The 21st Century Cures Act Implications for the Reduction of Racial Health Disparities in the US Criminal Justice System: a Public Health Approach.

Past drug epidemics have disproportionately criminalized drug addiction among African Americans, leading to disparate health outcomes, increased rates of HIV/AIDS, and mass incarceration. Conversely, the current opioid addiction crisis in the USA focuses primarily on white communities and is being addressed as a public health problem. The 21st Century Cures Act has the potential to reduce racial health disparities in the criminal justice system through the Act's public health approach to addiction and mental health issues. The 21st Century Cures Act is a progressive step in the right direction; however, given the historical context of segregation and the criminalization of drug addiction among African Americans, the goals of health equity are at risk of being compromised. This paper discusses the implications of this landmark legislation and its potential to decrease racial health disparities, highlighting the importance of ensuring that access to treatment and alternatives to incarceration must include communities of color. In this paper, the authors explain the key components of the 21st Century Cures Act that are specific to criminal justice reform, including a key objective, which is treatment over incarceration. We suggest that without proper attention to how, and where, funding mechanisms are distributed, the 21st Century Cures Act has the potential to increase racial health disparities rather than alleviate them.

Relaxin regulation of endometrial structure and function in the rhesus monkey.

Despite the documented importance of the protein hormone relaxin in reproduction in various mammalian species, the role of relaxin in human reproduction is poorly understood, largely because of the lack of studies in women or in suitable non-human primate models. Here we describe the establishment of a non-human primate model of early human pregnancy and its use in defining the actions of relaxin. Results demonstrate that relaxin exerts dramatic uterine effects including pronounced increase in uterine weight and stimulation of endometrial angiogenesis and resident endometrial lymphocyte number. In addition, relaxin decreases endometrial levels of matrix metalloproteinases 1 and 3 and increases levels of their endogenous inhibitor, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1, resulting in maintenance of endometrial collagen content. Relaxin significantly inhibits endometrial levels of estrogen receptor alpha, but not beta, and of progesterone receptor isoforms A and B. The findings that relaxin stimulates new blood vessel formation and increases cytokine-containing lymphocyte number while maintaining endometrial connective tissue integrity are consistent with a significant role of relaxin in the establishment and/or maintenance of early pregnancy.