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The proposed laboratory experiments would involve inserting a so-called marker gene into the smallpox virus that glows green under fluorescent light. The technique is a standard way to screen for potential antiviral drugs, and the manipulation would not change the virulence of the virus, said officials at the W.H.O. Last week the W.H.O.'s 20-member international advisory committee voted unanimously to allow insertion of the gene, known as G.F.P. for green fluorescent marker protein, into variola virus at the two laboratories in Russia and the United States, said Dr. Daniel Lavanchy, a smallpox expert for the health organization. The American laboratory is at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Dr. Lavanchy said the experiments the advisory committee rejected last year were ''fundamentally different'' than those recommended last week, and that the insertion of the marker gene in the experiments now being proposed would not alter the ability of variola virus to cause disease

The Bush administration and a number of health officials have expressed fear that terrorists might have obtained smallpox virus from Russia or that scientists in some countries might have kept the virus without telling the U.N. agency. The proposed laboratory experiments would involve inserting a so- called marker gene into the smallpox virus that glows green under fluorescent light. The technique is a standard way to screen for potential anti-viral drugs, and the manipulation would not change the virulence of the virus, said officials at the WHO. At the meeting of the international advisory committee last week, its 20 members voted unanimously to allow insertion of the gene, known as GFP for green fluorescent marker protein, into variola virus at the two laboratories in Russia and the United States, said Dr. Daniel Lavanchy, a smallpox expert for the health organization

At the meeting of the international advisory committee last week, its 20 members voted unanimously to allow insertion of the gene, known as GFP for green fluorescent marker protein, into variola virus at the two laboratories in Russia and the United States, said Dr. Daniel Lavanchy, a smallpox expert for the health organization. The U.S. laboratory is at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta

Because Chief Justice [William H. Rehnquist] has not released the most crucial information about his illness -- the specific type of thyroid cancer and the extent of its spread -- any assessment must rely on speculation, the experts emphasized. But they said the chief justice had provided important medical clues to the seriousness of his case in disclosing the need for radiation and chemotherapy in addition to his tracheotomy last month. In addition, they noted that he had omitted any mention of the usual treatment for thyroid cancer: surgical removal of the thyroid gland. Anaplastic thyroid cancer is rare, one of the most aggressive human cancers, and when it occurs it is mostly in older people. Anaplastic cancers often arise among people with a long history of an enlarged thyroid gland that also contained nodules, or bumps, that a doctor can feel with the fingers. Patients with the usual, less aggressive kind of thyroid cancer usually receive radioactive iodine to destroy the thyroid. But the kind of radiation Chief Justice Rehnquist is undergoing -- external beam radiation -- is different and more powerful

Mr. Edwards, 51, has experienced only ''minor, brief illnesses,'' his physician and longtime friend, Dr. W. L. Wells Edmundson, said in an interview at his office in Raleigh, N.C., on Oct. 14. These included one-time attacks of fainting in 1996 and vertigo in 1998; an appendectomy in 1996; noncancerous colon polyps; an episode of altitude sickness while Mr. Edwards was climbing at about 17,000 feet on Kilimanjaro in Africa; and elevated levels of cholesterol and other lipids that might require treatment with a statin drug if, on further testing, they remained high. Dr. Edmundson said a physical examination he performed last June 21 and findings from standard laboratory tests, including one for prostate cancer, were normal. It was Mr. Edwards's first full checkup in six years. Two weeks later, Senator John Kerry announced that Mr. Edwards would be his running mate. Dr. Edmundson first examined Mr. Edwards on Dec. 10, 1998, when he was a senator-elect. It was a house call because Mr. Edwards was in bed with acute vertigo, a condition in which the room appears to be spinning around when the eyes are open. Dr. Edmundson said the cause was a viral infection of the inner ear

Because a tracheotomy is not part of routine thyroid cancer surgery, the experts, who were not involved in Chief Justice [William H. Rehnquist]'s case, said they were puzzled why he needed one. The Supreme Court did not say whether the chief justice underwent a thyroidectomy, a surgical removal of the thyroid gland and a common treatment for thyroid cancer. The thyroid is a hormone-producing gland that is in front of the trachea in the neck. Cancers affecting it are often detected when a doctor feels a nodule, or bump, in examining the thyroid. Such cancers may also come to attention when an individual's voice becomes hoarse, as observers said Mr. Rehnquist's has been in recent weeks. Anaplastic thyroid cancer is nearly always fatal and generally runs a rapid course, said Dr. [Lewis E. Braverman], editor of a leading textbook on thyroid disease. Medullary thyroid cancers can be familial and is often more aggressive than papillary and follicular. Rarely, a different kind of cancer, lymphomas, can develop in thyroid glands

Until 1997, scientists had not believed it was even possible for an avian influenza virus to pass directly from birds to people without first combining with a mammalian influenza virus. Pigs can harbour avian and mammalian influenza viruses while showing no ill effects, and have been blamed for periodically allowing new avian influenza viruses into human populations that have little, if any, immunity to them. Many mammalian influenza viruses have already mastered the tricky secret of passing easily from person to person. These viruses kill about 50,000 people a year in North America. The ideal strategy for the A(H5N1) virus would be to infect a person already carrying a human influenza virus and then swap genetic material with it. Because pigs can readily carry human and avian influenza viruses, they could also be the mixing vessels for a new virus. Thai and Vietnamese officials have said they are testing pigs extensively. The virus has been detected in at least two pigs in southeastern China. Dr. Klaus Stoehr, the WHO's top influenza expert, said that while recombination of the avian influenza virus would probably be a slow process, a reassortment of genes by human and avian influenza viruses could happen, 'very rapidly, practically within days.'

In small Thai chicken farms, Vietnamese communes and the jungles of northern Malaysia, health officials, scientists and farm workers are fighting an increasingly menacing yet little-understood foe the A(H5N1) strain that causes avian influenza, or more popularly, bird flu. Until 1997, scientists had not believed it was even possible for an avian influenza virus to pass directly from birds to people without first combining with a mammalian influenza virus. Pigs, which can harbour avian and mammalian influenza viruses while showing no ill effects, have been blamed for periodically allowing new avian influenza viruses into human populations that have little if any immunity to them

Tamiflu, a powerful antiviral drug that might slow the early stages of an outbreak, is in extremely short supply, according to the World Health Organization. And a vaccine the only thing that could stop the global spread of the disease will not be available for months. Chiron, one of two manufacturers trying to develop a human bird-flu vaccine, last week had its license to make conventional flu vaccine temporarily suspended by the British government. The suspension created a severe shortage of the flu vaccine in the United States. Whether it will affect the testing of the company's experimental human avian-influenza vaccine remains to be seen. Until 1997, scientists had not believed it was even possible for an avian influenza virus to pass directly from birds to people without first combining with a mammalian influenza virus. Pigs can harbor avian and mammalian influenza viruses while showing no ill effects, and have been blamed for periodically allowing new avian influenza viruses into human populations that have little if any immunity to them. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization declared in late September that the virus had become so widespread in domesticated and wild birds alike that it would take years to wipe out, though health officials are not even sure it is possible to do so. The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases plans to begin clinical safety trials of human avian-flu vaccines developed by Chiron, based in Emeryville, California, and Aventis Pasteur, in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania, after receiving the pilot batches, expected in December. But there will be no findings until spring. Chiron's human avian-flu vaccine is being made in a different facility from the one that made the conventional vaccine this year

Until 1997, scientists had not believed it was even possible for an avian influenza virus to pass directly from birds to people without first combining with a mammalian influenza virus. Pigs can harbor avian and mammalian influenza viruses while showing no ill effects, and have been blamed for periodically allowing new avian influenza viruses into human populations that have little if any immunity to them. After months of calling for an international effort to eradicate the disease, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization declared in late September that the virus had become so widespread in domesticated and wild birds alike that it would take years to wipe out, though health officials are not even sure it is possible to do so. The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases plans to begin clinical safety trials of human avian-flu vaccines developed by Chiron, based in Emeryville, California, and Aventis Pasteur, in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania, after receiving the pilot batches, expected in December. But there will be no findings until spring. Chiron's human avian-flu vaccine is being made in a different facility from the one that made the conventional vaccine this year. Cultural issues are even tougher. There is a common belief in Southeast Asia that freshly killed birds taste better. Live birds continue to be sold widely not only in rural areas, but even in wealthy metropolitan areas like Hong Kong. If avian influenza does start spreading easily among people, health experts warn that it could be a disaster. The so-called Spanish flu, believed to have been another influenza virus with some genetic material that came directly from birds, killed at least 20 million people worldwide over two years, most of them in a few weeks in late 1918