Faculty Bibliography

He finds close coincidence in both time and place between the earliest cases of AIDS and the testing of an oral vaccine developed at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and, later, in two labs in Belgium. From 1957 to 1960, the vaccine was given to a million people in what are now Rwanda, Burundi and Congo. The Wistar Institute, the first independent medical research centre in the United States, appointed the 1992 panel to examine the theory that its vaccine might have touched off the AIDS epidemic. Now it says it is trying to find independent experts to do what they were unwilling to do seven years ago, when the panel recommended testing the remaining stocks of the experimental polio vaccine. Colour Photo: AP/ An Ethiopian child receives modern polio vaccine. Most scientists believe the AIDS virus derives from a simian virus in chimps. Now, British journalist [Edward Hooper] suggests chimp tissue was used to make an experimental oral polio vaccine tested between 1957 and 1960 in central Africa -- epicentre of the AIDS epidemic. ;

Is AIDS a disaster inadvertently brought on by humans during early testing of a polio vaccine in Africa in the 1950s? This provocative theory seemed far-fetched when it came to public attention in an article in Rolling Stone in 1992. Most AIDS experts dismissed it after a scientific committee reviewed the theory and deemed the probability very low. In 'The River,' Edward Hooper suggests that an experimental oral polio vaccine might have been made with chimpanzee tissue contaminated with a simian ancestor of the virus that causes AIDS. Although he has no medical expertise, Hooper, 48, has done a prodigious amount of research since 1990. In 1,070 pages, he builds a case entirely on circumstantial evidence that he accumulated in hundreds of interviews and exhaustive library research. He finds close coincidence in both time and place between the earliest cases of AIDS and the testing of an oral vaccine developed at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and, later, in two laboratories in Belgium. From 1957 to 1960, the vaccine was given to a million people in what are now Rwanda, Burundi and Congo

Is AIDS a disaster inadvertently brought on by humans that arose from early testing of a polio vaccine in Africa in the 1950s? In 'The River,' Edward Hooper suggests that an experimental oral polio vaccine might have been made with chimpanzee tissue contaminated with an ancestor of the virus that was to cause AIDS. He finds close coincidence in both time and place between the earliest cases of AIDS and the testing of an oral vaccine developed at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and, later, in two laboratories in Belgium. From 1957 to 1960, the vaccine was given to a million people in what are now Rwanda, Burundi and Congo

For those seeking to understand this conflict's remarkable grip on our collective imagination, The Civil War Experience is a good place to start. Bulging with information, beautifully put together and simple to navigate, it combines serious history with mindless (though mildly addictive) razzle-dazzle. Made in conjunction with the History Channel, the disc includes 150 top-flight biographies of leading Civil War figures and dozens of topical essays supplemented by video clips and eyewitness accounts. There are video games that allow you to blast the enemy with cannon fire and run a naval blockade. There is also a trivia game that I strongly urge overconfident historians to avoid. The opening section of this CD-ROM, The Road to War, is disappointing. Essays on topics like the Missouri Compromise (1820-1821), the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) and the Dred Scott decision (1857) provide some historical background, a sound idea, except that the essays, alas, are flat, poorly connected and confuse the slavery issue. In the Dred Scott essay, for example, we are told that ''Southerners saw the decision as a guarantee that slavery would be protected within Southern borders.'' In fact, that point had long been conceded by most Northerners, Lincoln among them. What Southerners really saw in the Dred Scott decision was a guarantee that slavery would be protected into the vast federal territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican War

The reason his file is so extensive is that Mr. [John] McCain, a Navy pilot whose jet was shot down over North Vietnam, was treated for major fractures and other injuries during more than five years as a prisoner of war and received the standard psychological evaluations that were given to all P.O.W.'s after their release. Mr. McCain's campaign carefully controlled the release of the records in what appeared to be an effort in part to counter discussions of whether Mr. McCain, a Republican, has the temperament to be president. The campaign released a statement by Dr. Michael M. Ambrose, director of the Robert E. Mitchell Center for Prisoner of War Studies, and Dr. Jeffrey L. Moore, a clinical neuropsychologist at the center, that said: ''Senator McCain has never been diagnosed with or treated at the center for a psychological or psychiatric disorder. He has been subject to an extensive battery of psychological tests and following his last examination in 1993, we judged him to be in good physical and mental health.''

Of all the infectious diseases that afflict Americans, meningitis ranksnowhere near the top. But meningococci, the bacteria that are a cause of bothmeningitis and other serious health problems, bring chaos disproportionate tothe low case numbers. That is why a federal health advisory panel urged the 520,000 collegefreshmen who live in dormitories to get the meningococcal vaccine, even thoughit is not expected to prevent much more than a couple of dozen cases. Peakseason for the disease is November through January. The panel, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention onimmunization practices, called on universities and health professionals totell college freshmen and their parents about the availability of awell-established vaccine that is safe and effective against most subtypes ofthe bacteria that affect college- age Americans

Ever since American doctors discovered AIDS in 1981, the origins of the viral disease have been a scientific mystery. Many scientists believe that H.I.V.-1, the main AIDS virus in the world, derives from a simian virus in chimpanzees. But the unanswered question is how the virus jumped to humans. The most widely accepted theory is that passage must have occurred in blood-to-blood contact, like a bite or cut during the slaughter of chimpanzees

The virus that caused the outbreak of West Nile encephalitis in the New York City region this summer is very close to one isolated last year in Israel, scientists reported yesterday. West Nile virus is transmitted by mosquitoes that bite infected birds. It was first identified in Uganda in 1937, and since then, it has caused a number of outbreaks in Europe and Asia. But the virus had not been detected in the United States until the outbreak this summer. She said in an interview that determining how the virus got to the New York region would be more important than finding out where it came from. The reason, she said, is that determining the route of the virus might prevent further outbreaks of West Nile encephalitis and of other microbes that are not present in the area

The virus that caused the outbreak of West Nile encephalitis in the New York City region this summer is very close to one isolated last year in Israel, scientists reported Saturday

More than 11 million children have been orphaned by AIDS since the epidemic was recognized in 1981, and the number is expected to rise to 13 million by the end of 2000, the United Nations said Wednesday in a report to mark World AIDS Day. The soaring number of AIDS deaths could eventually undermine the political stability of affected countries, said Dr. Peter Piot, head of the U.N. program on AIDS. All but 5 percent of the world's children orphaned by AIDS live in countries below the Sahara, UNAIDS and UNICEF said in the report. In the past, age-old networks of immediate and extended families would have assumed the care of orphans. But, the report said, 'the traditional African extended family is breaking down under the unprecedented burden of the pandemic.'