Faculty Bibliography

Dr. Barry Bloom, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, who worked with [Lee Jong Wook] on tuberculosis, said Lee 'may not have been smooth or highly articulate, but he was enormously effective in getting his goals accomplished.' Lee had strenuously campaigned to become director general, defeating Dr. Peter Piot, the executive director of the Unaids program, on a seventh ballot by the organization's executive board. A number of health experts had complained that Lee acted more like a politician than a scientist. But he said in an interview in 2003 that 'you can't make it to this position without being a politician.' Lee took over in the wake of the SARS epidemic and moved into the forefront of efforts to thwart the spread of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, pressing governments to develop emergency plans should national pandemics ensue

Dr. Barry Bloom, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, who worked with [Lee Jong-Wook] on tuberculosis, said Lee 'may not have been smooth or highly articulate, but he was enormously effective in getting his goals accomplished.' Lee directed programs to rid many countries of polio and had hoped to eradicate it. That goal, too, has proved elusive, largely because the disease spread from Nigeria to 23 other countries after officials in the northern province of Kano temporarily banned polio immunizations. Born in Seoul, Korea, Lee was 5 years old when he, his mother and two brothers had to march 250 miles in 60 days through a bitterly cold winter to be reunited with his father during the Korean War. 'The first thing he did was take us to a bakery for cookies,' Lee said in an interview in 2003. 'I cried.'

They included the need for a quicker and more effective response to the declining health of Palestinians and more money to complete the effort to eradicate polio. The agency is responsible for tracking influenza and other communicable diseases. Dr. [Lee Jong Wook] was to continue his urging of governments to better prepare for the next pandemic of influenza and to control the A(H5N1) avian strain of the virus. As it has spread from Asia to Europe and Africa, the virus has led to the death of more than 200 million birds. Health experts are concerned that the bird virus could mutate to cause a human pandemic. Dr. Lee also acknowledged the agency's failures in meeting its goal of making antiretroviral therapy available to three million H.I.V.-infected people by the end of 2005 and effectively tackling malaria. ''Clearly things are not going well with malaria control,'' Dr. Lee's text said

Dr. Barry Bloom, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, who worked with Dr. [Lee Jong Wook] on tuberculosis, said that Dr. Lee ''may not have been smooth or highly articulate, but he was enormously effective in getting his goals accomplished.'' Dr. Lee had strenuously campaigned to become director general, defeating Dr. Peter Piot, the executive director of the United Nations AIDS program, on a seventh ballot by the organization's executive board. A number of health experts had complained that Dr. Lee acted more like a politician than a scientist. But he said in an interview in 2003 that ''you can't make it to this position without being a politician.'' Born in Seoul, Korea, Dr. Lee was 5 years old when he, his mother and two brothers had to march 250 miles in 60 days through a bitterly cold winter to be reunited with his father during the Korean War. ''The first thing he did was take us to a bakery for cookies,'' Dr. Lee said in an interview in 2003. ''I cried.''

Such clots often follow injuries to the head like those from a fall. But the W.H.O. said Dr. [Lee Jong Wook] had been in good health and was not known to have had any such injury. The clot also could have resulted from a bleeding artery in his brain. Dr. Lee ''will be in hospital for some time,'' the organization said, adding that it would provide updates on his illness. It is expected to announce today who will act for Dr

The World Health Organization said it had developed 20 standards for improving reporting on the testing of drugs and devices on people and urged researchers and companies to use them in all human..

BACKGROUND: Non-HLA immunogenetic polymorphisms may influence outcome of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). In this study, we have determined the role of TNFa, TNFd, IL-10, IL-1, IL-1Ra, and IL-4R polymorphisms in patients transplanted with HSC of an unrelated donor. METHODS: The allelic variants of four SNPs (IL-10-1082, IL-1beta-511, IL-4R-3223, IL-4R-1902) and four microsatellites (TNFa, TNFd, IL-10-1064, IL-1Ra) were determined in 131 unrelated patient/donor pairs typed for HLA-A/B/C/DR/DQ (four digits). RESULTS: The allelic distribution of the polymorphisms was similar to that previously reported in Caucasoid populations. Patient and donor TNFd and patient IL-10-1064 polymorphisms correlated with mortality in univariate analysis. Patients with TNFd1/d2/d3 genotypes had 3-year survival rates of 65%. A gradual decrease in survival rates was observed for patients with TNFd3/d3 genotypes (50%, p=n.s.), TNFd4 (46%, P=0.08), and TNFd5 (33%, P=0.03). A multivariate analysis of 10/10 matched patients revealed that the following patient genotypes correlated with lower survival: TNFd3/d3 (RR 4.08, P=0.026) TNFd4 (RR 3.78, P=0.032) and TNFd5 (RR 6.69, P=0.021) all compared to TNFd1/d2/d3 genotypes. Patient IL-10 (12, 14, 15) microsatellite alleles correlated with lower 3-year survival (28%) when compared to IL-10 (<12) (56%, P=0.052) and to Il-10 (13) alleles (60%, P=0.0023). In multivariate analysis this correlation remained significant only in recipients of HSCT of 10/10 HLA matched donors (RR=2.96, P=0.038). CONCLUSION: The data demonstrate a significant correlation of the TNFd and IL-10-1064 microsatellite polymorphisms with mortality after unrelated HSCT. They support the hypothesis that simple genomic tests, in addition to precise HLA matching, may contribute to determine prognosis in patients undergoing unrelated HSCT.

Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America [Television Program] -- IN 'Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America,' which aired Tuesday night on ABC, a businessman returns to the U.S. from Hong Kong, where he has unwittingly picked up a newly mutated strain of the H5N1 bird flu from being coughed on by a factory worker. DO flu viruses mutate so rapidly that a bird flu can be transformed to a human killer flu overnight with a second, even more sinister, change occurring a few months later? And is the H5N1 bird flu virus close to mutating to a form that can go from human to human and cause the next pandemic? Are we so defenseless to flu that we will require mass graves when the next pandemic hits us? ALTHOUGH flu viruses mutate rapidly, the changes necessary to cause even a mild pandemic would take at least several weeks and several steps as a newly evolving strain attempted to adapt to a human host. The idea that H5N1 could transform instantly from a bird virus to a human virus, jump to a businessman who becomes 'patient zero' and spreads it throughout the U.S., is dramatic hype, not science

Because Hepatitis B is endemic in many Asian countries, growth in the number of Asian immigrants in New York and across the country has made the disease a broad, expensive, emerging health problem. In the 2000 census, there were 800,000 Asians in the city, with roughly half from China. Hepatitis B, like hepatitis C, is generally contracted through the blood, and is not transmitted through casual contact with infected people. Hepatitis A, which is caused by a different virus, can be transmitted through food, but hepatitis B cannot, with very rare exceptions. Early detection and suppression of the virus can interrupt the cycle of mother-to-child transmission. An adult immune system can usually fight off a new hepatitis B infection, though a small number of cases become chronic. But, Dr. [Henry J. Pollack] said, ''If you get it when you're an infant, your chance of getting chronic hepatitis B is greater than 90 percent.''