Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 14:34:40 -0400 From: "Flynn Mclean" Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 07/10/96 AIDS Daily Summary July 10, 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 ****************************************************** "Some Treatments, Behaviors Are Working to Slow AIDS Rate" "Needle-Swap Programs Spark Life-and-Death Debates" "AIDS Researchers Differ on Vaccine Strategies" "Tests for Viral Levels in Blood May Foretell AIDS Progression" "Glaxo Close to Own Triple AIDS Therapy" "AIDS Advisers Praise, Criticize Clinton Efforts" "Abbott Drug Maintains AIDS Promise" "Universal AIDS Fight Urged" "Editorial: Family Planning, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and the Prevention of AIDS--Divided We Fail?" "Robert Gallo Wants to Fight" ****************************************************** "Some Treatments, Behaviors Are Working to Slow AIDS Rate" Washington Post (07/10/96) P. A3; Brown, David While some advances have been made in preventing the spread of HIV, the ultimate goal--a cream or foam to prevent virus transmission during intercourse--is still years away. The rate of HIV transmission from mother to child is decreasing in the United States as a result of the use of AZT by pregnant women and newborns. Moreover, experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that HIV testing, counseling, and treatment for pregnant women could reduce the number of infected infants born from 1,750 a year to 1,100. Perinatal infection is especially problematic in sub-Saharan Africa, where use of AZT is rare. On Tuesday, the United Nations' AIDS program announced its plans for a three-year study of 2,000 HIV-infected pregnant women in South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. Less expensive alternatives to AZT will be tested, including antibodies taken from HIV patients and the drug nevirapine. Researchers, meanwhile, are also seeking a "microbicide" that could be applied in a cream to prevent transmission during intercourse, and the U.S. government announced a plan on Tuesday to devote $100 million over the next four years to developing such a product. "Needle-Swap Programs Spark Life-and-Death Debates" Wall Street Journal (07/10/96) P. B1; Bennett, Amanda Although currently illegal in most states, needle-exchange programs could prevent more than 11,000 new HIV infections by the end of the decade, two AIDS researchers reported Tuesday at the International Conference on AIDS. Peter Lurie of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California San Francisco and Ernest Drucker of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York said that, based on results of studies of the effectiveness of such programs, as many as 10,000 infections could have been prevented between 1987 and 1995 if clean needle programs had been implemented. Other researchers praised the study--the first to estimate the national effect of needle exchanges--and said the figures may even underestimate the potential impact of the programs. Needle exchanges are controversial because some people believe they encourage the use of illegal drugs. Federal funds cannot be used to support the programs, and at least nine states prohibit the distribution of needles without a prescription. "AIDS Researchers Differ on Vaccine Strategies" New York Times (07/10/96) P. C10 While the AIDS community agrees that a vaccine is needed to prevent HIV infection, scientists, public health officials, and political leaders disagree over when and where to launch the first large trials and which vaccine to test. A vaccine is especially needed in developing countries, where 90 percent of HIV infections occur. More than 1,700 HIV-negative people are participating in 16 trials of experimental vaccines in the United States. In some studies, approximately 5 percent of the volunteers have become infected through high-risk activities. The National Institutes of Health stopped a planned vaccine trial in 1994 because it said there was not a good enough chance of success. William E. Paul, head of the National Institutes of Health's Office of AIDS Research, said researchers need to apply advances in immunology to an AIDS vaccine. "Tests for Viral Levels in Blood May Foretell AIDS Progression" USA Today (07/10/96) P. 4D; Painter, Kim Tests of the amount of HIV in a person's bloodstream can predict how soon they will develop AIDS, new studies suggest. One study, published in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that 72 percent of patients with the highest level of virus had developed AIDS within 10 years, compared to none of the patients with the lowest viral loads. The studies also suggest that "the die is cast relatively early in HIV infection," according to National Cancer Institute researcher Thomas O'Brien. "Glaxo Close to Own Triple AIDS Therapy" Financial Times (07/10/96) P. 18; Green, Daniel Glaxo Wellcome, which currently sells two of the three drugs used in most triple therapy regimens for HIV, announced this week that it hopes to offer a complete triple therapy package within two years. The three-drug combination includes Glaxo's AZT and 3TC, and one of the new protease inhibitors, made by Merck, Abbott Laboratories, and Roche. Glaxo has marketing rights to a protease inhibitor being developed by Vertex, a U.S. biotechnology company. Peter Young, director of HIV and hepatitis at Glaxo, said that sales of drugs for HIV/AIDS could multiply 20 times over the next few years but that prices of the new triple therapy drugs could fall as sales grow. "AIDS Advisers Praise, Criticize Clinton Efforts" Washington Post (07/10/96) P. A15 The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS said that while the Clinton administration may be the best so far in fighting AIDS, it is "overly timid" in supporting aggressive prevention strategies like needle exchange programs. The group issued a report Monday praising Clinton for increasing AIDS funding and blocking attempts to dismantle Medicaid programs used by half the country's AIDS patients. The report also criticized a ban on using federal funds for needle exchanges, which currently operate in 55 U.S. cities. Clinton is planning to issue a national AIDS action plan next month and is seeking a $34 million increase for AIDS prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Abbott Drug Maintains AIDS Promise" Chicago Tribune (07/09/96) P. 3-5 Abbott Laboratories' new protease inhibitor Norvir, when combined with Glaxo Wellcome's AZT and Hoffmann-La Roche's ddC, continues to fight off HIV after 60 weeks of treatment, researchers said Monday. The drug was also found to increase survival among HIV-infected individuals. "Universal AIDS Fight Urged" Toronto Globe and Mail (07/08/96) P. A1; Picard, Andre While researchers are optimistic that new AIDS drugs may make the disease treatable as a long-term, chronic condition, the cost of the drugs makes them inaccessible to most people who need them. To the 90 percent of people with AIDS living in developing countries, an AIDS cure is no more likely than it was ten years ago, said Eric Sawyer, a member of ACT-UP New York. Sawyer urged drug companies to drop prices and called on governments to increase support. Governments worldwide are cutting back on health care and research and becoming complacent about AIDS. In Canada, the government is deciding whether to renew a $42.2 million national AIDS program. "Editorial: Family Planning, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and the Prevention of AIDS--Divided We Fail?" American Journal of Public Health (06/96) Vol. 86, No. 6, P. 783; Stein, Zena In an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health, Associate Editor Zena Stein points out that facilities providing comprehensive services for family planning, sexually transmitted diseases, and the prevention of AIDS would be more effective than the current system of facilities that address these three areas separately. Family planning clinics, she says, focus on contraception and do not adequately treat women for sexually transmitted diseases. Special clinics for STDs are usually independent of general health services and tend not to emphasize prevention or provide contact tracing and follow up. Services that aim to teach HIV prevention--including a wide range of public and private agencies--operate separately from these two categories. Stein says family planning clinics, STD clinics, and HIV services have neglected their responsibility to prevent and treat STDs among women and predicts that integrating these facilities would improve prevention and care for all STDs, including HIV. "Robert Gallo Wants to Fight" Worth (06/96) Vol. 5, No. 6, P. 110; Coppola, Vincent Robert Gallo, who proved that HIV causes AIDS and developed the HIV test to protect the blood supply, is known for his controversial relationships with colleagues and others in the AIDS community, as well as his extreme devotion to the area of AIDS. He holds or shares 79 patents, for example, and his findings have produced some $1 billion in private-sector revenues. In 1995, Gallo announced that he was leaving his 30-year career at the National Institutes of Health to direct his own commercial research center, the Institute of Human Virology in Baltimore, Md. The new institute, expected to open in November, will operate in collaboration with the University of Baltimore. It is being founded on $12 million from the state of Maryland and the city of Baltimore, but potential therapies will be developed and marketed through a private company, Omega Biotherapies, which Gallo founded and partly owns. Some of Gallo's more promising projects in the pipeline include vaccines, treatment for Kaposi's sarcoma, and therapies involving chemokines.