Faculty Bibliography

Now [David Chan] is drawing on her epidemiology skills and business school training to convince countries that preparing for an influenza pandemic is a wise investment despite the cost. The preparations include buying anti-influenza drugs, developing a vaccine against the pandemic virus and improving the monitoring of respiratory and other illnesses in people and animals. Now [David Chan] is drawing on her epidemiology skills and business school training to convince countries that preparing for an influenza pandemic is a wise investment despite the cost. The preparations include buying anti-influenza drugs, developing a vaccine against the pandemic virus and improving the monitoring of respiratory and other illnesses in people and animals

When two Australian scientists set out in the early 1980s to prove that a bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, caused stomach inflammation and ulcers, they met opposition from a medical- industrial complex entrenched in the belief that psychological stress was the cause. Also, Tagamet and similar drugs, known as H2 blockers, safely made ulcers and their symptoms disappear. But the H2 blockers were not one-shot cures. Ulcers often recurred, requiring repeated courses of the drugs, providing a steady stream of profits. 'The opposition we got from the drug industry was basically inertia,' said Dr. Barry Marshall of the University of Western Australia, the other Nobel winner, and 'because the makers of H2 blockers funded much of the ulcer research at the time, all they had to do was ignore the Helicobacter discovery

Also, Tagamet and similar drugs, known as H2 blockers, safely made ulcers and their symptoms disappear. But the H2 blockers were not one-shot cures. Ulcers often recurred, requiring repeated courses of the drugs, providing a steady stream of profits. ''The opposition we got from the drug industry was basically inertia,'' said Dr. Barry J. Marshall of the University of Western Australia, the other Nobel winner, and ''because the makers of H2 blockers funded much of the ulcer research at the time, all they had to do was ignore the Helicobacter discovery.'' Although a few doctors had described the curved bacteria in the late 19th century, the findings were passed over in the hundreds of peer-reviewed articles published thereafter. Then Dr. Marshall performed a famous self-experiment in which he swallowed a culture of H. pylori, got sick, documented that he developed an inflamed stomach and was cured of the gastritis with an antibiotic

Modern anesthesia evolved from frolics that drew large audiences. In one such show in 1844, a Connecticut dentist, Horace Wells, observed a volunteer breathe nitrous oxide, gash his leg, and not note any pain until the effects wore off. The next day, Dr. Wells asked another dentist to administer the ''laughing gas'' to him and extract a tooth. When the gas wore off, Dr. Wells exclaimed: ''It is the greatest discovery ever made. I didn't feel as much as the prick of a pin.'' He began using it on his patients. Ether, chloroform and other anesthetics followed, in part from additional self-experimenting. One medical myth is that Walter Reed experimented on himself in Cuba in discovering that mosquitoes transmit yellow fever. But after pledging to be a guinea pig for the mosquito theory, Dr. Reed returned to the United States while two of the three other members of his team experimented on themselves. One died. Another barely survived. After Dr. Reed's teammates made the crucial breakthrough, he returned to Cuba but never took his turn with a yellow-fever-carrying mosquito

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the [Bush] administration's efforts to plan for a possible pandemic flu have become controversial, with many Democrats in Congress charging that the administration has not done enough. Many have pointed to the lengthy writing process of the flu plan as evidence of this. Mr. [Michael O. Leavitt] is leaving Saturday for a 10-day trip to at least four Asian nations, where he will meet with health and agriculture officials to discuss planning for a pandemic flu. He said at a briefing on Friday that the administration's flu plan would be officially released soon. He was not aware at the briefing that The Times had a copy of the plan. And he emphasized that the chances that the virus now killing birds in Asia would become a human pandemic were unknown but probably low. A pandemic is global epidemic of disease. Note: The projections are based in part on past flu pandemics. The moderate case approximates the virulence of the 1958 or 1968 flus, which killed 70,000 and 34,000 in the United States, respectively. The severe case approximates the 1918 flu, which killed about 500,000

After Dr. Marshall and Dr. [J. Robin Warren] discovered the role of the spiral-shaped H. pylori bacterium, they and others conducted trials showing that antibiotics and drugs inhibiting the production of stomach acid could cure gastritis and most stomach and duodenal ulcers. Dr. [Barry J. Marshall] joined Dr. Warren in studying biopsies from a series of patients. After several attempts, Dr. Marshall succeeded in growing a bacterium that was unknown then; he named it Campylobacter pyloridis, believing that it was a member of the Campylobacter family. (It was later found to be a member of the Helicobacter family and renamed H. pylori.) In earlier interviews, Dr. Marshall described how at age 32, he swallowed a gastroscope tube to allow another doctor to look at his stomach and take several biopsies. These procedures and examinations were needed to document that Dr. Marshall had no H. pylori in his stomach and did not suffer from gastritis or another abnormality

One member of [Lin-Fa Wang]'s team, Dr. Jonathan Epstein, a veterinary epidemiologist, led the scientists in gathering different species of bats. After obtaining samples of feces and blood, the scientists released the bats into the wild or returned them to markets. The specimens were tested at both the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China and the Australian laboratory in Geelong for a variety of viruses. Laboratory analyses of the coronaviruses' molecular makeup provided strong evidence of the close genetic relationship between the viruses found in bats and the SARS virus

'It's pretty pleasant to see two teams that did not know each other reach similar findings,' Dr. Lin-Fa Wang, a virologist at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, said in a telephone interview. After collecting hundreds of bats from the wild and from Chinese markets, each team reported identifying different viruses from the coronavirus family that are very closely related to the SARS virus. SARS now appears to join a number of other infectious agents that bats can transmit. Over the past decade, bats have been found as the source of two newly discovered human infections caused by the Nipah and Hendra viruses that can produce encephalitis and respiratory disease. It was highly unlikely that insects transmitted the SARS viruses to bats, because the viruses do not grow in insect cells in the laboratory, Wang said. Most civets that are sold in China as a delicacy are farmed, Wang said, and the government should make sure civet farms are distant from bat colonies, routinely monitor farmed civets for SARS-like viruses and allow just noninfected animals to be sold in markets

The SARS virus, which killed 774 people and caused severe economic losses, particularly in Asia, as it spread to Canada and other countries, has long been known to come from an animal. Now two scientific teams independently say that the Chinese horseshoe bat is that animal and is the reservoir of the virus in nature. SARS now appears to join a number of other infectious agents that bats can transmit. Over the last decade, bats have been found as the source of two newly discovered human infections caused by the Nipah and Hendra viruses that can produce encephalitis and respiratory disease. Bats have long been known to transmit other infectious agents like the rabies virus and the fungus that causes histoplasmosis. During the SARS outbreak, attention focused on the role of Himalayan palm civets in transmitting the disease after scientists identified the virus in this species and in a raccoon dog sold in markets in Guangdong. The finding led Chinese officials to temporarily prohibit sale of civets and to cull a large number of the animals

SARS now appears to join a number of other infectious agents that bats can transmit. Over the last decade, bats have been found as the source of two newly discovered human infections caused by the Nipah and Hendra viruses that can produce encephalitis and respiratory disease. In the SARS outbreak, attention focused on the role of Himalayan palm civets in transmitting it after scientists identified the virus in this species and in a raccoon dog sold in markets in Guangdong. But W.H.O. officials and scientists elsewhere cautioned that these species were most likely only intermediaries in the transmission, largely because no widespread infection could be found in wild or farmed civets. So, the teams assembled a variety of specialists, including veterinarians, zoologists, virologists and ecologists. The Chinese horseshoe bat fits those criteria and the civets do not, Dr. [Lin-Fa Wang] said. The bat feeds on moths and other insects and generally does not bite animals. It was highly unlikely that insects transmitted the SARS viruses to bats, because the viruses do not grow in insect cells in the laboratory, Dr. Wang said. Most civets that are sold in China as a delicacy are farmed, Dr. Wang said, and the government should ensure civet farms are distant from bat colonies, monitor farmed civets for SARS-like viruses and allow just noninfected animals to go to market