Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 16:35:22 -0400 From: "Flynn Mclean" Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 05/06/96 AIDS Daily Summary May 6, 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 ************************************************************ "A 'First Sane Step'" "Canadian Parents Warned of Bad Blood" "Risks of Importing Monkeys" "Price of Hiding Truth on AIDS" "Incidence of AIDS" "Obituary: Frankie Mason-Alston, AIDS Activist" "Maternal HIV Screening Discussed by Obstetricians at ACOG Meeting" "Costa Ricans Sue U.S. Lab for Selling Contaminated..." "Multidrug Tuberculosis Outbreak on an HIV Ward--Madrid, Spain, 1991-1995" "India's Railways Relent Over AIDS Passengers" ************************************************************ "A 'First Sane Step'" Wall Street Journal (05/06/96) P. A14 In a Wall Street Journal editorial, the authors applaud the decision by Congressional leaders to incorporate HIV testing of pregnant women into the Ryan White reauthorization bill. The bill calls for counseling for mothers now, and mandatory testing of newborns in the future if many mothers do not get tested. The so-called Baby AIDS compromise, the editors note, will make prenatal testing more common, allowing more perinatal infections to be prevented through AZT therapy. The editors further point out that testing newborns reveals whether mothers are infected, and thus gives doctors the chance to caution them against breastfeeding. New York State found that mothers often refused testing even after counseling on HIV testing was official policy. The editors claim that the new provision is a victory, noting that it is ridiculous to test for other, more rare diseases in infants and not for HIV. "Canadian Parents Warned of Bad Blood" Washington Post (05/06/96) P. A16 The Canadian Red Cross, facing a judicial inquiry into the tainted blood tragedy of the 1980s, is now being questioned about the distribution of blood infected with a deadly brain virus. Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children has notified 525 families that a blood donor died last year of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The risk of getting the disease from a transfusion is very small, but the hospital decided to notify parents and has suggested that other hospitals do the same. The blood products were used at the hospital between 1989 and July 1995. "Risks of Importing Monkeys" Washington Post (05/06/96) P. A18; Cohen, Murray J. In a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, Murray J. Cohen, co-chair of the Medical Research Modernization Committee, points out that articles on the recent outbreak of Ebola virus in monkeys did not mention the human risks of importing monkeys for research. Cohen claims that HIV may be the human form of simian immunodeficiency virus that crossed the species barrier and that AIDS in Central Africa is probably the result of the cross-species transmission of SIV. He also says hepatitis B may have been caused by human exposure to chimpanzees. Other monkey viruses, including Marburg, the macaque herpes B virus, and monkey STLV, can also create risks for humans. Importing monkeys for research, Cohen claims, is dangerous and unwise. "Price of Hiding Truth on AIDS" Philadelphia Inquirer (05/03/96) P. B1; Boldt, David In the Philadelphia Inquirer, columnist David Boldt reacts to a Wall Street Journal article that exposed the government's exaggeration of the AIDS risk for the general population in order to win popular support for AIDS programs. The article reported that if more money had been devoted to HIV education for the high-risk population, it would have been more effective and lives would have been saved. Boldt says that the media, while aware of the deception, did nothing to disclose it. He points to a book, Michael Fumento's "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS," which exposed the government's conspiracy in 1990 and resulted in protests by the AIDS activist community. Fumento was fired from his job and widely criticized. Two recent books by gay authors have praised his work, however. Boldt concludes that the media failed to be honest and will probably suffer for it. "Incidence of AIDS" Washington Post (05/04/96) P. A14; Murray, David David Murray, director of research at the Statistical Assessment Service, responds to a recent editorial in the Washington Post that said AIDS statistics reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were skewed by a change in the definition of AIDS in 1994. In his letter to the editor, Murray claims the newspaper should have objected to the increase in AIDS cases reported in 1994 due to the redefinition. Murray argues that recent evidence proves that the number of new HIV infections is declining nationwide, as the CDC reported, and asserts that "accurate and full reportage of the epidemic" should be the primary concern. "Obituary: Frankie Mason-Alston, AIDS Activist" Washington Post (05/04/96) P. B6 Frankie Mason-Alston, an AIDS activist who conducted AIDS education at high schools, churches, civic groups, and universities in the Washington, D.C., area, died of the disease on April 29. Ms. Mason-Alston began her work as an AIDS educator in 1989, working with such organizations as Life Link, the D.C. Women's Council, the Sister Care Program, D.C. public schools, and the Whitman-Walker clinic. Ms. Mason-Alston founded a program in Alexandria, Va. to educate black women about AIDS and also addressed AIDS conferences nationwide. "Maternal HIV Screening Discussed by Obstetricians at ACOG Meeting" Reuters (05/03/96) At the annual clinical meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Denver, John W. Larsen of George Washington University and colleagues at NTD Laboratories reported that prenatal maternal serum HIV-1 antibody screening may be feasible. The researchers suggested that screening pregnant women for HIV-1 antibody can be performed along with prenatal birth defect screening during the first or second trimester. The scientists used an HIV-1 antibody assay kit to test 857 samples. Three tested positive "repeatedly," and no false positives or indeterminate results were reported. The test may provide an accurate and effective method to meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended routine HIV counseling and voluntary testing of all pregnant women, Larsen said. David Jackson and colleagues at Sacred Heart Medical Center reported, meanwhile, that HIV seroprevalence in pregnant women was found to vary widely by geography. Maternal HIV seroprevalence was highest in New York and lowest in Montana. "Costa Ricans Sue U.S. Lab for Selling Contaminated..." Xinhua News Agency (05/04/96) The family members of a group of hemophiliacs in Costa Rica have sued the Miller-Couter Laboratory in a Dallas court for selling HIV-contaminated plasma. The amount of compensation sought will be decided by the jury. Sixty-eight hemophiliacs were infected with HIV between 1985 and 1986. "Multidrug Tuberculosis Outbreak on an HIV Ward--Madrid, Spain, 1991-1995" Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (04/26/96) Vol. 45, No. 16, P. 330; Herrera, D.; Cano, R.; Godoy, P.; et al. Between June 1991 and January 1995, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) was found in 47 patients and one health care worker in a hospital HIV ward in Madrid, Spain. D. Herrera and colleagues in the Spanish Field Epidemiology Training Program report that their investigation of the outbreak found that nosocomial transmission of MDR-TB occurred in the ward. The average time from the patients' MDR-TB diagnosis to death was 78 days. An analysis showed that patients involved in the outbreak were more likely to have been exposed to potentially infective wardmates and to have more days of exposure than the control patients. Moreover, it revealed that 104 of the isolates from the TB cases were drug-susceptible, while 12 were resistant to one drug and 66 were resistant to isoniazid, streptomycin, ethambutol, and rifampin. An editorial note accompanying the article says the case is the first documented outbreak of nosocomial MDR-TB to be investigated in Spain, but it is similar to previously reported outbreaks elsewhere. To control the outbreak, the MDR-TB patients were isolated; family, community members, and wardmates of the patients were notified and offered isoniazid preventive therapy; hospital staff were notified and most were screened for TB; and personal respiratory protection devices were used by staff exposed to the TB patients. "India's Railways Relent Over AIDS Passengers" Lancet (04/27/96) Vol. 347, No. 9009, P. 1178; Kumar, Sanjay The Indian Railways recently reversed its policy of preventing people with AIDS from traveling on Indian trains. Prior legislation had added AIDS to the list of contagious diseases that can keep passengers off the railways. The Health Ministry tried to get AIDS removed from the list in 1993, but was unsuccessful. Only after intense lobbying by AIDS patients resulted in the media exposing the discriminatory rule did the government remove AIDS from the list.