inghoff said. The industry backs a bill, S. 1477, introduced last year by Sen. Nancy L. Kassebaum (R-Kan.). One provision of the legislation would require a single clinical trial to prove a drug's safety and efficacy, rather than the current two trials. Kassebaum has promised to push for FDA reform legislation this year. In addition, PhRMA seeks establishment of an independent oversight commission for FDA to help resolve problems. David Hanson
Warning of infectious disease threat issued
to move to higher elevations and to bite more frequently, and also make the malaria virus multiply faster in the mosquito. For example, in 1987, a high-altitude region of Rwanda where malaria had never penetrated experienced many cases after a period of record-high temperatures and rainfall. Patz estimated that global warming in the next century may increase global mortality from malaria— which now kills about 2 million people each year—by 1 million annually. Paul R. Epstein, professor of tropical medicine at Harvard Medical School, told C&EN that if s not just warmer temperatures that expand the range of infectious diseases, but the increase in weather extremes that accompany global warming. Prolonged droughts remove predators that control disease vectors, and torrential rains supply more breeding places for mosquitoes.
Health experts issued a warning last week at a press conference in Washington, D.C., about the reemerging threat worldwide of infectious diseases. Global warming, drug resistance, overpopulation, and the evolution of microbes are creating new health threats and rekindling some diseases that it was believed had been conquered. To stress the threat's severity, 36 medical journals in 21 countries, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, coordinated publication of 242 articles on the problem this month. Infectious diseases were in decline until about 1980. Robert W. Pinner, special assistant for surveillance at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, said at the press conference that the U.S. death rate from infectious diseases increased 58% from 1980 to 1992. Such diseases are now the third leading cause of death in the U.S. However, if deaths from AIDS are excluded, the increase in mortality is 22%. Joseph F. Plouffe, professor of internal medicine at Ohio State University, Columbus, found that the incidence of drug-resistant strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae—the most common cause of pneumonia—increased from 1991 to 1994. "Excessive antibiotic use appears to be the driving force behind the spread [of drug-resistant strains]/' he said. Global climate change is likely to significantly increase the range of many infectious diseases in both the U.S. and around the world, said Jonathan A. Patz, research associate at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene & Public Health. Malaria, dengue fever, and viral encephalitis are among the diseases most sensitive to climate, he noted. Warmer temperatures cause malaria-carrying mosquitoes
The world's population has never been more vulnerable to the threat of infectious diseases, said Joshua Lederberg, professor and president emeritus at Rockefeller University. The most important changes that led to this situation, Lederberg said, are the unprecedented movement of people and the "sheer expansion of our species," with high population densities "egregiously stratified" economically. To combat disease threats, Lederberg urged concerted global and domestic surveillance of disease outbreaks, vector management, and the provision of safe food and water supplies. He also urged the pharmaceutical industry, which has developed very few new antibiotics in recent years, to become fully involved in creating new antibiotics and vaccines. Bette Hileman
Federal shutdown and blizzard bury NSF in mail The National Science Foundation had to put its mailroom technicians on overtime last week as it returned to work to find thousands of backlogged research proposals jamming its offices. Normally, NSF receives about 240 proposals per day. So the 22-day federal furlough followed by four days of blizzard-induced closings left some 4,000 research proposals stacked in the mailroom and in dozens of mail carts lining the corridors and filling other rooms. With its mailroom staff working 12-hour shifts, NSF predicts it will take at least two weeks just to eliminate the mail backlog, and the 2,000 research institutions that rely on NSF funding may still be feeling the impact in six months. NSF says each day the government was shut down meant lost or delayed support to some 200 scientists, engineers, students, and teachers. Moreover, during the shutdown many continuing grants ran out of money, and funding gaps are expected for some renewals as well as substantial delays in funding new awards. David Hanson JANUARY 22,1996 C&EN 9
