Faculty Bibliography

Bacteria beneath the long fingernails of nurses have been linked to the deaths of babies in an intensive care unit in a hospital in Oklahoma City, federal and Oklahoma health officials said yesterday. Epidemiologists who investigated the outbreak of bacterial infection at Children's Hospital found that about half of the 16 deaths from Jan. 1, 1997, to March 12, 1998, were apparently due to contamination from the long fingernails. No deaths from the bacteria have been reported since the hospital imposed measures like requiring that nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit have short nails, Dr. William R. Jarvis, head of the hospital infections program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview

No deaths from the bacteria have been reported since the hospital imposed a number of rules, including requiring nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit to have short nails, Dr. William Jarvis, who heads the hospital infections program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview. Dr. Michael Crutcher, the Oklahoma state epidemiologist, said in an interview that his team was initially concerned that some product had been contaminated with pseudomonas. Investigators did not turn their attention to the long nails until cultures of the ears and hands of 104 doctors, nurses and other health care workers showed that three nurses had pseudomonas. Two of the nurses had long fingernails. One had artificial nails; the other had naturally long nails. Other surveys had found a greater number of microbes on the hands of nurses with artificial nails compared to those with natural nails, both before and after hand washing

Dr. Weinstein was a heroic figure in the polio epidemics that paralyzed thousands of people worldwide in 1949 and 1955. Many New England obstetricians refused to treat pregnant women with polio for fear of contracting the viral infection. Dr. Weinstein thought this appalling and delivered their babies himself. Louis Weinstein was born in Bridgeport, Conn., on Feb. 26, 1908. He supported himself through school by moonlighting as a jazz violinist and began his career as a microbiologist at Yale University in 1931. Seeking to learn more about the effects of microbes on human beings, he earned a medical degree at Boston University in 1943; by 1947 he was chief of infectious diseases at the university

The AIDS virus has infected 30 million people, making it one of the worst epidemics in history. The contaminated vaccine theory is based entirely on circumstantial evidence. But if it is correct, AIDS would also be the worst medically caused epidemic in history. With so little evidence but so much at stake, scientists are arguing passionately about the theory's plausibility. While many scientists dismiss the theory out of hand, others believe it is possible, though unlikely

Scientists at three laboratories in the United States and Europe are gearing up to test samples of an experimental polio vaccine stored for more than 40 years to determine whether it might have been the spark that ignited the worldwide AIDS epidemic. The scientists will test a highly controversial and seemingly far- fetched theory that holds that an oral polio vaccine, used in vaccine trials in what was then the Belgian Congo in the 1950s, might have been made with chimpanzee tissue that might have been contaminated with an ancestor of the AIDS virus. The Wistar Institute, a research center in Philadelphia, made the vaccine and has kept a few drops of material used in its preparation frozen since 1957. After the AIDS and polio vaccine theory was first raised in 1992, Wistar appointed an independent committee of scientists to look into the questions. The committee recommended testing the vaccine. But Wistar never carried out the tests, it said, because of a lack of scientific interest

Scientists in three laboratories in the United States and Europe are gearing up to test samples of an experimental polio vaccine stored for more than 40 years to determine whether it might have been the spark that ignited the worldwide AIDS epidemic. The scientists will be testing a highly controversial and seemingly far-fetched theory holding that an oral polio vaccine, used in vaccine trials in what was then the Belgian Congo in the 1950s, might have been made with chimpanzee tissue that might have been contaminated with an ancestor of the AIDS virus. The Wistar Institute, a research center in Philadelphia, made the vaccine and has kept a few drops of material used in its preparation frozen since 1957. After the AIDS and polio vaccine theory was first raised in 1992, Wistar appointed an independent committee of scientists to look into the questions. The committee recommended testing the vaccine. But Wistar never carried out the tests, it said, because of a lack of scientific interest

Scientists in three laboratories in the United States and Europe are gearing up to test samples of an experimental polio vaccine stored for more than 40 years to determine whether it might have inadvertently been the spark that ignited the worldwide AIDS epidemic. The scientists will be testing a highly controversial and seemingly far-fetched theory that holds that an oral polio vaccine, used in vaccine trials in what was then the Belgian Congo in the 1950's, might have been made with chimpanzee tissue that might have been contaminated with an ancestor of the AIDS virus. The Wistar Institute, a research center in Philadelphia, made the vaccine and has kept a few drops of material used in its preparation frozen since 1957. After the AIDS and polio vaccine theory was first raised in 1992, Wistar appointed an independent committee of scientists to look into the questions. The committee recommended testing the vaccine. But Wistar never carried out the tests, it said, because of a lack of scientific interest

Starting his work at a time when there were no antibiotics and few vaccines, Dr. Weinstein lived to see his research and teaching influence much of the everyday practice of his specialty. He helped introduce many staples of infectious disease treatment, including the antibiotic Keflin, and helped develop guidelines for anti-infective therapy. An expert on infections of the heart, he was also among the first to warn of drug resistance and other hazards of antibiotic therapy. Dr. Weinstein was a heroic figure in the polio epidemics that paralyzed many people in New England in 1949 and 1955. Appalled that many obstetricians refused to treat pregnant women with polio for fear of contracting the viral infection, Dr. Weinstein delivered their babies himself. Seeking to learn more how microbes affected humans, Dr. Weinstein earned a medical degree at Boston University in 1943; by 1947 he was chief of infectious diseases at the university. As penicillin and other antibiotics began to change medical practice sharply, the specialized hospitals where patients with dangerous communicable diseases were kept isolated from other patients closed. Instead, regular hospitals opened infectious disease units, and Dr. Weinstein played a key role in setting them up. He also gave courses to help doctors learn how to use the new antibiotics

Scientists in three laboratories in the United States and Europe are gearing up to test samples of an experimental polio vaccine stored for more than 40 years to determine whether it might have inadvertently been the spark that ignited the worldwide AIDS epidemic. The scientists will be testing a highly controversial and seemingly far-fetched theory that holds that an oral polio vaccine, used in vaccine trials in what was then the Belgian Congo in the 1950s, might have been made with chimpanzee tissue that might have been contaminated with an ancestor of the AIDS virus. The Wistar Institute, a research center in Philadelphia, made the vaccine and has kept a few drops of material used in its preparation frozen since 1957. After the AIDS and polio vaccine theory was first raised in 1992, Wistar appointed an independent committee of scientists to look into the questions. The committee recommended testing the vaccine. But Wistar never carried out the tests, it said, because of a lack of scientific interest