by Mary Guinan
CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention): ACT UP targeting of, 67–68, 69–70
and AIDS case definition, 64–65, 68, 69–70
and court cases, 71–92
early work on AIDS by, 42, 53–56
and EIS, 3–4, 18–19, 95, 98
and listeriosis outbreak, 93–99
media coverage and, 43, 102–3
name changes of, 3n
and State Department, 46, 47
and STDs, 39, 41, 102
studies of HIV transmission by, 53–56, 58, 86, 90
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 49, 51–52
Clinton, Bill, 111
Clinton, Hillary, 111
CNN, 102–3
Cold War, 18, 20, 45
Columbus, Christopher, 110
Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service, 4, gallery
condoms, 112–13
confidentiality, 56–57, 91
Corey, Larry, 40–41
Cosmopolitan, 65–67
Curran, James, 60
Dan, Bruce, 43
Doctor in Spite of Himself, The (Moliere), 39
Doctors, Liars and Women: AIDS Activists Say NO to Cosmo, 66
Doe v. WCMC, 92. See also HHS v. WCMC
Donahue, Phil, 40–41, 66
Dowdle, Walter, 95, 96
“Driver,” 22, 23, 24
Ebola, 2, 92
Ehrlich, Paul, 104
elephants, 29–33
Elion, Gertrude, 43
Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, gallery
Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), 42, 95
and Operation Smallpox Zero, 18–19
and Pseudomonas outbreak, 4–12
tasks of, 3–4. See also CDC
epidemiology, 1, 3
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 82
Fisher, Mary, 66n
Fleming, David, 93–94, 95, 99
Foege, William F., 19–20, 25–26, gallery
Francis, Don, 20, 21, 25
Gandhi, Indira, 19
Garrett, Mary Elizabeth, 17
genital herpes, 36, 38–39, 40, 41
Gere, Richard, 56n
Gottlieb, Michael, 42
Gould, Robert E., 65, 66
Grasset, Nicole, 19
Guatemala syphilis study, 111
Guest, Mason, 16, 17
Health and Human Services (HHS): Civil Rights Reviewing Authority of, 90
efforts to terminate WCMC funding by, 85, 86
and milk industry case, 95, 96, 98
Office of General Counsel of, 82–83. See also HHS v. WCMC
Henderson, D. A., 33
Henderson, David K., 82, 86–87
hepatitis B, 51, 75–76
herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), 35, 36, 37
treatments for, 35, 37–38, 42–43
herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV), 36
and infection of newborns, 39
herpesviruses, 35–44
table of, 36
HHS v. WCMC: background of, 79–80
decision in, 79, 89–90
legal issues in, 80
medical detectives as expert witnesses in, 80–83, 87–89
as precedent, 83, 90
Hispanics, 76–77
HIV. See AIDS/HIV
homophobia, 75–78
Hospital Infections Program, 4
House on Fire (Foege), 26
Hudson, Rock, 107
Hunter College, 14, 43n
India: caste system in, 21
smallpox eradication campaign in, 19–27, 29–33, 52
women in, 19, 23, 24
“infectious diseases” term, 71
Iran, 48
Jaffe, Harold, 59
Johns Hopkins Hospital, 103
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 17
Johnson, Lyndon, 110
Jones, Wanda, 83, 88
Kaposi’s sarcoma, 36, 42, 53–54
and AIDS diagnosis, 58–60, 65, 76
Kass, Ed, 94–95, 98, 99
Kelly, Howard A., 103–4
Kennedy, John F., 15, 18
Kennedy, Robert, 18
Kessel, Steven T., 81, 88–89, 90
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 18
Knights of Columbus, 110
Koop, C. Everett, 112
Kramer, Larry, 63
Langmuir, Alex, 95, 97–98
Lebanon, 46
listeriosis: causes of, 93–94
fight with milk industry over, 93–99
magic bullet concept, 104
Mansell, Peter, 82
Mason, James, 95, 96, 97, 98
McGinnis, J. Michael, 20
media: AIDS coverage by, 63, 65–67, 69, 102–3
CDC and, 43, 102–3
herpes coverage by, 38, 40–41
medical detective profession: as career, 1–2
and expert witnesses, 80–82
milk industry, 93–99
MMWR, 42, 43
Mohammad, Shafi, 21, 22, 23, 24, 31, 32, 33, gallery
Morrow, Prince, 106
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 15–16
National Institutes of Health (NIH), 17, 81–82, 86–87
Neslund, Verla, 83, 88, 98
New England Journal of Medicine, 94, 98–99
Newman, Paul, 81
New-York Historical Society, AIDS exhibition, 75
New York Times, 14, 90
Nixon, Richard, 3, 5, 94
No Magic Bullet (Brandt), 104–5
Obama, Barack, 52
Obama, Michelle, gallery
Operation Smallpox Zero, 18–27, 29–33, gallery;
cultural issues in, 21–24; participants in, gallery;
vaccinations in, 19, 21–22, 24–25, 26. See also surveillance and containment
Orenstein, Walt, 20, 26, gallery
Osuch, Janet, gallery
Pakistan: American Embassy in, 47–48
CIA spying in, 49, 51–52
refugee camps in, 45–46, 49–51, gallery
Parran, Thomas: and syphilis epidemic, 105–9
unethical studies during term of, 111–12
pasteurization, 93–94
penicillin, 109, 111
Peshawar, Pakistan, 48–50, 51
Phil Donahue Show, The, 40–41, 66
Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), 42, 53, 65
polio, 52, 110
Pseudomonas, 6–11
public health advisors (PHAs), 101–3
public health system, 1; and AIDS, 54, 79, 84, 90
funding for, 90, 101, 107, 108, 109, 110. See also CDC
public health workers, CIA misuse of, 49, 51–52
Raj Sahib, 29–30, 31, 33
Rather, Dan, 35, 38, 44
Reagan, Ronald, 107
refugee camps, in Pakistan, 45–46, 49–51, gallery
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 80, 83, 90
Reid, Harry, gallery
Reingold, Art, 95
Richardson, Elliot, 94, 95–96
Roosevelt, Franklin, 105–6, 107
Ryan, Hugh, 75
Salvarsan, 104, 109
Satcher, David, gallery
Scientific American, 51
Serdula, Mary, 47–48, 49, 50–51, gallery
sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), 35, 41
condoms and, 112–13
funding of fight against, 107, 109, 110
myths around transmission of, 101–5
PHAs and, 101–2
as public health issue, 105–7, 108–9
as term, 39, 71
Shadow on the Land: Syphilis (Parran), 107–9
Shafi. See Mohammad, Shafi
Shilts, Randy, 56–57
Sibelius, Kathleen, 111
60 Minutes, 41
Slave of the Prophet, 49–50
smallpox: eradication campaign, 13, 18–27, 29–33, 52, gallery;
how it spreads, 20–21
vaccination against, 19, 20, 21–
22, 24–25, 26, 33, 35
zero poster, 26, 27, gallery
Social Security Act of 1935, 109
Soviet Union, 18, 45–46
space program, 15–16
Stamm, Walter, 4, 10–11, 12
surveillance and containment, 19–21, 24, 26, 33
syphilis: epidemic during 1930s of, 107, 108–10
four stages of, 107–8
myths around transmission of, 103–6
as public health issue, 105–7
treatment of, 104, 109, 111
Tuskegee and Guatemala studies of, 111–12. See also sexually transmitted diseases
Thompson, Sam, 59
Time magazine, 40, 107, 112–13
toilet seats, and AIDS, 101–3
transducers, 9–12
Tuskegee syphilis study, 111–12
UN Decade for Women conference (1980), 46, 51
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 101
University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), 15–16
University of Utah, 35, 37, 38
Valenti, Jack, 110
venereal diseases. See sexually transmitted diseases
Verdict, The, 81
Vietnam War, 5, 17, 18
Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical Company, 14–15
Westchester County Medical Center (WCMC): about, 84–86
compliance with court decision by, 90–91
John Doe complaint against, 79–80, 83–84, 92
threatened termination of federal funding for, 79, 85, 89. See also HHS v. WCMC
White, Ryan, 71
Windom, Robert, 95
Wolfson, Evan, 80
women: and AIDS, 63–70
as EIS officers, 3, 5–7, 12
and genital herpes, 39
in India, 23, 24
at medical schools, 3, 14, 17
in Operation Smallpox Zero, 19, 23, 52, gallery;
at Pakistan refugee camps, 45, 46–47, 50
World Health Organization (WHO), 18–19, 31, 33
Wormser, Gary, 92
yeast infections, 68, 70
Zia-ul-Haq, Muhammad, 45–46
* In 1974, CDC was actually called the Center for Disease Control. Since that time, the CDC acronym has been kept, but the official name of the agency has changed to the Centers for Disease Control and, finally, to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
* Because of the confidentiality agreement, I have not identified the military base, the state, or the names of personnel involved except the first name of this infection control nurse.
* “Case-patient” is a term epidemiologists use to distinguish patients with a case of the disease under study from all other patients in a given facility.
* I didn’t make it to space, but gum from my first chemist job did! It was a point of pride at American Chicle that Trident chewing gum was selected as the gum that the first astronauts would take to space.
* Gertrude Elion was also a graduate of Hunter College, majored in chemistry, and upon graduation could not find work in her field—all experiences that I shared (see chapter 2).
* The experience of having an event in my life portrayed in a movie was disconcerting. HBO previewed the film for CDC personnel, but I was out of town and did not see it. Upon my return, many colleagues tried to break it to me gently that I was not portrayed well. “Brace yourself” was a common comment, followed by “It isn’t at all like you.” When I finally did see it, I saw my character as a nice, soft-spoken woman who made a cake for a colleague. The scriptwriter simply did not know how to portray a woman scientist. In the film, Richard Gere plays a patient who kisses me on the cheek.
Every year on World AIDS Day (December 1), different memorial events are staged around the country. Sometimes the movie And the Band Played On is shown, accompanied by a panel of real-life characters depicted in the movie. Afterward, there are often question-and-answer sessions between panel members and attendees. I have been a panel member for several of these events—in Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Reno. People line up to talk to me. They tell me personal stories or ask questions. The question I am most commonly asked is, “Did you really kiss Richard Gere?” I was so startled when I was first asked this question that I didn’t know how to respond. Now I am prepared. I say, “No, I didn’t kiss Richard Gere. He kissed me.” So much for my scientific expertise!
* I salute the courage of Mary Fisher, an HIV-infected, wealthy white woman who spoke at the Republican Convention in 1992, demonstrating that “nice” women can get AIDS. She is an international hero and continues to advocate for the prevention and treatment of HIV infection in women.
* Lir was not her real name. Her overriding concern to protect her children reminded me of the plight of the children in an old Irish legend, “The Children of Lir.” In that legend, the children became swans. I do not know what happened to Lir’s children.
