The Year in Medicine 2008
In good times and bad, science doesn't sleep, and every year brings breakthroughs, setbacks, reasons for worry and reasons for joy. TIME's annual alphabetical roundup of a sampling of those stories gives you an overview of the year behind and a hint of what might be in the one ahead.
Malaria: The Global Tally Drops
Good news — well, sort of. Earlier this fall, the World Health Organization cut its global tally of malaria cases in 2006 at least 40% from the previous year's estimate — but that still means there were 247 million cases in 2006. The drop had less to do with a real improvement in health than a simple change in number-crunching. Once figures from India and elsewhere in Asia were updated, the numbers fell. In November 2007, the U.N. came under fire when it overestimated the number of HIV cases worldwide by more than 6 million, an act that critics say was used to spur donations. No matter how the calculations are done, epidemiologists warn that the math will always be tricky.
View the full list for "The Year in Medicine 2008"Special Features:
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- The End of Audacity
- Hate Your Job? Here's How to Reshape It
- The Man Behind Russia's Deadly Train Blast
- Health Care Reform: Whatever Happened to Cost Controls?
- The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting
- The Pakistani Taliban's War on Schoolchildren
- Astronomers Spy a New Planet-Like Object
- The Toughest Diet
- Toyota's Big Recall Unlikely to Quiet Critics
- Why Congress is Furious at the Fed
- For Churches, Beefed-Up Security Is a Mixed Blessing
- Workers of the World vs. China Inc.
- Could Jacob Zuma Be the President South Africa Needs?
- Where China Goes Next
- New Legal Protections for the Elderly
- Is the Dollar Dying a Slow Death?
- Medvedev Dashes Hopes for More Democracy in Russia
- Losing Your Job: A Blow to Your Health Too
- Is There Really a Credit Crunch?
- Obama Afghanistan Plan Breaks Old Ground
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