Our results confirm the usefulness of MMT in reducing heroin use and HIV risk behaviors. Illicit opioid use continued in both groups, but frequency was reduced. Results do not provide support for diverting resources from MMT into long-term detoxification.

Advertisements suggest that smokers of cigarettes low in nicotine are exposed to less nicotine and tar. Nicotine yields are measured with smoking machines, but machines do not smoke cigarettes as people do. We therefore measured the actual nicotine content of commercial cigarettes with different nicotine and tar yields as determined with smoking machines, and also measured actual nicotine intake as indicated by blood concentrations of its metabolite, cotinine, in 272 subjects smoking various brands of cigarettes. We found that low-yield cigarette tobacco did not contain less nicotine; in fact, the nicotine concentration in tobacco inversely correlated (r = -0.53, P less than 0.05) with the concentration measured by smoking machines. Blood cotinine concentrations correlated with the number of cigarettes smoked per day but not with the nicotine yield measured by smoking machines. Only 3.8 to 5.0 per cent of total variance in blood cotinine was contributed by nicotine yield. We conclude that smokers of low-nicotine cigarettes do not consume less nicotine.

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In 2011, the United States Department of Agriculture conducted a project in which elk (Cervus elaphus spp.), white-tailed deer (WTD) (Odocoileus virginianus), and reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) were evaluated by the single cervical tuberculin test (SCT), comparative cervical tuberculin test (CCT), and serologic tests. The rapid antibody detection tests evaluated were the CervidTB Stat-Pak (Stat-Pak), and the Dual Path Platform VetTB (DPP). Blood was collected from presumably uninfected animals prior to tuberculin injection for the SCT. A total of 1,783 animals were enrolled in the project. Of these, 1,752 (98.3%) were classified as presumably uninfected, based on originating from a captive cervid herd with no history of exposure to TB. Stat-Pak specificity estimates were 92.4% in reindeer, 96.7% in WTD, and 98.3% in elk and were not significantly different from SCT specificity estimates. Using the DPP in series on Stat-Pak antibody-positive samples improved specificity in the three species. Thirty one animals were classified as confirmed infected, based on necropsy and laboratory results, and 27/31 were antibody positive on Stat-Pak for an estimated sensitivity of 87.1%. The study findings indicate that rapid serologic tests used in series are comparable to the SCT and CCT and may have a greater ability to detect TB-infected cervids.

Crack cocaine dependence rapidly leads to physical deterioration and severe social consequences. There is no widely accepted standard of treatment. As such, it is important to attract broad samples of patients into treatment research to improve efficacy and to establish generalizability. Better understanding of what attracts different subgroups of cocaine users into treatment, particularly research-based treatment, is needed. This article assesses the efficacy of six different recruitment strategies for attracting different populations of male veterans into treatment for crack cocaine dependence. New directions are outlined for the examination of recruitment strategies.

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