Pitfalls of Genetic Patenting Confound Consumers, Industry by Gina Shaw Who owns your genes? You do, of course. But itís a bit more complicated than that. As the human genome has been sequenced, some 8,000 U.S. patents have already been granted to the laboratories and organizations that originally isolated them. Although clarified rules issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2001 require patenters to prove that their ìinventionî (the isolated gene or gene sequence) has specific, credible and substantial useótheoretically preventing scientists from patenting huge chunks of isolated genes before they even know what the genes in question might doóthe patent gold rush continues.....more... OCD Causes Many to Suffer in Silence by Carolyn Cosmos A successful, middle-age tax attorney with a large family is having a meal at a restaurant in downtown Washington. Fearful that he might have put poison in the saltshakers on each table, he finds himself surreptitiously collecting and hiding them, tormented by the thought that he might injure someone. A young Maryland mother admired for her tireless community work becomes convinced that she might molest her two little girls, although she has no actual interest in doing so. These examples are fictional composites based on the clinical experiences of Dr. Gerald Nestadt, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Md. Although they do not depict actual individuals, they do illustrate the kinds of troubling obsessions and compulsions that haunt people suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder.....more... Directory of U.S. Hospitals S erving International Patients

Learning the ABCs of Hepatitis by Gina Shaw Country singer Naomi Judd and former ìBaywatchî babe Pamela Anderson seem like two women with virtually nothing in common except for their fame. But something else links these two women: a liver disease called hepatitis C. Judd, a wholesome country mom, and Anderson, an outrageous tabloid queen, epitomize the wide reach of hepatitis C, one of a family of liver diseases with alphabet-soup names that, unfortunately, all too few people understand....more... Alternative Drug Interactions May Make for Bad Medicine by Carolyn Cosmos The worst interaction I ever saw in an emergency room involving an herbal medicine was an interaction between St. Johnís wort and the anti-depressant Prozac," said an emergency room nurse working at a hospital in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. The nurse, who did not wish to be identified by name, is among many health professionals who worry about the dangers of combining "complementary and alternative medicine," or CAM, with prescription drugs, anesthesia and other standard medical treatments....more... Vaccine for Cervical Cancer Has Patients, Medical Industry Hopeful by Anna Gawel In late November, news of a potential vaccine for cervical cancer created quite a stir in the medical community and generated hopeful speculation across the country that the first-ever cancer vaccine might be in the foreseeable future. A study found that the experimental vaccine, which is being developed by Merck Research Laboratories, was completely effective in protecting against human papilloma virus, or HPV, the virus responsible for virtually all cases of cervical cancer....more...