Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 09:22:36 +0500 From: ghfostel{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghfostel}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 01/03/96 AIDS Daily Summary January 3, 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 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 ************************************************************ "Seattle Officials Seeking to Establish a Subsidized Natural Medicine Clinic" "Nationline: Needle Attack" "Baboon Marrow Won't Help Victims of AIDS" "Bell's Palsy is Linked with Herpes Infection" "Drug Giants Still Hunger for Biotech" "Plasma Facility a First in Canada" "Fighter of HIV Has a Bad Side" "Gilead Sciences Announces Commencement of Topical Opthalmic Cidofovir Clinical Study by Storz" "Identification of RANTES, MIP-1(alpha), and MIP-1(beta) as the Major HIV-Suppressive Factors Produced by CD8+ T Cells" "Killing Kids Softly: Rudy Crew's Dangerous AIDS Education Plan" ************************************************************ "Seattle Officials Seeking to Establish a Subsidized Natural Medicine Clinic" New York Times (01/03/96) P. A10; Egan, Timothy The King County Council, which governs the greater Seattle region, has voted to establish the nation's first government-subsidized natural medicine clinic. The new naturopathic clinic will enable poorer Americans to take advantage of the alternative treatments, which have primarily been the province of better-educated, wealthier individuals. Proponents of natural medicine note that the techniques involved are quickly taking hold. "People want to get well in a world where costs and an obsession with high technology are forcing cutbacks in conventional medicine," said Merrily Manthey, a trustee at both a naturopathic college and a large urban hospital in Seattle. In response to the growing demand for such medicine, the National Institutes of Health established in 1992 the Office of Alternative Medicine, which has since given out millions of dollars worth of grants for research into natural therapies. Bastyr University, for example, has received $850,000 to study alternative methods of treating AIDS. But for the King County Council, the decision to establish the naturopathic clinic has been difficult. The council has voted twice in the past year in favor of the clinic, but officials still have not determined whether the funds will come from the state, the federal government, or the county. "Nationline: Needle Attack" USA Today (01/03/96) P. 3A; Leavitt, Paul The escaped mental patient accused of stabbing a 6-year old girl with a hypodermic needle on a New York subway train on Dec. 2 is incompetent to stand trial, a state judge ruled. The decision is based on two psychiatric reports which say that Angel Coro does not understand the charges and cannot help his lawyers. A judge is deliberating whether to order Coro to be screened for HIV. "Baboon Marrow Won't Help Victims of AIDS" Philadelphia Inquirer (01/03/96) P. A11; Caplan, Art The killing of a baboon for the recent baboon bone marrow transplant into a dying AIDS patient might be justified if a human life were saved or if a significant amount of knowledge were obtained, argues Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, in the Philadelphia Inquirer. This experiment, however, will not generate either result, Caplan writes. He notes that there has been little research done on bone marrow transplantation in primates and that the related costs are enormous. The risk of viral transmission is also very high. Caplan concludes by questioning the value of studying a treatment that would require the killing of thousands of baboons at a cost upwards of $350,000 per patient when the procedure will not even cure the patient. "Bell's Palsy is Linked with Herpes Infection" New York Times (01/03/96) P. C8; Brody, Jane Japanese researchers have identified the common cold sore virus, herpes simplex, as the likely cause of most cases of Bell's palsy, an untreatable, usually temporary, facial paralysis. The condition is caused by an inflammation of a major facial nerve and causes pain in the jaw and numbness and drooping on one side of the face. Dr. Shingo Murakami and his colleagues at the Ehime University medical school report in The Annals of Internal Medicine that they found pieces of herpes virus genes from the involved nerves and muscle tissue in 11 of 14 patients with Bell's palsy. The finding suggests that acyclovir, an antiviral agent used against herpes viruses, might be used with the anti-inflammatory drug prednisone to treat Bell's palsy. The treatment is unlikely to cure the condition because the facial nerve has already been damaged when the first symptoms appear, but it may lessen the effects. "Drug Giants Still Hunger for Biotech" Baltimore Sun (01/02/96) P. 9C; Guidera, Mark Analysts predict a good year for biotechnology, as large pharmaceutical firms continue to seek alliances with smaller biotechnology companies. According to Eddie Hedaya, a biotechnology industry analyst with BioVest, "the biotech companies have the innovations and the research; the drug companies have the money and the foresight." New changes at the FDA that ease restrictions on biotechnology and speed up the approval process also bode well for the industry, especially for companies developing treatments for cancer, AIDS, and other life-threatening conditions. Experts predict that 1996 will see several blockbuster drug approvals from the FDA as well as intensified research on the human genome. "Plasma Facility a First in Canada" Toronto Globe and Mail (01/01/96) P. A1; Picard, Andre The Canadian Red Cross is planning to open the country's first plasma-collection facility in the coming weeks. The country's lack of plasma played a large role in the tainted-blood tragedy which left more than 1,200 hemophiliacs and transfusion patients infected with HIV between 1980 and 1985 and another 12,000 people infected with hepatitis C between 1990 and 1995. Seven plasma facilities are planned, and if enough donors cooperate, Canada should be self-sufficient in plasma by the end of 1998. To do so, each center would need about 4,000 donors to give 15 times a year. "Fighter of HIV Has a Bad Side" Houston Chronicle (01/01/96) P. 6C; Kolata, Gina The new discovery of a natural defense against HIV involves a paradox. The substances secreted by white blood cells appeared to stop HIV, yet these so-called chemokines are also closely tied to numerous diseases in which the immune system either causes the disease or reacts so strongly to an infection that it causes substantial harm. Dr. Charles McKay, director of immunology at Leukosite, a biotechnology firm in Massachusetts, notes that in recent years, "almost every major pharmaceutical company has a program looking at the function of chemokines and trying to block them." The new findings, reported by a team of researchers led by Dr. Robert Gallo of the Institute for Human Virology at the University of Maryland and by a second team led by Dr. Reinhard Kurth of the Paul Ehrlich Institute in Germany, offered hope that they might lead to new treatments against HIV infection. "Gilead Sciences Announces Commencement of Topical Opthalmic Cidofovir Clinical Study by Storz" Business Wire (01/02/96) Storz Instrument Company has begun a Phase I human clinical trial of topical opthalmic cidofovir for the potential treatment of several viruses that can cause external infections of the eye, said the company's collaborative partner Gilead Sciences, Inc. The study will attempt to gauge the safety and pharmacokinetics of the eye-drop formulation of the drug. Gilead, meanwhile, is independently conducting multiple clinical programs based on the broad-spectrum antiviral activity of cidofovir, including some for the possible treatment of cytomegalovirus retinitis. The company also has drugs in clinical studies for the treatment of viral diseases caused by HIV, human papillomavirus, and hepatitis B. "Identification of RANTES, MIP-1(alpha), and MIP-1(beta) as the Major HIV-Suppressive Factors Produced by CD8+ T Cells" Science (12/15/95) Vol. 270, No. 5243, P. 1811; Cocchi, Fiorenza; DeVico, Anthony L.; Garzino-Demo, Alfredo Researchers from the National Cancer Institute and Advanced BioScience Laboratories report in the journal Science that they identified the RANTES, MIP-1(alpha), and MIP-1(beta) chemokines as the key HIV-suppressive factors (HIV-SF) produced by CD8+ T cells. These cells' HIV-SF activity was completely inhibited by a combination of anti-RANTES, -MIP-1(alpha), -MIP-1(beta) antibodies. Recombinant human versions of these chemokines generated a dose-dependent inhibition of various strains of HIV-1, HIV-2, and simian immunodeficiency virus. The researchers believe that the findings may be useful for the prevention and treatment of AIDS. "Killing Kids Softly: Rudy Crew's Dangerous AIDS Education Plan" Village Voice (12/26/95) Vol. 40, No. 52, P. 41; Friedman, David New York Schools Chancellor Rudolph Franklin Crew is urging the Board of Education to approve a controversial new AIDS curriculum for high school students. The plan was submitted by the Board's AIDS Advisory Council, a 23-member panel that includes a chairman who believes "there is a homosexual agenda to take over our schools--and [his] job is to make sure it doesn't happen." The council has made three particularly notable revisions to the policy, including the elimination of a classroom demonstration of the correct way to open and use a latex condom. Students who request such instruction will be shown "in private." Some activists want the board to delay its vote, in hopes of garnering additional support for the current policy, but they concede that whenever the vote is taken, the more conservative approach will dominate. When Chancellor Crew arrived from Washington, where he served as Superintendent of Schools in Tacoma, many advocates of comprehensive AIDS education believed he supported their cause because Washington is thought of as politically progressive. They were proven wrong, however, when shortly after his arrival in New York, Crew announced that he opposes condom-availability programs for high school students. According to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States and NARAL, the situation in New York is part of a national trend. Unlike other states, however, the religious right movement in New York is dominated by a coalition of Roman Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Jews, and Muslims, instead of fundamentalist Christians.