Homocysteine is a simple amino acid that has recently received a great deal of attention as a risk factor for atherothrombotic vascular disease. There is reasonably compelling epidemiologic evidence of an association between the plasma homocysteine level ...

Whether judged by its therapeutic or economic impact, recombinant human erythropoietin (epoetin) is an extremely successful application of molecular genetic technology to the development of a therapeutic agent. Epoetin is remarkably effective in the ...

A decade ago, people who manufactured products for therapeutic or diagnostic use in medicine targeted their marketing campaigns only at health professionals. The reasoning was that the use of such products required medical sophistication beyond that found ...

During the past two decades, there has been an irreversible change in the nature of the doctor–patient relationship. Patients are seeking much more medical information and are actively participating in decisions affecting their health. Intruding into this ...

It has been almost five years since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued guidelines clarifying the agency's broadcast requirements for the advertising of specific pharmaceutical agents directly to consumers on television.¹ Previously, most direct-...

The authors sharply criticize the now-common practice of marketing high-technology medical screening tests directly to the consumer. As a prominent example, they select electron-beam computed tomography to screen for lung cancer. The authors voice concern about the validity of such screening, the financial consequences, and potential ethical problems.

To the Editor: The study by Israel et al. (Sept. 27 issue)¹ of bone thinning in women with asthma did not effectively control for the critical variables of the level of physical activity and the severity of asthma.

Comparisons between patients with mild ...

To the Editor: The report by Manges et al. (Oct. 4 issue)¹ regarding the widespread distribution of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli is both important and timely. We have found even higher rates of resistance to trimethoprim–sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX)...

To the Editor: Dishy et al. (Oct. 4 issue)¹ report that polymorphisms of the β₂-adrenergic receptor influence agonist-promoted desensitization of β₂-adrenergic receptor–mediated vasodilatation. Desensitization can be an important homeostatic event but ...

To the Editor: Martin and colleagues (Oct. 4 issue)¹ report a case of type 1 diabetes mellitus in a patient with profound B-cell deficiency. It is now clear that B-cell–deficient nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice exhibit profound resistance to spontaneous ...

To the Editor: People all over the world were shocked by the disaster of September 11, 2001. I want to emphasize what the editors wrote about medical insurance in the Journal's editorial on the subject (Oct. 11 issue)¹: “Victims and their families must ...

To the Editor: Bayer's voluntary withdrawal of cerivastatin from the U.S. market led to questions regarding the safety of all hydroxymethylglutaryl–coenzyme A reductase inhibitors, or statins. Myopathy and the rarer severe rhabdomyolysis are considered ...

Pulmonary emphysema is a common, progressive, disabling disease that carries a high mortality rate. It occupies one end of the spectrum of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), with chronic bronchitis at the other end of the spectrum. Invariably, ...

For those who care for patients in the intensive care unit (ICU), dealing with the complex medical and psychosocial issues surrounding death and the dying patient is a daily event. However, the necessary practical skills are rarely learned as part of ...

Characteristics of Patients with Uncontrolled Hypertension in the United States Original Article, N Engl J Med 2001:345;479-486.. On page 485, the standard errors for prevalence in Table 5 were incorrect. The corrected table appears below.