Faculty Bibliography

A person smells or tastes something funny and soon complains of feeling ill. Minutes later, witnesses also feel strange. The outbreak spreads like a chain reaction. Many go to a hospital. But after physical examinations and dozens of blood tests, nothing significant shows up. Health officials are summoned but find no cause. A few days later, relapses and possibly a new wave of attacks may occur. When the all-clear is given, the diagnosis is mass hysteria, also known as epidemic hysteria, mass psychogenic illness and mass sociogenic illness. Initially, outbreaks of mass hysteria can be difficult to distinguish from bioterrorism, rapidly spreading infection and acute exposure to a toxin or other environmental hazard. And rising public concern about biological terrorism and rapid spread of news of outbreaks over the Internet are likely to increase the challenge, if not frequency, of mass hysteria for health officials. Dr. Matthew Cartter, an official of the Connecticut Department of Health, said skeptical editors and scientists rejected a report of a mass hysteria outbreak that he submitted to medical journals in 1986. Dr. Cartter said he concluded that ''some reports like mass hysteria are better told as stories than as scientific studies.''

An international team of surgeons performed the world's first double hand-and-forearm transplant on Thursday in Lyon, France, on a 33-year-old Frenchman who lost both his hands in a fireworks accident in 1996. The same team of surgeons performed the first successful hand-and-forearm transplant, in September 1998, also in Lyon. There, Clint Hallam, a New Zealand man living in Australia, received a new right hand and forearm. In January 1999, surgeons in Louisville, Ky., gave Matthew David Scott of Absecon, N.J., a new left hand and forearm. Dr. Nadey Hakim, a member of the transplant team from England, said in a telephone interview Friday that the double-hand transplant recipient was doing well. 'He's awake and fine,' he said. 'So far so good.'

An international team of surgeons performed the world's first double hand-and-forearm transplant on Thursday in Lyon, France, on a 33-year-old Frenchman who lost his hands in a fireworks accident in 1996. The same team of surgeons performed the first successful hand and forearm transplant, in September 1998, also in Lyon. In that case, Clint Hallam, a New Zealand man living in Australia, received a new right hand and forearm. In January 1999, surgeons in Louisville, Ky., gave Matthew David Scott of Absecon, N.J., a new left hand and forearm. Dr. Nadey Hakim, a member of the transplant team from England, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the double-hand transplant recipient was doing well. ''He's awake and fine,'' he said. ''So far so good.''

An international team of surgeons performed the world's first double hand-and-forearm transplant Thursday in Lyon, France, on a 33- year-old Frenchman who lost both his hands in a fireworks accident in 1996. Dr. Nadey Hakim, a member of the transplant team from England, said Friday that the double-hand transplant recipient was doing well. 'He's awake and fine,' he said. 'So far, so good.' The same surgeons performed the first successful hand-and-forearm transplant, in September 1998, also in Lyon. There, Clint Hallam, a New Zealand man living in Australia, received a new right hand and forearm. In January 1999, surgeons in Louisville, Ky., gave Matthew David Scott of Absecon, N.J., a new left hand and forearm. Both men have gained varying degrees of nerve regeneration, sensation and function in their new hands, but neither has full function

An international team of surgeons has performed the world's first double hand-and-forearm transplant, in Lyon, France, on a 33-year- old Frenchman who lost both his hands in a fireworks accident

The same team of surgeons performed the first successful hand-and- forearm transplant in September 1998, also in Lyon. There, Clint Hallam, a New Zealand man living in Australia, received a new right hand and forearm. In January 1999, surgeons in Louisville, Ky., gave Matthew David Scott of Absecon, N.J., a new left hand and forearm. Dr. Nadey Hakim, a member of the transplant team from England, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the double-hand transplant recipient was doing well. 'He's awake and fine,' he said. 'So far so good.' On Wednesday, Hakim and others from Australia, Spain and Italy flew to Lyon to join their French colleagues. A 19-year-old man who had fallen off a bridge was brain dead. His family donated his heart, kidneys, liver and arms to different recipients. The arms were removed Wednesday night, and the surgeons attached prosthetic arms to make the donor's body look normal. At 6 a.m. Thursday the team began the hand-transplant surgery

We have investigated the potential use of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma) agonists as anti-inflammatory agents in cell-based assays and in a mouse model of endotoxemia. Human peripheral blood monocytes were treated with LPS or PMA and a variety of PPARgamma agonists. Although 15-deoxy-Delta12,14-prostaglandin J2 (15d-PGJ2) at micromolar concentrations significantly inhibited the production of TNF-alpha and IL-6, four other high affinity PPARgamma ligands failed to affect cytokine production. Similar results were obtained when the monocytes were allowed to differentiate in culture into macrophages that expressed significantly higher levels of PPARgamma or when the murine macrophage cell line RAW 264.7 was used. Furthermore, saturating concentrations of a potent PPARgamma ligand not only failed to block cytokine production, but also were unable to block the inhibitory activity of 15d-PGJ2. Thus, activation of PPARgamma does not appear to inhibit the production of cytokines by either monocytes or macrophages, and the inhibitory effect observed with 15d-PGJ2 is most likely mediated by a PPARgamma-independent mechanism. To examine the anti-inflammatory activity of PPARgamma agonists in vivo, db/db mice were treated with a potent thiazolidinedione that lowered their elevated blood glucose and triglyceride levels as expected. When thiazolidinedione-treated mice were challenged with LPS, they displayed no suppression of cytokine production. Rather, their blood levels of TNF-alpha and IL-6 were elevated beyond the levels observed in control db/db mice challenged with LPS. Comparable results were obtained with the corresponding lean mice. Our data suggest that compounds capable of activating PPARgamma in leukocytes will not be useful for the treatment of acute inflammation.

For the first time since AIDS was discovered nearly 20 years ago, the majority of gay men now being diagnosed with AIDS are either black or Hispanic, not Anglo, federal health officials reported Thursday. A total of 18,153 AIDS cases were diagnosed among gay men in 1998, the most recent year available, and blacks and Hispanics represented 9,182, or 51.9 percent, of the cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its weekly report. Since the AIDS epidemic began, most AIDS cases have been among gay men, with white gay men making up the largest subgroup. But through the years, the percentages have steadily risen for black and Hispanic gay men as those for white gay men decreased