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For the first time since the AIDS epidemic was recognized in 1981, deaths from the disease in New York City dropped sharply last year, declining by 30 percent, a city Health Department official said Friday. Dr. Mary Ann Chiasson, assistant commissioner for disease intervention research, said that the number of people who died from the disease fell to 4,944 in 1996 from 7,046 in 1995, and that the decline occurred in all ethnic groups and in both sexes. For unknown reasons, the drop was greater among men than women

For the first time since the AIDS epidemic was recognized in 1981, deaths from the disease in New York City dropped sharply last year, declining by 30 percent, a City Health Department official said today. ''It's great news, and we haven't had a lot of that in the AIDS epidemic,'' Dr. Harold W. Jaffe, an AIDS expert at the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said at a news conference on the New York City report. Dr. Lars O. Kallings of Stockholm, a leader in international AIDS research, said ''the data were very impressive and will have global importance because widespread publicity has focused attention on New York City's epidemic.'' He said that because so many of New York's AIDS cases are among the poor, the new statistics would offer hope to poor nations with intractable AIDS problems

Dr. David Ho, a leading AIDS scientist, said here today that he had pushed back by up to a year his plans to do crucial tests to determine whether infection with the AIDS virus can be cured in some people. Then Dr. Ho's team at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in Manhattan would test the individual repeatedly to determine if H.I.V. could be detected again. Today, Dr. Ho said that ''we have never popped the question with our patients'' to stop therapy to test the theory that AIDS might be curable. He spoke at a news conference before opening an AIDS meeting here tonight with a talk entitled: ''Can H.I.V. Be Eradicated From an Infected Person?''

Adverse reactions to drugs and mistakes in prescribing them commonly cause illness and sometimes death among hospital patients in this country, three new studies have shown. One problem is an allergic reaction that cannot be predicted or prevented -- which can occur the first time an individual takes a drug. Another reaction can occur if a patient has a known drug allergy that doctors, nurses and pharmacists fail to note before the medication is administered. A reaction can also occur when a patient is given a combination of drugs, even when each drug presents no problems individually. The rates of adverse drug events varied widely in earlier studies, in part because of the way hospitals and those doing studies identify the rates. One study found that about 30 percent of hospital patients had adverse drug events and that 3 percent to 28 percent of hospital admissions were related to such events

The death of former Sen Paul E. Tsongas of Massachusetts on Jan 18, 1997 from complications of treatment for cancer recalls how important it is for candidates for elected office to make full disclosure of their medical information

Since 1996, the widespread use of combinations of new and older drugs has changed the face of AIDS, promising to transform a fatal infection to a manageable chronic disease. But for an unknown number of AIDS victims, the drugs are failing

Charles B. Huggins, who won a Nobel Prize for discoveries that helped open the era of drug therapy for cancer and provide underpinnings of the modern treatment of prostate and breast cancer, died on Jan 12, 1997 at the age of 95