Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 11:20:27 +0500 From: "Flynn Mclean" Subject: AIDS Daily Summary 04/08/96 AIDS Daily Summary April 8, 1996 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 National AIDS Clearinghouse, or any other organization. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC National AIDS Clearinghouse should be cited as the source of this information. Copyright 1996, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD ************************************************************ "World Wire: Ban on Abbott AIDS Test" "Ilka Payan, 53, an Actress, Dies; Champion for Anti-AIDS Causes" "Maneuvers Afoot to Ax HIV Ban in Military" "Bill Seeks to Put Federal Stamp on AIDS Memorial" "Good Deed Came with Possible Danger" "AIDS Rate Highest in Largest Prisons" "How to Save Babies From AIDS" "Continuous Fluconazole Protects Against Oral Candida" "Kaposi's Sarcoma Study Starts" "M. Tuberculosis Genome to Be Sequenced" ************************************************************ "World Wire: Ban on Abbott AIDS Test" Wall Street Journal (04/08/96) Switzerland has stopped using an AIDS test made by Abbott Laboratories Inc. after the test's accuracy was called into question. The company halted deliveries of the test on March 25 after it heard of false negative results being reported. Denmark, Germany, Norway, and the Netherlands have already stopped using the test. Related Stories: USA Today (04/08) P. 1D; Chicago Tribune (04/05) P. 3-1 "Ilka Payan, 53, an Actress, Dies; Champion for Anti-AIDS Causes" New York Times (04/08/96) P. B12; Thomas, Robert McG. Jr. Ilka Tanya Payan, a Dominican-born soap opera star and New York AIDS activist who had the disease, died on Saturday at the age of 53. The actress was popular in the Spanish-language soap opera "Angelica, Mi Vida." She became a lawyer in 1981, and practiced immigration law. When she disclosed that she was HIV-positive in 1993, she shocked Latin Americans, whom she said were ignorant about AIDS. Furthermore, she said had kept her infection secret for seven years because of the disease-related stigma in the Hispanic community. Ms. Payan became an AIDS activist to enlighten others and was awarded for her work. Related Story: Washington Post (04/08) P. B6 "Maneuvers Afoot to Ax HIV Ban in Military" Boston Globe (04/08/96) P. 3 A showdown over the law to force the discharge of HIV-infected military personnel is shaping up in Congress. Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and William S. Cohen (R-Maine) attached language to the omnibus appropriations bill to repeal the law. However, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) is unwilling to support the repeal and anger Rep. Robert Dornan (R-Calif.), who wrote the provision. Supporters of the repeal have lined up unanimous Democratic support in the conference committee working to reconcile the House and Senate bills. "Bill Seeks to Put Federal Stamp on AIDS Memorial" Washington Times (04/08/96) P. A3; Billingsley, K.L. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (R-Calif.) has introduced a bill to make the AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco a national memorial to people who have died of the disease. "We are hoping that the legislation will be noncontroversial. It has no fiscal impact," said a spokesman for Pelosi. Under the measure, the secretary of the interior would designate the grove a national memorial, which California has done since 1989. The memorial, a wooded 15-acre area in Golden Gate Park, was started by a group of people who had lost friends to AIDS. Its Circle of Friends, begun in March, will include 2,200 names. Promoters hope to raise $2 million to maintain the area, which is leased from the city of San Francisco. "Good Deed Came with Possible Danger" Washington Post (04/08/96) P. B3; Argetsinger, Amy A man who had revived a fellow Amtrak train passenger by giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was notified Sunday that the patient had HIV. The good Samaritan, a volunteer firefighter trained to respond to medical emergencies, said he had taken precautions to protect himself during the incident, including the use of medical gloves and a scarf to breathe into the man's mouth. The sick passenger stopped breathing as the train approached Washington, D.C., on Saturday evening. By the time an ambulance team picked him up at the New Carrolton station, he was conscious and breathing, and he walked out of a hospital later, despite doctors' advice. While still at the hospital, rescue officials learned the man was HIV-positive. The man who resuscitated him contacted officials after hearing of their attempt to reach him on the news. "AIDS Rate Highest in Largest Prisons" Boston Globe (04/08/96) P. 9 Inmates in the largest U.S. prisons are nearly six times as likely as other Americans to have AIDS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. The agency said that 5,279 prisoners had the disease in 1994, which equates to 5.2 cases per 1,000. AIDS deaths among inmates in the largest city and county prisons and state and federal jails totaled 4,588 from the early 1980s to the end of 1994. Most of the prisoners were infected with HIV before they entered prison. "How to Save Babies From AIDS" Wall Street Journal (04/08/96) P. A19; Yogev, Ram; Harisiades, James P. While AZT is effective in preventing HIV in babies who have not yet been delivered, requiring an HIV test of newborns will not help to prevent the virus, write Ram Yogev and James P. Harisiades of Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital in a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal. Yogev and Harisiades contend that the proposed Ackerman-Coburn amendment to the Ryan White Reauthorization Act, which would require such testing, should be replaced by a mandate requiring prenatal care providers to educate pregnant women about HIV and routinely test them for the virus unless they refuse testing. They note that in-depth counseling should be provided to those women who test positive for the virus. The authors conclude, "At minimum, every provider of prenatal care should be required to make the HIV test available to all pregnant women as a routine standard of care." "Continuous Fluconazole Protects Against Oral Candida" Reuters (04/05/96) Duke University researchers report that fluconazole (Diflucan), a triazole derivative, has demonstrated effectiveness in treating mucocutaneous candidiasis and cryptococcal disease in AIDS patients. According to Alison E. Heald and her colleagues, the drug also appears to be an effective prophylactic for "deep-seated fungal infections" in patients with AIDS. Heald notes that "the patients taking continuous fluconazole were more likely than matched controls to have had sterile mouth rinses... and the yeasts that were isolated were more likely than matched controls to be non-Candida albicans species." The researcher further states that the findings suggest "that continuous therapy for prolonged periods can prevent the appearance of Candida in the oral cavity in a significant number of selected patients." "Kaposi's Sarcoma Study Starts" United Press International (04/05/96); Wasowicz, Lidia A clinical trial for AIDS patients with Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancer common among people with AIDS, to determine the benefits of a light-activated therapy is beginning at Stanford University. The study will evaluate a photosensitizer, known as Lu Tex by Pharmacyclics, Inc., which homes in on diseased tissue and is then activated by light. The drug, which produces excited-state oxygen molecules in diseased tissues when it absorbs light, has shown promise in treating other cancers. The study involves injecting patients with the drug, then illuminating the tumor. "M. Tuberculosis Genome to Be Sequenced" Lancet (03/30/96) Vol. 347, No. 9005, P. 890; Bradbury, Jane The Wellcome Trust is providing funds to scientists at the Trust's Genome Campus in the United Kingdom and the Institut Pasteur in Paris to finance the sequencing of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome. With the genome, scientists expect to be able to increase the number of potential targets for therapy, especially important to deal with multidrug-resistant strains. The World Health Organization estimates that there may be 50 million multidrug resistant cases worldwide. Drug-resistant strains are prevalent in developing countries, but also exist in urban areas of the developed world. Stewart Cole, the project researcher in Paris, predicts that a third of the genes sequenced will already be known and that their products will have a precise function. Another third will contain known motifs partly indicating their function and the last third will code for completely unidentified proteins. Cole estimates that the entire genome may be sequenced with the next year and a half.