DP Tool Club 17/CD_ASCQ_17_101194.iso/vrac/ad9408.zip/AD940802.TXT

Text File | 1994-08-02 | 9KB | 167 lines

                     AIDS Daily Summary
                       August 02, 1994


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 1994, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD

"Australia Seeking 30 Patients of HIV Doctor"
Reuters (08/02/94)
     Australian health authorities have launched a search for 30 of
the 149 women who underwent operations performed by a surgeon now
identified as HIV-positive.  The New South Wales health
department is employing police, government agencies, a toll-free
telephone hotline, and the media in an effort to locate the
women.  According to the state government, 96 of the women who
were operated on by the trainee obstetrician at Sydney's King
George V Hospital have tested negative for the virus.  The
remaining 23 women have been found, but have not yet received
test results.  Australian health officials say the chances of any
of the women testing HIV-positive are slim.  The infected doctor
stopped performing operations once he was diagnosed on June 3.

"Mandatory 'Safe Sex' Training a Legacy of AIDS Czar Gebbie"
Washington Times (08/02/94) P. A8;  Larson, Ruth
     Although Kristine M. Gebbie's tenure as national AIDS policy
coordinator ends today, she leaves behind a mandate for all
federal employees to receive "safe sex" training.  More than 2
million workers will have received the "AIDS at Work" training by
Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, but some public health advocates are
challenging whether the effort is worth the time or the expense.
The training addresses prevention techniques, risk assessment,
and dealing with infected co-workers.  According to Lance Alworth
Jr., who manages the program, agencies were not provided with
additional funding to conduct the training.  The cost of outside
contractors usually amounts to $2 to $10 per employee, he said.
Based on those figures, the cost of training 2.1 million workers
is between $4 million and $20 million.  Also, with the average
hourly salary at $19, the Office of Personnel Management
calculates that costs reach $80 million for two hours of
training.  Gebbie defends the cost, saying that "If we prevent
even one individual from getting HIV-AIDS, we save hundreds of
thousands of dollars in medical costs, in the costs to train new
workers if an employee dies early."  About one-quarter of the
training is complete thus far.

"AIDS Epidemic Seen Threatening "Asian Promise""
Reuters (08/02/94);  Liquicia, Rosario
     As a booming commercial sex industry and widespread intravenous
drug use hasten the spread of AIDS in Asia, the epidemic is an
obstacle to the area's growth and progress, said speakers at a
Tuesday meeting sponsored by the Asian Development Bank.
According to economist Myo Thant, the first cases of AIDS were
reported in Asia in only the mid-1980s, but by 1991 more than 1
million cases of HIV infection had already occurred.  He cited
World Health Organization estimates predicting that, by the turn
of the century, 30 percent of global HIV cases will come from
Asia alone.  Thant said the region would need to look at
attitudes toward the implicit use of prostitution as a tourist
attraction.

"Summer Shot"
Richmond Times-Dispatch (08/01/94) P. C3
     The federal government has kicked off a nationwide effort to urge
HIV/AIDS patients, senior citizens, diabetics, and heart or lung
disease patients to receive a pneumonia vaccination.  The need
for immunization is especially urgent given the new
drug-resistant strains of the bacteria.  Pneumonia sickens more
than 200,000 people and causes 40,000 deaths annually.

"Clinic Ordered to Pay Damages in AIDS Fraud Case"
Reuters (07/30/94)
     In what is probably the country's first medical fraud case
involving AIDS, a Superior Court jury has ordered the Medical
Center of North Hollywood, Calif., to pay $1.8 million in damages
to two patients who received unconventional treatment for the
disease.  Dr. Valentine Birds and Dr. Ranjindra Sethi were found
to have treated several patients with a homemade drug called
Viroxan, which is not medically approved.  The jury earlier
issued a compensatory award of $925,000 against the two
physicians.  That sum was shared by four patients, but two of
them--Roderick Garcia and Mark Addy--received an additional
$900,000 each after the jury found that they had been subjected
to "oppressive, malicious, or fraudulent" conduct.

"European Meeting Says Decriminalize Prostitution"
Reuters (07/30/94)
     Prostitutes, health workers, and policy makers from more than 30
countries, who recently held a three-day conference to discuss
health and the sex industry, will urge the European Commission
and the World Health Organization to decriminalize prostitution.
"Contrary to public assumptions, prostitutes are not "riddled
with HIV and AIDS," said Ruth Morgan Thomas, one of the
conference organizers.  "And whatever the general public might
think, you are actually far more likely to pick up the HIV virus
through casual, unprotected, non-commercial sex than you are from
going to a prostitute."

"New Probe of Jailed French Official Sparks Furor"
Reuters (07/29/94);  Arieff, Irwin
     A new investigation of former French government health official
Michael Garretta, who is already serving time in prison for his
part in the country's contaminated blood tragedy, has sparked
outrage among French judges, lawyers, and AIDS activists.  The
debate squares off friends and relatives of hundreds of
HIV-infected individuals against rights activists who are
concerned that a man already being punished is being turned into
a scapegoat.  The former head of the National Blood Transfusion
Center was convicted of fraud and criminal negligence for
allowing the facility to use up stocks of contaminated blood
products in an effort to shave expenses, rather than import
treated products.  Garretta was found guilty, but it was never
proven that he acted willfully.  The new probe is seeking
"poisoning" charges, under which prosecutors must prove that
Garretta willfully sought to sicken or kill the individuals who
became infected as a result of his actions.

"Old Drugs May Yet Control Resistant TB"
United Press International (07/29/94);  Emerson, Eva;  Schuster,
Larry
     Calming fears that tuberculosis had become super-resistant,
scientists at France's Pasteur Institute say it is poor
treatment--rather than a challenging new strain--that is causing
the emergence of drug-resistant TB.  While investigating how
multi-resistant strains of the infection defy antibiotics, the
French researchers discovered that resistance is the product of
well-known genetic mutations in the genes targeted by drugs, and
that lax treatment allows emerging resistant strains to take
hold.  The findings suggest that existing treatment strategies,
if strictly implemented, should be able to control TB.  Once
thought to be well-controlled, TB has re-emerged as an epidemic
in the past 20 years.  Its resurface can be attributed to the
spread of AIDS, increased poverty, homelessness, and insufficient
health care.

"Gebbie and Grassroots: Toward a Mass-Movement Organizing Style: A Commentary"
AIDS Treatment News (07/22/94) P. 6;  James, John S.
     The author, who is the editor and publisher of AIDS Treatment
News, believes that the resignation of Kristine Gebbie, former
National AIDS Coordinator, will not attack the root of the
problems that afflict federal AIDS policy, and he discusses a
possible solution.  suggests that the AIDS and the gay
communities haven't been able to effectively support the Clinton
administration and defend the President from the effective
attacks of the "right-wing hate industry."  This is because the
"hate industry" has organized itself into a mass-movement, while
the AIDS and gay communities haven't done so.  So the
Administration deliberately weakened the office of the National
AIDS Policy Coordinator so it couldn't act independently and
attack the national attitudes that block an effective response by
the nation's institutions.  The solution is to create an
effective mass movement to support a national response to AIDS.
While the AIDS leadership is good at inside-the-Beltway work, it
needs to learn how to generate and lead a mass movement. James
suggests that AIDS groups practice and learn how to build such a
movement by combining political action with social needs and
other types of people's needs; becoming easily accessible to new
people; making each and every meeting generate worthwhile results
from beginning to end; working on creating a mobilized base of
people that responds to emergency calls; building consensus and
creating coalitions; and looking for mass movement "role models."