Interviews were previously conducted with 72 heroin-addicted female street prostitutes who spread HIV by sharing injection paraphernalia and engaging in unprotected sex with multiple male customers. Most were willing to enroll in free methadone maintenance if made available. Forty-one female addict-prostitutes subsequently entered free methadone maintenance. Twenty-five remained in treatment after one year. Their personal income from prostitution and other crime was reduced 58%; income from legal sources increased 86%. Total urinalyses positive for non-prescribed drugs decreased from 80% on admission to 51%. This pilot study validates the attraction of free methadone maintenance and concomitant reduction of illegal drug use and prostitution, two predictors of HIV infection. However, close supervision and effective counseling and rehabilitative services provided by better trained staff are required for successful outcomes among addict-prostitutes in methadone maintenance.

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ICP-MS analysis recorded historical change (c. 1846 to 2002) in the arsenic concentration of bark included within the trunks (tree bark pockets) of two Japanese oak trees (Quercus crispula), collected at an elevated location approximately 10 km from the Ashio copper mine and smelter, Japan. The arsenic concentration of the bark pockets was 0.016 +/- 0.003 microg cm(-2) c. 1846 (n = 5) and rose 50-fold from c. 1875 to c. 1925, from approximately 0.01 to 0.5 microg cm(-2). The rise coincided with increased copper production in Ashio from local sulfide ores, from 46 tons per year in 1877 to 16,500 tons per year in 1929. Following a decline in arsenic concentration and copper production, in particular during the Second World War, a second peak was observed c. 1970, corresponding to high levels of production from both local (6,000 tons per year) and imported (30,000 tons per year) ores, smelted from 1954. Compared to the local ores, the contribution of arsenic from imported ores appeared relatively low. Arsenic concentrations declined from c. 1970 to the present following the closure of the mine in 1974 and smelter in 1989, recording 0.058 +/- 0.040 microg cm(-2) arsenic (n = 5) in surface bark collected in 2002. The coincident trends in arsenic concentration and copper production indicated that the bark pockets provided an effective record of historical change in atmospheric arsenic deposition.

No abstract