Word: wonderments
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...secretary. Since they cannot afford a house, they rent a two-bedroom apartment for $500 a month, where they raise their three-year-old daughter. They too have a ritual. Every two weeks, when they deposit their paychecks, they agonize over the 7% deduction for Social Security tax and wonder if they will ever see that money again -- unless, of course, they visit Grandma. "This whole system just beats the hell out of me," says Paul, 27. "It's like that old saying: robbing from the poor to pay the rich...
Paul does not personally blame the elderly. Few young people do, even when they sense, as they read the newspapers or go shopping for a house, that they are walking into a trap. Who is going to protect young families, they wonder, from an economic system that is eroding their living standards? Or a health system that promises at least partial care for the elderly but guarantees nothing for families with sick children? Or a political system that allows communities to outlaw residents under 19 to ensure peace and quiet -- and reduce school taxes at the same time...
Perhaps the most wondrous of Merck's wonder drugs is its newest, a substance called lovastatin that lowers cholesterol levels in the body by up to 40% and is marketed under the brand name Mevacor. Its development illustrates how Merck achieves breakthroughs via a combination of dogged lab work, close cooperation with FDA officials and a painstaking preoccupation with the safety of potential patients...
These days Vagelos is pushing his researchers to come up with the next generation of wonder drugs. In the testing stages: another cholesterol- lowering drug that could prove more potent and longer lasting than Mevacor; an anti-ulcer medication that has shown a high degree of effectiveness; MK- 538, a drug that holds promise of aiding diabetes sufferers. Merck will soon launch large-scale clinical trials for MK-906, which in preliminary tests shrank swollen prostate glands without bad side effects, alleviating a problem that vexes millions of men over 40. Other teams are studying cures for cataracts, arthritis, cancer...
Healthy, wealthy and more powerful than ever before, America' s senior citizens are hard at work -- and play. But politicians, social scientists and increasing numbers of young people are beginning to wonder: Who will pay for the country' s aging process? -- Focusing on health, gerontologists say aging does not have to bring sickness, senility or sexlessness. See LIVING...