Subject: U. S. Health Agency Says AIDS Cases Will Nearly Double 
Date: Published: 9/20/85 100 lines
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

   U. S. Health Agency Says AIDS Cases
   Will Nearly Double Within Next Year
    ---
   By Marilyn Chase
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

   The Centers for Disease Control is predicting that total
cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome in the U. S. will
nearly double during the next year, with more than 12,000 new
cases expected to be diagnosed by July.
   The CDC presented its somber outlook on the spread of AIDS
in a report to be published in next Friday's issue of the
journal Science.
   In the U. S. so far, 13,061 adults have been diagnosed with
the disease, which destroys the immune system and leaves its
victims vulnerable to an array of infections and tumors.
About half of those patients have died; for patients
diagnosed before January 1983, the fatality rate has been
75%, the agency said.
   Homosexual men account for 73% of the AIDS cases, followed
by intravenous drug abusers, 17%, blood transfusion
recipients, 1.5%, and hemophiliacs who received contaminated
blood-clotting factors, 0.7%.  About 1% have been heterosexual
partners of people infected with the disease.  The remaining
6.4% are unclassified, though nearly half these cases
occurred in Haitians.
   Also, AIDS has been diagnosed in 167 children under the
age of 13.  Of these children, 70% were born to infected
parents, 15% were transfusion recipients, 5% were
hemophiliacs, and in 15% the cause hasn't been determined.
   The agency said it estimates that between 500,000 and one
million outwardly healthy Americans currently are infected
with the AIDS virus.  Each year, 1% to 2% of these infected
people are expected to begin showing symptoms of the illness.
   Some scientists, however, believe that the number of AIDS
cases is vastly under reported.  Harvard University researcher
William Haseltine said he and colleagues are convinced that
the actual caseload could be as much as "two times higher"
than the official total.
   Any such increase in AIDS cases will add not only to human
suffering, but also to the fiscal burden.  Ann Hardy, a
researcher for the health agency, has calculated that direct
medical costs for the first 9,000 patients already has
reached $1.26 billion.
   CDC officials who contributed to the Science article
expressed dismay over the public concern ignited in recent
weeks by publicity about a handful of celebrities and school
children with AIDS. 
   "It's frustrating," said Harold Jaffee, a doctor in the
agency's AIDS branch.  The spread of AIDS "is getting worse
and worse and worse.  But no one seems to notice until Rock
Hudson gets sick, or someone tries to get an AIDS child
enrolled in school."
   For the groups most at risk, AIDS has reduced life
expectancy greatly, the agency said in its report.  For single
men between the ages of 25 and 44 in the U. S. last year,
premature deaths caused by AIDS were only slightly less than
those attributed to all cancers.
   The CDC repeated its often-stated position that AIDS is
transmitted through sexual and blood contact, and isn't
transmitted by casual contact.  But the agency warned that
homosexuals and drug abusers remain at "extraordinary risk
for AIDS; the disease will probably become the major cause of
death in these populations."
   In its report, the agency also raised some questions about
the degree to which more conservative sexual behavior has
curbed the spread of AIDS. Despite surveys confirming major
behavioral changes and reduced numbers of partners among
homosexual men, the agency said the increase in cases of
infection means that "the risk of exposure ...  for
homosexual men may be greater now than it was in the early
1980s."
   "To be safe from risk of exposure to (AIDS virus)
infection," the report said, "persons should avoid any sexual
activity that involves the exchange of body fluid, such as
semen, with an individual who is known or suspected to be
infected ...  .  For individuals likely to continue sexual
exposure ...  such preventative measures as condoms,
diaphragms, or spermicides offer some theoretical protection,
but their efficacy is unproved."
   Also, in what could have implications for prevention and
diagnosis of the disease, scientists at the National Cancer
Institute reported in the same issue of Science that they
have identified a major protein produced by the AIDS virus.
This protein, designated as "GP 41," is one of the most
commonly detected, and AIDS patients react to it throughout
all stages of their infection, the report said.  The study was
a collaboration of the cancer institute and Litton Bionetics
Inc., a unit of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Litton Industries
Inc. 

(This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the 
personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the 
hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering 
from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.)