Bordetella pertussis is the causative agent of whooping cough, a contagious childhood respiratory disease. Increasing public concern over the safety of whole-cell vaccines led to decreased immunisation rates and a subsequent increase in the incidence of the disease. Research into the development of safer, more efficacious, less reactogenic vaccine preparations was concentrated on the production and purification of detoxified B. pertussis virulence factors. These virulence factors include adhesins such as filamentous haemagglutinin, fimbriae and pertactin, which allow B. pertussis to bind to ciliated epithelial cells in the upper respiratory tract. Once attachment is initiated, toxins produced by the bacterium enable colonisation to proceed by interfering with host clearance mechanisms. B. pertussis co-ordinately regulates the expression of virulence factors via the Bordetella virulence gene (bvg) locus, which encodes a response regulator responsible for signal-mediated activation and repression. This strict regulation mechanism allows the bacterium to express different gene subsets in different environmental niches within the host, according to the stage of disease progression.

The first book in the Cultural Margins series is a 1994 study of racism and homophobia in British politics, which demonstrates the demonisation of blacks, lesbians, and gays in New Right discourse. Anna Marie Smith develops theoretical insights from literary and cultural critics, including Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Hall, and Gilroy, to produce detailed readings of two key moments in New Right discourse: the speeches of Enoch Powell on black immigration (1968–72) and the legislative campaign of the late 1980s to prohibit the promotion of homosexuality. Her analysis challenges the silence on racism and homophobia in previous studies of Thatcherism and the New Right, and shows how demonisation of lesbians and gays depends on previous demonisations of black immigrant and criminal figures. Overall, this book offers a devastating critique of racism and homophobia in late twentieth-century Britain.

No abstract

Aim Health literacy is one's ability to use cognitive and social skills to access, understand and appraise health information. Despite poor health outcomes of people living with mental illness there is limited research assessing their health literacy. This systematic review aims to synthesise research on health literacy rates, conceptualizations, and outcomes of people living with mental illness, including substance use disorders. This will provide insights into how health literacy might be targeted to reduce these health inequities. Methods A search of published literature in multiple databases up until February 2019 was conducted. One reviewer screened the titles, abstracts and keywords of identified publications and the eligibility of all full‐text publications were assessed for inclusion along with a second reviewer. Both reviewers independently rated the quality of the included studies. Results Fourteen studies were included in the review. Rates and measures of health literacy varied. Low health literacy and health literacy weaknesses were identified. There is a lack of research on the relationship between health literacy and other outcomes, particularly health service engagement. Conclusion The review highlights the high rates of low health literacy within this population compared with general populations. Most studies used a functional health literacy measure, despite its limitations, with only a few using multidimensional measures. Overall, there is limited research examining the impact that this populations health literacy has on their recovery and how it affects them over time. The review emphasizes the importance of practitioners assessing and targeting health literacy needs when working with this population.

Welfare Reform and Sexual Regulation into two groups: the "most employable" and the "most encumbered." The "most employable" have been "diverted" or "cut off" from poverty assistance thanks to the impact of welfare reform's stricter eligibility rules, the workfare requirement, sanctions, and time limits. The type of State-citizen contact that is at work in this account is purely negative and noninterventionary: the recipient has been "expelled" from a program such that she 3 has been forced to become self-reliant by entering the wage labor market. The nor mative character of her "expulsion" is, of course, hotly debated; neoliberal welfare reformers congratulate themselves on the fact that the most employ able are no longer coddled by an excessively generous State, whereas pro gressives condemn the policies that are forcing poor single mothers to fend for themselves in the brutal conditions of the antifamily postindustrial labor market. If we look closer at the actual structure of welfare reform law, however, a different image of power relations comes into view. To be sure, many poor families have been driven from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program;4 the fact that the rolls have been drastically trimmed and

No abstract

No abstract

An overview of the feminist theory literature on welfare policy and politics is presented. This introductory essay places a particular emphasis on the works that fall within the political sociology and normative political philosophy genres. In a lengthy digression, the article offers a tribute to the work of Iris Marion Young. It examines the centrality of her thinking about distribution, cultural marginalization, the welfare state bureaucracy, transnational responsibility and solidarity, and the pitfalls of maternalist discourse for this field. In the conclusion, the article makes brief remarks about each of the contributions to the special issue on Feminist Theory and Welfare.