Faculty Bibliography

A novel vaccine has protected two chimpanzees that were deliberately injected with the AIDS virus, scientists said yesterday. The experiments involved a vaccine made by incorporating weakened genes from HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The experimental vaccine, which is based on DNA, is being tested on humans, but it is too early for any meaningful results, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

For several years Knoll had prohibited a team led by Dr. Betty J. Dong at the University of California at San Francisco from reporting a study showing that Synthroid was no more effective than less expensive generic versions of the drug. Dr. Dong signed a contract in 1987 giving Knoll's predecessor the right to veto any publication. The study was completed in 1990, but the findings were reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association on April 16 after Knoll relented. Federal health officials and experts at universities, drug companies and scientific journals said they considered the thyroid case unusual. And a spokeswoman for Knoll, Linda Mayer, said she was not aware of other contracts between Knoll and academic institutions with clauses similar to that in the contract with Dr. Dong

Experts in thyroid disease expressed caution yesterday about whether patients with underactive thyroids who take a drug known as Synthroid as a daily hormone replacement should switch to a less expensive generic substitute. Such patients should talk to their doctor about the possibility of switching from Synthroid, the trade name version of a hormone known as levothyroxine, to other forms of the drug, the experts said. They emphasized that stability in the amount of drug taken was important to prevent the reappearance of symptoms from either too little or too much hormone among the eight million Americans who take levothyroxine

Further investigation of the outbreak of hepatitis A infection from frozen strawberries among schoolchildren has eased concern about the extent of the health threat posed by strawberries shipped from the same lots for use in restaurants and homes, federal health officials said Thursday night. Strawberries from lots implicated in Michigan -- where 163 children and teachers developed the liver infection after eating the tainted fruit -- were also sent to five other states as part of the federal school lunch program: Arizona, California, Georgia, Iowa and Tennessee. A substantial but unquantified portion of the commercial-use strawberries were included in such products as jams, jellies, preserves and fruit juices that were heated, said Dr. Michael Friedman, the deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. If standard techniques were used, the heating would have destroyed any hepatitis A virus present, Friedman said

Further investigation of the outbreak of hepatitis A infection from frozen strawberries among schoolchildren has eased concern about the extent of the health threat posed by strawberries shipped from the same lots for use in restaurants and homes, federal health officials said Thursday night. The strawberries used in the program account for about half of a shipment of 1 million pounds imported from Mexico and processed in California a year ago. The rest were shipped to a number of distributors for commercial sale, raising concern that the outbreak might have affected people other than those in the lunch program. A substantial but unquantified portion of the commercial-use strawberries were included in such products as jams, jellies, preserves and fruit juices that were heated, said Dr. Michael Friedman, the deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Only one other outbreak of hepatitis A has been traced to frozen strawberries, and it might shed some light on the current outbreak, in part because the contaminated frozen strawberries originated from one processing plant in California