Faculty Bibliography

There are a variety of types of pacemakers and they have undergone continuous modification. The new study focused on two broad types known as single- and dual-chamber pacemakers. The single, and older, type controls the rhythm through electrical stimulation of the ventricle, or bottom chamber of the heart. The dual-chamber pacemaker controls both the atrium, the upper chamber, and the ventricle. Dual-chamber pacemakers cost about $5,000, compared with about $3,000 for single pacemakers, and do not last as long as single-chamber devices, Dr. Lamas said. The study found increasing use of dual-chamber pacemakers, which were first installed about 15 years ago. The researchers reviewed the records of more than 36,000 Medicare patients -- a 20 percent random national sample -- who were 65 years of age or older and who had a single- or dual-chamber pacemaker implanted from 1988 through 1990. They found that 24,715, or 68.1 percent, received a single-chamber device; the rest received a dual-chamber device

The drug AZT has proved so ineffective in preventing the progression of AIDS in children that federal health officials have halted part of a large study involving it. The long-term study, begun in August 1991, involved 839 children initially 3 months to 18 years old, who were treated in 62 hospitals. The children were divided at random into three groups: one that received AZT alone, one that received didanosine, or ddI, and a third that received a combination of AZT and ddI. Neither the children and their parents nor the doctors knew which therapy each child received. Federal officials agreed and stopped the AZT part of the study on Feb. 6. The part of the study comparing ddI alone and ddI in combination with AZT is continuing. The monitoring committee found no statistically significant differences between the two regimes on its latest routine interim check

Repeated injections of plasma from otherwise healthy HIV-infected people into patients with advanced AIDS slowed progression of the disease for one year in a new French study. The experimental injections delayed the appearance of toxoplasmosis of the brain, cytomegalovirus and other opportunistic infections that commonly occur as a complication of AIDS, as well as wasting, cancers and an abnormal function of the brain known as encephalopathy

WASHINGTON - Repeated injections of plasma from otherwise healthy HIV-infected people into patients with advanced AIDS slowed progression of the disease for one year in a French study. The experimental injections delayed the appearance of toxoplasmosis of the brain, cytomegalovirus and other opportunistic infections that occur as a complication of AIDS, as well as wasting, cancers and an abnormal function of the brain known as encephalopathy. The plasma injections, known as passive immunotherapy, resulted in a threefold decrease in the cumulative number of such adverse events, said the French team, headed by Dr. J.J. Lefrere at the Hopital Saint-Antoine in Paris

In a major surprise about the treatment of the AIDS virus in children, the drug AZT, which is now the standard treatment, proved so ineffective in preventing disease progression that federal health officials have halted part of a large study involving it ahead of schedule. The long-term study, begun in August 1991, involved 839 children initially aged 3 months to 18 years, who were treated in 62 hospitals. The children were divided at random into three groups: one that received AZT alone, one that received didanosine, or ddI, and a third that received a combination of AZT and ddI. Neither the children and their parents nor the doctors knew which therapy each child received

Repeated injections of plasma from otherwise healthy HIV-infected people into patients with advanced AIDS slowed progression of the disease for one year in a new French study. Passive immunotherapy, as the procedure is called, resulted in a three-fold decrease in the appearance of toxoplasmosis of the brain, cytomegalovirus and other opportunistic infections that commonly occur as a complication of AIDS, as well as wasting, cancers and encephalopathy

In a major surprise about the treatment of the AIDS virus in children, the drug AZT, which is now the standard treatment, proved so ineffective in preventing disease progression that federal health officials have halted part of a large study involving it ahead of schedule. In disclosing the findings on Feb 13, 1995, federal health officials said AZT also had unexpectedly high rates of adverse side effects in children, like bleeding and biochemical abnormalities

A Surgeon General's power is now determined almost entirely by the force of his or her personality and how he or she chooses causes and uses the bully pulpit to advance them. There has always been an element of politics in any public health officer's job, but the position seems to have been more politicized in recent years, in part because of the Government's growing role in health care. Indeed, in part to ease such tensions, the position was vacant for four years, from 1973 to 1977, when the Surgeon General's office itself said that the Acting Surgeon General, Dr. S. Paul Ehrlich Jr., principally 'carried out ceremonial functions.' From 1977 to 1981, the Surgeon General's position was consolidated with that of the Assistant Secretary for Health, but since 1981 it has been a separate position. Underscoring the Surgeon General's lack of power, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, declared in an angry denunciation of the White House's handling of Dr. [Henry W. Foster Jr.]'s nomination, 'You could eliminate the entire job and you'd have no impact on the people of America.'

In the face of mounting furor over Henry W. Foster's performing abortions, as well as hysterectomies on severely retarded women, the White House portrayed Foster, President Clinton's nominee for surgeon general, as a devoted medical educator dedicated to improving the health and welfare of the poor

The protein might help explain why the spread of HIV through saliva is apparently so rare, said the scientists from the National Institute of Dental Research in Bethesda, Md. The protein does not directly attack the human immunodeficiency virus. It instead seems to act indirectly by attaching to the surface of white blood cells known as monocytes, thus preventing infection with HIV, said Drs. Tessie B. McNeely and Sharon M. Wahl, the team leaders. The protein is known as SLPI for secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor. It had been known by different names for many years until 1986, Wahl said, when its biochemical characteristics were identified through the efforts of Dr. Kjell Ohlsson, a Swedish researcher