World Wide Diseases
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs),
Mad Cow Disease, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), West Nile Virus, Tuberculosis
The year 1999 through 2004

Soldiers slaughter pigs in battle against virus
AIDS epidemic grows globally

Gay Hispanics, blacks now lead in AIDS cases
Dead birds test positive for the West Nile virus
Mad cow disease on rise in U.K.
AIDS cases up sharply in ex-Soviet bloc

Merck lowers HIV drug price in poor countries
20 years later, AIDS stigma strong
U.N. AIDS expert says pandemic still in early stage

AIDS vaccine's failure in study shows difficulty cornering virus
Rise in U.S. syphilis rate spurs renewed concerns over safeguards

IMPACT OF SARS - Canadians applaud lifting of SARS travel advisory
WHO removes last SARS hot spot - Taiwan - from list of infected areas
Cure for cancer? Recent results leave little hope
Number of West Nile virus cases has triped in week, CDC chief says
Sexually Transmitted Diseases - Herpes is rampant
China's final two SARS patients out of the hospital
South Africa wise on AIDS
Gates aiding malaria fight
World falling well short in AIDS battle, U.N. report asserts
Four drug companies to help AIDS patients
Human trials start on Ebola vaccine
Global spread of AIDS not letting up
Three-drug cocktail best to treat AIDS, study finds
CDC says 24 states hit hard by flu
Scientists warn of flu pandemic
Study: Changes linked to ALzheimer's start early
Judge rules against Army anthrax vaccines

Deaths of 3 in Asia linked to spread of bird flu
SARS better understood; challenges still remain
Study links cancer risks, Agent Orange
Ebola outbreaks tied to animals
WHO tries to ease fear of bird flu pandemic
Infant deaths rising in U.S.
Antibiotics linked to breast cancer, study suggest
HIV spreading quickly in Russia, report says
Report finds monkeys resistant to AIDS
Groups to urge no antibiotics for most kids' ear infections
Vaccine proves successful in treating SARS virus in mice
SARS death reported; travelers to be screened
U.N. agency warns of polio epidemic in Africa
World is losing AIDS battle, U.N. report says
Mad cow restrictions tightened for cosmetics, supplements
U.N. chief calls the spread of AIDS among women a 'terrifying pattern'
Bacterial infection is not cause of Gulf War illness, study shows
U.S. preparing for possiblity of new flu pandemic striking soon
Pill could battle drug abuse
Global AIDS threat recognized


• 3/22/1999 - Soldiers slaughter pigs in battle against virus.
      Sugai Nipah, Malaysia - Malaysian soldiers covered in plastic overalls and face masks killed hundreds of pigs yesterday in a campaign to control Japanese encephalitis, a virus that might have killed more than 50 people.    The virus -- which attacks the brain, causing high fever, vomiting and coma -- is transmitted from pigs to humans by Culex mosquitoes.
• 11/24/1999 - AIDS epidemic grows globally - 33.6 million people expected to be living with virus this year - by David Brown, The Washington Post.
      About 2.6 million people worldwide will die of AIDS this year, the most of any year since the epidemic began two decades ago, according to a report by the United Nations AIDS program (UNAIDS), run by the United Nations, World Health Organization and World Bank.    About 16.3 million people have already died of AIDS.
      Hot spots are in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where the population living with the AIDS virus has doubled in only two years.    Women are now bearing the brunt of the disease, with six infected women in Africa for every five infected men.
      It is estimated that about 5.6 million new infections with the human immunodeficiency virus will occur this year, raising the number of people living with the disease to about 33.6 million.
  
  
• 1/14/2000 - Gay Hispanics, blacks now lead in AIDS cases - Report marks first time whites not in majority - by Justin Bachman, The Associated Press.
      Atlanta - For the first time since the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in the United States in the 1980s, more black and Hispanic homosexual men were diagnosed with the disease in 1998 than white homosexuals.    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that one reason is that homosexuality carries a great stigma among minorities.    CDC researchers said blacks and Hispanics are less likely than whites to identify themselves as such or seek AIDS prevention and treatment services.    "Clearly, we know that homosexuality is stigmatized across all cultures, but it may even be greater in African-American and Latino communities," said Dr. Helene Gayle, director of the CDC center for prevention of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and tuberculosis.
      Minorities represent 52 percent of the 18,153 homosexual and bisexual men who were diagnosed with AIDS in 1998, compared to 31 percent in 1989.    Black male homosexuals made up one-third of the new cases in 1998, while Hispanic homosexuals represented 18 percent.    Asian and Pacific islanders accounted for 1 perscent of the cases.    Minorities account for one-quarter of the overall U.S. population.    Whites represent 44 percent of all AIDS cases reported since 1981; blacks 37 percent; Hispanics 18 percent; Asian, American Indian and Pacific islanders are less than 1 percent.
      A survey found that many black and Hispanic men who have sex with males do not regard themselves as homosexual.
• 6/11/2000 - Dead birds test positive for the West Nile virus by Jim Fitzgerald, The Associated Press.
      New City, N.Y. - The discovery of three cows found dead of the West Nile virus in New York and New Jersey has dashed any hopes that the mosquito-borne virus may have died out over the winter.
• 8/4/2000 - Mad cow disease on rise in U.K. by The Associated Press.
      London - The number of people contracting the human form of mad cow disease has increased by about 23 percent a year in Britain since 1994, new research has found.    This was to determine the scope of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a fatal brain-wasting disease.    Since they do not know the incubation period of the disease all they can do is predict how large the epidemic will be.    It could lie dormant for 20 years without being detected.    The disease, which experts think comes from eating beef contaminated with the cattle ailment bovine spongiform encephalopathy, can only be confirmed by examining the brains of victims after they have died.    As of June 30, 75 confirmed or suspected cases documented, sixty-nine of those people have died.
• 11/25/2000 - AIDS cases up sharply in ex-Soviet bloc by The Associated Press.
      Geneva -- AIDS virus cases in the former Soviet bloc will rise by 60 percent this year as the worldwide number of people infected by the virus tops 36 million, the World Health Organization said.    The U.N. health body said there are an estimated 250,000 new cases in Eastern Europe and central Asia this year, bringing the total there to 700,000.    "Most of the infections continue to occur among injecting drug users," the agency said.    Estimates of around 5.3 million new cases of infection this year, means 3 million people will die from AIDS.    Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the worst-hit region, with 72 percent of the new infections and 80 percent of the deaths in the past year, the report says.    It predicts that the region will have 25.3 million people with AIDS by the end of the year (8.8 percent of all adults would be positive for HIV, which causes AIDS.    In the industralized countries of North America, Western Europe and the Pacific, an estimated 1.5 million people will be living with the AIDS virus by the end of the year.
  
  
• 3/8/2001 - Merck lowers HIV drug price in poor countries.
      Pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck & Co. said it will drastically cut prices for two anti-AIDS drugs in Africa and other developing parts of the world.    The company said it will make no profit selling the two protease-inhibitor drugs in developing countries for about the tenth of their price in the U.S.    GlaxoSmithKline announced on Feb. 21 it would reduce its price also.
• 6/3/2001 - 20 years later, AIDS stigma strong - Worldwide, rate of infection soars among the poor - by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times New Service.
      Washington - Once a short path to the cemetery, infection with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, is today manageable for some people as diabetes, but the outlook for a cure or a vaccine is still uncertain.    People throughout the world are dying for lack of medicines, so the spotlight this year has been on the global AIDS crisis.
      Since June 5, 1981, more that 438,000 Americans and almost 22 million people worldwide have died of the disease named AIDS, for acquired immune deficiency syndrome.    It is estimated that new HIV infections are by gender: 30% women, 70% men, by mode: 33% heterosexuals, 42% homosexual men, 25% intravenous drug users, by race: 26% white, 54% black, 19% Hispanic.
      No vaccine is expected to be developed to within the next five years.
• 6/6/2001 - U.N. AIDS expert says pandemic still in early stage by Ravi Nessman, The Associated Press.
      Cape Town, South Africa -- Though more than 22 million people have died of AIDS and 36 million others carry the virus that causes it, the pandemic is still in its early stages, according to Dr. Peter Piot, the head of UNAIDS.    An estimated 58 million people have contracted the virus, and more than 22 million have died, making this the largest epidemic in human history, and we are not at the end of it.    It is no longer a homosexual disease, women and babies are getting the disease now.    U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked for $7 billion to $10 billion a year to fund this disease.
  
  
• 1/17/2002 - AIDS vaccine's failure in study shows difficulty cornering virus - Viral form kills monkey despite drug after gene mutates - by Joseph B. Verrengia, The Associated Press.
      A rhesus monkey given an experimental AIDS vaccine died after the virus changed one of its genes.    HIV, which causes AIDS, already is known to mutate and grow impervious to standard AIDS drugs in half of all Americans being treated for the infection.    More than one dozen experimental vaccines using different genetic strategies, have been tested, but only work to hold viral infection in check.    The AIDS virus comes in many strains and changes rapidly.    Attempts are being made to attack the virus with genetically engineered cells known as killer T cells.   
• 11/1/2002 - Rise in U.S. syphilis rate spurs renewed concerns over safeguards by The Associated Press.
      Atlanta - Syphilis is on the rise in the United States for the first time in more than a decade, largely because of outbreaks among homosexual and bisexual men in several big cities, which may be a potential resurgence in transmission of the AIDS virus, the CDC claims.
  
  
• 4/30/2003 - IMPACT OF SARS - Canadians applaud lifting of SARS travel advisory by The Associated Press.
      Sources: World Health Organization, the number of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) cases worldwide 5,462, and the death toll is 355.    China 3,303 with 148 deaths, Hong Kong 1,572 with 150 deaths, Singapore 201 - 24 deaths, Canada 146 - 20 deaths, Taiwan 66 - 0, Vietnam 63 - 5, United States 41 - 0, altogether 20 countries.    Asia, specifically China, is where the respiratory disease originated.    "There is a need for us to recognize the fact that the SARS epidemic is going to be a long-term, a complex and a relapsing epidemic," Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said at an emergency summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Bangkok, Thailand.
      Hope is that the SARS virus has been contained globally for 191 member states.
• 7/6/2003 - WHO removes last SARS hot spot - Taiwan - from list of infected areas by Dirk Beveridge, The Associated Press.
      Hong Kong -- The Wolrd Health Organization, Director-General Dr. Go Harlem Brundtland, removed the last SARS hot spot -- Taiwan from its list of infected areas, saying the illness sickened more than 8,400 people and killed 812 people worldwide has been contained.    He said it could spread again if countries are not careful, with a possible recurrance next winter.    Greed of loss of business and jobs from tourism may have caused the spread to grow beyond proportions.
• 7/27/2003 - Cure for cancer? Recent results leave little hope by Daniel Q. Haney, The Associated Press.
      Not long ago, the defeat of cancer seemed inevitable.    Decades of research wanted to create a designer drug that stops cancer and leaves everything else intact.    Those drugs are now here.    But so is cancer.    The approach has proven disappointing to use for useful treatments.    Victory has been scored in weeks or months of extra life, not years, making the new approach taking decades to be realized.    The drugs, called targeted therapies, are intended to arrest cancer by disrupting the internal signals that fuel its unruly growth or genetically controlled irregularities that make cancer unique.    The results have not been lasting and are about as effective as chemotherapy.    So target drugs and chemotherapy are combined now for best results.
      Suspicions are that cancer has a backup system that kicks in when threatened by the new drugs.    This will force treatment of cancer to go to a mixture of targeted drugs, assembled to match the distinct biology of each person's cancer.    A cure for cancer though is not in the forseeable future, but hope of survival for years free of symtoms may come by 2015.
• 8/8/2003 - Number of West Nile virus cases has triped in week, CDC chief says by The Associated Press.
      Atlanta - The number of West Nile virus cases has tripled since last week and will top last year's record total of 4,156 (284 died) for the mosquito-borne disease.    Only 1 in 150 people who get it will actually die.
• 8/12/2003 - Sexually Transmitted Diseases - Herpes is rampant.
      One in five Americans over the age of 12 are infected with herpes-2, for more information see the American Social Health Association (ASHA) for support groups or call the National Herpes hotline for information or referrals in your area between 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 919-361-8488 or visit the website at www.ashastd.org.
• 8/17/2003 - China's final two SARS patients out of the hospital by Ted Anthony, The Associated Press.
      Beijing - The spread of SARS during April and May turned Beijing into a ghost town, with many fleeing to the countryside and stores and restaurants shutting their dooors as those who walked the streets did so with their faces shrouded by surgical masks.    More than 800 people around the world died of severe acute respiratory syndrome before it subsided in June, most in Asia.    In mainland China, 5,327 people were sickened and 349 died from the disease.    More than half of those were in Beijing, the hardest hit city in the world.    Ditan Hospital became one big SARS ward, treating more than 300 since March.    Today was the release of the last two patients, and the city has bounced back to normal.
      Medical investigators have warned the disease could re-emerge when cold weather returns, in the mean while they are exploring links between wild animals and the virus.    The civet cat, a weasel like mammal was found to be a carrier of SARS.    Some wild animals in China are a traditional delicacy, but it is still unsure whether the virus jumped from animals to human beings.
      The ban of sale and trade of 54 types of wildlife was lifted this month for those species, as long as they are farm-raised.
• 8/19/2003 - South Africa wise on AIDS.
      South African government seems finally to realize the need for aggressive action against the AIDS virus, by developing a plan to provide AIDS drugs to infected people through its public health system.    Five million people in the nation are infected, which is 11% of the population (4.7 million).    Among ages 15-49, the infection rate is at 20%.
      President Bush has taken a leadership role in assisting all of Africa with funding to battle AIDS, calling for $15 billion in assistance over five years.    Of 42 million people around the world with AIDS, 70% (30 million) are in sub-Saharan Africa.
• 9/22/2003 - Gates aiding malaria fight.
      Bill and Melinda Gates announce they were giving another $168 million in grants to fight malaria and called on the rest of the world to join them.    This will pay for accelerated vaccine research, developing affordable regimen that might reduce malaria in young children by as much as 60%.    This mosquito-borne parasite sickens more than 300 million people every year and kills 1.1 million, most of them poor babies in Africa (3,000 African children die of it daily).
• 9/23/2003 - World falling well short in AIDS battle, U.N. report asserts by The Associated Press.
      United Nations - U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that AIDS has slipped from political agendas, with efforts to fight the epidemic as inadequate.    "We are not on track to begin reducing the scale and impact of the epidemic by 2005," Annan said in opening a General Assembly session to review progress since a 2001 special session set goals for fighting the disease.    The goal was to have 3 million HIV-postive people in the developing world taking AIDS drugs by 2005 and halting and reversing the epidemic by 2015.
• 10/24/2003 - Four drug companies to help AIDS patients.
      Four foreign, generic-drug companies will provide low-cost AIDS drugs to several nations in Africa and the Carribbean, former President Clinton said, under a deal brokered by his foundation.    The plan will cut the price of a triple-drug regimen to about 38 cents a day.
• 11/19/2003 - Human trials start on Ebola vaccine by The Associated Press.
      Washington - A volunteer has received the first human inoculation of an experimental vaccine designed to prevent infection by Ebola, a highly lethal African virus that some fear could be used as a weapon of bioterrorism.    The vaccine is based on DNA technology at the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.    In Africa, up to 90% of the patients infected in the Ebola outbreak died.
• 11/26/2003- Global spread of AIDS not letting up - Africa hardest hit; new wave threatens China and Russia - by Jane Wardell, The Associated Press.
      London - The AIDS epidemic continues it devastating march across the globe, with more deaths (3 million) and infections (5 million) this year than ever before (34 million to 46 million) as the UNAIDS report claims.
      An estimated 26.6 million are living with the AIDS virus in sub-Saharan Africa, and a new wave of the disease is threatening China, Indonesia and Russia because of transmissions through drug use and unsafe sex.
• 12/11/2003 - Three-drug cocktail best to treat AIDS, study finds by Linda A. Johnson, The Associated Press.
      A three-drug cocktail used by many people infected with the AIDS virus proved superior to other combinations at treating new patients in the biggest comparison to date.    The study also determined the best sequence for drug combinations - since medication must be changed when the virus mutates and begins to resist the first drugs.    Twenty anti-retrovial drugs were test in combinations, which led to the best as efavirenz (sold as Sustiva), lamivudine and zidovudine, better known as AZT (combined as Combivir).
• 12/12/2003 - CDC says 24 states hit hard by flu by Daniel Yee, The Associated Press.
      Atlanta - The number of states hit hard by the flu has nearly doubled to 24 in the past week.    The government rushed to ship 100,000 doses of vaccine to combat shortages for the worst flu season in years.
      At least 23 children have died, schools have shutdown, hospital emergency rooms have been filled with sick children.    Doctor offices have turned away droves of people seeking a flu shots.    Some believe that this virus mutated as it crossed from the West coast to the East coast.
• 12/14/2003 Scientists warn of flu pandemic - Major worldwide outbreak a matter of 'when,' not 'if' - by Malcolm Ritter, The Associated Press.
      Dr. Greg Poland of the Mayo Clinic warns that the worldwide outbreak known as a pandemic is coming, it's just a question of when.    There have been three in the past 100 years, igniting in 1918, 1957 and 1968.    If one of these happens again it could send 1 million to 2.3 million people to the hospital and kill 280,000 to 650,000.
      The pandemic of 1918-19, known as the Spanish flu, sickened an estimated 20 percent to 40 percent of the worldwide population, with a death toll exceeding 20 million (500,000 in the U.S.).
      The Asian flu of 1957-58 killed about 70,000 in the United States.
      The 1968-69 Hong Kong flu led to about 34,000 deaths in the United States.
      In 1997, a bird flu in Hong Kong jumped to people, killing six, and 1.4 million chickens were slaughtered.    Scientists have been noticing a lot of flu virus in chickens and pigs globally, with a lot of variety in the strains.
• 12/16/2003 - Study: Changes linked to ALzheimer's start early - by Paul Recer, The Associated Press.
      Washington - A study of young adults who have a gene mutation (APOE) linked to Alzheimer's with abnormally low level of brain glucose metabolism, suggests the brain destroying disease starts decades before symptons appear, indicating that someday it might be possible to begin prevention therapies at an early age.    There are no proven preventive therapy now for Alzheiner's, a progressive and fatal brain disease that slowly wipes out memory and, eventually, all cognitive function.    Presently there are studies of the way the brain processes glucose in patients with Alzheimer's which is considered quite promising in search for early clinical evidence of the disease.    There is a correlation between glucose utilization and (Alzheimer's) pathology.    The disease is marked by deposits of plaques and tangles in key parts of the brain, causing the death of neurons, the cause is unknown and there is no cure.    The low levels of metabolism occurred in the same sections of the brain that most Alzheimer's patients are affected.
• 12/23/2003 - Judge rules against Army anthrax vaccines - Pentagon told soldiers not to be used as 'guinea pigs' - by Pauline Jelinek, The Associated Press.
      Washington - U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the Pentagon to stop the mandatory anthrax vaccinations first ordered in 1998 using American soldiers as "guinea pigs for experimental drugs."    More than 900,000 servicemen and women have received the shots to protect troops against disease and bioterror threats.    Hundreds have been punished or discharged for refusing them.    The problem is the label on the vaccine does not specify which method of anthrax exposure it protects against.    A 1998 law prohibits this unless people are given the drug consent to its use or the president waves the consent requirement.    Congress passed this law amid fears that the use of such drugs may have led to unexplained illnesses -- which have come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome - among veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
      I understand their concern, when I was in the Air Force in the 70s, we were marched to some building on the base, and like a bunch of cows herded through a corral, were given shots, without even knowing what was given to us.
  
  
• 1/14/2004 - Deaths of 3 in Asia linked to spread of bird flu by Associated Press.
      Hanoi, Vietnam - A bird flu sweeping Asia has killed three people in Vietnam, the World Health Organization said, as jittery governments destroyed millions of chickens and banned poultry imports to try to contain the epidemic.    Nine other children died and are being tested for a link to the disease.    There is no sign of human-to-human transmission.    Avian flu has also killed thousands of chickens in South Korea from an outbreak last month leading to the slaughter of 1.1. million chickens and ducks.    In Japan 6,000 chickens had died from the bird flu and thousands were slaughtered.
• 1/14/2004 - SARS better understood; challenges still remain by Associated Press.
      London - The world is much better prepared to handle SARS now, but tracing the origins of the virus remains a serious challenge and other emerging infectious diseases that jump from animals to humans.    Most believe it is the animal markets where the virus jumps species.
• 1/23/2004 - Study links cancer risks, Agent Orange by Associated Press.
      Washington - A 20 year study has found an increase risk of prostate cancer and melanoma among Air Force veterans of the Vietnam War who sprayed the chemical defoliant Agent Orange, the Air Force said.    From 1962 to 1971, the Air Force sprayed an estimated 11 million gallons of defoliants over Vietnam to destroy jungle cover for communist troops in a campaign known as Operation Ranch Hand.    American veterans and many Vietnamese have blamed a variety of illnesses, including birth defects, cancers and nervous disorders, on exposure to the defoliant.
• 2/2/2004 - Ebola outbreaks tied to animals by The Washington Post.
      Scientists think they may have come a step closer to figuring out where the deadly Ebola virus hides in the African wild, periodically emerging to attack humans.    Since the frightening virus was first discovered in Congo in 1976, striking without warning, it was suspected people came into contact with it while hunting infected animals.    New research discovered before each outbreak large numbers of chimpanzees, gorillas and small antelopes had died in the area from Ebola, which was passed on to the hunters.
• 2/4/2004 - WHO tries to ease fear of bird flu pandemic by Johnathan Fowler, Associated Press.
      Geneva - The United Nations health agency sought to dampen fears of bird flu striking large numbers of people, even as the death toll in Asia climbed to 13.    The avian flu has a potential to pick up human genes and has spread to Thailand and Vietnam from exposure to poultry.    WHO is working on a strategy for stopping the outbreak to keep it from multiplying and mutating.    Ten Asian countries are battling bird flu and at least 45 million chickens have been slaughtered.    If the virus does mutate into a form that passes between people then it would become a pandemic strain.    China, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan are also battling the disease.    The WHO has sent teams to the region and at least 25 international experts from 15 countries are involved for a hunt for a bird flu vaccine.    European Union and Japan have barred poultry products from many of the countries exposed.    Asian tourism has begun to suffer.
• 2/12/2004 - Infant deaths rising in U.S. by Daniel Yee, Associated Press.
      Atlanta - U.S. infant mortality has climbed for the first time in more than four decades because older women are putting off motherhood until their 30s or 40s and then having multiple babies via fertility drugs, the government said.    The rate climbed from 6.8 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2001 to 7.0 deaths per 1,000 in 2002 according to the CDC.   
• 2/17/2004 - Antibiotics linked to breast cancer, study suggest by Rob Stein, The Washington Post.
      Antibiotic use might increase the risk of developing breast cancer, making women more prone to the feared malignancies.    Based on 10,000 Washington state women the study showed that those who used the most antibiotics had twice as much chance, but more research is needed to confirm the results.    The antibiotics can affect bacteria in the digestive system in ways that interfere with the metabolism of foods that protect against cancer.    Also considered is the risk of affecting the immune system or the body's inflammatory response.    More than 211,000 women get breast cancer each year in the United States and it kills more than 40,000 as a second-leading cause of cancer.
• 2/18/2004 - HIV spreading quickly in Russia, report says by AP.
      Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic nations of Estonia have some of the world's fastest HIV growth rates, the United Nations Development Program said in a report.    The world body said one in every 100 adults of the three countries is infected.
• 2/20/2004 - Mad cow means cheaper meat for U.S. by Ira Dreyfuss, Associated Press.
      Washington - Shoppers will pay lees for beef this year as the industry unloads at home the meat that other countries refuse to buy because of America's case of mad cow disease, the U.S. Agriculture Department said.    Bans imposed by more than 50 nations against U.S. beef and cattle will push U.S. retail prices down 10 percent to 15 percent in the second half of the year.    Exports account for about 10 percent of U.S. beef production of about 26 billion pounds.    Once the situation is controlled they can reopen that market.
• 2/26/2004 - Report finds monkeys resistant to AIDS by William McCall, Associated Press.
      Scientists say they have discovered why some monkeys are resistant to infection with the AIDS virus - pointing to a new strategy for blocking the virus in people.    The 10-year search by Dr. Joseph Sodroski and his team of Harvard University researchers for what stops the virus cold in certain primates, which could lead to drugs to treat AIDS infection or a vaccine to prevent it.    Monkeys have a protein called TRIM5-alpha that is somehow able to stop the virus from shedding its protective coat after it enters a healthy cell, which is essential to the infection cycle.    Humans have their own version of TRIM5-alpha, and researchers are designing a drug that makes that protein work better at that task.    The AIDS virus is a retrovirus that can incorporate their genetic material into the DNA of an infected cell, and once established cannot be eliminated.
• 3/3/2004 - Groups to urge no antibiotics for most kids' ear infections by Daniel Yee, Associated Press.
      Atlanta - Medical groups are recommending that doctors stop treating most children's ear infections with antibiotics, contradicting years of pediatric practise.    The reason is to stop the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria created by overuse of the drugs.
• 3/19/2004 - Study finds new form of retrovirus in Africa by Associated Press.
      London - African ape hunters are being infected by the same class of viruses that causes AIDS, scientists say, raising fears of a possible epidemic of new disease in the future.    This was the first confirmation of transmission of a retrovirus from primates to humans in natural settings, besides animal researchers and zoo workers.    During the butchering of primates the transmission has occurred.    Scientists say the AIDS epidemic that emerged in the 1980s was the result of cross-species transmissions of another monkey virus, to people several decades earlier.
• 4/1/2004 - Vaccine proves successful in treating SARS virus in mice by AP.
      An experimental vaccine has proven successful in protecting mice against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, the virus that killed nearly 800 people worldwide last year.    The results are promising but still a vaccine is a long way off.
• 4/6/2004 - Scientists turn up heat on cancer by The Washington Post.
      Tiny engineered particles are being recruited as the newest and smallest soldiers in the war on cancer, helping scientists "cook" deadly tumors while leaving surrounding tissues cool.    At Rice University and Nanospectra Biosciences in Houston scientists have created minuscule, seashell-shaped specks of silica, 1/30 the size of a red blood cell and coated with an extremely thin layer of gold.    These nanoshells absorb infrared rays and then convert that energy into intense heat.    They injected them into the bloodstreams of seven mice with tumors in which the nanoshells gathered in and around the tumors.    Then they exposed the tumors to three minutes of laser-generated infrared-light, which harmlessly penetrates living tissue.    Tumor temperatures quickly shot up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, and fried the cancer cells.    Three months later, those mice were alive and apparently cancer free.
• 4/24/2004 - SARS death reported; travelers to be screened by AP.
      Beijing, China - China reported the world's first SARS death this year and ordered screening of all travelers with fevers.
• 5/7/2004 - Libya convicts 6 for AIDS virus infections by Khaled Al-Deeb, Associated Press.
      Benghazi, Libya - Liby sentence five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad of intentionally infecting more than 400 children with the AIDS virus in an experiment to find a cure.    Some claim that Libya concocted the experiment story to cover up unsafe hospital practices.    Libya's ruler Moammar Gadhafi has been trying to present a new image to the world after decades of supporting terrorism.
• 6/23/2004 - U.N. agency warns of polio epidemic in Africa by Jonathan Fowler, Associated Press.
      Geneva - Africa is on the brink of the biggest polio epidemic in years, with the crippling disease hitting Nigeria hard and re-emerging in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region, the World Health Organization said.    The number of polio cases globally has reached 333 so far this year, almost double the number for the same period last year.    Total cases last year reached 783.    In Nigeria, where Muslim leaders have refused in an immunization program, 257 cases have been reported this year.    Polio is a water-borne disease that usually infects young children, attacking the nervous system and causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and sometimes death.    Nearly 1,000 children in 125 countries were being infected daily by polio in 1988 when the U.N. agency and others launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.    The disease has already spread to nine sub-Saharan African countries.    War ravaged areas are affected the most, and the Islamic leaders claim the vaccine is a U.S.-led plot to spread infertility and AIDS among African Muslims.
• 7/6/2004 - Brazil a leader in battle against AIDS by Michael Astor, Associated Press.
      Rio De Janeiro, Brazil - With the prediction of an AIDS explosion in Latin America a decade ago.    After entering the WTO, Latin America had the most access to cheap generic versions of antiretroviral treatments, which reduced the HIV infection to a chronic disease and not a terminal one.
• 7/7/2004 - World is losing AIDS battle, U.N. report says by Emma Ross, Associated Press.
      London - The world is losing the race against the AIDS virus, which last year infected nearly 5 million people, a record, and killed about 3 million, the United Nations reported.    The virus has pushed deep into Eastern Europe and Asia, which is 60 percent of the world's population, and the number of people living with HIV has risen in every region.    Nine out of 10 people who urgently need treatment are not getting it and prevention is only reaching one in five at risk.    The AIDS epidemic is now entering its globalization phase and an estimated 38 million are infected, 25 million of those in sub-Saharan Africa.
• 7/10/2004 - Mad cow restrictions tightened for cosmetics, supplements by Ira Dreyfuss, Associated Press.
      Washington - Regarding mad cow disease, the Food and Drug Administration banned brains and other cattle parts in the spinal cord, skulls, and eye area, that could carry the disease's infectious agent from use in cosmetics and dietary supplements.    Also not allowed is any animal that cannot stand on its own.
• 7/12/2004 - U.N. chief calls the spread of AIDS among women a 'terrifying pattern' by New York Times and AP.
      Bangkok, Thailand - The International AIDS Conference opened with U.N. chief Kofi Annan challenging the world leaders to do more to combat the raging global epidemic and warnings that women are increasingly the unwitting victims of the disease.    In sub-Saharan Africa women account for nearly half of all adult infections.
• 7/20/2004 - Bacterial infection is not cause of Gulf War illness, study shows by Joann Loviglio, Associated Press.
      Philadelphia - A year on powerful antibiotics doxycycline or a placebo did nothing to relieve the chronic health problems reported by Gulf War veterans, demolishing the theory that so-called Gulf War syndrome is caused by a bacterial infection called Mycoplasma, researchers say.    The study of 491 veterans was done by the Department of Veteran Affairs now claim that they more likely suffer from a range of chronic symptoms, including memory and thinking problems, debilitating fatigue, severe muscle and joint pain, depression, anxiety, insomnia, headaches and rashes.    However, the cause has proved elusive, and could be the antibotics themselves.    Theories include stress, bacterial infection, chemical or biological weapons, pollutants from burning oil fields, depleted-uranium munitions, and vaccinations for anthrax and other potential biological weapons.
• 7/30/2004 - Researchers create a rougue protein - Prion by Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press.
      Washington - California scientists say they have created the first synthetic version of a rogue protein called a prion and used it to give mice a brain destroying infection, evidence important to settling any lingering doubt that the mysterious substances alone causes mad cow disease and similar illnesses.    The claim is that it could help to create a diagnostic test for mad cow disease and also explain why normal brain proteins suddenly go bad and sicken some people who've never eaten mad-cow tainted food.    Related diseases - including mad cow, scrapie in sheep and the human Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - are believed to arise when a protein the body normally harbors folds into an abnormal shape, called a prion, and sets off a chain reaction of misfolds that eventually leaves clumps of dead brain cells.    Prions contain no genetic material and the new manmade prion has proved infectious on seven genetically engineered mice after one year.
• 8/26/2004 - U.S. preparing for possiblity of new flu pandemic striking soon by Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press.
      Washington - The U.S. is preparing for the powerful new flu strain if a worldwide outbreak occurs, readying a vaccine.    There have been three flu pandemics in the last century, the worst in 1918, when more than a million Americans and 20 million people worldwide died.    A pandemic could be triggered by the recurring bird flu in Asia, if it mutates and spreads to people.    Millions would swamp doctors' offices and hospitals, disrupt transportation commerce, school closures, and restrictions on public gatherings.
• 11/14/2004 - Pill could battle drug abuse by Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press.
      New York - Scientists at a French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi-Aventis have created a pill that helps you lose weight, quit smoking and help stop abusing drugs and alcohol, called rimonbant, or Acomplia.    The pill helps break the brain's connection between the addiction and the brain's reward system.
• 11/18/2004 - WHO says drug companies must do more to stave off flu by AP.
      The Hague, Netherlands - The world is unprepared for an inevitable flu pandemic that couild kill tens of millions of people, but profit-driven pharmeceutical companies are putting too little research into the development of vaccines, the WHO said.
• 11/18/2004 - Experts say AIDS in Russia rising at an alarming rate by AP.
      Moscow - AIDS and the HIV virus are spreading at alarming pace in Russia, and the government is unable to combat the epidemic which will claim tens of thousands of lives within the next few years.    Russia has officially registered more than 300,000 HIV positive people, but the figure is more likely closer to 1.5 million, about 2 percent of the adult population.    The biggest cause was intravenoius drug use, but more than 40 percent of the new cases were young women who were infected through heterosexual intercourse.
• 12/2/2004 - Global AIDS threat recognized - This year's focus is on infected females - by Alexander G. Higgins, Associated Press.
      Geneva - On World AIDS Day the United Nations focused on protecting women and girls against the disease.    Nearly half of the 39.4 million people infected with the AIDS virus worldwide are female, and 3/4s of them live in sub-Saharan Africa where gender inequality is pervasive.
  North America - 1.0 million
  Carribean - 440,000
  Central and South America - 1.7 million
  Western Europe - 610,000
  North Africa - 540,000
  Sub-Saharan Africa - 25.4 million
  Eastern Europe and Central Asia - 1.4 million
  East Asia - 1.1. million
  Australia - 35,000
  

Last updated January 27, 2004 and January 31, 2006.