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Medicine Facts

SARS: Mother Nature Strikes Again!

SARS, short for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, is big news this spring. By the middle of April 2003, over 2000 people had been diagnosed with it in China and Hong Kong, another few hundred in the ... Continue reading

The Placebo Effect

To test new drugs, researchers usually divide their subjects into two groups. One group receives the experimental drug. The other receives a placebo or 'sugar pill' that should have no effect on the ... Continue reading

Which of these pills is the real thing?

Fighting Viruses

Viral diseases can be very difficult to treat because viruses live inside the body's cells where they are protected from medicines in the blood stream. Researchers developed the first antiviral drug ... Continue reading

Electron micrograph of Ebola virus.

Resistance is NOT Futile!

Maybe if you are a Star Trek heroine up against the Borg, 'resistance is futile.' But if you are a germ that makes people sick, resistance - to antibiotics - is not futile at all. ... Continue reading

Antibiotic resistance results from gene action. Bacteria acquire genes conferring resistance in any of three ways.