Faculty Bibliography

The epidemic shows no sign of abating, said the director, Dr. Peter Piot, adding, ''Measured against the scale of the global epidemic, the current pace and scope of the world's response to AIDS fall far short of what is required.'' He chided nations that were way behind in tackling AIDS -- though not, in every case, by name. ''Many countries do not take AIDS seriously, and that is particularly the case of Russia, all the countries of the former Soviet Union, and several Asian countries,'' Dr. Piot said in a teleconference. Dr. Piot said he welcomed the South African government's new plan to provide antiretroviral drugs to patients, as well as an earlier announcement by former President Bill Clinton that he had brokered an agreement with drug companies to lower the price of AIDS drugs for many countries. The World Health Organization plans to deliver antiretroviral drugs to three million people by 2005

In releasing the agency's annual report in advance of World AIDS Day on Monday, [Peter Piot] acknowledged that greater funding and stronger political commitments had moved the battle against AIDS into higher gear. But he singled out nations that were way behind in tackling AIDS. 'Many countries do not take AIDS seriously, and that is particularly the case of Russia, all the countries of the former Soviet Union, and several Asian countries,' Piot said in a telephone news conference. An estimated 1 million Russians are infected, and 'the epidemic is growing at a fearsome rate,' the report said. Chiding Russia for not making the political commitment other countries have made for AIDS, Piot said Russia allocates 'only a few million dollars for AIDS and still deals with it at the level of a deputy minister of health.' Piot said he welcomed the South African government's plan last week to provide anti-retroviral drugs to AIDS patients as well as an earlier announcement by former President Bill Clinton that he had brokered an agreement with drug companies to lower the price of AIDS drugs for many countries. The World Health Organization plans to deliver anti-retroviral drugs to 3 million people by 2005

[Alonzo Mourning], a four-time N.B.A. All-Star, ''will need a kidney transplant in the near future,'' the doctor, Gerald Appel, a kidney specialist at Columbia University, said in a telephone interview after the Nets disclosed that Mourning's career had apparently come to an end after a frustrating 12-game comeback. When he examined Mourning, a 6-foot-10 center, on Sunday, a day after Mourning scored 15 points in his best game of the season, Appel said the levels in Mourning's blood of creatinine, a measure of kidney function, and potassium were very high and that those readings, along with other chemical imbalances, led him and the Nets physicians to conclude that it was ''no longer medically safe for him to play basketball.'' With the Nets, Mourning did not have the time, nor perhaps the resiliency, to make much of an impact. His short stay with the Nets will be best remembered for the ugly confrontation he had with two Nets stars -- Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson -- in practice last week, a dispute in which Mourning's intensity ran head on into the very casual attitude sometimes embraced by younger Nets players

The experimental DNA vaccine is synthesized using modified, inactivated genes from the Ebola virus. Because it does not contain any infectious material from the Ebola virus, recipients cannot get the disease, said Dr. Gary Nabel, who directs the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease in Bethesda, Maryland

The experimental DNA vaccine is synthesized using modified, inactivated genes from the Ebola virus. Because it does not contain any infectious material from the Ebola virus, recipients cannot get the disease, said Dr. Gary Nabel, who directs the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease in Bethesda, Maryland

The experimental DNA vaccine is synthesized using modified, inactivated genes from the Ebola virus. Because it does not contain any infectious material from the virus, recipients cannot get the disease, said Dr. Gary Nabel, who directs the institute's Vaccine Research Center. The goal is to use the Vical vaccine and another one to protect against Ebola in a prime-boost strategy. Under those conditions, the Vical vaccine would be given first to prime the immune system. Then a different vaccine, which uses an adenovirus (that causes colds) would bolster the immune system that had been primed by the Vical vaccine. The second vaccine is still being developed for human use; the first tests in volunteers are expected to begin next year, Dr. Nabel said. The government's program to defend against bioterrorism has helped accelerate development of a vaccine, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the institute's director. ''An effective Ebola vaccine not only would provide a life-saving advance in countries where the disease occurs naturally, it also would provide a medical tool to discourage the use of Ebola virus as an agent of bioterrorism,'' he said

The next plague may be from a newly discovered infectious agent or a natural mutation that produces a new version of an old microbe. It may even escape from a laboratory. Or the next plague may be caused by a microbe that, having become resistant to standard antibiotics, spreads widely and rapidly. The longstanding threat of bioterrorism turned real with the deliberate release of anthrax spores in 2001. When SARS suddenly appeared, there was speculation that it was bioterrorism. Experts dismissed that. No one was smart enough to invent a SARS from scratch, said Dr. Joshua Lederberg, a Nobel Prize-winning microbiologist. Now, he said, SARS may end up being a biological weapon. If SARS does not return in the next few years, will companies have a continuing incentive to develop a vaccine that might never be needed? If industry lacks incentive, yet SARS returns, the consequences could be devastating

Such may be the case with the new Cypher heart stent, which in April became the first licensed drug-coated stent in the United States. The F.D.A. gave Cordis, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, approval to sell Cypher after clinical tests gave the device glowing reports. The incidence of complications has steadily declined to 0.05 events per unit shipped since a peak of 0.12 in July, the month that Cordis introduced the largest-size Cypher, Dr. [Dennis Donohoe] said. Still, a puzzling element is why the F.D.A. does not have the information it needs to determine whether more complications occur with Cypher than with bare stents. As a condition of licensing and to gain a more accurate picture of Cypher problems in everyday medical practice, the F.D.A. required Cordis to conduct a detailed postmarketing study of 2,000 patients in this country. The study seeks to answer questions like: How did the doctors select patients for Cypher? Precisely how did the doctors implant the stent? How did the doctors prescribe the drugs used in the procedure? How did patients take the drugs?

The flu vaccine includes three strains of influenza virus, but was not designed to protect against a new one that has appeared in a number of countries over the last year. It is known as the Fujian strain, a variant of the Panama strain that is included in the current vaccine. Both are categorized as H3N2 strains that have been linked to higher rates of serious illness requiring admission to a hospital and to death, Dr. [Julie L. Gerberding] said. The influenza virus mutates frequently. Health officials change the strains of virus put in the flu vaccine each year as they try to keep up with mutations. But matching strains in the vaccine with those circulating among humans during a flu season is a notoriously unpredictable exercise. The World Health Organization committee that makes the recommendations for the flu vaccine knew about the Fujian strain in February, said Dr. Klaus Stohr, an influenza expert at the organization. But Dr. Stohr said in a recent interview that the committee decided not to include the Fujian strain because scientists could not make it pure enough in time for a human vaccine

Doctors have trained many police, fire, airline and other workers to use defibrillators as the devices have become standard equipment in many airports, shopping malls, convention centers and health clubs. Still, in the United States alone, more than 1,200 people die from cardiac arrest each day before they can be admitted to a hospital. The survival rates vary widely depending on the geographic area, in part because of the time it takes for emergency medical technicians to reach victims. The vast majority die before reaching a hospital