Faculty Bibliography

El Cantante [Motion Picture] -- [Hector Lavoe] doesn't go to drug rehab, and he is not compliant with his antidepressant and anti-anxiety medication regimen. In 1985, he is diagnosed with HIV -- a time when AZT and other AIDS drugs were not yet available -- but his physician tells him he may not develop AIDS for several years or at all. Ultimately, Lavoe develops AIDS and dies of its complications in 1993. The medical questions: How common was HIV among intravenous-drug abusers in the 1980s? Were there any AIDS drugs available in 1985? How frequently do untreated HIV cases progress to full-blown AIDS (with immunodeficiency and opportunistic infections)? What were the most frequent opportunistic infections affecting AIDS patients in the 1980s and '90s?

The premise: In this fourth attempt at putting Jack Finney's classic 'The Body Snatchers' to the screen, there is a new twist. This time, instead of plant-like pods, it's an alien virus-like particle attached to the wreckage of the NASA Shuttle Patriot, and it begins to spread rapidly through the human population. The virus (in the jargon of the movie) interferes with sweat, causes a 'cellular condensation,' a 'metabolic reaction' and alters the body's 'genetic expression' by the 'integration of alien DNA' -- while turning everyone into emotionless robots. REMAKE: Nicole Kidman stars in 'The Invasion,' in which a virus alters the body's 'genetic expression' and turns people into emotionless robots.; PHOTOGRAPHER: Warner Bros. Pictures

By most useful definitions, I am an insomniac. Like Alan Berliner, director and star of HBO's provocative new documentary Wide Awak e, I, too, do most of my best work in the middle of the night, and I, too, risk my wife's wrath when I am subsequently not available in the early morning to respond to our infant's pleading cries

Thiazolidinediones (TZDs) are a class of drugs which improve insulin receptor sensitivity and reverse the insulin resistance typically seen in type 2 diabetes. Since most type 2 diabetics have too few receptors per body surface area, the TZDs are very useful drugs. The fact that patients on the remaining two TZDs (Avandia and Actos) can gain weight on these drugs is not news. To give just one example as it relates to TZDs, it is clear that controlling blood sugar is important in preventing diabetic end organ damage

Crossing Jordan [Television Program] -- The reality: Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome has been found in humans in 30 states (460 cases as of January 2007), as well as South America and Canada, though it continues to be quite rare. Outbreaks in the U.S. have been traced to rodents -- spread via their urine, droppings and saliva, which can become aerosolized and inhaled by humans. Antibodies to the virus have also been found in cats, dogs, pigs, cattle and deer. No cases of human-to-human transmission have been reported in the U.S.; however, an outbreak in Argentina in 1976 did appear to be spread among humans. The show's depiction of an asymptomatic spreader is improbable but not impossible. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is no proven treatment or effective vaccine for a hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Ribavirin, the only approved antiviral treatment that has been shown to be effective against hantaviruses in the test tube, has not yet been shown effective against the syndrome in patients. And a study in the January 2006 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, published by the CDC, reported that a genetically engineered hantavirus vaccine that has been tested in hamsters and monkeys is likely to be of limited use because of variations in the strains of hantavirus

Novartis has a new drug, called Tekturna, that has just been approved by the FDA. It is the first new class of hypertensive drugs in 10 years, something well worth celebrating. But its 'coming out party' has received little medical attention. Those who make an unremitting habit of bashing drug companies about unforeseen side effects could cost them so much money and public embarrassment that it takes the legs out of important projects like the one that led to the birth of Tekturna

Law & Order: Criminal Intent [Television Program] -- The premise: After journalist Josh Lemle (Lee Tergesen) develops weakness and coughs up blood, he goes to the hospital where doctors discover he has been poisoned by polonium-210, a radioactive material. They predict he will die within a week. Josh contacts the crime-solving Major Case Squad and his old friend, Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth). Josh later develops irreversible multisystem organ failure, has trouble breathing, loses his hair, develops severe ulcerations to his skin and dies

NCIS [Television Program] -- The premise: In an abandoned warehouse in Georgetown, a man is proposing to his bride-to-be when he discovers the dead body of a sailor covered with maggots. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is called and uses the maggots to determine that he has been dead for almost five days. NCIS medical examiner Dr. Donald 'Ducky' Mallard (David McCallum) finds no signs of trauma or injury but discovers a blood alcohol level five times normal, a worn-out (cirrhotic) liver and multiple organ failure. Other recreational drugs, including Ecstasy, are found in the man's bloodstream. At first, the team believes that the sailor must have died of a combination of drugs and alcohol. But forensics expert Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette) uses a mass spectrometer to identify high levels of a mystery compound that turns out to be a poison derived from the oleander plant

Fortunately, thanks in part to flu vaccines and other public health measures, the last three pandemics have been progressively milder from over 50 million dead worldwide in the worst flu pandemic in 1918,102 million dead in 1957, to 1 million fatalities in 1968 (see 'The World's 'Most Unwanted' List,' p. 14). You've probably heard your parents or teachers talk about the possibility of a bird flu pandemic. Or perhaps you even saw the frightening TV docudrama shown on a major network that followed the events of a fictitious bird flu outbreak among, humans, and the widespread panic that followed. However, our public discussions of a possible flu pandemic from the H5N1 bird flu have been informed largely by the ghost of the 1918 Spanish Flu, which was caused by a new flu virus, known as H1N1.