Date: Tue, 08 Mar 1994 09:14:09 -0500 (EST) From: "ANNE WILSON, CDC NAC" Subject: CDC AIDS DAILY SUMMARY 03/08/94 AIDS Daily Summary March 08, 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 1993, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD "Rare HIV Virus Found in Australia" Reuters (03/08/94) Sydney, Australia--Two Australian men have been diagnosed positive for HIV-2, a strain of the virus that is widespread in West Africa but rare in Australia, according to the latest issue of the Australian HIV Surveillance Report. The only other Australian to be diagnosed with HIV-2 is a migrant from West Africa. The discovery has raised concerns that people who tested negative for HIV may actually be HIV-positive. "Clearly HIV-2 has to be considered now as a possibility in those who show symptoms of HIV but may have tested negative for HIV-1," said a spokeswoman for the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research. While she said her agency could not determine exactly how many other cases of HIV-2 there might be, the spokeswoman said the number would be very low. Australian blood banks, which have screened for HIV-2 since 1992, have no reports of the virus, she said. According to the report, HIV-2 attacks the immune system much in the same way as does HIV-1, but persons infected with HIV-2 appear to progress more slowly toward AIDS. "Usual Routes of Infection Ruled Out" USA Today (03/08/94) P. 1D (Painter, Kim) After two years of intense publicity and official investigation concerning how a young girl from Illinois became infected with HIV, the 12-year-old's parents now say they have the answer. After ruling out the usual means of transmission--perinatal transmission, transfusions, molestation--Anita and Bruce Williams claim their daughter Whitney contracted HIV from an oral polio vaccine she received three times between April and August 1982. The family, which has filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against vaccine manufacturer American Cyanamid Co., is basing this belief on a theory that says monkey kidneys used in some vaccines may have been tainted with HIV-related viruses. The Williamses' claim, however, is rejected by most scientists, including leading health authorities from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Public Health Service. But the family says experts--whom they refuse to name--will produce new evidence in court. Meanwhile, health officials will continue to investigate another angle--Bruce Williams' ties to the gay community. The father admits to placing ads in gay publications describing himself as a gay man looking to artificially inseminate a woman to bear a child for him. Williams maintains that he is not gay. "World AIDS Chief Warns China Time Is Running Out" Reuters (03/08/94) Beijing--The World Health Organization's top AIDS official warned China that rapid social change could fuel the AIDS epidemic in the world's most populous country if measures are not taken to prevent the spread of the disease. With only 1,200 official HIV infections and a handful of AIDS cases, China is statistically far behind regional centers of AIDS like India and Thailand, but the numbers are increasing. Michael Merson, head of WHO's global program on AIDS, predicted that this trend would likely continue as economic change alters Chinese society. Greater mobility spurred by greater affluence, as well as changing sexual attitudes and behavior are boosting the risks for infection. "The potential here for a serious epidemic certainly exists," according to Merson. "China needs to make this a priority." While he has observed a measure of improvement on the part of the Chinese government to muster support in the battle against AIDS, Merson said more needs to be done to prevent the country from being overwhelmed by the wave of infection now spreading across Southeast Asia. He said China's main hope for avoiding AIDS was education and a concerted government effort to change people's attitudes about what is still widely perceived as a "foreigner's disease." "Needle-Exchange Program to Fight AIDS Starts in Boston" United Press International (03/07/94) Boston--With yesterday's opening of a needle-exchange program, Boston became the 20th major city in America to try to stem the spread of AIDS by providing clean syringes to drug addicts. The state-funded pilot program, the result of five years of effort by AIDS activists, will permit the distribution of clean needles to drug users at designated areas throughout the city on weekdays. Under the law signed last year by Gov. William Weld, Massachusetts will allocate $100,000 a year to administer the needle-exchange program. Sponsors hope that the pilot program will lead to a comprehensive statewide program. According to health officials, HIV is spreading more rapidly among intravenous drug users, and an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 addicts across the state are at risk for infection. "Philippines Shuts Down 269 Blood Banks" Reuters (03/07/94) Manila--In the wake of a study showing that some blood available for transfusion was in fact infected with syphilis, hepatitis, and HIV, Philippine Health Secretary Juan Flavier has ordered the closure of 269 blood suppliers. The outlets ordered to shut down operation include street corner stores, as well as private homes--where blood packs are stored in refrigerators along with food, according to officials. The outlets buy supplies from licensed blood banks and sell them to patients in their neighborhoods who are in need of blood. Warning that their unregulated operations threaten the safety of the country's blood supply, Flavier gave the outlets until Thursday to close. "Churches Join War on AIDS" St. Louis Post-Dispatch (03/07/94) P. 8B (Todd, Cynthia) St. Paul A.M.E. Church in St. Louis was one of about 2,000 congregations in some 200 cities that observed the Black Church National Day of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS on Sunday. Activists organized the event in response to what they called a trend among black churches to ignore the disease, which disproportionately affects the members of their congregations. "The black churches are the focus because they have been slow to admit the problem and commit to educating the people," said Josephine Ingram of the Northside AIDS Outreach Project in St. Louis. From a religious angle, the Rev. Bill McGill of Iowa added that "the victims of HIV and AIDS have been ostracized as suffering from a plague from God. If AIDS is a plague from God, then so is cancer to those who smoke ... so is obesity to those who can't diet." "There's Much You Can Do to Slow AIDS" Boston Globe (03/07/94) P. 29 (Lehman, Betsy) While AZT is the most widely recognizable drug in the fight against AIDS, four other drugs deserve just as much attention for their role in the daily struggle against AIDS-related infections. Bactrim, Septra, aerosolized pentamidine, and Dapsone are prolonging life, saving money, and keeping people healthier and out of hospitals by preventing Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), a deadly form of pneumonia that is often a marker of AIDS. It has, for years, been the leading cause of death among AIDS patients. All four of the medications, known as antimicrobials, are FDA approved and kill the protozoa before it can cause disease. Since doctors began focusing on PCP prevention in the late 1980s, survival after AIDS diagnosis has increased from nine to 18 months. With preventive medicines, the proportion of AIDS diagnoses triggered by PCP has dropped from 60 percent in 1988 to 39 percent in 1992. "PCP prophylaxis is probably the most important thing you can do for HIV-infected persons," agrees Dr. John W. Ward, chief of AIDS surveillance for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "'The HIV World'" Maclean's (02/28/94) Vol. 107, No. 8, P. 6 Last week, Ontario's Criminal Injuries Compensation Board awarded an AIDS patient $15,000 for pain and suffering resulting from her infection through unprotected sex with an HIV-positive man who was under public-health orders not to engage in intercourse. From 1989 to 1991, Charles Ssenyonga transmitted the virus through unprotected sex to three women whom he did not inform of his condition. He died last July, just days before an Ontario court was to decide whether he was guilty of criminal negligence for his sexual behavior. One of the infected women, who now has AIDS and is not expected to live for more than one year, applied to the Board for compensation. Although the one-woman, one-man board granted compensation, it also found the woman partially responsible for her tragedy. "The board does not condone the behavior of the alleged offender, but in the HIV world in which we all find ourselves living today, it is the view of the board [that] each person must accept some responsibility for the consequences of unprotected sexual intercourse," said the board. "The applicant's behavior in engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse was behavior which contributed to the injury she sustained." "Condom Sales Cool Off; Carefree Attitudes of Youth, Poor Marketing Are Blamed" Marketing News (02/28/94) Vol. 28, No. 5, P. 1 (Miller, Cyndee) According to Eugene Freed, who has been marketing condoms for two decades, less than 10 percent of the population was using condoms until 1986. When former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report in the late 1980s advocating condom use to curb the spread of AIDS, use soared and the industry posted double-digit sales increases. "That really turned things around, and the category grew by about 40 percent or 50 percent but things have leveled off now," says Freed, vice president of condom sales and marketing at Safetex, which produces the Gold Circle brand. "Every now and then things like Magic Johnson announcing that he was HIV-positive result in a little blip, but it's never turned around the category the way you would expect." Industry experts blame trickling condom sales on a number of factors, including the attitude among young people that they are invincible. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 48 percent of sexually active teens use condoms, and some say that figure is optimistic. The slowdown in condom sales is also attributed to poor marketing. Irma Zandl, whose firm specializes in marketing to youth, admits that condoms are "a hard sell." She says marketers "really have to take a bottoms-up approach, going in-depth over all the issues relative to sex and how condom use fits in." Zandl says this will take a lot of insight into the consumer--something she has not seen among the condom companies, partly because of their small marketing budgets. Sales may, however, receive a boost from the new condom ads from the federal government. ""Living Benefits"--Options and Resources" AIDS Treatment News (02/18/94) No. 193, P. 6 (McCormack, Thomas P.) The "living benefits" movement for realizing cash from life insurance for terminally ill people--including AIDS patients--continues to expand. There are three major avenues to take in the quest for cash from life insurance policies, but most know only of "viatical settlements," in which the life insurance policy is sold at a discount to an investor, who becomes the beneficiary and collects after the patient has died. This method is the most well-known, for there are at least 54 viatication firms operating today, but this should be the last choice if one of the other two options is available. Living benefits through private loans made by close friends or relatives in exchange for being named as beneficiaries of the patient's life insurance policy is one such option. The advantage of this strategy is that the loans--unlike viatical settlements--are not taxable, and they avoid the discounting of viatical firms. The second choice is accelerated benefits, riders already included in or added to a patient's policy by the insurance company. After submitting acceptable proof that death is expected at most within the next year, the patient is given part or all of the policy's death benefit, with any remainder being paid to beneficiaries. These two approaches are preferred over viatical settlements, which should be sought only as a final option.