Disease and Illnesses

Citizens of Mexico City wear masks to prevent the spread of swine flu.

Dreading the Worst When it Comes to Epidemics

A scientist by training, author Philip Alcabes studies the etymology of epidemiology and the cultural fears of worldwide disease

Born with a disease that has robbed her eyesight, Alisha Bacoccini (being examined by surgeon Albert Maguire) is undergoing experimental gene therapy at the University of Pennsylvania. If she weren't legally blind, says the 20-year-old massage therapist, she would want to be a forensic scientist.

Gene Therapy in a New Light

A husband-and-wife team's experimental genetic treatment for blindness is renewing hopes for a controversial field of medicine

Angel Watkins and co-workers in Colorado blame many culprits in the decline of the Aspen.

What's Killing the Aspen?

The signature tree of the Rockies is in trouble

For some people in the region (Chapel of All Saints, San Luis, Colorado), the DNA results have been a revelation.

The 'Secret Jews' of San Luis Valley

In Colorado, the gene linked to a virulent form of breast cancer found mainly in Jewish women is discovered in Hispanic Catholics

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How Breast Cancer Genes Work

Though we may talk of cancer as one disease, skin cancer has little in common with pancreatic cancer and breast cancer is something else entirely

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Tainted Tomatoes

A food-poisoning scare spurs debate

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Show Stopper

The classically trained dance star Alicia Graf showed true grit overcoming a career-threatening ailment

Trailed by reporters, Jimmy Carter launched his antimalaria initiative in the small community of Afeta. Some 50 million Ethiopians (Kemeru Gessese washes clothes in a river) live in regions where the disease is rampant.

The Ethiopia Campaign

After fighting neglected diseases in Africa for a quarter century, former president Jimmy Carter takes on one of the continent's biggest killers malaria

In a recent study, malaria-resistant mosquitoes —tipped off by their neon green eyes—faired better than typical wild insects after feeding on infected blood.

Can Mosquitoes Fight Malaria?

Scientists can build a mosquito that resists infection, but getting the insects to pass along the gene is a harder task

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Medical Sleuth

To prosecutors, it was child abuse - an Amish baby covered in bruises, but Dr. D. Holmes Morton had other ideas

At least 40 million died of the 1918-19 "Spanish flu," the most deadly disease episode in history. Influenza cases were treated at places including this army ward in Kansas in 1918.

The Flu Hunter

For years, Robert Webster has been warning of a global influenza outbreak. Now governments worldwide are finally listening to him

Dr. Henderson a week after he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush

35 Who Made a Difference: D. A. Henderson

Eradicating one of history's deadliest diseases was just the beginning

Friendly to whites most of his life, Mandan Chief Four Bears (in an 1832 portrait by George Catlin) turned bitter as death approached, blaming them for the disease that would kill him.

Tribal Fever

Twenty-five years ago this month, smallpox was officially eradicated. For the Indians of the high plains, it came a century and a half too late

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Special Delivery

In the 1900s, health officials believed that puncturing supposedly disease-infested mail and then fumigating it slowed the spread of illness

"I had a bunch of birds that had died of encephalitis at the same time people had encephalitis," says Tracey McNamara (in her Bronx apartment), a veterinary pathologist formerly at the Bronx Zoo. She helped link the virus to the 1999 epidemic.

On the Trail of the West Nile Virus

Some scientists race to develop vaccines against the scourge while others probe the possible lingering effects of the mosquito-borne infection

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Mission Impossible?

An international campaign to rid the world of polio has made dazzling progress. But some experts question whether the scourge can ever be eradicated

Seabiscuit

Betting on Seabiscuit

Laura Hillenbrand beat the odds to write the hit horse-racing saga while fighting chronic fatigue syndrome, a disorder starting to reveal its secrets

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