Faculty Bibliography

Health officials say that any new case of avian flu must be taken seriously because it can spread rapidly among birds and it can be quite serious in humans on the rare occasions when they are infected. In recent years, cases of avian flu in Asia, Europe and North America have prompted the slaughter of millions of chickens and ducks. The World Health Organization has sounded an alarm because some strains of the virus -- not the one found in Westchester -- have killed people, including at least 16 victims in Vietnam and Thailand early this year. It was not until February that C.D.C. tested the sample, when scientists there found that the virus was not from the H1 group, Dr. [Nancy J. Cox] said. A subsequent test ruled out another family of flu viruses, Type B. Further testing showed that it was Type A, but not the H1, H3 or H5 subtypes. Finally, on March 17, scientists using other tests identified the virus as H7N2. The next day, Dr. Cox said, C.D.C. notified health officials in New York that they had a suspect human case of avian flu. To be certain that the sample had not been contaminated in a laboratory, they did further tests

The findings suggest that unidentified nonalcoholic components in beer and spirits may play an important role in precipitating gout attacks, a form of arthritis, said the head of the team, Dr. Hyon Choi of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The participants in Choi's study were 47,150 gout-free male health professionals who answered a questionnaire when they entered the study in 1986 and then every two years until 1998. Of the participants, 730 developed the disease. More research is needed to identify such possible factors and to determine whether changing the type of alcoholic beverage or reducing the consumption of alcohol would cut the incidence of gout, Choi's team said

Drinking two or more 12-ounce cans or bottles of any kind of beer a day increased the risk of gout 2.5 times compared with drinking no beer, according to [Hyon K. Choi]'s study. Consuming two drinks each containing a shot of liquor increased the risk 1.6 times compared with consuming no liquor

Whether beer contains a factor that promotes gout or wine a protective factor, or both, is not known. More research is needed to identify such possible factors and to determine whether changing the type of alcoholic beverage or reducing alcohol consumption would cut the incidence of gout, [Hyon K. Choi]'s team said

Botswana is the ninth previously polio-free country where the crippling disease has reappeared in recent months and the farthest from its presumed source, northern Nigeria. There, officials stopped polio vaccinations because of religious and political opposition, said officials of W.H.O., a United Nations agency in Geneva. In the past 18 months, polio viruses genetically linked to northern Nigeria have caused new cases of polio in nine previously polio-free countries. Besides Botswana, they are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo

Botswana is the ninth previously polio-free country where the crippling disease has reappeared in recent months and the farthest from its presumed source, northern Nigeria. There, officials have stopped polio vaccinations because of religious and political opposition to it, said officials of the WHO, a U.N. agency in Geneva. In the past 18 months, polio viruses genetically linked to northern Nigeria have caused new cases of polio in nine previously polio-free countries. Polio virus is endemic in five countries besides Nigeria: Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Niger and Pakistan. Polio was endemic in 125 countries when the WHO began its polio eradication program in 1988

Botswana is the ninth previously polio-free country where the crippling disease has reappeared in recent months and the farthest from its presumed source, northern Nigeria. There, officials have stopped polio vaccinations because of religious and political opposition to it, said officials of the WHO, a U.N. agency in Geneva. In the past 18 months, polio viruses genetically linked to northern Nigeria have caused new cases of polio in nine previously polio-free countries. Besides Botswana, they are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo

First-generation protease inhibitors (PIs) have yielded clinical benefit, although their use has been accompanied by a high incidence of treatment-emergent resistance as well as the transmission of drug-resistant viruses in acute infection. In addition, mutations in isolates that are resistant to PIs can often confer cross-resistance, jeopardizing class effectiveness. Despite the fact that several PIs display a high genetic barrier to resistance, diminished susceptibility to these drugs can still result from poor adherence, due to poor tolerability, high pill burden, frequent dosing, and complex food and water requirements. Two new PIs, atazanavir (ATV) and fosamprenavir (FPV, or 908), have several potential advantages over first-generation agents with regard to potency, tolerability, and convenience. Clinical trials with these agents suggest a relatively high barrier to resistance, with well-characterized mutational pathways and minimal cross-resistance with other PIs. Therefore, these new agents hold promise as first-line PIs with the added potential for salvageability. In addition, two nonpeptidic PIs in advanced development, tipranavir (TPV) and TMC-114, maintain high potency against isolates resistant to earlier-generation PIs and have each shown usefulness in salvage therapy. Thus, the availability of new PIs that combine favorable resistance profiles with improved tolerability has the potential to lead to a new paradigm of how to better utilize and sequence PIs in antiretroviral therapy. The use of these new PIs may provide improved long-term, durable viral suppression, enhancing not only therapeutic outcomes but also patient quality of life for those living with HIV infection and AIDS