Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 09:31:13 +0500 From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghmcleaf}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com AIDS Daily Summary May 10, 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 ************************************************************ "D.C. General AIDS Center Down to Only One Doctor" "AIDS Office Employee Faces Hatch Act Probe" "Doctors Seek a New Weapon Against AIDS" "CEL-SCI and Alpha 1 Reacquire Far Eastern Rights to HIV Candidate Vaccine" "7,000 March in City for AIDS" "Physicians' Online Introduces 'Query by Example'; New Feature Increases Specificity and Sensitivity of Medical Database Searches" "Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus-Like DNA Sequences in AIDS-Related Body-Cavity-Based Lymphomas" "Routine Testing of HIV Status of Babies?" "Mushroom Tea: Toxicity Concerns about New 'Cure-All'" "Tiny Microspheres Release Drugs Slowly" ************************************************************ "D.C. General AIDS Center Down to Only One Doctor" Washington Post (05/10/95) P. A1; Goldstein, Amy Last week, there were three doctors at the AIDS center at D.C. General Hospital, treating 800 AIDS patients who do not have the money to pay for medical care. But now, only one doctor is left. Both the clinic's director and a specialist in infectious diseases found other jobs because they thought they would be laid off during the hospital's financial crisis, even though their positions are funded through a special city grant. According to one D.C. General physician, more than one-third of patients with appointments at the AIDS center this week are being told to return another time because no doctor is available to see them. Some of the patients are turning to the Whitman-Walker Clinic, the only larger AIDS treatment center in the nation's capital. The clinic, however, cannot accept many new patients. Hospital officials say the disruption in AIDS care is strictly temporary. But AIDS activists, medical school administrators, and some D.C. General physicians are more pessimistic. "Who is going to step into a situation that is as unstable as D.C. General?" asked Christopher H. Bates, administrator of D.C. CARE Consortium. The hospital recently laid off 194 employees, including 41 doctors. There are also periodic shortages of medicine and supplies. "AIDS Office Employee Faces Hatch Act Probe" Washington Times (05/10/95) P. C4; Dewey, Jeanne The federal Office of Special Counsel is investigating whether an employee at the District of Columbia's Agency of HIV/AIDS violated the Hatch Act by working on the campaign of a D.C. Council candidate out of that office. The Hatch Act prohibits federal and District government workers from working on political campaigns during business hours, or using government equipment to promote candidates. The city's Department of Human Services internal affairs division is also looking into the incident. On April 26, the Washington Times reported that Anthony Marshall allegedly used agency equipment to fax Ward 8 candidate Eydie Whittington's responses on a six-page questionnaire to the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance. The AIDS office's identification line and the fax number appeared at the top of the pages. Currently, in the May 2 special election of the post vacated by D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, Whittington trails opponent Sandy Allen by one vote. "Doctors Seek a New Weapon Against AIDS" St. Louis Post-Dispatch (05/09/95) P. 1A; Signor, Roger Doctors at St. Louis' Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital are in the early stages of research on a new way to treat AIDS patients--by rebuilding their damaged immune systems. If the treatment is successful, the patient's immune system could fight back against HIV. The delayed counterattack may not kill all the HIV in AIDS patients, but the doctors' goal is to prevent the potentially fatal infections and tumors that occur after infection. If approved by government regulators, the doctors will combine gene therapy with infusions of stem cells taken from a patient's own bone marrow. Inserting special genes in the cells will protect them from attack from the patient's HIV, enabling bone marrow cells to mature into adult immune cells. The experimental technique will be tested in adult patients first. "CEL-SCI and Alpha 1 Reacquire Far Eastern Rights to HIV Candidate Vaccine" PR Newswire (05/09/95) Viral Technologies, Inc., a jointly owned subsidiary of CEL-SCI Corp. and Alpha 1 Biomedicals, Inc., has reacquired the Far Eastern marketing rights to HGP-30, a potential HIV vaccine, from Japanese chemical company Nippon Zeon. Under the agreement, Nippon Zeon will retain a royalty on future sales of the drug in its former exclusively licensed territories. HGP-30, a synthetic copy of a part of the p17 core protein of HIV, has already been tested in HIV-negative subjects in two clinical trials in Great Britain and California. Both studies showed the drug to be safe and without undue side effects. "7,000 March in City for AIDS" St. Louis Post-Dispatch (05/08//95) P. 1B; Riley, Marianna Participants in Sunday's "From All Walks of Life" march in St. Louis followed city mayor Freeman Bosley Jr. and newscaster Deanne Lane to the tune of Aaron Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man." According to the police, more than 7,000 people attended the event. The 24-block walk, which was sponsored by the AIDS Foundation of St. Louis, raised more than $124,000 in pledges. "Physicians' Online Introduces 'Query by Example'; New Feature Increases Specificity and Sensitivity of Medical Database Searches" PR Newswire (05/09/95) Physicians' Online--the first interactive online service to provide members with free, unlimited use of medical information--has a new feature that increases the sensitivity and specificity of searches. "Query by Example" is a two-step process available in MEDLINE and AIDSLINE, two of the service's core reference databases. AIDSLINE, for example, provides access to more than 80,000 references about AIDS and related subjects from 4,000 sources dating back to 1980. Both MEDLINE and AIDSLINE are updated weekly. "Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus-Like DNA Sequences in AIDS-Related Body-Cavity-Based Lymphomas" New England Journal of Medicine (05/04/95) Vol. 332, No. 18, P. 1186; Cesarman, Ethel; Chang, Yuan; Moore, Patrick S. et al. Recently, herpesvirus-like DNA sequences were discovered in more than 90 percent of AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) lesions. Cesarman et al. analyzed the DNA of 193 lymphomas from both patients with AIDS and without AIDS to identify sequences of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV). The researchers used either Southern blot hybridization, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), or both to detect the sequences. KSHV sequences were detected in eight lymphomas from HIV-infected patients, but not in any of 34 other AIDS-related lymphoid neoplasms or in 151 lymphoid neoplasms that were not AIDS-related. These eight lymphomas--characterized by pleural, pericardial, or peritoneal lymphomatous effusions--were the only body-cavity-based lymphomas in the study. These lymphomas also contained the Epstein-Barr viral genome, which is not found in KS lesions that contain KSHV sequences. The KSHV sequences were 40 to 80 times more plentiful in the body-cavity-based lymphomas than in the KS lesions. Thus far, the recently discovered KSHV DNA sequences have been found in only an unusual subgroup of AIDS-related B-cell lymphomas. The study's results strongly indicate that a new herpesvirus has a developmental role in AIDS-related body-cavity-based lymphomas. "Routine Testing of HIV Status of Babies?" Lancet (04/29/95) Vol. 345, No. 8957, P. 1102; Harrigan, Peter In Australia, the controversy continues about the circumstances under which all infants at public hospitals might be tested for HIV. Recently, the Prince of Wales Children's Hospital in Sydney announced plans to routinely and anonymously test babies for HIV "as a means of opening a window into the prevalence of HIV in the heterosexual community." The plan does not involve seeking permission from parents. Civil libertarians, however, noted that it is illegal in New South Wales and Victoria to conduct HIV tests without permission. Chris Puplick of the New South Wales Privacy Committee raised ethical concerns related to the recent finding that some HIV-infected babies have apparently become HIV-negative. He asked whether these apparently HIV-positive babies would have been unnecessarily treated. Puplick agreed, however, that the program should proceed--but only with the permission of the parents, which he predicted would be granted in most cases. "Mushroom Tea: Toxicity Concerns about New 'Cure-All'" American Medical News (05/01/95) Vol. 38, No. 17, P. 16; Hearn, Wayne Kombucha tea, a symbiotic mixture of yeast and bacteria, is said to possess near miraculous curative powers for conditions ranging from AIDS and cancer to baldness and flatulence. Experts say that, if properly prepared, the tea is probably harmless for most adults. Marketers of the tea avoid direct cure claims, saying only that people with various health problems have reported improvement. The tea has been touted as a home remedy for years but the latest fad was sparked last summer by publicity of a Los Angeles AIDS patient who claimed his symptoms disappeared after he began drinking Kombucha. Because of the publicity and numerous public inquiries, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigated the tea and concluded that its most serious health threat is contamination from molds, such as Asperigillus, which can cause adverse effects in immunocompromised people. The FDA advises people not to store the tea in painted ceramic containers or vessels made of lead crystal because the tea's extreme acidity could cause harmful levels of lead to leach into the tea. "Tiny Microspheres Release Drugs Slowly" Science News (04/29/95) Vol. 147, No. 17, P. 262; Lipkin, R. Chemist Jeffrey L. Cleland and his colleagues at Genentech have developed tiny capsules that slowly release compounds for specific amounts of time. Made from poly(lactic-coglycolic) acid, the microspheres carry delicate proteins and hormones for long periods without reducing their effectiveness. The team predicts the microspheres will be most useful for drugs that patients need continuously and must inject frequently, such as insulin for diabetes and human growth hormone for dwarfism. Certain vaccines that require sequential injections or boosters--such as ones for cholera, diptheria, hepatitis B, and rabies--are also good candidates for microencapsulation. To use the microspheres as possible immunity boosters against AIDS, the researchers implanted protein fragments from HIV-1 combined with an immunity stimulating agent, QS-21, into the capsules. When injected into baboons, the two formulations together "exhibited the highest neutralizing antibody response to date," they said.