We examined the relationship of pulmonary infection and inflammation in cystic fibrosis (CF) by performing 31 bronchoalveolar lavages (BAL) in 14 young children with minimal lung disease from CF. While 10 of the 14 patients had elevated polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN) counts initially, only 4 had bacteria generally regarded as pathogenic in the recovered BAL fluid. Three of these 4 and 6 of the others had follow-up bronchoscopies at 6 months intervals. PMN counts remained normal for only one patient. However, pathogenic bacteria were recovered during the repeat BALs only in those patients who were colonized initially. Proinflammatory cytokines and proteinases were generally elevated, and interleukin-8 (IL-8) concentration correlated inversely with oxygen saturation (SaO2). No complications of the procedure occurred. We conclude that BAL identifies inflammation and the presence of bacteria in the lower airway at an early stage of the disease. This information may be used to guide therapy in patients too young or otherwise unable to produce sputum. These data also suggest that inflammation is present early in the course of CF lung disease before colonization and infection of the lungs with potentially pathogenic bacteria occurs. Since inflammation appears to be the earliest detectable evidence of lung disease in CF, monitoring of inflammation with BAL may serve as a useful marker of clinical benefits from new treatments in patients with minimal lung disease.

This article discusses medications as socially embedded phenomena, using the class of psychoactive medications as a primary example. The analytical perspective is systemic, constructivist, and critical. We suggest that the ‘rational use of drugs’ paradigm fails to appreciate various legitimate rationalities motivating medication usages and is therefore inadequate to understand the place of medications in society. Medications have complex life cycles, with diverse actors, social systems, and institutions determining who uses what medications, how, when and why. Such understanding permits analyzing medications simultaneously as entities and representations. We outline recent changes in usage patterns of psychoactive medications (notably prescriptions to children), in pharmaceutical marketing practices (notably direct-to-consumer advertising), and in the construction of knowledge about drugs (notably the role of the Internet in legitimating consumers’ viewpoints). These changes indicate that medication life cycles evolve and mutate with social and technological change. These life cycles are viewed, then, as systems – part of other social, cultural, and economic systems, themselves in constant change. This perspective provides fertile ground to raise several research questions in order to understand better the nature of medications, their effects, and their place in society.

The aims of this study are to compare the level of psychological distress between Norwegian born and immigrants from countries with different income levels and culture, and to investigate the explanatory effect of socioeconomic and psychosocial factors, with special emphasis on lack of control (powerlessness and self-efficacy). A cross-sectional survey with self-administered questionnaire was conducted in 2000-2001 in a sample of 15,723 adults living in Oslo. Psychological distress was measured by a ten-item shortened version of Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 items, whereas psychosocial variables were measured by various instruments. The results show that the level of psychological distress is significantly higher in immigrants from low- and middle-income countries than in the Norwegian born and the immigrants from high-income countries. They also report more powerlessness, more negative life events, less social support, less income and less paid work. It is concluded that negative life events, mainly related to social network, somatic health and economic situations, as well as lack of social support, are important mediators between immigration from low- and middle-income countries to Norway and psychological distress. Powerlessness also plays a role, but this is mainly because of a concept overlap between psychological distress and powerlessness.

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