Word: bullet
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This is, as an AIDS expert puts it, hope with an asterisk. Even if Ho's treatment works, there is still no magic bullet for patients in late stages of the disease and no vaccine that will inoculate against HIV infection. The cost of the cocktails (up to $20,000 a year) puts them beyond the reach of all but the best-insured patients--and out of the question for the 90% who live in the developing world...
...town's 13th century cathedral. But in the months since the March day when a failed youth leader named Thomas Hamilton strode into the Dunblane primary school with four legally owned handguns and began shooting--shooting until 16 children and one teacher were dead and Hamilton had put a bullet in his own head--the British media have observed an informal blackout, so that a terrible nightmare has not been made cheap as well...
...However, in an otherwise benign piece from November 25 ("Cancer: The Good News"), Time reported that "the bad news is that all those billions spent on research in basic science may have had little to do with [the decline in cancer deaths]. Doctors have still not found a magic bullet against cancer, and it is becoming increasingly clear that they probably never will...
Although it is true that the majority of the decline in cancer deaths is due to prevention, it is unduly pessimistic to assume that doctors will probably never find a cure for cancer. It is even misleading to say that because we haven't found the magic bullet, we have not achieved anything in fighting the disease. Medicine does not involve only two options: cure or no cure. Instead, alleviation of symptoms, improved quality and extension of life aids sufferers when no cure exists. However, an even more disturbing implication of the article is that because basic research...
...media has a responsibility to paint a true picture of the importance of basic research, especially cancer research. Medicine can eliminate few diseases completely with a magic bullet as it did polio (which the World Health Organization believes has been eliminated through vaccines.) But it can significantly improve the prognosis for patients, as it does for diabetics who can lead a near-normal lifestyle without a cure. In this war against cancer, we do not have to decimate the enemy to win. Each small achievement is a victory...