We became interested in this topic because we realized that the current trends in the delivery of anesthesia for surgery in the United States are leading patients into environments where pre-operative preparation is minimal, backup laboratory facilites and intensive care units are nonexistent and the only anesthetic given is the cheapest variety that also happens to be the most potent trigger of MH. We know that there are MH susceptible families in our region. We know that there is no easy test to determine which of their children are really susceptible and which are not. We decided that the most useful work we could do would be to help identify these families and work toward the development of a simplier diagnostic test. Estimating the incidence of episodes of MH and the prevalence of MH susceptibility will be important in determining the utility of a diagnostic test offered to a population with no personal or family history of MH. We would have thought that deaths from MH do not occur now in the USA, but we have learned that they still do occur through the reports of the MH Hotline.