Date: Fri, 19 May 1995 09:48:50 +0500 From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghmcleaf}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com AIDS Daily Summary May 19, 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 ************************************************************ "House Panel Votes to Oust HIV-Infected from Military" "Clinic Can't Keep Up with AIDS" "Red Cross Feared Blood Scare" "T Cell Sciences Inc." "Across the USA: Washington" "Jury Award for HIV Lie: $200,000" "Motion to Drop Tan Charges Denied" "The Reliable Source: Glaser and Son, Moving On" "HIV Attack Destroys Immune Innocence" "Hemophiliacs' HIV Suit against Med School" ************************************************************ "House Panel Votes to Oust HIV-Infected from Military" Washington Post (05/19/95) P. A16 The House National Security military personnel subcommittee approved a measure on Thursday that would discharge HIV-infected troops from the armed forces, and would prohibit military hospital abortions. Gay rights groups and Democrats assailed the provision to remove HIV-infected military personnel as discriminatory. "Congress should not succumb to homophobia or misinformation and distortion about HIV and HIV-positive individuals," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). The Department of Defense and the Army also blasted the measure, calling it unnecessary. There are 434 HIV-positive soldiers in the Army, and they should serve as long as they are able, said Army Lt. Gen. Theodore Stroup, deputy chief of staff for personnel. "Clinic Can't Keep Up with AIDS" Washington Post (05/19/95) P. A1; Goldstein, Amy The Whitman-Walker Clinic, the Washington, D.C., area's largest AIDS clinic, has decided to restrict its social work and medical care because its ability to provide such services has been overwhelmed by a significant increase in requests for help. The move reflects the dangerous position the epidemic has reached in the city--the number of cases is rapidly growing and government and private assistance for AIDS services has leveled off. The limits--effective June 1--represent a significant shift for the clinic, which began 22 years ago as a free clinic for homosexual men and has developed into one of the country's largest sources of help for people with AIDS. The cap, which applies only to Whitman-Walker's main location on 14th and S streets NW, will essentially freeze the clinic's volume of patients at its present level. The main clinic is the only one that provides medical treatment, with approximately 1,500 patients, and provides about two-thirds of the social work services. "Red Cross Feared Blood Scare" Toronto Globe and Mail (05/18/95) P. A11 Dr. Martin Davey, former assistant national director of the Canadian Red Cross (CRC) blood-transfusion service, testified on Wednesday that even though Canadian scientists had warned him as early as December 1982 to screen out blood donors from groups at high-risk for AIDS, he "wasn't convinced by the evidence at the time" that the disease was blood-borne. Many countries began screening blood donors as early as 1983, but the CRC did not begin testing blood until late 1985. The Commission of Inquiry into the Blood System in Canada is trying to determine why more than 1,000 Canadians became infected with HIV through blood transfusions in the early 1980s. Roger Perrault, Davey's then supervisor, said the officials did not want to scare away potential blood donors by asking questions about homosexual sex. Both Davey and Perrault said they had trouble weighing the scientific evidence against the need to maintain a base of regular donors. They also said they felt overwhelmed by new discoveries about AIDS. "T Cell Sciences Inc." Wall Street Journal (05/19/95) P. B4 T Cell Sciences Inc.'s diagnostic unit has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to market a kit which will help physicians monitor and treat AIDS patients. The TRAx CD4 Test Kit, which enables physicians to count CD4 T cells, will be T Cell's largest revenue-generating product, the company predicted. T Cell Diagnostics Inc. President Duff Brace said the unit waited more than two years for FDA clearance. Marketing of the test kit will begin within 90 days. "Across the USA: Washington" USA Today (05/19/95) P. 7A According to prosecutors, an unidentified HIV-infected man in Vancouver, Wash., may be charged with murder because four people with whom he had sexual intercourse have died. "Jury Award for HIV Lie: $200,000" Chicago Tribune (05/18/95) P. 1-3 A jury in Oakland County, Mich., has awarded $200,000 to a 37-year-old woman who claimed her physician told her she was HIV-positive without testing her for the virus. Terri Karapetian, who sued Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital and Dr. Dennis Lynch, said Lynch told her she had HIV after she went to the hospital with flu-like symptoms in 1992. Based on her meeting with the doctor, Karapetian entered an HIV treatment program at Harper Hospital in Detroit. When she did not develop symptoms of the virus, officials at Harper recommended new tests, which showed negative results. Karapetian said she spent 18 months believing she was infected with HIV. "Motion to Drop Tan Charges Denied" Toronto Globe and Mail (05/18/95) P. A4 On Wednesday, the judge in the trial of former model Marilyn Tan rejected a defense bid to have two of the four charges against Tan dismissed. Prosecutors claim that Tan injected her long-time lover Conrad Boland with HIV-infected blood during sadomasochistic sex in 1992. She is charged with aggravated assault, conspiring to administer a noxious substance, administering a noxious substance, and uttering death threats. A lawyer for the defense argued that the Crown had not presented sufficient proof for the charges of aggravated assault and administering a noxious substance. The judge, however, said he was convinced there was enough evidence that a jury could conceivably convict Tan on the charges. The trial, which is scheduled to end Friday at the latest, has no jury. "The Reliable Source: Glaser and Son, Moving On" Washington Post (05/19/95) P. D3; Romano, Lois Paul Michael Glaser lost both his wife and his daughter to AIDS. The actor and director is now raising his son Jake, who also contracted HIV from his mother, Elizabeth Glaser. "I tell [Jake] that we have a choice whether to be afraid of dying," Glaser said. "We know that we'll die at some time, and I tell him that we should try to negotiate a relationship with our fears." On Monday, Glaser goes to the White House to launch a public service announcement campaign on behalf of the Pediatric AIDS Foundation--which was founded by his wife--urging all women to request a voluntary HIV test when they learn they are pregnant. "HIV Attack Destroys Immune Innocence" Science News (05/06/95) Vol. 147, No. 18, P. 278; Seachrist, L. HIV infection is characterized by a general decline in the number of immune cells. New evidence, however, indicates that HIV may attack the immune system by destroying naive immune cells, report Stanford University Medical Center researchers in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. According to Stanford immunologist Mario Roederer, CD4 levels may predict a mean time to death, but they represent "a very poor marker of the disease for an individual." The researchers, led by Leonard A. Herzenberg and Leonore A. Herzenberg, focused only on the naive T cells. The team compared the numbers of naive T cells in 266 HIV-infected adults with the counts of 44 un-infected adults. Fifty percent of the T cells in healthy adults were normal, compared to only 10 percent in infected adults. The team found similar numbers of CD8 cells in both groups. But less than 15 percent of the CD8 cells in HIV-infected patients were naive, while 50 percent were in the control group. Roederer and Leonard Herzenberg theorize that HIV disrupts the balance between naive and memory CD8 cells by infecting them in the thymus before they mature. Counting naive cells could better predict disease progression, they suggest. "Hemophiliacs' HIV Suit against Med School" American Medical News (05/08/95) Vol. 38, No. 18, P. 22 In the case of Doe v. Armour Pharmaceutical Co., a federal trial court in Louisiana has ruled that the claims of eight hemophiliacs who became infected with HIV from the transfusion of a blood clotting agent should not be moved to a federal court. The case differs from previously reported cases because a medical school hemophilia clinic and its director, rather than a blood bank, are being sued for failure to protect patients against HIV transmission. The eight patients treated at the medical school's clinic later tested HIV-positive, and individually sued the school and its director. They claim the director knew or should have known the possible risks of intravenous administration of clotting factors. The patients also claim the director did not obtain informed consent; misrepresented any treatment risks; and when the risks became obvious, threatened to withhold treatment if the patients took legal action against the medical center. In addition, the hemophiliacs sued the manufacturer of the clotting agent for negligence.