Software Vault: The Diamond Collection/The Diamond Collection (Software Vault)(Digital Impact).ISO/cdr16/ad950120.zip/AD950120.TXT

Text File | 1995-01-20 | 12KB | 217 lines

                     AIDS Daily Summary
                      January 20, 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


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"Women in Puerto Rico Find Marriage Offers No Haven from AIDS"
"AIDS Service Group to Sue City for Funds"
"Wellcome, Immune Response Are Sold Short by Bear Who Backs
Maverick Theory on AIDS"
"A Slur, Cry Italy's Cat Ladies, and the Fur Flies"
"Choreographing His Own Death"
"Panel Calls for Bigger Role for Women in Drug Tests"
"Sacking of "Red Cleric" Strains French Church"
"Tuberculosis Among Health Care Workers"
"Coverup of AIDS Patent Misconduct Charged"
"AIDS: the Disease for Which You Call Your Lawyer"
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"Women in Puerto Rico Find Marriage Offers No Haven from AIDS"
New York Times (01/20/95) P. A14;  Navarro, Mireya
     For women in Puerto Rico, marriage often offers no protection
from HIV.  Health officials say that a majority of the
sex-related cases among women involved those who were married or
in common-law relationships, and had no other risk factors than
their partners--many of whom used intravenous drugs.  "The
married woman feels less vulnerable and is less prepared to
demand protection from her partner," said Dr. Carmen Feliciano,
Puerto Rico's Health Secretary.  A higher proportion of Puerto
Rican women have been affected by the AIDS epidemic than women
from elsewhere in the United States because, on the island, AIDS
has mainly been a disease of heterosexual men who use intravenous
drugs and infect women.  According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, 53 percent of the 2,818 cases of AIDS
among Puerto Rican women are due to heterosexual intercourse, and
41 percent to intravenous drug use.  The Puerto Rican
government's public policy continues to promote monogamy,
abstinence, and condom use as ways to prevent AIDS.  Critics,
however, say that a better prevention message would be speak of
infidelity and drug use.

"AIDS Service Group to Sue City for Funds"
Washington Times (01/20/95) P. C6;  Gotsch, Ted
     Despite a Wednesday payment promise from Washington, D.C., Mayor
Marion Barry, the HIV Prevention Community Planning Committee
intends to sue the District.  The group, a public-private body of
D.C. employees and representatives from AIDS organizations,
claims that many AIDS service providers have not received at
least $850,000 from the city.  The motion to file a lawsuit was
co-sponsored by Michael Singerman, a spokesman for the needle
exchange coalition of ACT-UP, and by Metro TeenAIDS Executive
Director Kevin Neil.  Both the Whitman-Walker Clinic and Metro
TeenAIDS said they have not received a Wednesday payment from the
city which was promised by the mayor last Friday at a rally of
AIDS activists.

"Wellcome, Immune Response Are Sold Short by Bear Who Backs
Maverick Theory on AIDS"
Wall Street Journal (01/20/95) P. C2;  Power, William
     Michael Murphy, publisher of the newsletter Overpriced Stock
Service and of the California Technology Stock Letter, disclosed
that he has been short-selling shares of Wellcome and Immune
Response because he does not believe that HIV causes AIDS.
Murphy also said he doubts that the disease is contagious or
sexually transmitted.  Furthermore, he believes that Wellcome's
drug AZT "kills patients."  Anthony Fauci, director of the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, contended,
"The scientific data that HIV is the underlying epidemiological
agent of AIDS is overwhelming."

"A Slur, Cry Italy's Cat Ladies, and the Fur Flies"
New York Times (01/20/95) P. A4;  Bohlen, Celestine
     A recent article in a Roman newspaper shocked pet owners with the
news that an AIDS-like virus was on the rise among the city's
stray cats.  "I don't believe in this AIDS business.  Before, we
said they had a cold, now it's called AIDS," said Elena Bruni,
one of Rome's army of cat ladies who feed the estimated 200,000
wild cats in the city.  While the article stated that the
virus--feline leukemia--presented no risk to humans, veterinary
clinics around the city were deluged with calls.  One
veterinarian estimated that 10 percent of the city's 100,000
domestic cats were abandoned because of the article.  "We have
one of the most advanced laws on animal rights, but a far lower
social consciousness," said Dr. Claudio Fantini, who heads one of
the city's veterinary services.  The law guarantees wild cats to
live where they are born and prohibits the killing of stray
animals who end up in the city's pounds.  According to Fantini,
there has been no organized effort in recent years to test stray
cats for the leukemia or for feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV).
Such tests, he added, would be "a waste of money."

"Choreographing His Own Death"
Wall Street Journal (01/20/95) P. A10;  Teachout, Terry
     Diane Solway's book, "A Dance Against Time: The Brief Life of a
Joffrey Dancer," tells the life story of Eddie Stierle, a dancer
and choreographer for the Joffrey Ballet who died of AIDS.  "A
Dance Against Time" presents an unusually candid view of the
devastating effects of AIDS on the dance community.  Solway tells
of how Stierle engaged in a promiscuous and unsafe lifestyle
knowing it could shorten not only his own life, but the lives of
his partners.  Although he had both male and female lovers, he
stopped sleeping with women when he tested HIV-positive in 1987
because he wanted to remain sexually active "without people
freaking out."

"Panel Calls for Bigger Role for Women in Drug Tests"
Reuters (01/19/95)
     The National Task Force on AIDS Drug Development recommended on
Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) require
researchers to include more women in all stages of trials for
drugs for serious and life-threatening diseases.  An FDA
spokesman said the recommendation had been accepted and would be
acted upon as soon as possible.  There have been complaints from
women and their advocates that drug trials to treat diseases such
as AIDS excluded women, or only brought them in late, because of
concerns about the drug's effects on the female reproductive
system and child-bearing functions.  Without the participation of
women in the trials, they said, there would be little or no data
on possible effects the drug might have on them when the drugs
came up for FDA approval.

"Sacking of "Red Cleric" Strains French Church"
Reuters (01/19/95);  Doyle, Alistair
     The dismissal of a French "Red Cleric" has caused a new crisis in
France's Roman Catholic Church.  Thousands of people have
protested the Vatican's decision to fire Jacques Gaillot as
bishop of Evreux in Normandy on Jan. 13.  Many French bishops are
worried that the firing of the outspoken Gaillot will prompt
French citizens to slide further away from the Church.  Gaillot
said his removal illustrated that the Vatican was "totalitarian"
and out of touch with modern society in increasing its insistence
on doctrine under Pope John Paul II.  Gaillot has advocated the
use of condoms to prevent AIDS, spoken in favor of ordaining
married priests, and called for tolerance of homosexuality.
Approximately 70 percent of French citizens consider themselves
Catholic--down from about 80 percent a decade ago--but only about
10 percent attend mass regularly.  The majority say they ignore
the Vatican's opposition to artificial birth control.

"Tuberculosis Among Health Care Workers"
New England Journal of Medicine (01/12/95) Vol. 332, No. 2, P.
92;  Menzies, Dick;  Fanning, Anne;  Yuan, Lilian et al
     Both the resurgence of tuberculosis (TB) and the emergence of
multidrug-resistant strains of TB have profoundly altered views
about the risk of the disease in health care workers.  Before
antibiotics, the annual risk of infection among health care
workers was as high as 80 percent.  The risk of occupationally
acquired TB in health care workers varies among and within
institutions.  Because completely eliminating risk among health
care workers is unrealistic, one goal could be to reduce risk to
a level similar to that of the general population.  HIV-infected
health care workers, if exposed, have an especially high risk of
TB, which can be fatal if the disease is caused by a
drug-resistant strain.  The factor most consistently associated
with nosocomial transmission is the delay in diagnosis or the
identification of drug-resistance.  Other major contributing
factors in hospital outbreaks include multiple failures to comply
with current standards of administrative, engineering, and
personal infection-control procedures.  It is recommended that
every health care institution develop an infection-control policy
for TB, and implement the recommended measures that are
appropriate for the institution's risk of nosocomial
transmission.

"Coverup of AIDS Patent Misconduct Charged"
Chemical & Engineering News (01/09/95) Vol. 73, No. 2, P. 5;
Zurer, Pamela
     A report by former investigators for Rep. John D. Dingell
(D-Mich.) claims that U.S. government officials covered up
evidence of misconduct related to the patent on the AIDS blood
test.  The report charges the United States with misleading the
Pasteur Institute in France by parroting the contention of the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) AIDS researcher Robert C.
Gallo that his laboratory's discovery was an separate invention
that did not rely on virus samples first isolated by the French.
The report is full of half-truths and misrepresentations, Gallo
responds.  His award of the U.S. patent for the AIDS blood test
in 1985 was disputed by the French, who claimed the test was
developed using samples provided by Pasteur.  Last summer, the
U.S agreed to yield a larger share of royalties to France and
made a formal admission that Gallo's lab used the French virus to
develop the American test, which Gallo conceded in 1991.  The new
report claims that Gallo knew well before the patent dispute
began that his lab's work critically depended on the Pasteur
Institute's samples and earlier work.  Gallo is also accused of
withholding the information from the patent office, NIH, and the
Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services.  Despite
the criticism, the report is unlikely to have any repercussions
for Gallo or the government officials it names.

"AIDS: the Disease for Which You Call Your Lawyer"
American Management Association (01/95) Vol. 84, No. 1, P. 42;
Bordwin, Milton
     AIDS can create more legal and business problems for a company
than almost any other medical condition.  AIDS and HIV affect one
in 250 Americans, most of whom are between 25 and 44 years old,
which is the core of the U.S. workforce.  Not enough companies,
however, are responding to the epidemic.  When an employee turns
up with AIDS, it is generally too late to avoid some problems
that preventive action could have eliminated.  Some problematic
areas are privacy, the duty to disclose to other employees,
anti-discrimination laws, labor unions, insurance costs, and the
Americans with Disabilities Act.  Federal law requires a company
to make a "reasonable accommodation" for certain health
conditions, including HIV and AIDS. Because there are numerous
ways to get caught in a legal crossfire if one faces the
situation unprepared, an employer must be proactive and act early
to avoid such legal and business problems.