Improvement of four patients with HIV-1 related symptoms after hyperimmunization with killed poliomyelitis (Salk) vaccine.

Four HIV-1 positive patients with characteristic symptoms of this infection experienced amelioration or resolution of symptoms after 2 months of hyperimmunization with inactivated (Salk) poliomyelitis vaccine. The patient who was initially the most symptomatic exhibited a marked improvement in T4/T8 ratio at the sixth month of continued hyperimmunization treatment. With two patients reported previously, six consecutive patients with lymphotropic retrovirus disease have benefited from hyperimmunization with inactivated polio vaccine.

Clinical usefulness of sodium amobarbital interviewing.

We report a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study utilizing a within-subjects design on 20 hospitalized, psychiatric patients who participated in sodium amobarbital interviews to determine if the drug has a specific effect in eliciting clinically useful information. The patients selected had difficulty communicating with their primary therapists during the postadmission, diagnostic interviews. Two raters completed a Hamilton Depression Scale, a New Haven Schizophrenia Index, and a Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale after each interview. Although both the amobarbital and saline interviews were moderately useful in obtaining new information, we found no significant difference in the primary therapists' assessments of clinical usefulness. In addition, the drug interview did not uncover material that would aid in the differential diagnosis between depression and schizophrenia. There was, however, a significant negative correlation between the assessment of general usefulness and the time interval between admission and interviewing. We report our only exception, a case of catatonic schizophrenia, in which the patient responded specifically to the drug.