Most criminal convictions in America come from plea bargains, in which defendants exchange their right to a trial for less severe prosecution or a shorter jail sentence.

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Over-prosecution is a tool prosecutors often use to get criminal defendants to plead guilty rather than risk a more severe sentence if they go to trial.

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In a trial of 262 patients with severe IBS, 62% of those who received the fake treatment got better, according to results published in the British Medical Journal.

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It could also explain why Pfizer is willing to take the risk of running a large heart trial in patients with severe heart disease--exactly where risk is most likely to turn up.

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The patients in the trial had already had a heart attack or other vascular disease severe enough to result in hospitalization, and the results may mean that when it comes to lowering cholesterol, there is no such thing as low enough.

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In a 2004 trial of 2, 000 children in Mozambique the Glaxo vaccine slashed severe malaria cases by about half.

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Good at the VA Medical Center in Pittsburgh worries that, in a subset of trial participants studied carefully for side effects, more vaccinated people had severe medical problems than did placebo patients (1.9% versus 1.3%).

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If so, the lawyers will be facing the enormous expense of going to trial against a tobacco company on behalf of only six people, a severe test of their solemn obligation to represent their clients through thick and thin.

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