On October 1st 1890, William B. Coley, a young bone surgeon barely two years out of medical school, saw one of his first patients in private practice at the New York Memorial Hospital. Although he’d only finished his residency earlier the same year, he'd already gained a good reputation and many considered him a rising star of the New York surgical scene. The seventeen year old patient had a painful, rapidly growing lump on the back of her right hand. She had pinched the unlucky appendage betw Join discussion...

A new study on the effects of low daily doses of the artificial sweetener aspartame shows a statistically significant increase in leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer in rats. Consumer advocates are calling for the FDA to take another look at the safety of aspartame in light of the study, but the FDA seems uninterested. Join discussion...

Oncologists do not usually need bodyguards when they present scientific data at a medical symposium. But when Howard I. Scher of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Maha Hussain of the University of Michigan spoke at a recent meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, they were in fear for their safety. Join discussion...