Faculty Bibliography

The risk was higher among non-smoking women who were married to smokers than among those married to non-smokers, Greek, Italian and American researchers found in a study being repor ted today. Scientists have pointed out that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke often begins at birth, or even in the womb. Although the intensity of such exposure is usually lower than that from active smoking, the longer exposure might partly offset the lower intensity. Men accounted for 70 percent of those whose next of kin were interviewed, and women 30 percent. The larger proportion of men reflected the greater likelihood that men die in accidents or from unexpected heart disease, [Dimitrios Trichopoulos] said. Greek law requires an autopsy by a medical examiner for individuals who die in accidents or without having an attendant physician

[Lyndon B. Johnson]'s forces charged that Kennedy was 'muscle flexing' in making his claim and that he had long covered up his adrenal condition. But Kennedy and his brother Robert denied that he had the ailment. Kennedy, who at 43 was the youngest elected President, described his health as excellent and said at a news conference on Nov. 10, 1960, that he 'never' had Addison's disease. After Kennedy's death, Dr. John Nichols of the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, matched the patient in the surgical report with The New York Times accounts of Kennedy's surgery, which did not discuss any adrenal condition. In a letter, 'President Kennedy's Adrenals,' in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 1967, Dr. Nichols criticized the autopsy report sent to the Warren Commission for failing to mention Kennedy's adrenals and for concealing a diagnosis that carried no stigma. Although the pathologists had vowed to remain silent about Kennedy's autopsy, they spoke in an interview with CBS in 1967 and again with Dr. [George D. Lundberg]'s journal last May. But in May, they declined to discuss Kennedy's adrenals. Dr. Lundberg said Dr. [J. Thornton Boswell] agreed to discuss Kennedy's adrenal glands after he was told that Dr. [Robert F. Karnei] had disclosed they were missing and after Dr. James J. Humes, the other principal, released Dr. Boswell from the vow of silence

'We don't have a new epidemic on our hands,' Dr. [Michael H. Merson] said in a telephone interview from the agency's headquarters in Geneva. 'It does not look like it is a major problem, and we have no definitive evidence that there is a new virus causing immunosuppression.' Evidence from the latest meeting 'does not suggest that these cases are due to a new H.I.V.-like virus or any other infectious agent that could be transmitted, including transmission through blood or blood products,' the World Health Organization said. The meeting was not open to reporters. The health organization also said: 'Although preliminary reports suggest the presence of several different microorganisms from a very small number of cases, these findings have not yet been duplicated in other laboratories, and their role, if any, is unclear. No definitive evidence for any new virus causing immunosuppression was presented.'

The mean normal temperature of subjects in a recent study by the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Maryland in Baltimore was 98.2 degrees, not 98.6 degrees as has long been accepted

The study by Dr. Jukka T. Salonen's team at the University of Kuopio was reported last week in the September issue of Circulation, a scientific journal published by the American Heart Association. It does not prove that iron can cause heart attacks. But it provides the first empirical evidence for a theory advanced 11 years ago that high amounts of iron promote heart attacks and low levels protect against them

Two researchers studying SIV, or simian immunodeficiency virus, were accidentally exposed to the virus in different laboratories, but it is unknown whether they have become infected. The pair would be the first people reported to be infected with the AIDS-like simian virus

University of Pittsburgh surgeons on Sep 8, 1992 indicated that they plan to proceed with a second liver transplant from a baboon to a human, despite the Sep 6, 1992 death of the first transplant recipient due to a stroke

It is unusual for surgeons, particularly a team that has pioneered and dominated an entire field, to discuss so candidly and in public their anxieties about performing pioneering human experiments such as a baboon liver transplant. The liver is an unusual organ because it has the capacity to regenerate. 'No one knows why the liver grew and why it stopped when it did,' [Anthony J. Demetris] said. The man was near death when he underwent the experimental baboon liver procedure on June 28. Doctors said he was ineligible for a human liver transplant at the University of Pittsburgh because his own liver was damaged by the hepatitis B virus, a type of infection that recurs in a very high percentage of such patients who are given a new human liver

Proof that iron causes heart attacks and that drugs or other measures to reduce the amount of iron in the body prevents them will still require much more research. Iron lost from bloodletting would be replaced by iron drawn from stores in the bone marrow, liver and spleen, thus reducing the total amount of iron in the body. The researchers measured the amount of ferritin, a protein that binds iron in the blood. Tests for ferritin are commonly used in medical practice. Because iron is stored in the bone marrow, liver and spleen, the ferritin levels in the blood were used to indicate the total amount of iron in the body

A new medical study suggests that high levels of iron in the body help form the plaque that hardens artery walls and block the flow of blood leading to a heart attack. Although the findings support a theory first advanced 11 years ago, experts caution that it is too early to make any recommendations about lowering body iron