Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 10:16:40 +0500 From: "Flynn Mclean" Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 04/19/96 AIDS Daily Summary April 19, 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 ************************************************************ "Drug Firms to Offer Settlement to AIDS-Infected Hemophiliacs" "District's AIDS Rate Again Tops the Nation" "Maker of an AIDS Vaccine Says Test Found No Benefit" "Patients Desperate for AIDS Drug" "Across the Nation: New Hampshire" "Beijing Finds 122 People HIV-Positive Since 1985" "More Condom Promotion Needed Among Heterosexuals" "Tearful Filipino Pleads for Ebola Monkeys" "Animal Model Found for Slowly Progressive Tuberculosis" "AIDS Scandal Old News to TV Anchor" ************************************************************ "Drug Firms to Offer Settlement to AIDS-Infected Hemophiliacs" Washington Post (04/19/96) P. A2 After five months of negotiations, four drug companies accused of selling HIV-infected blood to thousands of U.S. hemophiliacs have agreed to offer a $600 million settlement today to end a decade of litigation. If accepted, the settlement would compensate every American hemophiliac who contracted HIV from tainted blood products sold by the companies during the 1980s. Families of deceased patients and spouses or children who were infected would also be covered. The companies, which are not admitting legal responsibility or wrongdoing, are Bayer, Baxter International, Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, and Alpha Therapeutics. Related Stories: Wall Street Journal (04/19) P. B6; Baltimore Sun (04/19) P. 4A; USA Today (04/19) P. 1A "District's AIDS Rate Again Tops the Nation" Washington Times (04/19/96) P. A3; Sheets, Gary Washington, D.C., again has the nation's highest AIDS rate, far higher than even New York and San Francisco, according to statistics released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The 1995 D.C. rate of 185.7 AIDS cases per 100,000 residents dropped from 246.9 per 100,000 in 1994 but was still almost half again as high as the nearest city's. Puerto Rico was second with a rate of 70.3 cases per 100,000, followed by New York, Florida, and New Jersey. Nationwide, the rate of AIDS cases is 27.8 cases per 100,000 people, down from 30.2 in 1994. The CDC said that AIDS is spreading more among women and minorities now, while the epidemic among homosexual white men has slowed. Women accounted for 19 percent of all AIDS cases among adults and adolescents nationwide in 1995, their highest proportion ever. Blacks were six times more likely to have AIDS than whites and twice as likely to have AIDS as Hispanics. Related Story: Baltimore Sun (04/19) P. 5B "Maker of an AIDS Vaccine Says Test Found No Benefit" New York Times (04/19/96) P. A18; Kolata, Gina Research on an AIDS vaccine designed to bolster the immune system of people already infected with HIV has ended, proving the vaccine ineffective. Researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Medical Research and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases report that they did not find evidence that Microgenesys' Gp-160 vaccine benefited the 304 people who received it. Robert Sherrer, president of Microgenesys, said the company was conducting other studies but that "this one was pivotal." Federal funding for a larger study of Gp-160 was denied several years ago, on the grounds that results were needed from the study just completed. When a $20 million appropriation for the study was then included in the Defense Department budget, a dispute among researchers erupted. The money was later transferred to the National Institutes of Health to be used for general vaccine research. John Moore, an AIDS researcher at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York, said the results should deter companies from pushing ahead too fast. Related Story: Financial Times (04/19) P. 7 "Patients Desperate for AIDS Drug" Toronto Globe and Mail (04/18/96) P. A10; Immen, Wallace Canadian AIDS patients are desperate for two expensive new protease inhibitors not yet available in Canada but being bought by Canadians in the United States. Although the protease inhibitor saquinavir has been approved in Canada, it is not considered as powerful as ritonavir or indinavir, which were both approved in the United States in March. The drugs are expected to be available in Canada this summer. Approval of new drugs--and their resulting distribution--is slower in Canada because the drug companies apply for U.S. approval first. AIDS drugs receive priority, however, and those thought to offer significant benefit are reviewed in 180 days rather than the usual 360 days. "Across the Nation: New Hampshire" USA Today (04/19/96) P. 11A New Hampshire resident Mark Brousseau, who has HIV, says he has no plans to close his Newmarket health food store, despite an unsigned letter of protest sent to City Hall complaining of Brousseau's HIV-positive status. The letter threatened "If you don't ... stop him, some of us will." "Beijing Finds 122 People HIV-Positive Since 1985" Reuters (04/18/96) A total of 122 people in Beijing have tested positive for HIV since 1985. Of that total, 51 were foreigners, 41 were non-Beijing residents, and 30 were local people. The first cases of HIV in people native to Beijing were reported in 1989. Twelve of the 30 locals have developed AIDS and seven have died. China has some 50,000 to 100,000 HIV-positive individuals, with more than 70 percent living in the southwestern Yunnan province, an area of high drug use. "More Condom Promotion Needed Among Heterosexuals" Reuters (04/18/96) Between 1990 and 1992, there were no decreases in the number of heterosexual adults who had multiple sex partners, high-risk partners, or who were tested for HIV, researchers report in the American Journal of Public Health. A consistent increase in condom use was limited to people with risk factors for HIV. Kyung-Hee Choi and Joseph A. Catania of the University of California at San Francisco suggest that, based on these findings, broader condom promotion is needed. "Tearful Filipino Pleads for Ebola Monkeys" Reuters (04/18/96); Alabastro, Ruben A Philippine breeder conceded on Thursday that his monkeys were probably responsible for the Ebola scare at a Texas primate research center, but pleaded to save them from death. On Wednesday, U.S. health workers began killing 48 monkeys that may have been exposed to a strain of the Ebola virus. Alex Lina, owner of Fertile Scientific Research, said all 800 monkeys on his farm were killed in 1989 after an outbreak of the Ebola Reston strain. Fertile supplies researchers in the United States and Europe and last November shipped 40 monkeys to Sweden for AIDS research. In Manila, the government is working to prevent any public alarm over the current U.S. outbreak, assuring people that the virus strain is not harmful to humans. A team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected in Manila next week to help inspect monkey breeding farms. "Animal Model Found for Slowly Progressive Tuberculosis" Lancet (04/13/96) Vol. 347, No. 9007, P. 1031; Fricker, Janet Slowly progressive tuberculosis (TB), the type most common in humans, can be induced in cynomolgus monkeys, Marcus Horwitz and colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles have discovered. Rhesus monkeys, the only established non-human primate model for studying TB, almost always develop an acute, fulminant, highly fatal form of TB, even when given small doses. The researchers gave Philippine cynomolgus monkeys Mycobacterium tuberculosis intratracheally and found that the degree of infection depended on the dose. The monkeys receiving the highest doses developed an acute, rapidly progressive, highly fatal, multilobar pneumonia, compared to the chronic, slowly progressive, localized form of pulmonary TB in the monkeys given lower doses. Ninety percent of humans infected with M. tuberculosis do not develop overt disease, so these monkeys provide a critical study group to determine how the organisms survive in a dormant state in a primate host. "AIDS Scandal Old News to TV Anchor" Nikkei Weekly (04/08/96) Vol. 34, No. 1717, P. 21 Yoshiko Sakurai, a writer and long-time anchor for the midnight news show on Japan's Nippon Television Network, wrote a book two years ago exposing the country's tainted blood scandal. In "AIDS Crimes: The Tragedy of Hemophiliacs," Sakurai revealed the poor response of health officials and drug firms to the dangers of HIV infection from contaminated blood. The book, which won the author Japan's most prestigious prize for nonfiction, came nearly two years before the Ministry of Health and Welfare and five drug companies disclosed their roles in the distribution of risky blood products.