Faculty Bibliography

Needle and syringe exchange programs for intravenous drug users in three cities have reduced needle-sharing and the risk of transmitting the AIDS virus, according to a study done on the programs enacted in Tacoma WA, Amsterdam and London

The study of 5,287 white Seventh-day Adventists in California found that women whose menopause had occurred before the age of 40 showed almost twice the risk of dying in the six years of the study than did women of similar ages whose menopause came at the ages of 50 to 54. The researchers used women who underwent menopause between 50 and 55 as their point of comparison. Of the 105 who underwent menopause between age 40 and 44, 105, or 20 per cent, died. Of the 1,532 who underwent menopause from the age of 45 to 49, 230 or 15 per cent died. Of the 2,314 who underwent menopause from the age of 50 to 54, 300, or just under 13 per cent died. Of the 778 women who underwent menopause at 55 or older, 103, or slightly more than 13 per cent, died. Of the women answering the questionnaire, 10,198 were from 55 to 100 years old, and 5,287, or 52 per cent, said they had gone through a natural menopause. One per cent had not experienced menopause. Thirty-one per cent had had a surgical menopause

New York City Health Commissioner Stephen Joseph has proposed that all people infected with the AIDS virus be confidentially reported to health authorities

In particular, the spotlight is on a part of the process known as peer review, which scientific journals rely upon to weed out inaccurate claims and research findings. Editors, if favorably disposed to manuscripts submitted for publication, send them to scientists, or ''peers,'' considered experts on the topic of the manuscript. Another prominent editor, Dr. Arnold S. Relman of The New England Journal of Medicine, said he objected to Dr. [Drummond Rennie]'s proposal. Not only would it be costly and tedious, he said, but it still would be unable to block an author determined to defraud. Also, Dr. Relman said, it ''will create an atmosphere that will poison the scientific process, creating suspicion, hostility, charges, countercharges and lawsuits.'' ''We need regular audits of journals to show how well or badly, how efficiently or inefficiently, their editorial processes are working,'' Dr. [Andrew Herxheimer] wrote in a recent issue of The Scientist, which is published in Philadelphia. ''Where is it quick and efficient and where is it slow and erratic?''

With participants from 87 countries, the world's largest conference on AIDS opened Jun 4, 1989, in Montreal

Nurses in a Soviet hospital used the same syringe to give injections to several patients causing at least 51 people in one hospital to be infected with the AIDS virus

Dr Anthony S. Fauci, an AIDS expert who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, confirms reports that mental deterioration of AIDS victims rarely occurs before AIDS cripples the immune system

A recent study found that AIDS patients are nearly four times more likely to survive a common form of pneumonia when treated in a hospital that is highly experienced in caring for the disease

The study, of 5,287 white Seventh-day Adventists in California, appears in the June issue of The American Journal of Public Health. It found that women whose menopause had occurred before the age of 40 showed almost twice the risk of dying in the six years of the study as did women of similar ages whose menopause came at the ages of 50 to 54. The researchers used women who underwent menopause between 50 and 55 as their point of comparison. In the six years of the study, 1976 to 1982, 772 of the women died. Broken down by age at menopause, 34 of the 126 women who underwent menopause before age 40, or 27 percent, died during the study. Of the 537 who underwent menopause from the ages of 40 to 44, 105, or 20 percent, died. Of the 1,532 who underwent menopause from the ages of 45 to 49, 230 or 15 percent died. Of the 2,314 who underwent menopause from the ages of 50 to 54, 300, or just under 13 percent died. Of the 778 women who underwent menopause at 55 or older, 103, or slightly more than 13 percent, died. A principal one is the subjective nature of the reports that relied on a woman's memory about the age at which her menopause occurred. Many women do not precisely recall their age at menopause. But the researchers cited earlier studies showing that women can usually remember when they underwent menopause within a year.

''What distresses me is the potential'' for the spread of Chagas' disease by transfusions in the United States, said Dr. Lemone Yielding, vice president of the University of Texas Medical School at Galveston. Dr. Dennis D. Juranek, an expert in the epidemiology of parasitic diseases at the Centers for Disease Control, said the threat ''is something we have got to look at.'' But Dr. Juranek said that he did not favor national testing for now because of the expense involved and the rarity of the disease in this country. Dr. [Peter R. Kerndt]'s team found only a small number of donors infected with the parasite, but concluded that ''there is a small but significant risk of transfusion-related [Carlos Chagas]' disease at blood donor centers in the United States.'' The blood samples were subjected to various laboratory tests and the results varied; the doctors said that from 1 to 11 of the 1,000 donors were infected