Bacterium

Frances L. Pittman waited a year for her lung. She remembers feeling elated when she got a phone call at dawn three years ago and learned that an organ donor had given her a chance to beat her progressive lung disease. Her husband, Marshall, floored their Buick LeSabre across the city to Johns Hopkins Hospital, then held her hand as orderlies wheeled her into the operating room. After the lung transplant was completed, she awoke and scribbled on a pad to her husband: "It's over. I love you."

For as long as they can remember, the people of the high Andean river valleys of Peru have endured recurring waves of a deadly and disfiguring disease called bartonellosis. It is always present in their villages. But every four to six years, they suffer a "bad year" - a mysterious surge in the number of cases and severity of the illness. Victims develop a fever and flu-like symptoms, followed by anemia that kills 40 percent to 60 percent of its victims if untreated. Months later, those who survive develop a terrible rash they call verruga - bleeding warts, all over the body, that last two to five months.

PEOPLE sometimes can catch diseases in hospitals. It appears that at least five people, three of whom died, may have contracted Legionnaires' disease at Harford Memorial Hospital. At least one family believes hospital officials were not forthcoming about the source of their relative's fatal disease.Outbreaks of the disease, caused by the Legionella bacterium, are more common than generally recognized. The bacteria grow in water and are present in water systems, air conditioners and whirlpools.

State and Harford County health officials are investigating four cases of Legionnaires' disease at Harford Memorial Hospital, including two deaths -- the most recent of them Tuesday.As a precaution, the hospital over the weekend flushed its water system, a potential source of contamination. State health officials are trying to determine if the hospital is the source of the Legionella bacterium."We suspect that it might be in the hospital, but we will not be absolutely sure until we've tested water samples we've taken from their water system," said Tori Leonard, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

ROCKVILLE -- In a tour de force of computer-aided biology, scientists have decoded the full genetic instructions of the bacterium that causes ulcers and other stomach disease and have figured out many of its strategies.The advance is likely to lend new impetus to research on the bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, which is a leading cause of human illness. The microbe is thought to live in almost half the world's people, though usually without causing disease. In the United States it is found in 30 percent of adults and more than half of the people over 65, with a prevalence in lower socioeconomic groups.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- He thought the job might take just six months. He thought -- because, to his logical Swedish mind, this was only logical -- that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would cooperate immediately with postwar weapons inspectors because Iraq badly needed to resume selling its oil. Rolf Ekeus admits now that he made a miscalculation -- a 66-month miscalculation.Instead of six months, it has so far taken six years, and still counting. Ekeus has left his job as the chief U.N. weapons inspector for Iraq a wiser and more worried man. In an interview in Stockholm, he expressed grave concerns that Iraq will go back to producing weapons of mass destruction while a world community that has lost interest in the Persian Gulf war and its consequences looks the other way.Now about to become Sweden's ambassador to the United States, Ekeus is deeply worried that Iraq is still hiding weapons, particularly biological ones.

Thirteen years after a young Australian doctor said he had discovered the cause of most ulcers, American medicine appears to have accepted the fact that a common, curable bacterium -- not spicy foods, not stress -- causes the disease.Now, doctors say, it's time for the American public to discard the myths about ulcer disease and reconsider the long-term need for Zantac, Pepcid, Prilosec and Tagamet -- the acid-reducing ulcer medications -- and embrace a new therapy, which involves a short course of antibiotics.

WASHINGTON -- For the first time, the entire DNA sequence of a free-living organism has been deciphered, displaying an entire set of the genes needed for life, two scientists announced Wednesday night.The sequence is a chain of 1,830,121 DNA bases, the chemical units of the genetic code, which constitute the full genetic data base of a bacterium, Hemophilus influenzae.The result, announced at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology here, is a personal triumph for Dr. J. Craig Venter, the scientist who led the sequencing work.

Q: My son is allergic to cats and dogs but desperately wants a pet. His school has an iguana and he wants one, too. Is this a safe pet to have around?A: According to recent experts, iguanas, like some other reptiles, have been shown to harbor the bacterium called salmonella. This bacterium can cause severe diarrhea, particularly among infants less than one year of age. Epidemiologists from the Centers for Disease Control and the New York State Health Department estimated that iguanas were responsible for at lest 700 cases of salmonella infection in the state in 1993.

A new culprit has emerged for two chronic health conditions, and it has taken the medical world by surprise.Peptic ulcers and gastritis have been associated with several factors, including stress, diet, gender and genetics.Now there is another factor to consider -- a bacterium named Helicobacter pylori. The existence of this organism and its link with these stomach disorders actually may be good news for some ulcer sufferers, who in the past would have been put on lifelong regimens of diets, antacids and anti-secretory drugs.