Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 11:13:23 +0500 From: "Vaux, Lenore" Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 03/21/96 AIDS Daily Summary March 21, 1996 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 ************************************************************ "Dornan Says Leaders Back Him on HIV" "Digest: Life Partners Inc." "Discharging HIV-Positive Service Members is Unfair and Unnecessary" "The Reliable Source: Now You Know..." "Man Goes for Wild Ride After HIV Test Results" "Obituary: Perry Watkins, 48, Gay Sergeant Who Won Enlistment in Court" "All But One of Japan Hemophiliacs Take Compromise" "S. Africa Insurer Launches HIV Policy" "Vaccine Drought Spurs NIAID Plan to Improve Industry Ties..." "Treatment of Cognitive Impairment" ************************************************************ "Dornan Says Leaders Back Him on HIV" Washington Times (03/21/96) P. A12; Price, Joyce Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Calif.) says the House leadership will help him in opposing a Senate vote to repeal a law that would force the discharge of HIV-positive military members. Dornan said that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has assured him that there is "zero chance" that the House will allow the Senate to kill the provision, and said the measure would die in a House-Senate conference committee this week. A spokesperson for House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said the leadership does not have a position on the issue. Dornan said that if by some chance the repeal were passed, he would put the ban into the 1997 defense authorization bill. Basketball star Magic Johnson, who recently returned to the NBA despite having HIV, wrote to oppose the ban, but Dornan responded that "a basketball court isn't a battlefield." Dornan called the Senate vote to repeal the ban "obvious kowtowing to the activist homosexual agenda." "Digest: Life Partners Inc." Washington Post (03/21/96) P. B10 A federal judge has ordered Life Partners Inc. to stop selling "interests" parceled from insurance policies of AIDS patients. The judge, who made the ruling after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed an emergency motion, dismissed Life Partners' argument that it had developed new procedures that took its offerings outside the scope of securities law. "Discharging HIV-Positive Service Members is Unfair and Unnecessary" Washington Times (03/21/96) P. A20; Childress, Kirk In a letter to the editor of the Washington Times, Kirk Childress takes issue with the paper's coverage of a controversial attempt to discharge all HIV-positive military members. He says the paper has helped Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Calif.) misrepresent the issues surrounding the controversial proposal. Childress claims that HIV-positive soldiers do not hurt combat readiness, as Dornan has argued, but actually enhance it by playing important roles in engineering, logistics, medical research, and other areas. Childress also contends that Dornan's assertions that "the majority of cases are the result of illicit drug use or playing 'Russian roulette' with infected prostitutes" are false and unsupported by any evidence. He says the military's policies for protecting combat readiness include measures to deal with personnel who cannot be deployed, and HIV cases should not be handled any differently. "The Reliable Source: Now You Know..." Washington Post (03/21/96) P. D3; Gerhart, Ann; Groer, Annie TriStar pictures admitted on Tuesday that its movie "Philadelphia" was "inspired in part" by the story of Geoffrey Bowers, a New York lawyer who successfully sued his law firm for AIDS discrimination. The filmmaker will settle a $10 million breach of contract suit with Bowers' family for an undisclosed "mid-seven-figure" amount, Variety reported. Director Jonathan Demme, writer Ron Nyswaner, producers Scott Rudin and Edward Saxon, and the studio were named as defendants in the case. The settlement was decided before Rudin, who was expected to testify that he tried to persuade TriStar to honor his verbal agreement to pay the family, took the stand. "Man Goes for Wild Ride After HIV Test Results" Washington Times (03/21/96) P. C7 A man angered by a positive HIV test result led police on a chase across Maryland's Eastern Shore at speeds up to 118 mph Tuesday. State troopers initially stopped 20-year-old Kashaka Miller for a traffic violation. However, the 25-mile chase ended when Miller's BMW hit two parked cars and crashed into a tree. "He was screaming he was HIV-positive and he doesn't care," said Trooper Antonio Graham. Miller was charged with fleeing and eluding police, assault with intent to murder, and several traffic offenses. "Obituary: Perry Watkins, 48, Gay Sergeant Who Won Enlistment in Court" Washington Post (03/21/96) P. B8; Dunlap, David W. Perry J. Watkins, an openly gay Army sergeant who won the right to stay in the military from the Supreme Court in 1990, died Sunday at the age of 48. The cause was complications from AIDS. Watkins identified himself as gay when he was drafted in 1968, but the Army forced him out in 1984, based on a new ban of gays and lesbians in the military. In 1989 Watkins won the right to re-enlist in the first ruling to appeal that ban. Although he chose not to re-enlist, he still received retroactive pay, retirement benefits, an honorable discharge, and a retroactive promotion. "All But One of Japan Hemophiliacs Take Compromise" Reuters (03/20/96) Only one of the 456 Japanese hemophiliacs infected with HIV refused a settlement to end the long legal battle against the government and five pharmaceutical companies. Last week the government and drug firms agreed to pay each claimant or family a one-time payment of $420,000 and continuing monthly payments. The contaminated blood products are thought to have infected 1,800 to 2,000 Japanese hemophiliacs with HIV. The government recently admitted to covering up knowledge of the threat. However, according to Vice Health and Welfare Minister Hiroshi Tada, an investigation into the scandal has thus far failed to determine why it happened or who was to blame. "S. Africa Insurer Launches HIV Policy" Reuters (03/20/96); Mordant, Nicole South African's Metropolitan Life has offered what it claims is the world's first life insurance policy for HIV-infected individuals. The company said the policy is designed for people who have been denied other coverage because they are HIV-positive but had not yet developed AIDS. A similar policy was offered in France by a non-profit government-driven project involving pooling of funds from numerous insurers. An estimated 1.5 million people in South Africa have HIV, and about 80 percent would qualify for the new policy. Eligible applicants are between the ages of 15 and 55, asymptomatic and in stage one or two of infection according to World Health Organization definitions. "Vaccine Drought Spurs NIAID Plan to Improve Industry Ties..." Science (03/01/96) Vol. 271, No. 5253, P. 1227; Cohen, Jon Although the lack of AIDS vaccine clinical trial results marked the 8th Annual Conference on Advances in AIDS Vaccine Development, a new plan to encourage more cooperation between vaccine researchers and drug companies was emphasized. NIAID's decision not to go through with two large trials of two vaccines in 1994 may have had a negative impact on the development of others. The companies involved, Genentech and Biocine, argued that NIAID proved itself an unreliable business partner when it reversed its decision about the trials. Genentech's vaccine, which uses engineered versions of HIV's surface protein gp120, is now being developed by Genenvax, a new spin-off company. NIAID's new plan is one way it is trying to win back companies' interest in vaccines. It outlines specific criteria a vaccine must meet before it can advance in clinical trials, thereby improving companies' incentive to continue vaccine development. Anthony Fauci, head of NIAID, said a deal was being struck with the two companies involved in the one vaccine whose results were presented at the meeting. NIAID is now funding Phase I trials of one of the vaccine components, and if further research is productive, both parts could move into efficacy trials by the middle of 1998. "Treatment of Cognitive Impairment" Focus (02/96) Vol. 11, No. 3, P. 1; Zeifert, Penelope; Leary, Mark; Boccellari, Alicia Cognitive impairment, a loss of the ability to process, learn, and remember information, affects 55 percent to 65 percent of people with AIDS. It occurs severely in late-stage AIDS patients, and may have a smaller impact in the early stages of HIV infection. Mild impairment is marked by slowness in thinking and memory problems, while moderate to severe impairment leads to memory loss, impaired manipulation and retrieval of information, slowed thinking, apathy, depression, and motor impairment. Some aspects of the condition are treatable if addressed promptly, while others are untreatable and progress rapidly. Responding to cognitive impairment requires accurate diagnosis; coordination of treatment and education; aggressive treatment of the causes, like opportunistic disease and delirium; and management through psychotherapy and psychopharmacology. The most common cause of the condition is direct infection of the brain by HIV. Psychotherapists should work with a patient's doctor to rule out or treat reversible causes. Psychotherapy is useful to manage untreatable cognitive impairment, and is more important if dementia or an acute psychiatric condition develops.