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Antisense development has required diligent efforts by many labs to allow it to progress. Improved methods have helped to transgress many barriers, resulting in a vibrant technology geared towards generating new human therapuetics.
The discovery of effective disease treatments has slowed. This may be related to a misunderstanding of the treatment-discovery process, and an underappreciation of clinical investigations and off-label drug studies.
The level of scientific understanding required to develop a successful AIDS vaccine is still lacking, although the elements needed to pursue a practical and productive vaccine development program can be defined.
The US government sends a perverse message through its newly announced policy of supporting tobacco exports to developing nations while pontificating about the dangers of teenage smoking.
New data on the AIDS virus suggest that an HIV-1 subtype, ‘clade’ E, which is prevalent in Asia, may spread easily through mucosa, accounting for the greater efficiency of heterosexual spread of the disease in that part of the world.
Three recent reports describe the first in vivo attempts at fetal gene therapy. The results underline the need for more intensive studies of the scientific and ethical implications of this new and perhaps more preventive approach to gene therapy.
The current resurgence of interest in xenotransplantation will result in better definition of the mechanisms responsible for xenograft rejection and should facilitate appropriate therapeutic strategies to provide for long-term graft survival.
Randomized clinical trials are powerful tools to refute old prejudices and establish new therapeutic regimes. We propose that they should be afforded a more widespread application in modern clinical medicine.
By integrating concepts of computer graphics and artificial intelligence, novel ways of representing medical knowledge become possible. They allow unprecedented possibilities ranging from three-dimensional interactive atlases to systems for surgery rehearsal
The prevailing view is that a physician can simultaneously husband economic resources to control health care costs and fulfill a doctor's traditional responsibility to put the patient first. I disagree.
ECT can be life-saving for patients with certain mental illnesses, such as severe depression, but that is no reason to allow ECT without informed consent. Nor is there general medical justification for the use of ECT on children, a practice in the United Kingdom that is out of control.
In all nations that do science, researchers need support not only for the direct costs of experimentation, but also for the direct costs of their institutions. The US is about to see a vast change in the system for such costs that will affect its ability to do science and, quite possibly, limit the opportunities for researchers from other countries who are studying or working in US laboratories.
Contemporary psychiatric misdirections derived primarily from standard medical errors of oversimplification, misplaced emphasis, and invention are reviewed. These particular errors, however, were in part prompted and sustained by the sociocultural fads and fashions of the day. The results have been disastrous for everyone — patients, families, the public and psychiatry itself.
Although Japan's clinical trial system mimics that of the United States, there are certain flaws in the Japanese regulations that prevent it from working effectively.
