Word: detecting
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There has so far been just one remark able success in the otherwise losing battle to contain the spread of AIDS. That is the rapid development of tests to detect signs of the virus in donor blood. About 2% of AIDS cases in the U.S. have occurred as a result of the contamination of blood used in transfusions or in blood products like the clotting factor needed by hemophiliacs. The toll includes infants, children, even a 66-year...
However, the tests have created a few problems of their own. Because they merely detect the presence of antibodies to AIDS (which proves only that exposure has occurred), they cannot determine if a person currently has the live virus, is capable of spreading it or is likely to develop the disease. Nonetheless, the perception persists that the tests can be used for diagnosis. Health officials fear that homosexuals and other high-risk individuals will volunteer to give blood simply to get themselves tested. This would increase the chances that AIDS-contaminated blood could enter the donor supply through a slipup...
Self-examination for signs of skin cancer is simple, requiring little more than a full-length mirror, a hand mirror to see one's back and a blow-dryer to examine the scalp. "The ability of people to detect skin cancers is tremendous if they're motivated," observes Dr. Robert Friedman of N.Y.U. Indeed, many newly motivated Americans went scurrying to dermatologists last week, just as Reagan's colon cancer sent them to gastroenterologists. "We had five patients walk in off the streets who identified their own basal-cell carcinomas," says Friedman. "Four of them were right." --By Claudia Wallis...
...officials, Soviet representatives have been unexpectedly balky in preparing even the minor pacts that were expected to be approved in Geneva, such as agreements to open more consulates, increase scientific and cultural exchanges and resume direct airline flights between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Some White House ears detect an unspoken Kremlin message: no little deals without a big deal on arms...
Some critics within CBS detect a subtler failing, a vague sense that their division no longer represents the vanguard of broadcast journalism. "We don't have a Nightline, we don't have a morning news show that goes to Moscow [as NBC's Today did last year]," says a CBS correspondent. Few changes gall staffers as much as the fate of the CBS Morning News, the perennial also-ran among the three network breakfast programs but the one that presented the most substantive news. To boost ratings, Sauter approved the hiring of Phyllis George, the former Miss America whose flubs...