Gene therapies, the human genome project, amazing new molecules that can zap the blood supply to cancerous tumours - it seems as if medical science is advancing in leaps and bounds. Surely it can be a matter of only a few years before cancer, Alzheimer's, Aids and the rest are consigned to the same dustbin as smallpox and the plague?

Well, maybe not. Sadly, a paradox is emerging in medicine. [...]

The papers seem almost unanimous on GM foods: "this stuff is bad and should be banned now". On one side, it seems, we have the government; on the other, the press. But look more closely and you will see that there is a division in the press - except that it is not, for the most part, between papers but between different journalists on the same papers. Nearly all the [...]