Word: weakens
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...oust Noriega began last summer, Washington has once again demonstrated how the Law of Unintended Consequences can lead to a foreign-policy disaster. Through bureaucratic backbiting, uninformed bluster and gross miscalculation, the Administration did not merely fail to depose Noriega. It also managed to cripple Panama's economy, weaken the local democratic opposition, undermine pro-American attitudes, damage U.S. prestige in Latin America and exacerbate concerns about the stability of the Panama Canal. Moreover, the fiasco could easily become a major liability to George Bush's presidential quest. Says New York's Republican Senator Alfonse D'Amato: "What you have...
Building on Pasteur's work, 20th century scientists have learned to mass- produce bacteria and viruses, then weaken or kill them and use them as the major ingredient in vaccines for such varied diseases as typhus, yellow fever, influenza, polio, measles and rubella. Unfortunately, the vaccines occasionally cause the disease they are designed to ward off. (Reason: the "killed" viruses sometimes survive, while the weakened versions often fail to cause an immune response.) In general, however, the vaccines have been quite effective; in recent years the National Academy of Sciences has reported only a handful of polio and diphtheria cases...
...During the 1970s, physicians found that they could minimize this reaction by more closely matching the MHC proteins, or immunological "dog tags," of a donor with those of the recipient. Even so, they could not completely eliminate the rejection response. To make matters worse, the only drugs available to weaken it shut down the defensive system completely, leaving patients vulnerable to viruses, bacteria or tumors. The triple threat of rejection, infection and malignancy kept transplant surgery to a minimum...
Alpha rays can also weaken the body's immune system and possibly lower resistance to disease, says Dermatologist John Epstein of the University of California at San Francisco. Epstein and other researchers believe that UVA exposure may promote skin cancer. "The presumption, based on animal studies, is that if you go into an indoor tanning salon, then go out into the sun, you increase the risk of skin cancer," says Dr. Nicholas Lowe of the University of California, Los Angeles...
...have nothing for the Israelis except stones and Molotov cocktails and feeding our babies with the milk of hatred for them," said Fatima, 60, mother of one of the Palestinians deported last week. Several Palestinians offered predictions confirming Israel's worst fears. "Al-Wazir's killing will no doubt weaken the moderate voices and take Arafat to extremist positions," warned a doctor in Gaza. A Palestinian lawyer offered a prognosis that the Israelis may find even more distressing. "The killing of Abu Jihad," he said, "may achieve Palestinian unity...