Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 02/03/95
From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/[email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 09:21:10 +0500

AIDS Daily Summary
                      February 3, 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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"AIDS Spreading More Slowly in U.S."
"NIH Official Urges Shift in AIDS Policy to Scientist-Initiated
Research"
"Wellcome Increases Profits to 680 Million Pounds"
"Vitamin A Deficiency Linked to Transmission of AIDS Virus from
Mothers to Infants"
"5 Charged with Smuggling Drugs to Puerto Rico"
"No Vaccine for AIDS Seen Before 2000"
"AIDS Dementia: The New Enemy"
"U.S. Bioscience Submits Amended New Drug..."
"HIV-Specific Cytotoxic T-Cells in HIV-Exposed but Uninfected
Gambian Women"
"Congress Deep-Sixes Gallo Report"
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"AIDS Spreading More Slowly in U.S."
Washington Times (02/03/95) P. A13
     The AIDS epidemic is spreading at a slower rate than in previous
years, said federal health officials on Thursday.  A total of
441,528 cases of AIDS have been reported to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since 1981, with 18 percent
of those being reported in 1994.  While the number of AIDS cases
in the United States increased 73.7 percent from 1992 to 1994,
much of the increase was due to the CDC's expansion of the
definition of AIDS to include people with weakened immune
systems, pulmonary tuberculosis, recurrent pneumonia, or invasive
cervical cancer.  Related Stories: New York Times (02/03) P. A17;
Washington Post (02/03) P. A9

"NIH Official Urges Shift in AIDS Policy to Scientist-Initiated
Research"
Washington Post (02/03/95) P. A9;  Brown, David
     William E. Paul, head of the Office of AIDS Research at the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), wrote in Friday's issue of
the journal Science that research money should be distributed
more among individual scientists than committees.  He also said
that more money should be spent on laboratory research for
improved AIDS treatments.  Many activists contended that NIH
should fund research that focused on specific questions and had a
clear list of priorities.  Others called for a program similar to
the "Manhattan Project," which created the atomic bomb 50 years
ago.  Related Story: New York Times (02/03) P. A17; Philadelphia
Inquirer (02/03) P. A3

"Wellcome Increases Profits to 680 Million Pounds"
Financial Times (02/03/95) P. 21;  Green, Daniel
     Wellcome has published its full-year results nearly a month ahead
of schedule, hoping to attract bids to compete with Glaxo's.
Total 1994 sales were 2.28 billion pounds, up from 2.05 billion
pounds in 1993.  Pre-tax profits were 680 million pounds, and
earnings were 46.5p per share.  While sales of the company's
best-selling drug Zovirax--a herpes medication--rose 16 percent,
sales of its number two product Retrovir (AZT), fell from 227
million pounds to 206 million pounds.  Related Stories:
Investor's Business Daily (02/03) P. A17; Washington Post (02/03)
P. A2; New York Times (02/03) P. D5; Wall Street Journal (02/03)
P. A8

"Vitamin A Deficiency Linked to Transmission of AIDS Virus from
Mothers to Infants"
New York Times (02/03/95) P. A17;  Altman, Lawrence K.
     Researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and their
colleagues in Malawi reported on Thursday that a link has been
found between vitamin A deficiency and transmission of HIV from
mother to infant.  The report, which was presented at the closing
session of a meeting sponsored by the American Society for
Microbiology, is thought to be the first to show that maternal
nutritional deficiencies can affect transmission of HIV, said Dr.
Richard D. Semba of Johns Hopkins Hospital, the leader of the
research team.  Doctors and others have long called vitamin A
"the anti-infective vitamin," and deficiency has been linked to
many infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, ear infections,
and malaria.  Several studies in laboratories have shown that
when deprived of vitamin A, T cells and B cells--two types of
immune cells that are critically important in helping the body
fight HIV--fail to function properly.  Vitamin A deficiency can
also lead to impaired production of cytokines, substances
produced by cells that are important to immune reactions.
Semba's team found the link in a study of 567 HIV-infected
pregnant women in a hospital in Malawi.  Of the infants born to
mothers with the most severe deficiency, 93 percent died within
the first year of life, compared to 14 percent of those born to
mothers with healthy vitamin A levels.

"5 Charged with Smuggling Drugs to Puerto Rico"
New York Times (02/03/95) P. A15;  Sullivan, Ronald
     Five people have been charged with smuggling drugs from New York
to Puerto Rico.  The federal drug indictment said that the five
smuggled hundreds of pounds of Southeast Asian heroin to Puerto
Rico from the mid-1980s through late 1992.  Typically, Colombian
drug cartels used Puerto Rico as a principal entry to the United
States, said law-enforcement officials.  As drug addiction has
become an increasing problem in Puerto Rico, however, the New
York-to-Puerto Rico route was established.  Puerto Rico is one of
the largest centers of drug addiction in the United States.
Largely as a result, it has the third-highest rate of HIV
infection, after the District of Columbia and New York state.

"No Vaccine for AIDS Seen Before 2000"
Boston Globe (02/02/95) P. 5;  Knox, Richard A.
     On Wednesday, Dr. Margaret Johnston, the federal government's
AIDS vaccine project director, warned not to expect the first
large-scale human trials of a potential AIDS vaccine until at
least 1998.  The results, she said, would not be available until
early in the next century.  An effective AIDS vaccine will likely
require scientists to insert several synthetic genes from HIV to
a live, but weakened, virus of a different type.  While only a
live-virus vehicle could carry multiple AIDS genes, said
Johnston, such a strategy requires caution because no one knows
whether a live-virus vaccine would be safe for people with
compromised immune systems.  Another unknown is how to protect
people from the broad range of HIV strains.

"AIDS Dementia: The New Enemy"
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (02/02/95) P. 1A;  Signor, Roger
     AIDS dementia has emerged as a deadly foe in the battle against
AIDS.  While drugs help AIDS patients live longer, they also give
HIV more time to invade the brain.  Experts estimate that in the
United States there will be 10,000 to 20,000 new cases of AIDS
dementia each year.  The costs for each patient will be $40,000
to $80,000 a year.  Dr. David B. Clifford, a neurologist at
Washington University, has persuaded the federal government to
grant $1.5 million for nationwide research on AIDS dementia,
which will be conducted by the Neurologic AIDS Research
Consortium.  The consortium will do clinical trials of drugs to
reduce the impact of AIDS on the brain and nervous system.  HIV
has been found in the brains of almost all patients who die from
AIDS.  Approximately 20 percent of all AIDS patients develop
dementia.  The cause of AIDS dementia is not known.  Researchers
speculate, however, that the cause is not nerve damage by HIV,
but may be a toxic effect triggered by HIV infection.  AZT
relieves symptoms of many dementia patients, said Clifford.  His
consortium is planning a trial of a drug, nimodipine, that keeps
HIV from damaging nerve cells in test tube.  The hope is that the
effect will be identical for patients.

"U.S. Bioscience Submits Amended New Drug..."
Business Wire (02/02/95)
     U.S. Bioscience Inc. announced on Thursday that it has filed an
amendment to its New Drug Application for Ethyol based on
discussions with the FDA following the  Oncology Drug Advisory
Committee's Dec. 12 decision to withhold recommendation for
approval  The amendment asserts Ethyol's protective ability
against cumulative renal and hematologic toxicities associated
with cisplatin and cyclophosphamide.  The company also reported
that it has received a worldwide exclusive license to AIDS
compounds FddA and Fddl from the Office of Technology Transfer of
the National Institutes of Health.  Both performed well in
clinical testing.

"HIV-Specific Cytotoxic T-Cells in HIV-Exposed but Uninfected
Gambian Women"
Nature Medicine (01/95) Vol. 1, No. 1, P. 59;  Rowland-Jones,
Sarah;  Sutton, Julian;  Ariyoshi, Koya et al.
     To develop a prophylactic vaccine against HIV, it is critical to
establish whether or not protective immunity can occur following
natural infection.  The immune response to infection with HIV is
characterized by extremely vigorous HIV-specific cytotoxic
T-lymphocyte (CTL) activity.  Researchers identified four HIV-1
and HIV-2 cross-reactive peptide epitopes, presented to CTL from
HIV-infected Gambians by HLA-B35, the most common Gambian human
leucocyte antigen (HLA) class I molecule.  The peptides were used
to elicit HIV-specific CTLs from three out of six frequently
exposed, yet HIV-seronegative, female prostitutes with HLA-B35.
The women continue to be seronegative with no evidence of HIV
infection by polymerase chain reaction or viral culture.  The
findings suggest that CTL generation may be a key component of
protective immunity against HIV and emphasize the importance of
CTL induction in the design of HIV vaccines.

"Congress Deep-Sixes Gallo Report"
Science (01/20/95) Vol. 267, No. 5196, P. 319
     As the Republicans have forced Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) to
give up his position as head of the House subcommittee that
investigates scientific misconduct, it seems that Robert Gallo of
the National Cancer Institute will be spared a final attack on
his reputation.  Dingell's staff had been preparing a report on
Gallo and his lab's role in the discovery of HIV.  Congressional
staffers say, however, that the report will never be formally
released because of the turnover in Congress and resulting
changes in the House Commerce Committee.  The Chicago Tribune
reported that Dingell's staff had concluded in a draft that the
federal government was involved in a "cover-up" to protect Gallo
and the patent he shares with the government for the AIDS blood
test.  The Tribune noted that the draft did not resolve the issue
of whether Gallo's lab had "misappropriated" the HIV it claimed
to have discovered in 1984.  The charge was first raised by the
Pasteur Institute in France, which gave Gallo's lab HIV samples
in 1983 that turned out to be identical to the ones used to make
the blood test.  Gallo maintains that the French samples
contaminated his.  Five years of intensive government scrutiny
have found neither Gallo or others in his lab guilty of
wrong-doing.