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Biomedical subjects

S M Butler

Publications and source records attributed to S M Butler.

29 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1991

A tax reform strategy to deal with the uninsured.

The high level of ininsurance in the United States is due in large measure to the tax treatment of health care, which is based on the tax exclusion for company-provided plans. Correcting the perverse incentives for providers and patients resulting from this tax treatment is the crucial step to creating a national health care system that is affordable and efficient. The Heritage Foundation proposal calls for the elimination of the current tax exclusion and its replacement with a system of refundable tax credits for the purchase of health insurance and medical services.

Federal Government↗
PubMed1991

Containing health costs in a consumer-based model.

The assumption that consumer choice cannot be used to achieve cost control in health care is invalid. It does not do so today because the tax treatment of health care leads to perverse consumer incentives that encourage cost escalation. By reforming the tax treatment of insurance and out-of-pocket medical costs, it is possible to design an efficient and universal system in which consumer choice is a powerful restraint on cost.

Community Participation↗
PubMed1988

Fatty acid metabolism of the perfused caudate lobe from livers of fed and fasted non-pregnant and fasted late pregnant ewes.

1. Fatty acid metabolism has been compared in perfused liver lobes from fed and fasted non-pregnant sheep and fasted pregnant sheep to provide further information on the control of ketogenesis in this species. 2. Ketogenesis from exogenous palmitate was greatest in lobes from fasted pregnant sheep and least in lobes from fed non-pregnant sheep, whereas rates of ketogenesis from exogenous octanoate (0.4 mM) were similar in lobes from sheep in all three states. 3. High rates of ketogenesis from endogenous fatty acids occurred in perfused lobes from fasted pregnant sheep, apparently owing to enhanced lipolysis. 4. Activities of glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase, carnitine palmitoyl transferase (CPT) and other enzymes involved in ketone production did not change with physiological state; sheep differ markedly from rats in this respect. 5. The results suggest that the primary point of control of ketogenesis within the liver of sheep is at the level of CPT; the lack of change in maximum CPT activity suggests that control by modulators of this enzyme activity is even more important in sheep than in rats.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

Diet and risk factors for coronary heart disease in Asians in northwest London.

Asian immigrants to England and Wales have high mortality from coronary heart disease but low mortality from colon cancer. A survey of Asians in the London boroughs of Brent and Harrow was undertaken with the object of investigating this. Compared with the British population, the Asians consumed less saturated (S) fat and cholesterol and more polyunsaturated (P) fat and vegetable fibre. The P/S ratio of the Asians' diet was 0.85 compared with 0.28 in the British population: this was reflected in the very high linoleic acid content of their plasma lipids. The plasma total cholesterol and high-density-lipoprotein cholesterol of Asian men was similar to that of a British comparison group; the concentrations in Asian women were much lower than in British women. Smoking rates were low in both Asian men and Asian women. The high rates of coronary heart disease in Asian immigrants are not explained by the levels of these risk factors.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Random effects models with non-parametric priors.

We discuss the performance of non-parametric maximum likelihood (NPML) estimators for the distribution of a univariate random effect in the analysis of longitudinal data. For continuous data, we analyse generated and real data sets, and compare the NPML method to those that assume a Gaussian random effects distribution and to ordinary least squares. For binary outcomes we use generated data to study the moderate and large-sample performance of the NPML compared with a method based on a Gaussian random effect distribution in logistic regression. We find that estimated fixed effects are compatible for all approaches, but that appropriate standard errors for the NPML require adjusting the likelihood-based standard errors. We conclude that the non-parametric approach provides an attractive alternative to Gaussian-based methods, though additional evaluations are necessary before it can be recommended for general use.

Likelihood Functions↗