Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 09:23:36 +0500 From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghmcleaf}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com AIDS Daily Summary March 13, 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 ************************************************************ "Building Homelessness, Not Housing" "A Crash Course in Campus Sex" "Positively Negative" "CDC to Lower Estimate of HIV-Infected Americans--Report" "AIDS Vaccine Called Scientifically Possible" "AIDS No. 2 Killer of Toronto Men, City Says" "HIV Testing Gives Babies Chance for Normal Life" "Active HIV Protease Analog Synthesized Chemically" "Valacyclovir Study Stopped--Worse Survival" "Baker Drops N.Y. AIDS Appeal" ************************************************************ "Building Homelessness, Not Housing" New York Times (03/13/95) P. A19; Sandorf, Julie This month, the House Appropriations Committee decided to cut rental assistance in this year's budget for the disabled homeless and to eliminate federal housing assistance for homeless people with AIDS. Although this is not Congress' last word on how to care for "the poorest Americans," it sends a bleak signal, writes Julie Sandorf--president of the Corporation for Supportive Housing. The bottom line is that it costs considerably more not to house these people than to house them. The House panel cut $186 million from a program that would have helped fund 35,000 housing units for people with AIDS. Unless these people have a stable place to live and access to primary care, they are likely to live on the streets and in hospitals. The average cost of a hospital bed is $1,085 a day, while supportive housing costs $40 to $100 a day. If the cutbacks mean that even 1,000 AIDS patients are inappropriately housed in hospitals, the extra cost to taxpayers will be $360 million a year. The proven answer to homelessness for the majority of homeless people is supportive housing--combining permanent housing with services such as health care, job counseling, and therapy--concludes Sandorf. "A Crash Course in Campus Sex" USA Today (03/13/95) P. 1D; della Cava, Marco R. As colleges capitulate this week for spring break, the students seem to be divided into two groups--those who shrug off the threat of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and those whose deep concerns often drive them to swearing off sex. Cases of HIV among the national college population remain low, according to James C. Turner, director of student health at the University of Virginia (UVa). And because the numbers are low, many college-aged kids are falsely reassured into having unsafe sex, and are contracting STDs at an alarming rate. Conversations with UVa undergraduates reveal that although information on sex is widely available, it is often ignored. Another theme that emerges from these conversations is that, despite an intense focus on sexual issues, AIDS is still a hush-hush topic. Susan Firkaly, UVa's associate director for health promotion, said that no student at the university has gone public about being HIV-positive. "You'd be alienated," said one student. Most students agreed, citing the school's conservative air. "Positively Negative" New York Times (03/13/95) P. B1; Dunlap, David W. Although it forces them to confront mortality at a very early moment in dating, AIDS has become a fact of life for many gay men. HIV is so widespread that it would be almost impossible for HIV-negative gay men to lead social lives that exclude sero-positive men. Frank Carbone, the executive director of Body Positive, a service organization for people with AIDS and HIV, estimates that "to be a gay man in New York City and dating means that you probably have a 40- to 60-percent chance of meeting someone who's positive." As a result, there are many relationships in which one partner is HIV-positive and one is HIV-negative; they are called "sero-discordant" couples. Such relationships are not easy. The HIV-negative partner, for example, faces the prospect of caring for a sick companion and then losing him, in addition to becoming infected himself. The HIV-infected partner lives with the fear of being abandoned in illness, of burdening his companion with grief, or transmitting the virus. Sero-discordant couples are also more likely to focus on long-term survival. "This is a day and age when HIV is not a death sentence," said John Juska, an HIV-negative man who is nearing a second anniversary with an HIV-positive man. "CDC to Lower Estimate of HIV-Infected Americans--Report" Reuters (03/10/95) On Friday, NBC News reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is ready to lower its estimate of the number of HIV-infected Americans by 20 percent. For the last five years, the government has said that nearly 1 million people in the country were infected with the virus that causes AIDS. NBC, however, said it had learned that the CDC "is preparing to admit that figure is wrong, much too high." The network said the CDC's old estimate from 1989 was a range from 800,000 to 1.2 million, but quoted unidentified government officials as saying the new estimate would be from 600,000 to 1 million. The government delayed publication of the new estimates because officials were concerned about the reaction of those in Congress who might want to cut the budget for AIDS research and care, NBC said. "AIDS Vaccine Called Scientifically Possible" Toronto Globe and Mail (03/10/95) P. A4; Coutts, Jane Although an AIDS vaccine is scientifically possible, it probably will not be developed unless social pressure can overcome the profit concerns of drug manufacturers, said Donald Francis, a leading expert on AIDS on Thursday. Francis said that private manufacturers who finance drug research stand to make more money through developing treatments for the disease than through finding a vaccine for it. Another factor working against vaccine development is that it is difficult to judge, without lengthy and expensive clinical trials, whether the vaccine will actually work. Francis said there have been several studies that have found that an AIDS vaccine will not reach the development stage unless the government supports the expensive clinical trials. "AIDS No. 2 Killer of Toronto Men, City Says" Toronto Globe and Mail (03/10/95) P. A1; Galt, Virginia Unsafe sex, the emergence of a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis (TB), a large homeless population, and poverty have created serious challenges to Toronto's public health system, the Public Health Department said on Thursday. Despite heavy promotion of safe sex, there are still 500 to 600 new cases of HIV infection reported in Toronto each year. AIDS has become the second leading killer of Toronto men, after heart disease, according to a health report on the status of public health in Toronto. TB is also reappearing as a public health threat, with 10 percent of new cases resistant to standard treatment. Amidst some "serious concerns," the report concludes that "the overall health of Torontonians remains good." The Board of Health says that although the issues have changed, Toronto's overall good health record is due to the city's century-old promotion of public health. "HIV Testing Gives Babies Chance for Normal Life" Houston Chronicle (03/10/95) P. 37A; Hamric, Peggy The purpose of House Bill 1345, which promotes universal HIV testing for all pregnant women, is to alert women who may unknowingly be at risk and give them the opportunity to prevent HIV transmission to their children, writes Rep. Peggy Hamric--the filer of the bill and a Republican who represents Texas House District 126 in northwest Harris County, in the Houston Chronicle. Under HB 1345, neither AZT therapy nor HIV testing is mandatory. The mother will have the final decision after weighing the benefits and risks with her doctor. Upon the initial prenatal care visit, the patient would be provided with information about HIV transmission and prevention, about how being infected could affect the health of the child, and about the medication available to prevent maternal-infant transmission. If the mother chooses not to be tested, it would merely be noted in her records. Although confidentiality and the right to privacy have long been the social rationalization behind avoiding a standardized HIV test, we must face the inevitability of detecting the virus in the mother--be it through routine prenatal testing or in the diagnosis of an HIV-positive child, concludes Hamric. "Active HIV Protease Analog Synthesized Chemically" Chemical and Engineering News (02/27/95) Vol. 73, No. 9, P. 38 Four researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., have developed an HIV protease analog with full activity and catalytic properties that are indistinguishable from those of the naturally occurring enzyme. The 22,000-dalton protease, which was made by chemical ligation of four unprotected peptide segments, is believed to be the largest functional protein ever synthesized chemically. Chemical ligation, a technique developed by the Scripps team of Stephen B.H. Kent et al., enables unprotected peptide segments to be linked by chemoselective reaction. Kent's group is currently using chemical ligation to alter HIV protease as a probe of the enzyme's mechanism. "Valacyclovir Study Stopped--Worse Survival" AIDS Treatment News (02/17/95) No. 217, P. 7; James, John S. ACTG 204, a study of valacyclovir being conducted by the AIDS Clinical Trials Group with support from Burroughs Wellcome Co., was stopped on Feb. 13 because those patients who received the drug had worse survival rates than those in either the low or high dose acyclovir groups. Valacyclovir is a prodrug of acyclovir, which means that it becomes acyclovir inside the body. The goal of the study was to see whether valacyclovir could help prevent cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in persons with advanced HIV infection. Although high-dose acyclovir had been found to prevent CMV in organ-transplant patients, attempts to use it to prevent CMV in AIDS patients have not been promising. The theory behind the trial was that the higher dose possible with valacyclovir might offer a practical treatment to prevent CMV disease. "Baker Drops N.Y. AIDS Appeal" National Law Journal (03/06/95) Vol. 17, No. 27, P. A6; Davis, Ann In exchange for silence, Baker & McKenzie--the world's largest law firm--has withdrawn its appeal in an AIDS discrimination suit brought by now-deceased associate Geoffrey F. Bowers. A December 1993 ruling ordered the firm to pay Bowers' estate $500,000 in compensatory damages for firing him after he contracted AIDS. The New York Division of Human Rights ruled that Baker & McKenzie subjected the attorney to "devastatingly cruel" discriminatory treatment by firing him from his $81,000-a-year position in 1986. The firm claimed that Bowers was dismissed because of absenteeism and declining job performance, not because he had AIDS. Baker & McKenzie recently negotiated a confidential settlement with Bowers' family forbidding parties from ever discussing the case or the terms of the agreement.