Date: Thu, 08 Sep 1994 09:19:22 -0400 (EDT) From: "ANNE WILSON, CDC NAC" Subject: CDC AIDS DAILY SUMMARY 09/08/94 AIDS Daily Summary September 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 1994, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD ************************************************************ "FDA Closes U.S. Border to Canadian Blood Plasma" "Nationline: AIDS Fight" "Across the USA: Georgia" "AIDS Quilt Will Be Displayed at Goucher" "Embattled Oakland University Researcher Holds News Conference" "Hard-Hitting Comic on AIDS Wins Kudos from Teen-Agers" "Female-to-Female Sexual Contact and HIV Transmission" "Should I Consider a Viatical Settlement?" "Yokohama Conference Overview" ************************************************************ "FDA Closes U.S. Border to Canadian Blood Plasma" Washington Post (09/08/94) P. A32; Swardson, Anne Citing violations of American safety regulations, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has ordered the Canadian Red Cross to stop sending some of its blood products to the United States for processing. Even though there are no indications that Toronto blood bank's products ever entered the U.S. blood supply, the Canadian Red Cross has become the object of great criticism over recent months. Last July, an FDA inspector cited 19 violations of U.S. safety regulations. Any agency that sends its blood and blood products to the United States must meet U.S. safety rules. "Source plasma," which is obtained from direct blood donations, is now banned from entering the United States from Canada. The violations include that: Canadian plasma donors were not screened carefully to eliminate high-risk donors, and that large amounts of blood was mislabeled. The Canadian Red Cross acknowledges "short-term problems," and says it hopes to have the ban lifted by December. The Toronto violations were discovered during a one-year study on how Canada's blood system infected more than 1,000 people with AIDS during the 1970s and 1980s. Related Story: New York Times (09/08) P. A 18 "Nationline: AIDS Fight" Investor's Business Daily (09/08/94) P. A1 The Los Angeles City Council will vote on Tuesday on whether to support Mayor Richard Riordan's emergency declaration to allow distribution of syringes to drug users. City AIDS coordinator Fred Eggan says that 9 percent of the city's injection drug users have been infected with HIV. He calls the needle exchange program an attempt "to keep people alive long enough that they can maybe make a decision to change the way they live." "Across the USA: Georgia" USA Today (09/08/94) P. 9A A Georgia court has ruled that Morrison Dental Associates is responsible for Ron Marasco, a dentist who did not reveal that he had AIDS. The court awarded $850,000 to 495 patients of the now-deceased doctor, none of whom has tested positive for HIV. "AIDS Quilt Will Be Displayed at Goucher" Baltimore Sun (09/08/94) P. 10E; Dorsey, John A student-organized project will bring more than 700 panels of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt to Goucher College Sept. 16-18. Films and lectures are being held this week as part of the effort to improve AIDS awareness at the college and in society. The quilt, started in 1987, now consists of more than 27,000 panels from all 50 states. The Goucher display will show the largest number of panels in Baltimore since the quilt was exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1989. "Embattled Oakland University Researcher Holds News Conference" PR Newswire (09/07/94) Suspended Oakland University researcher G. Rasul Chaudhry, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences will hold a press conference on Sept. 8 at 10 a.m. Chaudhry, an internationally known biomedical researcher, has worked at Oakland University in HIV-related research since 1989. In 1993, he was ordered to stop his research because of possible safety violations in the handling and storage of infectious SIV and HIV materials. These allegations have never been proven in court. Chaudhry was suspended on August 11, 1994 and is awaiting the results of a September hearing on whether he will be reinstated. "Hard-Hitting Comic on AIDS Wins Kudos from Teen-Agers" Nikkei Weekly (08/22/94) Vol. 32, No. 1,634, P. B14 "Jo," a popular comic in Geneva, is helping to educate young people about AIDS. The comic's protagonist is an ordinary girl who becomes infected with AIDS and eventually dies. At age 18, young Swiss receive copies of "Jo" from the municipal government of Geneva. Because of its popularity, the comic is also exported to France and Belgium. "Jo" is based on a story created by a group of doctors and teachers in Geneva. "Female-to-Female Sexual Contact and HIV Transmission" Journal of the American Medical Association (08/10/94) Vol. 272, No. 6, P. 433; Chu, Susan Y.; Conti, Lisa; Schable, Barbara A. et al. A surveillance project was conducted based on interviews with 1122 women who were reported with HIV/AIDS between January 1990 and September 1993. The study revealed that 61 women had sex with other women in the past five years and 55 of those had sexual contact with men during that same period. Of that group, 28 percent reported injecting drugs--20 of them using crack or cocaine. The interviews showed that 33 of the women had a history of sexually transmitted disease, and 31 had exchanged sex for money or drugs. Eight of the 10 women who reported having sexual contact only with women reported intravenous drug use. The study supported previous findings that female sexual contact is a possible means of HIV transmission. Most of the women interviewed (63/65) had HIV high-risk factors relating to sex with men or drug use. Many of the female partners of the interviewees were involved in risk behavior as well. Chu's study demonstrates that sexual identity--i.e., lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual--does not predict sexual practices and that inaccurate assumptions based on sexual orientation may result in failure to target risk behaviors. "Should I Consider a Viatical Settlement?" Advocate (09/06/94) No. 663, P. 49; Mickens, Ed HIV-positive people who are considering a viatical settlement--selling their life insurance for cash--generally must fulfill two conditions before a company will buy: a sound policy held for more than two years and a viable medical prognosis stating that the patient has less than two years left to live. Individual policies are preferred over group policies, and group policies will sell only if they have a rider that guarantees payments if disability occurs. Sellers can receive from 50 to 80 percent of the face value, says financial adviser Per Larson, and the shorter the seller's life expectancy, the more money the seller will get. But brokers, who sell policies to investors, usually shave four to eight percentage points off of the sellers' return as a commission, and some viatical firms try to take advantage of ignorant customers. Some experts suggest that viatical settlements should be pursued as a last resort, noting that the money obtained from them is not exempt from taxation. They point out that there are other options--such as borrowing from family or friends using your life insurance as collateral--which are tax-free and can yield the entire face value of a policy. "Yokohama Conference Overview" AIDS Treatment News (08/19/94) No. 205, P. 1; James, John S. The 10th International Conference on AIDS revealed quite a bit of progress in research, but no definite treatment or cure for the disease. Perhaps the most significant development is the testing for HIV RNA with the quantitative PCR or the branched DNA assay, which can tell how much virus is in the blood plasma. This method is not yet proven but, if successful, it could be an important tool when a patient is considering a change in antiviral treatment. This kind of testing may provide information on how well the treatment is working. The HIV RNA test might also be useful if the new treatment is not an antiviral, because it can measure the treatment's effectiveness in helping the body control the virus. However, researchers know far less about how to interpret the test's results in such cases. The RNA test also gives reason for new interest in alternative treatments, which previously were plagued by the absence of a method to test its effectiveness without a huge clinical trial requiring unavailable resources. Now these treatments and their effects can be observed in individual patients. THE END.