Hepatitis

As many as 3,000 people may have been exposed to hepatitis A, a contagious virus that attacks the liver, at a busy Wendy's restaurant in Eldersburg this month, the Carroll County Health Department announced yesterday.Health officials are asking that anyone who ate at the restaurant Sept. 8 to 12 call the department to receive a free shot of immune globulin (IG), which contains antibodies to the virus and can help prevent the disease.Patrons who ate at the restaurant Sept. 1 to 7 also may have been exposed, but the IG shot would not be effective for them.

Gene Cassidy thought he was lucky to survive being shot in the head twice 25 years ago when he was a Baltimore policeman, so a second near-death ordeal recently seemed unreal. Just 27 years old, Cassidy lost his sight after a man he was trying to arrest on an assault warrant fired at him. The shooting, and his survival, made Cassidy a legend in Baltimore police ranks and became fodder for "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets," the book by David Simon, and later a TV series, about crime in Baltimore.

An article in yesterday's Maryland section about a hepatitis warning in Carroll County gave the wrong first name for Dr. David Blythe of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygeine.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 9/24/98

A 35-YEAR-OLD man dying of liver failure received a transplant on June 29.There is nothing especially newsworthy about that, since there are more than 2,000 liver transplants performed each year in the United States.What was remarkable was that the liver came from a baboon. This was the first attempt to use a liver from a baboon in a human recipient. So far, the transplant seems to be going well.While it is still too early to say that the experiment is a success, it is not too early to examine the morality of this experiment with a baboon liver.

Hamilton Holmes, 54, one of the two black students who integrated the University of Georgia in the early 1960s, died yesterday in Atlanta.Dr. Holmes, who was chief of orthopedic surgery at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and a professor of medicine at Atlanta's Emory University, had a history of heart problems. He died of natural causes Thursday afternoon at his home, hospital officials said.In 1961, Dr. Holmes and Charlayne Hunter won a place in the history of the U.S. civil rights movement by becoming the first black students to enroll in the University of Georgia, located in Athens.

Children entering grades five through nine this fall may need to get extra shots this summer to comply with new statewide immunization requirements. If students don't have documentation that they have received vaccinations for chicken pox and hepatitis B by the first day of school, they will be turned away, said Rhonda Gill, the school system's director of student services. "They won't be able to attend school. That's what makes it a very serious matter," Gill said. School system officials are sending letters to parents, and information about the shots needed is available on the county schools' Web site and from the Anne Arundel County Department of Health.

As the first day of school approaches, parents are checking to make sure their children are up to date on their vaccines. By the time Maryland children enter kindergarten, they are required to have been vaccinated against 11 diseases -- diphtheria, pertussis, Hib (haemophilus influenza), pneumococcus, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis and chicken pox. And, this year, both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics are recommending that children receive four new vaccines: a booster for chicken pox, rotavirus, hepatitis A and the human papillomavirus, says Julie Yeh, assistant chair of pediatrics at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

CHILDREN in adolescence will rebel, and that is as predictable as falling leaves in autumn. When I was a teen-ager, I wanted to pierce my ears, but that was strictly forbidden. My best friend finally persuaded her parents to allow her to get her ears pierced, but her mother insisted that a medical doctor perform the procedure. Ten years later, we wondered what the fuss was about. By that time, even our mothers had pierced ears. Now we know what the fuss is about because there are serious health issues regarding piercing and tattooing.

In Baltimore City Methadone clinic users to get vaccinations for hepatitis A and B Two thousand drug addicts enrolled in methadone programs throughout Baltimore will receive vaccines against hepatitis A and hepatitis B donated by the Merck pharmaceutical company, drug treatment officials are announcing today. The first vaccines are to be given today to addicts at the Man Alive methadone program on North Charles Street, one of nine treatment facilities where researchers with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health are tracking infectious diseases that commonly run among drug addicts.

Wendy O. Williams, 48, whose stage theatrics as lead singer of the punk band The Plasmatics included blowing up equipment and chain-sawing guitars, has committed suicide.Her former manager and longtime companion Rod Swenson said he discovered her body Monday in a wooded area near their home in Storrs, Conn. The state medical examiner said she died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Mr. Swenson said Miss Williams had been despondent for some time.Miss Williams, dubbed the "queen of shock rock," sported a trademark Mohawk haircut and was nominated in 1985 for a Grammy in the best Female Rock Vocal category during the height of the band's popularity.