Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 10:04:17 +0500 From: ghfostel{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghfostel}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 09/29/95 AIDS Daily Summary September 29, 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 ************************************************************ "Baltimore's AIDS Message" "Across the USA: Connecticut/Missouri" "Krever's Temper Flares at Tainted-Blood Inquiry" "Drug Company Reports Progress with New AIDS Drug" "Drug's Aim: Fight Cancer Without Toxic Side Effects" "Medical Discoveries Completes First Phase of Private Placement to Fund Investigational New Drug Application for Anti-HIV Drug" "AIDS Care Now Straining Rural Health Systems" "Banking Your Own Blood: Is It Worth the Cost?" "National AIDS Treatment Advocates Forum, October 15-18, Los Angeles" ************************************************************ "Baltimore's AIDS Message" Washington Post (09/29/95) P. C6 Maryland officials introduced a new $13,000 AIDS prevention campaign on Thursday geared toward teenagers and young adults. In graffiti-style lettering, the posters state, "You have to die from something. But it doesn't have to be AIDS." Beneath that is the message, "Unsafe sex and shared needles transmit AIDS. If you have sex, use a latex condom. And until you kick your habit, use a clean needle--don't share." The posters will be displayed on 500 Mass Transit Administration buses and in each of the Baltimore region's 11 Metro stations and 100 Metro cars. "Across the USA: Connecticut/Missouri" USA Today (09/29/95) P. 8A The doors to Connecticut's first nursing home for people with AIDS have opened in New Haven. The nonprofit center will provide round-the-clock care for 30 patients. Meanwhile, rural AIDS service providers in Missouri have asked lawmakers to rescue a state AIDS program that ran out of funds. Officials attribute the early depletion of a $2.3-million federal grant to oversight. "Krever's Temper Flares at Tainted-Blood Inquiry" Toronto Globe and Mail (09/28/95) P. A9 At the inquiry into Canada's tainted-blood scandal on Wednesday, Justice Horace Krever angrily demanded to know why the Canadian Red Cross' board of directors did not take an AIDS pamphlet's warning of who was at high risk for the disease more seriously in 1984. At the time, the pamphlet, which was approved by a Red Cross committee but not closely read by the board, was the public's only information about AIDS. The brochure "wasn't a policy issue" and donors' questions were routinely changed, according to former board member Janet Jones. Jones said, "In hindsight, if we had known what we were moving into, it might have been something the board would have dealt with." Judge Krever responded, "It is not just a change ... it is a fundamental change." "Drug Company Reports Progress with New AIDS Drug" Reuters (09/28/95) Merck and Co. announced Thursday that a study of its experimental AIDS drug Crixivan (indinavir) in 3,000 patients revealed that the drug helped destroy HIV by up to 99 percent. "Preliminary results from one small study showed that patients who took Crixivan alone or with AZT (zidovudine) had a median decline in virus levels of greater than 99 percent, compared to a median decline of 40 percent in patients who took AZT alone," the company said. The protease inhibitor also boosted patients' immune systems, Merck noted. "Drug's Aim: Fight Cancer Without Toxic Side Effects" Miami Herald (09/27/95) P. 1E; Flam, Faye Researchers are developing a new class of drugs that specifically targets the genes that prompt malignant cells to grow uncontrollably. The hope is that this new therapy will replace the often harmful and difficult process of chemotherapy, which merely kills all fast-growing cells. This approach, known as antisense therapy, is currently being tested for safety in human trials on patients with leukemia. Other researchers hope to employ it in treatments for Burkitt's lymphoma, HIV, and human papilloma virus, although no one knows how effective the new drugs will be yet. "Medical Discoveries Completes First Phase of Private Placement to Fund Investigational New Drug Application for Anti-HIV Drug" Business Wire (09/28/95) Medical Discoveries Inc. of Salt Lake City, Utah, has concluded the first phase of a private placement. "These funds will be applied immediately to expedite the filing of our Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the FDA for Phase I clinical trials of our proprietary product, MDI-P," explained Dr. William D. Welch, company president. MDI-P appears to be able to destroy some human viruses, and the company has filed several patent applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the use of this treatment in several diseases, including AIDS. Additionally, the company plans to submit an IND application to the FDA for the use of MDI-P in Americans with HIV or AIDS. "AIDS Care Now Straining Rural Health Systems" AIDS Alert (10/95) Vol. 10, No. 10, P. 124 Although the number of AIDS patients who live in rural regions makes up only 5 percent of the total U.S. population, new AIDS cases in rural areas have increased nearly three times faster than in large urban areas. The result has been a strained health care delivery system that is handicapped by insufficient education and funding, geographical isolation, and intolerance within the community. Martha McKinney, chief of the program evaluation and epidemiology branch at the Human Resources and Services Administration in Rockville, Md., suggests that rural health care providers use "creative ways" to help their patients. "HIV must be discussed in the context of larger community problems...in order for those communities to gain support for multi-sectorial HIV prevention," she noted. Additionally, McKinney said that the uneven distribution--both by geographic area and by mode of infection--of rural AIDS cases makes it even more important for health care providers to follow and communicate trends in each community. McKinney attributes the increase in HIV infections in rural locations to the lack of AIDS education, and the fact that adolescents often feel immune to HIV because, as one said, "Nothing ever happens in this town." "Banking Your Own Blood: Is It Worth the Cost?" Consumer Reports (10/95) Vol. 60, No. 10, P. 680 Patients facing elective surgery are increasingly choosing to bank their own blood before the operation in case of emergency. By banking their own blood, they avoid the risk of HIV infection, hepatitis, and other viral infections that can be spread through donated blood. Since the early 1980s, when scientists discovered HIV could be transmitted via blood transfusions, the volume of these "autologous" donations has grown to more than 500,000 units each year. Two factors to consider when trying to decide whether to make autologous blood donations include the fact that a person's individual risk of getting an infection from donated blood is low but not nonexistent, and that autologous donations require more work from the blood bank, so the laboratories often charge $20 to $70 more than they would for a unit of donated blood. In addition, not all insurance companies pay for such donations. Some, for example, only pay the bill if the patient uses the blood, but make him or her pay if the blood is unneeded. Most importantly, however, a patient should find out whether the operation is likely to require a transfusion at all. He or she should talk with the surgeon and ask how low the blood count will be allowed to fall before a transfusion is ordered. "National AIDS Treatment Advocates Forum, October 15-18, Los Angeles" AIDS Treatment News (09/01/95) No. 230, P. 7 On Oct. 15-18, the National Minority AIDS Council is sponsoring a National AIDS Treatment Advocates Forum intended to "foster dialog and exchange of information and ideas," as well as to "facilitate the development of leadership that can advocate for better treatments and educate people with AIDS and their caregivers on the latest treatment advances." Potential topics for the conference, which will be held in Los Angeles, include antiviral drugs, immune-based therapies, treatments for opportunistic infections, women's health, and research policy and legislation. Co-sponsors of the event are the AIDS Action Council, AIDS Project Los Angeles, American Foundation for AIDS Research, Gay Men's Health Crisis, National Association for People with AIDS, Project Inform, and the Treatment Action Group.