Medical Timelines
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c10000BC The
1st known outbreaks of smallpox occurred among agricultural settlements
in northeastern Africa.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
10000BC In 2008 archeologists in northern Israel
found a female skeleton in a grave containing 50 tortoise shells, a
leopard pelvis, a cow tail and part of an eagle wing and believed they
were the remains of a witch doctor from the Natufian culture.
(AP, 11/18/08)
2737BCE Chinese emperor Shen Neng prescribed
marijuana tea to treat gout, rheumatism, malaria and poor memory.
(WSJ, 2/8/05, p.D7)
1350BCE The 1st recorded smallpox epidemic took place
during an Egyptian-Hittite war.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1345BCE The Ebers Papyrus indicated the medical use
of willow bark. It contained salicylic acid, an ingredient of modern
aspirin.
(SSFC, 10/24/04, p.M6)
1000BC The Sushruta Samhita, an early text of
Ayurvedic medicine, was compiled by Sushrut, the primary pupil of
Dhanvantri, about this time. In 2003 India moved to assess the
country’s herbs systematically in a program called the Golden Triangle
Partnership.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayurveda)(www.ccras.nic.in/gtp.htm)
c480BCE Herodotus said marijuana was cultivated in
Scythia and Thrace, where inhabitants intoxicated themselves by
breathing the vapors given off when the plant was roasted on white-hot
stones.
(WSJ, 2/8/05, p.D7)
131CE Sep 22, Claudius Galen
(d.201), Italian physician and scholar, was born.
(http://www.zephyrus.co.uk/galen.html)
1345 Mar 20, A conjunction of
Saturn, Jupiter and Mars was thought to be the "cause of plague
epidemic."
(MC, 3/20/02)
1493 May 1, Phillippus Paracelsus
(d.1541), physician and alchemist, was born in Switzerland. He was
christened as Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim.
(HN, 5/1/98)(NH, 6/00, p.30,34)(MC, 5/1/02)
1519 Mar 13, The Spaniards under
Cortez landed at Veracruz. Cortez landed in Mexico with 10 stallions, 5
mares and a foal. Smallpox was carried to America in the party of
Hernando Cortes.
(SFEC,11/9/97, p.T5)(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A3)(HN,
3/13/98)(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1534 The King of Siam died of
smallpox.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1553 Oct 27, Michael Servetus
(b.1511) was burnt for heresy in Geneva, Switzerland. His last book
"Christianismi Restitutio" included a chapter on the pulmonary
circulation of blood. In 2002 Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone authored
"Out of the Flames." [see 1540]
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)(HN, 10/27/98)(WSJ, 9/18/02, p.D8)
1558 Apr 26, Jean Francois Fernel,
French physician, died.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1562 Oct 9, Gabriel Fallopius,
anatomist (discovered fallopian tubes), died in Modena, Italy.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1572 Michel de Montaigne, French
philosopher, observed that “there are men on whom the mere sight of
medicine is operative.”
(Econ, 11/1/08, p.92)
1578 Apr 1, William Harvey England
(d.1657), discoverer of blood circulation, was born.
(HN, 4/1/99)(WUD, 1994, p.648)
c1610 In 2004 archeologists
reported finding a skull fragment from Jamestown, Va., dating to about
this time that showed evidence of skull surgery and an autopsy.
(SFC, 12/2/04, p.A7)
1623 The 1st case of smallpox in
Russia was reported.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1630 Nov 30, 16,000 inhabitants of
Venice died this month of plague.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1665 Aug 15-22, The London weekly
"Bill of Mortality" recorded 5,568 fatalities with teeth holding the
no. 5 spot. 4,237 were killed by the plague.
(SFEC, 8/2/98, BR p.7)
1666 Feb 15, Antonio M. Valsalva,
Italian anatomist (eardrums, glottis), was born.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1667 Jun 15, Dr. Jean-Baptiste
Denys, French doctor, performed the 1st blood transfusion.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_transfusion)
1683 Sep 17, Antonie van
Leeuwenhoek reported the existence of bacteria.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1692 Mar 14, Peter Musschenbroek,
Dutch physician, physicist (Leyden jar), was born.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1700s Smallpox killed some 400,000
Europeans a year.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1702 Georg Everhard Rumpf, German
botanist, died. He was employed by the Dutch East India Company and
compiled the “Ambonese Herbal,” even after going blind in 1670. The
work was published in Amsterdam between 1741 and 1755.
(Econ, 9/25/04, p.94)
1709 Mar 8, William Cowper/Cooper
(~62), English anatomist, died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1718 May 23, William Hunter
(d.1783), obstetrician, surgeon, anatomy teacher, was born near
Glasgow, Scotland. In 1768 he opened a medical school. The Glasgow
Hunterian Museum opened in 1807.
(MC,
5/23/02)(http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/index.html)
1721 Apr 26, The smallpox
vaccination was 1st administrated. Lady Mary Wortley Montegu had
returned to England following a stay in Turkey with her ambassador
husband. She had learned of a procedure to inoculate against smallpox
and began a campaign to have the procedure established.
(ON, 9/01, p.1)(MC, 4/26/02)
1721 Jun 26, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston
gave the 1st smallpox inoculation in Boston. The epidemic had arrived
by ship from Barbados.
(ON, 3/05, p.4)
1721 Jul 21, Doctors in Boston
raised objections to a new practice of using live smallpox to inoculate
patients against the disease. A smallpox epidemic had recently broken
out in Boston and Cotton Mather (58), following some study, encouraged
the inoculation technique to prevent death from the disease.
(ON, 3/05, p.4)
1722 Cotton Mather authored “An
Account of the Method and Success of Inoculating the Small-Pox…” This
followed work in support of inoculation trials in Boston.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W11)
1724 May 18, Johann K. Amman (54),
Swiss-Dutch doctor for deaf-mutes, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1734 May 23, Friedrich Anton
Mesmer, physician and hypnotist, was born.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1745 Apr 20, Philippe Pinel,
founder of psychiatry, was born.
(HN, 4/20/98)
1751 May 11, The 1st US hospital
was founded in Pennsylvania. [see Feb 11, 1752]
(MC, 5/11/02)
1752 Feb 11, Pennsylvania
Hospital, the 1st hospital in the US, opened.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1754-1767 British forces distributed
smallpox-infected blankets among American Indians in the 1st known case
of its use as a biological weapon.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1772 Sep 26, New Jersey passed a
bill requiring a license to practice medicine.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1778 Dec 17, Humphrey Davy,
English chemist who discovered the anesthetic effect of laughing gas
(1799), was born.
(HN, 12/17/98)(Dr, 7/17/01, p.2)
1787 Mar 8, Karl Ferdinand von
Grafe was born. He helped create modern plastic surgery.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1789 Smallpox was introduced to
Australia and caused devastation among the aborigines.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1794 Jan 14, Dr. Jessee Bennet of
Edom, Va., performed the 1st successful Cesarean section operation on
his wife.
(MC, 1/14/02)
1796 May 14, English physician
Edward Jenner administered the first vaccination against smallpox to
his gardener's son, James Phipps (8). A single blister rose up on the
spot, but James later demonstrated immunity to smallpox. Jenner
actually used vaccinia, a close viral relation to smallpox. [see July
21, 1721]
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.77)(AP, 5/14/08)
1798 Mar 9, Dr. George Balfour
became 1st naval surgeon in the US Navy.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1798 Jul 16, US Public Health
Service formed and a US Marine Hospital was authorized.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1800 Jul 8, Dr. Benjamin
Waterhouse gave the 1st cowpox vaccination to his son to prevent
smallpox. [see May 14, 1796]
(MC, 7/8/02)
1809 Dec, In Danville, Kentucky,
Dr. Ephraim McDowell (1771-1830) performed a successfully surgery on
Jane Crawford (45) in which he removed an ovary and a large tumor with
no anesthesia. Crawford lived to age 78 and was the world’s first known
survivor of an elective exploration of the abdomen and removal of an
ovary. The story was later told by David Dary in “Frontier Medicine:
From the Atlantic to the Pacific 1492-1941” (2008).
(ON, 12/99, p.11)(WSJ, 11/28/08, p.A13)
1810 Mar 6, Illinois passed the
1st state vaccination legislation in US.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1811 Fanny Burney (1752-1840),
English writer, underwent a mastectomy without anesthesia. In 2001
Claire Harman authored the biography: "Fanny Burney."
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.M5)
1813 Feb 27, The 1st federal
vaccination legislation was enacted.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1813 Mar 3, Office of Surgeon
General of the US army was established.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1814 Oct 23, The 1st plastic
surgery was performed in England.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1815 Jan 21, Horace Wells
(d.1845), dentist, was born. He pioneered the use of medical anesthesia
and was the 1st to use nitrous oxide as a pain killer.
(Dr, 7/17/01, p.2)(MC, 1/21/02)
1818 Apr 14, The US Medical Corp.
formed.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1818 Jul 1, Ignaz Semmelweis
(d.1865), Hungarian gynecologist, was born. He later connected childbed
fever to doctors who spread of germs due to their failure to wash their
hands. In 2003 Sherwin B. Nuland authored "The Doctors' Plague: Germs,
Childbed Fever and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis."
(MC, 7/1/02)(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.M3)
1818 Dr. James Blundell
(1791-1878), a British obstetrician, performed the first successful
transfusion of human blood, for the treatment of postpartum hemorrhage.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_transfusion)
1819 Aug 9, William Thomas Green
Morton (d.1868), American dentist who 1st used ether on a patient
(1846), was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.932)(MC, 8/9/02)
1820 Aug 14, The 1st US eye
hospital, the NY Eye Infirmary, opened in NYC.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1822 Mar 9, The first patent for
false teeth was requested by C. Graham of NY. [see Jun 9, 1882]
(HN, 3/9/98)(MC, 3/9/02)
1822 Jun 9, Charles Graham
patented false teeth. [see Mar 9, 1822]
(MC, 6/9/02)
1824 Jan 26, Edward Jenner,
discoverer of vaccination, died.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1824 Mar 5, Elisha Harris, U.S.
physician, founder of the American Public Health Association, was
born.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1826 Joseph Buchner refined willow
bark in crystals that he named salicin, after salix, the Latin name for
willow. [see aspirin in 1899]
(SSFC, 10/24/04, p.M6)
1827 Apr 5, Joseph Lister
(d.1912), English physician, was born. He founded the idea of using
antiseptics during surgery.
(WUD, 1994, p.836)(HN, 4/5/99)
1828 May 22, Albrecht von Grafe,
German eye surgeon, founder of modern ophthalmology, was born.
(HN, 5/22/01)
1829 Jan 28, In Scotland William
Burke was hanged for murder following a scandal in which he was found
to have provided extra-fresh corpses for anatomy schools in Edinburgh.
His partner William Hare had turned king’s witness. The scandal led to
the 1832 Anatomy Act.
(Econ, 11/15/08,
p.99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Burke)
1832 Feb 6, There was an
appearance of cholera at Edinburgh, Scotland.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1832 The United Kingdom passed the
Anatomy Act, which allowed hospitals and workhouses to hand over for
dissection bodies left unclaimed for two days.
(Econ, 11/15/08, p.99)
1833 Dec, William Beaumont
(d.1853), a US Army assistant surgeon, published his new book:
"Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology
of Digestion. It was based on the digestive system of Alexis St.
Martin, a fur trader who was accidentally shot in the abdomen at Fort
Mackinac in 1822.
(ON, 1/02, p.6)
1841-1912 Gerard H. Hansen, Norwegian physician. He
discovered the leprosy-causing Mycobacterium leprae (aka Hansen’s
disease).
(WUD, 1994, p.644)
1842 Mar 30, Dr. Crawford W. Long
of Jefferson, Ga., first used ether as an anesthetic during a minor
operation.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1843 Jul 2, Samuel Hahnemann
(b.1755), German physician and founder of homeopathy, died in Paris.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hahnemann)
1844 Dec 11, The 1st dental use of
nitrous oxide was at Hartford, Ct.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1845 Mar 26, Patent was awarded
for adhesive medicated plaster, precursor of bandaid.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1846 Sep 30, Dentist William
Morton used ether as an anesthetic for the first time on a patient in
Boston (Charleston), Massachusetts.
(AP, 9/30/97)(HN, 9/30/01)
1847 May 7, The American Medical
Association was founded in Philadelphia.
(AP, 5/7/97)(HN, 5/7/98)
1848 Sep 13, Dr. John Martyn
Harlow treated Phinneas Gage in Vermont for a head injury from a
tamping iron that had pierced the man’s skull during a blasting
accident. Gage survived until 1860, but with definite personality
changes that Dr. Harlow tracked.
(ON, 10/02, p.9)(Econ, 12/23/06, Survey p.3)
1848 Nov 23, The Female Medical
Educational Society was established in Boston, Mass., the same year the
all-male American Medical Association formed.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1848 Samuel Gregory, a pioneer in
medical education for women, founded the Boston Female Medical School.
The school opened with an enrollment of 12 students. The establishment
merged 26 years later with the Boston University School of Medicine, to
form one of the first coed medical schools in the world.
(HNQ, 12/27/02)
1849 Jan 23, English-born
Elizabeth Blackwell, the 1st woman to receive medical degree, graduated
at the top of her class from the medical school of Hobart College in
Geneva, N.Y.
(http://campus.hws.edu/his/blackwell/biography.html)(ON, 4/03, p.2)
1849 Jul 12, William Osler
(d.1919), physician, author (circulatory system), was born in Canada.
"The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next,
and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow."
(AP, 10/15/98)(MC, 7/12/02)
1850 Mar 11, Woman's Medical
College of Pennsylvania opened as the 1st female medical school. [see
1848, Oct 12, 1850]
(MC, 3/12/02)
1850 Apr 8, William Henry Welch,
US pathologist (founded John Hopkins), was born.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1850 May 16, Johannes von
Mikulica-Radecki, Polish surgical pioneer, was born.
(HN, 5/16/01)
1850 Oct 12, The 1st women's
medical school, the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, opened.
[see 1848, Mar 11, 1850]
(MC, 10/12/01)
1851 Sep 13, Walter Reed (d.1902),
U.S. Army doctor, was born in Gloucester County, Va. In 1900 he went to
Cuba and verified that yellow fever was caused by a mosquito.
(HN, 9/13/98)(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.B1)(AP, 9/13/02)
1852 Sep 23, William Stewart
Halsted, was born. He established the 1st US surgical school.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1853 Apr 7, Dr. John Snow
administered chloroform to Queen Victoria at the birth of her 8th
child, Prince Leopold.
(ON, 5/05, p.9)
1853 The hypodermic needle was
invented for morphine injection. It was believed that addiction would
be prevented if the digestive system was bypassed.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, zone 1 p.2)
1853 Charles Frederic Gerhardt
first synthesized acetylsalicylic acid, but he failed to understand its
molecular structure and its potential importance to humanity.
(www.chemheritage.org)
1853 A smallpox epidemic hit
Hawaii and 5-6000 people died.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1855 Mar 15, Louisiana established
the 1st health board to regulate quarantine.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1856 Jan 18, Daniel Nathan Hale
Williams, surgeon (1st open heart operation), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1857 Paul Broca discovered that
particular regions of the brain are specialized for particular
functions.
(WSJ, 10/11/02, p.AB1)
1858 Henry Gray (1827-1861),
English anatomist and surgeon, authored the textbook “Gray’s Anatomy.”
It defined the genre and dissected the body along thematic lines. The
illustrations were by Henry Vandyke (1831-1897) In 2008 Ruth Richardson
authored “The Making of Mr Gray’s Anatomy: Bodies, Books, Fortune,
Fame.”
(http://streetanatomy.com/blog/?p=48)(Econ,
11/15/08, p.99)(WSJ, 3/27/09, p.W6)
1859 Florence Nightingale
(1820-1910) authored "Notes on Hospitals," which combined two papers
presented the year before at the Social Science Congress. She addressed
every aspect of hospital management, from the purchase of iron
bedsteads to replace the wooden ones, to switching to glass cups
instead of tin. The 108-page book went on into three editions and
established Nightingale once more as an international authority.
(HNQ, 4/29/01)
1860 May 21, Willem Einthoven,
physiologist, inventor of the electrocardiogram, was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1860 Jun 29, Thomas Addison (67),
English physician (A-Biermer Disease), died.
(MC, 6/29/02)’
1861 Henry Gray (b.1827), English
anatomist and surgeon, died of smallpox. He had authored the textbook
“Gray’s Anatomy” (1858).
(Econ, 11/15/08,
p.100)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Gray)
1862 Nov, Jean Henri Dunant
(1828-1910) published "A Memory of Solferino." His ideas about creation
of a volunteer committee to care for war-wounded led to the creation in
1863 of the Permanent International Committee for Relief to Wounded
Combatants, later called the International Red Cross. Dunant, a Swiss
businessman, had witnessed the plight of thousands of wounded left
helpless on the battlefield at Solferino, Italy, on June 24,
1859. Organizing local volunteers to help, Dunant brought aid to
as many of the victims as he could.
(WUD, 1994, p.442)(HNQ, 9/16/99)(ON, 4/08, p.11)
1863 Feb 9, Henri Dunant
(1828-1910) addressed the Geneva Society for Public Welfare and asked
the members to form a volunteer society to aid wounded soldiers. The
Intl. Committee of Red Cross (Nobel 1917, 1944, 1963) was formed in
Geneva, Switz. The red cross design based on the Swiss flag with the
colors reversed.
(ON, 4/08, p.11)(www.redcross.org)(SFC, 6/20/06,
p.A4)
1863 Apr 13, Hospital for Ruptured
and Crippled in NY became the 1st orthopedic hospital.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1863 The Mutter Museum was founded
as part of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia was an educational
service for practicing physicians.
(NW, 11/18/02, p.14)
1863 Sir Francis Galton theorized
that the quality of human offspring would improve if talented people
married only other talented people. His ideas led to the eugenics
movement.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.D1)
1864 Jun 14, Alois Alzheimer
(d.1915), German psychiatrist, pathologist (Alzheimer Disease), was
born.
(www.ibro.info/Pub_Main_Display.asp?Main_ID=34)
1865 Jul 19, Charles Horance Mayo
(d.1939), American surgeon and co-founder of the Mayo Clinic Foundation
for Medical Education and Research, was born. "I have never known a man
who died from overwork, but many who died from doubt."
(HN, 7/19/98)(AP, 12/11/00)
1865 Aug 13, Ignaz Semmelweis
(47), Hungarian gynecologist, died. [see Jul 1, 1818]
(MC, 8/13/02)
1865 Aug 15, Sir Joseph Lister
discovered the antiseptic process. [see Sep 1]
(MC, 8/15/02)
1865 Sep 1, Joseph Lister
performed his 1st antiseptic surgery.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1865 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
started practicing as Britain’s first female doctor. She qualified via
the Society of Apothecaries when medical schools refused to admit her.
She and 5 other women began studying for a degree course from Cambridge
in 1869. Cambridge did not let women graduate with degrees until 1948,
and was the last English university to do so. In 2009 Jane Robinson
authored “Bluestockings: The Remarkable Story of the First Women to
Fight for an Education.”
(Econ, 8/8/09, p.73)
1866 Edouard Seguin (1812-1880),
French physician, authored “Idiocy and Its Treatment.” He had
established schools in France and the US for the intellectually
handicapped, which stressed the importance of developing self-reliance
and independence.
(ON, 3/07,
p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edouard_Seguin)
1867 There was a yellow-fever
epidemic in the US.
(SSFC, 2/25/01, BR p.5)
1869 Apr 8, Harvey Cushing, US
neurosurgeon (blood pressure studied), was born.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1869 Ludwig Karl Kahlbaum in
Innsbruck, Austria, described for the 1st time the medical condition of
catatonia. He compiled a list of almost 40 signs involving unusual
movements. For decades it was thought to be a type of schizophrenia. By
2006 it was still not well understood.
(SSFC, 12/24/06, p.B6)
1871 Feb 9, Howard T. Ricketts,
pathologist, was born.
(HN, 2/9/01)
1874 Jan 17, Chang and Eng Bunker
(62), Chinese-Thai Siamese twins, died.
(MC, 1/17/02)
1874 Jun 22, Dr. Andrew T. Sill of
Macon, Missouri, founded osteopathy.
(MC, 6/22/02)
1876 A paper in the Berliner
Klinische Wochenschrift, a Germany medical journal, suggested
that salsalate could help diabetics control their blood sugar. Harvard
researchers in the 1990s conducted studies that supported the claim.
(WSJ, 1/20/09, p.A12)
1879 By this time a judge spread
the claim that Dr. Jackson’s Eye Water had cured his crippling “red
skin” disease. Dr. Alvah Jackson of Eureka Springs, Ark., had bottled
water from the local Basin Spring as a elixir following claims that it
had cured his son’s granulated eyelids.
(SSFC, 9/16/07, p.G5)
1882 Mar 16, US Senate ratified a
treaty establishing the Red Cross.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1882 Mar 24, German scientist
Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had discovered the bacillus
responsible for tuberculosis.
(AP, 3/23/97)
1882 Oct 24, Dr. Robert Koch
discovered the germ that caused tuberculosis.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1883 Feb 23, American
Anti-Vivisection Society was organized in Philadelphia.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1883 May 17, Lydia Estes Pinkham,
patent-medicine manufacturer, died.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1885 Mar, In Loganville, Pa., Dr.
George E. Holtzapple (22) saved Fred Gable (16), who was suffering from
pneumonia, by supplying the boy with pure oxygen. Oxygen therapy became
the only effective treatment for pneumonia until antibiotics became
available in the 1940s.
(ON, 4/07, p.10)
1885 Jul 6, French scientist Louis
Pasteur (1822-1895) successfully tested an anti-rabies vaccine on a boy
bitten by an infected dog. Thanks to his vaccine the death rate from
rabies dropped to almost zero by 1888.
(AP, 7/6/97)(ON, 6/08, p.6)
1886 Mar 8, Edward Kendall,
chemist, isolated cortisone (Nobel 1950), was born.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1888 Sep 7, The 1st US incubator
was used on a premature infant, Edith Eleanor McLean. It was built by
Dr. William Champion Deming at the State Emigrant Hospital, Ward's
Island, NY.
(HN, 9/7/98)(www.medterms.com)
1888 German scientists discovered
that small amounts of poison might actually do an organism good. The
paradoxical effect was called hormesis.
(WSJ, 12/19/03, p.B1)
1889 May 1, Bayer in Germany
introduced aspirin in powder form.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1889 Aug 1, John F. Mahoney,
developed penicillin treatment of syphilis, was born.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1889 John Alexander MacWilliam,
Scottish physiologist, discovered that he could restore heart rhythms
in cats using a metronome and a needle electrode. His work went
unrecognized until his paper on the subject resurfaced in 1972.
(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ p.25)
1889 There was a major flu
epidemic this year. Virologists in 2002 attempted to gather viral
tissue from frozen grave sites in Siberia.
(SFCM, 2/17/02, p.27)
1890 The tuberculin skin test (TST
or Mantoux) was developed.
(SFC, 3/24/04, p.B9)
1892 Aug 30, The Moravia, a
passenger ship arriving from Germany, brought cholera to the United
States.
(HN, 8/30/98)
1893 Jul 9, Daniel Hale Williams
(1858-1931), an African-American surgeon, performed successful heart
surgery on a teenager in Chicago.
(WSJ, 11/17/07, p.W11)(http://tinyurl.com/37gnkk)
1894 Jun 17, 1st US poliomyelitis
epidemic broke out in Rutland, Vermont.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1894 Nov 1, A vaccine for
diphtheria was announced by Dr. Roux of Paris.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1896 Oct 22, Charles Glenn King,
biochemist, was born. He later discovered vitamin C.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1897 Aug 10, The active ingredient
of aspirin was invented by a German worker for Bayer.
(PBS, 8/10/97)
1898 Jun 2, Dr. Paul-Louis Simond
discovered the connections between rats, fleas and humans in the
transmittance of the Plague in Bombay, India.
(NG, 5/88, p.678)
1898 Sep 24, Howard W Florey,
pathologist, was born in Australia. He purified penicillin and won a
Nobel Prize 1945.
(MC, 9/24/01)
1898-1913 Heroin was marketed as a cough medicine.
(NG, 10/04, Geog.)
1899 Feb 27, Charles H. Best,
physiologist, co-discoverer of Insulin, was born in Maine.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1899 Mar 6, Aspirin was patented
following Felix Hoffman’s discoveries about the properties of
acetylsalicylic acid. Duisberg’s Bayer team released a drug they named
aspirin. In 2004 Diarmuid Jeffreys authored “Aspirin: The Remarkable
Story of a Wonder Drug.”
(HN, 3/6/01)(SSFC, 10/24/04, p.M6)
1899 Apr 11, Percy L. Julian,
chemist (drugs for treatment of arthritis), was born.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1899 Aug 23, Albert Claude
(d.1983), biologist, was born in Belgium. He never graduated from high
school and won the 1974 Nobel for his work on the sub-structure of the
cell.
(www.belgium.be)
1899 Dec, Honolulu’s chief
microbiologist reported that plague had arrived in Hawaii. The
steamship Nippon Maru had docked there in the summer with a corpse that
carried plague.
(SSFC, 12/19/04, p.E2)
1899 The vibrator was introduced
as a home medical appliance. By 1904 it appeared in magazine
advertisements. In 1918 a Sears Roebuck catalog described a $5.95
portable model.
(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.F6)
1900 Jun 26, A commission that
included Dr. Walter Reed began the fight against the deadly disease
yellow fever. Walter Reed (1851-1902), U.S. Army doctor, went to Cuba
and verified that yellow fever was caused by a mosquito.
(HN, 9/13/98)(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.B1)(AP, 6/26/97)
1901 May 1901, Walter Reed (49)
led the Yellow Fever Commission, a 4-man team, to Cuba to search for
the cause of the disease. 200 American soldiers had died from the
disease over the previous 18 months. Aristides Agramonte, pathologist,
James Carroll, bacteriologist, and Jesse W. Lazear, entomologist, were
the other team members. Cuban Dr. Carlos Finlay believed that yellow
fever was spread by mosquitoes.
(ON, 10/01, p.7)
1901 Aug 25, Clara Maass (25),
army nurse, sacrificed her life to prove that the mosquito carries
yellow fever.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1901 Aug 27, In Havana, Cuba, U.S.
Army physician James Carroll allowed an infected mosquito to feed on
him in an attempt to isolate the means of transmission of yellow fever.
Days later, Carroll developed a severe case of yellow fever, helping
his colleague, Army Walter Reed, prove that mosquitoes can transmit the
sometimes deadly disease.
(MC, 8/27/02)(ON, 10/01, p.8)
1901 Aug, Major Walter Reed, M.D.,
visited Dr. Carlos Finlay in Havana, who informed him that the mosquito
Culex fasciatus was the most likely transmitter of yellow fever.
(ON, 10/01, p.7)
1902 Feb 9, Doctor Doyen of Paris,
performed a successful operation on Siamese twins from the Barnum and
Bailey Circus.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1902 Feb 19, Smallpox vaccination
became obligatory in France.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1902 Feb 21, Dr. Harvey Cushing,
US brain surgeon, performed his 1st brain operation.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1902 Feb, Dr. Walter Reed
published his results on yellow fever. He concluded that: "The spread
of yellow fever can be most effectually controlled by measures directed
to the destruction of mosquitoes and the protection of the sick against
the bites of these insects."
(ON, 10/01, p.8)
1902 Ronald Ross (1857-1932), an
English physician, won the Nobel Prize for his work on malaria. His
story is part of the 1997 novel "The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of
Fevers, Delirium and Discovery" by Amitav Ghosh. In 2003 Fiammetta
Rocco authored "The Miraculous Fever Tree: Malaria and the Quest for a
Cure That Changed the World."
(WUD, 1994, p.1245)(SFEC,10/26/97, BR p.8)(WSJ,
8/26/03, p.D5)
1903 Mar 3, North Carolina became
the 1st state requiring registration of nurses.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1903 Apr 9, Gregory Pincus,
inventor of the birth control pill, was born.
(MC, 4/9/02)
1903 Apr 14, Dr. Harry Plotz in
NYC discovered a vaccine against typhoid.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1903 May 24, Arthur Vineberg,
Canadian heart surgeon, was born.
(HN, 5/24/01)
1904 Jan 19, James Winston Watts,
surgical developer (Frontal Lobotomy), was born.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1904 Jun 6, The National
Tuberculosis Association was organized in Atlantic City, NJ.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1906 Nov, Alois Alzheimer, German
psychiatrist, first described the symptoms of a progressive
neurodegenerative disease that caused memory loss, dementia and
ultimately death. This was based on his patient, Auguste D (56). She
was the first person to have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's
disease.
(WSJ, 5/13/97, p.B1)(Econ, 7/29/06, p.72)
1906 The first cornea transplant
was performed in Austria by Dr. Eduard Zirm.
(www.lionseyebank.org/facts.htm)
1907 Mar 9, Indiana enacted the
nation’s 1st involuntary sterilization law based on eugenics.
(SSFC, 2/4/01, p.A3)(NH, 7/02, p.12)(MC, 3/9/02)
1908 Mar 19, Maryland banned
Christian Scientists from practicing medicine unless they had a medical
diploma.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1909 Mar 1, 1st US university
school of nursing established, University of Minnesota.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1909 California became the 3rd
state to enact eugenics-related laws.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.D1)
1910 Feb 19, Mary Mallon (aka
Typhoid Mary) was released from 4 years of quarantine on New York’s
North Brother Island. In 1914 she caused a typhus outbreak in the
Sloane Maternity Hospital. She was again arrested and returned to North
Brother Island where she died Nov 11, 1938.
(ON, 7/01, p.12)
1910 Jun 22, German bacteriologist
Paul Ehrlich announced a definitive cure for syphilis.
(AP, 6/22/01)
1910 John D. Rockefeller gave $1
million for the creation of the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission to
coordinate activity for the cure and prevention of hookworm, which
infected some 40% of school-age southern children.
(WSJ, 1/16/03, p.A2)
1911 Mar 12, Dr. Fletcher of
Rockefeller Institute discovered the cause of infantile paralysis.
(HN, 3/12/98)
1911 Mar 16, Josef Mengele, MD,
PhD, SS ("The Angel of Death at Auschwitz"), was born in Gunzburg,
Germany.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1912 Feb 10, Dr. Joseph Lister,
founder of sterile technique in surgical practice, died at age 85. In
1917 Sir Rickman John Godlee authored "Lord Lister."
(ON, 7/00, p.9)
1912 Jul 15, British National
Health Insurance Act went into effect.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1913 The US Virus Serum Toxin Act
gave the USDA authority to ensure that veterinary diagnostic kits are
safe and accurate.
(WSJ, 3/904, p.A8)
1913 Bela Schick devised the
"Schick test," which had a dramatic effect on the incidence of
diphtheria. The skin test determined a patient’s susceptibility to
diphtheria. Mass surveys followed by immunization of Schick-positive
children with inactive toxin resulted in a drastic decrease in the
incidence of the disease.
(HNQ, 6/8/99)
1914 Mar 27, 1st successful blood
transfusion took place in Brussels.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1914 Oct 28, Jonas Salk, US
physician and virologist, was born in NYC. He developed the first safe
and effective vaccine against polio.
(HN, 10/28/98)(AH, 10/04, p.15)
1915 Dec 19, Alvis Alzheimer (51),
German neurologist (Alzheimer Disease), died.
(www.ibro.info/Pub_Main_Display.asp?Main_ID=34)
1915 Dr. Harry Heiselden of
Chicago was dubbed the "Black Stork" for withholding treatment from
defective newborns. The story is told by Martin S. Pernick in his 1996
work "The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Babies in
American medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915."
(MT, 6/96, p.13)
1918 Mar, A flu epidemic began at
Fort Riley, Kansas, where 48 men died. It was carried by recruits to
Europe where it mutated and returned with a vengeance. [see May, 1918]
The Spanish flu was later found to have been caused by a genetic fusion
of pig and human viruses. In 1997 Dr. Johan Hultin recovered tissue in
Brevig Mission, Alaska, with frozen virus and submitted it for gene
sequencing. In 2004 John M. Barry authored "The Great Influenza: The
Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History."
(WSJ, 2/9/98, p.A16)(HNPD, 7/21/98)(SFC, 2/26/01,
p.A9)(WSJ, 9/7/01, p.A1)(SFCM, 2/17/02, p.8)(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.M1)
1918 Dr. Paul Popenoe co-authored
"Applied Eugenics."
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.D1)
1918 The Bailey Radium
Laboratories, Inc., of East Orange, New Jersey, began manufacturing
Radithor. It was advertised as "A Cure for the Living Dead" as well as
"Perpetual Sunshine." It consisted of triple distilled water containing
at a minimum 1 microcurie (37 kBq) each of the radium 226 and 228
isotopes. The FTC issued a cease and desist order against the
manufacture in 1931.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor)(AH, 10/07,
p.37)
1920 Aug 22, Denton Cooley, heart
surgeon (1st artificial heart implant), was born in Houston.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1920 Rural Canadian physician Dr.
Frederick G. Banting first conceived the idea of extracting insulin
from the pancreas. It took him and 3 others 8 months to develop the
process.
(HNPD, 1/23/99)(SFC, 7/1/00, p.B5)
1920-1950 Fore people of Papua New Guinea were
devastated by an epidemic of kuru, a brain-destroying disease caused by
abnormal proteins called prions.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.A6)
1921 Jan 21, Barney Clark, the 1st
person to receive a permanent artificial heart, was born.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1921 May 17, Toronto's Dr. Banting
(1891-1941) and graduate student Charles Best (1899-1978) began
research at the Univ. of Toronto that led to their discovery of
insulin. [see Jul 27] In 1982 Michael Bliss authored “The Discovery of
Insulin.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Banting)(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.W8)
1921 Mar 17, Dr Marie Stopes
opened Britain's 1st birth control clinic in London.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1921 Jul 27, Canadians Sir
Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolated insulin at the University
of Toronto.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1922 Jan 11, Insulin, then called
isletin, was 1st used to treat diabetes on Leonard Thompson (14) of
Canada. [see Jan 23]
(www.insulinfreetimes.org/00_spring/giants.htm)
1922 Jan 23, The first successful
test on a human patient with diabetes occurred when a 2nd dose of
insulin was administered to dangerously ill Leonard Thompson (14).
Following the birth of an idea and nine months of experimentation, and
through the combined efforts of four men at the University of Toronto,
Canada, insulin for the treatment of diabetes was first discovered and
later purified for human use. Rural Canadian physician Dr. F.G. Banting
first conceived the idea of extracting insulin from the pancreas in
1920. He and his assistant C.H. Best prepared pancreatic extracts to
prolong the lives of diabetic dogs with advice and laboratory aid from
Professor J.J.R. Macleod. The crude insulin extract was purified for
human testing by Dr. J.B. Collip. Insulin, now made from cattle
pancreases, lifted the death sentence for diabetes sufferers around the
world.
(HNPD,
1/23/99)(www.insulinfreetimes.org/00_spring/giants.htm)
1922 Nov 15, It was announced that
Dr. Alexis Carrel discovered white corpuscles.
(HN, 11/15/00)
1923 Feb 9, Norman E. Shumway,
pioneer cardiac transplant surgeon, was born in Mich.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1923 Apr 7, The 1st brain tumor
operation under local anesthetic was performed at Beth Israel Hospital
in NYC by Dr K. Winfield Ney.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1923 Apr 8, Death toll from plague
reached 1,000 in India.
(HN, 4/8/98)
1923 Apr 15, Insulin became
generally available for diabetics.
(HN, 4/15/98)
1926 The American Eugenics Society
was founded and supported the position that US upper classes were
justified in their positions of wealth and power because of their
genetic superiority.
(V.D.-H.K.p.399)
1926 The US Rockefeller Foundation
awarded $250,000 toward the creation of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
for Psychiatry in Germany.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.D6)
1927 May, Grace Fryer (1893-1933)
and 4 other former dial painters filed suit in the New Jersey Supreme
Court against U.S. Radium for medical expenses and pain. They were
dubbed the “Radium Girls” and their case was championed by journalist
Walter Lippman. The case was settled out of court in 2008.
(AH, 10/07, p.34)
1927 Jul 29, Bellevue Hospital in
NY installed the 1st iron lung.
(MC, 7/29/02)
1929 Feb 19, A medical diathermy
machine was 1st used in Schenectady, NY.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1929 Dec 21, The 1st US group
hospital insurance plan was offered in Dallas, Tx.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1930 Feb 25, Doctors from around
the nation arrived in SF to study the Coffey-Humber experimental
treatment for cancer.
(SFC, 2/25/05, p.F4)
1930 May 20, University of
California dedicated $1,500 to research on the prevention and cure of
athlete's foot.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1930 Otto Warburg (1883-1970),
German physiologist and medical doctor, discovered that cancer cells
often rely on glycolysis. This came to be called the Warburg effect.
(Econ, 1/20/07,
p.89)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Heinrich_Warburg)
1931 Feb 21, Alka Seltzer was
introduced. [see Dec 31]
(MC, 2/21/02)
1931 Aug 23, Hamilton O. Smith,
molecular biologist, was born in NYC. He is credited with helping ‘open
the door’ on genetic engineering.
(HN, 8/23/00)(
http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/timeline/1970_Smith.shtml)
1931 Dec 3, Miles Laboratories
introduced Alka Seltzer. [see Feb 21]
(SFEC, 8/28/98, Z1 p.8)(MC, 12/3/01)
1932 Apr 4, Vitamin C was 1st
isolated by C.C. King at the Univ. of Pittsburgh.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1932 The US government began its
40-year Tuskegee Syphilis Study on 623 black men in rural Macon County,
Ala. It ended in 1972 after Health Service investigator Peter Buxton
exposed the study's unethical procedures.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A27)
1933 Jun 10, Col. Eugene
Northington (53) of the US Army Medical Corps died in SF from X-ray
cancers. He had dedicated his life to pioneering work studying X-rays.
(SSFC, 6/8/08, DB p.58)
1933 Dec 21, Dried human blood
serum was 1st prepared at the Univ. of Pennsylvania.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1934 Jun 3, Dr. Frederick Banting,
co-discoverer of insulin, was knighted.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1934 Jul 1, The 1st x-ray photo of
entire body was made in Rochester, NY.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1935 Feb 13, 1st US surgical
operation for relief of angina pectoris took place in Cleveland.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1935 The US Public health Service
received a study of asbestos health hazards prepared by the
Metropolitan Live Insurance Co. The government began using asbestos
extensively on navy ships during WW II. Workers began to file suits in
the 1970s. In 2003 some 300,000 asbestos suits were pending.
(WSJ, 11/11/03, p.A4)
1935 Scientists at Cornell Univ.
reported that restricting calories had an antiaging effect in rodents.
(WSJ, 10/30/06, p.A11)
1936 Jul 16, 1st x-ray photo of
arterial circulation was made in Rochester, NY.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1936 Dec 24, The 1st radioactive
isotope medicine was administered in Berkeley, Ca.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1936 Portuguese neurologist
Antonio Egas Moniz (1874-1955) performed the first prefrontal brain
lobotomy. It was later rejected as a valid medical technique. Moniz won
the Nobel Prize in 1949 for his development of prefrontal leucotomy
(lobotomy).
(www.britannica.com/nobel/micro/186_81.html)
1936 Psychiatrist Walter Freeman
and his partner Jerry Watts became the first American doctors to
perform a prefrontal lobotomy. In 1960 Freeman performed a lobotomy on
Howard Dully (12), after Dully’s stepmother complained of Howard’s
hyperactivity. In 2007 Howard Dully and Charles Fleming authored “My
Lobotomy.”
(SFC, 9/10/07, p.C5)
1937 Mar 15, The 1st state
contraceptive clinic opened in Raleigh, NC.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1937 Jul 23, Isolation of
pituitary hormone was announced by Yale University.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1938 Mar 18, NY 1st required
serological blood tests of pregnant women.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1938 Apr 10, NY made syphilis
testing mandatory for a marriage license.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1938 May 12, Sandoz Labs
manufactured LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). [see Apr 19, 1943]
(MC, 5/12/02)
1939 May 26, Charles H. Mayo (74),
US surgeon, co-founder (Mayo Clinic), died.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1941 Prof. William Reeves
(1916-2004) and William M. Hammon isolated the 2 viruses that caused
western equine and St. Louis encephalitis and proved that they were
carried by a mosquito named Culex tarsalis.
(SFC, 9/21/04, p.B7)
1942 Sep 11, Wheeler Bryson Lipes
(1921-2005), a US Navy pharmacist's mate, saved the life of sailor
Darrell Dean Rector (19) by operating, following a medical manual, in
the officer’s mess aboard the Seadragon below the surface of the South
China Sea. George Weller (d.2002), war correspondent, won the Pulitzer
in 1943 for his account of the operation. The films “Destination Tokyo”
(1943) and “Run Silent, Run Deep” (1958) memorialized the surgery.
(AP, 12/20/02)(SFC, 4/19/05, p.B5)
1943 Apr 19, Swiss chemist Albert
Hoffman felt the first rush of LSD while riding his bicycle.
(SFC, 5/9/96, p.A-1)
1943 US psychiatrist Leo Kanner
1st described a autism. Symptoms included a lack of interest in others.
(SSFC, 2/2/03, Par p.4)
1943 Willem Kolff invented the 1st
dialysis machine in Holland.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.A2)
1944 May 8, The first "eye bank"
was established, in New York City.
(AP, 5/8/97)
1944 Nov 29, Johns Hopkins
hospital performed the 1st open heart surgery. A surgical fix for a
fetal heart defect, tetralogy of Fallot or blue baby syndrome, was
first performed at Johns Hopkins by surgeon Alfred Blalock and Vivien
Thomas, a black assistant who perfected the procedure. Thomas authored
an autobiography in 1985.
(BS, 5/12/01, p.1A)(MC, 11/29/01)
1944 Hans Asperger, Austrian
pediatrician 1st described a syndrome (Asperger’s syndrome) that
related to autism, which was 1st described in 1943 by psychiatrist Leo
Kanner. Symptoms included problems with social interaction.
(SSFC, 2/2/03, Par p.4)
1944-1974 Thousands of people in the US were subject
to government experiments. The Defense Dept. and the Atomic Energy
Commission conducted hundreds of secret experiments. During the 1940s
11 people were subjected to injections of plutonium and one to uranium.
In 1996 the government agreed to pay $4.8 million for the radiation
experiment. In 1999 Eileen Welsome published "The Plutonium Files:
America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War."
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.A3)(SFEC, 10/31/99, BR p.3)(SSFC,
10/28/01, p.A5)
1945 Kaiser established a health
maintenance organization for its workers.
(Econ, 7/17/04, Survey p.13)
1946 May 11, Robert Jarvik,
physician: inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart, was born in
Michigan.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1946 Jul 14, Dr. Benjamin Spock's
"Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" was published.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1947 Aug 19, J. Arens and D. van
Dorpen synthesized vitamin A.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1947 Psychologist Theodore Sarbin
suggested to a medical conference that medicine would benefit if the
doctor could be replaced by a machine programmed to make judgments
about the best treatment for a patient. He suggested using a Hollerith
machine, an IBM computer of this time.
(Econ, 3/17/07,
p.85)(www.eatg.org/news/newsitem.php?id=1308)
1947 A German neurologist coined
the term prosopagnosia (face blindness), to describe the condition of a
young man who, due to a bullet wound to the head, had lost his ability
to recognize people.
(WSJ, 1/5/07, p.A1)
1948 Apr 7, The World Health
Organization was founded by the UN. [see Sep 1, 1948]
(AP, 4/7/97)(MC, 4/7/02)
1948 Sep 1, The UN World Health
Organization formed. [see Apr 7, 1948]
(MC, 9/1/02)
1948 The US government launched a
heart study in Framingham, Mass., amid an epidemic of heart disease, to
compile reams of health data on a group of people in their 30s, 40s and
50s, and hope that over time links would emerge between their
lifestyles and heart health. Discoveries by the long term study
included: Cigarette smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol
and diabetes raise the risk of heart disease, and physical exercise
lowers the risk.
(AP, 11/30/07)
1949 Feb 1, Joseph J. Kleiner was
awarded a patent for the Becton Dickinson Vacutainer Tube, a stoppered
glass tube that maintained a vacuum for drawing blood. Kleiner had
joined BD as a consultant in 1943.
(Echo, 6/2009, p.3)(www.bd.com/aboutbd/history/)
1949 Apr 20, Scientists at the
Mayo Clinic announced they'd succeeded in synthesizing a hormone found
to be useful in treating rheumatoid arthritis; the substance was named
"cortisone."
(AP, 4/20/99)
1949 Earl Bakken (b.1924) founded
Medtronic in Minneapolis, Minn.
(Econ, 3/14/09, SR
p.17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Bakken)
1949 Portuguese neurologist
Antonio Egas Moniz (1874-1955) won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his
pioneering work in prefrontal brain lobotomy. It was later rejected as
a valid medical technique.
(SFEC,11/2/97, Z1 p.6)(WUD, 1994, p.925)(SFC,
10/8/01, p.A17)
1949 Dr. Robert Bruce (d.2004)
analyzed changes in circulatory and respiratory functions of normal
adults during a treadmill test. In the early 1960s he developed the
"Bruce Protocol," a treadmill test to reveal problems hidden when the
heart is at rest.
(SFC, 2/16/04, p.A1)
1950 Apr 1, Charles R. Drew (45),
surgeon, developer of blood bank concept, died.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1950 Jun 17, Surgeon Richard
Lawler performed the first kidney transplant operation in Chicago.
(HN, 6/17/01)
1950 Ernst Grafenberg, a German
gynecologist, identified a small area behind the pubic bone of women,
the G-spot, that he said became an erogenous zone when stimulated. In
2005 Dr. David Matlock of Los Angeles invented and trademarked the
G-shot, a collagen injection to the G-spot, promoted to amplify sexual
arousal.
(SSFC, 6/3/07, p.F1)
1950s A team of Stanford students
including Karl L. Brown (d.2002), under the direction of Edward Ginzton
and Henry S. Kaplan, created the 1st small linear accelerator dedicated
to medicine.
(SFC, 9/12/02, p.A26)
1951 Oct 15, Dr. Carl Djerassi
(27), Prof. of chemistry at Stanford Univ., developed the birth control
pill in Mexico City while working for Palo Alto based Syntex Corp. He
synthesized norethindrone, a steroid oral contraceptive. In 2001 Carl
Djerassi authored "This Man’s Pill: Reflections on the 50th Birthday of
the Pill." Djerassi synthesized a key hormone in the pill in Mexico
City in 1951. Serle won FDA ok to market the pill May 11, 1960.
(SJSVB, 4/8/96, p.8)(SSFC, 10/14/01, Par p.13)(SSFC,
10/21/01, p.R6)
1951 Henrietta Lacks, a Baltimore
woman, died of cancer. Cells from her body, later known as HeLa
cells, were cultivated for research. In 1974 Dr. Nelson-Rees (d.2009 at
80), a UC Berkeley geneticist, reported that the HeLa cells had
contaminated other cell cultures in laboratories around the world. In
1986 Michael Gold authored “A Conspiracy of Cells,” a chronicle of the
Nelson-Rees study.
(SFC, 1/28/09, p.B10)
1952 Mar 18, The 1st plastic lens
for cataract patients was fitted in Phila.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1952 Jul 3, Dr. Forest Dewey
Dodrill (1902-1997) of Wayne State Univ. used a mechanical heart pump
to operate on a patient at Detroit’s Harper Hospital. This was regarded
as the world’s first successful use of a mechanical pump in open-heart
surgery.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodrill-GMR)
1952 Sep 2, Dr. Floyd J. Lewis 1st
used a deep freeze technique in heart surgery.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1952 Oct 11, Researchers at UC
Berkeley announced the discovery of a new polio vaccine that could be
manufactured in large quantities. It had not yet been tested on humans.
(SFC, 10/11/02, p.E7)
1952 Dec 2, 1st human birth
televised to public was on KOA-TV Denver, Colo.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1952 A rare type of genetic
pancreatitis was diagnosed for the first time. In 1996 it was later
found to be caused by a specific gene.
(WSJ, 10/2/96, p.B5)
1952 Crigler-Najjar syndrome was
named for two doctors who identified it this year. Patients began
living longer in the 1970s when doctors realized that the wavelength
and energy of blue light changes the nature of the bilirubin, allowing
it to be excreted from the body. In 2007 there were about 110 known
cases of Crigler's worldwide, including about 35 in the US. About 20
are among the Amish and Mennonite in Pennsylvania.
(AP, 5/19/07)
1953 Feb 28, Francis Crick
(d.2004) and James Watson discovered the structure of DNA-molecule.
Watson and Crick managed to describe the structure of DNA as a double
helix consisting of two long strings coiled around one another. About
100,000 genes, short sections of DNA, tell the cells how to build
proteins, the building blocks of life. Rosalind Franklin made the 1st
x-ray image that revealed the double helix structure of DNA. In 2002
Brenda Maddox authored "Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA." In
2003 Watson co-authored "DNA: The Secret of Life." [see Sep 20,
Apr 25, 1953]
(V.D.-H.K.p.330)(TL, 1988, p.114)(Wired, 1/97,
p.161)(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.M2)(WSJ, 3/28/03, p.W8) (AP, 2/28/04)
1953 Mar 11, F.M. Adams became the
1st US commissioned woman army doctor.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1953 Apr 25, The magazine Nature
published an article by biologists Francis Crick and James Watson,
describing the "double helix" of DNA.
(HN, 4/25/01)
1953 Sep 17, The 1st successful
separation of Siamese twins was performed.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1953 Nov 11, The Polio virus was
identified and photographed for the first time in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
(HN, 11/11/98)
1953 Howard Hughes launched the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in Chevy Chase, Md. The sale of
Hughes Aircraft to General Motors in 1985 added $5 billion to the
coffers of the institute.
(WSJ, 9/22/06, p.B1)
1954 Feb 23, The first mass
inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began in
Pittsburgh. Jonas Salk created the Salk vaccine against polio. It used
a killed virus to induce immunization. Poliomyelitis is a viral attack
of the central nervous system and can cause paralysis and death by
asphyxiation. [see Apr 26] In 2005 David M. Oshinsky authored
“Polio: An American Story – The Crusade That Mobilized the Nation
Against the 20th Century’s Most Feared Disease.”
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A10)(HN, 2/23/98)(AP,
2/23/98)(Econ, 6/18/05, p.79)
1954 Apr 26, Nationwide test of
Salk anti-polio vaccine began. [see Feb 23]
(MC, 4/26/02)
1954 Dec 23, Dr. Joseph Murray led
a team of surgeons at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston in the 1st
successful organ transplant. Ronald Herrick donated a kidney to his
twin brother, Richard. In 1990 Dr. Murray was warded a Nobel Prize for
his work.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A14)(SFC, 12/3/01, p.A17)(SSFC,
12/19/04, Par p.7)
1954 Louis Lasagna (d.2003 at 80),
clinical pharmacologist, wrote his paper "A Study of the Placebo
Response."
(SFC, 8/11/03, p.A17)
1954 The American Cancer Society
and the British Medical Research Council, in independent reports, found
higher death rates among smokers than nonsmokers.
(HNQ, 11/10/98)
1954 Dr. George Moore and
colleagues at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute at Buffalo, NY,
published a pioneering study of male patients with cancer of the mouth
showing that a majority of them had been tobacco chewers for
significant periods of time.
(SFC, 6/16/08, p.B3)
1955 Mar 22, Linda Stout became
the first person at Mayo Clinic, and the second person in the world, to
have open-heart surgery with the aid of a heart-lung bypass machine.
(www.mayoclinic.org/history/)
1955 Apr 12, The Salk Vaccine was
declared safe and effective. Salk vaccine shots for polio began to be
given out to school kids. The March of Dimes accomplished its mission
within 20 years. Research led by Dr. Jonas Salk and supported by funds
(those marching little dimes) raised annually by thousands of
volunteers, resulted in the announcement that the Salk polio vaccine
was "safe, potent and effective." The foundation also supported the
research that led to the Sabin oral vaccine, another safe, effective
polio preventative discovered by Dr. Albert B. Sabin. Following the
victory over infantile paralysis, the March of Dimes turned its
attention to conquering the largest killer and crippler of children:
the mental and physical problems that are present at birth. Some 100
million people were given the vaccine during the 1950s and 1960s which
was later found to be contaminated with the SV40 simian virus, a
possible carcinogen.
(AP, 4/12/97)(440 Int'l, 1/3/99)(SSFC, 7/15/01,
p.A16,17)
1955 Apr 27, The US government
suspended the use of all Salk vaccine manufactured by Cutter
Laboratories in Berkeley, Ca., pending the investigation of 7-14 cases
among children inoculated with the company’s vaccine.
(SFC, 4/22/05, p.F3)
1955 Nov 2, Clarton-Schwerdt and
Schaffer discovered the polio virus.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1955 Nov 3, The 1st crystallized
virus was announced.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1955 Frederick Sanger sequenced
the 1st protein, human insulin. He later developed methods for
sequencing DNA.
(WSJ, 4/5/01, p.B1)
1956 Mar 26, Medic Alert
Foundation formed.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1956 Oct 6, Dr. Albert Sabin
discovered oral polio vaccine. Sabin developed an oral vaccine against
polio. It began to be used in 1961 and by 1965 was widely used.
(TOH, 1982, p.1956)(SFC, 6/18/99, p.A40)(MC, 10/6/01)
1956 Dr. Arthur Guyton (d.2003 at
83) of the Univ. of Mississippi authored his "Textbook of Physiology."
(SFC, 4/16/03, p.A20)
1956 Edwina Froehlich (1915-2008)
co-founded the La Leche League in Franklin Park, a suburb of Chicago,
to promote the breast-feeding of babies.
(WSJ, 6/14/08, p.A7)
1956 A Univ. of Nebraska
researcher proposed that “free radicals” caused aging, indicating that
antioxidants may slow the process.
(WSJ, 10/30/06, p.A11)
1956-1961 The CIA engaged in a secret program called
MK-ULTRA that included dosing hundreds of unsuspecting subjects with
LSD and other hallucinogens.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A15)(SSFC, 10/28/01, p.A5)
1957 Feb, Basil Hirschowitz
(b.1925), South Africa born gastroenterologist, introduced the first
prototype “fiberscope.” He had begun work using glass fibers to
transmit light in 1954 while at the Univ. of Michigan. Fiber optics
later revolutionized telecommunications and surgery.
(www.case.edu/artsci/dittrick/site2/museum/artifacts/group-d/fiberscope.htm)(Econ,
10/18/08, p.92)
1957 Jul 12, The U.S. surgeon
general, Leroy E. Burney (d.1998 at 91), reported that there is a
direct link between smoking and lung cancer. Dr. John Altshuler
(1931-2004) co-researched the "Joint Report of Study Group on Smoking
and Health," published by the US Public Health Service.
(HN, 7/12/98)(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A17)(SFC, 2/7/04, p.A20)
1957 Dr. Hilary Koprowski of the
Wistar Institute in Philadelphia developed an oral polio vaccine and
tested it in Africa (Congo). The Wister polio vaccine was given to some
300,000 people in the Belgian Congo from 1957-1960. A later theory held
that reuse of needles during the immunization program caused AIDS via
“serial passage” that transformed the SIV virus into HIV. In 1999
Edward Hooper authored “The River,” a detailed hypothesis for the
origin of AIDS in Africa. Hooper suspected that the Wister polio
vaccine, produced from monkey kidney cells, contained SIV virus. In
2000 a computerized study indicated that the AIDS virus was introduced
to humans about 1930.
(SFC, 2/2/00, p.A19)(SFC, 1/15/01, p.A11)(SFC,
4/13/05, p.A5)(www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/gen-info/pandemics.htm)
1958 Oct 8, Dr. Ake Senning
installed the 1st pacemaker in Stockholm. Arne Larsson (43) received
the pacemaker, which was built Dr. Rune Elmqvist.
(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ p.25)
1958 Jean Dausset (1916-2009),
French immunologist, discovered the human leukocyte antigen (HLA)
tissue system allowed doctors to verify compatibility between donor and
receiver for an organ transplant.
(AP, 6/24/09)
1959 Apr 27, Gordon Armstrong,
inventor of the baby incubator, died.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1959 Dr. Norman E. Shumway
(1923-2006) and Dr. Richard Lower of Stanford Univ. made the 1st
successful transplant of a dog’s heart.
(SFC, 2/11/06, p.B5)
1959 Researchers in 1998 found the
HIV virus of AIDS in a 1959 blood specimen (ZR59) from a Bantu man who
died in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (later Kinshasa, Congo). This
became the oldest known case and researchers believed that incidents
could go back to the 1940s.
(SFC, 2/4/98,
p.A5)(www.aidsorigins.com/content/view/165/2/)
1960 Mar 9, In Seattle, Wa., Clyde
Shields (39), was implanted with the 1st kidney dialysis shunt
developed by Dr. Belding H. Scribner (d.2003) and engineer Wayne
Quinton. The process was 1st developed in the 1940s by Dr. Willem J.
Kolff, but had been restricted to operating rooms. Shields lived for 11
more years.
(SFC, 6/21/03, p.A17)
1960 May 9, The US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) approved the pill Enovid as safe for birth control
use. The pill was made by G.D. Searle and Company of Chicago. It was
commissioned by Margaret Sanger and funded by heiress Katharine
McCormick. In 2001 Carl Djerassi authored "This Man’s Pill: Reflections
on the 50th Birthday of the Pill." Djerassi synthesized a key hormone
in the pill in Mexico City in 1951.
(SSFC, 10/21/01, p.R6)(AP, 5/9/00)
1960 Sep 21, Dr. Albert Starr
performed the first successful heart valve replacement in a human. He
and engineer Lowell Edwards had developed the artificial heart valve in
the 1950s.
(SSFC, 9/16/07,
p.A2)(http://icvts.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/6/4/570)
1961 Jan 26, Janet G. Travell
became the 1st woman personal physician to the US President (JFK).
(MC, 1/26/02)
1962 Jan 28, Elliot Joslin
(b.1869), American pioneering diabetes researcher, died. He had argued
that controlling the level of glucose in a person’s bloodstream was the
key to managing type 2 diabetes.
(www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1848826&pageindex=1)
1962 Jun 28, Thalidomide was
banned in Netherlands.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1962 Dr. Robert Good (d.2003 at
81) identified the thymus gland as a primary source for the body's
defense mechanisms.
(SFC, 6/19/03, p.A1)
1962-1973 In 2001 the Pentagon began to publicly
release details on the existence of Project SHAD and its umbrella
program, Project 112, which involved distribution of nonlethal bacteria
and occasionally real chemical or biological weapons. In 2008 the US
Defense Department said 6,440 service members took part in 50 tests
under Project 112 during this period, including open-air tests above a
half-dozen US states. Defense officials essentially closed the books on
Project 112 in 2003.
(AP, 6/12/08)
1963 Apr 18, Dr. James Campbell
performed the 1st human nerve transplant.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1963 Drs. Vincent J. Freda (d.2003
at 75) and John G. Gorman of Columbia Univ. discovered that if an
Rh-negative woman was given an injection of a vaccine called Rhogam,
her body would not attack her fetus' blood cells. Up to this time the
15% of women in birth with Rh-negative blood and a Rh-positive father
faced the potentially fatal hemolytic disease.
(SSFC, 5/18/03, p.A29)
1963 Dr. Michael DeBakey came out
with his interthoracic pump, a device to pump blood in lieu of the
heart. De Bakey made history this year by installing an artificial pump
to assist a patient's damaged heart.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, Z1
p.2)(www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/coo0pro-1)
1963 The first liver transplant
was performed by a surgical team led by Dr. Thomas Starzl of Denver,
Colorado.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liver_transplantation)
1964 Jan 11, U.S. Surgeon General
Luther Terry issued the first major government report saying smoking
may be hazardous to one's health. The US surgeon-general announced that
smoking contributes substantially to mortality.
(TMC, 1994, p.1964)(WSJ, 4/12/96, p.A-12)(AP,
1/11/98)(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.D12)y
1964 Jan 31, A US report, "Smoking
& Health," connected smoking to lung cancer.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1965 Jul 27, Pres. Johnson signed
a bill requiring cigarette makers to print health warnings on all
cigarette packages about the effects of smoking.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1965 Doctors 1st used an argon
laser to repair a detached retina.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.28)
1965 Chinese military researchers
isolated artemisinin, a compound based on sweet wormwood, and found to
be very effective against malaria.
(SFC, 5/10/04, p.A5)(Econ, 11/20/04, p.81)
1965 Gertrude Hurler (b.1889),
Austrian pediatrician, died. In 1919 she described the autosomal
recessive disease (MPS) that results from deficiency of
alpha-l-iduronidase, which leads to severe mental retardation with a
typical "gargoyle" facial appearance (Hurler's Syndrome). Major Charles
H. Hunter, Canadian Army Medical Corps, 1st described it in 1917.
(WSJ, 7/8/03, p.A8)(www.medcyclopaedia)
1966 Jan 1, By law all US
cigarette packs began carrying the warning: "Caution! Cigarette smoking
may be hazardous to your health."
(www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1992/8/1992_8_72.shtml)
1966 Dr. Harry Martin Meyer
(d.2001 at 72) led a team the introduced the 1st rubella vaccine. A 2
year outbreak in 1964 affected some 20,000 American children.
(SFC, 9/7/01, p.D5)
1966 Researchers showed how
proteins are made from DNA instructions.
(WSJ, 4/5/01, p.B1)
1966 Andreas Rett, an Austrian
doctor, first describe the complex neurological disorder that came to
be called Rett’s syndrome. The cause was later found to be a mutation
in a gene called MeCP2.
(Econ, 10/21/06, p.90)
1966 In 2007 researchers said HIV
was brought to Haiti by an infected person from central Africa, and
then came to the United States in about 1969. The researchers think an
unknown single infected Haitian immigrant arrived in a large city like
Miami or New York, and the virus circulated for years, first in the US
population and then to other nations.
(AP, 10/30/07)
1967 Jun 15, Gov. Reagan signed
the Therapeutic Abortion Act, which permitted abortions in the first 20
weeks of pregnancy if a woman's life or health was threatened or the
pregnancy was the result of rape or incest.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)(AP, 6/15/07)
1967 Dec 3, Surgeons in Cape Town,
South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard, performed the first human
heart transplant at the Groote Shur Hospital. Louis Washkansky lived 18
days with the new heart. The first heart transplant operation in the
U.S. was on December 6, 1967, in New York City. Hamilton Naki (d.2005),
a black surgery technician, removed the heart from accident victim
Denise Darvall for the transplant.
(AP, 12/3/97)(HNQ, 1/9/99)(Econ, 6/11/05, p.84)
1967 Dec 6, Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz
(1918-2008) performed the first US human heart transplant on a baby in
Brooklyn, who died 6 hours later.
(SFC, 11/21/08, p.B6)
1967 Dec 14, DNA was created in a
test tube.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1967 Dec 21, Louis Washkansky (55)
died in South Africa 18 days after undergoing the 1st heart transplant.
(AP, 12/3/97)(HNQ, 1/9/99)
1967 The Becton Dickinson plant in
Holdredge, Nebraska, began manufacturing insulin syringes.
(BD Calendar, 7/97)
1967 The first successful heart
transplant was performed in South Africa.
(TMC, 1994, p.1967)
1967 The AMA unanimously adopted a
resolution asking syringe manufacturers to market designs that would
prevent reuse.
(SFC, 10/27/98, p.A5)
1967 Robert Mishell (1934-2008),
immunologist, discovered how to grow antibodies in a petri dish using
air with 7% oxygen rather than the usual 20%. This later led to the
discovery of T cells , B cells and other components of the immune
system.
(SFC, 4/5/08, p.B3)
1967 The World Health Organization
(WHO) launched a global plan to eradicate smallpox by extensive
vaccination. By 1980 the virus was extinct except for some lab
specimens.
(ON, 9/01, p.2)
1968 Jan 6, Dr. Norman E. Shumway
of Stanford performed the 1st US adult heart transplant. Mike Kasperak
(54) lived for 2 weeks before he died of massive bleeding from other
organs.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9067567)(SFC,
2/11/06, p.B5)
1968 Henry Barnett (d.2001 at 87),
founder of the Int’l. Study of Kidney Disease in Children, authored
"Pediatrics."
(SFC, 8/20/01, p.A15)
1968 Dr. Robert Good (d.2003 at
81) performed the 1st successful human bone marrow transplant.
(SFC, 6/19/03, p.A1)
1968 Milton Wexler (1909-2007),
Hollywood psychoanalyst, launched the Hereditary Disease Foundation,
after his wife, Leonore Wexler, got diagnosed with Huntington’s
disease. Scientists in 1983 found a genetic marker for Huntington’s
disease and in 1993 located the gene itself.
(SFC, 3/23/07, p.B9)
1969 Apr 4, In Houston, Texas, Dr.
Denton Cooley implanted the 1st temporary artificial heart.
(www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/health/27docs.html)
1969 Apr 22, The 1st human eye
transplant was performed.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1969 Sep 4, The US Food and Drug
Administration issued a report calling birth control pills safe,
despite a slight risk of fatal blood-clotting disorders linked to the
pills.
(AP, 9/4/99)
1969 Nov 22, The Isolation of a
single gene was announced by scientists at Harvard Univ.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1969 The medical volunteer
organization Interplast, specializing in reconstructive surgery, was
founded at Stanford by Dr. Donald Laub.
(SFEC, 2/8/98, Z1 p.1,4)(www.interplast.org/)
1969 The first hip replacement in
the US was performed at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
(SFC, 7/5/96, PM, p.5)
1969 Robert Byck (d.1999 at 66)
identified MSG, monosodium glutamate, as the cause of headaches for
some people who ate Chinese food with the additive. The psychiatrist
and brain researcher at Yale Medical School in 1979 gave Congress an
early warning that the United States faced an epidemic of smokable
cocaine,
(SFC, 8/24/99, p.A22)(http://tinyurl.com/a6bdpn)
1969-1992 Valium was the most prescribed medicine in
the US. Leo Sternbach of Roche Holding AG helped develop the drug.
(WSJ, 2/11/04, p.A1)
1970 Jun 2, Har Gobind Khorana
(1922-1993), Indian-American chemist at the Univ. of Wisconsin,
announced the synthesis of the 1st artificial gene.
(www.super70s.com/Super70s/Timeline/1970/)(www.answers.com/topic/har-gobind-khorana)
1970 Dec, The US Institute of
Medicine was formed as a component of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. John Hogness (1922-2007) served as its first president.
(http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/Board_on_Medicine.html)(SFC,
7/16/07, p.C6)
1970 Linus Pauling (1901-1994)
authored “Vitamin C and the Common Cold” in which he declared that
large doses of Vitamin C could ward off colds.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling)
1970 John H. Talbott authored "A
Biographical History of Medicine."
(ON, 10/01, p.8)
1970 The US Controlled Substance
Act classified marijuana, heroin and LSD as “schedule I,” drugs with no
accepted medical use.
(WSJ, 2/8/05, p.D7)
1970 The first radioactive
pacemaker was put into a patient in France.
(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ p.26)
1971 Dec 20, Ten French physicians
created a team that later became known as "Doctors Without Borders"
(Medecins Sans Frontreres) to help the people in the Nigerian region of
Biafra. They formed in frustration with the neutrality of the Int'l.
Committee of the Red Cross.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A17)(SFEC, 12/19/99, p.A14)
1971 Dec 23, Pres. Nixon signed
the National Cancer Act, an initiative that came to be known as the
“war on cancer.” Dr. David A. Wood (1905-1996) helped draft the
National Cancer Act.
(http://dtp.nci.nih.gov/timeline/noflash/milestones/M4_Nixon.htm)(WSJ,
5/6/98, p.A1)(Econ, 10/16/04, p.13)(SFC, 11/13/96, p.C3)
1971 Dr. Judah Folkman (1933-2008)
proposed that tumor growth might be prevented if a way could be found
to keep blood vessels from forming around them to supply nutrients and
oxygen. Proteins were later discovered that spurred angiogenesis and
antibodies were found to block them.
(SFC, 6/2/03, p.A11)(WSJ, 1/19/08, p.A10)
1972 Jul 25, US health officials
conceded that blacks were used as guinea pigs in the 40 year Tuskegee
Syphilis Study in Macon County, Ala. By this time 28 participants had
died of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, at least 40
wives had been infected and 19 children had contracted the disease at
birth [see 1932].
(www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jul/tuskegee/)(SSFC,
1/25/04, p.A27)
1972 Paola Timiras (1923-2008),
Italian-born UC Berkeley professor on aging, authored “Physiological
Basis of Aging and Geriatrics.” A 4th updated edition was published in
2007.
(SFC, 9/20/08,
p.B5)(http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/358/12/1312)
1972 UCSF Prof. Henry L. Lennard
(1923-1982) authored “Mystification and Drug Abuse.” He critiqued the
medical profession for being too eager to embrace drug treatments for
mental illness and for being too ready to classify interpersonal and
emotional difficulties as mental disorders.
(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.A25)
1972 A team under surgeon Harry
Buncke (1922-2008) performed the first toe-to-thumb transplant at San
Francisco’s Franklin Hospital, later called Ralph K. Davies Medical
Center. Buncke came to be called the father of microsurgery.
(SFC, 5/21/08,
p.B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Buncke)
1972 Routine vaccination of
children in the US for smallpox ceased.
(WSJ, 10/19/01, p.A9)
1972 Three scientists from the US
National Institutes of Health developed a formula to calculate a
patient’s bad cholesterol using easily measured numbers. The Friedewald
formula set LDL equal to total cholesterol minus HDL minus
(triglycerides/5).
(WSJ, 4/19/05, p.D4)
1972 The hospital ship S.S. Hope
sailed to Brazil to train doctors and nurses for a year under Project
Hope.
(SFC, 9/28/02, p.A17)
1973 Jan 17, The US Public Health
Service linked smoking to fetal and infant risks.
(HN, 1/17/99)
1973 Dr. Edward Ahrens Jr. was
elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Ahrens led work from
the 1950s that identified the opposite effects of saturated and
unsaturated fats on blood cholesterol.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B5)
1973 The first Magnetic Resonance
Image was published and the first study performed on a human took place
on July 3, 1977. Lawrence E. Crooks and Jerome Singer, professors at UC
in SF and Berkeley, invented Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
technology along with about 20 other univ. employees.
(SFC, 12/2/97,
p.A18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_Resonance_Imaging)
1973 Hans Gruneberg (1907-1982),
British geneticist, began paying attention to a bundle of nerve cells
in mammalian noses that came to be called the Gruneberg ganglion. In
2009 Swiss scientists said research had shown that the bundle in mice
was used to detect alarm pheromones in other mice.
(SSFC, 3/8/09, Par
p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Gr%C3%BCneberg)
1974 Victor Fuchs of Stanford
authored “Who Shall Live,” an examination of the American health care
system.
(Econ, 7/17/04, Survey p.9)
1974 Cesare Sirtori, a Milan heart
researcher, encountered a patient with a high cholesterol level. In
1979 Sirtori found that the patient carried a mutant gene,
apolipoprotein A-1, a crucial component of HDL involved in clearing LDL
from the body. This led to a new drug in 2003 that seemed to shrink
arterial blockages.
(WSJ, 11/5/03, p.B3)(SFC, 11/5/03, p.A15)
1975 Feb 26, The 1st televised
kidney transplant was shown on the Today Show.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1975 Sep 23, California’s Gov.
Jerry Brown signed the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA).
It imposed limits on attorney fees and capped jury awards in medical
malpractice suits for “noneconomic” damages to $250,000.
(SFC, 4/25/01, p.A7)(WSJ, 7/13/04,
p.D4)(http://tinyurl.com/m852rv)
1976 Jan, In SF Robert Swanson
(28), a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, first met with Herb Boyer, a
molecular biologist and co-discoverer of recombinant DNA. The 10 minute
appointment extended to a few hours and the 2 men proceeded to found
Genentech.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.B1)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(WSJ,
12/14/99, p.A22)
1976 May 28, Pres. Ford signed the
Medical Device Amendments which established a product approval process
overseen by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the authority
to regulate medical devices. Sales of silicone breast implants, already
on the market, were allowed to continue without proof of safety.
(WSJ, 4/9/96, p.B-1)(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A8)(WSJ,
4/13/05, p.A3)
1976 Sep 30, The US House of
Representatives passed the Hyde Amendment 207-167, with no exceptions
for health or life endangerment, even though a similar but weaker
measure had been voted down two years earlier. Henry Hyde (1924-2007),
freshman Congressman from Illinois, had sponsored the amendment to cut
federal funding for abortions by women on Medicaid.
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.32)(SFC, 11/30/07,
p.A6)(www.wpunj.edu/newpol/issue42/Fried42.htm)
1976 Oct 5, Researcher Alan
Dickinson warned the British Medical Research council that their human
growth hormone program was susceptible to contamination from infected
pituitary glands.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.A14)
1976 The deadly Ebola virus was
1st identified in western Sudan.
(SFC, 1/8/02, p.A6)
1976 The US passed the Medical
Device Amendments which established a product approval process overseen
by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the authority to
regulate medical devices. Sales of silicone breast implants, already on
the market, were allowed to continue without proof of safety.
(WSJ, 4/9/96, p.B-1)(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A8)(WSJ,
4/13/05, p.A3)
1976 Henry Hyde (1924-2007),
freshman Congressman from Illinois, sponsored an amendment to cut
federal funding for abortions by women on Medicaid.
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.32)(SFC, 11/30/07, p.A6)
1976 Positron Emission Tomography
(PET), a body scanning technology, first came on the market. Dr. Michel
Ter-Pogossian of St. Louis led a group that built the first successful
prototypes between 1972-1974. In 1998 PET technology was combined with
computed tomography (CT scans). PET/CT scanners hit the market in 2001.
(Econ, 6/10/06, Survey p.23)
1977 Jul 3, Raymond Damadian
produced the 1st image of a human chest using magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI). In 1970 he found that cancer cells could be
distinguished from healthy tissues using nuclear magnetic resonance
(NMR).
(Econ, 12/6/03, TQp.15)
1977 Oct 12, US Supreme Court
heard arguments in the "reverse discrimination" case of Allan Bakke
(35), a white student denied admission to U of California Med School.
(www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1977/1977_76_811/)
1977 Dec 12, Dr. Grethe Rask
(b.1930) from Denmark died of Pneumocystis carinii. She had done
research in Africa. Her symptoms had been manifesting in Dec 1976 and
she was hospitalized in Africa. In November 1977 after a brief
recovery, she decided it was time to go home to die. A colleague saw
the wasting, and did an autopsy, where P. carinii was found. She is
believed to be one of the first documented cases of probable AIDS
infection.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grethe_Rask)
1977 Dr. Stephen J. Mathes
(d.2007), reconstructive surgeon, authored “Clinical Atlas of Muscle
and Musculocutaneous Flaps. In 2007 he produced an 8-volume text on
plastic surgery.
(SFC, 12/20/07, p.B5)
1977 Dr. Elizabeth Williams of
Fort Collins classified the endemic chronic wasting disease of local
deer as a spongiform disease. It was found to be infectious 2 years
later and then spread across to 8 states and Canada. Research later
suggested that it could infect people.
(WSJ, 5/24/02, p.A1)
1978 Jan 18, Center for Disease
Control (CDC) isolated the cause of Legionnaire's disease.
(HN, 1/18/99)
1978 Feb 9, In Tanzania cholera
broke out and killed 300 people.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1978 Jul 25, Louise Joy Brown, the
first test-tube baby, was born in Oldham, England; she'd been conceived
through in-vitro fertilization.
(TL, 1988, p.119)(AP, 7/25/97)
1978 Aug, Genentech produced
synthetic insulin by combining a rapidly reproducing bacterium with a
gene from a higher organism.
(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.4)
1978 David Rorvick published "In
His Image: The Cloning of Man," an alleged tale of a successful
cloning. It was ruled a hoax in 1981.
(NH, 9/98, p.11)(SFC, 12/31/02, p.A2)
1979 Nov 20, The first US
artificial blood transfusion occurred at Univ. of Minn. Hospital. The
patient was a Jehovah's Witness, who had refused a transfusion of real
blood because of his religious beliefs.
(www.todayinsci.com/11/11_20.htm)
1979 Robert Weinberg, Ph.D.,
demonstrated the first biologically active oncogene in human bladder
cancer.
(WSJ, 2/27/04, p.A1)
1979 AIDS was diagnosed for the
first time. When the first cases of AIDS erupted in 1979 the most
important sign was the occurrence of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), the
so-called "gay cancer" appearing on the bodies of some homosexuals
dying of the disease.
(V.D.-H.K.p.354)(www.konformist.com/1999/aids/cantwell2.htm)
1980 Feb, The first implantable
cardioconverter defibrillator (ICD) was implanted at John Hopkins
Hospital by Dr. Levi Watkins.
(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ
p.26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implantable_cardioverter-defibrillator)
1980 May 8, The World Health
Organization (WHO) announced that smallpox had been eradicated from the
wild.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dm79sp.html)
1980 Jun 16, US Supreme Court
ruled that new forms of life created in labs could become patents.
(https://eee.uci.edu/clients/bjbecker/NatureandArtifice/week10c.html)
1980 Dr. Robert Pollack (d.2003 at
86), pioneer surgeon in oncology, authored "Clinical Aspects of
Malpractice."
(SFC, 1/18/03, p.A17)
1980 The US Supreme Court ruled
that "live human-made microorganism is patentable matter." This led to
a rush by Genentech, Biogen and others to commercialize biotechnology.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1980 Smallpox was declared
eradicated worldwide.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1980 Raymond Damadian and his
company, FONAR, produced the first commercial Magnetic Resonance
Imaging scanner. The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952, which went to
Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell, was for the development of nuclear
magnetic resonance (NMR), the scientific principle behind MRI. In 2003
Paul Christian Lauterbur was credited for the 1970s idea of introducing
gradients in the magnetic field which allows for determining the origin
of the radio waves emitted from the nuclei of the object of study.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Vahan_Damadian)
1980 Dr. Robert Gallo and
colleagues discovered the retrovirus HTLV-1. In 1982 they discovered
the retrovirus HTLV-2 and suggested that AIDS was caused by a new human
retrovirus.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.18)
1981 Jun 5, The US Federal Centers
for Disease Control published the first report of a mysterious outbreak
of a sometimes fatal pneumonia among gay men. Dr. Michael Gottlieb of
UCLA and Dr. Joel Weisman (1943-2009) reported 5 cases of a rare
pneumonia among gay men in LA. The disease was initially called gay
related immune deficiency (GRID). The syndrome was named Acquired
Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in 1982. Within 10 years the disease
killed 110,000 Americans. People infected with HIV came to be defined
as having AIDS when their immune system became so weak that they got
one of 26 specific illnesses including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,
pneumonia, brain infections and some other cancers.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.B2)(AP, 6/5/02)(SSFC, 6/4/06,
p.A1)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.24)(SFC, 7/24/09, p.D5)
1981 Aug 28, The US national
Centers for Disease Control, noting a high incidence of Kaposi's
sarcoma and pneumocystis in homosexual men, announced a medical task
force had been formed to find out why. It was later determined the
increased number of illnesses was caused by AIDS.
(AP, 8/28/01)
1981 Dec 28, Elizabeth Jordan
Carr, the first American test-tube baby, was born in Norfolk, Va. Dr.
Mason Andrews (1919-2006) performed the delivery by cesarean section.
(AP, 12/28/97)(SFC, 10/16/06, p.B6)
1981 AIDS was discovered in New
York City [see 1959, 1979].
(SFC, 1/25/97, p.A1)
1982 May, Dr. Robert Gallo and Max
Essex first proposed that AIDS was probably caused by a new human
retrovirus and suggested that it was in the HTLV family. Isolates from
AIDS patients in 1983 were first named HTLV-3 and later HIV.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.18)
1982 Sep 29, Seven people in the
Chicago area died after unwittingly taking Extra-Strength Tylenol
capsules laced with cyanide.
(AP,
9/29/97)(http://judicial-inc.biz/t_tylenol_murders_supplement.htm)
1982 Oct 15, The federal Centers
for Disease Control warned that a new epidemic was impacting Americans
and that over 200, mostly gay young men, had died from AIDS. In 2001
Jon Cohen authored "Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS
Vaccine."
(SSFC, 2/4/01, BR p.4)
1982 Dec 2, In the first operation
of its kind, doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center implanted
a permanent artificial heart developed by Dr. Robert K. Jarvik. Barney
Clark, a retired dentist, lived 112 days with the Jarvic-7 heart.
(AP, 12/2/97)(HN, 12/2/98)
1982 The mysterious syndrome 1st
reported by the CDC in 1981 was named Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome (AIDS). Hemophiliacs began to get infected from contaminated
blood transfusions.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, p.A20)
1983 Dr. Constance Wofsy
(1943-1996) and Dr. Paul Volberding founded the AIDS program at San
Francisco General Hospital.
(SFC, 6/5/96, C5)
1983 The Multicenter AIDS Cohort
Study was begun by Dr. Mellors in Pittsburgh. It became the largest
ongoing study with med. info and blood samples over the lifetime of
AIDS patients. Dr. Mellors pioneered the viral load test that showed
how increased viral load hastened the HIV disease.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.B1,5)
1983 Dr. Jay Levy at UCSF was
among the first to identify the AIDS virus as the cause of HIV. He
developed an early test for detecting the presence of the virus and he
found that heat inactivates HIV in clotting preparations.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W27)
1983 In France Dr. Luc Montagnier
and his team, which included Dr. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, published a
paper fingering HIV as the cause of AIDS.
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.110)
1983 In Japan the Green Cross
Corp., a major pharmaceutical firm, was later accused of having sold
unheated blood products at this time even after learning that they
could infect people with the AIDS virus. In 1996 prosecutors raided
their offices.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A14)
1984 Apr 10, Zoe, the 1st
frozen-embryo child, was born in Melbourne, Australia.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1984 Apr 22, The US Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) said French researchers had discovered that a
virus causes AIDS. Scientists identified a retrovirus named human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the cause of AIDS.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, p.A20)(www.avert.org/his81_86.htm)
1984 Apr 23, US Health Secretary
Margaret Heckler said the AIDS-virus was identified as the cause of
acquired immune deficiency syndrome. [see Apr 21]
(http://tinyurl.com/yuvyv6)
(AP, 3/26/07)
1984 Jun 4, DNA was successfully
cloned from an extinct animal.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1984 Jul 30, Holly Roffey (11
days) received a heart transplant.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1984 Oct 26, "Baby Fae," a newborn
with a severe heart defect, was given the heart of a baboon in an
experimental transplant in Loma Linda, Calif. Baby Fae lived 21 days
with the animal heart.
(AP, 10/26/99)
1984 Oct 25, The genetic
organization of the Hepatitis B virus was published.
(www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=320225)
1984 Nov 15, Baby Fae died 20 days
after receiving a baboon heart transplant in Loma Linda, California.
(HN, 11/15/98)
1984 Nov 25, William Schroeder of
Jasper, Ind., became the 2nd man to receive a Jarvik-7 artificial
heart, at Humana Hospital Audubon in Kentucky. He lived 620 days on the
device.
(AP, 11/25/04)
1984 The American Cancer Society
inaugurated October as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
(SSFC, 10/22/06, p.D1)(http://tinyurl.com/q6teg9)
1984 Dr. Jay Katz (1922-2008),
German-born American psychoanalyst and Yale law School professor,
authored “The Silent world of Doctor and Patient.”
(SFC, 11/24/08, p.B6)
1984 Scientists identified a
retrovirus named human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the cause of
AIDS.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, p.A20)
1984 AIDS was reported to have
been transmitted to a health care worker by an accidental needle stick.
(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A6)
1984 Dr. Daniel Peterson reported
1,700 cases of chronic fatigue syndrome in the town of Incline Village,
Nev.
(SFC, 10/14/96, p.A4)
1984 A landmark study on
cholesterol provided the first conclusive evidence that lowering blood
cholesterol can prevent heart attacks. Basil Rifkind (d.2008 at 73),
Scotland-born physician, co-chaired the NIH Consensus Conference on
Lowering Blood Cholesterol to Prevent Heart Disease.
(SFC, 7/1/08, p.B5)
1984 In California cancer cases
began popping up in McFarland in the Central Valley. 21 people over 20
years were struck in the town of 8,000. A state study from 1985-1991
ended inconclusively and the EPA was petitioned to study the problem.
Residents suspected airborne pesticides.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A5)
1984 Kathelyn Steimer (1948-1996)
assisted in the first sequencing and cloning of HIV with colleagues
Dino Dina and Paul Luciv at Chiron Corp.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.C7)
1984 Scientists discovered the
alpha-defensin proteins, used by a class of white blood cells that kill
and eat bacteria. In 2002 they were believed to play a key role in
suppressing AIDS.
(SFC, 9/27/02, p.A14)(WSJ, 9/27/02, p.B1)
1985 Feb 19, William Schroeder was
the 1st artificial heart patient to leave hospital. He spent 15 minutes
outside Humana Hospital in Louisville, Ky.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1985 Mar 2, The US government
approved a screening test for AIDS that detected antibodies to the
virus, allowing possibly contaminated blood to be excluded from the
blood supply.
(AP, 3/2/98)
1985 Mar 8, Thomas Creighton (33)
died after having three heart transplants in a 46-hour period.
(HN, 3/8/98)(MC, 3/8/02)
1985 Apr 6, William J. Schroeder
became the first artificial heart recipient to be discharged from the
hospital as he moved into an apartment in Louisville, Ky.
(AP, 4/6/97)
1985 May 9, Laurent Fabius, head
of the French Socialist government, blocked the sale of an AIDS virus
detection test made by Abbott Laboratories. Fabius and others were
later charged with criminal negligence and manslaughter in the deaths
of hundreds who died from transfusions of tainted blood. In 1999 Fabius
and Georgina Dufoix were cleared of the charges. Edmond Herve, the
health minister under Dufoix, was convicted of negligence in 2 cases.
(SFEC, 2/7/99, p.A2)(SFC, 3/10/99, p.A1)
1985 May 21, Patti Frustaci of
Riverside, Calif., who was expecting septuplets, gave birth to six live
babies, three of whom died in the following weeks.
(AP, 5/21/05)(http://tinyurl.com/ypm8k4)
1985 Jul 15, A gaunt-looking Rock
Hudson appeared at a news conference with actress Doris Day to promote
her cable television program. It was later revealed Hudson was
suffering from AIDS.
(AP, 7/15/99)
1985 Jul 25, A spokeswoman for
Rock Hudson confirmed that the actor, hospitalized in Paris, was
suffering from "AIDS." Hudson died the following October.
(AP, 7/25/00)
1985 Aug 1, The French government
began to require the testing of all donated blood for AIDS following
the launch of a test by Diagnostic Pasteur. By this time some 1,300
hemophiliacs were contaminated with AIDS-tainted blood. By 1997 over
500 had died, most of them children. Four health officials were charged
and convicted in the case.
(SFEC, 2/7/99, p.A2)
1986 Sep 19, Federal health
officials announced that the experimental drug AZT would be made
available to thousands of AIDS patients.
(AP, 9/19/01)
1985 Oct 2, Rock Hudson, film
star, died at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 59 after a
battle with AIDS. Upon his death it was publicly made known that he had
been a closet homosexual.
(SFC, 11/28/96, p.C14)(AP, 10/2/97)
1985 Dec 13, France sued the U.S.
over the discovery of an AIDS serum.
(HN, 12/13/98)
1985 Dec 19, In Minneapolis,
Minnesota, Mary Lund became the first woman to receive a Jarvik VII
artificial heart. Lund received a human heart transplant 45 days later;
she died October 14, 1986.
(AP, 12/19/05)
1985 AIDS made the cover of Time
Mag.
(TMC, 1994, p.1985)
1985 SF General opened the
nation’s first full AIDS ward.
(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A8)
1985 Cleve Jones and Mike Smith
formed the Names Project to remember those who died of AIDS. The
project went on to develop the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
(SFEC, 9/15/96, C8)
1985 The Nurses Health Study
showed that hormone use lowers heart-attack risk by 50%. In 1991
Women’s Health Initiative was launched to see if hormones protected
women’s hearts. In 1998 a trial of women with heart disease showed a
50% higher heart risk among hormone users. In 2007 a WHI study showed
that hormones do not raise heart risk for recently menopausal women.
(WSJ, 4/4/07, p.A12)
1986 Feb 17, Johnson and Johnson,
maker of Tylenol, announced it would no longer sell over-the-counter
medications in capsule form, following the death of a woman who had
taken a cyanide-laced capsule.
(AP, 2/17/06)
1986 Aug 6, William J. Schroeder
died after living 620 days with the "Jarvik 7" artificial heart.
(AP, 8/6/97)
1986 Nov 20, UN's WHO announced
1st global effort to combat AIDS.
(http://tinyurl.com/ycyxmk)
1986 Pres. Reagan signed a law
creating a medical malpractice data base. It began operations in 1990.
(WSJ, 8/27/04, p.A6)
1986 Researchers for muscular
dystrophy identified the gene that caused Duchene muscular dystrophy,
the most common and fatal childhood form of the disease.
(SSFC, 9/2/01, Par p.5)
1986 Rita Levi Montalcini
(b.1909), Italian scientist, shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine with
American Stanley Cohen for discovering mechanisms that regulate the
growth of cells and organs.
(AP, 4/19/09)
1987 Feb 6, No-smoking rules took
effect in US federal buildings.
(http://tinyurl.com/kjge6)
1987 Feb 19, An anti-smoking ad
aired for the 1st time on TV and featured Yul Brynner (1920-1985), who
had died of lung cancer.
(www.terramedia.co.uk/Chronomedia/years/1987.htm)
1987 Mar 20, The Food and Drug
Administration approved the sale of AZT, a drug shown to prolong the
lives of some AIDS patients.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-16)(AP, 3/20/97)(HN, 3/20/98)
1987 Mar 24, ACT-UP had its first
demonstration at the New York Stock Exchange over the high prices of
AZT and the long FDA process for approving drugs. Earlier this month
writer Larry Kramer had urged the formation of a "political action"
group to fight AIDS in New York.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A13)
1987 Apr 1, In his first major
speech on the AIDS epidemic, President Reagan told doctors in
Philadelphia, "We've declared AIDS public health enemy number one."
(AP, 4/1/98)
1987 Apr 30, Education Secretary
William Bennett called for mandatory AIDS testing for several groups of
people, including hospital patients and prison inmates.
(AP, 4/30/97)
1987 May 11, In a medical first,
doctors in Baltimore transplanted the heart and lungs of an auto
accident victim to Clinton House who gave up his own heart to a 2nd
recipient. House, the nation's first living heart donor, died 14 months
later.
(AP, 5/11/97)
1987 May 31, Addressing AIDS
research supporters in Washington, D.C., President Reagan called "for
urgency, not panic," but drew scattered boos when he announced he would
seek expanded testing for the disease.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1987 Jun 1, Vice President George
Bush addressed the Third International Conference on AIDS in
Washington, and, like President Reagan before him, drew scattered boos
by calling for more widespread testing for possible carriers of the
AIDS virus.
(AP, 6/1/97)
1987 Aug 28, A fire damaged the
Arcadia, Fla., home of Ricky, Robert and Randy Ray, three hemophiliac
brothers infected with the AIDS virus whose court-ordered school
attendance sparked a local uproar. The Ray family soon moved to
Sarasota, Fla.
(AP, 8/28/97)
1987 Sep 6, Doctors at Johns
Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore succeeded in separating 7-month-old
Benjamin and Patrick Binder, twin brothers from Ulm, West Germany, who
were joined at the head, after 22 hours of surgery.
(AP, 9/6/97)
1987 Sep 9, Appearing before
President Reagan's special commission on AIDS, Surgeon General C.
Everett Koop denounced doctors and other health workers who refused to
treat AIDS patients, calling them a "fearful and irrational minority."
(AP, 9/9/97)
1987 Oct 7, President Reagan's
advisory commission on AIDS was left seemingly in disarray as its
chairman, Dr. W. Eugene Mayberry, and its vice chairman, Dr. Woodrow A.
Myers Jr., resigned.
(AP, 10/7/97)
1987 Oct 11, Thousands of
homosexual rights activists marched through Washington [DC] to demand
protection from discrimination and more federal money for AIDS research
and treatment. The AIDS Memorial Quilt had its inaugural presentation.
In 2000 Cleve Jones and Jeff Dawson authored "Stitching a Revolution,
The making of an AIDS Activist."
(AP, 10/11/97)(SFEC, 6/18/00, BR p.5)
1987 Nov 12, The American Medical
Association issued a policy statement saying it was unethical for a
doctor to refuse to treat someone solely because that person had AIDS
or was HIV-positive.
(AP, 11/12/97)
1987 Dec 29, The antidepressant
drug Prozac was allowed to go on the market. It was based on
fluoxetine, which increases serotonin levels in the brain by preventing
the cells that that produce serotonin from reabsorbing it too quickly.
It was discovered by Dr. Ray W. Fuller (1936-1996), Dr. David Wong and
Dr. Bryan Molloy.
(SFC, 8/15/96,
p.C4)(www.prozactruth.com/fdalilly.htm)
1987 Randy Shilts authored "The
Band Played On," in which he chronicled the early days of AIDS.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_the_Band_Played_On)
1987 Dr. Alastair Carruthers of
Vancouver, BC, injected botulinum toxin into the forehead of his
secretary Cathy Bickerton Swann to reduce her frown lines. The FDA
approved Botox for a variety of conditions in 1989.
(NW, 5/13/02, p.50)
1987 Russia recorded its first
case of AIDS. By 1997 the number rose to 7,000. By 2008 the number
reached 430,000.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.14)
1988 Jan 11, Alexandria, Danielle,
Erica, Raymond and Veronica L'Esperance, the first US test tube
quintuplets, were born in Royal Oak, Michigan.
(www.threebluestars.com/multiples/quintuplets.html)
1988 Jan 23, Charles Glenn King
(b.1896), biochemist, died. He and a team of students isolated vitamin
C in 1932.
(http://tinyurl.com/yn4zse)
1988 May 16, Surgeon General C.
Everett Koop released a report declaring nicotine was addictive in ways
similar to heroin and cocaine.
(AP, 5/16/98)
1988 May 26, The New England
Journal of Medicine reported that the 1st NYC cases of Rocky Mountain
Spotted Fever struck 4 people between May and July of 1987.
(http://tinyurl.com/nsejy)
1988 Jun 13, A US federal jury
found cigarette manufacturer Liggett Group liable in the lung-cancer
death of New Jersey resident Rose Cipollone, but innocent of
misrepresenting the risks of smoking. An appeals court later overturned
the jury's award of $400,000 and ordered a new trial; the family
dropped the lawsuit in 1992.
(AP, 6/13/98)
1988 Oct, Sir James W. Black of
Britain won the Nobel Prize in medicine for research that led to
beta-blocker drugs for heart disease and drugs for peptic ulcers.
Gertrude Elion (d.1999) and George H. Hitchings (d.1998 at 92) of the
US were awarded for research leading to drugs for AIDS, herpes,
leukemia and malaria. Elion and Hitchings were later considered as the
founders of the field of chemotherapeutics. They were among the first
to design drugs based on a biochemical understanding of the disease
process.
(SFEC, 10/8/96, A9)(SFC, 3/3/98, p.D8)(SFC, 2/23/99,
p.A22)
1988 The US Centers for Disease
Control (CDC) named ”chronic fatigue syndrome” (CFS), to describe
ongoing symptoms of overwhelming fatigue.
(SFCM, 6/5/05, p.6)
1988 Michael Free of PATH, a
nonprofit creator of medical technologies for developing countries,
created a new syringe and needle that became disabled after a single
injection. The autodestruct syringe was licensed exclusively to Becton
Dickinson, which agreed to supply UNICEF and health ministries of
developing nations and to pay a $50,000 patent maintenance fee.
(SFC, 10/28/98, p.A1)
1988 Dr. Eliane Gluckman became
the first person to perform a cord blood transplant for a case of
Franconi’s anemia.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A7)
1988 Vancomycin-resistant
enterococcus (VRE) was first detected in Europe. The vancomycin
antibiotic was developed in 1958.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.C1,4)
1988 Iran began paying unrelated
living donors for their kidneys. After 11 years it had eliminated its
kidney transplant waiting list.
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.81)
1989 Jan 13, There was a sit-in at
SF General Hosp. by ACT-UP to call attention to the difficulty of
obtaining foscarnet, a drug to stabilize CMV retinitis, a common AIDS
illness that could lead to blindness.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A13)
1989 Jan 24, Physicians 1st
reported a case of AIDS transmitted by heterosexual oral sex.
(www.aegis.com/news/Lt/1989/LT890104.html)
1989 May 31, Charles A. Hufnagel
(b.1917), artificial heart valve pioneer, died at his home in
Washington, DC.
(http://tinyurl.com/f5wdx)
1989 Sep 14, ACT-UP AIDS activists
shut down the New York Stock Exchange for a short time when they
chained themselves to a balcony overlooking the floor.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A13)
1989 Oct 1, The San Francisco
Health Department reported the first two documented cases in which men
became infected with the AIDS virus through oral sex.
(http://ww5.aegis.org/news/ap/1990/AP901005.html)
1989 The Group O AIDS virus was
identified in West Africa. It had marked genetic differences from the
more common Group M strains that were responsible for a worldwide
pandemic.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A5)
1989 Scientists used "positional
cloning" to identify the gene that causes cystic fibrosis.
(WSJ, 6/11/01, p.A1)
1989 The Hepatitis C virus was
first isolated. It causes an infection of the liver that is usually
lifelong and incurable. Scientists in 1999 found evidence of the virus
in frozen blood samples from 1948.
(SFC, 3/25/97, p.A4)(SFC, 5/21/99, p.A3)
1989 Merck Corp. announced the
discovery of the 3-dimensional structure of the enzyme protease. It was
seen as a promising target for attacking the virus that causes AIDS.
(WSJ, 11/5/96, p.A1)
1989 The P53 gene was found to act
as a tumor suppressor gene.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A5)
1989 Dr. Ray White led a team that
found the NF-1 gene. A mutation of the gene was found to be responsible
for neurofibromatosis.
(WSJ, 2/27/97, p.B1)
1989 There was an outbreak of the
deadly Ebola virus among 450 primates in Reston, Va.
(FB, 9/12/96, Neighbors p.1)
1989 Bruce Chatwin, travel writer,
died of AIDS. His books included "In Patagonia" (1984) "Songlines,"
"The Viceroy of Ouidah," and "On the Black Hill." In 1997 a collection
of incidental writing was published: "Anatomy of Restlessness."
(SFEC, 8/10/97, BR p.3)
1989 In Lithuania Dr. Saulius
Caplinskas started an AIDS Center in Vilnius. In 1997 there were 60
reported cases of HIV, but the actual number was estimated to be
between 200-300.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A10)
1990 Mar 9, Dr. Antonia Novello
was sworn in as surgeon general, becoming the first woman and the first
Hispanic to hold the job.
(AP, 3/9/98)
1990 Mar 29, President Bush,
addressing the National Leadership Coalition on AIDS, declared his
administration "on a wartime footing" against the disease, and called
for compassion, not discrimination, toward those infected with the
virus.
(AP, 3/29/00)
1990 Apr 8, Ryan White, the
teen-age AIDS patient whose battle for acceptance gained national
attention, died in Indianapolis at age 18. The Ryan White Foundation
was established for AIDS education programs after his death and it
closed its doors due to dwindling funds in 1999.
(AP, 4/8/97)(SFC, 10/19/99, p.A3)
1990 May 3, The federal government
approved the use of the drug AZT to treat children infected with the
AIDS virus.
(AP, 5/3/00)
1990 Jun 24, Health and Human
Services Secretary Louis Sullivan was virtually drowned out by jeering
demonstrators as he addressed the Sixth International AIDS conference
in San Francisco.
(AP, 6/24/00)
1990 Jul 26, The US Centers for
Disease Control reported that a young woman, later identified as
Kimberly Bergalis, had been infected with the AIDS virus, apparently by
her dentist.
(AP, 7/26/00)
1990 Sep 3, Dr. David Acer, a
Florida dentist, died of AIDS after apparently infecting five of his
patients with the HIV virus.
(AP, 9/3/00)
1990 Sep 7, Kimberly Bergalis of
Fort Pierce, Florida, came forward to identify herself as the young
woman who had been infected with AIDS, apparently by her late
dentist. Bergalis died the following year.
(AP, 9/7/00)
1990 Nov 11, Stormie Jones, the
world’s first heart-liver transplant recipient, died at a Pittsburgh
hospital at age 13.
(AP, 11/11/00)
1990 Sep, The 1st gene therapy
experiment took place at the NIH.
(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A7)
1990 The AIDS activist group
Visual AIDS created their Red Ribbon Project to symbolize the fight
against AIDS. NYC artist Frank Moore (d.2002 at 48) was instrumental in
the project.
(SFC, 4/27/02, p.A21)
1990 At the Mayo Clinic a lung
transplant program was begun.
(SFC, 7/5/96, PM, p.5)
1990 GHB, gamma hydroxy butyrate,
began to be reported as a cause of illnesses. The paint thinner gamma
butyl lactone was being mixed with water and alcohol that when ingested
metabolized to GHB, later called "liquid ecstasy" or "blue nitro."
(SFC, 1/14/99, p.A16)
1990 The Human Genome Project
began and planned to sequence all human DNA by 2005. The database did
not just store sequences, but linked them with citations to enable new
discoveries. James Watson served as its 1st head. His opposition to
gene patents helped force him from the position in 1992.
(Wired, 8/96, p.198)(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.10)
1990 Rainaldo Arenas (b.1943), gay
writer, took his own life in the US after suffering from AIDS. He left
Cuba during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. His books included "Before Night
Falls" (1993) and "The Color of Summer" the 4th of 5 called the
"Pentagonia" a "secret history of Cuba." In 2000 the film version of
Before Night Falls was directed by Julian Schnabel
(SFEC, 7/30/00, BR p.4)(SSFC, 12/17/00, DB p.49)
1990 In Nigeria 109 children died
after taking paracetamol laced with a compound similar to diethylene
glycol and also used in engine coolants.
(AFP, 3/31/09)
1991 May 20, The American Red
Cross announced measures aimed at screening blood more carefully for
the AIDS virus.
(AP, 5/20/97)
1991 Apr 29, George Sperti (91),
inventor of Preparation H, died.
(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-so.htm)
1991 Jun 16, The seventh
International Conference on AIDS opened in Florence, Italy. The
conference was marked by pleas from African and Asian countries for
more help and criticism directed at the United States for its refusal
to allow visits by foreigners infected with the AIDS virus.
(AP, 6/16/01)
1991 Nov 28, Ryan Thomas (10),
hero, AIDS victim who won a federal court battle to stay in
kindergarten class, died.
(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-te.htm)
1991 Dec 8, AIDS patient Kimberly
Bergalis, who had contracted the disease from her dentist, died in Fort
Pierce, Fla., at age 23.
(AP, 12/8/97)
1991 The Aaron Diamond AIDS
Research Center opened in lower Manhattan. Irene Diamond (d.2003 at 92)
saw the project completed after the death of her husband.
(SFC, 1/29/03, p.A18)
1991 PBS broadcast the film
"Absolutely Positive," the story of Doris Butler (1953-1996) and her
son Jared (1988-1992) who were both infected with AIDS.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E5)
1991 Composer John Corigliano
composed his "Symphony No. 1," a memorial to the victims of AIDS.
(WSJ, 9/24/97, p.A20)
1991 Basketball star Magic Johnson
announced that he was HIV-positive. He left the Lakers Basketball team
and his $3.5 mil salary and founded the Magic Johnson Foundation to
help fight AIDS.
(SFC, 6/30/96, PM, p.2)
1991 Miami urologist, Harold Reed
brought to the US a procedure to lengthen the penis invented by a
Chinese surgeon named Long Daochao.
(WSJ, 6/6/96, p.A1)
1991 A method to fertilize a human
egg by a single sperm was developed. Intracytoplasmic sperm injection
(ICSI) was used to help couples in where the man has a low sperm count.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, DB p.32)
1991 Stephen Fodor and colleagues
at Affymetrix published a strategy for creating micro arrays for
identifying DNA fragments.
(SFC, 9/2/02, p.A8)
1992 Mar 12, This issue of Rolling
Stone magazine contained an article by Tom Curtis that outlined a
theory for the origin of AIDS based on the Wister vaccine developed by
Hilary Koprowski and given to some 300,000 people in the Belgian Congo
between 1957-1960.
(SSFC, 1/14/01, p.A14)
1992 Apr 8, Tennis great Arthur
Ashe announced at a New York news conference that he had AIDS, saying
he was forced to go public because a newspaper had inquired about his
health. Ashe died the following February of AIDS-related pneumonia at
age 49.
(AP, 4/8/97)
1992 May 1, It was reported in the
WSJ that a new study indicated that peptic ulcers were caused by a
bacterium called Helicobacter pylori.
(WSJ, 10/24/05, p.A15)
1992 Jul 26, Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) went into effect.
(http://www.dol.gov/odep/pubs/misc/summada.htm)
1992 Sep 6, An unidentified
35-year-old man who was the recipient of a transplanted baboon liver
died at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, 10 weeks after
receiving the organ.
(AP, 9/6/97)
1992 Aug 8, AIDS activist Alison
Gertz died in New York at age 26.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1992 Oct 6, President Bush
appointed Mary Fisher to the National Commission on AIDS, replacing
Magic Johnson.
(AP, 10/6/97)
1992 Oct 23, A French court
convicted three former health officials of charges they knowingly
allowed blood tainted with the AIDS virus to be used in transfusions.
(AP, 10/23/97)
1992 Pfizer Corp. received FDA
approval for the antibiotic Zithromax.
(SFEC, 8/27/00, p.B4)
1992 Fen-phen, a combination of
fenfluramine and phentermine, began to be prescribed for weight loss by
American Home Products. A wrongful death suit due to pulmonary
complications was filed in 1997. A class action suit later resulted
with 300,000 plaintiffs. In 2001 Alicia Mundy authored "Dispensing with
the Truth," story of how the cases developed.
(WSJ, 5/10/01, p.A16)
1992 Anthony Perkins (60), lead
actor in the 1960 Hitchcock film Psycho, died of AIDS. His biography
was written in 1996 by Charles Winecoff: Split Image, "The Life of
Anthony Perkins."
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.B3)(SFEC, 11/10/96, Par p.2)
1993 Jan 6, Ballet dancer Rudolf
Nureyev died of AIDS in Paris at age 54.
(AP, 1/6/98)(WSJ, 10/1/98, p.A20)
1993 Feb 6, Tennis Hall-of-Famer
and human rights advocate Arthur Ashe died of AIDS in New York at age
49. He was the first black man to win the Wimbledon tennis match.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)(AP, 2/6/97)
1993 Mar 3, Albert Sabin (86),
physician, developer of the oral polio vaccine, died in Washington.
(AP, 3/3/98)(SC, 3/3/02)
1993 Mar 23, Scientists announced
they'd found the renegade gene that causes Huntington's disease.
(AP, 3/23/98)
1993 Jun 28, The National
Commission on AIDS ended its work after four years, with members
expressing frustration over how little national leaders had done to
combat the disease.
(AP, 6/28/98)
1993 Jul 23, Surgeon
General-designate Joycelyn Elders stuck by her firm stands on sex
education and AIDS prevention in a one-day confirmation hearing on
Capitol Hill.
(AP, 7/23/98)
1993 Dr. Sherwin Nuland authored
“How We Die.”
(Econ, 9/5/09, p.41)
1993 Dr. Luc Montagnier created
the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention under the
auspices of UNESCO. He was one of the first doctors to isolate the AIDS
virus.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A1)
1993 The Terra Nova Medical
Reserve was established as the world’s 1st ethno-biomedical forest
reserve in western Belize.
(AM, 7/01, p.2)
1993 An E. coli outbreak made
hundreds ill and several children died. It was traced to hamburgers at
Jack in the Box restaurants. The bacteria was identified as E. coli
0157:H7, a renegade strain of the normally harmless group.
(WSJ, 7/15/96, p.B1)(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A4)
1993 The hantavirus was discovered
in the American Southwest and killed at least 26 people.
(SFC, 2/3/00, p.A6)
1994 Jan 15, A Hague motorist with
.51% alcohol in blood broke the Dutch record of .47%.
(MC, 1/15/02)
1994 Apr 8, Smoking was banned in
Pentagon and all US military bases.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1994 Aug 7, The 10th International
Conference on AIDS opened in Yokohama, Japan.
(AP, 8/7/99)
1994 Aug 11, The Tenth
International Conference on AIDS concluded in Yokohama, Japan.
(AP, 8/11/99)
1994 Nov 7, James Winston Watts
(90), developer of the Frontal Lobotomy, died.
(www.answers.com/topic/1936)
1994 Dec 3, Elizabeth Glaser, who
became an AIDS activist after she and her two children were infected
with HIV via a blood transfusion, died in Santa Monica, Calif., at age
47.
(AP, 12/3/99)
1994 Richard Lipton, Princeton
computer scientist, published a paper on molecular computing titled:
"Speeding to Computation via Molecular Biology."
(Wired, 8/95, p.166)
1994 Marvin Minsky wrote in a
Scientific American article that: "In the end we will find ways to
replace every part of the body and brain and thus repair all the
defects and injuries that make our lives so brief."
(Hem., 2/96, p.95)
1994 The World Journal, a
Chinese-language newspaper based in New York reported that blood
products in China were contaminated with the AIDS virus.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A14)
1994 In America 80 million
prescriptions were written for drugs that act as calcium channel
blockers (CCBs). They were used to treat high blood pressure, angina,
cardiac arrhythmias and migraine headaches.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A12)
1994 Polly C.E. Matzinger,
immunologist, began challenging the self/nonself concept of immune
activation and proposed the "danger" theory where the immune system
lies quietly on guard until it receives a signal that tissues somewhere
in the body are dying unnatural deaths.
(WSJ, 3/22/96, p.B-5)
1994 The breast cancer gene,
BRCA1, was discovered. Its presence boosted the likelihood of
developing the disease to 87%.
(SFC, 6/26/96, p.A7)
1994 Researcher Janet Daling and a
team at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found a 50%
increase in the risk of breast cancer for women who’s had abortions.
(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.A12)
1994 At the Mayo Clinic the first
successful heart-lung transplant was performed.
(SFC, 7/5/96, PM, p.5)
1994 The stent was 1st introduced.
It was a metal scaffold used to prop open arteries that were cleared
with angioplasty balloons.
(WSJ, 9/10/03, p.A1)
1995 Feb 17, Federal judge allowed
a lawsuit claiming US tobacco makers knew nicotine was addictive and
manipulated its levels to keep customers hooked.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1995 Apr 4, It was reported that
Nuclear Matrix Proteins that act as a type of scaffolding for DNA were
being used as markers for cancer. They were also thought to help turn
genes off and on.
(WSJ, 4/4/95, B-1)
1995 Jul, In Vancouver, Canada, at
the Int’l. AIDS Conference researchers said that at least 10
genetically different sub-types of HIV-1 were identified. HIV-2 was
another strain principally found in Africa.
(SFEC, 10/8/96, A4)
1995 Dec 14, AIDS patient Jeff
Getty received the first-ever bone-marrow transplant from a baboon. The
experimental procedure at a San Francisco hospital was criticized by
animal rights activists.
(AP, 12/14/00)
1995 Genentech began Phase III
clinical trials for Herceptin to fight breast cancer. Doctors Dennis
Slamon and Alex Unrich worked with the HER-2/neu gene and protein that
triggered breast cancer and developed an antibody against it. The drug
was approved by the FDA in 1998.
(SFEC, 1/17/99, BR p.5)
1995 Dr. Paul Dowd (1936-1996)
suggested that Vitamin E, a potent antioxidant, can help keep
cholesterol from clogging arteries.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, p.C14)
1995 Jeffrey Friedman of
Rockefeller Univ. and others announced the discovery of leptin, a
protein produced by fat cells, that signal the brain to reduce dietary
intake.
(SFC, 6/30/00, p.A3)
1995 The American Pain Society
urged that pain be treated as a 5th vital sign. In 1999 American VA
hospitals began a system-wide notation for pain.
(SFC, 2/1/99, p.A2)
1995 Prof. Pamela Ronald and
colleagues isolated the blight-resistance gene from a variety of wild
rice cultivated in Mali. The blight was caused by the Xanthomonas
orizae bacterium. She pushed for a got a percentage of the royalty
rights to be used for fellowships for scientists from Mali.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.A16)
1995 Protease inhibitors, a
cocktail drug therapy for AIDS, were first introduced. AIDS became the
leading cause of death among Americans aged 25-44.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, p.A21)
1995 The GB virus C was
discovered. It was thought to be another hepatitis virus but was found
to be benign. It was later found to slow damage to the immune system
from AIDS.
(SFC, 9/6/01, p.A5)
1995 Pat Brown of Stanford
published a low-cost strategy for creating micro arrays for identifying
DNA fragments and posted the instructions on the Web.
(SFC, 9/2/02, p.A8)
1995 Poet James Merrill died from
AIDS. In 2001 Alison Lurie authored "Familiar Spirits: A Memoir of
James Merrill and David Jackson."
(SSFC, 3/11/01, BR p.3)
1995 The FDA approved Riluzole,
the 1st drug for use in treating amyotrophic lateral schlerosis (ALS),
also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
(SSFC, 9/2/01, Par p.5)
1996 Jan 23, Sandra Jensen became
the first person with Down syndrome to receive a new heart and Lungs.
The surgery was done at Stanford Univ.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A19)
1996 Jan 30, The FDA licensed
indinavir, viracept, Abbott Lab’s ritonavir (trade name Norvir) and
saquinavir based on short term clinical data between 1995-1997. The new
protease-blocking drugs were effective in combating AIDS especially
when used in combination with current medicines. The drugs were later
found to cause metabolism problems related to fats.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-16)(SFC, 2/5/98, p.A7)(WSJ,
1/3/06, p.A10)
1996 Feb 10, President Clinton
signed a $265 billion defense bill, but said he would battle for repeal
of a section forcing the discharge of service members with the AIDS
virus.
(AP, 2/10/01)
1996 Mar 1, The Food and Drug
Administration approved a powerful new AIDS drug, saying ritonavir
could prolong slightly the lives of severely ill patients.
(AP, 3/1/01)
1996 Jun 20, Scientists announced
the identification of the co-factor involved in human AIDS viral
reproduction. Chemokin receptor-5, CKR5, is the name of the HIV
co-factor.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 5, An LA County woman was
identified as the first person in the US to carry the rare AIDS virus
strain known as Group O. She was discovered by epidemiologists several
months ago. Group O is only detected in 4 of 5 cases with current
testing methods. Blood supply tests will need to be changed.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A5)
1996 Jul 5, A cloned lamb, named
Dolly (d.2003) after Dolly Pardon, was born in Edinburgh Scotland. The
event was not announced until Feb 23, 1997 when it was made public that
researchers under Dr. Ian Wilmut at Edinburgh, Scotland, created a
clone lamb from adult sheep DNA. In 2001 it was reported that Dolly
suffered from arthritis, a sign of premature aging.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.C1)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A2)(SFC,
2/15/03, p.A2)
1996 Jul 11, A report stated that
Malaria infects 300 million people each year and kills 1.5 to 2.7
million. A drug, artemether, derived from a Chinese herb was appearing
to be as effective as quinine.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.C1)
1996 Jul 26, It was announced that
researchers had devised a new small molecule that may be used in pill
form to replace large molecules which up to now needed to be injected.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 26, Researchers announced
the discovery of a gene, fosB, associated with infant care in mice.
(SFC, 7/26/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 8, Medical researchers
successfully cured patients with sickle-cell anemia by using a risky
bone-marrow transplant technique.
(WSJ, 7/8/96,p.A1)
1996 Aug 29, Researchers reported
that gene therapy was used to halt the growth of some cancer tumors.
The therapy centered on the p53 gene, which regulates the speed of cell
division.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A1,15)
1996 Aug 29, Japanese authorities
arrested Dr. Takeshi Abe, a hemophilia expert, who headed a government
panel on AIDS in the 1980s when some 1,800 hemophiliacs were infected
with AIDS after using blood-clotting agents contaminated with the AIDS
virus. He had failed to recommend a heat treatment for the products
more than 2 years after such treatment was approved in the US.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A18)
1996 Oct 24, In China the Foreign
Ministry acknowledged that some samples of serum albumin were
contaminated with the AIDS virus. Authorities said that 4,305 people in
China had HIV. They acknowledged that the number could be as high
as 100,000.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A14)
1996 Nov 5, In California
elections Prop. 215, an initiative to make marijuana legal for medical
used, was passed. A measure to end public sector affirmative action was
also passed. Prop 218, the right to vote on taxes act, also passed with
a 56% approval. Prop. 204 bond funds were approved [for ecological
restoration of the Bay Area and Sacramento-San Joaquin River deltas].
Prop 208, a campaign spending limit measure, was approved but later
struck down by a federal judge. Arcata soon established a photo ID
program to verify medical use.
(SFC, 11/6/96, p.A1)(SFC, 12/20/96, p.A1)(SFC,
2/3/98, p.A13)
1996 Nov 8, Cheyenne Pyle, the
youngest heart transplant patient (90 mins old), was born in Miami and
flown to California for surgery. The infant did not survive.
(http://tinyurl.com/86zgh)
1996 Dec 21, Dr. David Ho, AIDS
researcher, was named ‘Man of the Year" by Time Magazine.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, p.A2)(AP, 12/21/97)
1996 Dec 30, The Clinton
administration said that doctors who prescribe marijuana could be
excluded from Medicare and Medicaid programs and lose the right to
prescribe drugs. Voters in California and Arizona had approved measures
for medical use of marijuana.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A1)
1996 Dr. Stuart Meloy found that
an electro-stimulator, designed by Medtronic to interrupt pain signals,
induced orgasms in women when applied to a certain point in mid spine.
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.A3)
1996 In California a 63-year-old
woman, Arceli Keh, gave birth to a healthy baby girl after taking
fertility drugs. She became the oldest known woman to give birth.
(SFC, 4/24/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.A14)
1996 The South Africa Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research patented the active chemical of
hoodia, called P57, and licensed development rights to a British firm.
They did not acknowledge the San Bushmen who used the cactus raise
energy and fight hunger. In 2003 an agreement was reached to pay the
San 6% of the royalties. Some 100,000 San lived in South Africa,
Botswana, Namibia and Angola.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.D5)
1997 Jan 23, Cancer experts who
were supposed to settle a furious controversy over whether women should
start having mammograms at age 40 or 50 decided instead to leave the
decision up to patients.
(AP, 1/23/98)
1997 Feb 23, It was announced that
researchers under Dr. Ian Wilmut at Edinburgh, Scotland, created a
clone lamb from adult sheep DNA. The lamb was born in Jul, 1996, and
named Dolly after Dolly Pardon. Dolly was put down Feb. 14, 2003, after
a short life marred by premature aging and disease.
(SFEC, 2/23/97, p.C1)(AP, 2/23/98)
1997 Feb, Lipitor, a cholesterol
reducing drug from Warner-Lambert, became available. It was developed
by Bruce D. Roth. In 2003 sales of Lipitor, marketed by Pfizer, reached
$9.2 billion.
(WSJ, 1/24/00, p.B1)(WSJ, 3/904, p.A1)
1997 Mar 5, Brain researchers
announced that some instinctual behavior was successfully transferred
between chicken and quail embryos. The young birds did not live past 14
days.
(SFC, 3/5/97, p.A4)
1997 Mar 23, The American Cancer
Society recommended that women begin annual mammograms at age 40.
(AP, 3/23/98)
1997 Apr 18, Scientists reported
the discovery of a fusion protein that governed the ability of the HIV
virus to fuse with the protective membranes of immune system cells.
(SFC, 4/18/97, p.A4)
1997 May 18, President Clinton
announced creation of a research center at the National Institutes of
Health devoted to the goal of developing an AIDS vaccine within the
next decade, but offered no new federal spending.
(WSJ, 5/19/97, p.A1)(AP, 5/18/98)
1997 Jul 2, US Aid to Honduras had
dropped this year to $28 million from a high of $229 million in 1985.
The country had the highest AIDS rate in Central America.
(WSJ, 7/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 8, The Mayo Clinic and
the government warned the diet-drug combination known as "fen-phen"
could cause serious heart and lung damage. The drugs were withdrawn in
September. In 2000 a federal judge approved a $3.75 billion national
settlement of health claims due to use of the drugs.
(AP, 7/8/98)(SFC, 8/29/00, p.A4)
1997 Jul 25, An FDA drug panel
endorsed Rituximab, a drug designed to treat B-cell lymphoma. It was
made by Genentech and IDEC Pharmaceuticals.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 2, In Nigeria Fela
Anikulapo-Kuti (b.1938), pop superstar, died of AIDS at 58. He was a
saxophone player who fused rock with African rhythms into a blend known
as "Afrobeat." His albums included: "Zombie," "Army Arrangement," and
"Vagabond in Power." He recorded more than 50 albums in the 1970s and
1980s and his 27 wives mourned his death.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A16)
1997 Aug 8, It was reported that
researchers have discovered how the defective gene in Huntington’s
disease causes the disorder. A genetic "stutter" inserts from 30 to 150
copies of the amino acid glutamine into key proteins and alters their
properties.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 9, In Brazil Herbert Jose
de Souza, sociologist, died at age 60 of AIDS that he acquired as a
hemophiliac from contaminated blood. He spent his life fighting
inequality, hunger and police brutality.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 15, Scientists at Geron
corp. reported that an "immortality gene" had been cloned. The key gene
carries the code for a key section of the enzyme telomerase, that
rebuilds the telomere of DNA. It could lead to new cancer-prevention
drugs and even be used to slow the process of aging.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A1,17)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.D1)
1997 Aug 27, It was announced that
the diet drugs, Redux and Pondimin, caused brain damage in animals at
doses similar to those taken by humans.
(WSJ, 8/27/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 23, AIDS researchers
reported a new chemokine molecule that blocks HIV from infecting cells.
(WSJ, 10/24/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 27, Authorities in
Chautauqua County, N.Y., said Nushawn Williams (20), an HIV-positive
man who allegedly traded drugs for sex with young women and teens, had
infected a number of them with the AIDS virus. Later 48 partners were
identified and 13 women and girls tested positive.
(SFC, 8/20/98, p.A5)(AP, 10/27/98)
1997 Oct 27, Researchers from the
Univ. of Mich. reported that they found a hormone to stimulate the
growth of the myelin sheath that surrounds nerves.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A2)
1997 Nov 21, "The Food and Drug
Administration Act of 1997" was signed into law by President Clinton.
The new law was designed to enhance the product development and review
process; streamline the way the Agency regulates medical devices;
simplify enforcement procedures; and move the Agency toward greater use
of national and international standards. The law gave the FDA new
powers to speed the approval of drugs to combat a host of killer
diseases, including cancer and AIDS.
(PR, NPTH, 6/4/98)(AP, 11/21/98)
1997 Virologist Jaap Goudsmit of
the Univ. of Amsterdam published "Viral Sex: The Nature of AIDS."
(SFEC, 9/7/97, BR p.9)
1997 Roy Porter (1946-2002),
British historian, authored “The Greatest Benefit to Mankind,” a survey
of the history of medicine.
(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.W8)
1997 The Rezulin pill for
diabetes, made by Warner-Lambert, was first found to cause fatalities
due to liver failure in some patients.
(SFC, 2/19/00, p.A2)
1997 A British team discovered
that pig viruses can infect human cells.
(WSJ, 8/28/00, p.B1)
1997 Prionics AG of Switzerland
developed the 1st efficient test for mad cow disease, bovine spongiform
encephalopathy.
(WSJ, 1/08/00, p.A23)
1997 Researchers discovered one of
the genes that cause Leber's congenital amaurosis, a retinal condition
that affects about one in 50,000 Americans.
(WSJ, 8/29/03, p.B11)
1998 Feb 2, The government
released statistics showing deaths from AIDS fell by almost half during
the first half of 1997, a decrease attributed to increased use of
powerful combinations of medicines.
(AP, 2/2/99)
1998 Feb 13, Dr. David Satcher was
sworn in as US surgeon general during an Oval Office ceremony.
(AP, 2/13/08)
1998 Feb 16, Mr. Jefferson, the
1st cloned calf, was born in Virginia.
(www.revivicor.com/MrJefferson.htm)
1998 Mar 3, Dr. Hans J.
Muller-Eberhard, one of the first scientists to explain the importance
of the complement system, died in Houston. He showed that front line
attack of the immune system was a complex of about 20 separate protein
molecules that together attacked cells through a series of reactions
referred to as a cascade.
(SFC, 3/8/98, p.C5)
1998 Mar 18, A study of Finnish
smokers reported in the Journal of the national Cancer Institute
indicated that vitamin E reduced the risk of prostate cancer.
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 27, The Food and Drug
Administration approved the drug Viagra, made by Pfizer, saying it
helped about two-thirds of impotent men improve their sexual function.
Viagra’s effects were shown to last 8-12 hours. Pfizer had originally
tested the compound UK 92,480 as a drug for angina and found that male
volunteers were getting frequent erections. They renamed it Viagra and
sought sales approval.
(AP, 3/27/99)(SFC, 5/28/02, p.A4)(Econ, 7/16/05,
p.76)
1998 Apr 10, The anti-impotence
drug Viagra appeared on the market and became one of the best-selling
new medications of all time.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1998 Apr 14, A new blood test for
cancer used enzyme-coated iron particles to attract cancer cells for
detection.
(WSJ, 4/14/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 20, A report was
published that suggested that the drug raloxifene, sold by Eli Lilly as
Evista, can prevent breast cancer in addition to tamoxifen. Both
synthetic drugs block the action of estrogen.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A7)
1998 May 4, The FDA approved the
first commercial surgical glue, Tisseel, made by Baxter Labs.
(USAT, 5/4/98, p.10D)
1998 Jun 8, In Russia the number
of AIDS was reported to have quadrupled since 1996 to 8,313, mainly due
to intravenous drug-taking.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A14)
1998 Jun 19, A study published in
the British medical journal The Lancet said smoking more than doubles
the risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
(AP, 6/19/03)
1998 Jun 20, On the eve of
Father's Day, President Clinton used his weekly radio address to
announce the release of the first wave of almost $60 million in
prostate cancer research grants.
(AP, 6/20/08)
1998 Jun 28, The 12th World AIDS
Conference opened in Geneva.
(AP, 6/28/99)
1998 Jun 29, The 12th Int’l. AIDS
Conference opened in Geneva with some 12,000 participants.
(SFC, 6/29/98, p.A1)
1998 Jun 30, In Geneva AIDS
specialists from SF reported a patient infected with a strain of HIV
resistant to the new anti-viral drugs.
(SFC, 7/1/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 3, The 12th World AIDS
Conference ended in Geneva.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1998 Jul 8, Dow Corning agreed to
settle a suit with women claiming injury from silicone breast implants
for $3.2 billion. A federal bankruptcy judge tentatively approved a
settlement under which an estimated 170,000 women, who said silicone
breast implants had made them sick, would get $3.2 billion dollars from
Dow Corning Corp.
(SFC, 7/9/98, p.A1)(AP, 7/8/99)
1998 Jul 17, Scientists reported
in the journal Science that the syphilis genome, 1.1 million base pairs
of DNA, had been mapped.
(SFC, 7/17/98, p.A7)
1998 Aug 14, A federal appeals
court in Richmond, Va., ruled that the Food and Drug Administration had
no authority to regulate tobacco, striking down FDA rules making it
harder for minors to buy cigarettes; the Clinton administration said it
would appeal. In 2000 the US Supreme Court ruled that the government
lacked the authority to regulate tobacco as an addictive drug.
(AP, 8/14/99)
1998 Sep 2, A new strain of HIV-1
was reported by French researchers from a Cameroonian woman who died if
AIDS in 1995.
(SFC, 9/1/98, p.A4)
1998 Oct 28, In Botswana the life
expectancy was reported to have dropped from 61 in 1993 to 47 to the
AIDS epidemic.
(SFC, 10/28/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 28, In Zimbabwe it was
reported that 1 in 5 adults was infected with the AIDS virus.
(SFC, 10/28/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 29, The government
cleared the powerful drug tamoxifen as a way for healthy women at very
high risk of breast cancer to cut their odds of getting a tumor.
(AP, 10/29/99)
1998 Nov 24, A UN report on AIDS
said 33 million people were infected, and that two-thirds of them were
in sub-Saharan Africa.
(WSJ, 11/25/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 1, Pres. Clinton marked
World Aids Day by announcing an increase in NIH funding for an AIDS
vaccine to $200 million.
(WSJ, 12/2/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 16, Researchers in South
Korea claimed to have cloned a human embryo, but destroyed it early in
its development.
(SFC, 12/17/98, p.A10)
1998 Dec 22, In South Africa Gugu
Dlamini (36), an AIDS activist, died from wounds inflicted by a mob.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A7)
1998 Dec 27, A vaccine for AIDS by
VaxGen Inc. of South San Francisco was reported to be in Phase III
clinical trials. It was derived from g-120, a genetically engineered
protein copied from a protein found in the HIV virus. Other vaccines
were also under development.
(SFEC, 12/27/98, p.A3)
1998 The US FDA approved Actiq, a
potent narcotic, for cancer patients suffering from pain that other
narcotics did not relieve. By 2006 its use had spread to a much wider
cohort.
(WSJ, 11/3/06, p.A1)
1998 The US began to fortify
grains for bread and cereal with folic acid. By 2009 this led to a 31%
decline in cases of spina bifida.
(Econ, 8/29/09, p.70)
1998 Celera Genomics joined the
race to map all human genes.
(WSJ, 4/5/01, p.B1)
1998 Celgene was founded to
sequence the human genome.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.72)
1998 A brain implant let a
paralyzed stroke victim move a cursor on a computer screen to point out
simple phrases. [see Apr 13, 2004]
(SFC, 4/14/04, p.C8)
1998 Cybernetics Prof. Kevin
Warwick had a chip implanted into his arm for 9 days to monitor his
body's electrical signals and transmit results to a computer. He
followed up with a more sophisticated chip in 2000.
(SFC, 4/3/00, p.E16)
1998 Dr. James Thomson, Univ. of
Wisconsin research biologist, announced that he had successfully grown
human embryonic stem cells in a privately funded research lab.
(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A18)
1998 Some 2 million Africans south
of the Sahara died of AIDS in this year.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Jan 31, Scientists from the
University of Alabama at Birmingham reported that the AIDS virus
originated from a subspecies of chimpanzee in western Africa and that
it jumped to humans in the last 50 years.
(SFC, 2/1/99, p.A1)(AP, 1/31/00)
1999 Feb 3, In Zimbabwe officials
said that 70,000 people will die of AIDS this year. 1.6 million of the
nation's 12 million people were infected.
(WSJ, 2/4/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 3, From South Africa it
was reported that 3.6 million people, one in eight adults, were
carrying the AIDS virus by the end of 1998. This compared with 2.7
million in 1997.
(SFC, 3/4/99, p.C5)(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 17, A US science panel
commissioned by the Clinton administration called for clinical trials
of medical marijuana. Medical experts concluded that marijuana has
medical benefits for people suffering from cancer and AIDS.
(SFC, 3/17/99, p.A1)(AP, 3/17/00)
1999 Apr 8, An enzyme called
presenilin was reported to be a critical factor in Alzheimer's disease.
(SFC, 4/8/99, p.A2)
1999 Apr 18, During a speech on
the 19th anniversary of independence Pres. Mugabe said that over 1200
Zimbabweans were dying each week from AIDS.
(SFC, 4/19/99, p.A10)
1999 May 3, Bill Gates pledged $25
million over 5 years to help develop a vaccine against AIDS.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A3)
1999 May 6, Bristol-Myers
announced a plan to spend $100 million over the next 5 years in 5
southern African nations, that included Botswana, to fund AIDS research
trials.
(WSJ, 5/6/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/7/00, p.A1)
1999 May 6, Scientists reported
that the salmonella bacteria becomes disabled when stripped of a gene
that produces the DNA adenine methylase (Dam). The research was seen as
a potent new source for vaccines.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.A1,17)
1999 Jun 22, Zimbabwe reported
that an estimated 3,000 people were dying per week, nearly 70% of them
from AIDS-related illnesses. 25% of the population was said to be
infected with the AIDS causing virus.
(SFC, 6/23/99, p.A14)
1999 Jun, Cheryl L. Johnson
(1950-2007), a nurse at the Univ. of Michigan, and Susan Bianchi-Sand
were among the co-founders of the United American Nurses union (UAN).
During the week of June 17-20, ANA's House of Delegates (HOD) voted in
Washington, DC, to create the United American Nurses (UAN), a labor
entity within ANA that will further strengthen its labor activities.
(WSJ, 11/10/07, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/2tvqo9)
1999 Jul 9, In China the number of
AIDS cases was reported to have climbed past 400,000.
(SFC, 7/10/99, p.C1)
1999 Jul 29, It was reported that
research led by Dr. Robert Weinberg of MIT had created a cancerous
human cell by genetic modification of a normal one.
(SFC, 7/29/99, p.C2)
1999 Aug 5, Researchers reported
the discovery of a gene that causes narcolepsy in dogs.
(WSJ, 8/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 9, In NYC it was reported
that 3 people had died from mosquito-borne St. Louis encephalitis in
the last few weeks. The virus was later identified as the West Nile
Virus, never before reported in the Western Hemisphere
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.A3)(SFC, 9/28/99, p.A9)
1999 Sep 13, Researchers reported
that gene therapy restored vigor to aged brains in experiments with
monkeys.
(WSJ, 9/14/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 13, In Zimbabwe AIDS
activists gathered in Lusaka for a 4-day conference on the disease that
had already killed 11 million Africans. 5 Africans were being infected
every 2 minutes.
(SFC, 9/14/99, p.A12)
1999 Sep 15, It was reported that
AIDS killed 2 million Africans in 1998.
(SFC, 9/16/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 22, US Sec. of State
Albright visited Kenya and discussed efforts to curb AIDS which was
claiming 500 Kenyans a day.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A11)
1999 Dec 1, On World AIDS Days,
United Nations officials released a report estimating that eleven
million children worldwide had been orphaned by the pandemic.
(AP, 12/1/00)
1999 Alice M. Hodge (d.2001 at 48)
authored "Taking Charge of Your Health," a self-help book for patients
with life-altering diseases.
(SFC, 10/24/01, p.C6)
1999 Edward Hooper authored "The
River," a detailed hypothesis for the origin of AIDS in Africa. He
suspected that the Wister polio vaccine, which was given to some
300,000 people in the Belgian Congo between 1957-1960, was produced
from monkey kidney cells that contained SIV virus.
(SSFC, 1/14/01, p.A1,14)(www.avert.org/origins.htm)
1999 The UN estimated the
worldwide death toll from AIDS to reach 2.6 million for this year.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.A1)
2000 Feb 18, In South Africa the
telephone company, Telkom, announced that it would buy and distribute 5
million condoms to its employees in an effort to fight AIDS which had
infected some 13% of the adult population.
(SFC, 2/19/00, p.A12)
2000 Mar 4, On the AIDS crises it
was reported that 1 in every 50 black men in the US was HIV positive.
It was also reported that 1 in 300 of all people in the US were HIV
positive.
(SFEC, 3/5/00, Z1 p.1)
2000 Mar 23, Researchers reported
that a blood test for C-reactive protein could serve as a good
indicator for heart attack risk.
(SFC, 3/23/00, p.A4)
2000 Mar 23, Scientists reported
that the genetic code of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, had
been decoded. 60% of the flies 13,600 genes are identical to human
genes.
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.A2)
2000 Mar, The FDA forced the
withdrawal of Rezulin, a diabetes pill made by Warner-Lambert. In 2002
documents showed that early indications of the drug’s danger to the
liver were masked.
(SSFC, 6/30/02, p.A7)
2000 Apr 5, The WHO and UNAIDS
recommended that the drug trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (or
cotrimoxazole) be used to fight AIDS in Africa. The antibiotic, also
known as Bactrim, would help victims live longer.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Apr 6, A private company
mapping the human genetic blueprint announced it had decoded all of the
DNA pieces that make up the genetic pattern of a single human being.
(AP, 4/6/01)
2000 Apr 17, The IMF and World
Bank ministers ended their meetings and pledged to speed debt relief to
poor countries and to increase support for fighting AIDS. Police
blocked all protestor attempts to disrupt the meetings.
(SFC, 4/18/00, p.A1)(AP, 4/17/01)
2000 Apr 24, It was reported that
officially 5000 new AIDS cases were registered in Irkutsk, Russia, over
the last year along with 8,500 heroin addicts. 40% of Russian
prostitutes were reported to be HIV-positive.
(SFC, 4/24/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 30, The Clinton
administration defended their decision to classify AIDS as a threat to
national security as a means to garner attention and funding to fight
the disease worldwide.
(SFC, 5/1/00, p.A7)
2000 May 2, In Rwanda health
minister Ezechias Rwabuhihi reported that some 500,000 Rwandans, 6% of
the population, were infected with AIDS.
(SFC, 5/4/00, p.A18)
2000 May 10, Pres. Clinton issued
an executive order to make drugs for AIDS less expensive in Africa.
(SFC, 5/11/00, p.A1)
2000 May 19, Scientists led by
Robert Gallo announced plans for an oral AIDS vaccine to be tested in
Uganda for less than $1 per dose. Trials might begin within 18 months.
(SFC, 5/20/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 7, German drug maker
Boehringer Ingelheim said it would donate nevirapine, a drug to help
prevent the transmission of AIDS from mothers to infants, to every
nation in the developing world that asks for it.
(SFC, 7/8/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 9, The 13the Int’l. AIDS
Conference convened in South Africa. Pres. Thabo Mbeki opened the
conference and insisted that poverty was a greater enemy than the AIDS
virus. Hundreds of delegates walked out.
(SFC, 7/7/00, p.A1)(SFC, 7/10/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 14, In South Africa
Nelson Mandela closed the 13th Int’l. Conference on AIDS with a call
for scientists to set aside differences with Pres. Thabo Mbeki and to
concentrate on fighting the disease.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 19, The US announced a
plan to offer sub-Saharan African nations $1 billion in loans through
the Export-Import Bank to finance the purchase of American AIDS drugs
and medical services.
(SFC, 7/19/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 3, It was reported that
scientists had developed the genetic blueprint of the cholera bacterium.
(SFC, 8/3/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 19, Pres. Clinton signed
the Global Aids and Tuberculosis Relief Act of 2000. It included a
trust fund to care for African AIDS patients. AIDS was killing 6,000
people a day and had orphaned 15% of the children in the worst affected
cities.
(SFC, 8/19/00, p.A5)(SFEC, 8/20/00, p.A7)
2000 Aug 27, Pres. Clinton visited
the village of Ushafa in Nigeria and urged Nigerians to confront the
"tyranny" of AIDS.
(SFC, 8/28/00, p.A1)
2000 Sep 8, The UN Millennium
Summit ended in NYC with the adoption of an 8-page plan to cure the
world’s direst problems. Pledges were made to halve the proportion of
people in poverty, to reverse the spread of AIDS, and to strengthen the
UN’s ability to keep peace.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A1)
2000 Sep 11, In Barbados officials
at a conference on AIDS in the Caribbean pledged $120 million to fight
the disease.
(SFC, 9/13/00, p.A13)
2000 Sep 25, It was reported that
synthetic versions of the natural enzymes superoxide dismutase and
catalase extended the lives of microscopic roundworms by as much as 50%.
(SFC, 9/25/00, p.A6)
2000 Oct 9, The Nobel Prize in
physiology or medicine was awarded to Paul Greengard and Eric Kandel of
the US and Arvid Carlsson of Sweden for research in how memory works
and for laying the foundation for the development of anti-depressants.
(SFC, 10/10/00, p.A3)
2000 Oct 23, Senegal struck the
1st cut-rate deal for AIDS drugs with discounts as much as 90% from US
retail prices.
(WSJ, 10/24/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov 21, Research published in
a British medical journal showed children who use mobile phones risk
suffering memory loss, sleeping disorders and headaches. The study said
that those younger than 18 are more vulnerable to cell phone radiation
because their immune systems are less robust.
(AP, 11/21/02)
2000 Dec 1, Pres. Clinton on World
AIDS Day urged Congress to provide more money for the prevention and
treatment of AIDS. In the US 40,000 people were being infected each
year and 420,000 had died since 1981. Worldwide almost 60 million
people were infected and 16,000 more were being infected every day.
(SFC, 12/2/00, p.A6)
2000 Dec 1, In South Africa the
government agreed to accept a $50 million donation of the drug
fluconazole from Pfizer to treat a brain inflammation associated with
AIDS. Recent approval was also given for nevirapine, a drug to reduce
transmission of the AIDS virus to a fetus.
(SFC, 12/2/00, p.A12)
2000 Dec 4, It was reported that a
mutated oral polio vaccine infected at least 3 people in the Dominican
Republic and Haiti. That standard vaccine appeared to work against the
mutated strain.
(SFC, 12/4/00, p.E2)(WSJ, 4/16/02, p.A1)
2000 Dec 4, Scientists reported
that the Novartis leukemia drug STI-571 brought cancer into remission
in most patients in clinical trials.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A13)
2000 Dec 22, A 2nd genetic link
factor for Alzheimer’s was reported on Chromosome 10. the 1st variant
was known as ApoE4. the new gene was suspected in playing a role in the
production of the AB42 protein that makes the plaques scattered through
the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
(SFC, 12/22/00, p.D3)
2000 A woman gave birth to a baby
that was screened to ensure a birth free of a family genetic trait for
Alzheimer’s disease.
(WSJ, 2/27/02, p.A1)(SFC, 2/27/02, p.A1)
2000 Abbott Labs introduced
Kaletra, an AIDS drug that included Norvir, a protease inhibitor. In
2003 Abbott quintupled the price for Norvir. Abbott pricing went under
investigation in 2004.
(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.A10)
2000 Canadian researchers began
pancreatic islet transplants to patients with diabetes with 70-80%
success to eliminate insulin shots.
(WSJ, 4/10/02, p.A1)
2001 Jan 11, Researchers in Oregon
reported the 1st genetically altered monkey produced to contain a
jelly-fish gene for florescence.
(SFC, 1/12/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 27, Bill Gates pledged
$100 million for an AIDS vaccine.
(SSFC, 1/28/01, p.A18)
2001 Feb 6, Genset released early
test results that showed weight loss in mice injected with famoxin.
(WSJ, 2/6/00, p.A1)
2001 Feb 6, In India the Cipla
Ltd. Corp. of Bombay offered to supply triple-therapy anti-AIDS
cocktails to Doctors Without Borders in Africa for $350 per year per
patient.
(SFC, 2/7/01, p.A12)
2001 Feb 10, It was reported that
Zovan, a genetically engineered version of human activated protein C,
significantly cut the death rate from sepsis. It was also reported that
LIF, leukemia inhibitory factor normally found in human placentas,
blocked the AIDS virus in lab studies.
(SFC, 2/10/01, p.A3)
2001 Feb 11, It was reported that
scientists had found the human genome to consist of 30,000 genes and
that only some 300 were unique to humans as when compared to mice.
(SSFC, 2/11/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb 12, Scientists published
their first examinations of nearly all the human genetic code.
(AP, 2/12/02)
2001 Mar 6, In Kenya the 1st
experimental AIDS vaccine, specifically designed for Africa, was
administered.
(SFC, 3/7/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 8, A new AIDS vaccine was
reported to be successful in monkeys.
(WSJ, 3/9/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 14, Bristol-Myers
proposed a $1 a day price per patient for its 2 AIDS medicines to
sub-Saharan African countries.
(SFC, 3/15/01, p.A12)
2001 Mar 20, In South Africa new
AIDS statistics indicated that 25% of the adult population, one of
every 9 people, was infected with HIV.
(SFC, 3/21/01, p.A13)
2001 Apr 4, Myriad Genetics
announced a plan, with partners Oracle and Hitachi, to map out how
human proteins interact.
(WSJ, 4/5/01, p.B1)
2001 Apr 10, Doctors in San Diego
implanted genetically modified cells in to the brain of a 60-year-old
woman with early Alzheimer’s disease in an effort to slow her mental
decline.
(SFC, 4/11/01, p.A3)
2001 Apr 12, It was reported that
antiseizure drugs caused higher than normal birth defects among
children born to epileptic mothers.
(SFC, 4/12/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 14, It was reported that
8 cases of childhood leukemia were recorded in 2000 in the area of
Fallon, Nevada. 12 children were diagnosed with leukemia since 1997 and
high levels of arsenic in the drinking water was suspected. Jet fuel at
a nearby air base and a nuclear detonation in 1963, and pesticides were
also cited as possible causes. In 2002 a 16th case was reported.
(SFC, 4/14/01, p.A6)(SFC, 7/29/02, p.A4)
2001 Apr 28, It was reported that
researchers at the Univ. of Pennsylvania had used gene therapy to
reverse a form of congenital blindness in dogs.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A3)
2001 Apr 26, Kofi Annan addressed
an AIDS summit in Nigeria and called for an increase of funding against
AIDS to at least $7 billion.
(SFC, 4/27/01, p.D2)
2001 Apr 26, It was reported that
a meningitis outbreak had killed at least 3,500 people in Africa and
that vaccine had been shipped to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.
(SFC, 4/26/01, p.A14)
2001 Apr 27, In Nigeria 53 African
states signed a joint declaration to boost health spending to 15% to
fight AIDS.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A10)
2001 May 10, The US FDA cleared
Gleevec, a cancer drug made by Novartis. The drug disrupted enzymes
that make white blood cells proliferate.
(WSJ, 5/11/01, p.A3)(SFC, 5/11/01, p.A3)
2001 May 22, It was reported that
researchers had identified a gene linked to Crohn’s disease, an
inflammatory bowel disorder.
(WSJ, 5/22/01, p.A1)
2001 May 24, US Sec. of State
Colin Powell traveled to South Africa as part of his 4-nation African
tour to promote the fight against AIDS.
(WSJ, 5/25/01, p.A11)
2001 May 24, It was reported that
St. Jude Medical had designed a new aortic connector to make operations
easier in bypass surgery.
(WSJ, 5/24/01, p.A1)
2001 Jun 1, In South Africa Nkosi
Johnson (12), a victim of AIDS, died. In 2000 he had spoken to int’l.
delegates and implored South Africa to provide HIV-positive pregnant
women with anti-retroviral drugs to block transmission of the virus to
children at birth.
(SFC, 1/12/01, p.A18)(SFC, 6/2/01, p.A8)
2001 Jun 4, It was reported that
the AIDS HIV-infection rate in Botswana was 38.5% of the adult
population.
(SFC, 6/4/01, p.A10)
2001 Jun 6, Pfizer announced that
it would distribute Diflucan, a treatment for cryptococcal meningitis,
for free to AIDS patients in 50 of the world’s least developed
countries.
(SFC, 6/7/01, p.C2)
2001 Jun 25, In NYC the UN General
Assembly convened for a special 3-day session on AIDS.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 2, In Louisville, Ky.,
the 1st self-contained artificial heart, AbioCor, made by Abiomed was
implanted at Jewish Hospital to Robert L. Tools (59). Tools lived 151
days with the device and died Nov 30.
(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/5/01, p.A1)(SFC, 8/22/01,
p.A3)(SFC, 12/1/01, p.A3)
2001 Jul 5, Researchers reported
that cloned mice have profound genetic abnormalities not apparent at
birth.
(SFC, 7/6/01, p.A1)
2001 Jul 12, In Virginia a woman
delivered 5 boys and 2 girls by C-section. This was only the 3rd set of
septuplets known to have survived birth.
(SFC, 7/14/01, p.A3)
2001 Jul 31, The US House of
Representatives voted 265-102 to criminalize all human cloning.
(SFC, 8/1/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 21, Robert Tools, the
first person to receive a self-contained artificial heart (Jul 2), was
introduced to the public at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Ky., through
a video link from his doctor's office. Tools survived with the device
for 151 days, and died Nov. 30, 2001, of other health problems.
(AP, 8/21/06)
2001 Aug 22, Brazil moved to
produce a generic version of the anti-AIDS drug nelfinavir under int’l.
patent protection by Roche.
(SFC, 8/23/01, p.A8)
2001 Aug 23, It was reported that
surveys had indicated that two-thirds of China’s 1.26 billion people
were infected with hepatitis B.
(SFC, 8/23/01, p.A9)
2001 Aug 25, Univ. of Chicago
doctors announced that they a kept a human kidney operating for 24
hours in a machine that simulated a warm human body.
(SSFC, 8/26/01, p.A10)
2001 Aug 27, It was reported that
AIDS victims in Thailand were packing stadiums to receive V-1
Immunitor, a locally produced drug advertised as a clinically tested
oral AIDS vaccine. Salang Bunnag sponsored the giveaway directed at
Thailand’s 755,000 AIDS patients.
(SFC, 8/27/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug, Gary Padgham (50), an
elk hunter from Bozeman, Montana, died in Monterey, Ca., with symptoms
similar to mad cow disease. Seattle doctors had diagnosed him with
Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD).
(SFC, 9/7/02, p.A13)
2001 Oct, The FDA approved
tenofovir (Viread), made by Gilead Sciences, to fight HIV. It blocked a
key enzyme in HIV called reverse transcriptase. Gilead acquired it from
Czech chemist Antonin Holy and turned it into a once-a-day pill.
(SFC, 7/14/04, p.A14)
2001 Nov 5, Baxter said its
dialysis filters appear to have played a role in the deaths of 53
patients in Texas, Nebraska, and 6 countries in Europe, south America
and Asia.
(WSJ, 11/6/01, p.A3)
2001 Nov 22, Stanford and UCSF
researchers reported a long list of genes responsible for multiple
schlerosis (MS).
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 28, A UN report on AIDS
noted Ukraine as the 1st European nation to report 1% of its adults
infected. Rapid spread was noted across Eastern Europe.
(WSJ, 11/29/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov, China held its 1st
national AIDS conference in Beijing.
(WSJ, 12/19/01, p.A12)
2001 Dec 4, Edwin Huffine, US
forensic scientist, launched a new DNA ID software program developed
with a team of Bosnian experts at the Sarajevo-based Int’l. Commission
for Missing Persons (ICMP). The program used kinship analysis.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 18, It was reported that
malaria scientists have engineered mice that produce vaccine in their
milk.
(WSJ, 12/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 19, It was reported that
93 official cases of dengue fever had been confirmed in Hawaii, with
most of them in Maui. The dengue virus had not been seen in Hawaii
since 1943.
(WSJ, 12/19/01, p.B1,4)
2001 Dec 20, It was reported that
researchers had identified red wine pigments (polyphenols) as a factor
in inhibiting the production of a peptide that stimulates hardening of
the arteries.
(WSJ, 12/20/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 20, Bio-Rad Labs and 3
large licensees were reported to have little incentive to sell a rapid
AIDS test domestically because they already dominated the slower
lab-based testing market.
(WSJ, 12/20/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 21, Pfizer agreed to
settle a suit over the diabetes drug Rezulin after a jury awarded $43
million to a Texas woman who said it destroyed her liver.
(SFC, 12/22/01, p.A5)
2001 Dec 22, A cloned cat named CC
(Carbon Copy) was born following a year of experimentation by
scientists at Texas A&M scientists. The $3.7 million research
project was funded by John Sperling (81), founder of the Univ. of
Phoenix. Sperling soon formed the Sausalito firm Genetic Savings to
clone pets.
(SFC, 2/15/02, p.A1)(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A1)(SFC,
8/6/04, p.A14)
2001 The UN said 170,000 people in
Cambodia had HIV. About 2.7% of the adult population was infected with
AIDS.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.41)
2002 Jan 1, It was reported that
the number of AIDS cases in Vietnam, people living with HIV, had
reached 40,000. 12-18k new cases were predicted for the coming years.
(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A15)
2002 Jan 7, Scientists reported
that symptoms of Parkinson’s were relieved in rats when stem cells were
injected into their brains.
(WSJ, 1/8/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 9, It was reported that
chlorinated water can react with organic matter to form trihalomethanes
(THMs), that have been linked to cancer, miscarriages and birth defects.
(SFC, 1/9/02, p.A3)
2002 Feb, The W135 strain of
meningitis from the Middle East was identified for the 1st time in
Africa in Burkina Faso and by Sep some 12,000 people were infected with
1,500 deaths.
(SFC, 9/20/02, p.A12)
2002 Mar 2, From Brazil it was
reported that at least 23 people had died from dengue fever in Rio de
Janeiro and that officially some 52,000 had become ill.
(SFC, 3/2/02, p.A10)
2002 Mar 6, It was reported that a
3-year study of heavy marijuana users showed that long-term pot smoking
impaired brain function.
(SFC, 3/6/02, p.A2)
2002 Mar 6, It was reported that a
diet rich in tomato products can lower the risk of prostate cancer
(Journal of National Cancer Institute).
(SFC, 3/6/02, p.A2)(WSJ, 3/6/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 7, Doctors in Saudi
Arabia reported that the world’s 1st uterus transplant lasted 99 days
before it began to deteriorate.
(SFC, 3/7/02, p.A5)
2002 Mar 8, It was reported that
scientists had found a link between SV40, a simian virus, and
non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
(SFC, 3/9/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 14, It was reported that
scientists had developed a brain implant that allowed monkeys to
control a computer cursor by thought alone.
(SFC, 3/14/02, p.A2)
2002 Mar 29, It was reported that
Thailand planned to market a drug combination of 3 AIDS drugs in one
cheap pill.
(WSJ, 3/29/02, p.B1)
2002 Mar 29, France reported the
successful cloning of rabbits using genetic material from adult cells.
(SFC, 3/30/02, p.A3)
2002 Apr 2, In California a SF
jury awarded $33.7 million to a former Navy electrician who acquired
mesothelioma from asbestos exposure. Foster Wheeler Corp. was the
defendant.
(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A13)
2002 Apr 11, China reported that
some 850,000 people were infected with AIDS at the end of 2001.
(SFC, 4/12/02, p.A8)
2002 Apr 15, The FDA approved
Botox to smooth the appearance of wrinkles.
(SFC, 4/16/02, p.A3)
2002 Apr 17, French scientists
reported the successful use of gene therapy to treat 4 boys with the
immuno-deficiency syndrome dubbed "bubble-boy disease."
(WSJ, 4/18/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 18, Researchers in
Pittsburgh reported a strain of Group A streptococci resistant to
erythromycin (the macrolide class of antibiotics).
(SFC, 4/18/02, p.A4)(WSJ, 4/18/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 24, Greece closed all
schools as a mysterious virus spread with 3 deaths and 39 diagnosed
cases.
(WSJ, 4/25/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr, The Dr. Peter Centre in
Vancouver, Canada, began running a safe-injection site for
drug-addicted patients with HIV and AIDS. The city estimated 12,000
intravenous drug users among 1.3 million in the greater area.
(WSJ, 4/1/03, p.D8)
2002 May 16, The WHO created the
1st global strategy for traditional medicine.
(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A16)
2002 May 30, It was reported that
China was embarking on a program to inoculate its poorest people
against hepatitis. Half of the population was reported to have had the
disease with 120 million long term carriers.
(WSJ, 5/30/02, p.A1)
2002 Jun 3, It was reported that
scientists had discovered a new amino acid, dubbed pyrrolysine, in
Archaea microbes. This brought the known total to 22.
(SFC, 6/3/02, p.A4)
2002 Jun 17, The 1st oral "black
fever" drug was announced. Visceral leishmaniasis reportedly killed
60,000 annually, mostly in Brazil, India and Bangladesh.
(WSJ, 6/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Jun, The UN AIDS program
reported that Russia had the highest epidemic of HIV infections in the
world.
(SSFC, 7/28/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 9, The Women’s Health
Initiative announced that estrogen-progestin pills, taken by millions
of women as a hormone replacement therapy, do more harm than good.
(SSFC, 7/14/02, p.A3)
2002 Jul 11, US scientists
financed by the Pentagon announced that they had synthesized a virus
from scratch for the 1st time. They built a polio virus relying only on
genetic sequence information publicly available.
(SFC, 7/12/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 13, It was reported that
Dr. P.V. Rajiv in southern India saved three sick newborn babies using
a cloned version of the anti-impotence drug Viagra. "We saved the
babies by giving sildenafil citrate, also called Viagra," he said. Dr.
Rajiv first gave the drug orally to a baby suffering pulmonary
hypertension, after consulting international journals which reported
its use to treat adults in a similar condition. Blue babies have a
condition that contracts vessels carrying oxygen-rich blood to the
lungs.
(AP, 7/13/02)
2002 Jul 17, The National Cancer
Institute published a report that linked estrogen used for hormone
replacement to ovarian cancer.
(SFC, 7/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 20, The number of
Japanese who have died after taking diet pills imported from China has
risen to four and 124 have fallen ill, Kyodo news agency reported
quoting a Health Ministry report.
(Reuters, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul, Customs inspectors in
Belgium noted irregularities in medical shipments from Senegal. It was
determined that some 3 million doses of Glaxo HIV drugs worth $18
million had been diverted from Africa back to Europe for sale.
(SFC, 10/3/02, p.A10)
2002 Aug 4, It was reported that
low-grade inflammation is worse for human health than high cholesterol
levels. Increases of C-reactive protein from the inflammation could
trigger the release of lumps of plaque and cause arterial clots leading
to heart attacks. Associated factors included high blood pressure,
smoking and chronic gum disease.
(SSFC, 8/4/02, p.A9)
2002 Aug 5, Dr. Sanford L. Palay
(83), neuroscientist and author of "The Cerebral Cortex" and other
books, died in Concord, Mass.
(SFC, 9/3/02, p.A20)
2002 Aug 6, Surgeons in LA
completed a 22-hour operation on Guatemalan twins, Maria de Jesus Quiej
Alvarez and sister Maria Teresa, joined at their heads. UCLA doctors
donated their services in the $1.5 million operation. They returned to
Guatemala Jan 13, 2003.
(SFC, 8/7/02, p.A1)(SFC, 8/8/02, p.A3)(SFC, 2/7/03,
p.A12)
2002 Aug 22, Researchers reported
a new enzyme to treat victims of an anthrax attack and to help detect
the spores.
(SFC, 8/22/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 19, Scientists urged
stronger warning labels for acetaminophen, a painkiller used in
numerous products including Tylenol. Overdose caused liver damage and
annual deaths numbered some 100.
(SFC, 9/20/02, p.A3)
2002 Sep 20, Scientists urged
stronger warning labels for aspirin, ibuprofen and similar painkillers
due to the risk of ulcers.
(SFC, 9/20/02, p.A3)
2002 Sep 20, It was reported that
cancer in Melanoma patients went into remission following injections of
their own T-cells.
(WSJ, 9/20/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 22, Gov. Davis signed
legislation intended to make California a haven for stem cell research.
(SFC, 9/23/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 30, The National
Intelligence Council said China, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria and Russia
will have 50-75 million HIV-infected people by 2010, more than any
other 5 countries.
(SFC, 10/1/02, p.A5)
2002 Oct 3, Int’l. teams of
scientists declared that the genetic code of Plasmodium falciprum, the
parasite that causes most human malaria, has been identified along with
the genetic code of Anopheles gambiae, the mosquito most responsible
for human malaria transmission.
(SFC, 10/3/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 21, It was reported that
Prof. Vijay Pende of Stanford successfully led a program to use shared
computing power to decipher protein folding in BBA5, a man-made chain
of 23 amino acids.
(SFC, 10/21/02, p.A4)
2002 Oct 22, It was reported that
a gene was identified that related to attention-deficit disorders and
that it was located in a region of the human genome identified with
autism.
(WSJ, 10/22/02, p.D3)
2002 Nov 7, The US FDA approved a
20 minute easy to use AIDS test manufactured by OraSure.
(SFC, 11/7/02, p.A4)
2002 Nov 14, The New England
Journal of Medicine reported a study that found C-reactive protein
(CRP) to be a major trigger of heart attacks.
(SFC, 11/14/02, p.A1)
2002 Nov 21, Merck published a
study of vaccine that prevents cervical cancers caused by human
papilloma virus (HPV) that could be available by 2006.
(WSJ, 11/21/02, p.A1)(SFC, 11/21/02, p.A1)
2002 Nov 24, The government of
Vietnam estimated AIDS at 107,000 cases and pointed to the estimated
40,000 prostitutes as the chief source. AIDS workers said 70% of the
infected were drug users and claimed 200,000 cases.
(SSFC, 11/24/02, p.A3)
2002 Nov 26, The World Health
Organization confirmed an outbreak of flu in rebel-controlled northern
Congo, and the country's health minister said more than 500 people have
died.
(AP, 11/26/02)
2002 Nov 26, A United Nations
report said that for the first time in the 20-year history of the AIDS
epidemic, about as many women as men were infected with HIV.
(AP, 11/26/03)
2002 Dec 1, World AIDS Day marked
42 million HIV positive people around the world with 75% in sub-Saharan
Africa.
(AP, 12/2/02)
2002 Dec 5, The genetic code of
the Black 6 mouse, the most common breed of laboratory mouse, was
published in Nature.
(SFC, 12/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 19, It was reported that
AIDS in Thailand infected 1 in 60 people and that by 2006 some 50,000
annual deaths would result from AIDS-related causes.
(SFC, 12/19/02, p.A18)
2002 Dec 26, Brigitte Boisselier,
a chemist and head of Clonaid, said the world's first human clone, a
7-pound baby girl, was born by Caesarean section. She was associated
with the Raelian religion, founded by Claude Vorilhon in 1973. The
claim was subsequently dismissed by scientists for lack of proof.
(AP, 12/27/02)(Reuters, 12/27/02)(SFC, 12/28/02,
p.A5)
2002 Zachary B. Friedenberg
authored "Medicine Under Sail," an account of the experiences of
shipboard doctors.
(WSJ, 7/26/02, p.W10)
2003 Jan 2, It was reported that
scientists had mapped chromosome 14, the 4th of 24 and longest
sequenced to date.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2003 Jan 6, US Surgeon General Dr.
Richard Carmona called obesity the fastest growing cause of illness and
death in the US.
(SFC, 1/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 13, It was reported that
Iraq has experienced a dramatic increase in child cancers in recent
years. Blame was cast on the US use of depleted uranium during the 1991
Gulf War.
(SFC, 1/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 26, Bill Gates announced
that his charitable foundation will spend $200 million for medical
research in poor and undeveloped countries.
(SFC, 1/27/03, p.A3)
2003 Jan 28, Pres. Bush in his
State of the Union vowed to use the "full force and might of the U.S.
military" if needed to disarm Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Bush pledged of
$15 billion for AIDS assistance in Africa, a domestic agenda of tax
cuts, medical malpractice caps and a ban on certain late abortions.
Bush also announced a $1.2 billion hydrogen fuel initiative.
(www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030206-2.html)(AP,
1/29/03)(WSJ, 1/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 28, A Chinese company
began distributing generic drugs for an anti-AIDS cocktail.
(SFC, 1/29/03, p.A5)
2003 Feb 2, Australia's first
cloned sheep, Matilda (b. Apr, 2000) died unexpectedly of unknown
causes.
(AP, 2/7/03)
2003 Feb 3, New Jersey doctors
joined the protest against high malpractice insurance premiums.
(WSJ, 2/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Feb 5, It was reported that
genealogical research in Utah identified a gene that causes depression.
(WSJ, 2/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Feb 14, Dolly (b.1996), the
world’s 1st clone sheep and mother of 6 lambs, was put to sleep by
veterinarians in Scotland after they failed to cure her of a severe
lung infection.
(AP, 2/15/03)(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A2)
2003 Mar 19, Doctors in Hong Kong
reportedly identified the deadly pneumonia virus as belonging to the
paramyxoviridae family. The severe acute respiratory illness (SARS) had
killed at least 11 people and left hundreds ill. The outbreak is
believed to have began in southern China in November. Later reports
held that it could be a coronavirus, part of a group that cause the
common cold. Many people treated with corticosteroids later developed
an irreversible bone disease called avascular necrosis. By July 12,
2003, SARS killed 812 people worldwide.
(SFC, 3/15/03, p.A8)(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A4)(WSJ,
4/3/03, p.B1)(WSJ, 12/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 29, Italian Dr. Carlo
Urbani (46), a WHO expert on communicable diseases, died of SARS in
Thailand, where he was being treated after becoming infected while
working in Vietnam. Urbani was the 1st doctor to identify SARS.
(AP, 3/29/03)
2003 Apr 3, It was reported that
Alzheimer’s symptoms were slowed by the drug memantine.
(WSJ, 4/3/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 4, Pres. Bush issued an
executive order giving federal health officials power to quarantine
anyone suspected of being infected with SARS. The disease had spread to
17 countries killing at least 90 people and infected some 2,300.
(SFC, 4/5/03, p.A1)(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.A9)
2003 Apr 12, Canada reported 3
more deaths from the deadly SARS virus, lifting the national toll to
13. 274 probable or suspect cases have been reported across Canada, up
from 266.
(AP, 4/13/03)
2003 Apr 14, Scientists reported
that the human genome map was finished with an accuracy of nearly 100%
following 13 years of work.
(WSJ, 4/15/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 16, SARS deaths totaled
some 154 with at least 3,412 affected in 22 countries. A World Health
Organization team disclosed that there were unreported cases of the
SARS virus in Beijing's military hospitals and that investigators have
been barred from releasing details.
(SFC, 4/16/03, p.A3)(AP, 4/17/03)
2003 Apr 17, It was reported that
scientists had linked a single gene mutation to the Hutchinson-Gilford
progeria syndrome that makes children age prematurely.
(SFC, 4/17/03, p.A8)
2003 Apr 17, India reported it 1st
case of SARS.
(WSJ, 4/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 20, After reporting a
nearly tenfold increase in SARS cases in the capital, China announced
the sacking of its top health official and the capital's mayor from key
Communist Party positions. The number of infections in Beijing soared
from 37 to 346.
(AP, 4/20/03)
2003 Apr 26, Health ministers from
across east Asia came up with a joint plan to fight SARS during a
meeting, and hundreds of medical workers in Beijing were forced to
sleep in their offices because of hospital-wide quarantines.
(AP, 4/26/03)
2003 Apr 28, Scientists reported
the discovery of a type of mouse that appears to the have a genetic
resistance to cancer.
(Reuters, 4/29/03)
2003 May 2, In Taiwan 11 more
cases of SARS were confirmed with 5 new deaths. Confirmed cases totaled
100 with the death toll at 8. Mutations of the virus were also reported.
(SFC, 5/3/03, p.A7)
2003 May 4, Idaho Gem, the 1st
cloned mule, was born at the Univ. of Idaho.
(SFC, 5/30/03, p.A2)
2003 May 7, It was reported that
scientists had altered a common cold virus to destroy a common brain
tumor in mice.
(WSJ, 5/7/03, p.D7)
2003 May 12, A British government
doctor reported that the brains of at least 20,000 people, many of them
depressed or mentally ill when they died, were removed without their
families' consent from 1970-1999.
(AP, 5/12/03)(USAT, 5/13/03, p.10A)
2003 May 16, The US Senate
committed $15 billion to fight global AIDS. Congress approved the
President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In his Jan 28,
State of the Union address Pres. George W. Bush had made a commitment
to substantially increase US support for addressing HIV/AIDS worldwide.
(AP,
5/16/04)(www.pepfar.gov/documents/organization/115411.pdf)
2003 May 27, A study was released
that showed women who took hormones for years ran a higher risk of
Alzheimer's or other types of dementia.
(AP, 5/27/04)
2003 May 29, Scientists reported
the discovery of a "master gene" in stem cells.
(SFC, 5/30/03, p.A5)
2003 Jun 1, Genentech reported
that its drug Avastin lengthened survival time for colon cancer
patients. In 2004 the FDA approved it as a colorectal cancer treatment.
In 2007 researches said it could improve the treatment of kidney tumors.
(SFC, 6/2/03, p.A1)(SSFC, 6/3/07, p.G1)
2003 Jun 1, UC Berkeley
researchers revealed a new laboratory method for manufacturing the
anti-malarial drug, artemisinin.
(SFC, 6/2/03, p.A11)
2003 Jul 10, Pres. Bush met with
Pres. Festus Mogae in Botswana. Bush said that AIDS is "the deadliest
enemy Africa has ever faced" and pledged to the nation with the world's
highest AIDS infection rate that it would have a strong partner in his
administration in fighting the disease.
(SFC, 7/10/03, p.A8)(AP, 7/10/08)
2003 Jun 12, EndoVascular Tech., a
unit of Guidant Corp., pleaded guilty for failure to report
malfunctions of their Ancure Endograft system and was ordered to pay
$92.4 million in civil and criminal penalties. Some 2,628 malfunctions
between 1999 and 2001 had not been reported.
(SFC, 6/17/03, p.A1)(SFC, 10/17/03, p.A25)
2003 Jun 16, Scientists reported
that they've identified a flawed gene that appears to promote
manic-depression, or bipolar disorder.
(AP, 6/16/03)
2003 Jul 19, The first Human
Tongue Transplant took place in Vienna, Austria. Tongue transplants had
been performed for years on animals, but this was the first attempt at
transplanting a human tongue. It was carried out at Memorial University
Hospital in Vienna, Austria during a 14-hour operation by Dr. Rolf
Ewers and eight surgeons. It was performed on an unidentified
42-year-old patient who was suffering from a malignant tumor affecting
his tongue and jaw. Doctors believed he would ultimately be able to
talk, have feeling and limited movement, but probably won’t regain the
sensation of taste.
(http://tinyurl.com/5ehhps)(http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3964)
2003 Jun 24, The WHO lifted its
warning against travel to Beijing due to SARS.
(SFC, 6/25/03, p.A7)
2003 Jul 8, Ladan and Laleh Bijani
(29), Iranian twin sisters, joined at the head, died within 90 minutes
of each other as neurosurgeons in Singapore worked into a 3rd day to
separate them.
(AP, 7/7/03)(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 9, Canada became the 1st
country in the world to start selling marijuana to several hundred
seriously ill people but said the pot project could be halted at any
time.
(Reuters, 7/9/03)
2003 Jul 9, Research was released
that said PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), commonly used in
flame retardants, posed a health hazard.
(SFC, 7/9/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 18, Scientists reported
the discovery of a link between a seratonin-controlling gene and
depression.
(SFC, 7/18/03, p.A23)(WSJ, 7/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 3, Dr. Pater Safar (79),
regarded as the father of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (cpr), died in
Pittsburgh, Pa.
(SFC, 8/5/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 12, Some 8,000 US doctors
called for a government-financed national health insurance as a
single-payer system similar to an expanded version of Medicare.
(SFC, 8/13/03, p.A3)
2003 Aug 13, Florida's legislature
approved a bill that capped most medical malpractice damage awards at
$500,000.
(WSJ, 8/14/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 13, Ontario health
officials reported that a family doctor had become the 44th person to
die from SARS in Toronto.
(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 13, Chinese researchers
reported that they had created hybrid embryos of human and rabbit DNA
as a source for stem cells.
(SFC, 8/14/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 1, Marijuana went on sale
Monday at Dutch pharmacies to help bring relief to thousands of
patients suffering from cancer, AIDS or multiple sclerosis.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Sep 4, Researchers reported
that the hormone YY3-36 appeared to curb the appetite of obese people.
(SFC, 9/4/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 8, Singapore health
officials confirmed that a local patient tested positive for severe
acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, the 1st new case of the disease in
over 5 months.
(AP, 9/8/03)(WSJ, 9/10/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 14, The Lasker foundation
presented awards for medical research to Dr. Robert Roeder for his work
on gene transcription, and to Dr. Marc Feldman and Sir Ravinder Maini
for their anti-TVF work that led to drugs for treating rheumatoid
arthritis.
(SSFC, 9/14/03, p.A2)
2003 Sep 16, It was reported that
scientists in Japan have transformed mouse stem cells into sperm cells.
(SFC, 9/16/03, p.A6)
2003 Sep 27, An illness called
"nodding disease" was reported among children in southern Sudan. It
caused victims to convulse with sharp nods of the head while eating or
exposed to unusually cold conditions.
(SFC, 9/27/03, p.A28)
2003 Oct 11, In Italy 4-month-old
twin Greek girls joined at the temple were successfully separated after
a 13 hour operation at a Rome hospital.
(AP, 10/12/03)(SFC, 10/15/03, p.A2)
2003 Nov 3, The FDA issued draft
guidelines outlining when drug companies must submit information on how
medicines affect people differently depending on their genetic makeup.
(WSJ, 11/3/03, p.B1)
2003 Nov 5, President Bush signed
a ban on partial birth abortion, but a federal judge in Nebraska
immediately blocked its implementation in some states.
(AP, 11/5/03)(WSJ, 11/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 6, Patmos, "payment at
the time of service," was reported to be a growing practice among
physicians.
(WSJ, 11/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 6, Gene scientists
published a map in Nature that shows how DNA controls protein
interactions in the fruit fly.
(WSJ, 11/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 11, It was reported that
gene scientists had determined that a genetic variation helped slowed
the creation of bad cholesterol and helped explain why some people
lived longer. [see 1974]
(WSJ, 11/11/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 13, The US Energy Dept
reported that Dr. Craig Venter and colleagues had assembled a
bacteriophage containing 5,386 DNA base pairs.
(SFC, 11/14/03, p.A7)
2003 Nov 25, The UN said AIDS will
kill 3 million people this year and infect 5 million. The global HIV
tally was put at 40 million.
(WSJ, 11/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 26, The UN Children's
Fund warned that AIDS has already orphaned more than 11 million African
children under the age of 15, and "the worst is yet to come."
(AP, 11/26/03)
2003 Nov 27, Researchers in
Cleveland reported on a gene that causes heart attacks.
(SFC, 11/28/03, p.C11)(WSJ, 11/28/03, p.B1)
2003 Nov 28, AIDS in Guatemala was
reported to kill an estimated 10 people a day.
(SFC, 11/28/03, p.C2)
2003 Nov, Jenifer West and
colleagues at Rice Univ. described a sophisticated way of cauterising
cancers using precisely engineered "nanoshells."
(Econ, 11/8/03, p.79)
2003 Dec 3, It was reported that
England planned to spend $17 billion to transform its health care
system with information technology to make all medical records
available in a secure central database.
(WSJ, 12/3/03, p.B1)
2003 Dec 9, Esmond Snell (89),
biochemist, died in Boulder, Colo. He and Texas colleagues discovered
and named folic acid, a B vitamin needed to make DNA and RNA and to
enable red blood cells to carry iron.
(SFC, 12/25/03, p.A18)
2003 Dec 11, The Italian
Parliament imposed controls on medically assisted reproduction.
(SFC, 12/12/03, p.A17)
2003 Dec 12, It was reported that
researchers had found a gene in worms that was responsible for
drunkeness.
(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 16, Dr. Peter Valk (63),
Sacramento internist and pioneer in the clinical use of P.E.T. scans,
died. He had recently finished editing "Positron Emission Tomography:
Basic Science and clinical Practices."
(SFC, 1/15/04, p.A19)
2003 Dec 17, The US CDC reported
that the average age of US women for their 1st child was 25.1 years, up
from 21.4 in 1970.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Tracy Kidder authored
"Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who
Would Cure the World."
(SSFC, 9/21/03, p.M1)
2003 The Groningen Academic
Hospital in Amsterdam, Netherlands, carried out 4 mercy killings of
terminally ill newborn children in this year. In 2004 the hospital
proposed guidelines for such procedures.
(SFC, 12/1/04, p.A17)
2004 Jan 14, Former Pres. Clinton
announced an agreement with 5 medical technology companies to reduce
the cost of tests for HIV-AIDS treatment in Africa and the Caribbean.
(SFC, 1/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Feb 11, South Korean
scientists reported that they had cloned human embryonic tissue cells.
(SFC, 2/12/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 3, Harvard reported that
it used private funds to create 17 new stem-cell lines from discarded
fertility clinic embryos.
(WSJ, 3/4/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 17, Harvard researchers
reported that an enzyme in the brain appears to regulate appetite and
weight.
(WSJ, 3/18/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 23, The Bush
administration reported that the Medicare Trust Fund would run out of
money in 2019, 7 years earlier that projected in 2003.
(SFC, 3/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 23, Chen Zhongwei (74), a
Chinese surgeon credited with pioneering the process of reattaching
severed limbs, died. Chen successfully reattached the severed right
hand of an injured factory worker in 1963, in the first operation of
its kind.
(AP, 3/27/04)
2004 Mar 24, A group of large
employers proposed "scorecards" for doctors in an effort help employees
choose doctors based on quality care.
(WSJ, 3/25/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 26, The FDA approved the
1st HIV test that uses saliva rather than blood. The 20 minute test,
made by OraSure, is able to detect HIV antibodies about 6 weeks after
infection.
(SFC, 3/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 10, Some 11% of South
Africans, 5 million people, were reported to be infected with AIDS. An
earlier government report said 100,000 civil servants were HIV positive.
(Econ, 4/10/04, p.39)
2004 Apr 13, The FDA approved a
clinical trial by Cyberkinetics on implants in humans for a
brain-computer interface.
(SFC, 4/14/04, p.C8)
2004 Apr 26, Scientists reported
that a new gene-therapy treatment for Alzheimer's patients had produced
encouraging results.
(SFC, 4/28/04, p.A5)
2004 May 3, A group of British
scientists announced early work on a new procedure that makes teeth
grow from stem cells implanted in the gum.
(AFP, 5/3/04)
2004 May 10, Scientists working
with mice reported success in killing fat cells by cutting off their
blood supply.
(WSJ, 5/10/04, p.B1)
2004 May 19, Britain opened the
world’s 1st stem cell bank.
(WSJ, 5/20/04, p.A1)
2004 May 26, It was reported that
a new study showed that aspirin might help reduce women’s chances of
developing the most common form of breast cancer.
(WSJ, 5/26/04, p.A1)
2004 Jun 13, It was reported that
a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon a day helped to reduce glucose, fat and
cholesterol levels by a s much as 30%.
(SSFC, 6/13/04, Par p.8)
2004 Jun 25, Australia's
government decided to cover most of the outside of cigarette packages
with graphic images showing the physical damage caused by smoking.
(AFP, 6/25/04)
2004 Jun, Doctors at Rhode Island
Hospital implanted a pea-size sensor in the brain of Matthew Nagle, a
quadriplegic, which connected to computer. Over a 9-month period he
learned to use his mind to control motion on a video monitor and a
robotic arm. The journal Nature reported the results of the experiment
on July 13, 2006.
(SFC, 7/13/06, p.A1)
2004 Jul 5, It was reported that
India was logging nearly 1000 new AIDS cases a month and that there
were an estimated 4.6 million people infected with HIV.
(SFC, 7/5/04, p.A8)
2004 Aug 16, The FDA approved the
1st surgical device to clear clots from the brains of stroke victims.
(WSJ, 8/17/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 3, US Medicare announced
a 17.4% increase in premiums for doctor visits.
(WSJ, 9/7/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 13, Scientists reported a
new type of cancer-influencing gene that can either suppress or trigger
tumors.
(SFC, 9/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 23, In Belgium a woman
gave birth to a healthy baby after doctors had transplanted ovarian
tissue, frozen since 1997, back into her abdomen.
(SFC, 9/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 24, Medical experts said
screening for artery disease is a good idea for people over 60. Carotid
ultrasound and ankle-brachial tests were recommended.
(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.B3)
2004 Sep 25, The Lasker Foundation
awarded its prize for clinical research posthumously to Dr. Charles
Kelman, who made cataract removal an outpatient procedure. The $50,000
award for basic research went to Dr. Pierre Chambon, Ronald Evans, and
Elwood Jensen for opening up the field of studying proteins called
nuclear hormone receptors.
(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.A10)
2004 Sep 30, Merck & Co. said
the arthritis drug Vioxx, used by 2 million people around the world,
was being pulled off the market after a study confirmed longstanding
concerns that it raises the risk of heart attack and stroke. Global
Vioxx sales in 2003 had reached $2.5 billion. In 2007 Merck agreed to a
$4.85 million settlement.
(AP, 9/30/04)(WSJ, 10/1/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/10/07,
p.A1)
2004 Sep 30, A deal was announced
between Samoa and UC Berkeley researchers to clone a promising
anti-AIDS drug, prostratin, from the bark of the native mamala tree.
(SFC, 10/1/04, p.B1)
2004 Oct 13, The US government
approved a microchip that can be implanted under the skin to provide
doctors with patient data. Two weeks after the device's approval took
effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Tommy Thompson left his Cabinet post, and
within five months was a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied
Digital Solutions. He was compensated in cash and stock options. In
2007 it was reported that a series of veterinary and toxicology
studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had
"induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.
(SFC, 10/14/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/9/07)
2004 Oct 18, The US FDA approved
the 1st partially implantable artificial heart intended to keep
patients alive while they wait for a heart transplant.
(WSJ, 10/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct, The US FDA approved the
1st artificial spinal disk, the Charite disc from Johnson &
Johnson. It had been successfully implanted in patients in Europe since
the 1980s.
(WSJ, 11/2/04, p.D1)(WSJ, 6/7/05, p.A1)
2004 Nov 3, Dr. Sidney Goldring,
and early advocate of brain operation for epilepsy, died in
Chesterfield, Mo. He advocated the use of electrodes to find precise
areas involved in setting off seizures.
(SFC, 11/18/04, p.B7)
2004 Nov 8, It was reported that a
new polyester mesh stocking pulled over a weak heart was effective in
reducing heart failure.
(SFC, 11/8/04, p.A2)
2004 Nov 18, The US government
reported a possible case of mad cow disease.
(SFC, 11/19/04, p.A3)
2004 Nov 18, US Army doctors said
some 100 soldiers wounded in the Mideast and Afghanistan had come down
with rare, treatment resistant blood infections.
(WSJ, 11/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Nov 18, FDA officer David
Graham identified 5 drugs with dangerous side effects: Crestor to lower
cholesterol, Meridia for weight loss, Bextra for pain, Accutane for
acne, and Serevent for asthma.
(SFC, 11/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Nov 18, Genentech and its
partners announced FDA approval of the experimental lung cancer drug,
Tarceva.
(SFC, 11/19/04, p.A3)
2004 Nov 23, A UN AIDS report said
infections had risen 7.7% to 39.4 million over the last 2 years; growth
was fastest in Asia and East Europe. New infections in 2004 were
estimated at 4.9 million with 3.1 million deaths.
(WSJ, 11/24/04, p.A1)(Econ, 11/27/04, p.82)
2004 Dec 1, World AIDS Day was
observed around the globe. The CDC said nearly one million Americans
had the AIDS virus.
(AP, 12/1/04)(WSJ, 12/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 12, Researchers said they
may have discovered what causes psoriasis, a common and irritating skin
ailment.
(Reuters, 12/13/04)
2004 Dec 17, It was reported that
the AIDS drug nevirapine failed to meet int’l. standards in Uganda. The
drug was used to protect babies from HIV infection, but that infected
women could develop resistance.
(SFC, 12/17/04, p.A23)
2004 Dec 28, The US FDA approved a
new drug for severe pain to be marketed by Elan as Prialt. It was part
of a new class known as N-type calcium channel blockers.
(SFC, 12/29/04, p.A5)
2004 Marcia Angell authored “The
Truth About Drug Companies.”
(WSJ, 8/25/04, p.D10)
2004 Steven Johnson authored "Mind
Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life." He
examined how the functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) might
reveal the workings of the mind's emotional toolbox and its alleged 412
distinct emotions.
(SSFC, 2/15/04, p.M8)
2004 Vytorin, a drug for high
cholesterol, came out. It combined Merck’s Zocor with Schering-Plough
Corp.'s Zetia, which went on sale in 2002 and attacks cholesterol in a
different way. In 2008 a study of Vytorin failed to show positive
results.
(http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/20/news/fortune500/vytorin/index.htm)(AP,
3/31/08)
2005 Jan 20, Alzheimer’s
scientists said they had reversed brain-cell damage in mice by clearing
plaque with antibodies.
(WSJ, 1/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 4, It was reported that
California’s mysterious explosion of autism cases increased by 13% in
2004. State services for autism had increased from some 5,000 in 1993
to 26,000 in 2004. The US federal Dept. of Education reported that
autism in schoolchildren increased 1,700% nationally from 1992 to 2002.
(SFC, 2/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 8, It was reported that a
1991 memo from Merck showed that senior executives were concerned that
the vaccines of an expanded immunization program contained an elevated
dose of mercury by as much as 87 times the maximum guidelines for daily
consumption of mercury from fish. Thimersol, an anti-bacterial compound
in the vaccine, was nearly 50% ethyl mercury, a neurotoxin. The vaccine
program was later tied to elevated cases of autism.
(SFC, 2/8/05, p.A5)
2005 Feb 18, An advisory panel
said Merck & Co. Inc.'s withdrawn arthritis drug Vioxx is safe
enough to rejoin Pfizer's rival pain relievers Celebrex and Bextra on
the U.S. market, after concluding that all three medicines posed some
level of heart risk.
(Reuters, 2/19/05)
2005 Mar 3, A UN report on AIDS in
Africa said 80 million may be dead by 2025 with over 10% of the
population infected.
(WSJ, 3/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 14, Health Day News
reported that an experimental drug that stops cancer cell division and
triggers tumor death has been developed by researchers at Temple
University. The drug, called ON01910, interferes with the activity of a
gene called Plk1.
(HDN, 3/15/05)
2005 Mar 15, British and Spanish
scientists reported that they have discovered how green tea helps to
prevent certain types of cancer. They showed that a compound called
EGCG in green tea prevents cancer cells from growing by binding to a
specific enzyme.
(AP, 3/15/05)
2005 Mar 15, It was noted that
Israeli researchers had found that pomegranate juice helps lower
cholesterol.
(WSJ, 3/15/05, p.D4)
2005 Mar 24, The US FDA approved
Boniva, a monthly pill to help women fight osteoporosis.
(SFC, 3/26/05, p.A4)
2005 Apr 19, Britain's GW
Pharmaceuticals announced its multiple sclerosis (MS) pain relief drug
Sativex, the world's first containing cannabis, has been approved for
use in Canada.
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 Jun 2, Researchers reported
that human trust in others was related to the hormone oxytocin.
(Econ, 6/4/05, p.76)
2005 Jun 4, It was reported that
Larry Ellison, head of Oracle Corp., planned to create a database and
journal to track improvements in world health through a joint venture
with Harvard that would be accompanied by as much as $115 million.
(SFC, 6/4/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 20, Dutch scientists
reported that folic acid improved the memory of older adults.
(SFC, 6/21/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 23, The US FDA approved
the heart failure drug BiDil for use by blacks. It will be the 1st
medication targeted for a specific racial group.
(SFC, 6/24/05, p.A3)
2005 Nov 30, French doctors
performed the world’s 1st partial face transplant. They operated on a
woman (38) disfigured by a dog bite.
(SFC, 12/1/05, p.A1)
2006 Mar 28, In China new
regulations viewed on the Health Ministry's Web site forbade the buying
and selling of organs and require that donors give written permission
for their organs to be transplanted.
(AP, 3/28/06)
2006 Jun 2, Four governments
(Brazil, Chile, France, and Norway), the UN and the world's soccer
federation launched a plan to use the proceeds of a new airline ticket
tax to treat people in the developing world suffering from AIDS,
malaria or tuberculosis. Countries that have either approved or say
they expect to approve a new airline ticket tax include Britain,
Cyprus, Congo, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Luxembourg, Madagascar,
Mauritius and Nicaragua.
(AP, 6/2/06)
2006 Jun 3, Doctors reported that
a new experimental drug, lapatinib, from British-based GlaxoSmithKline
PLC, delayed the growth of advanced breast cancer in women who had
stopped responding to the drug Herceptin and were out of treatment
options. The company planned to sell the drug under the name Tykerb.
(AP, 6/3/06)(SSFC, 6/4/06, p.A5)
2006 Jul 19, Alain Rappaport
premiered the web site www.medstory.com, a consumer search product for
information on health and medicine.
(SFC, 7/19/06, p.C1)
2006 Sep 5, The US FDA granted
Abiomed approval to sell AbioCor, the world’s first implantable
artificial heart.
(SFC, 9/6/06, p.A3)
2006 Sep 6, Reporting in the
Annals of Internal Medicine, European researchers said virgin olive oil
may be particularly effective at lowering heart disease risk because of
its high level of antioxidant plant compounds.
(Reuters, 9/6/06)
2006 Sep 15, A large
diabetes-prevention study found that the drug Rosiglitazone (Avandia),
made by GlaxoSmithKline, can help keep “pre-diabetics” from developing
Type 2 diabetes. The drug was already being used to treat the disease,
which afflicted over 200 million worldwide.
(SFC, 9/16/06, p.A3)
2006 Sep 27, The US FDA approved
Vectibix (panitimumab), a new colon cancer drug developed by Amgen and
Abgenix.
(SFC, 9/28/06, p.C1)
2006 Sep 28, Novartis
Pharmaceuticals Corp., the US unit of Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG, said
that at least three out of four patients given an experimental multiple
sclerosis treatment were free of relapses for more than two years.
(AP, 9/28/06)
2006 Oct 9, Panamanian authorities
said they suspect a medicine taken to treat high blood pressure may be
among the factors leading to the deaths of 21 people since July who
have succumbed to a mysterious illness that triggers kidney failure.
Panama's health minister stopped sales of the medication, Lisinopril
Normon, on Oct 6 and began removing it from pharmacy shelves. About
9,000 Panamanians were taking the medicine. Total deaths eventually
reached at least 116 from contaminated medications [see Oct 18].
(AP, 10/9/06)(AP, 5/10/08)
2006 Oct, The Howard Hughes
Medical Institute (HHMI) opened its Janelia Farm Research Campus in
Ashburn, Va. the new $500 million lab, designed by Rafael Vinoly,
planned to engage in long-term medical research.
(WSJ, 9/22/06, p.B1)
2006 Nov 21, The UN said an
estimated 39.5 million people are now living with the AIDS virus
worldwide as infection rates and deaths from the disease continue to
mount.
(AP, 11/21/06)
2006 Nov 22, China reported that
the number of HIV/AIDS cases is nearly 30% higher than for all of last
year, with intravenous drug use as the biggest source of infection.
(AP, 11/22/06)
2006 Nov 23, Scientists studying
mice said they have found what may be a master cardiac stem cell, able
to change into the three major cell types in a mammal's heart, in a
finding that could help guide heart repair in people.
(Reuters, 11/23/06)
2006 Dec 1, World AIDS Day was
marked around the globe by somber religious services, boisterous
demonstrations and warnings that far more needs to be done to treat and
prevent the disease.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2006 Dec 26, It was reported that
a large study in Britain had found that taking such popular heartburn
drugs as Nexium, Prevacid or Prilosec for a year or more can raise the
risk of a broken hip markedly in people over 50.
(AP, 12/26/06)
2006 Dec 30, Maria del Carmen
Bousada (66) of Spain became the world's oldest mother after she gave
birth to twins in the northern city of Barcelona. She had previously
undergone in vitro fertilization in Los Angeles. Bousada (69) died of
cancer on July 11, 2009, leaving behind her twin toddlers.
(AP, 12/30/06)(AP, 7/15/09)
2006 Harriet A. Washington
authored “Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical
Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present.”
(SSFC, 12/31/06, p.M1)
2006 In Abu Dhabi a diabetes
center was opened by the Imperial College of London. In 2008 almost a
fifth of the UAE’s native population suffered from diabetes.
(Econ, 4/26/08, p.37)
2007 Jan 29, Bayer said the US
Food and Drug Administration has approved a new use of Bayer Schering
Pharma AG's drug YAZ to allow it to be used to treat moderate acne in
women who also want to use an oral contraceptive for birth control.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Feb 11, Scientists reported
in the journal Nature that they had successfully prevented cleft
palates in embryonic mice using a technique called chemical genetics.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 28, The health department
of Philippines said HIV/AIDS is ravaging the large overseas work force,
posing a long-term threat to one of Manila's key sources of foreign
exchange.
(AFP, 3/28/07)
2007 Apr 10, Diabetes scientists
15 Type 1 Brazilians did not need insulin shots after therapy with stem
cells from their own blood. It was also reported that such stem cells
helped repair heart damage due to Chagas disease, caused by the
protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, carried by kissing bugs (barbeiros).
(WSJ, 4/11/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 15, Researchers reported
that cells that are supposed to nourish and support other nerve cells
instead secrete the poisons that cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
(Reuters, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 20, It was reported that
German researchers had discovered a natural anti-HIV factor. The 20
amino acid peptide chain blocked multiple strains of HIV.
(SFC, 4/20/07, p.A7)
2007 Apr 24, US FDA advisers
endorsed a Pfizer AIDS drug that fights HIV by blocking one of two cell
receptors that are infection routes.
(WSJ, 4/25/07, p.A1)
2007 May 15, Russia's top AIDS
specialist said Russia's AIDS epidemic is worsening with as many as 1.3
million people infected with HIV as the virus spreads further into the
heterosexual population.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 21, The US Food and Drug
Administration issued a safety alert for the diabetes drug Avandia,
marketed by GlaxoSmithKline, which disputed a report saying it was
linked to a greater risk of heart attack. A doctor in Maryland had
linked Avandia to congestive heart failure in 2000, but GlaxoSmithKline
rejected her warning and tried to stop her from talking about it with
other doctors and hospitals.
(AP, 5/21/08)(WSJ, 11/19/08, p.B6)
2007 May 25, US and British
researchers reported that stem cells taken from the umbilical cords of
newborns can be engineered to produce insulin and may someday be used
to treat diabetes.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 Jun 15, New international
health regulations (IHRS) obliged governments to co-operate with
Margaret Chan, director-general of WHO, and report potential pandemics
at once.
(Econ, 6/16/07, p.67)
2007 Jul 9, Northwest
Biotherapeutics, a US-based biotech company, said it had won approval
for commercial use of the world's first vaccine against brain cancer in
Switzerland.
(AFP, 7/9/07)
2007 Jul 9, Novartis said the
first skin patch to treat the dementia that can plague Alzheimer's
patients has gained federal approval. The drug in the patch, called
Exelon or rivastigmine, is the same as that now available in capsule
form but provides a regular and continuous dose throughout the day.
(AP, 7/9/07)
2007 Jul 24, Jolee Mohr (36) died
in Chicago just weeks after beginning an experimental gene therapy
treatment from Targeted Genetics to ease the pain the rheumatoid
arthritis in her knee.
(SSFC, 9/16/07, p.A21)
2007 Jul 29, Scientists said they
have identified two genes that may raise the risk of multiple
sclerosis, lending insight into the causes of the debilitating disease.
(Reuters, 7/29/07)(SFC, 7/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 2, Scientists warned that
bisphenol A (BPA), an estrogen-like compound in plastic, is probably
causing an array of serious reproductive disorders in people.
(SFC, 8/3/07, p.A3)
2007 Aug 5, Scientists reported
that the skin condition called rosacea is caused by an abundance of
abnormal cathelicidin skin proteins.
(SFC, 8/6/07, p.A10)
2007 Aug 7, The US FDA approved a
new drug to help patients with AIDS. Pfizer’s Selzentry is the first
anti-AIDS drug that blocks the CCR5 receptor, often used by the HIV
virus to enter white blood cells.
(SFC, 8/7/07, p.A4)
2007 Aug 12, Ronald Bracewell
(86), retired Stanford professor, died. He co-wrote the first text on
radio astronomy and helped develop magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
technology. The Australian-born engineer also led the 1961 construction
of the 32-dish radio telescope at Stanford and authored a book on 350
species of trees on the Stanford campus.
(SFC, 8/16/07, p.B11)
2007 Sep 6, A cocktail of
artificial colors and the commonly-used preservative sodium benzoate
are linked to hyperactivity in children, according to a ground-breaking
study published by The Lancet.
(AFP, 9/6/07)
2007 Sep 16, It was reported that
this year’s $150,000 Lasker Prize will go to Dr. Albert Starr of
Portland, Ore., and Dr. Alain Carpentier of Paris, France, for their
work in heart valve replacement. The Lasker Prize for basic research
prize will go to Dr. Ralph Steinman of Rockefeller Univ. for
discovering dendritic cells, which trigger defenses against germs.
(SSFC, 9/16/07, p.A2)
2007 Sep 24, An Australian man was
conscious and spoke to his medical team during life-saving brain
surgery in what doctors are claiming as a world-first procedure with
cutting-edge technology.
(AP, 9/24/07)
2007 Sep 24, The Swiss drugmaker
Novartis AG said that the European Commission had approved its Exelon
skin patch to treat Alzheimer's disease.
(AP, 9/24/07)
2007 Oct 4, Microsoft outlined its
vision, dubbed HealthVault, in which a person can view, from one place,
their complete health records.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.74)(http://tinyurl.com/2fop6p)
2007 Oct 4, Health Canada said
that it has stopped the sale of Novartis Pharmaceuticals
anti-inflammatory drug Prexige and will cancel its market authorization
due to the risk for serious liver-related effects including hepatitis.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 16,
A study in Hong Kong reportedly found that Lupeol, a compound in
fruits like mangoes, grapes and strawberries, appears to be effective
in killing and curbing the spread of cancer cells in the head and neck.
(Reuters, 10/16/07)
2007 Nov 2, A new study, issued by
the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, said drug-resistant
tuberculosis and HIV have merged into a double-barreled epidemic that
is sweeping across sub-Saharan Africa and threatening global efforts to
eradicate both diseases.
(AFP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 6, In Bangalore, India,
doctors began operating on Lakshmi, a 2-year-old girl born with four
arms and four legs, in an extensive surgery that they hope will leave
the girl with a normal body.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 9, Merck & Co. said
it will pay $4.85 billion to end thousands of state and federal
lawsuits over its painkiller Vioxx in one of the largest drug
settlements ever.
(AP, 11/9/07)
2007 Nov 26, A new report said the
US District of Columbia has the highest rate of AIDS of any city in the
country. An estimated one in 20 residents had HIV and one in 50 had
AIDS.
(SFC, 11/27/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 29, Cancer researchers
reported a link between night-shift work and a higher incidence of
cancer.
(WSJ, 11/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Nov 29, According to a new
report released by the UN and the Chinese government the number of
people estimated to be living with HIV in China has risen to 700,000,
with increases among intravenous drug users and sex workers.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Nov, Bayer AG removed the
drug Trasylol at the request of the FDA after an observational study
linked the medicine to kidney failure requiring dialysis and increased
death of those patients. Dr. Dennis Mangano, the study's researcher,
later said that 22,000 lives could have been saved if Trasylol had been
taken off the market when he first published his study in January 2006.
(Reuters, 2/14/08)
2007 Dec 14, It was reported that
German AIDS researchers have discovered a protein common in semen that
boosts the infectious potential of HIV 100,000-fold.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 19, US researchers said a
highly sensitive microchip may help doctors detect rare traces of
cancer circulating in the bloodstream, offering a way to better manage
treatment.
(Reuters, 12/19/07)
2007 In Arizona ImaRX began a
trial using microbubbles containing a clot-buster. New technology
allowed bubbles to reach intended targets where they were forced to
burst using ultrasound. Companies such as Nanotrope and Targeson worked
to develop customized bubbles.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.8)
2008 Jan 2, US researchers said a
married couple who sailed to America from England around 1630 are the
reason why thousands of people in the United States are at higher risk
of a hereditary form of colon cancer.
(Reuters, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 6, Dr. Pramod Karan Sethi
(80), inventor of a low-cost prosthetic foot that has helped millions
of people in developing and war-torn countries, died in Jaipur, India.
The surgeon developed the Jaipur Foot in 1968 with India's rural poor
in mind.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 11, The World Bank
uncovered serious incidents of fraud and corruption in about $750
million of health projects it has funded in India dating back to 1997.
(WSJ, 1/14/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 19, James Levoy Sorenson
(b.1921), medical device inventor and Utah real estate investor, died.
He amassed over 40 medical patents and introduced the disposable paper
surgical mask.
(WSJ, 1/26/08, p.A8)
2008 Jan 29, Scientists in New
Zealand reported that smoking a joint is equivalent to 20 cigarettes in
terms of lung cancer risk and warned of an "epidemic" of lung cancers
linked to cannabis.
(Reuters, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 30, Police in India said
they broke up an illegal organ transplant ring spanning five Indian
states and involving at least four doctors, several hospitals, two
dozen nurses and paramedics and a car outfitted as a laboratory (see
Feb 7).
(AP, 1/30/08)(WSJ, 1/31/08, p.A1)
2008 Feb 1, Scientists in Finland
said they had replaced a 65-year-old patient's upper jaw with a bone
transplant cultivated from stem cells isolated from his own fatty
tissue and grown inside his abdomen.
(Reuters, 2/1/08)
2008 Feb 6, In France 7 doctors
and pharmacists went on trial for the deaths of more than 100 young
people who died of a brain-destroying disease after being treated with
tainted human growth hormones.
(AP, 2/6/08)
2008 Feb 7, Nepalese authorities
arrested Amit Kumar, the alleged mastermind of a shadowy organ
transplant operation in India that illegally removed hundreds of
kidneys, sometimes from unwilling donors, at a jungle resort in
southern Nepal (see Jan 30).
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 20, The US FDA inspected
a heparin production facility in China. 19 deaths and some 350 allergic
reactions had taken place among patients who received heparin sold in
the US by Baxter Int’l. In March officials identified oversulfated
condroitin sulfate, a chemical that does not occur naturally, as a
contaminant in the drug. In April the death toll linked to contaminated
heparin was raised to 62.
(WS, 2/21/08, p.A1)(SFC, 3/20/08, p.C3)(SFC, 4/9/08,
p.A5)
2008 Feb 22, The US FDA granted
accelerated market approval for Genentech’s drug Avastin to treat
advanced breast cancer. The drug cost was bout $7,700 per month.
Avastin was already approved for colorectal and lung cancer.
(WSJ, 2/23/08, p.A3)
2008 Mar 11, The US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention said 26% of US teen girls are infected
with at least one sexually transmitted disease. The rate was highest
among blacks.
(AP, 3/11/08)(WSJ, 3/12/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 16, In northern India 15
poor people were freed from captivity after selling their blood to
private clinics to make money. Five people were arrested and later
charged with illegal confinement of people and attempt to murder.
(AP, 3/18/08)
2008 Mar 20, In the Netherlands a
new attraction officially opened in Oegstgeest called Corpus. The $31
million project organized led by businessman Henri Remmers featured a
115-foot seated human shape on the outside and large-scale exhibits of
the human anatomy inside.
(SSFC, 4/6/08, p.E7)
2008 Mar 25, US researchers, who
have identified all 1,116 unique proteins found in human saliva glands,
said the discovery could usher in a wave of convenient, spit-based
diagnostic tests that could be done without the need for a single drop
of blood.
(Reuters, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 30, Leading doctors urged
a return to older, tried-and-true treatments for high cholesterol after
hearing full results of a failed trial of Vytorin.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2007 Apr 10, Diabetes scientists
reported that 15 Type 1 Brazilians did not need insulin shots after
therapy with stem cells from their own blood. It was also reported that
such stem cells helped repair heart damage due to Chagas disease,
caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, carried by kissing bugs
(barbeiros).
(WSJ, 4/11/07, p.A1)
2008 Apr 15, A draft report by the
US National Toxicology Program acknowledged concerns over bisphenol-a
(BPA), a chemical found in thousands of everyday plastic products,
saying it may cause cancer and other serious disorders.
(SFC, 4/16/08, p.A4)
2008 May 18, Surgeon Harry Buncke
(b.1922), Canada-born microsurgery pioneer, died in California. In 1972
He performed the first toe-to-thumb transplant at San Francisco’s
Franklin Hospital, later called Ralph K. Davies Medical Center. Buncke
came to be called the father of microsurgery.
(SFC, 5/21/08,
p.B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Buncke)
2008 May 19, Google made available
a free service allowing customers to manage their medical records
online at www.google.com/health.
(SFC, 5/20/08, p.D1)
2008 May 21, Pres. Bush signed
legislation to protect people from losing their jobs or health
insurance when genetic testing reveals they are susceptible to costly
diseases.
(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.D6)
2008 May 25, It was reported that
an estimated 5.4 million of South Africa's 48 million people have the
AIDS virus, the highest total of any country. The epidemic was killing
nearly 1,000 South Africans a day and infecting even more.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 Jun 1, German researchers
reported that the development of a blood-based genetic test for
predicting lung cancer among smokers with 80% accuracy.
(WSJ, 6/2/08, p.B4)
2008 Jun 6, Dr. Paul Tessier
(b.1917), pioneering French surgeon, died in Paris. He introduced
innovative techniques in facial surgery.
(WSJ, 6/28/08, p.A7)
2008 Jun 7, It was reported that
the AIDS epidemic was reckoned to have infected 33 million people
worldwide.
(Econ, 6/7/08, p.91)
2008 Jun 10, The nation's top AIDS
doctor said researchers have been undercounting new cases of HIV
infection in the United States, meaning the rate is probably 25 percent
higher at 50,000 people per year.
(Reuters, 6/10/08)
2008 Jun 19, Researchers reported
the survival of an Oregon man with advanced skin cancer following an
experimental treatment that revved up his immune system.
(SFC, 6/19/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 11, Dr. Michael DeBakey
(b.1908), the world-famous cardiovascular surgeon, died. He pioneered
such now-common procedures as bypass surgery and invented a host of
devices to help heart patients. He was among the first to link lung
cancer to smoking in a medical journal article in 1939.
(AP, 7/12/08)(SSFC, 7/13/08, p.B6)
2008 Jul 30, President George W.
Bush signed legislation repealing a rule that prevented HIV-infected
immigrants, students and tourists from receiving US visas without
special waivers.
(AP, 8/5/08)(www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/hivaids/)
2008 Sep 9, An Italian study
showed a new way to test for cervical cancer is more accurate than a
pap smear and identified more dangerous lesions.
(Reuters, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 21, In western Turkey 13
newborn, premature babies died over the weekend at Izmir's Tepecik
hospital. In August, investigators looking into the deaths of 27
newborns at an Ankara hospital concluded that a staff shortage had
increased the risk of infection. Tainted IV treatment was later
suspected.
(AP, 9/22/08)(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, The AIDS virus was
reported to afflict some 5.5 million of South Africa’s 49 million
population.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.19)
2008 Oct 2, A new report suggested
that HIV, the AIDS virus, originated in Africa between 1884 and 1924.
Earlier estimates had put the date around 1930. A new estimate of how
many Americans have the AIDS virus put the number at about 1.1 million.
(SFC, 10/2/08, p.A3)(Reuters, 10/3/08)
2008 Oct 6, It was reported that
Atherton, Ca., philanthropist Lorry Lokey (81) had pledged $75 million
to the Stanford Univ. School of Medicine for a major stem cell research
center. In 2007 he had pledged at least $33 million.
(SFC, 10/6/08, p.B1)
2008 Oct 13, First ladies from
seven west African countries gather in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for a
conference on ways to end female circumcision, a widespread practice in
the region despite efforts to end it.
(AFP, 10/13/08)
2008 Oct 13, Barbara Hogan, South
Africa’s new health minister, broke from a decade of discredited
government policies declaring that AIDS is caused by HIV and must be
treated by conventional medicine.
(SFC, 10/14/08, p.A3)
2008 Oct 16, Brazil's President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived in Mozambique to launch a project to
make anti-AIDS drugs in the southern African country.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 22, British researchers
said a drug, known by its lab name of alemtuzumab and licensed for use
against leukemia, braked and even reversed the effects of multiple
sclerosis among patients with MS.
(http://health.yahoo.com/news/reuters/us_multiplesclerosis_drug.html)
2008 Nov 9, Health experts
presented findings of a study, called Jupiter, that found
Crestor, a cholesterol drug made by AstraZeneca, reduced the risk of
heart-related death, heart attacks and other serious cardiac problems
by 44%.
(WSJ, 11/10/08, p.B1)
2008 Nov 12, In Germany Dr. Gero
Huetter said his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who
was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than
a decade. But 20 months after undergoing a transplant of genetically
selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.
(AP, 11/13/08)
2008 Nov 13, In Chile authorities
said public health services failed to tell 512 people that they tested
positive for HIV. Private-sector health services also fell down,
failing to inform an estimated 1,700 people that tests show them
carrying the AIDS virus.
(AP, 11/13/08)
2008 Nov 17, A report was released
concluded that Gulf War syndrome is a legitimate illness suffered by
more than 175,000 US war veterans who were exposed to chemical toxins
in the 1991 Gulf War.
(Reuters, 11/17/08)
2008 Nov 19, Spanish doctors
reported the successful transplant to a woman of a new windpipe with
tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for
anti-rejection drugs.
(AP, 11/18/08)
2008 Nov 21, Vadim Pokrovsky,
Russia's anti-AIDS coordinator, said the number of registered HIV cases
is growing 10 percent a year despite increased government funding. He
said that the actual number of people with HIV was likely higher than 1
million.
(AP, 11/21/08)
2008 Nov 24, In Indonesia health
workers and rights activists sharply criticized a plan by lawmakers in
remote Papua province, who have thrown their support behind a
controversial bill requiring some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted
with microchips, part of extreme efforts to monitor the disease.
(AP, 11/24/08)
2008 Nov 30, Chinese health
authorities and the UN AIDS agency pledged to fight discrimination
against people with the disease in China with the unveiling of a
massive red ribbon, the symbol of AIDS awareness, at the Olympic Bird's
Nest stadium in Beijing.
(AP, 11/30/08)
2008 Dec 1, US researchers
reported that almost 20% of young American adults have a personality
disorder that interferes with everyday life, and that even more abuse
alcohol or drugs.
(SFC, 12/2/08, p.A10)
2008 Dec 16, An Indonesian
province beleaguered by a spiraling HIV infection rate scrapped plans
to implant microchips in those with full-blown AIDS, following strong
opposition from government officials, health workers and rights
activists.
(AP, 12/16/08)
2008 Dec 2, Henry Molaison (82), a
native of Connecticut, died. In the 1950s he had his medial temporal
lobes removed by surgery to alleviate his grand mal epileptic seizures.
From that point on he was unable to form new memories. Scientists
learned from Molaison that the hippocampus is crucial in forming some
long term memories, but not for maintaining or retrieving them.
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.146)
2009 Jan 14, A French court
acquitted six doctors and pharmacists in the deaths of at least 114
people who contracted a brain-destroying disease after being treated
with tainted human growth hormones.
(AP, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 26, In Bellflower,
California, a woman gave birth to eight babies, only the second time in
history octuplets have survived more than a few hours. The woman
already had six other children and never expected to have eight more
when she took fertility treatment. Her mother later said the woman had
conceived all 14 of her children through in vitro fertilization, is not
married and has been obsessed with having children since she was a
teenager.
(AP, 1/27/09)(AP, 1/30/09)(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Feb 9, In Montreal, Canada,
researchers said that an Indevus Pharmaceuticals gel formulated to
protect women from the virus that causes AIDS appeared to protect about
a third of them from infection, the first time a so-called microbicide
has been shown to work.
(AP, 2/9/09)
2009 Feb 9, Scientists in Japan
reported that they have identified an enzyme which appears to suppress
breast cancer and they hope the finding will spur new therapies to
control the second most common cancer in the world.
(Reuters, 2/9/09)
2009 Feb 17, British experts that
they have found the first evidence of a hemophiliac contracting mad cow
disease from contaminated blood products.
(AP, 2/17/09)
2009 Feb 18, A Chinese state news
agency said AIDS was the top killer among infectious diseases in China
for the first time last year, with 6,897 people dying in the nine
months through September.
(AP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 20, A Swaziland
government report said about 42 percent of pregnant women in the
country are infected with the virus that causes AIDS, a 3 percent jump
in a single year. An estimated 185,000 of Swaziland's 1 million people
are HIV positive, and about 30,000 are receiving antiretrovirals.
(AP, 2/20/09)
2009 Mar 16, US researchers said a
new test can accurately detect Alzheimer's disease in its earliest
stages, before dementia symptoms surface and widespread damage occurs.
(Reuters, 3/17/09)
2009 Mar 30, Findings were
presented for an experimental combo pill, to prevent heart attacks and
strokes, indicating it as effective as nearly all of its components
taken alone, with no greater side effects. The study tested the
Polycap, an experimental combo formulated by Cadila Pharmaceuticals of
Ahmedabad, India.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Apr 3, In Nigeria a source
close to negotiations said Pfizer has agreed to pay $75 million
compensation over a 1996 drug trial that caused the death of 11
children in northern Nigeria.
(AFP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 8, Genentech, a unit of
Roche, said it is voluntarily withdrawing its psoriasis drug Raptiva
due to a link with a rare but often fatal brain disorder.
(WSJ, 4/9/09, p.B3)
2009 Apr 8, The international Red
Cross said a polio outbreak, that now affects 15 African countries,
threatens efforts to eradicate the disease.
(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, China said that it
would build a clinic in each of its nearly 700,000 villages within
three years, part of a sweeping 850 billion yuan ($124 billion)
investment in health care reform.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 May 1, US government health
officials warned dieters and body builders to immediately stop using
Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver
damage and at least one death.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 4, An analysis of
"real-world" clinical data indicated that vitamin E, and drugs that
reduce generalized inflammation, may slow the decline of mental and
physical abilities in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) over the
long term according to National Institutes of Health-sponsored research.
(Reuters, 5/4/09)
2009 May 12, Medicare’s trustees
warned that the program’s biggest fund would run out of money in 8
years.
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A4)
2009 May 14, Scientists reported
that ginger, long used as a folk remedy for stomach aches, limits
nausea caused by chemotherapy used in cancer treatments.
(SFC, 5/15/09, p.A14)
2009 May 15, A Minnesota couple
who refused chemotherapy for Daniel Hauser, their 13-year-old son, was
ordered to have the boy re-evaluated to see if he would still benefit
from cancer treatment for his Hodgkin’s lymphoma, or if it may already
be too late. On May 18 Colleen Hauser and her son, Daniel, who has
Hodgkin's lymphoma, apparently left their home sometime after a
doctor's appointment and court-ordered X-ray showed his tumor had
grown. Hauser and her son returned on May 25.
(AP, 5/15/09)(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A5)(AP, 5/20/09)(AP,
5/26/09)
2009 May 18, The US Justice
Department accused Wyeth, one of the nation's biggest drug makers, of
cheating Medicaid programs out of hundreds of millions of dollars by
overcharging for a stomach acid drug.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 21, South Korea’s Supreme
Court said that doctors treating a comatose woman (76) must remove her
from life support as her family requested, the first time it has ruled
in favor of a patient's right to die.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 31, In Kansas abortion
Dr. George Tiller (67) was shot and killed while serving as an usher
during morning services in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church in
Wichita. Scott Roeder (51) fired one shot at Tiller and threatened two
other people who tried to stop him. Roeder was taken into custody some
170 miles away in a Kansas City suburb about three hours after the
shooting. Tiller’s clinic had been bombed in 1986, blockaded and
vandalized in 1991 and in 1993 he was shot in both arms.
(AP, 6/1/09)(SFC, 6/3/09, p.A7)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.30)
2009 Jun 16, US FDA said consumers
should stop using Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel and related products
because they can permanently damage the sense of smell.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 16, Rhode Island became
the 3rd state in the US to allow marijuana sales to chronically ill
patients as the General Assembly voted to override a veto by Gov. Don
Carcieri.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.A7)
2009 Jun 20, The US pharmaceutical
industry agreed to spend $80 billion over the next decade improving
drug benefits for seniors on Medicare and defraying the cost of
President Barack Obama's health care legislation, capping secretive
negotiations involving key lawmakers and the White House.
(AP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 29, It was reported that
Australian scientists have developed a "trojan horse" therapy to combat
cancer, using a bacterially-derived nano cell to penetrate and disarm
the cancer cell before a second nano cell kills it with chemotherapy
drugs. Sydney scientists Dr Jennifer MacDiarmid and Dr Himanshu
Brahmbhatt, who formed EnGenelC Pty Ltd in 2001, said they had achieved
100 percent survival in mice with human cancer cells by using the
"trojan horse" therapy in the past two years.
(Reuters, 6/29/09)
2009 Jul 13, China's Health
Ministry ordered a hospital to stop using electric shock therapy to
cure youths of Internet addiction, saying there was no scientific
evidence it worked.
(AP, 7/14/09)
2009 Jul 13, Japan passed a law
that will allow children to receive organ transplants for the first
time, reversing a ban that doomed many young patients or forced them to
seek medical care abroad.
(AP, 7/13/09)
2009 May 8, In Panama City,
Florida, Dr. Jason Newsom resigned from the Bay County Health
Department under pressure following his launch of a one-man war on
obesity by posting sardonic warnings on an electronic sign outside.
After the lawyers threatened to sue, his bosses made him remove
the anti-fried doughnut rants and eventually forced him to resign.
(AP, 8/13/09)
2009 Aug 14, In Nigeria the number
of polio cases caused by the vaccine was reported to have doubled so
far this year with 124 children paralyzed, compared to 62 in 2008, out
of about 42 million children vaccinated. For every case of paralysis,
hundreds of other children don't develop symptoms, but pass on the
disease.
(AP, 8/14/09)
2009 Aug 26, China’s state media
reported that the majority of transplanted organs in China come from
executed prisoners in a rare disclosure about an industry often
criticized for being opaque and unethical.
(AP, 8/26/09)
2009 Sep 9, President Barack
Obama, in a major speech before Congress, promised to overhaul the
nation's health care system. Not a single Republican has endorsed any
of the plans approved so far by four House and Senate committees.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 16, Sen. Max Baucus
brought out the much-awaited Senate Finance Committee version of an
American health-system remake, a landmark $856 billion, 10-year measure
that starts a rough ride through Congress without visible Republican
backing. The 6 committee members received an average $74,600 from
health industry lobbyists through June. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, led the
group with $223,600. Baucus, D-Montana, was 2nd with $141,000.
(AP, 9/16/09)(SSFC, 9/20/09, p.A1)
2009 Sep 24, In Thailand an
experimental combination of two previously unsuccessful vaccines cut
the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31%, in the world's
largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers. This was the
first time an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the
AIDS virus.
(AP, 9/24/09)
2009 David Ewing Duncan authored
“Experimental Man: What One Man's Body Reveals about His Future, Your
Health, and Our Toxic World.”
(SFC, 3/9/09, p.E1)
2009 T.R. Reid authored “The
Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer
health Care.”
(SSFC, 8/23/09, Books p.F1)
2010 The AIDS epidemic in China
was expected to infect over 10 million people by this time.
(SFC, 12/2/03, p.A3)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Medical, AIDS, Cancer, Microbiology