Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 13:01:46 +0500 From: awilson@smtpinet.aspensys.com (Wilson, Anne) AIDS Daily Summary February 23, 1995 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National AIDS Clearinghouse makes available the following information as a public service only. Providing this information does not constitute endorsement by the CDC, the CDC Clearinghouse, or any other organization. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC Clearinghouse should be cited as the source of this information. Copyright 1995, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD ************************************************************ "AIDS Testing for Pregnant Women Urged" "Louganis, Olympic Champion, Says He Has AIDS" "No One Is Immune" "Merck Claims Its AIDS Drug Is the Best Yet" "Nationwide Condom Blitz Heralds Brazil's Carnival" "VIMRx Pharmaceuticals Reports Encouraging Results..." "Sex-and-Sun Ads Pulled from Prudent Britain" "Clinical Trials to Begin on Designed AIDS Drug" "HCWs Urged to Be Aware of Deaf Patients' Needs" "Kramer Vs. Kramer's Past" ************************************************************ "AIDS Testing for Pregnant Women Urged" Washington Post (02/23/95) P. A5 The government proposed on Wednesday that physicians should counsel every pregnant woman about AIDS and urge them to be tested for HIV so that infected mothers can try to protect their unborn children. Because each HIV test costs $25, a major investment will be necessary to catch the estimated 80,000 heterosexual women of childbearing age who are infected with HIV, of which more than 7,000 give birth each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. Doctors recently discovered, however, that AZT reduces the risk of maternal-infant transmission by two-thirds. The CDC argued that mass HIV testing should pay for itself both by saving babies' lives and their medical bills. Each year, approximately 2,000 babies are born with HIV. Related Story: New York Times (02/23) P. A20 "Louganis, Olympic Champion, Says He Has AIDS" New York Times (02/23/95) P. B11; Sandomir, Richard Greg Louganis, the 1984 and 1988 Olympic gold medal diver, announced that he has AIDS. Last year, the athlete publicly acknowledged his homosexuality for the first time at the Gay Games in New York City. In an interview with ABC's "20/20" that will be broadcast on Friday, Louganis said he knew he was infected with HIV before the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Since then, Louganis' infection has developed into AIDS. He said he was very concerned when he hit his head on the board during a dive and shed blood in the pool. Louganis did not inform the doctor who stitched up the two-inch cut without wearing protective gloves that he was HIV-positive. The diver said his doctor and Ron O'Brien, his coach, discouraged him from telling the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) about his condition. O'Brien said he encouraged Louganis' silence "because our sport is such that you don't ever really come close to anybody." Since 1989, the USOC has adopted strict procedures for dealing with open wounds, and voluntary HIV testing is available for Olympic athletes. The organization, however, has no policy requiring HIV-positive athletes to disclose their status. Related Story: Washington Post (02/23) P. D1 "No One Is Immune" Washington Post (02/23/95) P. D1; Wilbon, Michael When it comes to HIV and AIDS, the greatest diver in the world is just as helpless as anyone else handed a death sentence, writes Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post. We tend to see world-class athletes--with their medals, trophies, riches, and fame--as protected from the tragedies of everyday life. During the 1988 Olympics, diver Greg Louganis hit his head on the board during the 1988 Olympics, and went on--with five stitches in his head--to win the gold medal. Louganis had already won gold medals at the 1984 Olympics, but he continued diving competitively because he loved it more than anything else. Perhaps he continued because it provided refuge from an abusive stepfather, dyslexia, the ugly taunts he endured because of his Samoan heritage, subsequent depression, and three suicide attempts. Many people also need to realize that a great athlete can also be homosexual. Among the famous athletes who have said they have HIV or AIDS, Louganis is the first man who has talked openly of his homosexuality. People will undoubtedly rally around Louganis, and AIDS prevention will be in the news. Once the energy of the moment dies out, however, everything goes back to business as usual, and we end up hoping that the next famous person to have the disease will be able to rally some sustaining support in the fight against AIDS, Wilbon concludes. "Merck Claims Its AIDS Drug Is the Best Yet" Wall Street Journal (02/23/95) P. B1; Waldholz, Michael Merck & Co. announced that it is accelerating plans for advanced patient trials for its new experimental drug against AIDS, MK-639, as a result of encouraging findings. Edward M. Scolnick, president of worldwide research at Merck, said MK-639 "looks better than anything else tested" against HIV. However, Merck said supplies would be limited for about a year due to the complexity of the manufacturing process. Emilio Emini, head of AIDS research at Merck, warned that MK-639 is not a cure and resistance can develop within a few months to a year or more, but he added that the drug appeared to boost portions of the immune system in very ill patients. "Nationwide Condom Blitz Heralds Brazil's Carnival" Journal of Commerce (02/23/95) P. 4A; Bruce, James With the advent of Brazil's pre-Lenten carnival, Brazilian authorities are raiding importers and retailers for substandard prophylactics. As part of an assault on both chronic inflation and increasing numbers of AIDS cases, Brasilia dropped import barriers against prophylactics just last April. In Sao Paulo, for example, authorities swept through 225 establishments and seized 7,867 prophylactics last weekend. In Santos, the largest port in Latin America and an acknowledged focus of HIV infection in Brazil, authorities confiscated more than one half of the 3,020 packages examined for lack of the official Inmetro seal of quality. The Inmetro agency tests the domestic products twice a year and every imported shipment for quality, sanitation, and shelf life. Brasilia imposed the national standards two years ago as part of a campaign against HIV infection. Offending importers caught in the weekend sweep will be fined 571.85 reals (about $672.76) for the first incident, and 1,624.08 reals for repeaters. "VIMRx Pharmaceuticals Reports Encouraging Results..." Business Wire (02/22/95) On Wednesday, VIMRx Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced that its program to develop hypericin, its lead antiviral/antiretroviral compound, to inactivate viruses in blood used for transfusions is producing more encouraging results than previously reported. Scientists at the New York Blood Center have now used hypericin to achieve complete inactivation of more than six logs (more than 1 million HIV particles per millimeter of blood) of infectious HIV in human blood. There has been no evidence of any deleterious effect on any of the blood components tested. Each year, about 12 million transfusions are given in the United States, and 40 million worldwide. A small percentage of HIV-infected blood slips through current testing procedures, which are aimed at detecting antibodies to HIV and not HIV directly. The indirect testing results in a one-to-three month window in which newly infected HIV-positive blood could test negative. VIMRx believes that using an antiviral agent in the blood collection and storage processes will greatly reduce the risks of infectious viral transmission. "Sex-and-Sun Ads Pulled from Prudent Britain" Reuters (02/22/95) Following complaints that they encouraged irresponsible behavior in the age of AIDS, a series of upfront advertisements promising sex, sun, and booze has been taken off British streets. The Advertising Standards Authority, which monitors ads in Britain, said the campaign for the "Club 18-30" package holiday group would probably cause widespread offense. "Girls, can we interest you in a package holiday?" reads one poster fronted by a well-built man dressed in his underwear. The controversial holiday group toned down its ads during the 1980s, when AIDS awareness was an the rise and concern increased about the health risks of excessive drinking. "Clinical Trials to Begin on Designed AIDS Drug" Chemical & Engineering News (02/13/95) Vol. 73, No. 7, P. 39; Borman, Stu Scientists at Vertex Pharmaceuticals have used structure-based drug design to successfully engineer greater bioavailability and increased potency into a potential anti-AIDS drug, VX-478, an orally bioavailable inhibitor of HIV protease. In late January, Burroughs Wellcome, Vertex's development partner for VX-478, filed an investigational new drug application for VX-478 with the Food and Drug Administration. Phase I clinical trials are expected to begin soon in the United States. Although hundreds of compounds have been developed as HIV protease inhibitors, only a few have advanced to clinical trials. This is mainly because most candidate HIV protease inhibitors have not had the right bioavailability properties, said Manuel A. Navia, a scientist at Vertex. Bioavailability is a measure of a drug's presence in the blood following its administration. A problem with many HIV protease inhibitors is that the liver tends to clear them quickly from circulation. Clinical trials of protease inhibitors have tended to show significant decreases in antiviral activity over time, primarily because of HIV's ability to mutate and thus, develop resistance to the drugs. "HCWs Urged to Be Aware of Deaf Patients' Needs" AIDS Alert (02/95) Vol. 10, No. 2, P. 27 Advocates for the hearing impaired say that the deaf community is not getting enough attention and health care services, which are causing higher rates of AIDS among the deaf than in the general population. The reason is because "so many people lack cultural competency, sensitivity, and awareness," says Michael Felts, a co-founder of Deaf AIDS Action, who is deaf and HIV-positive. There have been 7,000 cases of seropositivity and AIDS among the deaf nationwide, with 300 deaths, according to AIDS Education Services for the Deaf, a division of the Greater Los Angeles Association for the Deaf (GLAD). The deaf community's isolation leads to much misunderstanding and misinformation, say advocates for the deaf. James Peinkofer, a social worker at the Madison Center in South Bend, Ind., says that deaf people are "probably 10 years behind the rest of us" in their knowledge of AIDS. According to GLAD, the deaf community also engages in or experiences "a very high incidence of promiscuous sexual behavior, domestic violence, and alcohol/drug abuse." To successfully get the message about AIDS across, AIDS service providers must get involved--getting in touch with deaf social clubs, sports organizations, and deaf schools, for example. "Kramer Vs. Kramer's Past" New York (02/13/95) Vol. 28, No. 7, P. 11; Wechsler, Pat; Friedman, Roger D. Writer, activist, and cofounder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), Larry Kramer has been pushing for the GMHC to endorse new but unapproved drugs called protease inhibitors. Kramer says that the drugs have performed well in tests and have produced fewer side effects in AIDS patients than drugs such as AZT. However, when GMHC's Treatment Issues attempted to interview him on the subject, the article was blocked by David Barr, GMHC's head of treatment, education, and advocacy, says Kramer. Treatment Issues Editor David Gold, who had conducted the interview, was threatened with sanctions and even termination by Barr. "He's being allowed to use the organization to pursue a personal vendetta against me," said Kramer, who claims the animosity dates back to their early days at ACT UP. "My approach has always been to get drugs into bodies as fast as possible. David and GMHC are blindly cautious," he added. A GMHC spokesman, however, said the article will be in an upcoming issue.