Allergy And Infectious Diseases

Federal health officials announced that they have established a national, toll-free telephone service through which people infected with the AIDS virus can learn if they are eligible for government-sponsored studies of experimental treatments. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the new program uses a computerized listing to provide up-to-date information on National Institutes of Health research. Fauci said the service may encourage greater participation by blacks, Latinos and women.

A secondary analysis of data from the Thai AIDS vaccine trial -- announced last month to much acclaim -- suggests that the vaccine might provide some protection against the virus, but that the results are not statistically significant. In short, they could have come about merely by chance. Initial results from the trial involving more than 16,000 people had shown that the vaccine reduced infections by about 31% and that the results, though limited, were statistically significant. But the new analysis, which was part of the trial protocol, showed that it seemed to reduce infections by 26%. Results from the secondary analysis have been circulating for a couple of weeks, but the full results of the trial did not become available until they were published online in the New England Journal of Medicine and announced today at a conference in Paris.

Hemophiliacs who have tested HIV-positive are being sought by a new study to determine if the taking of the drug AZT can prevent or stall the onset of AIDS in hemophiliacs. Participants must be 12 or older, show no symptoms of AIDS and must have a T4 helper cell count of 500 or less. They will be seen at hemophilia treatment centers weekly for the first eight weeks of research, every two weeks for the following two months, and every month thereafter.

Only hours after HIV vaccine researchers announced the achievement of a milestone that has eluded them for a quarter of a century, they began plotting their next steps -- and coming to grips with a sobering reality. Their ultimate goal, halting the spread of AIDS, remains far in the future. A Thai and American team had announced early Thursday in Bangkok that they had found a combination of vaccines that provided modest protection against infection with HIV, offering the first proof of principle that the deadly disease could be tamed by teaching the immune system to recognize the virus and defeat it. Scientists around the world hailed the achievement.

The Food and Drug Administration today approved a vaccine for the pandemic H1N1 influenza from four manufacturers, clearing the way for the vaccine to be administered as soon as enough of it is available. The approval was announced to Congress by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The licensing means that the vaccine is made properly and meets specific manufacturing and quality standards. Officials from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced Friday that the vaccine was safe and produced adequate immunity with only one dose.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said Friday that it is having trouble recruiting participants for the first human tests of an experimental AIDS vaccine and issued a nationwide plea for volunteers. The outcome of the recruitment effort, which includes an around-the-clock toll-free telephone number and an offer of reimbursement for travel expenses, will determine whether the AIDS vaccine development program suffers a serious setback.

Preliminary data from U.S. trials of vaccines against the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus show that a strong immune reaction is provoked by one dose of the vaccine within eight to 10 days after it is administered, federal officials said at a news conference this morning. The findings "corroborate and reinforce data from company trials" that were reported earlier this week, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is running the trials.

Animal studies have demonstrated for the first time that a genetically engineered herpes vaccine can prevent both initial and later outbreaks of the disease, "the first step toward developing a vaccine at the human level," researchers at the National Institutes of Health announced Thursday.

A secondary analysis of data from the Thai AIDS vaccine trial -- announced last month to much acclaim -- suggests that the vaccine might provide some protection against the virus, but that the results are not statistically significant. In short, they could have come about merely by chance. Initial results from the trial involving more than 16,000 people had shown that the vaccine reduced infections by about 31% and that the results, though limited, were statistically significant. But the new analysis, which was part of the trial protocol, showed that it seemed to reduce infections by 26%. Results from the secondary analysis have been circulating for a couple of weeks, but the full results of the trial did not become available until they were published online in the New England Journal of Medicine and announced today at a conference in Paris.

Only hours after HIV vaccine researchers announced the achievement of a milestone that has eluded them for a quarter of a century, they began plotting their next steps -- and coming to grips with a sobering reality. Their ultimate goal, halting the spread of AIDS, remains far in the future. A Thai and American team had announced early Thursday in Bangkok that they had found a combination of vaccines that provided modest protection against infection with HIV, offering the first proof of principle that the deadly disease could be tamed by teaching the immune system to recognize the virus and defeat it. Scientists around the world hailed the achievement.

The Food and Drug Administration today approved a vaccine for the pandemic H1N1 influenza from four manufacturers, clearing the way for the vaccine to be administered as soon as enough of it is available. The approval was announced to Congress by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The licensing means that the vaccine is made properly and meets specific manufacturing and quality standards. Officials from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced Friday that the vaccine was safe and produced adequate immunity with only one dose.

Preliminary data from U.S. trials of vaccines against the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus show that a strong immune reaction is provoked by one dose of the vaccine within eight to 10 days after it is administered, federal officials said at a news conference this morning. The findings "corroborate and reinforce data from company trials" that were reported earlier this week, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is running the trials.

Federal health officials announced that they have established a national, toll-free telephone service through which people infected with the AIDS virus can learn if they are eligible for government-sponsored studies of experimental treatments. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the new program uses a computerized listing to provide up-to-date information on National Institutes of Health research. Fauci said the service may encourage greater participation by blacks, Latinos and women.

Hemophiliacs who have tested HIV-positive are being sought by a new study to determine if the taking of the drug AZT can prevent or stall the onset of AIDS in hemophiliacs. Participants must be 12 or older, show no symptoms of AIDS and must have a T4 helper cell count of 500 or less. They will be seen at hemophilia treatment centers weekly for the first eight weeks of research, every two weeks for the following two months, and every month thereafter.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said Friday that it is having trouble recruiting participants for the first human tests of an experimental AIDS vaccine and issued a nationwide plea for volunteers. The outcome of the recruitment effort, which includes an around-the-clock toll-free telephone number and an offer of reimbursement for travel expenses, will determine whether the AIDS vaccine development program suffers a serious setback.

Animal studies have demonstrated for the first time that a genetically engineered herpes vaccine can prevent both initial and later outbreaks of the disease, "the first step toward developing a vaccine at the human level," researchers at the National Institutes of Health announced Thursday.

The study of how bodies develop immunities has become important to every medical speciality and additional courses in the field are needed in medical schools, physicians urged in a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. "The future holds great promise for the allergy and clinical immunology," wrote Dr. John E. Salvaggio of Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans and Dr. K. Frank Austen of the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

They're cute. They're often roadkill. Some gourmands say they're tasty, whether baked or barbecued. Now Louisiana researchers have learned something else about nine-banded armadillos. "A preponderance of evidence shows that people get leprosy from these animals," said Richard W. Truman, director of microbiology at the National Hansen's Disease Program in Baton Rouge and lead author of a paper detailing the discovery in the New England Journal of Medicine. Until now, scientists believed that leprosy was passed only from human to human.