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Reports that Merck drug company could face thousands of lawsuits concerning Vioxx after losing the Robert Ernst case in Texas. Indication that Merck will appeal the jury award, which will be reduced under the state law to about $26m; Information about the Ernst case and others, including one in New Jersey involving the cyclo-oxygenase-2 inhibitor rofecoxib; Views of Merck's senior vice president and general counsel, Kenneth Frazier, and Mark Lanier, the winning lawyer in the Ernst case.

Presents news briefs related to medicine as of March 29, 2003. England's House of Commons science and technology committee accused the Medical Research Council of poor planning, which had left it unable to fund important areas of research. An Illinois judge has ordered tobacco company Philip Morris to pay $10.1 billion in damages after accepting arguments of a class action that the company had deceived customers into thinking light cigarettes were less harmful than the regular versions. A Texas court has cleared Bayer of liability in a law suit by a patient who claimed he became ill after taking cerivastatin, a lipid lowering drug made by Bayer and marketed as Baycol in the U.S. and Lipobay in Europe.

Reports that a United States biology professor who refuses to write letters of recommendation for his students if they do not believe in evolution has been accused of religious discrimination. Legal complaint filed by the Liberty Legal Institute against Professor Michael Dini of Texas Tech University; Texas Tech spokeswoman's claim that a letter of recommendation is a personal matter and not subject to the university control or regulation.

Reports that Andrea Yates, who was convicted for drowning her five children, was sentenced to life in prison. Statement of her lawyer that she would appeal; Debate about insanity defense laws in the United States.

Focuses on the murder trial of Andrea Yates, a mother who drowned her children in the bathtub of their home in Texas. Call for more research by the organization Postpartum Support International into postpartum depression and better services for women affected by the disorder; Details of the Yates trial; Mental illness suffered by Yates prior to drowning her children; Analysis of her mental condition.