Date: Fri, 31 Mar 1995 09:44:59 +0500 From: ghfostel{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghfostel}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com Subject: AIDS DAILY SUMMARY 03/31/95 AIDS Daily Summary March 31, 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 Drug AZT Most Effective Early On, Study Finds" "AIDS Exhibit" "Poz Magazine Sale Set" "AIDS Activists Urge Yeltsin Not to Sign New Law" "Work Starts on Home for AIDS Patients" "Sacked Bishop Attacks Encyclical for Ignoring AIDS" "AIDS Research Policy" "Crystal Structure and Function of the Isoniazid Target of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis" "Conjunctival Squamous-Cell Carcinoma Associated with HIV Infection in Kampala, Uganda" "Artificial Insemination by Donor" ************************************************************ "AIDS Drug AZT Most Effective Early On, Study Finds" Reuters (03/30/95) According to Clive Loveday, Steve Kaye and colleagues at University College in London, AZT is most effective against HIV in the first few days of treatment. The doctors reported their findings in Friday's issue of the journal Lancet. The virus appeared to recover within six months but did not demonstrate consistent mutations into other forms. Kaye said the study was especially significant for treating pregnant women because, "If you gave the drug very early in pregnancy it might not work as effectively...given that most transmission seems to occur fairly late in pregnancy." "AIDS Exhibit" Washington Times (03/31/95) P. A2; Pinkerton, Jennifer The Museum of Science and Industry is sponsoring the first permanent AIDS exhibit, entitled "AIDS, the War Within," to educate children about the disease. Included in the exhibit are the depiction of doctors and scientists--who are fighting AIDS--as superheroes, and a touch-screen video game called "Be an Epidemiologist," which allows children to explore how the disease is transmitted. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and AIDS awareness groups were among those who organized and worked on the exhibit. "Poz Magazine Sale Set" New York Times (03/31/95) P. D2 Poz, a New York magazine about AIDS and HIV, will be sold to a group that includes Out Publishing Inc., the publisher of Out magazine. Poz publisher Sean Strub will act as chairman of the new entity, Poz Publishing, and executive editor of Poz. "AIDS Activists Urge Yeltsin Not to Sign New Law" Reuters (03/30/95); Stephenson, Nigel The AESOP sexual health information center in Moscow said on Thursday that it had written to Russian President Boris Yeltsin in regard to a controversial new law due to be signed on Friday. The measure would require foreigners planning to stay in Russia for more than three months to prove that they are HIV-free. It would also mandate HIV testing for workers in certain professions. AESOP Chairman Kevin Gardner said, "As we have discovered in the fight against AIDS around the world, it is not laws that stop AIDS but concrete actions, programmes that are geared toward helping people learn about AIDS and how not to get it." "Work Starts on Home for AIDS Patients" St. Louis Post-Dispatch (03/30/95) P. 1B; Volland, Victor An interfaith outreach program known as Doorways is renovating a 100-year-old building in St. Louis to serve as a housing facility for people in the advanced stages of AIDS. The renovation project, which began on Wednesday, is estimated to cost about $2 million. The 36-bed facility, expected to be completed by November, will offer residents a variety of medical and social services. The hospice-style center will be the only facility in Missouri licensed as a residential care facility for people with AIDS. Doorways currently operates apartments and other independent living units for people with AIDS, and also pays rent and mortgage subsidies to roughly 125 other HIV or AIDS patients. Lynne M. Cooper, executive director of Doorways, says the new facility will allow residents to live in safe, clean surroundings and reduce unnecessary hospitalizations resulting from inadequate housing. "Sacked Bishop Attacks Encyclical for Ignoring AIDS" Reuters (03/30/95) Sacked French bishop Jacques Gaillot reproached Pope John Paul's encyclical, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), for not mentioning AIDS in its defense of life. This encyclical contains the strongest opposition to abortion, euthanasia and other medical practices which affect life. Because Gaillot lobbied for condom use to prevent AIDS and other ideas which defy Vatican doctrine, he was transferred to a diocese in southern Algeria. "AIDS Research Policy" Science (03/10/95) Vol. 267, No. 5203, P. 1405; William E. Paul Activist Larry Kramer's recent criticism represents an inaccurate description of the role and the actions of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Office of AIDS Research (OAR), writes OAR director William E. Paul in a letter to the editors of Science. Contrary to Kramer's claims that the OAR has abdicated its responsibility for the preparation of a comprehensive plan to guide NIH-sponsored AIDS research, such a plan was completed within weeks of Paul's appointment as director. The plan formed the basis for the development of the fiscal year 1996 budget, which is now being considered by Congress. According to Paul, Kramer also seems to be unaware of the high priority that the OAR has placed on primate research. His view that drug development would be greatly accelerated by the use of the simian immunodeficiency/macaque model is not supported by advice the OAR has received from senior scientists in the pharmaceutical industry. Finally, Paul states that Kramer's contention that U.S. taxpayers "are getting a rotten value for their money" is untrue. NIH-sponsored research has contributed immeasurably to the health of the American people, he says. The OAR is confident that a new and effective course in being charted for the future of NIH OAR research, concludes Paul. "Crystal Structure and Function of the Isoniazid Target of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis" Science (03/17/95) Vol. 267, No. 5204, P. 1638; Dessen, Andrea; Quemard, Annaik; Blanchard, John S. et al. Although isoniazid has been a first-line chemotherapeutic in the treatment of tuberculosis (TB), it is ineffective against newly emergent strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which kill 70 to 90 percent of AIDS patients who develop TB. Resistance to the drug in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, however, can be mediated by the substitution of alanine for serine 94 in the InhA protein, the drug's principal target. Kinetic analyses indicate that isoniazid resistance is the result of a reduced affinity of the mutant protein for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH). The three-dimensional structures of wild-type and mutant InhA demonstrate that drug resistance is directly related to a perturbation in the hydrogen-bonding network that stabilizes NADH binding. "Conjunctival Squamous-Cell Carcinoma Associated with HIV Infection in Kampala, Uganda" Lancet (03/18/95) Vol. 345, No. 8951, P. 695; Ateenyi-Agaba, C. C. Ateenyi-Agaba reports an increase in the number of conjunctival cancers in patients attending a Ugandan hospital. The finding is supported by data from the Kampala Cancer Registry, which shows that the incidence of conjunctival squamous-cell carcinoma remained at six per million per year between 1970 and 1988, but has since increased six-fold. Seventy-five percent of the 48 patients with conjunctival growths tested HIV-positive, compared to a 19 percent seropositivity rate in the control group. Most tumors were found in the limbus of the eye and the lesions in the HIV-infected patients were aggressive. These findings are similar to those reported by Kesterlyn et al. from Rwanda, and suggest that in Uganda and its neighboring countries the recent increase in the frequency of conjunctival tumors is related to the HIV epidemic. The human papillomavirus type 16 and ultraviolet light are also possible factors in the development of these cancers in equatorial Africa. "Artificial Insemination by Donor" Journal of the American Medical Association (03/15/95) Vol. 273, No. 11, P. 890; Guinan, Mary E. The report of HIV infection in women who were artificially inseminated by donor represents another landmark in the history of HIV in North America, writes Dr. Mary E. Guinan in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Guinan, of the Office of HIV/AIDS at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), discusses the experience of fertility clinics with high operating standards in the early 1980s. The clinics had requirements to screen semen donors for sexually transmitted diseases, which were neither required nor standard practice at the time. Now, 10 to 14 years after seven women became infected through artificial insemination (AI), the procedure is safer. The risk of transmitting HIV or any infection during AI by donor is very low. Safety loopholes, however, still exist. For example, AI practitioners are not required to register, and special training or licensing is not required, which makes it difficult to monitor adherence to guidelines. AI is safe but not completely so, concludes Guinan. A woman who is informed, alert to the risk of HIV, and who insists that the semen donor be screened will increase the safety, Guinan adds.