Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 09:33:14 +0500 From: ghfostel{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghfostel}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 10/03/95 AIDS Daily Summary October 3, 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 ************************************************************ "Supreme Court Denies Hemophiliacs' Appeal" "AIDS May Claim 2 Million African" "His Broken Leg Healed, Pope Enjoys Good Health" "'AIDS Fatigue' Hurting U.S., Says Congressman" "ID Vaccine and Pasteur Merieux-Connaught Complete Licensing and Collaboration Agreement on Tuberculosis Vaccine" "San Francisco: Viral Load Trial Offers Free Tests" "Testing AIDS Interventions: When Is the Price Too High?" "Time Bomb" ************************************************************ "Supreme Court Denies Hemophiliacs' Appeal" Philadelphia Inquirer (10/03/95) P. A1; Shaw, Donna The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Monday an appeal by hemophiliacs who contracted HIV from blood products to sue the pharmaceutical companies in a class-action suit. On its first day back in session after the summer recess, the Court refused to reinstate a decision by U.S. District Judge John F. Grady that had allowed them to do so. A federal appeals panel ruled in March that a class action lawsuit could not occur because it could potentially ruin the plasma-products industry. According to lawyers and hemophilia activists, the result of the Court's decision will likely be that, at best, only a few hundred of the thousands of people infected will ever be compensated, particularly because the majority will be barred by statutes of limitations. "AIDS May Claim 2 Million African" Washington Times (10/03/95) P. A13 The number of HIV-infected Africans is increasing significantly, and as many as 2 million people on that continent could die from AIDS in the next five years, a United Nations (UN) official said Monday at the opening session of a three-day seminar. "The U.N. estimates that of the 15 hard-hit countries in Africa, approximately 2 million persons could die as a result of AIDS by the year 2000 if the present trend continues unabated," noted Kingsley Amoako, executive secretary of the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa. "His Broken Leg Healed, Pope Enjoys Good Health" New York Times (10/03/95) P. B7; Altman, Lawrence K. Pope John Paul II has completely recovered from the broken hip he suffered in April 1994, the Vatican reports. The Pontiff, whose injury caused him to postpone his trip to the United States last year, is set to depart for this country on Wednesday. The Pope's slow recovery caused speculation that he had cancer, Parkinson's, or other serious health problems, though his doctors claim he is in excellent health and without any new medical problems. Years ago, the Pope received a major blood transfusion before the discovery of HIV and the development of a process to eliminate it from the blood supply. Because the virus was spread through blood transfusions in Europe and the United States, the U.S. Public Health Service recommends that doctors offer HIV screening to anyone who received blood from a transfusion from 1978 to early 1985, when an HIV test was first marketed. The Pope, however, has not been tested for HIV because the World Health Organization has not made such a recommendation, said Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, a Vatican spokesman. "'AIDS Fatigue' Hurting U.S., Says Congressman" St. Louis Post-Dispatch (10/02/95) P. 2B; Smith, Bill According to Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.), Americans are tired of hearing about, talking about, funding, and dealing with AIDS. "But we don't have the luxury to be tired," Gunderson said at the third annual fundraiser for the Human Rights Campaign Fund on Saturday. "This is not just a big-city issue; people with AIDS are coming home to rural Iowa and rural Wisconsin and rural Missouri." Gunderson, the only publicly gay Republican congressman, said in an interview that he agrees with AIDS activist Mary Fisher, who observed that the United States was in the midst of an "AIDS fatigue" that was risking the lives of thousands of citizens. The congressman also said that abstinence is the best defense against HIV infection, though he noted, "I don't think we should pretend we're in some beautiful Disneyland." "ID Vaccine and Pasteur Merieux-Connaught Complete Licensing and Collaboration Agreement on Tuberculosis Vaccine" Business Wire (10/02/95) ID Biomedical Corp. and its subsidiary, ID Vaccine Corp. (IDV), have entered into an agreement with Pasteur Merieux Serums & Vaccins S.A. and Connaught Laboratories Ltd. (Pasteur Merieux-Connaught) which involves the development and licensing of IDV's tuberculosis (TB) vaccine technology. Pasteur Merieux-Connaught will receive a worldwide exclusive license to develop, manufacture, and market the vaccine, though initially the company and IDV will work together on the vaccine's continuing research and development. IDV will receive development support payments and an $4.5 million equity investment, as well as significant milestone and prepaid royalty payments. Early studies indicate that the potential vaccine protects animals against death, clinical illness, and growth of TB in the lungs and other parts of the body. "San Francisco: Viral Load Trial Offers Free Tests" AIDS Treatment News (09/01/95) No. 230, P. 7 A small trial sponsored by Chiron Corp. will attempt to determine how treatment changes affect viral load, which will be measured by the company's branched DNA test. Participants in the program-- intended for individuals who otherwise would not be able to afford viral load tests--must plan to make some kind of change in their HIV treatment, but first get the viral load test through the program. After the treatment change, several additional tests will be made. "Testing AIDS Interventions: When Is the Price Too High?" Science (09/08/95) Vol. 269, No. 5229, P. 1334; Nowak, Rachel Last November, in the Rakai district of Uganda, teams of African and American researchers began recruiting 11,000 people for a five-year study of whether the spread of HIV can be controlled by treating large groups of people for other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Maria Wawer of Columbia University and Nelson Sewankambo of the University of Makerere in Kampala have developed a trial in which everyone between the ages of 15 and 38 from nearly 30 area villages is treated with a combination of oral antibiotics for such STDs as gonorrhea, chlamydia, trichomoniasis, and syphilis, regardless of whether or not the subjects show symptoms of the diseases. But the trial--which is funded, in part, by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), the World Bank, and the Rockefeller Foundation--has sparked controversy because two of the drugs used are too expensive for most Ugandans. This practice is contrary to internationally accepted standards which state that "as a general rule," there should be some guarantee that if the treatment does prove effective, "it will be made reasonably available to the inhabitants of the host community or country." The trial, however, has been approved by scientific and ethical review panels at the AIDS Research Subcommittee of the Medical Research Council of Uganda, Columbia University, NIH, and Johns Hopkins University. The study was approved, said Wawer, because it will help identify which STDs are associated with the highest risk of HIV infection. "Time Bomb" Far Eastern Economic Review (09/21/95) Vol. 158, No. 38, P. 31; Salvi, Gouri AIDS workers and organizations in India predict that controlling the spread of HIV in that country will be a difficult task, due in part to prudishness, misplaced priorities, and evasion. One decade after the first AIDS case was diagnosed in India, a report from the Health Ministry's National AIDS Control Organization says, "If the transmission of HIV continues at the same pace, by the year 2000 about 5 million persons would have been infected in India and the number of AIDS cases would exceed 1 million." India's government, however, has not been propelled by a sense of urgency. "There is an enormous lack of AIDS-education material with the government, and whatever work is done is very patchy," notes Dr. J.S. Gill, a consultant at AIDS Cell, a group which finances nongovernment AIDS organizations in India. The problem is one of priorities, according to the World Bank, because there have been delays in the appointment of AIDS project-management staff and because of the high turnover of such staff. The potential effects of the epidemic on India's economy is only just becoming visible. One study found that industrial labor is 10 times more likely to become infected with HIV than the rest of the country. The report concluded that "absenteeism in industry is likely to rise by over 50 percent...[and] the medical cost to be borne by the private sector due to AIDS-related illnesses will be [$1,600] per person."