Today's Globe: gift ban, remote-control battle stress, renewed AIDS threat

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology groups have launched a lobbying blitz to try to persuade Governor Deval Patrick to kill contentious legislation aimed at clamping down on drug companies that provide gifts and meals to physicians. "If he is serious about controlling health costs, Patrick should sign the bill, with the clause restricting gifts," a Globe editorial says. "If signed into law, these provisions would repel investment in the Bay State," Douglas W. Lawrence of the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council and Mark Leuchtenberger of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council write on the op-ed page.

The Air National Guardsmen who operate Predator drones over Iraq via remote control, launching deadly missile attacks from the safety of Southern California 7,000 miles away, are suffering some of the same psychological stresses as their comrades on the battlefield.

Twenty-five years after AIDS was branded the "gay plague," the virus is again exacting a disproportionate toll on men who have sex with men, not only in the United States but also in countries where the epidemic is just emerging.