DropDownList AppendDataBoundItems (first item to be blank and no duplicates)

I have a DropDownList inside an UpdatePanel that is populated on postback from a SqlDataSource. It has a parameter which is another control. I sometimes need multiple postbacks, but what happens is that each time the update panel refreshes, items are added to the DropDownList. So the DropDownList ends up having data that is incorrect, or repeated data.

Reading XML with an “&” into C# XMLDocument Object

I have inherited a poorly written web application that seems to have errors when it tries to read in an xml document stored in the database that has an “&” in it. For example there will be a tag with the contents: “Prepaid & Charge”. Is there some secret simple thing to do to have it not get an error parsing that character, or am I missing something obvious?