Forensic science international
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Allegations of torture are on the increase and the medico-legal and ethical problems can no longer be ignored by the medical profession. While jurists fail to give effective legal guidelines as to what amounts to 'torture', reports indicate that doctors are often engaged in activities which are difficult to reconcile with any conception of medical ethics. ⋯ The skills of doctors with forensic expertise allow detection of human rights abuses and thereby its potential reduction. There is scope for the reduction torture or ill-treatment, if the profession maintain high standards of medical practice and ethics.
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According to Swedish law, it is prohibited to possess and use firearms without a special permission (license), which is given only after a detailed personal investigation. This restrictive legislation accounts for the fact that deaths due to firearms in Sweden are rare in an international comparison. The number of accidental firearm fatalities in Sweden is 0.074/100,000 living persons. ⋯ Unsafe handling of the guns, especially "playing" with the gun or during military training caused most of the accidents. It is doubtful that one could further decrease the low number of fatal firearm accidents in Sweden by even more restrictive legislation. Instead, it is concluded that the most important factor to stress is the safer handling of weapons.
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A case of fatal caffeine toxicity due to suicidal ingestion of a "look-alike" illicit drug is reported. Caffeine concentrations were determined by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) with the brain having the highest level reported in the literature to date. Also, the blood concentration of caffeine was one of the highest among the cases reported. A literature review of caffeine fatalities is presented.
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In 169 consecutive cases of autopsied fire victims about 50% had lethal levels of carboxyhemoglobin. Soot in the respiratory tract was found in about 90% of the cases. ⋯ More than half of the fire victims had alcohol in the blood exceeding 0.05%, and alcohol intoxication should be considered accessary to many deaths in fire. The characteristic biphasic distribution of carboxyhemoglobin in fire victims together with other observations suggest that the principal causes of death are carbon monoxide followed by carbon dioxide poisoning and/or oxygen deficiency, while the influence of heat is considered to be of minor importance.
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When a blood typing is made for mixed stains of sweat and blood, erroneous results may be obtained. The reason is that the blood group substance in the sweat is detected at the same time as that in the blood. In this paper the typing of the blood stain on the sweat stain is carried out by the detection of isoagglutinins which may give additional information to the forensic serologist.