Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 10:49:36 +0500 From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghmcleaf}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 01/23/96 AIDS Daily Summary January 23, 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 1996, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD ************************************************************ "New Issue Update: Advanced Viral" "Across the USA: Indiana" "Book Review:Mary Fisher, Living Proof" "Judge Curbs Insurance Firm's 'Viatical' Deals" "Prescription-Drug Disclosure Set Back" "BC-Vietnam-Abuse" "Caremark International Inc.:Fourth-Quarter Loss Seen Due to $52 Million Charge" "HealthGate Data Unveils HealthGate, the First World Wide Web Medical Information System for Consumers" "Several New Drugs Shift Direction of Treatment and Research for HIV/AIDS" "Xenotransplantation at a Crossroads: Prevention Versus Progress" ************************************************************ "New Issue Update: Advanced Viral" Investor's Business Daily (01/23/96) P. A6 Advanced Viral Research Corp. of Hallandale, Fla. has submitted research to the National Medical Honor Societies in Washington, D.C. that indicates its antiviral drug Reticulose has been found to have inhibitory effects on HIV. Reticulose, which has proven effective against other viral diseases, is a non-toxic antiviral drug. "Across the USA: Indiana" USA Today (01/23/96) P. 8A A 2-day lobbying workshop for leaders of AIDS assistance programs finishes in Indianapolis today in a session where participants will address their legislators. "Book Review:Mary Fisher, Living Proof" Washington Post (01/23/96) P. E1; Graham, Jim In this book review of Mary Fisher's memoir, "My Name is Mary" and a collection of her speeches entitled "I'll Not Go Quietly," Jim Graham, executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, says that the books are about the impact of AIDS and a search for self. When Fisher got AIDS from her second husband, she was an uncommon example of an AIDS patient. Her father, Max Fisher, was "the most influential Jewish Republican in America" who supported Nixon and Ford. She spoke about fighting AIDS at the 1992 Republican National Convention and was appointed by President Bush to the National AIDS Commission. Grahm says "Mary is best when she voices her human experience of AIDS: a mother's love or her sons, her caring words for friends." "Judge Curbs Insurance Firm's 'Viatical' Deals" Washington Post (01/23/96) P. C3; Crenshaw, Albert B. A federal judge ordered one of the largest U.S. insurance firms that buys life insurance policies from terminally ill people to stop selling investment contracts based on those policies until it complies with U.S. securities laws. About 30 companies are in the "viatical settlement business," which became popular in the 1980s as a result of the spread of AIDS. Life Partners Inc. of Waco, Tex. buys rights to the life insurance of terminally ill people and sells investment contracts based on those policies. In 1994 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused the company of selling unregistered securities and a U.S. District Judge agreed. The judge allowed the company to continue the practice while the SEC worked out a compliance arrangement. Last fall the SEC said the company's changes were not sufficient, and the judge told the company to stop selling settlements to investors until they complied with the SEC rules. "Prescription-Drug Disclosure Set Back" Wall Street Journal (01/23/96) P. B7; Schultz, Ellen E. A federal judge ruled in a Colorado case that an employer's requirement that employees reveal their prescription-drug use is in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). The employer in the case, the Cheyenne Mountain Conference Resort in Colorado Springs, had ordered employees to tell supervisors what prescription medications they take. The judge said that practice violates the ADA which stipulates that an inquiry must be job-related and consistent with business necessity to be legal. The resort contended that supervisors have a valid need to know about medications, and cited drivers as an example. The resort manager said he won't appeal the judge's decision, however. The plaintiff also argued that the rule was an invasion of privacy, but that argument was rejected by the judge. In a similar 1994 California case, the Court of Appeals said the requirement to disclose prescription-drug information was an invasion of privacy and violated the ADA. "If the applicant responds that he or she is taking AZT, insulin, or tamoxifen, the employer has, in effect, been informed that the applicant has been diagnosed as being HIV-positive, or having diabetes or breast cancer," the court said. "BC-Vietnam-Abuse" Reuters (01/22/96); Edwards, Adrian AIDS is a growing problem in Vietnam, where 200 people have died of AIDS and more than 3,400 are infected with HIV. The World Health Organization estimates that several hundred thousand more will be infected within three years. At Thu Duc's Binh Trieu drug-addiction center--the only such facility in southern Vietnam--1,786 cases of HIV-infection have been reported since January 1993. Among them, 135 have AIDS. The center is poorly staffed and not well-equipped to deal with the large volume of AIDS patients. Vietnam is one of the world's poorest countries, and health care is crude. The social and political environment in Vietnam also ostracizes drug addicts and AIDS patients from society. "Caremark International Inc.:Fourth-Quarter Loss Seen Due to $52 Million Charge" Wall Street Journal (01/23/96) P. B4 Caremark International Inc. said it will suffer a fourth-quarter loss as a result of the lower value of Coram Healthcare Corp. securities that Caremark obtained in selling its home-infusion business to Coram last April. Caremark said the charge would be about 69 cents per share, or $52 million. The securities had an original face value of $112 million and were part of the $300 million-plus price it had received from Coram for selling the business. Home-infusion involves the treatment of people at home with intravenous therapy and nutrition. "HealthGate Data Unveils HealthGate, the First World Wide Web Medical Information System for Consumers" Business Wire (01/22/96) HealthGate Data Corp. has initiated the first World Wide Web network to provide consumers with global access to biomedical, healthcare and wellness databases, journals, and textbooks. HealthGate offers access to 11 databases such as MEDLINE, which provides medical and healthcare information; AIDSLINE, a catalogue of AIDS-related articles and research; and CANCERLIT, a database of cancer journals. Starting at Healthgate's web site, users can reach the Medical Library's basic services and Patient and Consumer Health Information. "Several New Drugs Shift Direction of Treatment and Research for HIV/AIDS" Journal of the American Medical Association (01/10/96) Vol.275, No.2, P. 89; Voelker, Rebecca New drugs for HIV and AIDS create new treatment options, but leave doctors and drug companies with little knowledge of how the drugs should be used. Experts agree that combination therapy is better than AZT monotherapy, and currently five nucleoside analogs--which inhibit the production of reverse transcriptase--are now available to treat HIV infection. Drugs like saquinavir, recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), inhibit the protease enzyme. More drugs of both types are on the way, but already doctors are struggling with questions about when to begin drug therapy, what drugs to use, and what physical points treatment should be based on--viral load, CD4 cell counts, or clinical condition. Dr. Ellen Cooper, vice president and director of clinical research and information at the American Foundation for AIDS Research, proposes a large, ongoing trial to take these factors into account and determine the best time and therapy for initiation of treatment and to compare promising combinations. Experts disagree on how much weight should be given to surrogate marker data, compared to clinical endpoint results. With accelerated approval, the FDA approves new AIDS drugs in 24 weeks or less, based on surrogate marker data. Clinical end point studies, however, take 5 years or more, so that the questions posed in the trial could be irrelevant by the time the data are analyzed. "Xenotransplantation at a Crossroads: Prevention Versus Progress" Nature Medicine (01/96) Vol.2, No.1, P. 18; Allan, Jonathan S. In a Nature Medicine commentary, Jonathan Allan voices his concerns about forthcoming guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for cross-species transplantation in humans. Allan served on the FDA panel that considered the guidelines and spoke about the risks of infectious disease related to baboon transplants at meetings at Institute of Medicine and the FDA. He says he is concerned that the proposed guidelines "will not significantly reduce the risk of introducing a new human disease through xenotransplantation." Furthermore, he states that the regulations should be similar to those for gene therapy, but that, under the proposed rules, xenotransplants would come under mostly local regulation, and there would be little federal oversight. He also contends that the guidelines lack "real safeguards against the introduction and spread of new infectious diseases in the human population." Allan notes that baboons carry viruses that can infect humans and argues that the animals should not be used as donors for humans. In conclusion, Allan writes that pigs should be the only outside species used for human transplants and that federal regulations should be strict, including licensing and inspections.