Faculty Bibliography

Reporting on the first comprehensive study of these diseases in prisons and jails, the study's lead author, Dr. Theodore Hammett, said the high prevalence of AIDS among prisoners reflected their widespread use of drugs before they were imprisoned. He presented the findings yesterday at the National H.I.V. Prevention Conference in Atlanta. Prisons are a critical setting for detecting and treating sexually transmitted diseases, Dr. Hammett said, but the quality of health care varies widely. About 90 percent of the prisons and jails say they make the newer combinations of anti-H.I.V. drugs available, but not necessarily to all inmates, Dr. Hammett said. In 1997, an estimated 8,900 inmates had AIDS, and 35,000 to 47,000 more were infected with H.I.V., said Dr. Hammett, who works for Abt Associates, a private research and consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. Dr. Hammett conducted the study for the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, a private organization in Chicago that aims to improve health care in jails and prisons

The prevalence of AIDS among prisoners in the United States is five times that of the general population, and the rates for some other sexually transmitted disease are even higher, scientists said Tuesday. Reporting on the first comprehensive study of these diseases in prisons and jails, the lead author, Dr. Theodore Hammett, said the high prevalence of AIDS among prisoners reflects their widespread use of drugs before they were imprisoned. He presented the findings Tuesday at the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta. Prisons are a critical setting for detecting and treating sexually transmitted diseases, Hammett said, but the quality of health care varies widely. About 90 percent of the prisons and jails say they make the newer combinations of anti-HIV drugs available, but not necessarily to all inmates, Hammett said

The prevalence of AIDS among prisoners in the United States is five times that of the general population, and the rates for some other sexually transmitted disease are even higher, scientists said this week . Reporting on the first comprehensive study of these diseases in prisons and jails, the lead author, Theodore Hammett, said the high prevalence of AIDS among prisoners reflects their widespread use of drugs before they were imprisoned. He presented the findings Tuesday at the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta. Prisons are a critical setting for detecting and treating sexually transmitted diseases, Hammett said, but the quality of health care varies widely. About 90 percent of the prisons and jails say they make the newer combinations of anti-HIV drugs available, but not necessarily to all inmates, Hammett said

It was just the kind of phone call the New York City Health Department welcomes, however troubling: Dr. Deborah S. Asnis, an infectious disease specialist at Flushing Hospital in the Queens, reported she had two elderly patients with symptoms suggesting neurological illness. It might be botulism, a deadly form of food-borne illness, or Guillain-Barre syndrome, a form of paralysis. But it looked more like encephalitis, a potentially fatal inflammation of the brain. Dr. Marcelle Layton, the head of the Health Department's Bureau of Communicable Diseases, took that first call on Monday, Aug. 23. Dr. Asnis told her that tests of the patients' spinal fluid suggested a viral infection, either meningitis or encephalitis. Dr. Layton urged Dr. Asnis to send specimens of the patients' spinal fluid and blood to the New York State Health Department laboratory in Albany for additional tests to detect a virus. On Friday, Aug. 27, Dr. Layton and her associate, Dr. Annie Fine, called Dr. Asnis to discuss her two patients. There has been a third, Dr. Asnis told them, and even as the three doctors were speaking, another doctor interrupted to tell Dr. Asnis about a fourth case

After the experimental transplant was performed on Sept. 23, 1998, many doctors predicted failure, saying a body would reject the combination of skin and dozens of muscles, tendons, nerves and blood vessels in the donor arm. They added that even if the foreign tissue was accepted, Mr. (Clint) Hallam's brain could not power nerves that had been severed in a prison accident 14 years earlier, and the new arm would be a useless stump. But substantial nerve regeneration has occurred, more is expected in the months ahead, and Mr. Hallam, 49, has not experienced a serious rejection reaction, said Dr. Earl Owen, the hand surgeon in Sydney, Australia, who headed the international team that performed the transplant in Lyons, France. Mr. Hallam's new hand has about 25 percent of normal grip strength and the pinch grip between his index finger and thumb is good, Dr. Owen said in a telephone interview last week, during a visit to Lyons to review Mr. Hallam's progress in the last year. Mr. Hallam could not be reached for an interview

A year after he received a new right hand and forearm in a transplant operation in France, Clint Hallam of Australia has gained a sufficient grip to ride a motorcycle and even write with a pen, his doctors say. After the experimental transplant was performed Sept. 23, 1998, many doctors predicted failure, saying a body would reject the combination of skin and dozens of muscles, tendons, nerves and blood vessels in the donor arm. They added that even if the foreign tissue were accepted, Hallam's brain could not power nerves that had been severed in a prison accident 14 years earlier, and the new arm would be a useless stump

Each year millions of people in third world countries develop similar symptoms from malaria, a parasitic infection carried by the Anopheles mosquito, and many die. Far fewer cases occur in the United States: Mr. [Sean] Cavanaugh's is one of about a thousand. Like almost all patients here, he survived. Either way, the case underscores the importance of diagnosing once-common infections like malaria that are now rare in the United States. In 1914, malaria infected at least 600,000 Americans. Now all but about 10 cases reported here each year are among Americans who contracted malaria overseas or among people who have moved to the United States from areas where the infection remains. The infection's control in the United States came from wiping out the parasite, not by eliminating the Anopheles mosquito. It remains. That afternoon, Dr. [James] Salik referred Mr. Cavanaugh to Dr. David A. Silverman, an expert in infectious diseases at New York University. Both doctors would ask a similar question: Where have you traveled recently? Honduras in the spring, Mr. Cavanaugh told them

Summary: The author of a study says adding ramipril to current therapies could save tens of thousands of lives a year A drug that has been marketed for eight years to combat high blood pressure turns out to produce a substantial reduction in the risk of heart attack, stroke and bypass surgery and in diabetes and its complications in those who have heart disease, scientists reported Wednesday. The findings suggest that at least 10 million Americans and their doctors may want to add the drug, ramipril, to standard heart therapies and that it could save tens of thousands of lives each year at a cost of about 85 cents a day, said the study's chief author, Dr. Salim Yusuf of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario

A drug that has been marketed for eight years to combat high blood pressureturns out to substantially lower the risk of heart attack, stroke, bypasssurgery, and diabetes and its complications in those who have heart disease,scientists reported yesterday. The findings suggest that at least 10 million Americans and their doctorsmay want to add the drug, ramipril, to standard heart therapies and that itcould save tens of thousands of lives each year at a cost of about 85 cents aday, said the study's chief author, Dr. Salim Yusuf of McMaster University inHamilton, Ontario, in an interview. The study was conducted among individuals with heart or blood vesseldisease but without heart failure, Yusuf said in reporting the findingsyesterday at the AHA meeting in Atlanta. Participants also had at least onerisk factor for heart disease or strokes, such as high blood pressure,elevated cholesterol levels or cigarette smoking