Faculty Bibliography

Chief Justice [William H. Rehnquist]'s announcement last year that he had thyroid cancer has led to wide speculation that he might leave the court. That speculation intensified this summer as the court's term ended and President Bush began searching for a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The news of the chief justice's hospitalization can only complicate the White House's calculations on filling the O'Connor seat; the president began reviewing dossiers on potential candidates for that job last week. A few hours before the announcement about Chief Justice Rehnquist, Mr. Bush said he was willing to consider nominees who are not judges, leaving open the possibility that a senator or another government official might replace Justice O'Connor. Several senators have already recommended that Mr. Bush look beyond the existing stable of federal and state judges in order to bring someone with real-world experience and political savvy to the bench. Most of the non-judicial candidates mentioned in recent days have been sitting Republican senators, among them Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Michael D. Crapo of Idaho, John Cornyn of Texas, Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Mike DeWine of Ohio. Another often-mentioned candidate, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, was formerly a judge

On Friday, rumors of an imminent retirement announcement by Chief Justice [William H. Rehnquist] reached a frenzy of bizarre proportions. He was first said to have informed the White House that he would announce his retirement on Monday. The rescheduling from Monday until Tuesday of a meeting between the president and the Senate leadership was taken as proof of the chief justice's intention; in fact, the change was made to accommodate the schedule of Senator Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, the majority leader. Dr. Leonard Wartofsky, chairman of the department of medicine at Washington Hospital Center, said in an interview that he was ''surprised Mr. Rehnquist has done so well.'' Dr. Wartofsky, a thyroid cancer specialist, said the chief justice's case was ''a big topic'' among thyroid experts. ''It's on people's minds'' and ''we talk,'' he said. Another specialist, who had spoken to the chief justice's own doctors, said they were ''very, very pleased about his course and that he is so on the ball.'' Anaplastic thyroid cancer is rare, and Dr. Steven I. Sherman, chairman of the endocrine cancer department at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, cautioned against jumping to the conclusion that this was the chief justice's diagnosis. ''More likely it was not anaplastic thyroid cancer, just by the relative frequency of the other'' types of the disease, Dr. Sherman said

Chief Justice [William Rehnquist] leaves his home in Arlington, Va., on Friday. Rehnquist remained at work in his chambers at the court Friday, as he has every day since the court finished its term and began its summer recess. J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Dr. Leonard Wartofsky, chairman of the department of medicine at Washington Hospital Center, said that he was 'surprised Mr. [William Rehnquist] has done so well.' Wartofsky, a thyroid cancer specialist, said the chief justice's case was 'a big topic' among thyroid experts. 'It's on people's minds' and 'we talk,' he said

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to perform a meta-analysis of the predictive value of microvolt T-wave alternans (MTWA) testing for arrhythmic events in a wide variety of populations. BACKGROUND: Previous studies describing the use of MTWA as a predictor of ventricular tachyarrhythmic events have been limited by small sample sizes and disparate populations. METHODS: Prospective studies of the predictive value of exercise-induced MTWA published between January 1990 and December 2004 were retrieved. Data from each article were abstracted independently by two authors using a standardized protocol. Summary estimates of the predictive value of MTWA were made using a random-effects model. RESULTS: Data were accumulated from 19 studies (2,608 subjects) across a wide range of populations. Overall, the positive predictive value of MTWA for arrhythmic events was 19.3% at an average of 21 months' follow-up (95% confidence interval [CI] 17.7% to 21.0%), the negative predictive value was 97.2% (95% CI 96.5% to 97.9%), and the univariate relative risk of an arrhythmic event was 3.77 (95% CI 2.39 to 5.95). There was no difference in predictive value between ischemic and nonischemic heart failure subgroups. The positive predictive value varied depending on the population of patients studied (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Microvolt T-wave alternans testing has significant value for the prediction of ventricular tachyarrhythmic events; however, there are significant limitations to its use. The predictive value of MTWA varies significantly depending on the population studied. Careful standardization is needed for what constitutes abnormal MTWA. The incremental prognostic value of MTWA when used with other methods of risk stratification is unclear

[Jeanna Giese] told her pediatrician, Dr. Howard Dhonau, about the bat shortly before she left Fond du Lac, Dr. Willoughby said. Dr. Dhonau passed on the information to Children's Hospital, where Dr. Willoughby initially was skeptical about the possibility that she had rabies, largely because it is so rare. He learned that laboratory researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris had shown that an anesthetic, ketamine, was active against the rabies virus. So Dr. Willoughby proposed giving Jeanna ketamine to induce a deep coma and midazolam, a sedative, to prevent hallucinations. Colour Photo: Rick Wood, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Jeanna Giese greets Dr. Rodney Willoughby Jr. The two made medical history when Jeanna contracted rabies from ...; Colour Photo: ...a bat bite and survived -- the first time anyone has lived through the rare illness without vaccination -- thanks to Willoughby's radical treatment involving a drug regimen that put Jeanna into a coma for a week

The booster vaccine for whooping cough, or pertussis, is needed because immunity to it wanes 5 to 10 years after the initial vaccination. But an additional shot will not be needed because the new vaccine would be part of a booster routinely given for diphtheria and tetanus. Many hospitals stopped administering the vaccine because of a controversy over the use of thimerosal, which critics contend causes autism. Health officials say there is no evidence to support the contention. Thimerosal was eliminated from hepatitis B vaccines in 2000, but hospitals have been slow to reinstate orders to administer the vaccine to newborns, said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University. The panel rejected adding a routine second dose of chickenpox vaccine for children 4 to 6 years old. The cost, the feasibility of delivering the vaccine to such a large population and the lack of persuasive data about how long immunity of a second dose lasts were cited as reasons

OBJECTIVES: We examined the process of obtaining "active," written parental consent for a school-based HIV/AIDS prevention project in a South African high school by investigating (1) parental consent form return rates, (2) parents' recall and knowledge of the research, and (3) the extent to which this consent procedure represented parents' wishes about their child's involvement in the research. METHODS: This cross-sectional descriptive study comprised interviews with parents of children in grades eight and nine in a poor, periurban settlement in Cape Town. RESULTS: Within 2 weeks, 94% of 258 parents responded to a letter requesting written consent and of those, 93% consented, but subsequent interviews showed that 65% remembered seeing the consent form. At the end of the interview, 99% consented to their child's participation. CONCLUSIONS: These findings challenge many of the assumptions underlying active written parental consent. However, they should not be used to deny adolescents at high risk of HIV infection the opportunity to participate in prevention trials. Rather, researchers together with the communities in which the research is undertaken need to decide on appropriate informed consent strategies.

Campylobacter fetus is a gram-negative bacterial pathogen of both humans and animals. Two subspecies have been identified, Campylobacter fetus subsp. fetus and Campylobacter fetus subsp. venerealis, and there are two serotypes, A and B. To further investigate the genetic diversity among C. fetus strains of different origins, subspecies, and serotypes, we performed multiple genetic analyses by utilizing random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD), pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and DNA-DNA hybridization. All 10 primers used for the RAPD analyses can distinguish C. fetus strains of reptile and mammal origin, five can differentiate between C. fetus subsp. fetus and C. fetus subsp. venerealis strains, and four showed differences between type A and type B isolates from mammals. PFGE with SmaI and SalI digestion showed varied genome patterns among different C. fetus strains, but for mammalian C. fetus isolates, genome size was well conserved (mean, 1.52 +/- 0.06 Mb for SmaI and 1.52 +/- 0.05 Mb for SalI). DNA-DNA hybridization demonstrated substantial genomic-homology differences between strains of mammal and reptile origin. In total, these data suggest that C. fetus subsp fetus strains of reptile and mammal origin have genetic divergence more extensive than that between the two subspecies and that between the type A and type B strains. Combining these studies with sequence data, we conclude that there has been substantial genetic divergence between Campylobacter fetus of reptile and mammal origin. Diagnostic tools have been developed to differentiate among C. fetus isolates for taxonomic and epidemiologic uses