The incidence of HIV infection and AIDS in children has grown at an alarming rate. Approximately one million children worldwide have HIV infection. By the year 2000, an estimated ten million children will suffer from the disease. Currently, the United States has a population of an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 HIV-infected children. As of June 30, 1993, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 4,710 known AIDS cases in children twelve years-old and younger. At that point, New York City reported 1,124 pediatric AIDS cases which represented twenty-four percent of all cases in the United States.

With the rising number of HIV-infected children, the medical community in the United States has begun to search for HIV-and AIDS-related treatments particularized for children. In addition to establishing guidelines for HIV-infected children's frequent check-ups and timely immunizations, the medical community has initiated research studies involving HIV-infected children.

For twenty years scientists have worked to find an effective treatment to ease the quivering, the stiffness, and the difficulty in controlling bodily movements which are the primary symptoms of Parkinson's disease. The disease can be treated with L-dopa, a drug that mimics the dopamine that coordinates neural transmission in the human brain, which Parkinson's sufferers have ceased to produce in sufficient quantities. The L-dopa, however, produces damaging side-effects and sometimes proves ineffectual. Researchers discovered in animal experiments that the effects of a laboratory-developed disease simulating Parkinson's disease could be mitigated using fetal brain tissue transplants, which produced the natural dopamine the animals’ cells failed to produce adequately.

These experiments were replicated with human subjects, and fetal tissue transplants have shown great potential as a treatment for Parkinson's disease. Fetal tissue is ideal for transplantation because it is in a stage of primitive development in which it adjusts easily to a new environment.

Prenatal genetic diagnosis represents one of the most important recent advances in the field of clinical genetics. Each year in the United States, a significant number of children are born with some type of hereditary genetic defect that can be diagnosed in utero. Of the over 4000 genetic traits which have been distinguished to date, more than 300 are identifiable via prenatal genetic testing. With increasing frequency, various diagnostic procedures are being used to evaluate the probability that a fetus will be born with a serious physical or mental handicap caused by a genetic abnormality. These procedures identify disabling or potentially fatal genetic disorders, including cystic fibrosis, trisomy 21 (Down syndrome), P-Thalassemia, and neural tube defects (NTDs).

Prenatal diagnosis may be achieved by utilizing one or more techniques from three basic methods of testing. The most commonly performed means, amniocentesis, is a procedure in which a small sample of the fluid surrounding the developing fetus is extracted from the amniotic sac.

As consumers have become enlightened to the dangers of the sun, they have turned increasingly to sunscreens to stave off not only a sunburn but also life-threatening skin cancer. In the last decade, the incidence of skin cancer has grown a startling 500%. The increase in the number of skin cancers in adults is most likely the result of exposure to the sun as a child. Therefore, the current and continued rise in the number of skin cancers in adults is not remediable. However, as adult consumers seek to prevent further damage to their skin and protect their children from the same fate, the market for sunscreens has grown and is estimated to be worth between $170 and $650 million dollars. The increased demand for sunscreens, combined with the incorporation of sunprotection ingredients into everyday products such as makeup and skin lotions, has led the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to subject sunscreens to increased regulatory scrutiny.