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Background: Few studies have been conducted on young people's attitudes to the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic. We wished to examine how young people with an ethnic minority background decided whether to have the COVID-19 vaccine, based on the concept of vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy involves uncertainty with regard to vaccination, irrespective of the decision taken., Material and Method: Fourteen qualitative in-depth interviews with young people aged 16-25 years with an ethnic minority background and from the east side of Oslo were analysed and categorised into main themes. The participants also had links to the Middle East, South Asia and Africa., Results: Several of the study participants were hesitant to be vaccinated. Their hesitation was linked to the impression that the vaccine had been developed rapidly, false rumours, long travel times to vaccination centres and fear of adverse effects. A number called for better information. Vaccination through the school was described as a facilitating factor. Family and friends were less crucial in their assessment of whether to have the COVID-19 vaccine. The majority had trust in the authorities., Interpretation: Insufficient knowledge about the vaccine and fear of adverse effects, as well as practical barriers associated with undergoing vaccination, appears to contribute to vaccine scepticism among young people with an ethnic minority background. The authorities and healthcare personnel should provide young people with better vaccine information. Information should be provided by personnel they already trust, such as the school nurse.

Bakgrunn: Smittesporing har fått ny aktualitet grunnet covid-19, men har lenge vært viktig i bekjempelsen av seksuelt overførbare infeksjoner. I denne artikkelen vil vi belyse hvordan smittesporingen ved seksuelt overførbare infeksjoner i Norge har endret seg de siste 120 årene., Materiale Og Metode: Kildegrunnlaget er årsberetninger fra Kristiania Sundhetskommission og Oslo Helseråd, årsrapporter fra Meldingssystem for smittsomme sykdommer ved Folkehelseinstituttet (MSIS), skjema for innkalling av pasienter, et originalt maskinskrevet manuskript av helseinspektør Harald Christian Gjessing (1896-1988) samt personlige meddelelser fra Øivind Jul Nilsen, seniorrådgiver ved Folkehelseinstituttet., Resultater Og Fortolkning: Smittesporing er i varierende grad dokumentert i årsberetningene fra Kristiania Sundhetskommission fra slutten av 1800-tallet og fram til dagens MSIS-rapporter. Politiet var sterkt involvert i kontrollen av kjønnssykdommene på slutten av 1800-tallet, men legene overtok mer av ansvaret ut over 1900-tallet. Under den annen verdenskrig ble igjen politiet mer involvert i kontroll og smittesporing. I 1947 kom lov om åtgjerder mot kjønnssykdommer, som stadfestet behandlende leges plikt til å utføre smittesporing. Denne loven ble erstattet av smittevernloven i 1995. Kvaliteten på smittesporingen over tid er noe vanskelig å vurdere, da datagrunnlaget for statistikken har endret seg. Fra å være et moralsk anliggende, med sterke elementer av tvang og hjelp fra sedelighetspolitiet, ble smittesporing etter hvert basert på frivillighet og samarbeid mellom lege og pasient.

Background: Coercion and involuntary psychiatric admission have been the subject of heated debate in recent years. A new Act was proposed in the summer of 2019, the Act on limitation of coercion, which aims to collect all legislation on coercion within a single legislative Act. If the Act is adopted, the framework for the use of coercion will be the same for both somatic illness and psychiatry. Against this backdrop, we wished to investigate how involuntary admissions have been critically examined, debated and enshrined in law previously., Material and Method: We have examined the three main Acts (and the preparatory work on these) that have been adopted in the psychiatric healthcare service in Norway. We have paid particular attention to the criteria for involuntary admissions, which we have attempted to understand in light of their contemporary times., Results and Interpretation: The legislation on coercion retained many basic features from 1848, through 1961 until 1999, even though the attitudes to coercion changed. However, the change in legislation from 2017 shows a significant change in how coercion in the mental healthcare service is viewed. If the Act on limitation of coercion is adopted, coercive mental health care will no longer be regulated by separate legislation.

Background: Undocumented migrants probably fall outside the scope of public infectious disease control schemes. The article aims to describe the extent of undetected highly hazardous communicable diseases among patients at the Health Centre for Undocumented Migrants in Oslo., Material and Method: We reviewed the records of all patients who attended the Health Centre for the first time in 2016 or 2017, with a view to age, sex, period of stay in Norway, country category and infection test results from the period 1 January 2016-31 December 2017., Results: There were four new cases of hepatitis B among 139 patients tested, and four cases of chlamydia infection among 38 patients tested. There were no new cases of active pulmonary tuberculosis, syphilis, HIV infection or hepatitis C., Interpretation: There were fewer cases of highly hazardous communicable diseases than what might be expected based on the countries from which the patients originated.

Background: The policy on drug use is currently undergoing significant change. This article examines how the view of addiction to illegal drugs changed in the first 30 years after the advent of 'the drug problem' in Norway., Material and Method: We performed a search in Oria, bokhylla.no and various databases on the history of illegal drugs in Norway, with an emphasis on the period from 1960-90, with white papers from 1976 and 1986., Results: Until the mid-1960s, Norway had very few opiate abusers. This generally concerned abuse of medically prescribed drugs, and was perceived as an internal problem for the health services. The youth counterculture in the late 1960s brought the recreational use of illegal substances to Norway, leading to major concern on the part of the public authorities. 'The drug problem' was now perceived as a significant societal problem, with social and societal causal explanations, and was therefore the subject of a white paper (1976). The next white paper (1986) put forward the ideal of a 'drug-free society' for the first time, with the purpose of general deterrence and strict sentencing as important instruments., Interpretation: From the early 1960s until the late 1980s, the 'drug problem' was perceived in different ways. At the start of the period, it was formulated primarily as a medical problem. From the late 1960s, it was seen first and foremost as a social problem caused by changes in society, whereas from the late 1970s until the late 1980s, control measures constituted the most important instrument to address the problem.

In the period from 1891 - 1910, around 2000 patients with syphilis were admitted to the Department of Dermatology, Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet. The head of the department, Cæsar Boeck (1845 - 1917), believed in allowing the disease to take its natural course and withheld treatment. He made detailed notes of the diagnosis and the clinical course of the disease for all his patients. Boeck's material is unique, and forms the basis for our current knowledge about the prognosis and course of syphilis infections. In 1928, the patients were scrutinised by Boeck's successor in the Department of Dermatology, Edvin Bruusgaard (1869 - 1934), and later by Trygve Gjestland (1911 - 1993). Gjestland's doctoral thesis from 1955 has remained as «The Oslo study of untreated syphilis.» This article presents a medical historical background for the study. Bruusgaard's and Gjestland's research was important for the Tuskegee Study in the USA, and the Oslo study gave implicit support to this research project, which posterity has emphatically condemned as ethically unacceptable.

BACKGROUND This article examines two factors that helped to trigger and drive forward the debate about research ethics committees (now the Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics) in Norway in the 1970s: the revision of the Declaration of Helsinki by a Scandinavian working group, and the unfolding of the so-called Gro case in the Norwegian national media.METHOD We have used existing literature in the form of books and articles on the history of research ethics from the University Library of the University of Oslo, the National Library of Norway, the History of Science, Technology and Medicine database, and Retriever. We have manually reviewed issues of the Dagbladet daily newspaper from 1974, and relevant volumes of the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association from the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, we have used the archives of the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions, and the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Oslo.RESULTS The World Medical Association's revision of the Declaration of Helsinki in 1975 stipulated the use of independent ethics committees for the assessment and supervision of research projects. The Gro case, which concerned the testing of behavioural therapeutic treatment on a young girl resident in an institution and the ensuing public debate, led to a demand from the public for closer monitoring and ethical regulation of research activity.INTERPRETATION Both of the events mentioned were used actively in the argumentation and preparatory work for the establishment of research ethics committees.

Background: The term schizophrenia is being debated worldwide in connection with the updating of current classification systems for mental illness. There is a growing tendency towards a more uniform and dimensional way of thinking, where it is recognised that there is a gradual transition between the symptom patterns in the bipolar and schizophrenia spectrum and individual symptoms are manifested in a continuum extending from well to ill., Material and Method: We have selected some texts from the 1800 s and studied them in the light of the current debate. The purpose of this article is not to explain historical events, and our selection of texts is not claimed to be representative. Rather, we have attempted to bring texts from the past into the current discussion concerning classification and the concept of continuum., Results: In texts from the 1800 s, mental illness was perceived as a spectrum of disorders that ranged from ill to well. Rather than set clear and distinct boundaries between disorders, these authors made it clear that the transitions were gradual. A number of them believed that the different forms taken by mental illness were merely different manifestations of one and the same disorder., Interpretation: Both the manifestations of the illnesses and psychiatrists' diagnostic constructs reflect the practice and thinking of the past. This makes historical reviews fruitful as a backdrop to the current debate.

Radesyge first appeared in south-western Norway in the middle of the 18th century; the endemic that followed was to haunt the region for close to one hundred years. The disease was characterized by severe wounds, often with bone decomposition. The face was frequently involved, causing striking malformations. Radesyge was at the time considered a serious threat to society and was the subject of intense public debate over several decades. Core components of the modern health care system in Norway can trace their origin to countermeasures taken to combat the spread of this disease. In this article, the author argues that rather than viewing radesyge as an outbreak of tertiary syphilis, which has been the custom for the last hundred years, it should, for scholarly purposes, be seen as a separate event. This is the only way to properly grasp the impact of the endemic on patients, society, politics and science at the time.

Background: Cervical cancer is the third most frequent cancer among women worldwide. Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is a necessary risk factor and the first step in cervical carcinogenesis., Material and Methods: This article reviews the current literature concerning the possibility of preventing cervical cancer by HPV testing and vaccination., Results: HPV testing cannot replace cytology, but will reduce false negative cytology and may improve the screening programme for cervical neoplasia. It has not yet been incorporated in any national cervical cancer screening program, but trials are ongoing in Scandinavia and in the Netherlands. The cost-effectiveness of HPV testing in screening has to be proven and whether it can affect the recommended screening-intervals. Therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines for HPV associated disease are in progress. Evaluating the clinical trials that are ongoing will take several years. Several anti-HPV vaccines are now in clinical trials; Norway will also participate. Therapeutic vaccines against cervical cancer have so far not been successful, but anogenital dysplasias and condylomas may be more susceptible. Prophylactic vaccines against HPV 6, 11, 16 and 18 have been evaluated in clinical phase I and II trials, and phase III trials are in progress., Interpretation: HPV testing improves the specificity and sensitivity of cervical cytology and it can be used to clarify cases with atypical cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS) and low-grade intraepithelial neoplasia. In the near future it may also be included in the cervical cancer screening programme for women above the age of 30. The first results in clinical vaccine trials are encouraging, and final conclusions about the effectiveness of these vaccines may be achieved in five years' time.

Background: The causal link between Human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical neoplasia has been established through clinical, epidemiological and molecular studies during the last two decades. In 1995, HPV 16 and 18 were classified as human carcinogens., Materials and Methods: This paper discusses the aetiological role of HPV infection in carcinomas of the anogenital region, the respiratory and the upper digestive tract on the basis of a literature search and the author's own research., Results: Almost all patients with cervical carcinomas and precursor lesions are HPV-positive. HPV is a necessary, but not sufficient factor in carcinogenesis. Several risk factors such as other sexually transmitted diseases, sexual activity, smoking, immunosuppression and diet may be important. High prevalences of HPV-DNA have also been found in carcinomas of other anogenital regions; however, HPV does not seem to be important in prostate carcinogenesis. Recent studies have shown that HPV may be a risk factor in carcinogenesis in the respiratory and upper digestive tract, but its aetiological role has yet to be proved., Interpretation: Therapeutic and prophylactic vaccination is now being developed. In a few years time they may influence the treatment and prophylaxis of cervical carcinomas, some of the most common cancers among women worldwide.

Since the publication of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique in 1985, there has been an explosion of reports on its use in medicine and science. In this overview the use and limitations of PCR in diagnostic pathology are discussed. As biopsies get smaller, molecular technology will play an ever greater role in improving diagnostic accuracy. PCR is useful in tumour characterisation by assessment of clonality and detection of specific chromosomal rearrangements. This way better targeting of therapeutic intervention is possible. The value of PCR in the diagnosis of cancer, HLA typing and the detection of microorganisms is illustrated by some case reports.

Melancholy--the word has many and varied significations. It has more or less disappeared from the medical vocabulary; in ICD-10 it is only used for depressions with somatic symptoms. However, the concept continues to live on in cultural contexts; in the newspaper as a classification of an artist or his work as a distinguished form of moody creativity, or in cultural theory as an existential or philosophical category. In this article, the historical basis for this remarkable variety of significations is traced. From its beginnings in antiquity with Hippocrates and the humoral theory, through the renaissance focus on the genius, to the separation of humanist and medical disciplines, the concept lives on and takes on new meanings on its way.

What are the implications for health of freedom as a community value? This article focuses on the fact that both health and freedom are complex concepts that elude a concise definition. Depending on how you define them, the answer to the question above will vary. Different conceptions of health and freedom are described initially, and then their interdependence is illustrated by means of examples. One issue examined is how the breakdown of the communist regime in the former Soviet Union influenced life expectancy, another the positive and negative aspects of the Cuban health system. Finally, the importance of a questioning attitude to the two concepts is underlined.

Gastrointestinal involvement in neurofibromatosis occurs in three major forms: solitary neurogenic tumours, diffuse ganglioneuromatosis and visceral vasculopathy. The entire gastrointestinal tract may be affected. According to the literature, 10-25% of the patients with neurofibromatosis develop intestinal manifestations. However, the recorded incidence is probably too low, since many cases are undiagnosed. Two cases of large plexiform neurofibromas and diffuse ganglioneuromatosis of appendix and intestine are reported.