Thursday, July 29, 2004

Advocate for Access to Medical Data
Washington Post story - "Ellen Berty first stumbled across the ClinicalTrials.gov Web site while researching treatments for the Type 1 diabetes that has dogged her since the age of 13. Months later, after receiving an islet cell transplant in a clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health, she couldn't wait to tell her neighbors about the Web site that had pointed her in the right direction. ... ClinicalTrials.gov was the brainchild of Alexa McCray, director of the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, an intramural research division of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. Taking the lead from the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act 1997, which called for the establishment of a clinical trials registry that would be available to the public, McCray turned to the Internet to ensure an accessible and user-friendly resource for everyone from patients to health care professionals." See also ClinicalTrials.gov. [Viewing Washington Post stories requires registration, which is free.]  
  

New Knowledge and New Conceptions
Article in the July Psychiatric Times - "Our evolving understanding of borderline personality disorder and its treatment includes the surprising evidence that this disorder has more significant genetic determinants and many patients have a far better prognosis than had previously been thought. Treatment approaches have also become less intensive and more diverse and specific. This is a disorder that, despite the considerable gains, remains one of psychiatry's most vexsome problems and one of society's major health care priorities..." See also, in the same issue, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy for Personality Disorders, Borderline Personality Disorder: An Overview, Beyond 'Handholding': Supportive Therapy for Patient With BPD and Self-Injurious Behavior, and Assessing Suicide Risk in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder.