In Brief:
A team of pediatricians and cardiologists in Italy may have discovered the underlying basis of a large proportion of cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), or cot death, as it was known in Britain. Electrocardiograph (ECG) testing of more than 33,000 infants a few days after birth revealed a developmental heart rhythm defect, indicated by a prolongation of the so-called QT interval, in more than one-third of those who eventually became SIDS victims. Although previous surveys had shown that the "Back to Sleep" campaign launched in 1994 in the U.S. had been enormously effective at reducing the incidence of SIDS (by 38% between 1992 and 1996), three 1998 studies indicated that certain segments of the population were not heeding the public health admonition to put infants to sleep on their backs, not on their abdomens. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former three-term prime minister of Norway, was elected to a five-year term as director general of WHO. Brundtland, who had a medical degree from the University of Oslo and a public health degree from Harvard, was highly respected for her political skills and had been recognized for her leadership in environmental health.
