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Children in states with booster seat laws more likely to be appropriately restrained in car crashes

Children age 4 to 7 in states with booster seat laws appear more likely to be appropriately restrained during car crashes than children in states without booster seat laws, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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Keywords: children, states, booster, seat, laws, likely, appropriately, restrained, car, crashes, state, law, crashe

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1. During biggest travel weekend, beware of states that don't enforce seat belt laws
   11-20-2007 · EurekAlert!
   Thanksgiving marks the heaviest travel weekend of the year and that means large increases in the number of fatal car crashes, particularly in rural areas. And nowhere is that more true than in states that don't adequately enforce seat belt laws. The University of Minnesota Center for Excellence in Rural Safety today released an analysis showing a strong connection between states lacking strong seat belt laws and states with a high proportion of fatalities on rural roads.
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2. Immediate license suspension for DWI saves 800 lives each year
   07-24-2007 · EurekAlert!
   State laws that require immediate suspension of the driver's license for failing an alcohol breath test have had a deterrent effect on drunk driving and saved 800 lives from fatal crashes each year, new research shows. However, laws that suspend licenses or impose fines or jail sentences after conviction have little noticeable deterrent effect, according to one of the most comprehensive studies on the impact of drunk driving laws in the United States.
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3. Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
   02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
   Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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4. Seat belt injuries could signal more serious trauma in children
   08-09-2007 · EurekAlert!
   Ill-fitting seatbelts raise the risk of serious injury to children involved in car accidents. And seat belt injuries should alert physicians to look for signs of more serious consequences, particularly spinal cord injury, which is not always immediately apparent.
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5. Using the safety belt in the rear seats of the car reduces death risk by almost a half
   01-29-2008 · EurekAlert!
   A study carried out at the University of Granada reveals that women and children younger than three years old who travel in the rear seats of the car are ore likely to die in the event of a road crash than men. The research work also points out that the left side of the inside is more dangerous than the central or the right side.
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6. Guns in homes strongly associated with higher rates of suicide
   04-10-2007 · EurekAlert!
   In the first nationally representative study to examine the relationship between survey measures of household firearm ownership and state level rates of suicide in the US, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that suicide rates among children, women and men of all ages are higher in states where more households have guns.
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7. State laws may limit implementation of CDC's recommendations for routine HIV testing
   10-09-2007 · EurekAlert!
   A new study concludes that routine testing for HIV recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control may violate many state laws. The study, published on Oct. 10 in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, found that more than 30 states require specific consent before HIV testing may occur. Nearly half of them require that consent to be in writing.
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8. Majority of state Medicaid programs have or plan to have 'pay-for-performance' programs
   04-12-2007 · EurekAlert!
   In the first published nationwide survey of state Medicaid programs on "pay-for-performance" practices, more than half of all programs state that they provide financial incentives to health care providers for better quality care. Almost 85 percent of states plan to have pay-for-performance programs within five years. Researchers also found that most current programs focus on women's, children's and adolescents' health issues.
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9. Low-income US children less likely to have access to qualified teachers
   01-23-2008 · EurekAlert!
   Children from low-income families in the United States do not have the same access to qualified teachers as do wealthier students, according to a University of Missouri study. Compared to 46 countries, the United States had the fourth largest opportunity gap, the difference between students of high and low socioeconomic status in their access to qualified teachers.
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10. MU law professor advocates full restoration of rights to ex-felons
    09-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
    Felon exclusion laws impact not only individuals, but also communities, according to a University of Missouri-Columbia law professor. By their suppressive nature, the legal statutes, which vary from state to state, have devastating socioeconomic, political and legal effects on African-American communities nationwide, he contends.
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