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Introduction: The proportion of people with an intellectual or developmental disability (IDD) in paid employment is low internationally despite policy efforts. Evidence suggests multiple and varied explanations for this, including organisational, social and personal barriers. That evidence has not focused on first-person experiences which may provide a depth of understanding and explanation of the work-related experiences of people with IDD. Method: A hermeneutic phenomenological approach and an exploratory research method of a 'creative collaborative partnership' was adopted to illuminate the work-related experiences of six people with a mild IDD. Findings: Six work stories composed of narratives and visual images were collaboratively created revealing a complex range of positive and negative experiences and perspectives of paid work. Five collective narrative frames emerged: the quest 'to do', navigating bureaucratic seas, finding a good fit, forging of identity and finding both friend and foe. Conclusion: The collaborators' stories highlighted that individuals supporting people with IDD towards or in work, including occupational therapists, need to adopt a nuanced systemic perspective of the context surrounding the person. This includes identifying allies and allowing people with IDD to decide how (if at all) they describe their IDD status to others as they establish their worker identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic Lyme disease can manifest as a debilitating illness with symptoms that change over time. With its varied presentation, timeline variation, diagnostic difficulty, and lack of definitive treatment, clinical recognition of chronic Lyme disease remains controversial. At the same time, patients face challenges in finding a provider who is supportive and knowledgeable about diagnosing and treating Lyme. We examined the ways the medical system may have affected the lived experiences of chronic Lyme patients. In this article, we communicate the personal, health care, and community illness experiences of 14 women navigating the medical system with chronic Lyme disease through a qualitative community-based participatory research study using interviews and narrative reflection in a rural community setting. The women were interviewed by a researcher living with chronic Lyme disease and the transcripts were analyzed for themes. All participants described navigating multiple allopathic and nonallopathic care modalities to find satisfactory care. They struggled with physical and emotional burdens of chronic, nonlinear illness, as well as disbelief and discrimination by medical providers. Their lives followed patterns of illness and wellness, trust and mistrust of medical treatment, and community connection and disengagement. They learned to become their own advocates to seek affirmative care. They are aware of the controversial nature of their illness, and many have channeled their frustrations into caring for one another through their Lyme community. Women living with controversial diagnoses like chronic Lyme disease experience increased challenges navigating the medical system to find satisfactory care and thus create communities with each other for mutual aid and support. In understanding these challenges, the medical community can improve care for people living with contested chronic illnesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the cultural controversy surrounding “violent video games,” the manufacturers and players of games often insist that computer games are a form of harmless entertainment that is unlikely to influence the real-world activities of players. Yet games and military simulations are used by military organizations across the world to teach the modern arts of war, from how to shoot a gun to teamwork, leadership skills, military values, and cultural sensitivity. We survey a number of ways of reconciling these apparently contradictory claims and argue that none of them are ultimately successful. Thus, either military organizations are wrong to think that games and simulations have a useful role to play in training anything other than the most narrowly circumscribed physical skills or some recreational digital games do, in fact, have the power to influence the real-world behavior and dispositions of players in morally significant ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, the World Health Organization classified the renal oncocytomas as benign neoplasms of the kidney. There are reports of subtypes of renal tumors, with similar histological morphology to oncocytoma, but with malignant potential, one of these tumors is the eosinophilic variant of chromophobe renal cell carcinoma. It is important to characterize the histological features and the subtype of tumor, as this predicts biological behavior and cancer-specific survival rate. A rare case of a liver metastasis from a focal area of eosinophilic variant of chromophobe renal cell carcinoma mixed in oncocytoma in a 69-year-old woman is reported. Although some renal tumors may contain oncocytoma and eosinophilic variant of chromophobe renal cell carcinoma histology, caution should be exercised while diagnosing oncocytomas in needle biopsies as there may be unsampled area of chromophobe carcinoma which has a potential for metastatic spread representing a wolf in sheep's clothing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the judgment delivered by the European Court of Justice on May 4, 2006 regarding applications for Special Protection Certificates (SPC) and their scope. The case was focused on the combination therapy in the form on an implant developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology for treating brain tumors.

The article reflects on the positive opinion of the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) for generic biosimilar drugs since its issuance of regulatory guidelines and some related cases regarding these generic drugs. It also discussed the planned entry of biosimilar drugs into the United States. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to decide on the issue. Other related reports were also discussed.

The article tackles three court cases concerning pharmaceutical companies in Great Britain. The first case involves Synthon BV and Smithkline Beecham PLC. The second case involves Ranbaxy UK Ltd and Warner Lambert while the third is a case between Mayne Pharma and Teva UK. The author further discusses important details and information regarding the cases.

Traditionally tort (personal injury) cases have been regarded as isolated disputes concerned with individual harm, where the law's role was simply to allocate losses between tortfeasor and victim according to principles of corrective justice. With the advent of the toxic tort - a cause of action which arises when a plaintiff has developed a disease following exposure to a toxic agent (chemical or in the form of energy) has come a fundamental challenge to the traditional basis of causation where under negligence or strict liability the toxic tortplaintiff (like all tort plaintiffs) must establish a causal connection between the tortious conduct and the loss for which recovery is sought. When applying the 'balance of probability' test to a toxic tort, two potential problems arise. First the test does not work where there are multiple or even alternative possible causes of a plaintiff's injury. Here the burden of proof demands a degree of certainty in excess of fifty per cent in an area where estimates, probabilities andscientific uncertainty are the norm. Second, difficulties occur in trying to establish the origins of the plaintiff's disease, in particular, the biological mechanism responsible for initiating or mobilising the illness. Underlying the basis of all toxic torts, distinct areas of scientific knowledge, grounded in an epistemological and procedural framework provide the evidence upon which the expert offers his opinion. This article examines the problems that such evidence poses for the legal system and reflects on some of the jurisprudential issues that arose in Reay and Hope v British Nuclear Fuels [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]