If Biomedical Science Is To Advance, Clinical Trials Researchers Need To Work With Human Subjects. Here's What You Need To Know About Participating In A Trial.

Recently, I overheard a desperate young mother beg her pharmacist to call her doctor for a prescription for Diflucan for her ill daughter. Why was she begging? Because of her short-sighted health care plan. It wouldn't permit her doctor to use Diflucan, the best drug available for treating certain infections, until another, less expensive drug, was tried and failed. Left no choice, the anxious mother sought a refill of the medicine she had been using, a poor "second best." No go. The woman's care plan needed to approve that, too. So what happened? She did what any caring mother with a sick child would have done. The woman shelled out $113 for second best and left, lighter in the pocket, heavier in the heart. Although she was forced to pay big bucks, she still didn't have the reassurance that her ill child was getting the best treatment available.

It may be humankind's oldest dream - somehow to cheat the processes of aging and death. We've seen it play out time and time again as people have sought advice, even solace from various sources, many of them shamans, sorcerers and patent-medicine charlatans.