Faculty Bibliography

For example, scientists do not understand why [Kaposi]'s sarcoma develops among many homosexual men with AIDS but seldom among members of other high-risk groups who develop AIDS: intravenous drug users and hemophiliacs. Although many scientists say they can explain the symptoms of AIDS and its natural course on the basis of infection with only the AIDS virus, some - such as Lo - also have sought additional agents that might play a supporting or even an independent role in precipitating illness. From the isolates of the new virus, Lo developed a test to detect indirectly its presence in the blood. In blood tests of 24 additional living AIDS patients, Lo reported finding evidence of the new virus in 23. Some had only Kaposi's sarcoma. Others had Kaposi's sarcoma as well as opportunistic infections to which AIDS patients succumb. Still others had opportunistic infections without Kaposi's sarcoma

''It cries out for verification,'' said one virologist who is familiar with Dr. [Lo]'s work and who is supportive of it. The virologist, who asked not to be identified, said, ''We have all suffered from contamination.'' Dr. Lo said in an interview yesterday that he suspected the new virus played a more important role in AIDS than as the cause of an opportunistic infection. ''In future studies, it will become more clear,'' he said. ''We would like to have a more firm status before we claim anything.'' Similar Doubts in Past From the isolates of the new virus Dr. Lo developed a test to indirectly detect its presence in the blood. In blood tests of 24 additional living AIDS patients, Dr. Lo reported finding evidence of the new virus in 23. Some had only [Kaposi]'s sarcoma. Others had Kaposi's sarcoma as well as opportunistic infections to which AIDS patients succumb. Still others had opportunistic infections without Kaposi's sarcoma. Comparative Testing

The new virus is a large one. It has not been given a name and has never been found in any patients other than those with AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The virus appears to belong to a new family because it bears no relationship to any known virus, [Shyh-Ching Lo] said in a report in last week's issue of The American Journal of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

There is ''no question,'' Dr. Joseph said, that documented heterosexual transmission from man to woman and woman to man does occur in New York. To date, Dr. Joseph said, heterosexual transmission of AIDS ''is primarily and inextricably associated with intravenous drug abuse.'' Several years ago, doctors at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx showed that intravenous drug users who were infected with the AIDS virus could spread the disease to their heterosexual partners. Dr. Brian R. Saltzman reported preliminary results of a continuing study at Montefiore Hospital that showed that 63 percent of steady heterosexual partners of individuals who had AIDS or an associated condition called AIDS-related-complex remained free of infection with the AIDS virus. No association was found between the type, frequency or duration of sexual activities and AIDS infection or disease in their heterosexual partners. Some epidemiologists seriously question whether the AIDS virus is spread from women to men males as efficiently as it can be spread from men to women. But Dr. [Robert R. Redfield] said there was ''nothing unique'' about the ability of the AIDS virus to spread in either direction through heterosexual transmission

Although the introduction of AIDS virus into the nation's blood supply is a setback, all but a tiny percentage of tainted units have been eliminated and over the years other tests have made it possible to remove blood contaminated with other microbes. The result, health officials from New York and New Jersey said in a statement Wednesday, is a blood supply ''as safe, or safer, than it has ever been.'' Donated blood is a cornerstone of modern medicine, making possible a vast array of surgical and medical therapies. Blood transfusions, the most successful tissue transplants, have become more significant to treatment than many ''miracle'' drugs. Despite new concerns, a transfusion is less risky than anesthesia or surgery, procedures most people would not avoid when they need them. Until the development of a blood test, there was no way to detect blood contaminated with the AIDS virus. The AIDS blood tests now in use detect antibodies, the natural substances that the body forms to fight off microbes such as the AIDS virus. Occasionally the test fails to identify contaminated blood because antibodies are not present, even though the AIDS virus is. Up to 120 units of tainted blood out of the 12 million units collected each year may go undetected, experts estimate

[Samuel Luke Fildes]'s physician had few of the diagnostic and therapeutic tools available to modern physicians. Not a hint exists in ''The Doctor'' of the technology that now dominates modern health care. Not even a stethoscope is visible, although the instrument was available. A bisexual who was under the care of a psychiatrist, a faculty member of a leading medical school who also practiced in a home office, became suicidal after the psychiatrist, having just read about AIDS, waited at the door for his patient, who was not known to have AIDS. ''Don't come in,'' the psychiatrist said. Later, by telephone, he told the patient that he could no longer treat him because he feared he might carry the disease to his famiily. Abandoned by the psychiatrist, the patient had little recourse because he did not want to identify himself to others who might investigate. ''Making infectious disease rounds now is more like making rounds on cancer patients before there was chemotherapy,'' one specialist in infectious diseases said. ''There is very little we can offer AIDS patients other than emotional support.''

The subject of Tuesday's ruling was a suit filed in December in which the Pasteur Institute contended that Dr. Luc Montagnier, its chief cancer virologist, discovered the virus, lymphadenopathy associated virus, or LAV, in 1983, one year before Dr. [Robert C. Gallo] reported his team's independent isolation of a virus it identified as HTLV-3. Dr. Gallo's team filed a patent to produce commercial tests to detect the AIDS virus in blood. Dr. Gallo requested a sample of the LAV virus from Dr. Montagnier in 1983. Dr. Mikulas Popovic, a member of the Gallo team at the National Cancer Institute, signed a contract with the Pasteur Institute in 1983 agreeing that isolates of the French AIDS virus would be used only for research purposes and not for commercial gain

''There's no special holding back,'' Dr. [Robert C. Gallo] said. ''There is just as much openness between us as there is between other groups.'' In pointing out the different levels of cooperation involved, Dr. Gallo said that ''international collaboration in science doesn't occur by organizations - they usually interfere. When things get finalized and a bureaucracy is built around it, people fight for turf, positions'' and so forth, ''as in all human endeavors.'' Dr. [Luc Montagnier] said in an interview that while the legal problems had limited the scientific contact with Dr. Gallo's group, ''we can still communicate.'' The Pasteur Institute team, Dr. Montagnier said, had good relations with Dr. Samuel Broder and other scientists at the National Cancer Institute and ''we have many collaborations going on with other groups in the United States.''

The study shows ''how rapidly and dramatically the AIDS virus can spread in a promiscuous heterosexual population,'' said Dr. Peter Piot, an AIDS expert at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. Promiscuity was common among Haitians suffering from AIDS, the report said. Dr. [Warren B. Johnson] and Dr. Piot, who was chairman of the session where the findings were discussed, agreed that although direct extrapolations could not be made, the results of the Haitian study had implications for Americans, Europeans and people living elsewhere in the world. If AIDS changed in Haiti, Dr. Johnson said in an interview: ''Why can't it change in the United States? I don't think it changed because Haitians have changed their sexual practices'' since 1983. Although these numbers may seem small, some represented the most extensive such data examined to date, Dr. Johnson said. ''Collectively, these findings suggest that heterosexual activity is now the predominant mode'' of spreading the AIDS virus in Haiti, he told the conference

The results were presented here Wednesday at the final session of the Second International AIDS Congress. AIDS stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. [Donald S. Burke] said his team's findings suggested that many Americans were becoming infected with the AIDS virus in their late teens and early 20s, compared to the mean age of 35 for people sick with AIDS. There were 68 teen-agers who were infected with the AIDS virus. All applicants who were found to have AIDS virus infection were rejected for military service. They were called back, offered counseling by a physician, and given the option of having a second AIDS blood test. About 75 percent have agreed and the positive results confirmed in more than 98 percent of cases