Word: fungal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...research, conducted by a division of the National Institutes of Health, shows that azidothymidine, or AZT, dramatically slows the multiplication of the AIDS virus in people with mild symptoms of the disease, such as diarrhea, thrush (a fungal infection of the mouth), or a chronic rash. Until now, AZT was thought to be effective only in patients with more advanced cases of AIDS. Currently, the drug is the only medication licensed by the Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for the disease...
...When a fungal disease began ravaging Levy Bryant's four-hectare cacao farm a decade ago, the landowner could have done what other besieged farmers have | done. He might easily have picked up an ax and begun cutting down more tropical rain forest around his land on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. He could have sold the timber from the tall laurel trees that shade the cacao bushes, then burned the dense virgin forest on the hill behind his farm. Then Bryant, like so many financially strapped small farmers in Latin America, could have sown pasture and sold the land...
...water. From Portland to Morehead City, N.C., fishermen have been hauling up lobsters and crabs with gaping holes in their shells and fish with rotted fins and ulcerous lesions. Last year's oyster haul in Chesapeake Bay was the worst ever; the crop was decimated by dermo, a fungal disease, and the baffling syndrome MSX (multinucleate sphere...
...virus strikes a key component of the immune system, destroys it, and in so doing virtually knocks out the entire system. Nothing illustrates the importance of a healthy immune system more dramatically than the disastrous consequences of its loss. AIDS sufferers become vulnerable to many kinds of invading organisms. Fungal growths corrode the skin and lungs. Normally dormant parasites in the lungs become active, causing Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. As viruses and bacteria multiply out of control, competing for body cells and destroying them far faster than they can be replaced, victims can be stricken with severe cases of herpes...
...Reagan Administration accused the Soviet Union of engaging in biochemical warfare against rebel groups in Laos and Kampuchea. Citing eyewitness reports and physical evidence, the State Department said that Soviet-backed forces had dropped a "yellow rain" of fungal poisons from the skies in Southeast Asia, killing and injuring thousands of civilians and insurgent troops. The charge was vehemently denied by the Soviets, and now an article in the autumn issue of Foreign Policy accuses the Administration of ignoring evidence that refuted its stunning claim...