BABBOTT 



BLAIR: I was most interested in the observations, Dr. Rein- 

 hard, of the Eskimos' response to treatment of tuberculosis. 

 There is so much doubt about the change in the organisms with 

 respect to the chemotherapy, the rate of mutation of the dif- 

 ferent strains and the effect of the various agents they use. 

 Do you have the same problem? 



REINHARD: There is a paper in the 1962 AAAS Alaska Science 

 Conference by Shepard of the ADH^ laboratories which gives 

 a resumd of the decline in positive cultures over the last eight 

 to ten years, and then in surge, in 1962. At the time she postu- 

 lated that this was due to an occurrence of resisting types. How- 

 ever, there are many other factors that were not dealt with in 

 the paper, or brought under control, such as the possibility 

 that the ADH might have been going through another surge of 

 case findings. Furthermore, the laboratory hasn't been running 

 routine tests for resistance. So far, we don't know whether there 

 is an increase of the resistant types. I don't know whether the 

 Anchorage laboratory^ may have better reuslts than this. 1 wish 

 we could call up Frank Pauls right now. 



BERRY: We do have a man here, Dr. Huntley, from the An- 

 chorage Laboratory. Do you have any information on this? 



HUNTLEY: No, however, I know that the Alaska Department 

 of Health Laboratory is now doing an antibiotic sensitivity study 

 on positive TB cultures which has resulted in a tremendous 

 increase in the number of cultures requested from field nurses. 

 The study has not been under way long enough (probably 6 to 

 8 months), therefore, and no data are available on possible re- 

 sistant strains. 



McCLAUGHRY: I'd like to make a comment on Dr. Babbott's 

 remark that there is no such thing as arctic medicine. This has 

 been accepted as a concept by the National Research Council 

 Committee on Tropical Medicines. In attempting to sharpen 



1 Alaska Department of Health. 



2 Laboratory, Southcentral Region, Alaska Department of Health. 



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