Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 09:43:17 +0500 From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghmcleaf}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com AIDS Daily Summary March 7, 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 Advocates Fear GOP Will Be Knifing Programs" "U.N. Vows to Involve Victims in World AIDS Fight" "Bringing HIV Fight Home" "Johnson Planning AIDS Fund-Raiser" "SJC to Review School Condom Plan" "SAIC Awarded $400 Million Contract to Support National Cancer Institute" "Gene Therapy and Immune Restoration for HIV Disease" "Debugging Blood" "Japan Has Sharp Increase of AIDS Patients" "AIDS Fear: No Suit" ************************************************************ "AIDS Advocates Fear GOP Will Be Knifing Programs" Los Angeles Times--Washington Edition (03/07/95) P. A5; Cimons, Marlene AIDS advocates are feeling vulnerable about the fate of their programs under the new, Republican-controlled Congress. Many believe they could have a more difficult time than other constituency groups because Congress sees theirs as an unpopular constituency. Everything the Republicans will do "will be done in a cost-saving context, and public relations will not play in our favor," said Christine Lubinski, who until recently was acting executive director of the AIDS Action Council. The battle over AIDS cuts began recently with two House subcommittees voting to cut back on several major programs. Under heavy lobbying pressure from AIDS advocates, some of the money was restored. The full Appropriations Committee voted to reject the cuts from the Ryan White Care Act and from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) HIV prevention programs, but elimination of an $186 million housing subsidy program for people with AIDS is still possible. Other areas of concern are the possible capping or "block granting" of Medicaid--where about 40 percent of AIDS patients end up--and possible new battles over prevention and education programs, such as sex education, condom distribution in schools, and needle exchange programs. "U.N. Vows to Involve Victims in World AIDS Fight" Reuters (03/06/95); Boyle, Brendan In his first public policy statement, Peter Piot--executive director of the Joint U.N. Programme on AIDS--on Monday said that the world will have to accept that no relief for the disease is imminent. Piot also said that people with AIDS must play an important role in the worldwide campaign to fight the disease and in the development of strategies to live with it. "This is not a disease outbreak that science can bring under control overnight. Neither a vaccine nor a cure is a realistic prospect in this century at least," he told the opening session of a five-day multinational conference on living with AIDS in Cape Town, South Africa. South African and foreign delegates gave varying indications of the scale of AIDS and HIV infection. Piot stated that there were 11 million HIV-infected people in Africa. South African Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma, however, said the best possible estimate was that there were 8.5 million infected in South Africa alone, and that the rate had been doubling every year since 1991. "Bringing HIV Fight Home" Philadelphia Inquirer (03/07/95) P. B1; Vrazo, Fawn HIV infection and AIDS-related deaths are occurring all around the residents of the Puerto Rican community of North Philadelphia. Recently, Evelyn Martinez opened her home to anyone who wanted to attend a very different sort of house party. A wide variety of condoms were displayed, and participants voluntarily took turns going upstairs to a quiet back bedroom where their blood was drawn for an HIV test. The AIDS house party concept was developed by the Congreso de Latinos Unidos Inc. (Congress of United Latinos), a nonprofit agency reaching out to the city's mostly Puerto Rican community. The agency's workers are familiar with the special problems that AIDS presents in the Puerto Rican neighborhoods--that it is predominantly transmitted through intravenous drug use, and then often spread by infected men having intercourse with their wives or girlfriends, who don't realize they are at risk. The strong Hispanic tradition of machismo, which gives males power, makes it difficult or impossible for Puerto Rican women to demand that their men use a condom. Congreso staffers and city officials say that, so far, the house parties have been a success and have already reached 900 Puerto Rican women and more than 300 men. "Johnson Planning AIDS Fund-Raiser" New York Times (03/07/95) P. B15 On March 19, athletes such as Lawrence Taylor, Mark Messier, and Patrick Ewing will join Magic Johnson to play a basketball game to benefit the Magic Johnson and Robin Hood Foundations. The event will raise funds for HIV and AIDS education. "We've just got to keep getting the message out about HIV and AIDS," said Johnson, who said he hopes to raise $500,000 for education and prevention programs in New York City. The program will also include a dinner and sports auction. "SJC to Review School Condom Plan" Boston Globe (03/06/95) P. 13; Ellement, John For the first time, the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) on Tuesday will examine the practice of providing condoms to secondary school students as a means of preventing the spread of AIDS. Since 1991, the town of Falmouth, Mass., has made condoms available to junior high and high school students as part of its AIDS-prevention curriculum that the state departments of Education and Public Health have urged local districts to create. Although Falmouth and 22 other districts offer some variation of condom availability, 43 other communities have rejected the idea. Four Falmouth families have opposed the condom plan in the courts since its inception, claiming it violates the First Amendment right to religious expression. They are being represented before the SJC by the American Center for Law and Justice, a public interest group founded by televangelist Pat Robertson. Attorneys for the Falmouth School Committee, however, said the plan is legal and does not violate any constitutional rights because student participation is voluntary, and because no student is forced to violate his or her parents' wishes. "SAIC Awarded $400 Million Contract to Support National Cancer Institute" PR Newswire (03/06/95) Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) has been awarded the National Cancer Institute's largest contract, the operations and technical support contract for the Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center. At the center, research into the cause, treatment, and cure of AIDS and cancer is performed. The year-long contract is potentially worth $400 million. "We at SAIC would like to reaffirm our commitment to serve the national cancer and AIDS research programs," said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer J. Robert Beyster. The contract will be managed by SAIC Frederick and led by Dr. Peter Fischinger, an internationally known scientist and manager of cancer and AIDS research. "Gene Therapy and Immune Restoration for HIV Disease" Lancet (02/18/95) Vol. 345, No. 8947, P. 427; Bridges, Sandra H.; Sarver, Nava Recent studies have begun to explore innovative strategies that can target the viral, immunological, and cellular components of HIV disease. Current studies of HIV gene therapy involve gene transfer into mature CD4 T cells. Efforts, however, are being made to deliver antiviral genes to pluripotent hematopoietic stem cells to guarantee a renewable supply of HIV-protected cells for the life of the patient. Immune restoration strategies deal with the transfer of various cell populations to HIV-positive people with the purpose of restoring immune function. It is generally agreed that restoring immune cells is more likely to have a therapeutic effect if the cells are altered to resist HIV infection. Nucleic acid-based therapeutic vaccines involve direct delivery of HIV genes into the patient's tissue to imitate natural infection, and thus, enhance immune responses against HIV. The combined use of gene therapy, adoptive immune therapy, and nucleic acid-based immune enhancement represents a comprehensive treatment regimen that focuses on the key elements of HIV disease--the virus and the immune system. "Debugging Blood" Science News (02/11/95) Vol. 147, No. 6, P. 92; Adler, Tina All U.S. blood banks must screen donations for syphilis, hepatitis B and C, two types of HIV, two types of human T cell leukemia virus, and other infectious agents. However, most HIV-tainted blood that reaches transfusion recipients comes from recently infected people who have not yet developed antibodies to HIV. Although HIV researchers have developed tests that detect the virus earlier in infection, the more sensitive screens may not prove cost-effective if widely used, said an advisory panel to the National Institutes of Health last month. The panel also recommended that blood banks stop doing a test that measures the activity of the enzyme alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in the blood. ALT enters the bloodstream in response to liver damage, such as that caused by hepatitis. Other factors, however, such as heavy alcohol consumption and obesity, that do not make people unsuitable donors may also increase ALT activity. Each year, blood banks discard about 200,000 units and turn away 150,000 potential donors because of elevated ALT readings. The hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) tests--developed to detect non-A, non B hepatitis virus--was found to indirectly identify HIV-tainted blood that would otherwise go undetected. The panel concluded these detections compensate for the test's high false positive rate. "Japan Has Sharp Increase of AIDS Patients" Nikkei Weekly (02/13/95) Vol 33, No. 1658, P. 17 There were 435 new HIV and AIDS cases reported in Japan during 1994--a 20 percent increase from 364 in 1993, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry's AIDS Surveillance Committee. A record 268 cases were among Japanese, of which 226 were male AIDS patients and HIV carriers, and 42 were female. Of the 167 non-Japanese, 65 were male and 102 were female--compared to 52 males and 129 females in 1993. By the end of the year, there were 1,845 reported cases of AIDS and HIV, with 1,053 male and 792 female. The total jumps to 3,637, however, if those infected through blood transfusions are included. The committee also said that two cases of maternal-infant infection were confirmed between November and December, and that infection through heterosexual intercourse reached 194 last year--up 14.1 percent from 1993. A total of 114 people were infected through homosexual intercourse, up 96.6 percent. "AIDS Fear: No Suit" National Law Journal (02/27/95) Vol. 17, No. 26, P. A10 The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that a woman's fear of contracting AIDS from her infected doctor does not justify compensation because she feared a risk that hardly existed. The Minneapolis woman was one of 52 who sued the doctor and the clinic where he worked prior to his death from AIDS in 1991. During a gynecological exam, the woman noticed open sores on the doctor's hands and that he looked thinner. When she asked about it, the doctor said that he had a bad sunburn and was on Weight Watchers. The woman was later notified in a letter that the doctor had AIDS and that she should be tested. Even though she tested HIV-negative, her attorneys said she deserved to be compensated for the emotional distress caused by the possibility of contracting the disease.