BMJ  2008;336 (29 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.39532.436667.47

Editor's Choice

Of medicine and medicines

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

This week’s journal captures modern medicine’s ambivalence about modern medicines. On one hand, we look to new drugs to deliver us from illness and disease. On the other, we view the companies who deliver them with suspicion or disdain.

The journal has articles to buttress both viewpoints. Firstly, drugs as salvation. According to WHO, African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) affects 50 000-70 000 people, with only two drugs available for treating the late stage of the disease. One of them, eflornithine, had a chequered production history until Aventis agreed to resume production in 2001 as part of an extraordinarily generous package to help reduce the incidence of the disease. In a large study, Priotta and colleagues (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39485.592674.BE) report that eflornithine shows acceptable safety and effectiveness, and an editorial (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39505.490544.BE) recommends it as the first choice in stage 2 disease.

Brucellosis is another infectious disease that exacts a . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Related Articles

New treatments for kidney cancer

Jonathan Waxman, Laura Kenny, and Sarah Ngan
BMJ 2008 336: 681-682. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Drug industry anxious about scrapping price regulation scheme

Andrew Cole
BMJ 2008 336: 686. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Purely medicinal?

Tessa Richards
BMJ 2008 336: 693. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Over the counter medicines: proceed with caution

Robin E Ferner and Keith Beard
BMJ 2008 336: 694-696. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Safety and effectiveness of first line eflornithine for Trypanosoma brucei gambiense sleeping sickness in Sudan: cohort study

Gerardo Priotto, Loretxu Pinoges, Isaac Badi Fursa, Barbara Burke, Nathalie Nicolay, Guillaume Grillet, Cathy Hewison, and Manica Balasegaram
BMJ 2008 336: 705-708. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Treatment of brucellosis

Georgios Pappas
BMJ 2008 336: 678-679. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Treatment of human brucellosis: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

Keren Skalsky, Dafna Yahav, Jihad Bishara, Silvio Pitlik, Leonard Leibovici, and Mical Paul
BMJ 2008 336: 701-704. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

African sleeping sickness

Francesco Checchi and Michael P Barrett
BMJ 2008 336: 679-680. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

It's Really Not About Medicine(s)

Dr. Herbert H. Nehrlich
bmj.com, 1 Apr 2008 [Full text]

THE ELEPHANT HAS ARRIVED

A.A.W. Amarasinghe,MD,
bmj.com, 29 Mar 2008 [Full text]

Haiku Ague

Hugh Mann
bmj.com, 4 Apr 2008 [Full text]