| Halted cream trial may not be cream caused
The trial was testing a cream containing tretinoin, a retinoid commonly used to treat acne and other conditions, to prevent skin cancer. A total of 1,131 veterans -- 97 percent male -- with an average age of 71 years were randomly assigned to apply either a cream containing 0.1 percent tretinoin or an unmedicated cream daily to their face and ears. They were examined by a dermatologist every six months. When a report identified a statistically significant increase in the number of deaths among study participants using tretinoin, the trial was stopped six months early in May 2004. A team led by Dr. Martin A. Weinstock of the VA Medical Center and Brown University in Providence, R.I., assessed the data and concluded analyses did not support tretinoin as a cause of death.
Paper Mill's "Earnest'': Saving the Best for First
Now, I like acne and fat jokes as much as the next guy, but rarely has so much effort been put into making humor out of physical shortcomings to so little comic effect. (And why are the servants dressed like 18th century French courtiers in knee breeches and powdered wigs?) Cynthia Mace gives us a terrific dotty Miss Prism. But the crucial sign that Schweizer doesn't quite trust the play is that he has Redgrave come downstage and deliver many of her imperious and cracked social observations to us instead of the rest of the characters. It really doesn't become Lady Bracknell to be saying, in effect, "Here are the jokes, folks." It slows the whole enterprise down, and Wilde needs speed to be effective. Any opportunity to be in the presence of Lynn Redgrave and Oscar Wilde is worth taking.
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