Faculty Bibliography

Gay men in New York City have significantly reduced their levels of risky sexual behavior, and the number of men infected with the AIDS virus has dropped sharply during the past 15 years, city health officials said in issuing findings Sunday from the largest survey ever of gay men's sexual health. The survey also indicated that young gay men are heeding messages about the need for precautions. Use of condoms for first anal intercourse rose to 78 percent in 1998 from 34 percent in 1985, said Dr. Tracy Mayne, the director of epidemiology for the New York City Health Department's AIDS prevention planning group. He said most men do not engage in unprotected anal intercourse, are reducing the risk if they do, and have fewer sex partners. Although the new survey was not representative of all gay and bisexual men in New York City and reflected only what the men said about themselves, it showed that more extensive efforts are needed, particularly among black and Hispanic gay men, to prevent them from becoming infected with HIV. The survey found that black and Hispanic gay men were less likely to engage in risk reduction. They also were twice as likely as white gay men to get their HIV test in a hospital, usually when sick with AIDS, instead of at a clinic when feeling well

Gay men in New York City have significantly reduced their levels of risky sexual behavior, and the number of men infected with the AIDS virus has dropped sharply over the last 15 years, city health officials said in issuing findings yesterday from the largest survey ever of gay men's sexual health. The survey, conducted last year in an unusual partnership between the city and the Gay Men's Health Crisis, offers what they said is the clearest picture of how sexual practices of gay and bisexual men have changed in response to the AIDS epidemic. HIV infection rates among gay men are lower than commonly believed, the survey found. About one in seven participants said they were infected, a drop from studies in 1985 showing an infection rate of one in three in New York City

Gay men in New York City have significantly reduced their levels of risky sexual behavior, and the number of men infected with the AIDS virus has dropped sharply over the last 15 years, city health officials said in issuing findings yesterday from the largest survey ever of gay men's sexual health. The survey also indicated that young gay men are heeding messages about the need for precautions, contrary to fears that unprotected sex has been increasing. Use of condoms for first anal intercourse rose to 78 percent in 1998 from 34 percent in 1985, said Dr. Tracy J. Mayne, the director of epidemiology for the New York City Health Department's AIDS prevention planning group. He said that most men do not engage in unprotected anal intercourse, are reducing the risk if they do, and have fewer sex partners. Although the new survey was not representative of all men who have sex with men in New York City and reflected only what the men said about themselves, it showed that more extensive efforts are needed, particularly among black and Hispanic gay men, to prevent men from becoming infected with H.I.V. The survey found that black and Hispanic gay men were less likely to engage in risk reduction. They were also twice as likely as white gay men to get their H.I.V. test in a hospital, usually when sick with AIDS, instead of at a clinic when feeling well

An experimental vaccine for rotavirus, the leading cause of severe diarrhea in infants and young children, may be more effective and easier to deliver than the recently suspended standard vaccine, a new report says

[Daniele Primi], who works at DiaSorin, a biologics company in Brescia, Italy, has not submitted a paper for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and has yet to obtain proof from a photograph of the virus through an electron microscope. Details of the research are included in the patent applications DiaSorin filed in 1998 for discovery of the virus and development of tests, Primi said. So Primi sought to test stored blood samples from known cases of a variety of conditions. In blood samples provided by Dr. Mario Rizzetto, a scientist in Turin, Italy, who discovered the hepatitis D virus in 1977, Primi detected the new virus among patients with hepatitis non-A, non-E. So [Harvey Alter] sent Primi 200 additional coded samples that included a large percentage from healthy people with no known infections, as scientific controls. Again Primi's team found the SEN virus in 80 per cent of the hepatitis non-A, non-E samples and, depending on the group, in from 1 per cent to 8 per cent of the healthy controls. 'There was at least a 10-fold difference between the hepatitis patients and the controls,' Alter said

For decades, scientists have been mystified by a significant portion of hepatitis cases that were not caused by any of the liver disease's main known viral agents, hepatitis A through E. But now, acting on a hunch that unidentified viruses might be found in the blood of AIDS patients because of their weakened immune systems, Dr. Daniele Primi, an Italian scientist, has obtained what he and other scientists said in interviews was strong evidence for a novel hepatitis virus. Dr. Primi, who works in Brescia at a research laboratory for Diasorin, a medical biotechnology company, has not submitted a paper for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and has yet to obtain proof from a photograph of the virus through an electron microscope. Details of the research are included in the patent applications Diasorin filed in 1998 for discovery of the virus and development of tests, Dr. Primi said. Still, other researchers are picking up on the early findings. Using an unusual technique to test nearly 600 stored blood samples, largely from the laboratory of Dr. Harvey Alter at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Primi's team linked the newly found virus to cases of hepatitis with unexplained viral causes. They also found it in patients who were infected with known viruses that cause hepatitis and AIDS

Dr. Ludwik Gross, who influenced cancer research by showing that viruses could cause cancers in animals, died on Monday at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. He was 94 and lived in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Dr. Gross won an Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation prize in 1974 for his discovery of what became known as the Gross mouse leukemia virus. His work in the 1950's, the Lasker jury said, opened the field of tumor virology in mammals and ''laid the foundations for the subsequent discovery by others of cancer-inducing viruses in animals of various species ranging from rodents to the higher primates.'' For the half-century before Dr. Gross's discovery, scientists had largely ignored the role of viruses in cancer even though, beginning in 1908, researchers had suggested a viral cause by transmitting leukemia and sarcomas in chickens. Over the next 30 years, scientists transmitted a type of kidney cancer prevalent in frogs in New England lakes to other frogs, and also transmitted breast cancer in mice through milk from mothers to their offspring

An experimental vaccine for rotavirus, the leading cause of severe diarrhea in infants and young children, may be more effective and easier to deliver than the standard vaccine, a new report says. But further research is needed before the experimental vaccine, known as 89-12, could be marketed. Licensing, if it ever comes, would not be for at least three years because the critical third and largest stage of testing has not begun, said Dr. Richard Ward, an author of the report being published tomorrow in London in the medical journal The Lancet. Questions about the need for alternative rotavirus vaccines arose last week when Federal health officials called for suspension at least until November of the standard rotavirus vaccine, Rotashield. Rotashield is recommended for all infants, and its manufacturer, Wyeth-Ayerst of St. Davids, Pa., said one million infants in the United States had received it since the Food and Drug Administration licensed it on August 31, 1998