Word: viruses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...doctor, and the patient is dying from AIDS. A new drug called azidothymidine (AZT) might temporarily suppress the virus and prolong his life. But you hesitate: AZT may do nothing for his manifestation of the disease. It could even hasten death. And prescribing the drug could bring malpractice suits, since AZT has so far worked only on AIDS sufferers with symptoms different from this patient...
...vaccine, then risk exposure and come down with the disease? That would prove the vaccine ineffective but, in the case of AIDS, could prove fatal. Says Dr. Michael Cairns of the Duke Medical Center in Durham, N.C.: "You can't arbitrarily expose a group of people to a virus to see if the vaccine is protective." Moreover, the behavior of the AIDS virus is so complex and unpredictable that a vaccine based on a derivative of the virus could itself be dangerous...
Officials in Peking have acknowledged the AIDS epidemic, but they are apparently convinced that the disease is a foreign scourge. Public health authorities confirmed last week that foreign students have been asked to undergo tests for exposure to the virus. In addition, beginning next month, visitors who plan to study in China for a year or more must prove that they are free of the AIDS virus. There are currently about 10,000 foreign students in the country...
...China has reported only one case of AIDS. In 1985 an Argentine tourist succumbed to the illness in a Peking hospital. In October four Chinese hemophiliacs who had received an imported blood coagulant tested positive for AIDS antibodies, which indicates that they have been exposed to the virus but does not mean they will come down with the disease...
...stationed abroad. Where local blood banks operate below U.S. standards, embassy personnel depend on blood donated by their colleagues. To ensure the purity of this supply line, the State Department will begin requiring AIDS tests of its employees and their dependents in January. Those who test positive for the virus will be restricted to U.S. duty; also, the department will reject job applicants with positive results, thus in effect making the AIDS test part of the foreign-service examination. The policy, which is likely to be challenged in court, marks the first time a federal agency has ordered civilian employees...