In Brief





Medical News

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Childhood allergies linked to parents



     Sixty to 80 percent of infants whose parents suffer from

hayfever, eczema or asthma are at high risk for developing food

allergies. Those children might benefit from avoiding cow's milk,

eggs and peanuts early in life, say pediatricians at the Johns

Hopkins Children's Center. 



     Allergies passed down from parent to child can lead to

abnormal immune responses such as wheezing, asthma, nasal

congestion, eczema and hives. In extreme cases, the reactions can

be life-threatening. 



     According to Hugh Sampson, professor of pediatrics at the

Children's Center, allergies to food proteins may become

progressively worse following each exposure. Parents should

consider not introducing young, high-risk children to the most

common offenders, he says. He recommends excluding cow's milk

from the diet of high-risk infants for the first year of life,

eggs for the first 18 months and peanuts for the first three

years. That includes foods like pudding and peanut butter, made

from these allergy-causing foods.



     "Once a person has become sensitized, consumption of only

milligrams of a food may be sufficient to induce an allergic

reaction. As little as half a peanut can cause a dangerous

response, so it's best not to become sensitized at all," says

Sampson.

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Other News

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Hopkins schools rank well in respective disciplines



     The schools of Medicine and Engineering each received good

news in the latest annual survey of graduate schools published in

the March 17 issue of U.S. News & World Report.



     The School of Medicine received the second highest ranking

in the survey of 125 research-oriented medical schools, second to

Harvard and just ahead of Yale. Hopkins ranked first in the

specialties of drug and alcohol abuse and geriatrics and second

in AIDS research, internal medicine, pediatrics and women's

health.



     The rankings, which include all 125 U.S. medical schools,

are based on reputation among medical school deans and faculty,

and directors of intern-residency programs, as well as the amount

of research money awarded by the National Institutes of Health,

average medical school admission test scores of students and

faculty-student ratio.



     For the first time, the graduate program at the Whiting

School of Engineering broke into the top 25 schools ranked by

U.S. News in this area. Whiting placed 23rd among graduate

engineering schools, up from 27th place last year. The

Massachusetts Institute of Technology placed first.



     U.S. News rated Hopkins' biomedical engineering graduate

program as the nation's best. Biomedical engineering at Hopkins

involves both the Whiting School and the School of Medicine.



     The magazine said its rankings were based on a review of

faculty resources, research activity, student selectivity and two

measures of institutional reputation.

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WJHU reports most successful fund drive



     WJHU-FM heard from nearly 2,500 listeners during its

eight-day on-air fund drive. The law firm of Gordon Feinblatt and

First National Bank matched a percentage of each pledge with a

donation in each caller's name to Action for the Homeless. This

was WJHU's most successful fund drive, said director of community

affairs Nan Rosenthal. Compared to the fall drive, it was two

days shorter, raised $10,000 more and attracted more members

making higher pledges. Members provide the single largest source

of income for WJHU. 

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Family of Poeliu Dai donates book collection



     Students and faculty doing research in international

relations, particularly on the Far East, will soon have complete

access to books and documents donated by the family of Poeliu

Dai. 



     Dai, who graduated in 1934 with a doctorate in international

law and relations, had an extensive collection of books relating

to his wide range of interests in international affairs. His

family recently donated to the Milton S. Eisenhower Library a

major portion of Dai's library, numbering more than 3,585

volumes, in subjects focusing on Canadian and Japanese studies,

Chinese literature and histories of Vietnam and Cambodia. Among

the most useful editions in the Dai collection, according to

collection development coordinator Tom Izdicki, are the books on

Southeast Asian politics and history. "I was particularly anxious

to have this part of the Dai library to support the [Krieger

School of Arts and Sciences] developing program in Asian

studies," he said. 



     The collection also includes United Nations documents, which

will be shelved in the library's government publications section.

The rest of the collection will be shelved according to subject.

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