Faculty Bibliography

Michael H. Merson, the head of the World Health Organization's global AIDS program, said on Jul 20, 1992 at the International AIDS Conference that women are becoming infected with the AIDS virus about as often as men, and will represent most new infections by the year 2000

Worldwide since Jan. 1, 'close to half of the 1 million newly infected adults have been women,' said Dr. Michael H. Merson, who heads the organization's global program on AIDS. He added, 'Women's rising infection rates have been accompanied by a corresponding rise in the number of children born to them infected with HIV,' the virus that causes AIDS. In the first few years after the discovery of AIDS in 1981, gay men in urban areas accounted for about two-thirds of all AIDS cases in adults in the United States, Europe and parts of Latin America. But more recently, that proportion has fallen because of an increasing trend for heterosexual women to become infected through sexual intercourse with infected men. CHART: OC women and AIDS In Orange County, 111 of the 2,122 reported AIDS cases involve women. That includes 41 cases contracted by heterosexual transmission, 35 through intravenous drug use and 27 through blood transfusion

Worldwide since Jan. 1, 'close to half of the one million newly infected adults have been women,' said Michael Merson, who heads WHO's global program on AIDS. He added that 'women's rising infection rates have been accompanied by a corresponding rise in the number of children born to them infected with HIV,' the virus that causes AIDS. In the first few years after the discovery of AIDS in 1981, gay men in urban areas accounted for about two-thirds of all AIDS cases in adults in the United States, Europe and parts of Latin America. But more recently, that proportion has fallen due to an increasing trend for heterosexual women to become infected through sexual intercourse with infected men. [Jonathan Mann], who is chairman of the international AIDS meeting in Amsterdam, said in an interview that the AIDS epidemic had shown that 'male-dominated societies are a threat to public health' because women have less power to protect themselves from disease

Worldwide since Jan. 1, 'close to half of the 1 million newly infected adults have been women,' said Dr. Michael H. Merson, who heads WHO's global program on acquired immune deficiency syndrome. He added that the rising infection rates among women 'have been accompanied by a corresponding rise in the number of children born to them infected with HIV,' the virus that causes AIDS. The growing number of HIV-infected women reflects the surge in the epidemic in Third World countries. WHO estimates that from 10 million to 12 million adults and 1 million children have been infected. The overwhelming majority are in Africa and Asia. In a study involving 2,850 participants, a team headed by Dr. Linnea Capps of Columbia University and Harlem Hospital in New York found no gender differences in infected people who receive drugs to combat HIV and a deadly form of pneumonia caused by the Pneumocystis carinii microbe

Jonathan Mann, chairman of the 8th International AIDS Conference, on Jul 19, 1992 opened activities with a plea for the creation of political parties devoted to AIDS and other health-care issues that would take their precedent from green parties dedicated to environmentalism

More American doctors said they were reluctant to treat patients infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and would not choose to practice in an area where AIDS is prevalent. American doctors in the study also were more likely than their Canadian and French counterparts to believe that care of patients infected with HIV is dangerous. Most doctors in the study said they recognized an ethical obligation to treat HIV-infected patients. But of 1,745 American doctors surveyed in 10 states, 23 percent said they would not care for AIDS patients if they had a choice. The figure compared with 14 percent of 542 Canadian doctors and 4 percent of 361 French doctors

A second study found that a contraceptive sponge containing the most commonly used spermicide throughout the world, nonoxynol 9, did not protect women against infection with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The findings present medical schools 'with a stark challenge' for improved discussions of professional ethics and responsibilities and for developing strategies to lower the risk of needle-stick injuries, Dr. [Martin F. Shapiro] said. He told a news conference that the boards that license doctors in each state should consider lifting accreditation for doctors who refuse care to H.I.V.-infected patients. The study involved 138 H.I.V.-negative women who received either the spermicidal sponge or a placebo. Of the 60 women who received nonoxynol 9, 27 of them, or 45 percent, became H.I.V. infected. These figures compared with 20 of 56, or 36 percent, in the placebo group. The remaining women did not complete the study.

An international study showed that young American doctors are much more reluctant to care for AIDS patients than comparable groups of doctors in Canada and France

More American doctors said they were reluctant to treat patients infected with the virus that causes AIDS and would choose not to practice in an area where AIDS is prevalent. Most doctors in the study said they recognized an ethical obligation to treat HIV-infected patients. But of 1,745 American doctors surveyed in 10 states, 23 percent said they would not care for AIDS patients if they had a choice. The figure compared with 14 percent of 542 Canadian doctors and 4 percent of 361 French doctors. About three-fourths of the American and Canadian doctors and about 40 percent of the French doctors in the study reported that they had been stuck by a needle contaminated with a patient's blood at least once. Several doctors in the United States have died from AIDS contracted from needle-stick injuries with HIV-contaminated blood and others are dying from the disease

The kind of tumor removed from Pope John Paul II's colon on Jul 15, 1992 is called a villous adenoma and is a kind of polyp that has a huge potential for becoming cancerous. The pope's tumor, however, was benign. The surgery performed on the pope is described