Faculty Bibliography

In a telephone conference with reporters, the critics said that Uganda needed 120 to 150 million condoms a year and that this year's supply of fewer than 30 million condoms, distributed at health clinics, had been exhausted. Privately purchased condoms have more than tripled in price in Uganda, to 54 cents for a package of three, from 16 cents, making them unaffordable for many Ugandans, the critics said. Ambassador Stephen Lewis, the United Nations secretary general's special envoy for H.I.V./AIDS in Africa since 2001, and the former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, said that ''there is no question that the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven and exacerbated by Pepfar and by the extreme policies that the administration in the United States is now pursuing.'' Beatrice Were of ActionAid in Uganda and the Health Rights Action Group, however, said that tests performed on the condoms in the United States found them safe and effective. She said religious groups in Uganda have used the initial claims to undermine confidence in condoms and contribute to misinformation about their effectiveness

Each terror alert, too, triggers a wave of often unjustified fear. Anthrax infected 22 people through the U.S. mail in the fall of 2001, killing five. Yet 30,000 people began taking the powerful antibiotic Cipro, many indiscriminately and without a doctor's prescription. In 2002 news reports began to circulate that some of the smallpox virus that had been stockpiled in the former Soviet Union might have found its way into the hands of rogue dictators or terrorists. There hasn't been a case of smallpox in the United States since the 1940s and if it ever reappears it is likely to spread slowly, but the fear of smallpox raced virulently through the public. New York neuroscientist Joseph Ledoux, whose book 'The Emotional Brain' describes how the brain processes emotions, has studied fear extensively. 'When a rat is afraid and when a human is afraid, very similar things occur in the body,' he told me. But Ledoux also believes that triggers of fear vary dramatically from species to species. Ledoux described the amygdala, the almond-shaped brain structure that interprets emotion, as 'the hub in the brain's wheel of fear.' When the amygdala is stimulated, there is an outpouring of stress hormones, causing a state of hyper-vigilance. The amygdala processes the primitive emotions of fear, hate, love, bravery and anger -- all neighbors in the deep limbic brain that we derive from lower animals. When the amygdala malfunctions, a mood disorder, or state of uncontrollable apprehension, results

An international health organization has reported that it has suspended more than $150 million in grants to Uganda because of serious mismanagement. Officials of the agency, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said Wednesday that they had taken the action to warn Uganda and other countries that they needed to manage the fund's grants properly. The fund had awarded Uganda $201 million in five grants and had already paid out $45.4 million of that. Two grants were made to help fight AIDS and two for malaria. The fifth grant was for tuberculosis control. Some started in 2003, and some this year. Payment will resume 'as soon as Uganda comes up with a proper plan to rectify the issues of mismanagement,' said Jon Liden, a spokesman for the fund. It has given Uganda until Oct. 24 to improve management of the grants

Dr. Chan, 58, who is both affable and media-savvy, first drew public attention when, as director of the Hong Kong department of health, she boldly directed the territory's response to two major disease outbreaks that threatened the world's health and economy. In 1997, she ordered 1.4 million chickens and ducks slaughtered to control the first cases of the A(H5N1) strain of avian influenza. In 2003, she led the investigation of SARS, a new virus that emerged in China. Indeed, Dr. Chan faced such complaints after the first cases of A(H5N1) avian influenza appeared in Hong Kong in 1997. No vaccine was effective against the strain. But the virus was susceptible to a drug, amantadine, and Dr. Chan authorized the equivalent of US$1.3- million to buy a large supply of it in case a large outbreak occurred. Black & White Photo: Peter Parks, AFP, Getty Images / A woman cleans at a Hong Kong poultry market in an effort to combat the spread of a deadly strain of avian flu.; Black & White Photo: Carol T. Powers / the New York Times / Dr. [Margaret Chan] was instrumental in containing the virus when it struck in 2003. Chan is now the World Health Organization's chief of pandemic influenza

Payment will resume ''as soon as Uganda comes up with a proper plan to rectify the issues of mismanagement,'' said Jon Liden, a spokesman for the fund. It has given Uganda until Oct. 24 to improve management of the grants. Uganda's grants from the fund are unusual in that they are managed by the finance minister, not the health minister as in most other recipient countries, Mr. Liden said. Uganda has been cited as a model for reducing the transmission rates of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Mr. Liden said people ''should not confuse Uganda's record in fighting AIDS with the mismanagement of funds by a small group of individuals.''

The Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche agreed to donate millions of doses of an antiviral drug to help prevent or slow transmission of the avian influenza virus if it begins to spread among humans, the World Health Organization said

L'Equipe reproduced what it said were the results of the laboratory's tests, with sample number, and the forms with the same number and [Lance Armstrong]'s name. L'Equipe, which said it had conducted ''a long, painstaking and rigorous investigation,'' reproduced what it said were EPO tests on frozen urine samples taken from riders during the 1999 Tour. In a drug test, for example, they may compare a suspect sample of stored blood with one that contains no drugs. Six samples that the paper said were taken from Armstrong proved positive for the ''indisputable'' use of EPO, the paper said. It added that six other samples from riders who were not identified had also proved positive. ''It cannot be regarded as a positive test in the strict regulatory sense,'' the newspaper said, doubting that French sanctions could result. Some spectators were focused on accusations against Lance Armstrong during the ninth and final stage of the Tour of Germany yesterday in Bonn. (Photo by Gero Beloer/European Pressphoto Agency)(pg. D1); Lance Armstrong in Paris in 1999. A French newspaper has accused him of cheating during that year's Tour. (Photo by Patrick Kovarick/Agence France-Presse)(pg. D2)

Herpes simplex, the virus that causes neonatal herpes, rarely leads to serious medical problems in adults. But in newborns, it can produce ugly skin blisters and fever that can progress to damage the brain permanently and cause complications in the heart and liver. The serious forms of the disease can also occur in the absence of skin blisters. Most neonatal cases are caused by herpes simplex virus Type 2, which causes the largest proportion of genital herpes cases. But an increasing proportion of genital herpes is due to herpes simplex Type 1 (cold sores) that can be transmitted by oral sex, Dr. [H. Hunter Handsfield] said. Dr. John M. Douglas Jr. who directs the division of sexually transmitted disease prevention at the C.D.C., said he welcomed the article as a way to promote discussion of an important issue concerning a complication of herpes, which is believed to be the most common sexually transmitted disease in this country