Faculty Bibliography

In releasing the agency's annual report in advance of World AIDS Day on Monday, [Peter Piot] acknowledged that greater funding and stronger political commitments had moved the battle against AIDS into higher gear. But he singled out nations that were way behind in tackling AIDS. 'Many countries do not take AIDS seriously, and that is particularly the case of Russia, all the countries of the former Soviet Union, and several Asian countries,' Piot said in a telephone news conference. An estimated 1 million Russians are infected, and 'the epidemic is growing at a fearsome rate,' the report said. Chiding Russia for not making the political commitment other countries have made for AIDS, Piot said Russia allocates 'only a few million dollars for AIDS and still deals with it at the level of a deputy minister of health.' Piot said he welcomed the South African government's plan last week to provide anti-retroviral drugs to AIDS patients as well as an earlier announcement by former President Bill Clinton that he had brokered an agreement with drug companies to lower the price of AIDS drugs for many countries. The World Health Organization plans to deliver anti-retroviral drugs to 3 million people by 2005

Chiding Russia for not making the political commitment that other countries have made for AIDS, [Peter Piot] said Russia allocates 'only a few million dollars for AIDS and still deals with it at the level of a deputy minister of health.' Piot said he welcomed a plan announced last week by South Africa's government to provide anti-retroviral drugs to AIDS patients, as well as an earlier announcement by former President Clinton that he had brokered a deal with drug companies to lower the price of AIDS medications for many countries. The World Health Organization plans to deliver anti-retroviral drugs to 3 million people by 2005. Southern Africa is home to about 30 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, although the region has less than 2 percent of the world's population. In Botswana and Swaziland, the infection rate of HIV/AIDS among adults is 40 percent

[Alonzo Mourning], a four-time N.B.A. All-Star, ''will need a kidney transplant in the near future,'' the doctor, Gerald Appel, a kidney specialist at Columbia University, said in a telephone interview after the Nets disclosed that Mourning's career had apparently come to an end after a frustrating 12-game comeback. When he examined Mourning, a 6-foot-10 center, on Sunday, a day after Mourning scored 15 points in his best game of the season, Appel said the levels in Mourning's blood of creatinine, a measure of kidney function, and potassium were very high and that those readings, along with other chemical imbalances, led him and the Nets physicians to conclude that it was ''no longer medically safe for him to play basketball.'' With the Nets, Mourning did not have the time, nor perhaps the resiliency, to make much of an impact. His short stay with the Nets will be best remembered for the ugly confrontation he had with two Nets stars -- Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson -- in practice last week, a dispute in which Mourning's intensity ran head on into the very casual attitude sometimes embraced by younger Nets players

Asylum seekers arriving in the USA are likely to be held in detention for months or years pending adjudication of their asylum claims. We interviewed 70 asylum seekers detained in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. We used self-report questionnaires to assess symptoms of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. At baseline, 54 (77%) participants had clinically significant symptoms of anxiety, 60 (86%) of depression, and 35 (50%) of post-traumatic stress disorder; all symptoms were significantly correlated with length of detention (p=0.004, 0.017, and 0.019, respectively). At follow-up, participants who had been released had marked reductions in all psychological symptoms, but those still detained were more distressed than at baseline. Our findings suggest detention of asylum seekers exacerbates psychological symptoms

The experimental DNA vaccine is synthesized using modified, inactivated genes from the Ebola virus. Because it does not contain any infectious material from the Ebola virus, recipients cannot get the disease, said Dr. Gary Nabel, who directs the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease in Bethesda, Maryland

The experimental DNA vaccine is synthesized using modified, inactivated genes from the Ebola virus. Because it does not contain any infectious material from the Ebola virus, recipients cannot get the disease, said Dr. Gary Nabel, who directs the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease in Bethesda, Maryland

The experimental DNA vaccine is synthesized using modified, inactivated genes from the Ebola virus. Because it does not contain any infectious material from the virus, recipients cannot get the disease, said Dr. Gary Nabel, who directs the institute's Vaccine Research Center. The goal is to use the Vical vaccine and another one to protect against Ebola in a prime-boost strategy. Under those conditions, the Vical vaccine would be given first to prime the immune system. Then a different vaccine, which uses an adenovirus (that causes colds) would bolster the immune system that had been primed by the Vical vaccine. The second vaccine is still being developed for human use; the first tests in volunteers are expected to begin next year, Dr. Nabel said. The government's program to defend against bioterrorism has helped accelerate development of a vaccine, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the institute's director. ''An effective Ebola vaccine not only would provide a life-saving advance in countries where the disease occurs naturally, it also would provide a medical tool to discourage the use of Ebola virus as an agent of bioterrorism,'' he said

The next plague may be from a newly discovered infectious agent or a natural mutation that produces a new version of an old microbe. It may even escape from a laboratory. Or the next plague may be caused by a microbe that, having become resistant to standard antibiotics, spreads widely and rapidly. The longstanding threat of bioterrorism turned real with the deliberate release of anthrax spores in 2001. When SARS suddenly appeared, there was speculation that it was bioterrorism. Experts dismissed that. No one was smart enough to invent a SARS from scratch, said Dr. Joshua Lederberg, a Nobel Prize-winning microbiologist. Now, he said, SARS may end up being a biological weapon. If SARS does not return in the next few years, will companies have a continuing incentive to develop a vaccine that might never be needed? If industry lacks incentive, yet SARS returns, the consequences could be devastating