Faculty Bibliography

In February 1996, George Shultz went to visit his old boss Ronald Reagan at the former president's home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles. He drank tea with Reagan and his wife, Nancy, and talked a little politics. In all, he stayed perhaps an hour. At one point in the visit, Reagan had left the room briefly with a nurse. When they came back, Mrs. Reagan went on: 'He said to the nurse: `Who is that man sitting with Nancy on the couch? I know him. He is a very famous man.' It has been almost three years since Reagan disclosed that he had the memory-destroying neurological illness known as Alzheimer's disease. And if, at the age of 86, the old movie actor still looks the image of vigorous good health, the truth is that the man behind the firm handshake and barely gray hair is steadily, surely ebbing away

It has been almost three years since Reagan disclosed that he had the memory-destroying neurological illness known as Alzheimer's disease. And if, at the age of 86, the old movie actor still looks the image of vigorous good health, the truth is that the man behind the firm handshake and barely gray hair is steadily, surely ebbing away. Just when the Alzheimer's began can never be known. But while the line between mere forgetfulness and the beginning of Alzheimer's can be fuzzy, a matter of gradation, Reagan's four main White House doctors say they saw no evidence that he had crossed it as president. They saw and spoke with him daily in the White House, they said, and beyond the natural failings of age, never found his memory, reasoning or judgment to be significantly impaired. Reagan 'absolutely' did not 'show any signs of dementia or Alzheimer's,' said Dr. John Hutton, who cared for him from 1984 until the end of his presidency and remains a close family friend. Extensive mental status tests did not indicate evidence of Alzheimer's until 1993, more than four years after Reagan left office, Hutton said

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded yesterday to Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner, a 55-year-old maverick scientist in San Francisco whose discoveries about infectious particles called prions have been criticized by other researchers as unproved. The Nobel committee compounded its departure from the tradition of rubber stamping well-accepted scientific work by awarding the prize to only one researcher, emphasizing its confidence in Dr. Prusiner's discovery of a ''new genre of disease-causing agents.'' These agents, neither bacteria nor fungi nor viruses, are proteins and have been linked to mad cow disease and other lethal brain-wasting conditions. The committee cited Dr. Prusiner for discovering the rogue prion proteins as ''a new biological principle of infection'' and adding them ''to the list of well-known infectious agents.'' But some scientists doubt that they can cause disease because unlike other infectious agents, they contain no genetic material

The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded Monday to Stanley Prusiner, a 55-year-old maverick scientist at the University of California at San Francisco whose discoveries about infectious particles called prions have been criticized by other researchers as unproved. The Nobel committee compounded its departure from the tradition of rubber stamping well-accepted scientific work by awarding the prize to only one researcher, emphasizing its confidence in Prusiner's discovery of a ``new genre of disease-causing agents.'' Most of Prusiner's critics accept that prions exist but not that they are necessarily agents of disease

In February 1996, George Shultz went to visit his old boss, Ronald Reagan, at the former president's home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles. He drank tea with Reagan and his wife, Nancy, and talked a little politics. In all, he stayed perhaps an hour. At one point in the visit, Reagan had left the room briefly with a nurse. When they came back, Mrs. Reagan went on, `he said to the nurse: 'Who is that man sitting with Nancy on the couch? I know him. He is a very famous man.' ` Reagan `absolutely` did not `show any signs of dementia or Alzheimer's,` said Dr. John Hutton, who cared for him from 1984 until the end of his presidency and remains a close family friend. Extensive mental status tests did not indicate evidence of Alzheimer's until 1993, more than four years after Reagan left office, Hutton said

In a surprising reversal of longtime health gains, fewer adult Americans are aware they have high blood pressure, fewer are getting effective therapy and more are dying, federal health officials said Thursday in issuing new treatment guidelines for the ailment that affects 50 million Americans. Over the past 25 years, therapies against high blood pressure have led to significant declines in deaths from stroke and coronary heart disease. But the latest health statistics show a rise in severe kidney disease and heart failure, a slight rise in the rate of stroke, and a leveling in the death rate for Americans with coronary heart disease. These conditions often occur as complications of long-standing high blood pressure, which is also called hypertension

In a surprising reversal of longtime health gains, fewer adult Americans are aware they have high blood pressure, fewer are getting effective therapy and more are dying, federal health officials said Thursday in issuing new treatment guidelines for the ailment affecting 50 million Americans. Over the past 25 years, anti-high blood pressure therapies have led to significant declines in deaths from stroke and coronary heart disease. But the latest statistics show a rise in severe kidney disease and heart failure, a slight rise in the rate of stroke, and a leveling in the death rate for Americans with coronary heart disease. These conditions often occur as complications of long-standing high blood pressure, also called hypertension. The reason for the abrupt reversal is not known, federal health officials and experts in high blood pressure said at a news conference. But they said contributing factors could be an increase in obesity, growing complacency among doctors and patients about high blood pressure, a large number of patients who stop drug therapy because of unwanted effects, such as decreased sexual interest and fatigue, and lack of effective communication to the public

Over the last 25 years, anti-high blood pressure therapies have led to significant declines in deaths from stroke and coronary heart disease. But the latest health statistics show a rise in severe kidney disease and heart failure, a slight rise in the rate of stroke, and a leveling in the death rate for Americans with coronary heart disease. These conditions often occur as complications of long-standing high blood pressure, which is also called hypertension

In a surprising reversal of longtime health gains, fewer adult Americans are aware they have high blood pressure, fewer are getting effective therapy, and more are dying as a result, Federal health officials said here today in issuing new treatment guidelines for the ailment, which affects 50 million Americans. Over the last 25 years, therapies to fight high blood pressure have led to significant declines in deaths from stroke and coronary heart disease. But the latest health statistics show a rise in severe kidney disease and heart failure, a slight rise in the rate of stroke, and a leveling in the death rate for Americans with coronary heart disease. These conditions often occur as complications of longstanding high blood pressure, which is also called hypertension. ''We are very concerned to see this decline in awareness and control,'' said Dr. Claude Lenfant, the director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, a Federal agency in Bethesda, Md. Dr. Lenfant and Dr. Edward J. Roccella, who is in charge of the Government's education program on high blood pressure, said the institute was developing new public announcements and a research program intended to improve compliance with therapy, which generally has to be lifelong

In a surprising reversal of longtime health gains, fewer adult Americans are aware they have high blood pressure, fewer are getting effective therapy and more are dying, federal health officials said Thursday in issuing new treatment guidelines for the ailment that affects 50 million Americans. Over the past 25 years, treatments to reduce blood pressure have led to significant declines in deaths from stroke and coronary heart disease. But the latest health statistics show a rise in severe kidney disease and heart failure, a slight rise in the rate of stroke, and a leveling in the death rate for Americans with coronary heart disease. These conditions often occur as complications of long-standing high blood pressure, also called hypertension. The reason for the abrupt reversal is not known, federal health officials and medical experts said at a news conference. But they said contributing factors could be an increase in obesity, growing complacency among doctors and patients about high blood pressure, a large number of patients who stop drug therapy because of unwanted effects, such as decreased sexual interest and fatigue, and lack of effective communication to the public