From: "ANNE WILSON, CDC NAC" <[email-masked]>

AIDS Daily Summary 
                     December 22, 1993 
 
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 1993, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD
 
"In Minnesota, Settlement Is First for AIDS Bias by Health  
Insurer" 
New York Times (12/22/92) P. A19  (Freudenheim, Milt) 
     A union welfare fund in Minnesota yesterday settled charges of  
discrimination against members with AIDS by agreeing to pay  
$100,000 to the estate of 36-year-old Mark Kadinger, a  
construction worker who died last November.  The settlement  
represents the first major award in a case filed under the  
Americans With Disabilities Act involving AIDS-based denial of  
health insurance.  In the agreement, the health plan of Local 110 
of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in St.  
Paul and the electrical contractors' association said they would  
lift the $50,000 payment ceiling for AIDS-related conditions.   
The defendants will also donate $2,500 to the Minnesota AIDS  
project, an advocacy group.  In addition, the health plan  agreed 
to present educational seminars for trustees of the plan  
regarding its obligations under the disabilities act.  Before the 
act took effect last year, several decisions by federal appeals  
courts gave health plans wide leeway to refuse payments for AIDS  
and other especially costly illnesses under the Employee  
Retirement Income Security Act, the federal pension law. 
       
"Will Work for Health Coverage" 
Los Angeles Times--Washington Edition (12/22/93) P. B8  (Dutka,  
Elaine) 
     Confronted with the potential loss of his Screen Actors Guild  
health insurance, HIV-positive Lee Mathis placed an ad in Variety 
magazine to seek work.  "Healthy HIV-positive actor needs $3,500  
worth of SAG work by Dec. 31 to maintain his health insurance,"  
said the classified, accompanied by a photo of the actor.   
Mathis, who tested HIV-positive eight years ago and has remained  
asymptomatic, needs to earn the minimum necessary to qualify for  
SAG medical coverage by the end of the year.  The actor appeared  
in three Broadway productions before heading to Hollywood, where  
he earned small parts on television and in film.  But, says  
Mathis, without moonlighting as a bartender, he would not have  
been able to survive.  Things have brightened for the actor since 
he placed his ad, including spots in "Lois & Clark" and "Murder  
in the First," a new courtroom drama.  He is still, however,   
$2,400 short of his goal and is exploring alternate  
possibilities.  Of the disease itself, Mathis says that he  
intends to live his life to the fullest.  "Though some  
HIV-positive people collect their life insurance early or head to 
Hawaii to relax," he says, "I choose to think that AIDS isn't an  
inevitability." 
       
"Symbol of Hope Dies of AIDS" 
Toronto Globe and Mail (Canada) (12/21/93) P. A3  (Picard, Andre) 
     Stephen Christmas, who as a child was a medical miracle, died  
Monday of complications from AIDS, which he contracted from  
contaminated blood.  In 1952, it was discovered that he lacked  
the blood component called Factor 9, and the clotting disorder  
was subsequently named Christmas disease.  The discovery was a  
major scientific advance which led to the isolation of Factor 9  
for injection in concentrated form rather than subjecting  
hemophiliacs to whole-blood transfusions.  The breakthrough saved 
the lives of thousands of hemophiliacs who, at the time, rarely  
lived beyond adolescence, and allowed many others to lead  
healthy, normal lives.  "The tragic irony is the thing  
hemophiliacs needed to survive has led to their premature death," 
said Jerome Teitel, medical director of the hemophilia program at 
St. Michael's Hospital.  "It's even more potent symbolism when  
you realize that he was the original Christmas."  Some 1,000  
Canadian hemophiliacs and blood-transfusion recipients have been  
infected with the AIDS virus through tainted blood, with nearly  
400 of them already dead.  Christmas was not only an  
inspirational symbol for hemophiliacs, but he was also an  
activist who was critical in bringing the tainted-blood issue to  
national attention. 
       
"Expanded IND for AIDS Immune Reconstitution Cell-Transfer  
Therapy Submitted to FDA" 
Business Wire (12/21/93) 
     Fort Lauderdale, Fla.--Center for Special Immunology (CSI), a  
subsidiary of Health Professionals Inc. (HPI), has submitted an  
Investigational New Drug Application to the Food and Drug  
Administration for a Phase I clinical trial of its Immune  
Reconstitution Cell-Transfer Therapy.  The treatment involves  
monthly infusions of licensed human intravenous immune globulin  
followed by closely-matched peripheral blood lymphocytes from an  
HIV-negative donor, generally a close relative.  The patient is  
usually in the late stages of AIDS disease, and is maintained on  
antiretroviral and prophylactic therapy against opportunistic  
infections.  The results of a pilot clinical program provide some 
support for expanded study.  "The Immune Reconstitution Treatment 
Program was developed by physicians affiliated with CSI in an  
effort to help their patients with late stage AIDS who had failed 
conventional therapies and for whom there was no acceptable  
alternative therapy," said HPI's chairman and CEO, William M.  
Reiter.  "Cell transfer and expansion therapies have the  
potential to fill an urgently needed and critical role in  
evolving AIDS therapies." 
       
"Stalking a Vaccine" 
Washington Technology (12/02/93) Vol. 8, No. 17, P. 25   
(Brendler, Beau) 
     While most potential AIDS vaccines focus on the outer "envelope"  
of HIV made up of proteins and able to change 1,000 faster than  
the second fastest virus, Cel-Sci Corp. of Alexandria, Va., is  
taking an out-of-the-mainstream approach.  The company's vaccine, 
HGP-30, was the first in the world to concentrate on the core of  
HIV, but is still a relative unknown.  It is based on a protein  
in the core of the virus that does not change throughout its  
strains and is a synthetic copy of the core protein so that it  
cannot cause AIDS in healthy people.  Early trials indicated that 
the vaccine produced killer T-cells, which destroy AIDS-infected  
cells before they take over the body.  Other studies observed  
immune responses triggered by the vaccine.  In addition, blood  
immunized with the drug and placed in mice without an immune  
system showed a 75 percent rate of protection.  Cel-Sci has  
entered into a joint venture with Alpha 1 Biomedicals to oversee  
the AIDS research. 
       
"Court Supports Hospital Transfer" 
AIDS Alert (12/93) Vol. 8, No. 12, P. 195 
     A U.S. Court of Appeals has decided that a Houston hospital has  
the legal authority to transfer an HIV-infected surgical  
technician to a clerical job in the facility's purchasing  
department.  The court ruled that, although the risk of  
transmission to patients is minimal, a "cognizable risk of  
permanent duration with lethal consequences" is sufficient  
grounds to disqualify the technician from his position, according 
to a report in the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) Health Law  
Reporter.  The court also found that the technician "often comes  
within inches of open wounds and places his hands in the body  
cavity roughly once a day."  He also reportedly suffered five  
needlestick wounds while working, the report said.  The  
technician, an employee of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson  
Cancer Center, argued that the job transfer was a violation of  
the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. 
       
""Origin of AIDS" Update" 
Rolling Stone (12/09/93) No. 671, P. 39 
     A March 1992 article in Rolling Stone magazine explored the  
origins of the AIDS virus.  The article focused on the  
possibility that the virus might have been transmitted  
inadvertently from monkeys to humans during a mass  
polio-vaccination campaign conducted in the Belgian Congo from  
1957 to 1960.  The contention about the vaccine developed by Dr.  
Hilary Koprowski was mentioned, not as fact, but as one of  
several disputed and unproven theories.  Following publication,  
the Wistar Institute, where the Congo vaccine was made, formed a  
committee of six prominent scientists who  examined the theory.   
After more than six months of study, it was concluded that the  
possibility that the AIDS virus was transmitted through the  
vaccine was "extremely low."  A seaman in England, with no known  
affiliation with the vaccine, died of AIDS in 1959, cited the  
committee.  Because he was the first confirmed case of AIDS, the  
committee said that it was almost 100 percent sure that the large 
polio vaccine trial in the Congo was not the origin of AIDS.  In  
the December 1993 issue of Rolling Stone, the publication  
clarifies that it did not intend to suggest that there was any  
scientific proof supporting the theory, or that  Koprowski was in 
any way responsible.  The magazine further apologizes for any  
damage to Koprowski's reputation caused by the article. 
       
"Buckeyballs and HIV" 
Discover (12/93) Vol. 14, No. 12, P. 22 
     Buckyballs, soccer ball-shaped molecules fascinating scientists  
around the globe, and HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, seem an  
unlikely pair.  But researchers at the University of California  
at San Francisco claim buckyballs are able to cripple the enzyme  
machinery essential for the AIDS virus to reproduce.  Buckyballs  
could possibly act as inhibitors of HIV protease, an enzyme of  
the virus necessary for HIV replication.  Simon Friedman, a  
graduate student of chemistry at UCSF, decided to test the idea  
by using modified buckyballs, called fulleroids, to enable  
himself to work in the aqueous environment of a living cell.   
When he mixed a solution of fulleroids with HIV protease, he  
found no evidence that the HIV protease had been clipping the  
original polyprotein in two, as it should have been doing.   
Researchers at Emory University decided to expand the experiment. 
They discovered that fulleroids actually block HIV from  
reproducing in cultures of infected white blood cells, without  
harming healthy cells.  Whether buckyballs will ever be developed 
into a practical treatment for AIDS is uncertain, for many other  
substances have been shown to disable HIV in the lab.  The true  
test is whether buckyballs can do the same, and do so safely, in  
the human body of a person infected with the AIDS virus--a  
question that will take years to resolve. 
       
"Broadcast News" 
Advocate (12/14/93) 644, P. 38 
     After years of public relations work on AIDS awareness campaigns  
and upon the discovery that he is infected with HIV, Chris  
DeChant decided he wanted to make information on the virus even  
more accessible.  The fruit of his ambition is "Aware: HIV Talk  
Radio," a Chicago-based show that is now in syndication  
nationwide.  First broadcast in August of 1992, DeChant's show  
can now be heard in Los Angeles, Dallas, St. Louis, Cleveland,  
Philadelphia, and South Bend, Ind., as well as on two additional  
stations in Chicago.  His goal is to eventually be heard on 30-50 
stations across the country.  "Aware" has explored such issues as 
criminal HIV transmission laws, understanding sexual addiction,  
coping with HIV in the workplace, and natural healing.  "Every  
show is there not only to give people resources, but to teach  
them ways that they can take care of themselves, take care of the 
people around them, and strive for health in life, whether  
they're infected or not," DeChant says. 
       
"HIV Sufferers Have a Responsibility" 
Time (12/13/93) Vol. 142, No. 25, P. 100  (Etzioni, Amitai) 
     A massive prevention drive is a viable strategy to save lives at  
risk for AIDS, says Amitai Etzioni, founder of the communitarian  
movement.  Homosexuals, drug addicts who share needles, and  
patients who received blood transfusions before 1985 must be  
urged to undergo HIV testing, says Etzioni.  Those with a  
positive diagnosis should inform past sexual partners and warn  
future ones.  The more responsible the infected, the fewer dead  
trailing behind them, Etzioni asserts.  Some insist that HIV  
testing and contact tracing are a "cruel hoax," given the already 
overcrowded status of AIDS facilities.  But Etzioni contends  
that, although tragically there is no cure to save the lives of  
those who are already infected, it is the duty of the same to try 
to help save the lives of others.  Intimacy without prior  
disclosure is like "serving arsenic in a cake," says Etzioni.   
And neglecting to notify former sexual contacts allows them to  
unknowingly pass on the virus to uncounted others.  Another  
concern about testing and tracing is that it could cause an  
infected person to lose a job, health insurance, housing, and  
privacy.  Etzioni suggests that a major AIDS prevention campaign  
be accompanied by intensive public education about how the  
disease is not transmitted, as well as by safeguards on data  
banks and greater penalties for those who discriminate against or 
abuse HIV-positive people.  Finally, for those who wince at the  
perceived cost of HIV testing, Etzioni points to the suggestion  
by the Centers for Disease Control, in which hospitals ask  
patients whose blood is already being tested if they would  
consent to having it screened for HIV, too.  The test would be  
only $60 or less, and if those found positive were to infect on  
average just one less person, the tests would pay for themselves.