Patents and free trade make strange bedfellows. For most of their history, patents have been instruments deployed to resist trade with other countries, not to enhance it. Whether one looks at Venetian laws that punished citizens who practiced local crafts outside the city, the Mercantilist uses to which patents were put in Elizabethan England, or the cartels of the 19th and 20th centuries created on a foundation of interlocking patent rights, patents have had a distinctly protectionist function. It is thus ironic that it is intellectual property rights in general, and patents in particular, that have been held up in recent years as the poster child of much that is wrong with globalization and free trade. Nowhere is this more so than in debates concerning international human rights law and patents, in particular the position that patents violate an international right to health.

Epifluorescence microscopy and low temperature scanning electron microscopy were used to document the development of Uncinula necator on vine leaves and the antifungal effects of kresoxim-methyl and penconazole. Post-germinational growth and development followed a regular time course which was classified into 10 stages.

Kresoxim-methyl was applied at a range of concentrations and at different times before and after inoculation. In glasshouse trials at moderate relative humidity (60%), all pre-infectional applications completely inhibited conidial germination. Lower efficacies were observed with detached leaves at high humidity in Petri dishes. Post-infectional applications of at least 8 mg a.i. l−1 inhibited sporulation and mycelial growth and 67 mg a.i. l−1 caused a partial collapse of surface structures.

Penconazole applied at 17 mg a.i. l−1 did not inhibit germination, but prevented hyphal development and caused growth distortion with hyphal tip swelling. Pre- and post-infectional treatments had similar effects. Applications made 3 d after inoculation increased multiple appressoria and conidiophore formation.

Psychiatric symptoms and cognition were assessed in 13 patients with schizophrenia, one patient with schizoaffective disorder, and one patient with psychosis not otherwise specified while they received a conventional neuroleptic and again after an average of 15 months on clozapine. Despite improvements in psychiatric symptoms, attention, memory, and higher-level problem-solving were essentially unchanged. This suggests that certain cognitive deficits are relatively independent of psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia, and are probably central and enduring features of the disorder. Cognitive disability appeared to have been rate-limiting in the sample's rehabilitation, as patients' social and vocational adjustment remained marginal during the study. We also observed that treatment with clozapine was associated with a decline in some memory functions; the potent anticholinergic properties of the drug may have been responsible for this.