Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 09:11:35 +0500 From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghmcleaf}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com AIDS Daily Summary January 26, 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 ************************************************************ "Russia May Require HIV Tests for Visitors" "Malaysians to Get AIDS New Year Message" "L. Berner, 54, AIDS Activist" "Health-Conscious Latinos Tune in to Voice of Authority" "Celgene Opens San Francisco Clinical Site For Phase II Study of Thalidomide for Cachexia" "Judge Throws Out Suit Against AIDS Educator" "PSICOR Announces Participation in Hyperthermia Trials for AIDS Patients" "Briefs: HIV-Infected Teacher Takes Leave" "Studies in Subjects with Long-Term Nonprogressive Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection" "Viral Dynamics in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Infection" ************************************************************ "Russia May Require HIV Tests for Visitors" USA Today (01/26/95) P. 4D; Sloan, Gene In addition to the $20 fee that U.S. citizens will have to pay in order obtain a visa to go to Russia, the country is considering whether to test all incoming visitors for HIV. Those who test positive would be immediately deported. The proposed law has been approved by one house of the Russian parliament, but still needs approval from the other house and from President Yeltsin. Currently, 42 countries require HIV tests for at least some types of visitors, although most of the requirements only apply to visitors seeking work or arriving for extended stays. "Malaysians to Get AIDS New Year Message" Reuters (01/26/95) Malaysians visiting Thai bordertowns during the Chinese New Year holidays next week will receive the traditional "ang pow" packets. This year, instead of the money given by Chinese to children and single people for good luck, the packets will contain the message "Beware of AIDS." Malaysians are some of the biggest customers of the many brothels that thrive in Thai towns across the Malaysian border. "L. Berner, 54, AIDS Activist" Philadelphia Inquirer (01/26/95) P. B7 Lawrence Berner, an American with AIDS who publicized his condition to promote AIDS awareness in Japan, died on Wednesday in a Tokyo hospital from AIDS-related complications. Last year, Berner, an English teacher, became one of the few AIDS patients in Japan to publicly announce his condition. He counseled AIDS patients and hoped to change the fact that most HIV-infected Japanese hide their condition because of the prevalent discrimination against people with HIV. He said that his boss at an unidentified international organization tried to fire him after he announced he had AIDS. A native of Arkansas, Berner went to Japan in 1984 after working as a volunteer AIDS counselor at the Lesbian and Gay Counseling Agency in San Francisco. "Health-Conscious Latinos Tune in to Voice of Authority" Washington Post--Montgomery Weekly (01/26/95) P. Md.1; Constable, Pamela Elmer Huerta is easily the best-known and most trusted Latino physician in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. A full-time physician specializing in cancer prevention at the Washington Hospital Center, Huerta is the host of the weekly radio show, "Cuidando su Salud," or "Taking Care of Your Health," on Radio Borinquen in Laurel, Md. Officials at Borinquen estimate that 180,000 people listen in to Huerta's daily messages. Huerta's health spots deal with topics ranging from proper condom use to avoiding miracle-cure quacks. One spot on AIDS prevention featured a popular song with a woman insisting that her reluctant date "put on his sombrero." Last July, Huerta was hired by the Washington Cancer Institute to run its new screening clinic for Latinos. The clinic now has a three-month waiting list, and more than 80 percent of the patients said they came because they heard Huerta on Radio Borinquen. "Celgene Opens San Francisco Clinical Site For Phase II Study of Thalidomide for Cachexia" PR Newswire (01/25/95) Celgene Corp. has announced that it will begin enrolling patients in a Phase II study of thalidomide against cachexia to be conducted at San Francisco General Hospital. The other three centers are The Rockefeller University in New York City, Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and Marin County Specialty Clinic. Celgene holds an exclusive license for thalidomide use against disease states linked to tumor necrosis factor alpha. This study is thought to be the first double-blind, placebo-controlled study in the United States testing thalidomide as a corporate-sponsored investigational new drug. Cachexia is an emaciating condition that results in significant weight loss in patients with advanced AIDS. "Judge Throws Out Suit Against AIDS Educator" Boston Globe (01/25/95) P. 20; Rakowsky, Judy A U.S. District Court judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by two Chelmsford, Mass., high school students and their parents, who filed suit against school officials, members of a parent-teacher organization, and an AIDS educator in August. The judge said that the students, who attended a school assembly on AIDS in 1992, and their parents did not have a viable First Amendment claim that their rights to the free exercise of religion had been violated. U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Keeton found that a one-time exposure to a speech or set of ideas deemed offensive by the students does constitute a violation of their constitutional rights. "PSICOR Announces Participation in Hyperthermia Trials for AIDS Patients" Business Wire (01/25/95) PSICOR Inc. announced on Wednesday that it will assist HemoCleanse Inc. and its marketing partner, IDT, in the clinical trials of HemoCleanse's BioLogic-HT system in the whole body hyperthermia treatment (WBHT) of AIDS patients. PSICOR provided clinical services to Hemocleanse for its initial feasibility study in July 1994, and will continue for the treatments in the new study, which will begin on Feb. 15, 1995. Unlike other therapies using WBHT, which is designed to simulate the body's fever reaction to help fight infection by inducing a high artificial fever in AIDS patients, the BioLogic-HT system controls blood chemistries on a real-time basis. This eliminates chemical imbalance problems associated with other WBHT efforts, and allows for a safer procedure. The Food and Drug Administration recently granted conditional approval of the study, which will involve 20 treated patients and a control group of 10 patients. "Briefs: HIV-Infected Teacher Takes Leave" St. Louis Post-Dispatch (01/25/95) P. 3B A teacher who has taught at Mehlville High School for more than two decades informed St. Louis County school district officials that he has advanced HIV, and has taken medical leave. Officials announced the teacher's situation on Tuesday, in accordance with district policy. This is the fifth instance in the past decade that HIV infection has been reported among students and educators in the St. Louis County school districts, said Dr. Linda Fisher, chief medical officer for St. Louis County. "AIDS is not easily transmittable, and students are not at risk of becoming infected because of their classroom contact with a teacher," she stressed. "Studies in Subjects with Long-Term Nonprogressive Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection" New England Journal of Medicine (01/26/95) Vol. 332, No. 4, P. 209; Pantaleo, Giuseppe; Menzo, Stefano; Vaccarezza, Mauro et al. Pantaleo et al. compared 15 subjects with long-term nonprogressive HIV infection--defined by seven or more years of documented HIV infection, with more than 600 CD4 T cells per cubic millimeter, no antiretroviral therapy, and no HIV-related disease--and 18 people with progressive HIV disease. Lymph nodes from the nonprogressors had significantly fewer of the hyperplastic features, and none of the involuted features, characteristic of nodes from subjects with progressive disease. In nonprogressive subjects, plasma levels of HIV-1 RNA and the viral burden in peripheral-blood mononuclear cells were significantly lower than those in the progressors. While HIV could not be isolated from the plasma of the nonprogressors--who also had higher titers of neutralizing antibodies than those with progressive disease--there was viral replication. HIV-specific cytotoxic activity was found in all seven persons with nonprogressive infection who were tested. The researchers concluded that although the viral load is low in HIV-infected persons who remain disease-free for many years, viral replication persists. Their lymph-node architecture and immune function appear to stay intact. "Viral Dynamics in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Infection" Nature (01/12/95) Vol. 373, No. 6510, P. 117; Wei, Xiping; Ghosh, Sajal K.; Taylor, Maria E. et al Researchers studied 22 HIV-1-infected patients with CD4 counts between 18 and 251 to determine the dynamics of HIV-1 replication in vivo, which are largely unknown and are critical in order to understand disease pathogenesis. The subjects were treated with ABT-538; L-735,524, or NVP--experimental drugs that are potent inhibitors of viral replication. The drugs revealed that the combined lifespan of plasma virus and virus-producing cells is surprisingly short. After 14 days, the wild-type virus in plasma was almost completely replaced by drug-resistant variants. This shows that HIV-1 viraemia is primarily sustained by a dynamic process including continuous rounds of de novo virus infection, replication, and rapid cell turnover. THE END.