Faculty Bibliography

In virtually any country where 15 percent or more of all adults are currently infected with HIV, at least 35 percent of 15-year-olds eventually will die of AIDS, UNAIDS said. PHOTO BY: BOSTON GLOBE Esther Daiton holds her niece, Manyara, who is HIV-positive, in New Tafara, Zimbabwe. Daiton also takes care of eight other children who have lost their parents to AIDS. MAP BY: ASSOCIATED PRESS SOURCE: United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS A global epidemic It is UNAIDS' second comprehensive report on the global epidemic of AIDS. The first report was published two years ago in conjunction with the last international AIDS conference, in Geneva. That report painted a bleak picture of AIDS showing one in four people was infected in some parts of Africa

On an encouraging note, Piot said that 19 years of experience with AIDS has generated important insights into how to reduce the impact of the AIDS epidemic. More young people are delaying first sexual intercourse, decreasing the number of partners and using condoms more often, he said. It is UNAIDS' second comprehensive report on the global epidemic of AIDS. The first report was published two years ago in conjunction with the last international AIDS conference, in Geneva. That report painted a bleak picture of AIDS, showing one in four people were infected in some parts of Africa. In the new report, UNAIDS calculated for the first time the impact of AIDS on young people, the very individuals who are most often infected by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. HIV, which has been spread primarily through heterosexual sex in Africa, is wiping out many households and devastating national economies, Dr. Peter Piot, the head of UNAIDS, said in a telephone news conference from Geneva

Nearly 10% of gonorrhea cases in Hawaii last year were resistant to an antibiotic, ciprofloxacin, that has been a standard in treating the sexually transmitted infection, the agency said in its weekly report. Doctors in Hawaii have been advised to stop prescribing ciprofloxacin, also known as Cipro, for gonorrhea. 'But as we lose fluoroquinolones and eventually azithromycin, we will drastically reduce the number of oral antibiotics that we can use to treat gonorrhea,' said Susan Wang, an epidemiologist at the centers. Thus, doctors will have to turn to injectable and costlier antibiotics, Wang said. To counter the rise and new antibiotic resistance problems, the centers advised doctors to ask patients or their sex partners with suspected gonorrhea if they could have acquired the infection in Hawaii, other Pacific Islands or Asia, where resistance to fluoroquinolone antibiotics is high

The Albert and [Mary Woodard Lasker] Foundation said it also was honoring [Sydney Brenner] for his trenchant wit, his rational voice in allaying fears that research on genetic engineering would create dangerous breeds of microbes, and for his role in ending a moratorium on such research in 1974. In that effort, Brenner drank genetically weakened bacteria in a self-experiment

The two are Dr. Harvey Alter of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Dr. Michael Houghton of Chiron in Emeryville, Calif. Alter leads a project the NIH created many years ago to discover the causes of hepatitis that followed transfusions. Houghton led a team that discovered the hepatitis C virus in 1989. The two will share the $50,000 award for clinical research. The [Albert Lasker] awards were established in the 1940s by Albert Lasker, a pioneering advertising executive, and his wife, Mary Woodard Lasker, as a way to raise awareness of the value of biomedical research

The two winners of the Lasker clinical research award are Dr. Harvey Alter of the National Institutes of Health and Dr. Michael Houghton of the Chiron Corporation in Emeryville, Calif. Dr. Alter leads a project that N.I.H. created many years ago to discover the causes of hepatitis that followed transfusions. Dr. Houghton led a team that discovered the hepatitis C virus in 1989. By injecting blood from people with non-A, non-B hepatitis, the scientists produced hepatitis in chimpanzees, proving that a transmissible agent was involved. Dr. Alter coded samples of blood from non-A, non-B hepatitis patients. Over the years, about 20 research teams thought they had discovered the virus causing non-A, non-B hepatitis. But each time, Dr. Alter broke the code, showing that the scientists did not have the culprit. In 1982, Dr. Houghton's team began hunting for the missing hepatitis virus by using genetic engineering techniques to study DNA and RNA from infected non-A, non-B hepatitis cases. After further research, on tens of millions of bacteria, the team's members used Dr. Alter's coded samples to prove they had identified the hepatitis C virus

Nearly 10 percent of gonorrhea cases in Hawaii last year were resistant to an antibiotic, ciprofloxacin, that has been a standard in treating the sexually transmitted infection, the agency said in its weekly report. Doctors in Hawaii have been advised to stop prescribing ciprofloxacin, also known as Cipro, for gonorrhea. As one measure of the problem, the centers said the incidence of fluoroquinolone-resistant gonorrhea in Hawaii soared to 9.5 percent of samples tested last year compared with 1.4 percent in 1997. Elsewhere in the United States, only 0.2 percent of gonorrhea cases were resistant to fluoroquinolones. To counter the rise and new antibiotic resistance problems, the centers advised doctors to ask patients or their sex partners with suspected gonorrhea if they could have acquired the infection in Hawaii, other Pacific Islands, or Asia, where resistance to fluoroquinolone antibiotics is high

''There is a definite lack of federal leadership with regard to H.I.V. prevention,'' and ''there is no time to lose,'' the organization, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, said in a strongly worded report that called for a new national strategy in combating H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency in Atlanta responsible for tracking the AIDS epidemic, commissioned the study and asked the committee to come up with a framework for H.I.V. prevention. Responding to the report, Dr. Helene Gayle, the director of the AIDS program at the centers, said her agency was in general agreement with the recommendations. Because many agencies share responsibility for federal H.I.V. prevention activities, the agencies compete for resources and public attention and ''there is no explicit strategy that currently guides the overall investment of federal H.I.V. prevention funds,'' the panel said

Dr. [John F. Eisold] has performed Mr. [Joseph I. Lieberman]'s recent annual checkups. He declined, as a matter of policy, to be interviewed and instead issued a summary of Mr. Lieberman's medical history. Dr. [Mark L. Schwartz] said in a lengthy interview that his care of Mr. Lieberman is now limited to examining his colon every three years. Mr. Lieberman has had several noncancerous growths removed, and his father died of colon cancer. He is due for another examination next year. Mr. Lieberman said his most disconcerting medical problem was an inflamed esophagus from gastro-esophageal reflux. The first episode occurred about 10 years ago when he woke up with chest pain. Concerned that he might be having a heart attack, Mr. Lieberman called his neighbor, Dr. Schwartz. A cardiac examination, including a stress test, found no evidence of heart disease, Dr. Schwartz said

Three major goals of the award will be to make the Albany Medical Center well known, to focus international attention on the city of Albany as a major center for excellence in health care and to create a wider awareness of the central role that academic medical centers play in medicine around the world, [Morris Silverman] and Albany Medical Center officials said