The rational use of therapeutic drugs is arising as a consequence of an increase in the search for advanced therapeutic drugs. The therapeutic drugs use, that is a pharmacoepidemiology deal, can give evidence of how a society manage with all steps of therapeutic drugs use and also all consequence of this use. The therapeutic drugs use evaluation can demonstrate how healthyness/ilness link is handled in that society. The aim of this study was an evaluation of therapeutic drugs use at the Campo Grande/ MS public health. WHO indicators were used in this research. The evaluation was done using the medical prescrition indicator. The data were collected in 12 health care units between July 1998 and June 1999. One thousand four hundred eighty prescriptions were analyzed, 1456 medical visits and 1498 dispensations were followed and 735 patients were interviewed. The results were in agreement with other results in other country regions. However, important differences were found in antibiotics and injectable prescritions among different health care unit staffs evaluated. These differences sugested the necessity of more specific studies. The quality of the users attendance must be improved. The Local Essential Drugs List must be always available and also updated to health care unit staff.

Os museus abertos, como parques e zoologicos, exercem um papel importante na divulgacao e na popularizacao das ciencias. Eles, geralmente, propoem atividades dirigidas ao grande publico heterogeneo constituido de uma parcela consideravel de grupos familiares. As atividades educativas oferecidas nesses espacos induzem diferentes niveis de interatividadeentre os visitantes e os animais. Nosso artigo resume a observacao de quatro grupos familiares no borboletario da Fundacao Zoo-Botânica de Belo Horizonte, resultando em dados que foram avaliados qualitativamente. O resultado indica tres niveis de interatividade entre os elementos de exposicao desse espaco e os integrantes do grupo.

Thalidomide was first introduced to the market in Germany under the brand name of Contergan in 1956, as a non-barbiturate hypnotic, advocated to ensure a good nights sleep and to prevent morning sickness in pregnancy. It was advertised for its prompt action, lack of hangover, and apparent safety. It has been banned from the market since 1963 after it caused the worldwide teratogenic disaster: babies exposed to thalidomide in utero during the first 34-50 days of pregnancy were born with severe life-threatening birth defects. Despite its unfortunate history, thalidomide has attracted scientific interest again because of its recently discovered action against inflammatory diseases and cancer. Its broad range of biological activities stems from its ability to moderate cytokine action in cancer and inflammatory diseases. Early studies examined its anxiolytic, mild hypnotic, antiemetic, and adjuvant analgesic properties. Subsequently, thalidomide was found to be highly effective in managing the cutaneous manifestations of leprosy, being superior to Aspirin in controlling leprosy-associated fever. Recent research has shown promising results with thalidomide in patients with myeloma, myelodysplastic syndrome, a variety of infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, cancer, and progressive body weight loss related to advanced cancer and AIDS. Here we review the history of its development, pharmacokinetics, metabolism, biologic effects, and the results of clinical trials conducted thus far. Further research in this field should be directed towards better understanding of thalidomide metabolism, its mechanism of action, and the development of less toxic and more active analogs.

It is shown that embedding a four-dimensional flipped SU(5) model in a five-dimensional SO(10) model, preserves the best features of both flipped SU(5) and SO(10). The missing partner mechanism, which naturally achieves both doublet-triplet splitting and suppression of d=5 proton decay operators, is realized as in flipped SU(5), while the gauge couplings are unified as in SO(10). The masses of down quarks and charged leptons, which are independent in flipped SU(5), are related by the SO(10). Distinctive patterns of quark and lepton masses can result. The gaugino mass M_1 is independent of M_3 and M_2, which are predicted to be equal.