Word: viruses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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THERE ARE still some caveats even if the practitioner of "safe sex" manages to avoid such trauma. Industry and government studies demonstrate that the AIDS virus cannot penetrate latex condoms. Other studies, though, underscore the susceptibility of latex condoms to rapid deterioration when exposed to heat, light or oil-based lubricants. (I know of no studies examining the effects of genuine cowhide on latex.) And earlier this year the Food and Drug Administration ordered three major condom manufacturers to recall 100,000 condoms after spot inspections found many with excessive leaks...
...Herbert Blaize, 69, a lawyer who was elected in 1984. Blaize has been criticized for his remote, autocratic style. Last year his administration abolished a labyrinthine tax code in favor of a 20% value-added tax. Grenadians bemoaned the levy in a calypso song and even dubbed a local virus the VAT flu. Blaize has begun, amid yelps of protest, to reduce the flaccid civil service, which totals 7,800 employees in a population...
...represent the earliest documented instance of AIDS in North America, predating that of Gaetan Dugas, a Canadian flight attendant. Dugas, who contracted AIDS before 1980 and died in 1984, was publicly identified as "Patient Zero" only last month. Tissue samples from Robert R. may eventually reveal what caused the virus to spread...
...Hoping at the time that medical advances might someday solve the mystery of his affliction, Elvin-Lewis and Witte, then both at Washington University, froze samples of Robert R.'s blood, brain and other organs. Last June, four years after the AIDS virus was first isolated, Witte sent some of the frozen samples to Tulane University, where they were definitively analyzed by Virologist Robert Garry. "There's no question that the tissue was positive for AIDS," Garry states. In fact, Robert R.'s blood reacted to all nine markers used in the highly sensitive Western blot test for AIDS antibodies...
...history of AIDS in the U.S. may have a much longer prologue than was once suspected. "What we're saying is that AIDS has been around for a long time but just wasn't recognized," Elvin-Lewis explains. It is possible, Tulane's Garry speculates, that the AIDS virus mutated and became more lethal in the 1970s. To test that hypothesis, he plans to spend much of the next year or so attempting to reconstruct viral genes from Robert R.'s tissue. "We know that the virus was not epidemic in 1969, so we might be able to identify...