Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 12:33:22 From: aidsnews@igc.org Subject: AIDS Treatment News #267 AIDS TREATMENT NEWS Issue #267, March 21, 1997 phone 800/TREAT-1-2, or 415/255-0588 CONTENTS: Nelfinavir (VIRACEPT(R)) Approved: Fourth Protease Inhibitor Available Ritonavir: New Approval for Children HIV InSite: University of California AIDS Web Site Acetylcarnitine: Call for Information SPV-30: FDA Stops Distribution Over Advertising It's Time to Approve More Surrogate Markers AIDS Treatment Activism: Focus on Service ************************* Notice: AIDS TREATMENT NEWS gladly provides its information without charge on the Internet. Since we began ten years ago, we have been supported only by subscriptions. We ask those in a position to do so to consider helping us meet expenses by subscribing to the printed edition of the newsletter, available world wide by first class mail/airmail. You can also purchase a gift subscription for an individual, library, or other institution. Annual subscriptions are $100 individual, $115 nonprofit, and $230 business, payable by check, credit card, or purchase order. To subscribe, call the AIDS TREATMENT NEWS office, 800/TREAT-1-2, or 415/255-0588, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific time, Monday through Friday. Also, you can help by making a tax-deductible contribution to AIDS Treatment News Associates. For more information call Denny Smith, 415/750-4852. ************************* ***** Nelfinavir (VIRACEPT(R)) Approved: Fourth Protease Inhibitor Available by John S. James On March 14 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved nelfinavir (VIRACEPT), for both adults and children, "for the treatment of HIV infection when antiretroviral therapy is warranted." The company announced that it expects the drug to be widely available in pharmacies throughout the U.S. this week. This approval is under the FDA's "accelerated approval" regulations, based on better improvements in viral load and other markers of disease progression in trials lasting 24 weeks, in patients on a three-drug combination of nelfinavir plus AZT plus 3TC, vs. those on AZT plus 3TC alone. Longer trials with nelfinavir are now ongoing. More than 1,000 people have received the drug in clinical trials, and an additional 3,000 have received it through an expanded-access program. The recommended adult dose is 750 mg three times per day, with a meal or light snack. The FDA also approved dosage recommendations for patients 2-13 years old. The FDA-approved package insert warns: * "VIRACEPT should not be administered concurrently with terfenadine, astemizole, cisapride, trizolam or midazolam, because competition for CYP3A by nelfinavir could result in inhibition of the metabolism of these drugs and create the potential for serious and/or life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias or prolonged sedation." Also, nelfinavir should not be coadministered with rifampin; and if coadministered with rifabutin, the dose of rifabutin should be reduced by half. For more information on these and other drug interactions, see the package insert. "The most frequent adverse event associated with VIRACEPT is diarrhea, which can usually be controlled with non- prescription drugs, such as loperamide, which slow gastrointestinal motility" (from the package insert). Other possible side effects are listed. Price and Reimbursement Assistance Developer Agouron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has set the "wholesale acquisition cost" for the adult dose of VIRACEPT at $15.48 per day ($5650 per year). This is in the middle of the price range for the other three protease inhibitors. "To facilitate patients' access to VIRACEPT, Agouron has established a patient assistance program to actively help people to find ways of paying for VIRACEPT. Agouron will provide VIRACEPT without charge to those patients whose need is greatest and who are least able to pay for the drug. In addition, Agouron will provide VIRACEPT to any child in the United States who is not covered by public or private health insurance. For information on the VIRACEPT Assistance Program for both adults and children, call toll free 1-888-777-6637. "Agouron will make VIRACEPT available to all AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs), including those that purchase products through government-discounted pricing, and will offer rebates to any ADAP that is unable to purchase products at the government-discounted rates. In addition, Agouron will make VIRACEPT available to Medicaid." Comment There had been uncertainty over whether a 500 mg or 750 mg dose would be approved, with many physicians who had worked with the drug wanting the higher amount. The central issue around the dose is that the 24-week trials do not show a difference between 500 mg and 750 mg; however, there are reasons to be concerned that the virus may be more likely to "escape" from the lower dose by developing drug-resistance mutations. Also, approval of the higher dose gives doctors more flexibility -- since if the low dose were approved, insurance companies and other payers would probably balk at paying for more of the drug when doctors wanted to use it, whereas payers would be unlikely to object to doctors using a dose less expensive than the one approved. ***** Ritonavir: New Approval for Children On March 14 the FDA approved ritonavir for children age two to 16. While the drug was already available and could be prescribed for children, official approval is important because it means that a dosage recommendation has been tested, and found to have comparable safety and pharmacodynamics as in adults. Also, approval should help in obtaining reimbursement from HMOs and other third-party payers. ***** HIV InSite: University of California AIDS Web Site The University of California San Francisco has started a Web site with authoritative information on treatment and other major aspects of AIDS. While there are already hundreds of Web sites with AIDS information, this one is distinguished by being managed by leading experts in the field, at the UCSF AIDS Program at San Francisco General Hospital, and the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS). Also, it has the funding and staff to check with hundreds of experts every month to keep the information peer reviewed and up to date. The site is intended both for professionals and for persons with HIV. The medical section includes the AIDS KNOWLEDGE BASE (a 1600- page online textbook), a searchable database of clinical trials throughout the United States, treatment guidelines, case studies, and fact sheets. Other sections include Prevention, Social Issues, and Resources (organized by key topics, and also by a U.S. map). The authoritative management of this site could make printouts especially useful in advocating for treatment or reimbursement. This project was originally funded by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, with additional educational grants from Bristol-Myers Squibb, and from Merck, and with computer equipment donated by Sun Microsystems. The Web address is http://www.hivinsite.ucsf.edu. ***** Acetylcarnitine: Call for Information Two issues ago we reviewed an article reporting that researchers had found an abnormally low level of acetylcarnitine (also spelled acetyl-carnitine, acetyl-L- carnitine, or L-acetylcarnitine) in persons with HIV who had neuropathy which appeared to have been caused by ddI, d4T, or ddC ("Drug-Related Neuropathy: Low Acetylcarnitine Levels Found, AIDS TREATMENT NEWS #265, February 21, 1997). We did not know at that time but learned since that acetylcarnitine is available in the U.S. through health-food distributors. We have no information about these products. Acetylcarnitine is being tested in the U.S. and elsewhere as a possible treatment for diabetic neuropathy, and for other conditions. Bristol-Myers Squibb is interested in working with a clinical research group to develop the first HIV- related clinical trial. AIDS TREATMENT NEWS would like to hear from anyone with information about use of acetylcarnitine by persons with HIV, for any purpose. Contact John S. James, jjames@aidsnews.org, or 415/861-2432, or by fax at 415/255-4659, or c/o AIDS TREATMENT NEWS, P.O. Box 411256, San Francisco, CA 94141. ***** SPV-30: FDA Stops Distribution Over Advertising On March 5 the FDA issued a warning letter to the U.S. distributor of SPV-30 (The Health Connection, Ltd., of Copiague, New York), effectively requiring them to stop distributing the product. This dispute concerns "published articles, study reports, news releases, and advertising bulletins about SPV-30 that you provide to your customers." The company plans to appeal the action to the FDA. As far as we know, buyers' clubs and others have not been required to stop selling SPV-30, which is an herbal product prepared from the boxwood plant. However, it is unclear at this time whether they will be able to obtain new supplies. For the latest information about availability of SPV-30, call the Boston Buyers' Club, 800/435-5586 (within Massachusetts, call 617/266-2223). ***** It's Time to Approve More Surrogate Markers by David Scondras, Search for a Cure, Boston The FDA is approaching a decision that will affect every person with HIV illness by deciding whether to use new surrogate markers to evaluate a therapy that might help restore the health of the immune system. Across the country, drops in the death rate and clearing of opportunistic infections have been reported, making many feel that we have turned the corner in this disease. However, we do not know how long the human body can tolerate daily doses of heavy antiviral artillery. And we're not sure how to repair the damage already done by the virus to the immune system, or help the 20 to 30 percent of people who fail the drug therapies. A major factor limiting the development of new kinds of therapies is the paucity of accepted markers for improved immune function. Only two markers have been widely accepted as connected to disease progression and mortality in a causal fashion: CD4 T-lymphocyte levels and the amount of viral RNA in the blood (viral load). However, they are rather crude. They do not give a full picture of the health of the immune system. For example, many people want to know if using IL-2 will help them protect their CD4-cell repertoire or whether it might hasten "aging" of their cells. But viral load data tells us very little about either. The great immunological event that underlies the efforts to develop therapies that boost the immune system is the observation that the immune system works well in controlling the virus for so long. We know that after initial infection, the virus grows out of control, making perhaps tens of billions of copies per day for a period of time. Then the immune system, through a mechanism not fully understood, gets the viral burden down as much as seven logs -- better than any antiviral to date -- and keeps it relatively low for many years. In the case of long-term non-progressors, the virus is kept under control for over 15 years. Even in the case of rapid progressors, the virus is usually contained for years. This powerful natural "antiviral" has never been identified, but over time it clearly weakens; in many ways it is the loss of this immune function that required we pay attention to HIV, and therefore led to the development of antivirals. After all, if the immune system kept the virus under control indefinitely, as it does so well for many years in the beginning, few of us would bother studying HIV because it would be a benign infection. Some within the FDA recognize the need for the development of immune-based therapies, and the connection between this need and the evaluation of more surrogate markers. At a closed agency meeting to be held within the next few days, there will be a serious discussion of how to evaluate new therapies using immunological markers other than viral load and CD4 counts. It is clear that evaluating immune-based therapies cannot be done using markers designed to measure the effectiveness of antivirals. There are a number of candidate immunological markers which seem highly correlated with disease progression, such as lymphocyte proliferation to antigens (the body's readiness to produce large numbers of cells to fight an illness when presented with pieces of the enemy pathogen), elevated levels of cytokines like gamma interferon, RANTES, MIP-1-alpha, and MIP-1-beta (substances that fight viruses that are secreted by cells when they are presented with the virus -- see "CD8 Cells: Suppressive Factors Discovered," AIDS TREATMENT NEWS #238, January 5, 1996), DTH (delayed type hypersensitivity reactions, a test of the body's ability to fight an array of common illnesses that we have been vaccinated against or which we have been exposed to, like measles or polio, or HIV itself) and many others. There are data that lead us to believe that effective immune- based therapies are possible with refinement of existing efforts. For example, ACTG 315 is a recent study which shows that roughly one third of people with moderately advanced disease (a CD4 count of 100-300) on antiviral therapy have a partial return of non-HIV-specific lymphocyte proliferation to some recall antigens, and enhanced levels of both memory and naive CD4-cells and naive CD8 cells. These findings lead one to hope immune-based therapies that restore these markers might help the body fight the damage done by the disease. But no markers have been accepted by the FDA for immune restoration, so the likelihood that the therapies will be rapidly developed is minimal. It has been known for some time that non-progressors have quite powerful HIV-specific immune responses which people who progress lack, such as lymphocyte proliferation and enhanced levels of chemokines such as RANTES and MIP-1-alpha and beta. We already have therapies which partially restore some HIV- specific responses, such as the Salk vaccine, but the existing crude markers cannot tell us their value without unrealistically large, long, and expensive trials. While antivirals can block viral replication, it is unclear that they can strengthen the immune system's capacity to fight the virus. If a therapy can strengthen the body's ability to control the virus after antivirals have reduced the viral load, perhaps we could stop using antivirals for long periods of time. This would lengthen the usefulness of the drugs and improve people's quality of life. For example, if IL-2 followed by revaccination could restore the body's ability to fight diseases, it would greatly benefit those who must constantly use prophylactic regimens, notwithstanding antiviral therapy. But we'll never know without FDA recognition of new markers, because the two now used tend to weed out any efforts except the refinement of antivirals. The FDA needs to send a signal that it will look at new surrogate markers. In addition to its meeting next week, at which a discussion on surrogate markers to evaluate a particular immune-based therapy will occur, it should convene a joint session of its antiviral drug advisory committee and its biologic response modification advisory committee in a public session to identify those immunological markers which indicate improved health. Convening these public bodies would send a signal to public and private bodies that would speed research and development of immune-based therapies. ***** AIDS Treatment Activism: Focus on Service by John S. James The tenth anniversary of ACT UP provides an occasion to look into the past and into the future. What has the AIDS treatment movement accomplished so far? How do we need to change, in view of the very important changes happening today? How can we be stronger and more productive? What Has Been Done? What AIDS treatment activism has accomplished must be seen in the historical context of patients and institutions in medicine. For each disease, the traditional pattern is that those most affected had little or no real influence on the medical research or other institutional responses. Most patients start with little background in science, medicine, or public policy -- and no particular connections or working relationships with their fellow patients. While patients may be involved for only a limited time, the professionals -- doctors, researchers, officials of corporations, foundations, government agencies and other institutions -- are likely to be working with the disease for years or decades. Whatever personal sincerity and commitment they may feel in their hearts, the real relationships that structure their work and their lives are with the other professionals. The result is a systemic power imbalance, with the professionals alone at the negotiating table where the real decisions are made, and therefore the deals ultimately reflecting their concerns and interests. The patients and their families and friends -- for whose benefit the whole enterprise ostensibly exists -- are in fact uniquely disenfranchised, the only ones who are affected but have no place at the table. The widespread image of medicine, of everyone being of good will and on the same team, does not replace this missing representation. At the end of the day, the professionals go home the same whether they succeed or not. The fact that most of them try hard, and sincerely want to help, has not automatically created the needed institutional support for successful medical research. For example, if a clinical trial goes nowhere for months or years because it cannot recruit -- due to unrealistic design, such that those who could qualify for the trial would have no incentive to enter it -- who will fix the problem? Within the traditional structure, who could? Probably not the principal investigator -- because that would require renegotiating with the IRB, the FDA, corporate funders, and others, many of whom will have at least an ego investment (if not a financial one) in the failing design. And if not the principle investigator, then who? Possibly the research team as a whole could fix the study, but that would be a lot of work -- work which nobody is funded, mandated, or encouraged to do. Activists have fixed such problems when the professionals alone have not, basically by providing the missing mandate. They identify and analyze the problem, then keep blowing the whistle so that it cannot slip quietly from attention. Then the researchers and other professionals need to respond -- which allows them to fix the trial without personally initiating the action and being seen as rocking the boat (which could hurt their careers by marking them to funders and others as troublemakers who are difficult to work with). The fundamental change with HIV disease is that persons living with the illness have obtained a place at the negotiating table, alongside the professionals, funders, regulators and others. This means that the real interests of those most affected can be represented. Patients' major concerns include workable access to care, and the productivity of the research enterprise. Sometimes we may lose sight of how profound a change has occurred. About ten years ago I spoke with an AIDS worker who had come from a cancer career, and I outlined the need for a movement like the treatment activism which later developed. This person saw my world view as like that of cancer patients who were convinced that doctors were sabotaging medical research, so that they could keep making good money treating cancer. This preposterous conspiracy theory, which significant numbers of people do believe, shows the tragedy of decades of lack of leadership. Patients who were desperately ill could sense that something was deeply wrong, but had no language to describe the problems or articulate their concerns effectively. Changing Needs Today and Tomorrow The AIDS world is changing greatly today, and treatment activism must change in order to remain responsive and maintain public support. We should realize that as treatments improve, there will be a lessening of the public's sense of urgency. The movement will also be weakened as medical improvements make it more possible for those with good health care to insulate themselves from the problems of others. Yet at the same time, the success of the protease inhibitor combinations has shown clearly that treatment improvement is possible -- which will stimulate research, and also create a more compelling case for access. We need to understand such changes so that we can plan effectively. I believe that the key to the future success of treatment activism will be SERVICE -- the practical benefits that we can bring to people. Here is a partial list of some areas that especially need attention and work: Access, Money Issues, and Standards of Care Substandard and otherwise inadequate care has always been a major problem -- although often a quiet one, away from the high-profile cities. Now, as treatments get better but more expensive (although also more cost effective), and more persons with HIV want medical care, the money issues are becoming more critical. Effective treatment access for many people will have to combine public financing with price restraint by industry. This is because no conceivable lowering of current prices would enable the uninsured or inadequately insured to purchase care solely from personal funds -- but at the same time, Congress will not pay for drugs if the main result is to fatten already-exorbitant profits. We will have to work with industry to obtain adequate funding, where we have interests in common, such as ADAP -- while at the same time working with others to reduce profiteering, sometimes by the same companies. The cost effectiveness of medical care -- compared to the expenses of hospitalization and disability -- will be a critical part of the case for public and other reimbursement. Other huge access issues include private insurance, managed care, and discriminatory legislation which could discourage people from coming forward for testing and treatment. A major new standard of care should be released soon by the Federal government, hopefully within a month. If it is successful, a new official standard will provide a major tool to help us advocate for adequate care. And advocacy will be needed to make the new standard effective. Immune-Based Therapies, Markers, and Trial Design For antivirals, viral load is already an entirely credible marker. But there are still regulations in place that require the ordeal of clinical-endpoint trials, even when they clearly do not answer the major remaining questions (especially long-term toxicity, which of course is not addressed by viral load). There has, of course, been years of infighting among treatment activists over the need for clinical-endpoint trials. Disagreement is natural, but we must always be aware of what is serving our public and what is not. Fighting can easily take on a life of its own -- or become focused on proving who was right in the past. In another treatment area, the development of immune-based therapies has been slowed greatly by the lack of knowledge and agreement on markers. The consequence of lack of widely accepted markers has been that there has been no way to test rapidly to see which drugs might be beneficial. (For a proposal in this area, see "It's Time to Approve More Surrogate Markers," by David Scondras of Search for a Cure, elsewhere in this issue.) A New Role for "Alternative" Treatments. Ten years ago, when ACT UP -- and also AIDS TREATMENT NEWS -- began, mainstream AIDS research was largely useless; it was clear even at that time that each day that went by brought us no closer to treatments that could save lives. In those days, the main hope was for some unexpected breakthrough, which might start either as some chance laboratory or clinical observation, or as some "alternative" or folk medicine. There was little hope of getting such an outsider treatment through the drug-development and approval system of that time (or even seriously into the process at all); therefore, the much- criticized "drug of the month club," which developed later, was in fact the best research system available, the most likely to produce results. What has happened, of course, is that mainstream research and development have vastly improved since then. Now it is mainstream science and medicine that are saving lives, completely overshadowing what alternative treatments can do. But alternative treatments still have a role, though a smaller one, and are still very much worth attention. (By "alternative" we mean treatments which are safe enough, available enough, and inexpensive enough to be in popular use, although they have not been formally developed and therefore are seldom prescribed or recommended by mainstream health professionals.) The new role for alternative treatments is for potential therapy of particular problems or conditions resulting either from HIV disease itself, or from drugs used to treat it -- problems such as itching, or neuropathy, or certain drug reactions. Recent possibilities we have covered include NAC (which might have a role in preventing or reducing Septra- type reactions), and acetylcarnitine (in human testing for certain non-HIV neuropathy -- and also sold today by health- food distributors). Other such possibilities we have reported include nutritional approaches for itching, and acupuncture/Chinese medicine for certain HIV-related problems. Note that some of these treatments, especially those that are nutritionally based, may (if they work at all) be offering not just symptomatic relief, but may ameliorate underlying problems. Mainstream research, in the U.S. at least, is largely unable to develop an inexpensive treatment. Since there is seldom big money in a low-priced item, industry is not interested. Government and the nonprofit world seldom pick up the ball, since without corporate interest, an area is not conducive to career development and does not become professionally hot; no matter whom they work for, researchers gravitate elsewhere. Most doctors are too busy to do independent, unsponsored research -- and usually they are strongly discouraged from doing so. For these reasons, it is likely that there are important treatment opportunities which will remain largely untried and unused -- unless activists force the issue and bring them to wider attention. Alternative treatments, therefore, do provide an important opportunity for activists to be of service to people with HIV, both in the U.S. and around the world. A New Issue: Answering Treatment Rejectionists Despite the recent improvements in AIDS treatments, and their great benefit to many, growing numbers of people with HIV are now dropping out of almost all medical care, because they believe the ideology that HIV is not the cause of AIDS, and that almost all mainstream AIDS organizations, activist organizations, and physicians are part of a huge conspiracy "worse than Lysenko" to defraud the public of billions of dollars. Different groups with varying viewpoints are promoting such ideas, but the common theme is that persons with no medical training are getting some people with HIV to reject their doctors' advice completely. People should only use medical drugs to get through a particular infection, it is stated, but otherwise should avoid doctors, listen to their bodies, take common-sense steps to healthy living, and take responsibility for pulling their lives together. This poisonous mix of good advice plus deadly advice is being pushed by strong, charismatic leaders, often excellent debaters who have spent years learning how to argue this viewpoint persuasively. The result is that there are people now rejecting all antiretroviral therapy, and sometimes prophylaxis as well -- based on advice from totally unqualified persons, who have an enormous axe to grind and who give the same medical advice to everyone, regardless of their individual condition or situation. What should we as a community do about this? Clearly the treatment rejectionists have a Constitutional right to speak. But it is sad that people, often new to AIDS and facing life- threatening illness, are getting only one side of the story; they seldom hear any specific refutation or answers. The AIDS world has been largely silent, because people do not want to be targeted, or to be forced to spend time debating what they consider nonsense. But unless some part of the AIDS community will take on the job of researching, preparing, and communicating adequate replies, we will have been derelict in our duty, and people with AIDS will continue to be abandoned, quietly dropping out of the system and losing critical opportunities to extend or save their lives. It will not be easy to answer the treatment rejectionists, because their ideology consists of dozens if not hundreds of half-truths and false or misleading statements, each carefully if not professionally crafted to persuade. Each artful deception could require a small research project and an article to explain the real situation. The result would be a book-length reply, which few would be motivated to read. But the hundreds of distortions do largely seem to cluster into a few major points -- probably no more than about 15 of them. By addressing these major issues, we could produce replies which are communicable. And we must be fully ready to point out where the rejectionists' critique is legitimate and important. (It has been said that a half truth is like half a brick -- you can throw it farther. If nothing these people said was true, no one would put their lives into their hands.) The other key to effectively countering the rejectionists is to be aware of the real concerns and motives of those who are persuaded by them. How can someone be convinced by what appears to be nonsense, to the extent that they will risk their life for it? Part of the answer, we believe, concerns the closed nature of most establishments -- in this case, the AIDS mainstream. Establishments often become ingrown and define a world which offers little opportunity for entry of new people, very bleak options for their involvement. When such an establishment tightens its grip on the definition of legitimate thoughts, statements, and actions, people who are facing an intolerable situation (such as a deadly, permanent epidemic) are trapped. They naturally want to act, but all courses of action open to them are, to a greater or lesser extent, designed for failure. In this situation, they have the choice of giving up, or of breaking out of the box by going to war against the system which constrains them. This is the energy which the treatment rejectionists are now learning to tap. By improving our understanding of this kind of dynamic, we can help develop better options for people. Demos, Zaps, and the Future What do we see as the future role of street demonstrations, phone/fax zaps, affinity actions, and other such protests? Here we have less to say, because demonstrations have not been our element -- although we realize that they have been essential to the success of ACT UP. In this country at least, reasonable positions are seldom news; it can be hard to accomplish much if those making the decisions simply have no reason to listen or to relate. For example, a few years ago the emerging breast-cancer movement could get non-pharmaceutical corporate support beyond the dreams of AIDS organizers when the AIDS movement was at a similar stage. But at the same time the activists who could get this support had trouble having their calls returned by government agencies. Without the issue of homophobia, the fight against breast cancer was an attractive vehicle for corporate public-relations contributions. But without a tradition of demonstrations, there was still a problem getting a foot in the door elsewhere. Why do demonstrations work? The main reason, we believe, is that organizations are afraid of bad publicity. (A lesser reason is that some individuals are afraid of the intense, unstructured situation -- where a momentary misjudgment or mistake can have lasting consequences for one's professional status or reputation.) Historically, the major result of ACT UP demonstrations has been to get activists inside the doors, where the community's work, experience, and knowledge can stand or fall on its merits. Today we are facing harder issues, like drug pricing. Pricing is difficult because it has long been a major issue for millions of people, yet has not been satisfactorily resolved. But pricing is not impossible, as shown by a number of successes by AIDS activists on this issue. As the issues become more difficult, we need to improve our tools. We see two major ways to improve the effectiveness of ACT UP's demonstrations. First, actions need more strategic analysis when they are designed. What often happens is that an action with strong emotional appeal is first proposed and then voted for in one meeting, with no committee work -- sometimes because nobody wants to be in the position of voting against it, even if they are not convinced that the particular target and timing are the best. In retrospect, most actions have worked quite well -- because the strong emotion does indicate a real need, and because bright and experienced people are able to shape the action before it takes place, and after. Still, more attention during the decision process would help. Second, the focus on a single action might evolve into a larger focus on a continuing campaign, especially a media campaign (which can and usually will include one or more traditional ACT UP demonstrations). Since what the target organizations fear is not the action itself but the media exposure which results, why not design the exposure directly? This would include street or affinity actions as now, but also: statements by experts, celebrities, and respected organizations; the placing of human-interest stories (such as reports on persons who cannot afford the company's expensive drug) into major news media; research to contact other people who have grievances against the company or other target; financial investigations and publicity; and when appropriate, official complaints and actions which would themselves be publicized. Sometimes the information needs to be targeted to significant groups or individuals, such as members of a board of directors. The reason for thinking carefully before doing this is that such campaigns would tend to be negative -- like the negative campaigns used in politics, which have long been excessive and have now become unpopular; they may still be effective, but they degrade the overall quality of public life. Is negative campaigning really what we want to do? In any case, we should at least consider the possibility of improving our clout by moving beyond the single-climax action design which has often been our model in the past. Other Major Issues Here are some concerns which we can only mention briefly: * International activism. Recently we heard a proposal (from Paul Boneberg of the Global AIDS Action Network) that U.S. AIDS activists could make their biggest possible long-term contribution to saving lives everywhere by championing scientific research in three key areas: preventive vaccines, topical microbicides, and low-cost treatments. * The FDA. Now that better treatments are becoming available, the FDA may move back toward its traditional restrictiveness, thinking that people no longer need freedom and choices, since the mainstream has more to offer. But as we pointed out above, alternative treatments are still important. There may be more fights with the FDA around denial of access to medications that people want. * Outreach and publication. Since 1995 ACT UP/Golden Gate has published over 50 articles on AIDS treatments and related topics in the BAY AREA REPORTER, a weekly gay newspaper in San Francisco. (Most of the articles are also available on http://www.actupgg.org). Besides providing an important service to readers, this series has greatly increased public awareness of and respect for the organization, and participation in its meetings. * Follow the money? In what is often called a revolution in the investment world, information which was available mainly to financial professionals is now readily accessible to the public, through inexpensive online accounts. Companies care deeply about their investors, and often give them information which is not widely circulated in the general media. There have always been a few AIDS activists who are financial professionals; however, this investment information has not become part of the common currency of the movement. Perhaps it should in the future. * Should activist organizations accept pharmaceutical-company funding? Different approaches are legitimate; some organizations have done excellent work in cooperation with companies which are pursuing their commercial interests. The danger, of course, is that the treatment activist movement could lose its independence. We need to study the history of this loss of independence in other diseases and movements, and make realistic plans for avoiding the common mistakes of the past. ***** AIDS TREATMENT NEWS Published twice monthly Subscription and Editorial Office: P.O. Box 411256 San Francisco, CA 94141 800/TREAT-1-2 toll-free U.S. and Canada 415/255-0588 regular office number fax: 415/255-4659 Internet: aidsnews@aidsnews.org Editor and Publisher: John S. James Reader Services and Business: Danalan Richard Copeland Tom Fontaine Denny Smith Tadd Tobias Statement of Purpose: AIDS TREATMENT NEWS reports on experimental and standard treatments, especially those available now. We interview physicians, scientists, other health professionals, and persons with AIDS or HIV; we also collect information from meetings and conferences, medical journals, and computer databases. Long-term survivors have usually tried many different treatments, and found combinations which work for them. AIDS Treatment News does not recommend particular therapies, but seeks to increase the options available. Subscription Information: Call 800/TREAT-1-2 Businesses, Institutions, Professionals: $230/year. Nonprofit organizations: $115/year. Individuals: $100/year, or $60 for six months. Special discount for persons with financial difficulties: $45/year, or $24 for six months. If you cannot afford a subscription, please write or call. Outside North, Central, or South America, add air mail postage: $20/year, $10 for six months. Back issues available. Fax subscriptions, bulk rates, and multiple subscriptions are available; contact our office for details. Please send U.S. funds: personal check or bank draft, international postal money order, or travelers checks. VISA, Mastercard, and purchase orders also accepted. ISSN # 1052-4207 Copyright 1997 by John S. James. Permission granted for noncommercial reproduction, provided that our address and phone number are included if more than short quotations are used.