Subject: CDC Summary 2/4/93 Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1993 08:11:20 PST (236 lines) Note: Copyright 1992, Dan R. Greening. Non-commercial reproduction allowed. sold. Copyright 1992, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD Archive-Number: 100 AIDS Daily Summary February 4, 1993 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. Copyright 1992, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD ====================================================================== "Effective Test is Developed to Find AIDS in Newborns" New York Times (02/04/93), P. B8 (Hilts, Philip J.) A new technique developed by researchers at the University of California--Los Angeles (UCLA) can determine whether infants are infected with HIV. The method is faster than current tests and can detect more than 80 percent of the infants who are not infected. The new test uses the conventional approach for finding HIV, but precedes it with another overnight test that separates the mother's and infant's antibodies. The study is featured in today's issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, and was led by Dr. Yvonne Bryson. The researchers reported on 29 babies born to HIV-positive mothers, and the new method was found to be accurate in detecting infection in all of the babies. The report mentioned that about half of the infected infants contracted the virus in the womb and half during birth. Dr. Bryson said that is significant because it may be possible to take special precautions in delivery to prevent fetuses from swallowing blood or secretions from the mother and to prevent cuts or abrasions that may provide an opening for infection. She added that infants who might be infected get tested at birth, when it would be possible to detect infections that took place in the womb, and then retested four to six weeks later to detect infections that occurred at birth. But the test is still awaiting Food and Drug Administration approval, which is expected to be relatively quick. The new technique is relatively simple and costs only about $80, in contrast to the hundreds of dollars and difficult laboratory work needed for previous tests. This enables infants to be tested earlier, and allows more infants to be tested in developing countries that lack the resources for more complex tests. Related Story: Philadelphia Inquirer (02/04) P. A16 ====================================================================== "Effective Test is Developed to Find AIDS in Newborns: Work on Vaccines" New York Times (02/04/93), P. B8 (Hilts, Philip J.) The Swedish government is expected to announce today that it will launch a trial in which 1,000 patients will be used to determine whether vaccines may be used to treat AIDS instead of merely prevent infection with HIV. The experiment is the first large-scale, rigorous scientific test of whether vaccines can boost the immune system even after a person contracts HIV infection. If it proves successful, it is hoped that injections will postpone by months or years the onset of opportunistic infections. Vacsyn, the drug made by MicroGeneSys Inc. of Meriden, Conn., will be used in the trial in an experiment on HIV- positive people who are asymptomatic. The trial will be double-blind, which means neither the patients nor the doctors will know who is given the vaccine and who is getting the placebo. Dr. Britta Wahren of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, one of the researchers in the trial, said the findings from the experiments are not expected until 1995. The trial is significant because tests of Vacsyn have been debated at the National Institutes of Health and are now being scheduled in the United States. Those tests will use other vaccines, in addition to Vacsyn. Early experiments at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C., and in small trials in Canada and Sweden showed that patients who received Vacsyn did not show signs of depletion of their immune systems. Although the results were positive, they were not dramatic in the small pool of patients. ====================================================================== "Setting Goals for AIDS Policy" Washington Post (02/04/93), P. D.C. 3 Washington, D.C.-area AIDS activists, service providers, and HIV- positive individuals will convene at the District Building on Saturday in a daylong session designed to formulate input for a federal agenda on the needs of HIV-positive people. The Clinton administration requested the recommendations from affected communities across the country. The meeting is one of 25 nationwide and is open to anyone who is interested. Later this month, representatives from the 25 meetings will gather in Washington to develop a document to give to the Clinton administration. Alina Patton of the D.C. CARE Consortium of local AIDS advocacy organizations said, "This is the first time in the 11-year history of AIDS that a president has actually turned to us and asked for our input." The issues expected to be addressed are federal leadership in prevention, research, care, and anti-discrimination efforts. The session was organized by several AIDS education and service organizations, including the Inner City AIDS Network, Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry, Whitman Walker Clinic, Carl Vogel Foundation, and the D.C. CARE Consortium. ====================================================================== "Midwest Report: Michigan Guards Want HIV Inmates Isolated" Chicago Tribune (02/03/93), P. 1-3 On Tuesday, after a bloody fight at a maximum-security prison in Jackson, Mich., a group representing prison guards requested the isolation of HIV-infected inmates. Two guards were cut in the arm and hand as they attempted to break up a fight between two inmates, one of whom had a knife. One prisoner was HIV-positive, said Corrections spokesman Warren Williams. "There's at least the possibility that the inmate's blood may have been on that knife, and that knife did cut the officer," said Williams. Fred Parks, president of the Michigan Corrections Organization, which represents the state's 7,300 prison guards, demanded the seclusions of HIV inmates. He projected that about 10 percent of the state's 35,000 inmates are HIV-positive. ====================================================================== "An Activist Is Appointed to Head City AIDS Office" Philadelphia Inquirer (02/04/93), P. B2 (Collins, Huntly) Richard Scott, a Philadelphia AIDS activist and union agent for white collar workers, has been appointed the new director of the city's AIDS Activities Coordinating Office. Dr. Robert K. Ross, the city's health commissioner, is expected to announce the appointment of Scott today. Ross said that Scott's past experience working in the city health department would be "enormously useful" in improving the city's anti-AIDS efforts. Within the last year, some AIDS organizations have criticized the city's AIDS office for its lack of direction and leadership. The agency has a staff of about 40 people and a budget of about $18 million in federal, state, and local funds. Scott, who worked as a union agent for District Council 47 of AFSCME for the past eight years, will take over as the director in the AIDS office on Feb. 16. He mentioned yesterday that he would concentrate on boosting AIDS funding at all levels of government, improving clinical care of HIV- positive people being treated at city health clinics, and also improve the city's attempts to track the course of the AIDS epidemic. He said the city's AIDS efforts should not neglect certain groups such as HIV- positive women, the minority poor, and gay and bisexual men who may not be using condoms. He is currently chairman of the AIDS Advocacy Coalition, which represents local AIDS service groups, and serves on the board of the Philadelphia AIDS Consortium. Scott was one of 14 people nationwide last year to win a congressional award for his work on promoting AIDS education with union workers. ====================================================================== "Safety Group Draws Up Its '93 Wish List" Los Angeles Times--Washington Edition (02/04/93), P. A5 (Loew, Karen) The Coalition for Consumer Health and Safety is expected to present proposals to the Clinton administration, including two on AIDS- related issues, that it hopes will receive serious consideration. The coalition, which represents 35 consumer, health, and insurance organizations, has prepared the legislative proposals and regulatory changes to give to the president. Among the proposals is a recommendation that the White House establish a "federal interagency mechanism" to coordinate the federal response to AIDS, as the National Commission on AIDS has advised, along with a hastened implementation of the commission's other recommendations. It also requests that legislation be formed to establish penalties for violence against "vulnerable" adults, including HIV-positive people. ====================================================================== "AIDS Children Get Better Dental Care in Foster Than Birth Homes" United Press International (02/04/93) (Wasowicz, Lidia) San Francisco--Children with AIDS who live in foster homes receive much better dental care than those who live with their birth parents, according to a researcher who spoke at the four-day International Workshop on the Oral Manifestations of HIV Infection. Fred Ferguson, associate professor at the School of Dental Medicine, State University of New York--Stony Brook, said, "My findings suggest there is a great difference in the risk for plaque, gingivitis, and caries in infected children depending upon their place of residence." Ferguson said all of these conditions are easily prevented and recommended early dental counseling. He said that health-care workers should be trained to teach the basics of good dental health to the parents of HIV-positive children. These involve avoiding unrestricted bottle nursing, cleaning the child's mouth and teeth, minimizing use of pacifiers coated with honey or other sugary substances, and limiting foods high in sucrose. Ferguson studied 32 boys and 26 girls between six months and 15 years old infected with HIV. Among the 58 children, 23 were living with their birth families and 35 with foster parents. All of the children living with their natural families were allowed continuous use of a juice or milk bottle, and 100 percent suffered from plaque and caries. But none of the adopted youngsters showed any symptom of these problems. ====================================================================== "Truth and Consequences: Teen Sex" American Enterprise (01-02/93) Vol. 4, No. 1, P. 52 (Besharov, Douglas J. and Gardiner, Karen N.) The sexual revolution that began thirty years ago progressed well into the late 1980s. A total of ten million teenagers will partake in about 126 million acts of sexual intercourse this year. Also, about three million teenagers will contract a sexually transmitted disease such as chlamydia, syphilis, gonorrhea, pelvic inflammatory disease, and even HIV infection. More than half of all unmarried teenage girls report that they have had sex at least once. In addition, sexual activity is starting at even younger ages. The National Study of Family Growth found in 1988 that the percentage of 18-year-olds who reported being sexually active increased about 75 percent between 1970 and 1988, from about 40 percent to about 70 percent. In 1990, 32 percent of ninth-grade girls (aged 14 and 15) reported ever having had sex, compared to 49 percent of the males in the same grade. The National Study of Adolescent Males conducted in 1988 and 1991 found that the average number of partners reported by males in the 12 months preceding the survey grew from 2.0 in 1988 to 2.6 in 1991. Nearly 7 percent of ninth-grade females told the Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 1990 that they had had intercourse with four or more different partners, while 19 percent of males the same age had reported doing so. Although the AIDS epidemic has not reached the adolescent population in huge proportions, the Centers for Disease Control reports that most of the current AIDS cases among people in their 20s were probably contracted in the teenage years. In order for this trend not to continue, public policy must try to lower the rate of sexual activity and raise the level of condom use. ====================================================================== "More AIDS Drugs Needed, AZT Study Concludes" Advocate (02/09/93) No. 622, P. 22 (Coward, Cheryl) The recent study which found that AZT-resistant strains of HIV can be transmitted from person to person left few public health experts surprised, but they warned the study emphasizes the need for more new AIDS drugs. Dr. Wendell T.W. Ching, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California--Los Angeles (UCLA), conducted the study at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City with three researchers form the medical school at New York University (NYU). The study's findings were reported in the Jan. 1 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ching said, "People are usually infected with various strains of HIV. Once people start taking AZT, the resistant strains are the ones that survive." He said it is these strains that are transmitted through high-risk behavior. "We were able to find AZT resistance in patients who never had any exposure to AZT," he said. Earlier research found AZT resistance developing in people who had taken the drug over a long period, but studies had not shown the existence of AZT-resistant strains of HIV in people who had never taken AZT. Although the Food and Drug Administration accelerated its approval process for experimental anti- AIDS drugs and other treatments for life-threatening conditions, it is not expected to drastically increase the number of AIDS drugs under development, according to insiders. Ching said the study showed "it is probably quite easy for the virus to have a resistant strain propagate itself. This implies that future medications will have to be tested for resistance after the virus is exposed to the medication." ====================================================================== "News in Brief: Michigan" Advocate (02/09/93) No. 622, P. 25 Nearly 18 percent of the Michigan residents who responded to a survey conducted by the state health department said that a five-year- old state-funded anti-AIDS advertising effort helped convince them to stop practicing high-risk sexual behavior, said state public health director Vernice Davis Anthony. Approximately 60 percent of the participants said the campaign informed them of the state AIDS hotline, said Anthony. She added that the number of calls answered by the hotline has grown by 64 percent since the campaign began in 1988. In addition to the anti-AIDS program, the state also funds anti-smoking, anti-violence, and cancer prevention ad campaigns. A total of $1.7 million has been used to fund all of the campaigns.