Word: pill
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Every novel, every movie that updates Frankenstein provides a cautionary tale: these experiments may not turn out as we expect. Genetic engineering is more permanent than a pill or a summer-school class. Parents would be making decisions over which their children had no control and whose long-term impact would be uncertain. "Human organisms are not things you hang ornaments on like a Christmas tree," says Thomas Murray, Hastings' director. "If you make a change in one area, it may cause very subtle changes in some other area. Will there be an imbalance that the scientists are not looking...
...sleep, perchance to dream... that is, if you've planned ahead and taken your sleeping pills hours before you want to nod off. For insomnia suffers, the problem with most prescription sleeping aids is that they take a long time to work and a long time to wear off. That's changed with FDA approval of Sonata, a new prescription sleeping pill. People who used Sonata in clinical trials were usually snoozing within 30 minutes of taking the drug, and reported little grogginess upon waking. Drug maker American Home Products sees Sonata as a direct competitor to the current leading...
AIDING INFANTS Babies of HIV-positive mothers face a 30% chance of contracting the virus during delivery. With the inexpensive and commonly used antiviral drug nevirapine, however, only about 13% of newborns become infected. That's better than a short course of costly AZT and requires just one pill for the mother during labor and a few drops for the baby within three days of birth. It should be a boon to the Third World, where mother-infant transmissions keep AIDS rampant...
Nearly 80% of seniors take at least one pill a day, according to a recent survey. The number of medications in development for diseases associated with the elderly has grown from 225 a decade ago to 648 today. The increased number of prescriptions and the rising cost per pill mean seniors are on a treadmill of ever increasing expenditures. In the past five years national spending for all prescription drugs increased almost 60%. That pace is expected to continue. As seniors become more dependent on these remedies, they are also subjecting themselves to the increasing cost of the medicines. While...
...importance of contraceptive coverage to women," says TIME medical columnist Christine Gorman. "The legislatures are realizing that if you cover Viagra, you have to give equal coverage to birth control." But Viagra may be having an even greater impact than on just the gender-equity front. The male "before" pill is helping bring the message to otherwise healthy people that drug costs in general are going up dramatically. "Most people pay for drugs out of pocket because they have no coverage for any drugs," says Gorman. Viagra has accordingly made many people realize how big their general medical insurance...