The Arsenal Files 6/The Arsenal Files 6 (Arsenal Computer).ISO/health/ad960329.zip/AD960329.TXT

Text File | 1996-03-31 | 12KB | 211 lines

                     AIDS Daily Summary
                       March 29, 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 National AIDS
Clearinghouse, or any other organization. Reproduction of this
text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC
National AIDS Clearinghouse should be cited as the source of this
information. Copyright 1996, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD


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"Pediatrician May Have Spread TB"
"Cancer Drugs to Get FDA Review"
"Some Blood Cells Resistant to AIDS Virus"
"AIDS Community Coping With a Big Cut in Funding"
"Physicians Taking A Closer Look at HIV Clearance by Neonates"
"HIV Subtypes and Disease Transmission: Scientists Taking a Hard
Look at the Data"
"Japan Haemophiliacs in Out-of-Court Settlement"
"HIV-1 Dynamics in Vivo: Virion Clearance Rate, Infected Cell
Life-Span, and Viral Generation Time"
"'Shoe Leather Therapy' Is Gaining on TB"
"Drug of Choice"
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"Pediatrician May Have Spread TB"
Philadelphia Inquirer (03/29/96) P. B2
     An Allentown, Pa., pediatrician may have spread tuberculosis
(TB) in a local hospital.  Nearly 1,400 patients who stayed at
Sacred Heart Hospital from Nov. 1 to Feb. 14 are at risk of
exposure from Nestor Rios, health officials said Wednesday.
Parents are being notified by letters, and officials are
recommending skin tests, chest X-rays, and nine months of
treatment with an antibiotic for children.  No active infectious
cases of TB have been found, but 71 people did have the bacteria
in their bodies.  Rios' medical license has been suspended
pending an investigation that he disregarded requests to wear a
mask after being diagnosed.  Related Story: USA Today (03/29) P.
10A

"Cancer Drugs to Get FDA Review"
Wall Street Journal (03/29/96) P. B1;  Stout, Hilary;  McGinley,
Laurie
     In a move to give new cancer therapies the same expediency
granted AIDS drugs, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is
revising its approval process for cancer drugs.  Officials hope
the changes, expected to be announced Friday by President Clinton
and to go into effect at once, will cut FDA review time of new
cancer drugs by more than half, from an average of about 12
months to six months.  Changes made in 1992 to speed approvals of
drugs for life-threatening illnesses led to the rapid approval of
the new AIDS drugs called protease inhibitors, including one
developed by Merck & Co. which was approved in only six weeks.
Some cancer activists say the disease has not gotten as much
attention as AIDS because AIDS activists have been more organized
and politically active.  Related Story: USA Today (03/29) P. 1A

"Some Blood Cells Resistant to AIDS Virus"
USA Today (03/29/96) P. 2D
     Some people with blood cells that are unusually resistant to
HIV may avoid infection with the virus despite repeated exposure
to it, a new study suggests.  In these people, the cells usually
targeted by HIV seem to actively resist infection, perhaps by
having a high production of virus-fighting chemicals.  In
laboratory tests, the resistant cells required about 200 times
the normal dose of HIV to become infected, reported researcher
William A. Paxton of the Aaron Diamond Research Center and New
York University School of Medicine.  A separate study found a
link between certain immune system genes and the amount of time
HIV-infected individuals can go before developing AIDS.  Men with
the best genetic profiles were AIDS-free some seven years longer
than men with the least favorable profiles, reported Richard
Kaslow of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

"AIDS Community Coping With a Big Cut in Funding"
Philadelphia Inquirer (03/29/96) P. B1;  Santiago, Denise-Marie
     The AIDS community in Philadelphia is trying to cope with
the announcement that it will lose $1.8 million of federal
funding for AIDS services.  The region will get 19 percent less
under the Ryan White Title I Act in the 1996 fiscal year,
reducing funding from $9.8 million to $7.95 million.  The city's
office on AIDS has already cut $431,000, mostly in administrative
costs, and the city will contribute $156,000 to continue existing
services through the beginning of May.  AIDS activist David Fair
said the cuts mean "an already dysfunctional system is getting
worse."  Last fall, city health officials said the number of AIDS
cases had been under-reported, costing the area $2.7 million in
federal funding over the previous two years.  One kind of funding
under the Ryan White Act is based on the number of AIDS cases in
the region.  Supplemental funding, meanwhile, is distributed on a
competitive basis, based on applications from different regions.
The Philadelphia region's supplemental funding was cut from $5.7
million last year to $3.8 million in 1996.

"Physicians Taking A Closer Look at HIV Clearance by Neonates"
Reuters (03/28/96)
     Several cases of infants who were perinatally infected with
HIV and subsequently tested HIV-negative have been reported since
Yvonne J. Bryson of the University of California at Los Angeles
first reported the phenomenon.  Bryson estimates that about 24
cases have been documented, but said she does not know how the
infants clear the virus.  She also said it would be surprising if
the same clearance did not occur in adults.  Adults, however, are
not tested in the same way that infants born to HIV-positive
women are.  Bryson says she expects testing of infants to become
more rigorous in light of the clearance cases.

"HIV Subtypes and Disease Transmission: Scientists Taking a Hard
Look at the Data"
Reuters (03/28/96)
     Scientists gathered in Berlin this week for a two-day
workshop organized by the Joint United Nations Program on
HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to discuss the effects of various subtypes of
HIV on the AIDS epidemic worldwide.  Recent findings have
suggested that some HIV subtypes are more easily transmitted via
heterosexual contact.  Dr. Peter Piot, director of UNAIDS, said
prevention methods will remain the same, regardless of the ease
of transmission of various viral subtypes.  The AIDS epidemic is
moving slowly in North America and Europe, but is spreading
rapidly in Africa and Asia, where most cases are heterosexually
transmitted.  Harvard researcher Max Essex has shown that HIV
subtypes-E and -C are more likely to be spread heterosexually,
but the epidemic in different parts of the world is not always as
expected.  In Africa, the epidemic has been worsened by the
prevalence of other STDs, while in Southeast Asia, the prevalence
of STDs is lower and HIV-E has spread rapidly regardless.  Also,
HIV in the Caribbean is spread primarily through heterosexual
sex, but the cases mostly involve HIV-B.  Prevention campaigns
may be revised to target specific populations at risk.

"Japan Haemophiliacs in Out-of-Court Settlement"
Reuters (03/29/96)
     Japanese hemophiliacs infected with HIV through contaminated
blood products accepted an out-of-court settlement Friday, ending
their seven-year legal dispute against the government and five
drug companies.  Under the agreement, the 458 plaintiffs will
each receive a one-time payment of $424,000, and those with
full-blown AIDS will receive additional monthly payments of
$1,415.  The pharmaceutical companies involved include Green
Cross Corp., Baxter Ltd., and Bayer Ltd.  Between 1,800 and 2,000
hemophiliacs are believed to have been infected by the tainted
blood products.

"HIV-1 Dynamics in Vivo: Virion Clearance Rate, Infected Cell
Life-Span, and Viral Generation Time"
Science (03/15/96) Vol. 271, No. 5255, P. 1582;  Perelson, Alan
S.;  Neumann, Avidan U.;  Markowitz, Martin; et al.
     To track the dynamics of HIV in vivo, as well as the impact
of a protease inhibitor, David Ho of the Aaron Diamond AIDS
Research Center in New York and colleagues used a mathematical
model and viral load data from five infected individuals.
Ritonavir was given to five infected patients, and the resulting
HIV-1 RNA plasma concentrations were measured.  The patients
showed similar patterns of viral decay--an initial lag followed
by an exponential decline.  The delay is explained by the
mechanism of protease inhibitors, which make newly produced
viruses noninfectious but do not inhibit already infected cells
or previously produced viruses.  The researchers concluded that
the rapid replication of HIV-1 accounts for more than 99 percent
of the plasma viruses in infected individuals and the high
destruction rate of CD4 cells.  They therefore suggest that an
effective AIDS treatment should detectably lower the viral load
in plasma within a few days.  Furthermore, they recommend early
and aggressive combination therapy because HIV replicates
rapidly, noting that more information is needed about the decay
rate of long-lived virus-producing cells and the activation rate
of cells carrying viruses.

"'Shoe Leather Therapy' Is Gaining on TB"
Journal of the American Medical Association (03/13/96) Vol. 275,
No. 10, P. 743;  Voelker, Rebecca
     About 1,200 public health outreach workers in U.S. cities go
door-to-door to track down poor, homeless, or mentally ill
tuberculosis (TB) patients, conducting directly observed therapy
(DOT) to ensure that each patient takes their medication.  DOT is
an important strategy to control the spread of TB, because
without the outreach workers, many patients would not complete
their treatment program, and would contribute to the rise and
spread of drug-resistant disease.  The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that a resurgence in TB has
caused 54,000 more cases since the mid-1980s than would have
occurred if previous TB morbidity patterns had continued.  To
handle the epidemic, funds for the CDC's TB project increased
from $5 million in 1986 to $114.9 million in 1995.  Much of the
additional money went to outreach programs, which now employ an
estimated 1,000 to 1,200 workers nationwide.  Now, the CDC says,
deaths from TB are starting to decrease, as the number of
patients who complete treatment increases.

"Drug of Choice"
Insight (03/11/96) Vol. 12, No. 10, P. 17;  Goode, Stephen
     Peter Duesberg believes that treatment with the
commonly used AIDS drug AZT is the worst thing for AIDS patients.

He says that the drug is too damaging for people with the
disease, because their bodies have been harmed by drug abuse.  In
his book, "Inventing the AIDS Virus," Duesberg compares a disease
known as SMON, which broke out in Japan in the 1950s, to AIDS.
"For 15 years the syndrome was mismanaged by the Japanese science
establishment, in which virtually all research efforts were
controlled by virus hunters.  Ignoring strong evidence to the
contrary, researchers continued to assume the syndrome was
contagious and searched for one virus after another," he states.
Scientists eventually found that SMON was not caused by a virus,
but by the misuse and overuse of the drug clioquinol for treating
stomach disorders.