Date: Mon, 22 May 1995 10:17:25 +0500 From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghmcleaf}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com AIDS Daily Summary May 22, 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 ************************************************************ "French Probe Renault Chief in 'Bad Blood' Scandal" "Across the USA: Alabama" "German Convicts Offer to Release Hostage" "Red Cross Staff Dumped Risky Blood, Inquiry Told" "French Ministers Join 20,000 in March against AIDS" "Teen-Ager Graduates as Possibly World's Youngest MD" "Procept, Inc. Completes Phase I Safety Trial of PRO 2000 for the Treatment of HIV-1 Infection" "Testing Anti-HIV Drugs in the FIV Model" "LA AIDS Project Seeks GOP-Connected PR Firm" "The Future Is Now" ************************************************************ "French Probe Renault Chief in 'Bad Blood' Scandal" Reuters (05/22/95) Louis Schweitzer, chairman of French car maker Renault, has been placed under investigation in a scandal over the infection of hemophiliacs by HIV-infected blood, the company announced on Monday. The inquiry goes back to when Schweitzer was chief-of-staff to Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius in 1985 at a time when doctors discovered that France's blood product supply was tainted with HIV. In 1992, four former public health officials were convicted of fraud for permitting the continued distribution of the blood products even though they were known to be contaminated. Testimony at their trial indicated that the Fabius administration had delayed the import of an American blood test and had refused to recall the infected blood until France's Pasteur Institute could develop its own test. Fabius and two former members of his government are also being investigated for alleged poisoning by a special state court. "Across the USA: Alabama" USA Today (05/22/95) P. 7A Operators of the AIDS clinic in Hobson City, Ala., expect to begin seeing patients again on Tuesday. The clinic's building was destroyed May 15 in a fire which is under investigation. Officials are planning to rebuild at the same location. "German Convicts Offer to Release Hostage" Reuters (05/22/95) German police chased two escaped convicts across northern Germany on Monday. The police cautioned the public to stay away from the men, whom they said were armed, dangerous, and infected with HIV. Using a carphone, the escapees said they would release the prison guard they were holding hostage if the police stopped their chase. The prisoners, who had been in jail since 1979, also demanded $140,000 in cash. "Red Cross Staff Dumped Risky Blood, Inquiry Told" Toronto Globe and Mail (05/19/95) P. A8 Even though their supervisor told them no one should be singled out, Canadian Red Cross (CRC) workers threw out blood from homosexuals and drug users when HIV was infecting the blood supply, an inquiry heard. In March 1983, Dr. Roger Perrault, then head of the CRC's blood-transfusion service, told Red Cross blood center employees that risky donors were not to be turned away. Documents show that "some" centers held the donated blood in quality control and others threw it away. Many hemophiliacs claim their lives were endangered because Perrault did not prohibit homosexuals and drug users from donating blood sooner. Dr. Martin Davey, Perrault's assistant, said that in the early 1980s, blood was still collected from suspected drug users and homosexuals, but that it was assigned a special lab code and never used. However, lawyers for those people who received the tainted blood say that glancing at someone and guessing whether they were gay or a drug abuser was not enough. "French Ministers Join 20,000 in March against AIDS" Reuters (05/21/95) As many as 20,000 people marched through the streets of Paris on Sunday to raise funds for the war against AIDS. The junior minister for Emergency Humanitarian Action, the Fight against Exclusion, and the ministers of Health and Justice joined the second annual march to the Eiffel Tower. Last year's march raised 2 million francs ($500,000). In France, more than 18,000 people have died of AIDS and an estimated 200,000 are infected. "Teen-Ager Graduates as Possibly World's Youngest MD" Reuters (05/19/95); McCool, Grant On Friday, a New York teenager became the youngest medical doctor in the world. Seventeen-year-old Balamurali Ambati graduated from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, fulfilling his childhood goal. "About 10 years ago I was reading the Guinness Book of World Records and saw the youngest doctor graduated in Italy at 18 years and three months old, so I thought I'd try it," said Ambati, who was granted an exception to practice medicine by the New York state legislature even though he is under the minimum age of 21. The teenager also co-authored a book on AIDS when he was 11 with his then 17-year-old brother Jayakrishna, who is also a doctor. "AIDS, The True Story: A Comprehensive Guide," designed to educate young people about the disease, is in its second printing. The two brothers have also written a book on the environment. Ambati's next move will be residency training in opthalmology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary of Harvard Medical School. "Procept, Inc. Completes Phase I Safety Trial of PRO 2000 for the Treatment of HIV-1 Infection" Business Wire (05/19/95) Procept, Inc. announced on Friday the completion of the Phase I safety trial of the company's leading drug candidate PRO 2000, to be used for the treatment of HIV-1. Preliminary data indicate that the drug was well tolerated in the healthy volunteer, increasing-dose, placebo-controlled study. PRO 2000 was designed to bind to CD4, the receptor on T cells which HIV uses as its means of entry into the immune system. By binding to CD4, Procept hopes that the drug will act as a molecular barrier to block HIV from infecting T cells. "Testing Anti-HIV Drugs in the FIV Model" Nature Medicine (05/95) Vol. 1, No. 5, P. 410; North, Thomas W.; LaCasse, Rachel A. Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV)-induced feline immunodeficiency is an attractive animal model for AIDS research because it has many similar molecular and biochemical properties to HIV-1. Much attention has been given to the FIV model for evaluating antiviral drugs. The FIV model is well-suited to studies of the reverse transcriptase (RT)-targeted nucleoside analogs because of the biochemical similarities of the FIV and HIV-1 RTs. Several nucleoside analogs have been shown in vitro to inhibit FIV replication. FIV, however, is not well-suited for studying non-nucleoside inhibitors because FIV RT is not inhibited by these drugs. The availability of both in vitro and in vivo systems also makes the FIV system useful for studies that evaluate the pathogenesis of drug-resistant variants. "LA AIDS Project Seeks GOP-Connected PR Firm" Washington Business Journal (05/05/95-05/11/95) Vol. 13, No. 51, P. 62; Rabin, Phil; Myles, Carolyn Three weeks ago, Allen E. Carrier became the director of communications for AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA)--the second largest AIDS organization in the United States. Now, Carrier is looking for a Washington, D.C., public relations firm with solid Republican ties to launch an AIDS awareness campaign aimed at Congress. Because much of the country's AIDS policy has been reactionary and short-term, Carrier says he hopes to find an agency to develop a better educational and preventive strategy. "The HIV-AIDS story is disappearing from the front pages," Carrier says. The non-profit APLA has an annual budget of $20 million. "The Future Is Now" Advocate (05/16/95) No. 681, P. 33; Bull, Chris On March 6, the U.S. Senate approved legislation creating a control board that would have the power to shape the District of Columbia's government, including its response to AIDS. Some advocates for people with AIDS support the change, which is expected to bring federal funds to the city and short-term financial stability to private service groups--such as the Whitman-Walker Clinic, which by early April was owed more than $1 million in city and federal funds by the District. Others, however, are concerned that AIDS--in the long term--is not likely to be high of the board's list of priorities. The financial crisis could not have come at a worse time for Washington, D.C., which has the highest per capita incidence of HIV in the country. Although the rate of new HIV infection among homosexual men has decreased since the mid-1980s, it climbed 400 percent among injection drug users between 1988 and 1993, the city's health department says. There is also evidence of a rise in new infection in gay men, particularly those under the age of 30. The control board was approved after Mayor Marion Barry resisted Congress' demands to make deep cuts in the city's spending.