Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 11:01:17 -0400 From: "Martha Vander Kolk" Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 07/05/96 AIDS Daily Summary Friday, July 5, 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 ****************************************************** "Rare Form of AIDS Virus Found in California Woman; Changes in Testing Vowed" "Drug Companies Turn Aggressive in Promoting New Drugs for AIDS" "Animal Experiments Fail Miserably" "D.C. Cancels Water Alert" "Pharmacia & Upjohn Calls Off Venture for Blood Substitute, Plans Write-Down" "From Mean Streets of Bogota, Rebirth" "Monkeys Could Be Key to AIDS Research--Pioneer [Reports]" "Editorial: A Solution for AIDS?" "Japan's Anti-AIDS Drug Arsenal Slowly Expands" "Science and Technology: Hope" ****************************************************** "Rare Form of AIDS Virus Found in California Woman; Changes in Testing Vowed" Washington Post (07/05/96) P. A7; Stolberg, Sheryl Federal health officials report that a Los Angeles woman has been identified as the first person in the United States to carry HIV Group O, a rare strain of the virus that is more commonly found in West Africa, where the woman is from. Existing tests for HIV detect Group O about 80 percent of the time, and the woman, who has not been identified, repeatedly tested HIV-negative with various assays. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration emphasized that the rare strain poses very little threat to the blood supply. They noted, however, that HIV tests should be reconfigured to better detect Group O. The woman appears to have been infected in her homeland and was identified months ago during a records search that was initiated after Group O appeared in Europe. Still, the discovery was somewhat accidental, as the woman had been listed as an HIV carrier even though her tests had come back negative. The CDC issued a public report of its finding on Thursday, describing the discovery as an indication that Group O could become a public health problem in the future. Officials at the agency say they plan to present the findings in a "late-breaking presentation" at the 11th International AIDS Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, which is set to begin this weekend. "Drug Companies Turn Aggressive in Promoting New Drugs for AIDS" New York Times (07/05/96) P. A1; Dunlap, David W.; Fisher, Lawrence M. As an increasing number of AIDS drugs enter the market and HIV infection becomes increasingly thought of as a manageable disease, drug makers are becoming more aggressive in their marketing of AIDS therapies by targeting the patients themselves. Advertisements for new drugs, which are often expensive, run in magazines like Poz, while drug makers court gay advocacy groups like Gay Men's Health Crisis. Marketing to HIV-infected patients was especially prominent at the Poz Life Expo, described by its organizers as the first consumer show for HIV-positive people. While analysts say there will probably be no billion-dollar drugs for treating AIDS, small biotechnology companies and large pharmaceutical firms can still make handsome profits off of the many new drugs entering the market. "Animal Experiments Fail Miserably" Wall Street Journal (07/05/96) P. A7; Roy, Suzanne E.; Guillermo, Emil; Huff, Odell E. Three letters to the editor of the Wall Street Journal react to a recent editorial-page commentary by AIDS activist and baboon bone marrow transplant recipient Jeff Getty about animal experiment in AIDS research. Suzanne E. Roy, program director of In Defense of Animals, claims that Getty omitted several facts, including the fact that the Food and Drug Administration had delayed a transplant like his for year because of concerns about disease transmission. The New England Anti-Vivisection Society's Emil Guillermo, meanwhile, notes that while Getty made an impassioned plea for continued animal research funding, he did not specify which kinds of animal tests have potential for finding an AIDS cure. Getty, he says, "could better spend his time and energy lobbying for the effective spending of the AIDS research dollar." Finally, Odell E. Huff, president of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty, points out that animal experimentation was required for finding improved cancer and heart disease treatments, and that Americans needs to recognize "that AIDS is no different." "D.C. Cancels Water Alert" Washington Post (07/05/96) P. A1; Chandrasekaran, Rajiv; Greene, Marcia Slacum Washington, D.C., Public Health Commissioner Harvey I. Sloane has canceled his warning for city residents to boil tap water before drinking it, claiming the advisory was based on old test data. Sloane based his recommendation to the elderly and to people with compromised immune systems on second-hand reports about tests performed in early June. He said he was not aware until Thursday that more recent tests indicated that bacteria was at normal levels in the city's water supply. "Basically, I didn't have all the information regarding the latest testing by the EPA," Sloane said. "The results have been normal since the 25th of June, and had I known that, I would not have recommended that anybody boil water." Sloane also acknowledged that city officials were concerned that the advisory would further damage the city's image, and he said that officials contacted him on Thursday morning with the more recent test results. Before the warning was lifted, volunteers who deliver meals to the more than 300 AIDS patients in the Food and Friends Program distributed gallon jugs of water, as well as instructions for boiling tap water as a precaution. "Pharmacia & Upjohn Calls Off Venture for Blood Substitute, Plans Write-Down" Wall Street Journal (07/05/96) P. B10; Burton, Thomas M. Pharmacia & Upjohn has ended a blood-substitute research project with Biopure Corp., and it took a nearly $70 million charge against its second-quarter earnings to write down the cost of the risky investment. The move emphasizes both the enormous costs of research and the unanswered questions about whether blood substitutes can succeed. Some Wall Street analysts and physicians predict that blood substitutes will become a multi-billion-dollar annual business, while others believe that safety and cost will ultimately be the product's downfall. Pharmacia & Upjohn has said only that it is "refocusing" its research endeavors, but will retain its stock ownership in Biopure, which plans to continue its clinical trials. "From Mean Streets of Bogota, Rebirth" Washington Post (07/05/96) P. A17; Farah, Douglas Children at Renacer house in Bogota, Columbia, are offered a second chance at life, coming off of the streets where many had turned to prostitution and drug use. To enter the program, whose title means "rebirth," the children must come voluntarily. They are then put in a structured, disciplined environment to break their street habits. Stellas Cardenas, a psychologist who helped found Renacer nine years ago, noted that a 1993 survey of Bogota's downtown red-light districts found about 3,000 minors working as prostitutes and estimated that the figure has likely doubled since then. Abuse is a dominant factor in why there are so many children on the country's streets. Christian, for example, is a 16-year-old who was thrown out of his house three years ago after his stepfather hit him and he retaliated. He survived by stealing and selling himself, and he was diagnosed with HIV four months ago. Now, he is trying to understand what his HIV status means, as well as the fact that he must use condoms during sexual intercourse. "Monkeys Could Be Key to AIDS Research--Pioneer [Reports]" Reuters (07/04/96) Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, a pioneer researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, reports in the British medical journal the Lancet that determining the "driving force behind the evolution of primate lentiviruses," could help further AIDS research. Barre-Sinoussi noted that one key problem is the rapid speed at which HIV mutates, thus allowing new variants of the virus to continually develop and resist anti-HIV treatments. In an editorial accompanying the report, the Lancet stated, "The war on HIV is certainly one that can be won," noting that "by comparison with the lack of progress toward effective treatments for rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis, those responsible for research into HIV have nothing to be ashamed of." "Editorial: A Solution for AIDS?" Economist (06/29/96) Vol. 339, No. 7972; P. 13 An editorial in The Economist says that the powerful AIDS research engine, while now showing promising results, demonstrates that medical research in the United States and Europe is ultimately driven by profit and politics. Over the past 15 years, while scientists have been working to understand and treat HIV and AIDS, 4.5 million people have died of the disease, and another 19 million are now infected with HIV. The United Nations estimates that by 2000, another 11 million to 14 million people will be infected. While not hailed as a cure, scientists are hopeful that a new combination of anti-HIV drugs may be an effective treatment for the disease, allowing people with HIV to live longer, healthier lives. The high cost of the drugs is a serious concern, however, and the authors raise questions about whether wealthy countries' would feel responsible to provide the drugs for poorer nations. The article also points out that, while other diseases pose more serious threats than AIDS in developing countries, research is limited because they are not health threats in the United States or Europe. "Japan's Anti-AIDS Drug Arsenal Slowly Expands" Nature Medicine (06/96) Vol. 2, No. 6; P. 621; Nathan, Richard The Japanese government has approved zalcitabine (ddC), the third anti-HIV drug now available in the country. The drug's approval points to the need for more anti-HIV drugs, including the new protease inhibitors. Medical professionals belonging to the Tokyo HIV Medical Treatment Network are now lobbying the government to approve 15 drugs, ones that are already available in the United States, for AIDS-related problems. Japan's drug approval system has been criticized for being too slow and lacking transparency. The government has designated the protease inhibitors ritonavir and indinavir, as well as 3TC for quick testing and approval. It also has allowed pharmaceutical companies to expand the number of Japanese patients participating in clinical trials for AIDS drugs. "Science and Technology: Hope" Economist (06/29/96) Vol. 339, No. 7972; P. 82 A new AIDS therapy, involving a combination of three drugs, has raised the hopes of AIDS patients, doctors, and researchers that the disease may be treatable as a chronic condition. The new drugs are designed to block HIV's protease enzyme, needed for the virus to replicate. The therapy combines a protease inhibitor with an older drug, a reverse-transcriptase inhibitor. This idea was first published by David Ho, of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, and George Shaw, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. They showed that HIV replicates continually from the time of initial infection, and is not dormant for years as was previously thought. As the body fights off infection, the virus mutates rapidly, until a strain arises that the immune system cannot overpower. At that point, a patient develops AIDS symptoms. The three-drug therapy aids the immune system, making the virus' chances of developing a more powerful strain very small. The small clinical trial of the triple combination showed that the viral level could be reduced to undetectable levels. A similar trial in newly-infected patients is now underway, as are larger triple-drug trials. The drugs are expensive, and no one knows how long their impact will last, but researchers are optimistic.