Capsules

P:Regardless of advertising claims, it is impossible so far to get all the caffeine out of coffee, reported the A.M.A.'s chemical laboratory. A cup of regular "decaffeinated" coffee still contains about one-third as much caffeine as the straight Java, but instant coffee can be decaffeinated to one-eighth of normal.

P: With a weather eye on next year's March of Dimes, President Basil O'Connor of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis announced research grants totaling $1,652,741, said pointedly: "The fight against polio is not over," even though the development of Salk vaccine indicates "the beginning of the end." The foundation still hopes to find a drug to prevent or treat the disease.

P:The Public Health Service lifted a blackout, reported a total of 209 confirmed polio cases (126 of them paralytic) among the 6,000,000 children who got Salk vaccine, and 202 cases among their contacts, mostly family. But PHS was at pains to emphasize that such figures mean little until they can be plotted against the numbers that would have been expected without vaccination. This statistical job will take months.

P:Kentucky law says that mental patients being considered for commitment by court order must be examined by two doctors. But, said Circuit Judge Lawrence S. Grauman in Louisville, his panel of eight such doctors has shrunk to two, one of them semi-retired.One trouble: the doctors must go together (perhaps miles into the hills) to examine a patient, then they must write a joint report, and both must testify in court. For all this, a fee of $3 and no reimbursement for expenses.

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