Capsules

P: At its Geneva headquarters the World Health Organization proudly celebrated its eighth birthday. One of the largest of U.N.'s specialized agencies (84 member nations, compared with 76 for U.N. itself), WHO spends its $10 million budget on a multitude of worldwide projects. Among them: 500 health programs going in 108 countries or territories (from Paraguay to Pakistan), testing and approving polio vaccines, a chain of stations to predict and prevent flu epidemics, the tightest control ever of TB, malaria, and trachoma, annual control of Mecca pilgrims, a radio warning system on epidemics. Besides sending in its own medical teams to underdeveloped areas, WHO has set up widespread village nurse and sanitation programs, instructed village women on pregnancy and pediatrics.

P: Among U.S. cities with more than 100,000 population, San Francisco had the highest rate of alcoholism in 1950, reported two Yale University researchers. Mark Keller and Vera Efron, in the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol. With a rate of 4,190 "alcoholics with complications" per 100,000 adults, San Francisco far outdistanced nearby Sacramento (2,780) and Louisville (2,380). New York, Detroit and St. Louis finished well out of the first 25; Chicago ranked 17th, behind Washington, D.C. Least alcoholic were Austin, Texas and Charlotte, N.C., both with rates of 440. Avoiding comparisons, Investigators Keller and Efron cautiously passed the buck: "The psychological or cultural factors which influence the regional rates of alcoholism still await elucidation."

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