Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 09:41:51 -0500 From: "Flynn Mclean" Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 11/05/96 AIDS Daily Summary November 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 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 ****************************************************** "Success of AIDS Drug Has Merck Fighting to Keep Up the Pace" "Across the USA: Rhode Island" "'Cocktail' Therapies Offer Hope in AIDS Battle" "Restoring Parental Responsibility" "New Director Out of Job at Action AIDS" "Battle to the Death?" "President Takes His Final Campaign to Where Quest Began" "Progesterone Implants Enhance SIV Vaginal Transmission and Early Virus Load" "A Black-and-White Approach to AIDS" "Adventuring to Fight AIDS" ****************************************************** "Success of AIDS Drug Has Merck Fighting to Keep Up the Pace" Wall Street Journal (11/05/96) P. A1; Tanouye, Elyse Merck's AIDS drug Crixivan, which won the FDA's fastest approval ever, is now so popular that the company is having difficulty keeping up with demand. About 90,000 patients worldwide are already taking the drug, and demand is expected to increase as more states approve funding for the costly therapy and more countries approve the drug for sale. In its rush to beat competitors, however, Merck obtained approval of Crixivan before new manufacturing plants were ready to produce the drug. Crixivan is also the most complex drug Merck has ever tried to mass-produce, which has only further delayed production. "Across the USA: Rhode Island" USA Today (11/05/96) P. 10A In Rhode Island, a state Education Department task force made up of parents and educators has proposed a sex education plan that would include teaching kindergartners about AIDS and demonstrating condom use to ninth-graders. "'Cocktail' Therapies Offer Hope in AIDS Battle" Baltimore Sun (11/05/96) P. 7A A triple combination of AIDS drugs is dramatically delaying the progression of the disease among European patients, doctors reported at a conference in England Monday. Dr. Ian Weller of London's Middlesex Hospital noted that "we are talking about a 40 [percent] to 50 percent reduction in mortality," and that the benefit has lasted up to two years in some patients. Furthermore, Dr. Peter Reiss, of the Academy Medical Center in Amsterdam, said his AIDS clinic has been able to treat people with other conditions because his AIDS patients have become outpatients. As evidence of the drugs' value, Reiss pointed to the drop in cases of cytomegalovirus infection, an infection that can blind people with AIDS, and Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancer common among AIDS patients. "Restoring Parental Responsibility" Wall Street Journal (11/05/96) P. A22 Parental rights and responsibilities have become a hot political issue, and they are being debated from the presidential race to a Colorado ballot initiative, according to a New York Times editorial. The proposal in Colorado would limit how far schools and governments can go against the wishes of parents in areas like psychological testing and condom distribution. In Massachusetts, for example, a parent's complaint about a safer sex performance at a high school was rejected by a federal appeals court. The court ruled that the performance, titled "Hot, Sexy, and Safer," was "intended to educate students about the AIDS virus." The Colorado initiative would place in the state constitution the reasoning used in 1925 to establish a firm right of parents "to direct and control the upbringing, education, values, and discipline of their children." "New Director Out of Job at Action AIDS" Philadelphia Inquirer (11/05/96) P. B2; Burling, Stacey Billy S. Jones, chosen two weeks ago by the board of directors of Action AIDS to run the Philadelphia AIDS service agency, was removed from the position Sunday. The board met with Jones to discuss a report published Friday in the Philadelphia Gay News that said that Jones was sentenced to jail in 1985 for embezzling $57,000 from a San Francisco agency for troubled youth. Jones confirmed the report and offered not to accept the position of executive director. The new choice for director is Kevin Conare, who has served as deputy executive director for three years. Action AIDS has 80 employees and an annual budget of $3.5 million. It provides case-management services, including referrals for medical care, housing, and transportation to about 2,000 people with AIDS. "Battle to the Death?" Washington Times (11/05/96) P. B6 Companies in the viatical settlements business are at odds over the implications of a new law that allows individuals with terminal illnesses to sell their life-insurance policies tax-free. At the same time, advances in the treatment of AIDS have dramatically changed the business. Independent viatical companies are fighting to make sure they are not put at a disadvantage to insurance companies. The definition of a viatical company under the new Kennedy-Kassebaum health-insurance reform law is the central issue in the debate. The National Viatical Association claims that the law gives an unfair advantage to insurance companies because it requires a viatical settlement company to be operating in one of the 12 regulated states in order for the customer to benefit from the tax break. "President Takes His Final Campaign to Where Quest Began" Boston Globe (11/04/96) P. A10; Wilkie, Curtis President Clinton has kept up a rapid pace during the final days of his campaign, traveling from coast to coast speaking about the healthy economy and his "bridge to the 21st century." In a recent speech in Oakland, Calif., Clinton pointed to advances in medical science. "We now know how to move drugs and mix drugs in a way that has more than doubled the life expectancy for people with HIV and AIDS in only four years," he said. "Progesterone Implants Enhance SIV Vaginal Transmission and Early Virus Load" Nature Medicine (10/96) Vol. 2, No. 10, P. 1084; Marx, Preston A.; Spira, Alexander I.; Gettie, Agegnehu; et al. Genital HIV transmission in women is thought to be influenced by progesterone, a hormone which causes changes in the vaginal epithelium, vaginal pH, and cervical mucus. Epidemiological studies have yielded inconclusive results about the impact of hormonal contraceptives on HIV transmission. To test the relationship, researchers, led by Preston A. Marx of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the New York University Medical School, studied the influence of progesterone implants on simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection in macaques. They report that macaques given subcutaneous progesterone implants, which act similarly to hormonally based contraceptives, were 7.7 times more likely than other macaques exposed to the virus to have thinned vaginal epithelium and to become infected with SIV. Macaques with the implants also had higher plasma viral DNA for the first three months of infection, and three of the treated macaques showed relatively rapid disease progression. The authors conclude that women exposed to high levels of progesterone could be at increased risk of vaginal HIV infection and that the influence of progesterone should be studied in women. "A Black-and-White Approach to AIDS" Across the Board (10/96) Vol. 133, No. 9, P. 63 A 1995 study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 54 percent of workplaces with at least 750 employees have had a worker with HIV or AIDS. The CDC provides sample workplace policies to advise companies on managing issues related to the disease. The agency also offers a Manager's Kit, including brochures, resource catalogs, and posters, to aid in the implementation of AIDS-awareness programs. The kit is available for $25 by calling the Business and Labor Resource Service at (800) 458-5231. "Adventuring to Fight AIDS" Women's Sports+Fitness (10/96) P. 25 AIDS education is an adventure. That might be a fitting motto for Michael E. Coyne, head of Expedition Outreach. Coyne, his wife Christine, and other members of the group have undertaken a series of adventures aimed at educating people about AIDS and HIV prevention, as well as raising funds for the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts. "We'll do anything that will make people stand up and take notice of the AIDS crisis," Coyne said. "In particular, we want to educate young adults and kids about a virulent new strain of AIDS called subtype E, which is particularly threatening to women because it thrives in their reproductive tracts." Expedition Outreach's most recent exploits involved scaling 21,200-foot Nevado Illiman in the Bolivian Andes. Previous outings include skydiving, whitewater rafting, and ice-climbing adventures. Coyne hopes eventually to climb a mountain in either Alaska or Siberia that has never been climbed before and to name the summit Mt. Hope. For more information or to make a donation to the group, call (617) 450-1347.