Faculty Bibliography

In a significant finding about the body's natural defenses, scientists have found that the tongue harbors natural antibiotic substances that protect cuts from being infected by the microbes that infest the mouth. The new finding adds to a growing body of evidence that animals produce a variety of natural antibiotics that serve as a defense against infection. The cow tongue antibiotic is a short protein known as a peptide

Complications of these drugs, referred to by doctors as NSAIDs (pronounced EN-seds), are a significant public health problem. The complications have been described in a medical journal as the most prevalent serious drug toxicity in the United States. [Warren] Christopher's ulcer sent him to the intensive care unit of Ottawa Civic Hospital during President Clinton's visit to Canada the week of Feb. 20. Doctors there said the ulcer had been caused by complications of Ansaid, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug made by Upjohn Co. of Kalamazoo, Mich. It is one of 25 NSAIDs approved for marketing by the Food and Drug Administration. Among people aged 65 and over, half have pain or swelling in at least one joint. Rheumatologists say it would be harder to give patients relief if NSAIDs were not available. Their use is expected to increase as more people live longer. But some experts say that aggressive marketing practices of drug companies have made NSAIDs too popular and that many people could get as much relief with fewer adverse effects and at less cost if they took milder drugs like acetaminophen (Tylenol), which is not an NSAID. Some prescription NSAIDs cost 12 times more than over-the-counter ibuprofen

The bleeding stomach ulcer that Secretary of State Warren Christopher suffered as a complication of a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug he took for arthritis vividly illustrates the dangers of such drugs. Complications of these drugs, referred to by doctors as NSAIDs (pronounced EN-seds), are a significant public health problem. The complications have been described in a medical journal as the most prevalent serious drug toxicity in the United States. Christopher's ulcer sent him to the intensive care unit of Ottawa Civic Hospital during President Clinton's visit to Canada the week of Feb. 20. Doctors there said the ulcer had been caused by complications of Ansaid, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug made by Upjohn Co. of Kalamazoo, Mich. It is one of 25 NSAIDs approved for marketing by the Food and Drug Administration

Mr. Christopher's ulcer sent him to the intensive care unit of Ottawa Civic Hospital during President Clinton's visit to Canada last month. Doctors there said the ulcer had been caused by complications of Ansaid, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug made by the Upjohn Company of Kalamazoo, Mich. It is one of 25 Nsaid's approved for marketing by the Food and Drug Administration. About 3.4 percent of the 2.2 billion prescriptions written each year are for Nsaid's. Millions more nonprescription Nsaid's are bought as over-the-counter drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen, which are often used for short-term use to relieve inflammation and pain from osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Nsaid's are among the oldest commercial drugs still on the market; aspirin and another Nsaid, sodium salicylic acid, were developed in the 19th century. In the 1950's, drug companies began marketing the first newer ones and the numbers have been increasing ever since. The latest Nsaid approved was in 1993. Most studies of the drugs last only a few weeks, while the pain of the condition is present for months or years in most cases. Few studies have compared the effectiveness of an Nsaid with that of a pure analgesic like Tylenol, and 'one of the main reasons for this paucity of comparative studies of simple analgesics and Nsaid's must be the vested interests of the pharmaceutical industry,' Dr. Dieppe's team wrote

The safety and immunogenicity of an inactivated hepatitis A vaccine (HM175) were evaluated in 151 seronegative health professionals (age range, 21-65 years; mean, 30). A 720-ELISA unit dose was administered to 78 vaccinees at 0, 1, and 6 months and to 73 vaccinees at 0, 1, and 12 months. Seroconversion rates were 90% in both groups 1 month after the first inoculation and 99% and 100%, respectively, 1 month after the second inoculation. Geometric mean antibody titers (GMTs) 1 month after the third inoculation were highest in the group vaccinated at 0, 1, and 12 months. GMTs were higher in women than in men. The vaccine was well tolerated; the most frequent side effect was transient soreness at the site of inoculation. No serious adverse reactions were observed. Thus, HM175 inactivated hepatitis A vaccine is safe and highly immunogenic

Imagine such infinitely long odds - 1 in 85 million. That's about the magnitude of the risk of a National Football League player becoming infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, through spillage of contaminated blood, a new study has found. Although it is not clear how this risk translates into competitive diving, the essential issue is the same in all the discussions about the disclosure from Greg Louganis, the 1984 and 1988 Olympic gold medal winner, that he was HIV-infected when he hit the board during a dive and spilled blood in the chlorinated pool. The potential risk of transmitting HIV and other microbes through blood during sports is extremely low, according to a review of the issue by federal officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta

Italian public health officials who reviewed the available information could not definitively establish athletic activity as the source of the soccer player's H.I.V. infection. Nor could they exclude the possibility that the man, who worked in a drug dependency rehabilitation center, acquired the infection through nonathletic risks, the authors of the report wrote in the Feb. 15 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, a leading medical journal that is published by the American College of Physicians in Philadelphia. The health officials said hepatitis B, a virus that causes a potentially fatal liver infection, is more likely to be transmitted in sports than H.I.V. The reason for the difference is that hepatitis B virus is present in much higher concentrations in blood and lasts longer outside the body than does H.I.V. In their calculations, the researchers assumed that the risks of H.I.V. transmission were the same for a cut suffered in sports and a needle stick injury in a hospital or doctor's office. Studies indicate the risk of H.I.V. transmission is one in 300 needle stick injuries

Imagine such infinitely long odds -- 1 in 85 million. That's about the magnitude of the risk of a National Football League player becoming infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, through spillage of contaminated blood, a new study has found. Although it is not clear how this risk translates into competitive diving, the essential issue is the same in all the discussions about the disclosure from Greg Louganis, the 1984 and 1988 Olympic gold medal winner, that he was HIV-infected when he hit the board during a dive and spilled blood in the chlorinated pool. The potential risk of transmitting HIV and other microbes through blood during sports is extremely low, according to a review of the issue by federal officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta

Hepatitis A can cause loss of appetite, fatigue, fever, muscle aches, nausea and vomiting, which are often followed one to two weeks later by a yellowing of the skin known as jaundice. The yellowing is a result of a buildup of bile pigments in the blood that follows the liver damage from the hepatitis. Many people suffer mild hepatitis A infections without jaundice