Date: Fri, 13 Jan 1995 09:16:39 +0500 From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghmcleaf}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com AIDS Daily Summary January 13, 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 1994, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD ************************************************************ "Arthur Ashe AIDS Foundation to Close After Creating $1 Million Endowment" "City Can't Pay for AIDS Services" "FDA Urged to Bar Sales of Burroughs' Acyclovir Drug Without a Prescription" "People Patterns: U.S. Deaths Are Up and Down" "Indian Gays Find New Confidence, but Fear AIDS" "MBf USA, Inc. Announces Four New Playboy Condom Distribution Agreements; Initial Orders Under These Agreements Nearly $1 Million" "Mayor Orders Condoms for Brazilian Motel Goers" "Binding and Stimulation of HIV-1 Integrase by a Human Homolog of Yeast Transcription Factor SNF5" "DIY Doctoring" "Winn to Work to Raise AIDS Understanding" ************************************************************ "Arthur Ashe AIDS Foundation to Close After Creating $1 Million Endowment" Wall Street Journal (01/13/95) P. A9A; Sebastian, Pamela Having created a $1 million endowment at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, the Arthur Ashe AIDS Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS Inc. will close. Income from the endowment will benefit AIDS programs at the hospital, where Ashe was treated for AIDS. New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center will raise a matching $1 million under the endowment. The foundation's plan was a 12- to 15-month campaign to raise between $2.5 million and $5 million to educate people about AIDS and to support AIDS research and services. In the end, it operated approximately 30 months, mobilizing the international tennis community to raise money to fight AIDS. The foundation has raised about $5.4 million and has awarded grants world-wide totaling approximately $2 million. Another $300,000 will be granted before the foundation closes. "City Can't Pay for AIDS Services" Washington Times (01/13/95) P. C6; Gotsch, Ted According to AIDS activists, the Washington, D.C., government continues to be late in its payments to community AIDS service groups, which has forced some to close and put others at risk of closing in the next few months. Thus far, the Inner City AIDS Network (ICAN); DeafPride, which provides interpreters for deaf AIDS patients; and an AIDS hot line for the Washington Area Consortium on Alcohol and Drug Abuse have shut down. Damien Ministries--which includes providing housing for homeless AIDS patients among its duties--has discontinued its program, and several other of the more than 60 AIDS providers have cut back on services, said D.C. Care Consortium Executive Director Chris Bates. Kevin Neil, executive director of Metro TeenAIDS, said in a meeting with the city's Agency of HIV-AIDS Community Prevention Planning Committee that members were not able to say when the organizations would be paid for services already rendered. The District owes Metro TeenAIDS $60,000 for services that date back to October. If the group is not paid by the end of this month, it will be forced to cut back on all programs funded by the District to keep from closing completely. The city currently provides 25 percent of the $300,000 annual budget. "FDA Urged to Bar Sales of Burroughs' Acyclovir Drug Without a Prescription" Wall Street Journal (01/13/95) P. B6; McGinley, Laurie An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommended that Burroughs Wellcome Co.'s prescription anti-herpes drug, acyclovir, should not be sold over the counter. The FDA generally follows the advice of its advisory panels. The panel voted 17-1 against nonprescription use of the drug, which is sold under the brand name Zovirax, for the treatment of genital herpes. The advisors expressed concern over mistakes that people could make in diagnosis and treatment if they were not compelled to seek help from a doctor. Others were worried that if use of the drug were expanded significantly, it could lead to increased resistance of the virus to acyclovir. Some AIDS patients who use acyclovir for genital herpes have already developed resistance. Burroughs Wellcome hoped to boost the top-selling drug's sales even further by getting approval to sell the drug in doses of 200 milligrams without prescription. The company said it planned to urge customers, through package inserts and an extensive public education campaign, to see a doctor the first time they contract genital herpes. It also claimed that studies indicated there was no evidence that the herpes virus was becoming resistant to acyclovir. "People Patterns: U.S. Deaths Are Up and Down" Wall Street Journal (01/13/95) P. B1; Crispell, Diane Although the number of deaths in the United States is up, the rate of death is down. Almost 2.2 million people died in 1992--a record, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The age-adjusted rate, however, hit a record low, at 504.5 per 100,000 population. The overall death rate has been falling for decades, from 1,076 per 100,000 people in 1940 to 853 in 1992. Accounting for 1.5 percent of all 1992 deaths, AIDS is the eighth-leading cause of death in the United States. It was also the leading cause of death for blacks between the ages of 25 and 44. Accidents were the leading cause of death for whites in the same age group. "Indian Gays Find New Confidence, but Fear AIDS" Reuters (01/12/95); Fernandez, Clarence As India's middle-class gays are slowly coming out of the closet, they fear that public health officials have not woken up to the danger presented by AIDS. Many consider themselves more susceptible to the disease because of what they say are the relatively higher levels of promiscuity in the gay community. Recently, delegates at India's first gay conference in Bombay planned to create a nationwide support system for gay men, with anonymous AIDS testing centers high on their list of priorities. "The government is aware of the spread of AIDS among gays," said Anand, a delegate to the conference. "But stringent ideas of morality mean that it prefers to ignore the threat." Official estimates report that 889 cases of AIDS have been reported in India, with an estimated 16,015 people who are HIV-infected. The rate of attrition within the homosexual community is not known. The Bombay conference was made possible by a grant from the Mercury Phoenix foundation, established with money willed by singer Freddy Mercury, who died of AIDS. Mercury was the lead singer for the rock group, Queen, and a member of Bombay's Parsee Community. "MBf USA, Inc. Announces Four New Playboy Condom Distribution Agreements; Initial Orders Under These Agreements Nearly $1 Million" Business Wire (01/12/95) MBf USA, Inc. announced on Thursday that it has signed distribution agreements for Playboy brand condoms with leading distributors in Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and Pakistan. Initial orders, which are close to $1 million, are scheduled to begin at the end of the first quarter of 1995. The condoms are now sold in nine countries, including Taiwan, Colombia, and Hong Kong. A portion of all Playboy condom sales is donated to the Playboy/MBf USA Foundation, which provides support to local organizations and advocacy projects that educate the public about safe sex and AIDS. In addition to marketing the world famous Playboy brand condoms internationally, MBf USA, Inc, and its subsidiaries market medical examination gloves in the United States. "Mayor Orders Condoms for Brazilian Motel Goers" Reuters (01/12/95) In an effort to slow the spread of AIDS in Cabedelo, Brazil, the town's mayor has ordered that establishments known as sex havens must distribute condoms every four hours. The ruling includes both motels and brothels. Motel owners said they already make condoms available and complained the measure was unnecessary. "Binding and Stimulation of HIV-1 Integrase by a Human Homolog of Yeast Transcription Factor SNF5" Science (12/23/94) Vol. 266, No. 5193, P. 2002; Kalpana, Ganjam V.; Marmon, Shana; Wang, Weidong et al Upon entering a host cell, retroviruses direct the reverse transcription of the viral RNA genome and the creation of an integrated proviral DNA. The retroviral integrase protein (IN) inserts the viral DNA into host chromosomal targets. Researchers used the two-hybrid system to identify human gene products that bind to the HIV-1 IN. The sequence of the gene indicates that the protein could be a human homolog of yeast SNF5, a transcriptional activator that is necessary for high-level expression of many genes. The gene--called INI1, for integrase interactor 1--may encode a nuclear factor that encourages integration and targets incoming viral DNA to active genes. "DIY Doctoring" Report on Business (01/95) Vol. 11, No. 7, P. 108; Wyke, Andrea Many patients are taking charge of their own care, writes Andrea Wyke, a business and science correspondent for The Economist, in the Toronto Globe and Mail Report on Business. AIDS activists led the way for do-it-yourself doctoring after becoming dissatisfied with the service they were getting from the medical establishment. In 1995, books, telephone hot lines, and computer software are some of the tools that will be used for diagnosis. Patients can obtain medical information on-line in the comfort of their own home. New over-the-counter diagnostic kits, including those for high blood pressure and HIV, will alert a person to sickness. Over time, the consumer health-care movement will cause a shakeup of the health-care infrastructure as consumers, rather than doctors, become its power brokers. While doctors in many countries have stopped making house calls, some people in the future will stop making visits to the doctor--excluding their computer resources. The question, concludes Wyke, will be whether do-it-yourself doctoring is truly a good thing. "Winn to Work to Raise AIDS Understanding" Home Furnishings Network (01/09/95) Vol. 69, No. 2, P. 23; Santorelli, Dina Lighting veteran Paris Winn--formerly president of Cresswell Ltd., a division of Alsy Lighting--has joined the National Leadership Coalition on AIDS in Washington, D.C. "Employers need to understand catastrophic health disorders and specifically AIDS," said Winn, who has been fighting the disease for two years. Founded in 1987, the Coalition addresses HIV and AIDS as a business, labor, and workplace issue and assesses the impact of AIDS on employers and employees. Winn will be active in helping business executives understand HIV and develop a policy regarding the disease. He will also be committed to getting the home furnishings industry involved in the cause. HOLIDAY NOTICE: AIDS Daily News will not publish on Monday, January 16, in observance of the Martin Luther King Holiday. Publication will resume on Tuesday, January 17. THE END.