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Long after a woman has given birth, cells from her fetus may still circulate in her bloodstream, and a new study being reported Thursday has linked those cells to development of a disease in the mother years after pregnancy. The disease is scleroderma, a so-called autoimmune disorder in which the body mysteriously attacks its own healthy tissues. For equally mysterious reasons, scleroderma strikes women four times as often as men. The study neither proves that fetal cells cause scleroderma nor provides a full explanation of how such cells might cause the disease. But identification of such a link has astonished many experts in scleroderma and related diseases who said that the finding, if confirmed, would have important implications for autoimmune disorders

Long after a woman has given birth, cells from her fetus may still circulate in her blood stream, and a new study being reported today has linked those cells to development of a disease in the mother years after pregnancy. The disease is scleroderma, a so-called autoimmune disorder in which the body mysteriously attacks its own healthy tissues. For equally mysterious reasons, scleroderma strikes women four times as often as men. The study neither proves that fetal cells cause scleroderma nor provides a full explanation of how such cells might cause the disease. But identification of such a link has astonished many experts in scleroderma and related diseases who said that the finding, if confirmed, would have important implications for autoimmune disorders

But now that NASA is giving Glenn one last chance to show his 'right stuff' in space, he is enlisting the medical profession to his side: One rationale cited by the agency for Glenn's participation in the flight is the opportunity to carry out medical research on what will be the oldest-ever human body to orbit the Earth. Sen. Glenn, D-Ohio, will be 77 when he is launched on a 10-day space shuttle flight scheduled for October. He has volunteered for two experiments to assess muscle loss and sleep disturbances during the shuttle flight. In metabolism experiments for the shuttle flight, Glenn will swallow capsules containing one type of amino acid and receive intravenous injections of another. Then low-level X-ray studies will help detect any changes in lean body mass. Because amino acids are the building blocks of protein, the aim will be to relate any changes in hormonal levels with loss of protein and muscle atrophy in Glenn and, eventually, eight other crew members. For a sleep experiment, Glenn will swallow melatonin or placebo pills before retiring on four nights. He will also swallow a capsule containing a small thermometer to record core body temperature because that is a good indicator of biological rhythms. Devices attached to Glenn's scalp, chest and wrist during monitoring periods will record brain wave activity, breathing patterns and movements during sleep

Hillary Rodham Clinton's recent accusation that a 'vast right-wing conspiracy' exists to destroy her husband and his political agenda was bound to strike a nerve. There has been a lot of loose and malicious talk about the President, the right has spread much of it, and our culture feasts on conspiracy theories. But Mrs. Clinton's allegation is not exactly new. She asserts that an extremist minority, unable to defeat the President at the polls, is trying to thwart the will of the majority through a systematic campaign of slander. In the 1830's, Andrew Jackson attributed the same motives to his most strident critics. Later Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson did the same. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was attacked more bitterly, perhaps, than any other modern chief executive, played the conspiratorial card shrewdly during his 1936 re-election campaign. He did so in reply to the American Liberty League, an organization of ultraconservative millionaires that spent a small fortune on advertising and promotions to portray him as 'the foul breath of Communist Russia.'

Efforts to make it easier to take combinations of drugs to combat the AIDS virus have met with mixed results, scientists said here today. A crucial problem in combination therapy is that H.I.V., the AIDS virus, often becomes resistant to one or more of the drugs. Often it is because the person cannot tolerate the drug regimen. But the reasons are not always clear in other cases. In the French study, participants took triple drug therapy (AZT, 3TC and indinavir) for three months. Then one-third of the group stayed on triple therapy. Each of the remaining thirds took different combinations of two of the three drugs (one AZT and 3TC; the other AZT and indinavir). The study stopped ahead of schedule when it became clear that two drugs were less effective in suppressing H.I.V

Paunches, buffalo humps in the neck, puffy cheeks and other unusual accumulations of fat are changing the body shapes of a surprising number of people taking the newer combination therapies to combat the AIDS virus, doctors said here today. The complication seems to have occurred most often among people taking drugs that belong to the new class known as protease inhibitors. But it has also occurred among people taking other drugs to combat H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The lower percentages came from observations of patients by doctors. These studies came from Emory University in Atlanta, Cornell University Medical College in New York, San Francisco General Hospital, Ottawa General Hospital in Canada, the National Institutes of Health and the United States Food and Drug Administration

An analysis of a blood sample preserved since 1959 from the oldest documented case of infection with the AIDS virus called H.I.V.-1 shows that the first such infections probably occurred in people in the late 1940's or early 1950's, about a decade earlier than many estimates, scientists said today. The researchers compared that sample with others to build a family tree to trace changes in the fast-mutating AIDS virus. The family tree, or phylogenetic analysis, is in the shape of a starburst, with branches radiating from the center, and the 1959 virus is close to the center. The scientists used calculations to estimate the date when the virus first developed. The 1959 sample came from a Bantu man who lived in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo). In 1986, scientists used what were then the latest laboratory techniques to show that he had been infected by H.I.V.-1. But only now could scientists, using the latest powerful tools of molecular biology, identify key fragments of the virus in the last few drops of the blood sample in a quest for the origins of the AIDS virus

AIDS deaths in New York City plummeted by 48 percent last year, accelerating earlier gains attributed to improved drug therapies, health officials said at a scientific meeting here today. They said the declines crossed sex and racial lines, suggesting that the new therapies were reaching all segments of the AIDS population. Theoretically, the decline in AIDS deaths could have resulted from prevention efforts or some unknown factor, the health experts meeting here said. But the likeliest explanation is expanded use of combinations of newer and older drugs that began to be introduced in recent years, New York City and Federal health officials said. ''This is a new era'' in AIDS, Dr. Kevin DeCock, an AIDS official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said at a news conference. ''We can't think that the end of the epidemic is in sight, but it certainly is the beginning of a new period.'' Dr. DeCock heads the unit at the centers that monitors AIDS cases in this country. ''The challenge now is to improve prevention,'' he told the 3,400 participants in the meeting here

FOR Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the newly designated head of the World Health Organization and former Prime Minister of Norway, the path from medicine to international politics was natural. After all, she was born into the Norwegian power elite, the daughter of a politically oriented physician and long-time Cabinet minister. ''Why should you leave politics, which is the most important thing happening in a democratic society, to somebody who does not understand science?'' Dr. Brundtland, 58, said last week, shortly after being nominated to head the W.H.O. Members of the United Nations subagency are expected to ratify her nomination at their annual meeting in May, making her the first woman to head the Geneva-based organization. In three terms as Norwegian Prime Minister -- in 1981, from 1986 to 1989 and from 1990 to 1996 -- Dr. Brundtland increased the number of women in the Cabinet and in other key government positions. Dr. Brundtland said she intends to do the same at the W.H.O., where about 30 percent of staff members are women, though the proportion among the top echelon is much lower