviews an application of this knowledge in a teaching situation. (CSS)

Results of a survey are reported that sought to obtain information on the attitudes of psychiatric residents towards research, their backgrounds in research training, their assessment of their departments and their own personal research activities, and the role of psychiatric research in their future careers. (JMD)

Selected for discussion are certain advances in basic research and technologic innovation which shape the past, present, and future of medical care. Included are infectious diseases, especially hepatitis, immunology, clinical disorders of the immune system and the histocompatability system. (Author/SA)

Data on alcohol use by college students is used to consider whether or not alcohol represents a problem for students and institutions of higher education. New ways of defining what constitutes an alcohol problem as well as ways of remedying and preventing the problem are discussed. (JN)

If the family physician is to focus on the family as a unit of diagnosis and treatment, new knowledge with practical applications for the health care provided is required. Producing this knowledge is the responsibility of the family medicine researcher who will need to use new tools, strategies, and innovative research design. (JMD)

After noting recent research on the nature, effects, and consequences of alcohol use/abuse, this article describes the results of a survey of high school and college students on that issue. Implications of the low overall knowledge level; specific informational deficits; and age, sex, and racial variables are discussed. (SJL)

The board that advises the Secretary of HEW on ethics has given a qualified approval for further review of federal funding for research on human embryos conceived in the laboratory. Issues and concerns that influenced the board's decision are addressed. (JMD)

States that the ethics of using animals in science should be debated; however, the history of medicine is so clear on the contribution of animal usage to our understanding of the causes, preventions, and cures of diseases that only the untutored or those with a hidden agenda could argue that animal research has not been fundamental to medical…

Conducted at two British universities in 1993, a year-long trial service study of 20 bio-scientists using GRATEFUL MED software access to National Library of Medicine databases, principally MEDLINE, found that the users approved most of the service's ease, convenience, and time saving features and disapproved of its susceptibility to network…