Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 09:07:51 +0500 From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghmcleaf}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com AIDS Daily Summary January 20, 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 ************************************************************ "Women in Puerto Rico Find Marriage Offers No Haven from AIDS" "AIDS Service Group to Sue City for Funds" "Wellcome, Immune Response Are Sold Short by Bear Who Backs Maverick Theory on AIDS" "A Slur, Cry Italy's Cat Ladies, and the Fur Flies" "Choreographing His Own Death" "Panel Calls for Bigger Role for Women in Drug Tests" "Sacking of "Red Cleric" Strains French Church" "Tuberculosis Among Health Care Workers" "Coverup of AIDS Patent Misconduct Charged" "AIDS: the Disease for Which You Call Your Lawyer" ************************************************************ "Women in Puerto Rico Find Marriage Offers No Haven from AIDS" New York Times (01/20/95) P. A14; Navarro, Mireya For women in Puerto Rico, marriage often offers no protection from HIV. Health officials say that a majority of the sex-related cases among women involved those who were married or in common-law relationships, and had no other risk factors than their partners--many of whom used intravenous drugs. "The married woman feels less vulnerable and is less prepared to demand protection from her partner," said Dr. Carmen Feliciano, Puerto Rico's Health Secretary. A higher proportion of Puerto Rican women have been affected by the AIDS epidemic than women from elsewhere in the United States because, on the island, AIDS has mainly been a disease of heterosexual men who use intravenous drugs and infect women. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 53 percent of the 2,818 cases of AIDS among Puerto Rican women are due to heterosexual intercourse, and 41 percent to intravenous drug use. The Puerto Rican government's public policy continues to promote monogamy, abstinence, and condom use as ways to prevent AIDS. Critics, however, say that a better prevention message would be speak of infidelity and drug use. "AIDS Service Group to Sue City for Funds" Washington Times (01/20/95) P. C6; Gotsch, Ted Despite a Wednesday payment promise from Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry, the HIV Prevention Community Planning Committee intends to sue the District. The group, a public-private body of D.C. employees and representatives from AIDS organizations, claims that many AIDS service providers have not received at least $850,000 from the city. The motion to file a lawsuit was co-sponsored by Michael Singerman, a spokesman for the needle exchange coalition of ACT-UP, and by Metro TeenAIDS Executive Director Kevin Neil. Both the Whitman-Walker Clinic and Metro TeenAIDS said they have not received a Wednesday payment from the city which was promised by the mayor last Friday at a rally of AIDS activists. "Wellcome, Immune Response Are Sold Short by Bear Who Backs Maverick Theory on AIDS" Wall Street Journal (01/20/95) P. C2; Power, William Michael Murphy, publisher of the newsletter Overpriced Stock Service and of the California Technology Stock Letter, disclosed that he has been short-selling shares of Wellcome and Immune Response because he does not believe that HIV causes AIDS. Murphy also said he doubts that the disease is contagious or sexually transmitted. Furthermore, he believes that Wellcome's drug AZT "kills patients." Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, contended, "The scientific data that HIV is the underlying epidemiological agent of AIDS is overwhelming." "A Slur, Cry Italy's Cat Ladies, and the Fur Flies" New York Times (01/20/95) P. A4; Bohlen, Celestine A recent article in a Roman newspaper shocked pet owners with the news that an AIDS-like virus was on the rise among the city's stray cats. "I don't believe in this AIDS business. Before, we said they had a cold, now it's called AIDS," said Elena Bruni, one of Rome's army of cat ladies who feed the estimated 200,000 wild cats in the city. While the article stated that the virus--feline leukemia--presented no risk to humans, veterinary clinics around the city were deluged with calls. One veterinarian estimated that 10 percent of the city's 100,000 domestic cats were abandoned because of the article. "We have one of the most advanced laws on animal rights, but a far lower social consciousness," said Dr. Claudio Fantini, who heads one of the city's veterinary services. The law guarantees wild cats to live where they are born and prohibits the killing of stray animals who end up in the city's pounds. According to Fantini, there has been no organized effort in recent years to test stray cats for the leukemia or for feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). Such tests, he added, would be "a waste of money." "Choreographing His Own Death" Wall Street Journal (01/20/95) P. A10; Teachout, Terry Diane Solway's book, "A Dance Against Time: The Brief Life of a Joffrey Dancer," tells the life story of Eddie Stierle, a dancer and choreographer for the Joffrey Ballet who died of AIDS. "A Dance Against Time" presents an unusually candid view of the devastating effects of AIDS on the dance community. Solway tells of how Stierle engaged in a promiscuous and unsafe lifestyle knowing it could shorten not only his own life, but the lives of his partners. Although he had both male and female lovers, he stopped sleeping with women when he tested HIV-positive in 1987 because he wanted to remain sexually active "without people freaking out." "Panel Calls for Bigger Role for Women in Drug Tests" Reuters (01/19/95) The National Task Force on AIDS Drug Development recommended on Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) require researchers to include more women in all stages of trials for drugs for serious and life-threatening diseases. An FDA spokesman said the recommendation had been accepted and would be acted upon as soon as possible. There have been complaints from women and their advocates that drug trials to treat diseases such as AIDS excluded women, or only brought them in late, because of concerns about the drug's effects on the female reproductive system and child-bearing functions. Without the participation of women in the trials, they said, there would be little or no data on possible effects the drug might have on them when the drugs came up for FDA approval. "Sacking of "Red Cleric" Strains French Church" Reuters (01/19/95); Doyle, Alistair The dismissal of a French "Red Cleric" has caused a new crisis in France's Roman Catholic Church. Thousands of people have protested the Vatican's decision to fire Jacques Gaillot as bishop of Evreux in Normandy on Jan. 13. Many French bishops are worried that the firing of the outspoken Gaillot will prompt French citizens to slide further away from the Church. Gaillot said his removal illustrated that the Vatican was "totalitarian" and out of touch with modern society in increasing its insistence on doctrine under Pope John Paul II. Gaillot has advocated the use of condoms to prevent AIDS, spoken in favor of ordaining married priests, and called for tolerance of homosexuality. Approximately 70 percent of French citizens consider themselves Catholic--down from about 80 percent a decade ago--but only about 10 percent attend mass regularly. The majority say they ignore the Vatican's opposition to artificial birth control. "Tuberculosis Among Health Care Workers" New England Journal of Medicine (01/12/95) Vol. 332, No. 2, P. 92; Menzies, Dick; Fanning, Anne; Yuan, Lilian et al Both the resurgence of tuberculosis (TB) and the emergence of multidrug-resistant strains of TB have profoundly altered views about the risk of the disease in health care workers. Before antibiotics, the annual risk of infection among health care workers was as high as 80 percent. The risk of occupationally acquired TB in health care workers varies among and within institutions. Because completely eliminating risk among health care workers is unrealistic, one goal could be to reduce risk to a level similar to that of the general population. HIV-infected health care workers, if exposed, have an especially high risk of TB, which can be fatal if the disease is caused by a drug-resistant strain. The factor most consistently associated with nosocomial transmission is the delay in diagnosis or the identification of drug-resistance. Other major contributing factors in hospital outbreaks include multiple failures to comply with current standards of administrative, engineering, and personal infection-control procedures. It is recommended that every health care institution develop an infection-control policy for TB, and implement the recommended measures that are appropriate for the institution's risk of nosocomial transmission. "Coverup of AIDS Patent Misconduct Charged" Chemical & Engineering News (01/09/95) Vol. 73, No. 2, P. 5; Zurer, Pamela A report by former investigators for Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) claims that U.S. government officials covered up evidence of misconduct related to the patent on the AIDS blood test. The report charges the United States with misleading the Pasteur Institute in France by parroting the contention of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) AIDS researcher Robert C. Gallo that his laboratory's discovery was an separate invention that did not rely on virus samples first isolated by the French. The report is full of half-truths and misrepresentations, Gallo responds. His award of the U.S. patent for the AIDS blood test in 1985 was disputed by the French, who claimed the test was developed using samples provided by Pasteur. Last summer, the U.S agreed to yield a larger share of royalties to France and made a formal admission that Gallo's lab used the French virus to develop the American test, which Gallo conceded in 1991. The new report claims that Gallo knew well before the patent dispute began that his lab's work critically depended on the Pasteur Institute's samples and earlier work. Gallo is also accused of withholding the information from the patent office, NIH, and the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services. Despite the criticism, the report is unlikely to have any repercussions for Gallo or the government officials it names. "AIDS: the Disease for Which You Call Your Lawyer" American Management Association (01/95) Vol. 84, No. 1, P. 42; Bordwin, Milton AIDS can create more legal and business problems for a company than almost any other medical condition. AIDS and HIV affect one in 250 Americans, most of whom are between 25 and 44 years old, which is the core of the U.S. workforce. Not enough companies, however, are responding to the epidemic. When an employee turns up with AIDS, it is generally too late to avoid some problems that preventive action could have eliminated. Some problematic areas are privacy, the duty to disclose to other employees, anti-discrimination laws, labor unions, insurance costs, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Federal law requires a company to make a "reasonable accommodation" for certain health conditions, including HIV and AIDS. Because there are numerous ways to get caught in a legal crossfire if one faces the situation unprepared, an employer must be proactive and act early to avoid such legal and business problems. THE END.