Faculty Bibliography

Dr. Melnick began his scientific career at Yale under Dr. John R. Paul, a renowned expert in polio. Until a vaccine was introduced in the 1960's, polio struck up to 57,000 people a year in the United States. His team showed that the polio virus was transmitted among people chiefly by fecal contamination, usually through soiled hands. With Dr. [Dorothy M. Horstmann], Dr. Melnick showed that flies could spread polio but that they were not the main route of transmission. In 1957, he became chief virologist at the division of biological standards at the National Institutes of Health. Although Dr. Melnick did not have a medical degree, he moved to Baylor in 1958 to become founding chairman of the medical school's department of virology and epidemiology. In 1960, Dr. Melnick showed that the weakened strains of polio virus used by Dr. Albert Sabin to make his oral vaccine produced less damage to the nervous system than the strains used in a competing vaccine. Dr. Melnick is credited with being the first to conceptualize, classify and name a number of virus groups, including enteroviruses. From 1968 to 1991, Dr. Melnick was dean of graduate sciences at Baylor. For many years, he wrote the section on virology for a standard textbook on microbiology and he was chief editor of three scientific journals

In 1957, he became chief virologist at the division of biological standards at the National Institutes of Health. Although [Joseph Louis Melnick] did not have a medical degree, he moved to Baylor in 1958 to become founding chairman of the medical school's department of virology and epidemiology. In 1960, Melnick showed that the weakened strains of polio virus used by Dr. Albert Sabin to make his oral vaccine produced less damage to the nervous system than the strains used in a competing vaccine. Melnick began his scientific career at Yale under Dr. John Paul, a renowned expert in polio. Until a vaccine was introduced in the 1960s, polio struck up to 57,000 people a year in the United States. His team showed that the polio virus was transmitted among people chiefly by fecal contamination, usually through soiled hands

In such trials, participants agree to receive either a sirolimus-coated stent or a standard stent. The choice is made by the equivalent of a flip of a coin, and neither the doctor nor the recipient knows whether the implanted stent is coated or not. The trials are also designed to detect unexpected long-term complications from the drug. Since a stent was first implanted in a coronary artery in Europe in 1986, cardiologists have sought to improve them. The ideal healing would be limited growth -- a thin layer of cells to carpet the stent-injured area on the inside wall of the artery, rather than thicker scarring. Early attempts to coat stents with a drug to prevent scarring failed; some made the scarring worse. More recently, stents that have been coated with a drug, heparin, have been licensed for reducing the frequency of clot formation at or near the site of implantation. Other licensed stents use radiation and are implanted within stents that became blocked and need to be unclogged in a second go-round. Researchers are also testing stents coated with taxol, an anticancer drug, and other drugs to prevent excessive cell growth or scarring

Mr. Reagan's doctors declined to discuss the state of his Alzheimer's disease at a news conference on Saturday. His chief orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Kevin Ehrhart, said Mr. Reagan's hip fracture was ''fairly run-of-the-mill'' and his rehabilitation would be ''a long, uphill struggle.'' Mr. Reagan's Alzheimer's disease is a different matter. In 1994, Mr. Reagan disclosed that he had developed Alzheimer's, which affects an estimated four million Americans. That condition is likely to affect the physical therapy and rehabilitation that hip fracture patients need to regain the mobility they had before the accident. In Mr. Reagan's case, very little is publicly known about how advanced a case of Alzheimer's he has and the quality of his life before the broken hip. In trying to protect her husband's privacy, Nancy Reagan has said very little about what he can do

[Michael Reardon], who performed the operation on Minnich at the Methodist- DeBakey Heart Center, learned bench heart surgery in 1983 while a resident under Dr. Denton Cooley, a pioneer heart surgeon in Houston. Cooley's patient, possibly the first to undergo the procedure for cancer, had a different kind of heart tumour than Minnich, and died. Reardon went on to do two more, both for Minnich's kind of cancer. The first of those patients survived the operation but died from spread of the cancer, and the second is alive and cancer-free 14 months after bench surgery. On Nov. 5, Minnich returned home to complete scheduled tests in preparation for previously planned chemotherapy and a heart transplant. But time was running out faster than everyone realized. 'When I walk up my stairs now, I'm starting to get short of wind,' Minnich told Reardon in a phone call. Reardon told her to return to Houston immediately. 'By the time she got down here on Nov. 12, she had to sit straight up at night to breathe,' Reardon said. The second cancer felt hard. To cut it out, Reardon removed much of the remaining portion of the left atrium and the wall separating it from the right atrium. He repaired Minnich's heart with tissue -- the pericardium or sac surrounding the heart -- from a cow. The bovine heart tissue had been chemically treated to prevent Minnich's body from rejecting it. After looking for spread of the cancer in Minnich's chest and finding none, Reardon began stitching her own heart in place

Reardon, who performed the operation on [Joanne Minnich] at the Methodist- DeBakey Heart Center, learned bench heart surgery in 1983 while a resident under the legendary Dr. Denton Cooley. In describing the operation, Reardon said, he was 'bluntly honest' in explaining the risks. For anyone, a second heart operation is always more dangerous than a first. For Minnich, Reardon said that what he could do depended on what he saw when he opened her chest and then examined her heart in the bowl. He went on, 'It was very difficult to look Joanne in the eye and tell her she may die.' 2 PICS; 1. Dr. Michael J. Reardon moved Joanne Minnich's heart to a metal bowl, where he was able to remove five cancerous tumors. 2. Minnch, 57, following her risky 'bench surgery' for a rare heart cancer.; Credit: 1,2. New York Times photos

Nevirapine should still be used for two other groups, said the CDC, a federal agency in Atlanta that tracks the AIDS epidemic. One is in treating people infected with HIV, the AIDS virus. The second is to prevent transmission of HIV from mothers to their infants during childbirth. Needle-stick injuries are common in American hospitals -- 236,000 a year, the General Accounting Office has estimated. But most do not lead to HIV infections. Since AIDS was recognized in 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented that 56 health care workers were infected with HIV chiefly through needle- stick injuries and that 138 other workers possibly were infected through occupational exposure

Smallpox patients are usually quite sick. The infection is characterized by a rash and a fever of at least 102 degrees. The rash and symptoms begin to develop 11 or 12 days after a person is exposed to the virus. The characteristic lesions can occur anywhere on the body, but they usually appear on the face first, and they tend to appear more on the arms and legs and less on the chest, abdomen and back. Palms and soles are favorite areas. The earliest lesions tend to appear as raised bumps that often contain fluid. Over a period that can last as long as 19 days, the lesions become firm, filled with pus, and then form scabs. The illness can leave its victims blind and scarred. Smallpox can be confused with chickenpox. In making the diagnosis, a doctor touches the skin. Smallpox lesions tend to feel as if they are deep in the skin, in contrast to the lesions of chickenpox, which feel superficial. Chickenpox itches; smallpox lesions can be very painful

Smallpox can be confused with chickenpox. In making the diagnosis, a doctor touches the skin. Smallpox lesions tend to feel as if they are deep in the skin, in contrast to the lesions of chickenpox, which feel superficial. Chickenpox itches; smallpox lesions can be very painful

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is taking the steps, say they have no evidence that anyone is readying a terrorist attack using smallpox, a disease that was eradicated worldwide 21 years ago. But they say smallpox is so deadly that it is important to prepare for any attack. Smallpox is of particular concern because of its potential to spread quickly. Tens of millions of Americans under the age of 30 are susceptible to smallpox because they were never vaccinated; the United States stopped smallpox immunizations in 1972. Tens of millions of older people who were vaccinated decades ago are thought to have decreased protection because the vaccine may have worn off. Another major concern is that generations of American doctors have never seen a case of smallpox. The only ones who have are a few hundred doctors who participated in the World Health Organization's smallpox eradication program decades ago