A survey was administered to adults attending a health fair in south Los Angeles County, approximately 140 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. The survey revealed that 14 percent of respondents had crossed the border to seek medical care during the past year. Nearly 80 percent of respondents crossing the border for medical care were uninsured, while 70 percent reported the low cost of medical care obtained across the border as being the most common reason for seeking care there. Twenty-eight percent of respondents reported purchasing medication in Mexico, with antibiotics and pain medication being reported in highest frequency. Ninety percent of these respondents were uninsured. This study shows that the high cost of health care and lack of insurance compels the poor and uninsured to seek low-cost health care and medication in Mexico to meet their most urgent health care needs, despite the burden of cost and travel.

BackgroundCardiac tumors are uncommon in the pediatric population. When present, cardiac manifestations stem from the tumor causing inflow or outflow obstruction. While common in adults, cardiac myxomas presenting with generalized systemic illness or peripheral emboli especially with no cardiac or neurological symptoms are rare in children.Case presentationWe report a case of a previously healthy adolescent girl who presented with a 6-month history of constitutional symptoms and a purpuric rash with no cardiac or neurologic symptoms, found to have a cardiac myxoma.ConclusionsA vasculopathic rash in the setting of atrial myxomas has been shown be a precursor to significant morbidity and mortality. Due to the rarity of this entity, the time elapsed from onset of non-cardiac symptoms until diagnosis of a myxoma is usually prolonged with interval development of irreversible neurological sequelae and death reported in the literature. Therefore, we highlight the importance of including cardiac myxomas and paraneoplastic vasculitis early in the differential diagnosis for patients presenting with a purpuric rash and systemic symptoms.

The torsional eigenmodes of atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilevers are highly sensitive toward in-plane material properties of the sample. We studied the effect of viscosity and lateral contact stiffness on the detuning, amplitude, and phase response numerically. To verify the theoretical considerations, a torsion mode AFM was operated in frequency modulation. During approach and retract cycles, we observed a negative detuning of the torsional resonant frequency close to the sample surface depending on the tilt angle between the tip and the sample. Thus, the tilt has a significant effect on the imaging process in torsional resonance mode.

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