Word: viruses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...symptoms and grouping of victims reminds some virologists of epidemic neuromyasthenia, a polio-like syndrome that occurred in clusters from California to Iceland between 1934 and 1960. Some victims suffered tiredness for years. No organic cause was ever discovered. The latest medical research has focused on several viruses active in fatigue-syndrome sufferers. One frequently cited suspect is Epstein-Barr virus, a member of the herpes family that is carried by an estimated 90% of American adults. Researchers speculate that stress, an immune-system deficiency or even environmental toxins could activate EBV, which is known to cause most cases...
...they are unsure whether EBV causes fatigue syndrome or whether its presence merely reflects an immune system so weakened by another organism that it no longer keeps the virus in check. Two recent reports in the Journal of the American Medical Association failed to link EBV to fatigue syndrome. Harvard Researcher Anthony Komaroff, an author of one study, suspects that another virus, perhaps an "EBV mutant," will eventually prove to be the cause...
...Gallo revealed that he and his co-workers had discovered in ten Nigerian patients a new strain related to the AIDS virus. Together with an earlier discovery by French scientists of a second AIDS virus in West Africa, which is now being found in Europe and Brazil, this increases the family of related AIDS viruses. The existence of multiple strains further complicates the development of blood tests and vaccines for AIDS. Gallo insisted, however, that "we shouldn't panic because it is the original AIDS virus that is causing the epidemic...
Peptide T, another promising substance for curbing the virus, received mixed reviews. Last December, Neuroscientist Candace Pert of the National Institute of Mental Health reported that the chemical, a synthetic portion of a protein on the AIDS virus that helps it bind to cells, seemed to prevent the virus from entering cells. In May the FDA approved clinical trials, and last week Oncogen, a Seattle biotechnology company, announced that its researchers had confirmed Pert's findings. But Dr. William Haseltine, a virologist at Harvard's Dana Farber Cancer Institute, said neither his laboratory nor six others around the world...
...gloomy. Abbott Laboratories has developed a new blood test that, because it directly indicates the presence of the AIDS virus, can immediately show infection. Current tests, because they detect only antibodies, may take weeks to months to indicate the presence of the virus...