There are not, and probably never will be, enough resources to satisfy the community's desires for things that improve the quality of life. This poses the necessity for choice, and hence the consideration of priorities. In the medical field two distinct kinds of choice arise: one at the clinical level and the other in the planning process. At the point of contact with a particular patient, a do...

In October 2005, a team of US scientists, headed by Jeffery Taubenberger from the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (Rockville, MD, USA), published the full sequence of the highly virulent strain of influenza virus that caused the Spanish influenza pandemic in the winter of 1918– 1919 and killed up to 50 million people worldwide (Taubenberger et al, 2005). Further work based on the sequenc...