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An experimental vaccine for rotavirus, the leading cause of severe diarrhea in infants and young children, may be more effective and easier to deliver than the recently suspended standard vaccine, a new report says

Dr. Ludwik Gross, who influenced cancer research by showing that viruses could cause cancers in animals, died on Monday at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. He was 94 and lived in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Dr. Gross won an Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation prize in 1974 for his discovery of what became known as the Gross mouse leukemia virus. His work in the 1950's, the Lasker jury said, opened the field of tumor virology in mammals and ''laid the foundations for the subsequent discovery by others of cancer-inducing viruses in animals of various species ranging from rodents to the higher primates.'' For the half-century before Dr. Gross's discovery, scientists had largely ignored the role of viruses in cancer even though, beginning in 1908, researchers had suggested a viral cause by transmitting leukemia and sarcomas in chickens. Over the next 30 years, scientists transmitted a type of kidney cancer prevalent in frogs in New England lakes to other frogs, and also transmitted breast cancer in mice through milk from mothers to their offspring

For decades, scientists have been mystified by a significant portion of hepatitis cases that were not caused by any of the liver disease's main known viral agents, hepatitis A through E. But now, acting on a hunch that unidentified viruses might be found in the blood of AIDS patients because of their weakened immune systems, Dr. Daniele Primi, an Italian scientist, has obtained what he and other scientists said in interviews was strong evidence for a novel hepatitis virus. Dr. Primi, who works in Brescia at a research laboratory for Diasorin, a medical biotechnology company, has not submitted a paper for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and has yet to obtain proof from a photograph of the virus through an electron microscope. Details of the research are included in the patent applications Diasorin filed in 1998 for discovery of the virus and development of tests, Dr. Primi said. Still, other researchers are picking up on the early findings. Using an unusual technique to test nearly 600 stored blood samples, largely from the laboratory of Dr. Harvey Alter at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Primi's team linked the newly found virus to cases of hepatitis with unexplained viral causes. They also found it in patients who were infected with known viruses that cause hepatitis and AIDS

[Daniele Primi], who works at DiaSorin, a biologics company in Brescia, Italy, has not submitted a paper for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and has yet to obtain proof from a photograph of the virus through an electron microscope. Details of the research are included in the patent applications DiaSorin filed in 1998 for discovery of the virus and development of tests, Primi said. So Primi sought to test stored blood samples from known cases of a variety of conditions. In blood samples provided by Dr. Mario Rizzetto, a scientist in Turin, Italy, who discovered the hepatitis D virus in 1977, Primi detected the new virus among patients with hepatitis non-A, non-E. So [Harvey Alter] sent Primi 200 additional coded samples that included a large percentage from healthy people with no known infections, as scientific controls. Again Primi's team found the SEN virus in 80 per cent of the hepatitis non-A, non-E samples and, depending on the group, in from 1 per cent to 8 per cent of the healthy controls. 'There was at least a 10-fold difference between the hepatitis patients and the controls,' Alter said

Federal health officials yesterday called for the immediate suspension of a vaccine recently recommended for all infants to protect against rotavirus, the most common cause of severe diarrhea in infants and young children. The Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it took the extraordinary action because a program that monitors vaccine side-effects suggested a link between the drug, licensed last year, and 20 cases of a painful blockage of the bowel called intussusception. The disease, which can in rare cases be fatal, affects an estimated 3.5 million in the United States a year. Although there is no conclusive evidence that the vaccine causes the bowel condition, officials at the disease-control centers said the data are so strongly suggestive of a link that they considered it prudent to advise halting rotavirus vaccinations at least until November, by which time a new study of the vaccine will be completed

U.S. health officials called Thursday for the immediate suspension of a vaccine recently recommended for all infants to protect against rotavirus, the most common cause of severe diarrhea in infants and young children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it took the extraordinary action because a program to monitor side effects suggested a link between the vaccine, licensed last year, and 20 nonfatal cases of a painful blockage of the bowel called intussusception. American Home Products Corp. told Reuters on Thursday that it had temporarily suspended shipments of the vaccine, RotaShield, made by a subsidiary, Wyeth-Ayerst of St. Davids, Pa. American Home also said it had sent letters to doctors informing them of the CDC report

Federal health officials on Thursday called for the immediate suspension of a vaccine recently recommended for all infants to protect against rotavirus, the most common cause of severe diarrhea in infants and young children. Although there is no conclusive evidence that the vaccine causes the bowel condition, CDC officials said the data are strongly suggestive. They said they considered it prudent to halt rotavirus vaccinations until at least November. The bowel condition seems to develop about one to three weeks after the rotavirus vaccination. Cases of bowel obstruction were noted in experimental trials that were required before the vaccine was approved for licensing, but not in unusual numbers. The Food and Drug Administration required studies to monitor the incidence of the condition among infants who received the vaccine. Information collected in those studies led the CDC to recommend a halt to rotavirus vaccinations

Federal health officials recommended Thursday that doctors immediately stop using a vaccine recently recommended for all infants to protect against rotavirus, the most common cause of severe diarrhea in infants and children. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it took the extraordinary action because a program that monitors vaccine side-effects suggested a link between the drug, licensed last year, and 20 cases of a painful blockage of the bowel called intussusception. The disease, which can in rare cases be fatal, affects an estimated 3.5 million children in the United States a year. Although there is no conclusive evidence that the vaccine causes the bowel condition, CDC officials said the data are so strongly suggestive of a link that they considered it prudent to advise halting rotavirus vaccinations at least until November, by which time a new study of the vaccine will be done