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AIDS: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is the last stage of HIV infection. People with AIDS are increasingly more susceptible to catching life-threatening infections and diseases because the AIDS virus attacks their immune systems. The AIDS virus is transmitted through bodily fluids.
Anemia: A condition, usually caused by inadequate dietary iron, in which the blood is deficient in red blood cells, hemoglobin, or total volume.
BSE: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, known as “mad cow” disease, is a disease of cattle first identified in 1986. Some people, worried about a link between BSE and the human disease Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), have lost confidence in beef throughout much of Europe. In March 1996 the European Union introduced a ban on the export of any UK beef and beef products. This has had a very serious impact on the entire beef sector and has resulted in financial hardship for farmers and for those engaged in related businesses.
Communicable Diseases: Diseases that spread between agents, such as human-to-human transmission (e.g., the cold or AIDS), or animal-human transmission (e.g., rabies, malaria). These differ from diseases that self-generate in the body, such as cancers.
Copyrights: The exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, and sell the matter and form (as of a literary, musical, or artistic work) (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary).
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs): Genetically Modified Organisms are organisms (virus, bacterium, or more complex life-form) whose genetic makeup has been altered by humans for a specific purpose.
Genetic Engineering: Changing the genetic make-up of an organism using molecular techniques. This includes introducing one or more genes from unrelated species.
Changing the genetic make-up of an organism using molecular techniques. This includes introducing one or more genes from unrelated species.
Geographical Indications: Place names.
HIV: Human Immunodeficiency Virus damages cells in the immune system that defend the body against infections and disease. Over time, a person’s immune system becomes more damaged and the person is less able to fight off infections; this process can take months or years. The final stage of HIV is the development of AIDS.
Immune System: The bodily system that protects the body from foreign substances, cells, and tissues by producing the immune response and that includes especially the thymus, spleen, lymph nodes, special deposits of lymphoid tissue (as in the gastrointestinal tract and bone marrow), lymphocytes including the B cells and T cells, and antibodies (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary).
Incidence: the number of times an event occurs in a given time, e.g. the number of new cases of malaria in a calendar year.
Industrial Designs: The aesthetic or ornamental aspects, such as shape, pattern, or color, of a useful commercial article.
Integrated Circuits: Tiny complexes of electronic components and their connections that are produced in or on a small slice of material (as silicon).
Intellectual Property: Pieces of information that have economic value in the marketplace. Types of intellectual property include copyrights, patents, trade secrets, and industrial designs.
Malaria: A human disease that is caused by sporozoan parasites in the red blood cells. Malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, and is characterized by periodic attacks of chills and fever. Worldwide, malaria kills 3,000 people a day.
Malnutrition: Poor or insufficient nutrition. Malnutrition results when a person either eats too little food to get all of his or her needed calories, vitamins, and minerals in a day, or eats foods that do not provide these basic nutritional needs.
Patents: A legal monopoly to an inventor for a set number of years granting the inventor the exclusive right to make, use, or sell his or her invention.
Prevalence: The total number of specific conditions in existence in a defined population at a precise point in time, e.g., the number of cases of TB recorded so far in a specific country.
Selective Breeding: A practice where farmers change the genetic make-up of plants and animals by breeding plants or animals that exhibit particular, desirable traits in hopes of producing offspring that also produce these traits.
Trademarks: A device (as a word) pointing distinctly to the origin or ownership of merchandise to which it is applied and legally reserved to the exclusive use of the owner as maker or seller. (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary).
Trade Secrets: Confidential business information.
Tuberculosis (TB): Tuberculosis (TB) is a highly contagious, airborne disease that can damage a person’s lungs and cause serious illness. Every year 25,000 Americans catch TB; worldwide, 2 million people die from TB each year.
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