Epidemic

We were saddened to read of the callous attack on a Frederick teenager who was waiting to be interviewed about school bullying ("Teenager charged after bullying caught on camera," Oct. 14). The fact that you published the victim's name, however, further weakens our trust in your news agency. What will happen now? You suggest the "authorities" (meaning the school system, the police?) believe this to be an isolated incident unrelated to previous incidents of bullying. But who are these authorities?

Many predicted the 1980s crack epidemic would create a generation of children with major developmental and behavioral problems, but a new study found much of that hype hasn't panned out. Researchers from the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine found that the effects of crack cocaine in utero had only small effects on adolescent behavior, cognition and school performance. Crack is a more addictive, crystalized form of cocaine that is smoked for a intense high.

America is witnessing an epidemic of hand held phone lust! We have become a nation of techno-addicts — and there is a trillion-dollar industry feeding the hunger! Those overnight lines for the new Apple device are a clear symptom. Why are we relentlessly tethered to instant communication? Today Americans suffer from isolation and loss of physical contact from one another. It's frightening to see folks crave the iPhone 4s ("Apple fans get early dose of iPhone fever," June 25)

Former Baltimorean Katherine Bouton abruptly lost the hearing in her left ear at age 30. One minute she could hear, and the next, she could not. Over the decades, her impairment worsened. By the time she was 60, she was functionally deaf. But her reluctance to disclose her ailment only increased. And who can blame her? She worked in a highly competitive environment, as a senior editor at The New York Times. In retrospect, Bouton says, remaining silent was a mistake; her hearing impairment contributed to her abrupt departure after 22 years at the newspaper.

As a resident of downtown Baltimore, I'm struck by the amenities offered to the homeless ("Aid for street people failing," March 18). There are long lines in front of Health Care for the Homeless on the Fallsway, and it appears My Sister's Place across the street from the Pratt Library's main branch is doing a thriving business. The list goes on and on, so my question is: With so many venues offering assistance, why is homelessness still "epidemic" in Baltimore? Your article failed to investigate the origins of Baltimore's homeless problem.

WASHINGTON -- Seventeen years after AIDS was first recognized among gay white men in New York and San Francisco, the disease in this country is becoming largely an epidemic among black people, quietly devastating families and neighborhoods, yet all but ignored by leading black institutions.Blacks make up 13 percent of the U.S. population. But they now account for about 57 percent of new infections with human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association that the U.S. may have underestimated the number of new HIV infections occurring each year over the last decade by as much as 40 percent should send up red flags for Maryland health officials, particularly in Baltimore, which accounts for nearly half the state's AIDS cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nationally, 56,300 people were newly infected with HIV in 2006. Previous estimates had put the number at 40,000.

NEW YORK -- The United Nations AIDS organization has released disturbing estimates of the seemingly relentless expansion of the HIV pandemic.At a time when many Americans are optimistic that drug therapy might eliminate the virus, HIV is taking a heavy toll worldwide.According to the agency, every minute six people become infected with HIV: 7,500 adults per day and 1,000 children. About 30 million people have acquired the virus during the past 15 years; 6.4 million of them have died of AIDS.

BEIJING - In a live, televised news conference, the new acting mayor of Beijing called the SARS epidemic severe and uncontrolled yesterday as he sought to convince a panicky public that the battle against the disease had been effectively joined at last. "We are now facing up to this grave difficulty," said the acting mayor, Wang Qishan, a former banking chief and a protege of the no-nonsense former prime minister, Zhu Rongji. Wang was summoned to Beijing 10 days ago to replace the former mayor, Meng Xuenong, who was fired for his part in covering up the city's surging epidemic.

An American doctor advising Taiwan on fighting its SARS epidemic has come down with symptoms of the respiratory disease and will be flown home by air ambulance with three of his healthy colleagues, the governments of both countries said yesterday. It is not certain that the doctor, Chesley L. Richards Jr., an epidemiologist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has SARS. But if he does, Richards, 42, will be the first American investigator to have contracted severe acute respiratory syndrome.

As a resident of downtown Baltimore, I'm struck by the amenities offered to the homeless ("Aid for street people failing," March 18). There are long lines in front of Health Care for the Homeless on the Fallsway, and it appears My Sister's Place across the street from the Pratt Library's main branch is doing a thriving business. The list goes on and on, so my question is: With so many venues offering assistance, why is homelessness still "epidemic" in Baltimore? Your article failed to investigate the origins of Baltimore's homeless problem.

Halfway through Baltimore's long-term plan to end homelessness, advocates complain that the strategy is in disarray and worry that the number of men, women and children without permanent homes has grown - despite millions of dollars being pumped into local services. The 10-year Journey Home strategy, the advocates say, has fallen short of its objective, floundering without a direct line of leadership or accountability and frustrating the social services community that is pushing for solutions to a primary cause of homelessness: the lack of affordable housing.

Federal health officials declared this season's flu outbreak an epidemic Friday as Maryland hospitals and clinics continued to treat unusually high numbers of patients for the virus and manufacturers reported low supplies of the vaccine to treat the illness. The Centers for Disease Control said the virus is widespread in Maryland and 46 other states - the worst flu season in a decade. More than 15,000 Marylanders have visited emergency rooms and doctors' offices with flu-like symptoms this season, according to numbers updated Friday by the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

We were saddened to read of the callous attack on a Frederick teenager who was waiting to be interviewed about school bullying ("Teenager charged after bullying caught on camera," Oct. 14). The fact that you published the victim's name, however, further weakens our trust in your news agency. What will happen now? You suggest the "authorities" (meaning the school system, the police?) believe this to be an isolated incident unrelated to previous incidents of bullying. But who are these authorities?

For all the attention that violent crime gets in the media, the average American is much more likely to die from another largely preventable tragedy. Fatal drug overdoses have risen sharply in recent years. In Congress this month, Maryland Rep. Donna F. Edwards introduced bipartisan legislation known as the Stop Overdose Stat (S.O.S.) Act to help reverse this national trend. Every year, the lives of more than 28,000 Americans and more than 200 Baltimore City residents are claimed by a drug overdose.

Cholera broke out in Haiti two years ago, and more than 7,000 people have died. Some researchers traced the outbreak's origin to United Nations peacekeepers sent from Nepal after the devastating earthquake in 2010. The theory that Nepalese soldiers unwittingly spread the bacterial gastrointestinal ailment has become widely accepted based on genetic fingerprints revealing the strain's Asian roots. Now research from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and College Park campuses is painting a more complicated picture, with recent findings showing that a second cholera strain also sickened some Haitians.

While just a teenager in the 1970s, she danced on The Block, where she snorted cocaine and heroin and sold sex in backrooms. Later, with her addictions firmly rooted, she set out on her own, offering her body on the streets of West Baltimore as a deadly virus was spreading. The years have worn away at Sharon Williams, whose deeply lined face, reddened eyes and pained expressions tell of poor health, nights in abandoned buildings and customers like the man who kicked her down a flight of stairs, breaking two ribs and puncturing a lung.

Although the number of new AIDS cases in the United States dipped last year, the epidemic has shown no signs of abating in Baltimore and Maryland.With 2,951 people diagnosed in the state last fiscal year, Maryland had the fourth-highest rate of new cases in the nation, trailing New York, Florida and New Jersey, according to figures released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two years ago, the state ranked eighth.In the fiscal year that ended June 30, about 59 new cases were diagnosed for every 100,000 people living in the state, compared with 45 per 100,000 a year earlier.

You may imagine that journalists, because they make their bread by wielding language, would (a) know something about grammar and usage and (b) write about grammar and usage intelligently. If so, you have a vivid imagination. I put it to you (prosecutorial mode today) that a recent article in The Wall Street Journal on grammar in the workplace is a farrago of shibboleths and cultural prejudices. Even if you accept a broader definition of grammar that includes spelling, punctuation, and style conventions, the article is useless.

The number of Americans considered obese is expected to rise from the current 34 percent to 42 percent by the year 2030, according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and discussed at Monday's "Weight of the Nation" conference in Washington. Diabetes, kidney failure, heart disease, and other obesity-related ailments account for countless premature deaths and as much as 18 percent of the $2.6 trillion national cost of medical care. The leading causes of obesity are consumption of fat-laden meat and dairy products and lack of exercise.