Subject: CDC Summary 2/16/93 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 22:57:18 PST (227 lines) Archive-Number: 229 From: Billi Goldberg Note: Copyright 1992, Dan R. Greening. Non-commercial reproduction allowed. sold. Copyright 1992, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD AIDS Daily Summary February 16, 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 ===================================================================== "U.S. Starts Initial Human Tests on New Type of AIDS Vaccine" Los Angeles Times (02/14/93), P. A7 On Friday, the federal government began preliminary human trials of an AIDS vaccine, which researchers hope will protect against several strains of HIV. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said researchers would first give the vaccine to 36 healthy volunteers to test its safety and the immune system response of the participants. The vaccine is manufactured by United Biomedical Inc. of Hauppauge, N.Y. It is a so-called "peptide vaccine," based on a laboratory-synthesized protein fragment, or peptide. An agency AIDS researcher, Margaret Johnston, said, "Peptide vaccines have two particular strengths: They are inexpensive and relatively easy to modify, to include new mixtures of peptides and those from different HIV strains." There are at least five genetically distinguishable strains of HIV, according to research. The NIAID said United Biomedical eventually wants to develop a vaccine involving a mix of peptides that would provide protection against all strains of the AIDS virus. ===================================================================== "A Place for Children Touched by AIDS" Washington Post (02/15/93), P. B3 (Pressley, Sue Anne) A facility designed to provide care for children affected by the AIDS epidemic will open in two weeks in Alexandria, Va. The PlayCare Center is the first childcare program of its kind in the Washington, D.C., area. The center will offer a free, safe place to leave young children for a few hours. Parents or guardians who have AIDS and need to see a doctor, go to the grocery store, or even take a nap can take advantage of the center's services. One HIV-positive woman said, "You find yourself needing a day for yourself. This disease is so stressful. It's nice to know I don't have to feel so overwhelmed." The PlayCare Center is sponsored by the Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry, known as NOVAM. The center is not a day-care program, but more like a special baby-sitting service, featuring volunteers from the Children's Hospital who are trained to deal with the sensitive problems of families coping with AIDS. NOVAM executive director Donald W. Leary said the program is not just for HIV-positive children, but also for all family members whose lives have been affected by the disease. The program has a $40,000 annual budget and will be offered in two small nursery classrooms at the United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Va. Initially, the center will be open only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. ===================================================================== "Around the Region: Hunger Strike Threatened" Washington Post (02/16/93), P. E3 Jesse L. Jackson yesterday proposed organizing a hunger strike in the United States if the Clinton administration continues to refuse HIV-positive Haitians admission into the country. After meeting with Chief of Staff Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty, Jackson, who started a personal hunger strike Sunday, said he supports President Clinton's policy on the Haitians but wants action within a week. Recently, Jackson returned from the Guantanamo Naval base in Cuba, where he joined HIV-positive Haitians in a hunger strike to prompt Clinton to lift the ban on their entry. A total of 267 Haitians are being detained at the base because their claims for political asylum have been refused due to their own or their family members' HIV-positive status. The majority of the Haitians are refusing their meals to some degree, but 15 or 20 are considered active strikers. Jackson said the expanded strike could involve "other leaders and other organizations that have been involved in the process." Last week, Clinton revealed that he wants to end the ban, which prohibits HIV-positive foreigners from entering the country. ===================================================================== "New Research Shows HIV and Cancer Genes May Be Blocked" United Press International (02/15/93) Cleveland--A new drug may inhibit cancer and viral infections, including HIV, according to recent research conducted by the Cleveland Clinic and the National Institutes of Health, and published in the Monday issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The drug, 2-5A-antisense, causes the breakdown of unwanted messenger RNA. Messenger RNA determines which protein will be made in the cell. Therefore, when the unwanted RNA is broken down, the gene cannot function. Dr. Robert Silverman of the Cleveland Clinic's Cancer Biology Department said, "The research is in its very early stages. But our results are exciting. This method takes a much more targeted approach to treating viral infections and cancer." The approach reported uses a modified "antisense," which is a piece of DNA that seeks out and binds with messenger RNA. Attached to the antisense is an enzyme activator, known as 2-5A. The antisense binds to the unwanted messenger RNA, which is then killed by the activated enzyme. The report states, "In any virus, the genes have a sequence unique in nature. In theory, we can make an antisense that will bind only to the virus RNA without binding to human RNA, thereby destroying the virus without harming the person." Silverman warns that the findings have been in cell extracts, not within animals or people. But he said the researchers still consider the results quite promising. ===================================================================== "Blood Program Lacks Expertise, Doctor Contends" Toronto Globe and Mail (02/12/93), P. A3 (York, Geoffrey) The Canadian Red Cross blood transfusion program is poorly organized, which has caused several top physicians to leave the organization, a former senior official has cautioned. Gail Rock, medical director at the Ottawa center of the Red Cross transfusion service from 1974 until her dismissal in 1988, said she is concerned about the lack of trained experts in the blood program. She told a House of Commons subcommittee on Thursday that the national office has only one full-time physician, and he had no training in transfusion medicine before joining the Red Cross. But Rita Cloghesy, a Red Cross spokeswoman, said the blood program did not have a shortage of medical expertise. However, Dr. Rock argued that even after more than 1,000 Canadians contracted HIV from tainted blood products in the early 1980s, a senior official at the Red Cross refused to believe the medical proof that HIV could be transmitted through blood transfusions. She said that the Canadian Red Cross has also failed to make its citizens aware that they can donate their own blood for transfusions, a process that is much more common in the United States. Dr. Norbert Gilmore, a professor of medicine at McGill University and former chairman of the National Advisory Committee on AIDS, told the subcommittee there was a lack of coordination among several organizations and agencies that are involved in the Canadian blood transfusion system. He said this lack of coordination "may have disastrous consequences" if there is a rapidly spreading virus in the future. ===================================================================== "Hemophiliac Pleads for Redress" Toronto Globe and Mail (02/12/93), P. A3 (Cox, Kevin) A man who contracted HIV through a contaminated blood transfusion and is dying of AIDS made an appeal Thursday to provincial governments in Canada to compensate the families of those with the disease. Randy Conners said, "I think a great injustice has been done to me and my family and I want just compensation. I want to know that after I die my family doesn't have to lose our home or go on welfare." He also said he may only have a few months to live and is concerned about what will happen to his wife, Janet, who is also infected with HIV, and their 12-year-old son. A Canadian federal program has been giving the Conners family, in addition to about 1,000 other HIV-positive Canadians, a maximum of $120,000 over four years. That program will end on April 1. The provincial governments have recently refused to give compensation to these people, all of whom contracted HIV through infected blood products. The infected blood made its way into the blood supply in several countries before aggressive screening and lab testing was introduced in Canada in 1985. Mr. and Mrs. Conners, along with Dan Doran, president of the Nova Scotia Hemophilia Society, made their request for compensation for the families of people affected by the tainted-blood scandal to provincial Health Minister George Moody last week. John Sansom, a spokesman for the Health Department, said that Moody has decided to examine the situation with other provincial health officials to determine if a compensation package would be feasible. ===================================================================== "Bishop Urges Nationwide Fight Against Government Safe Sex Drive" United Press International (02/15/93) Manila, Philippines--The archbishop of Manila is encouraging Roman Catholics nationwide to fight attempts by President Fidel Ramos' government to promote the use of condoms as a means of preventing the spread of HIV infection. Cardinal Jaime Sin asked Manila parishioners on Sunday in his sermon to "join hands" in the fight against abortion, condoms, and prostitution. The sermon was the most recent strike at the nation's first Protestant president. Ramos, a Methodist, has contradicted the church's beliefs by backing his health secretary's policy of distributing condoms to prevent HIV and educating people in the predominantly Catholic nation about all means of birth control. Sin said, "We all know how hard our lives are in the Philippines, but what I don't understand is why the government doesn't care for the feelings of Christians in our country." Many church leaders and conservative legislators demanded the resignation of health secretary Juan Flavier after the former country physician started distributing condoms in public early this year. The Catholic Bishops Conference called the use of condoms a "simplistic and evasive" solution to preventing HIV infection, according to a pastoral letter read in Catholic churches nationwide Feb. 7. The Department of Health reports that 368 Filipinos have been found to have AIDS. Flavier said Thursday that the actual number could be 100 times that figure. ===================================================================== "Newsline: Fear of AIDS Suit Allowed" National Law Journal (02/15/93) Vol. 15, No. 24, P. 17 A federal ruling permitting a worker to sue his employer for his fear of AIDS is believed to be the first of its kind. The decision was called a "landmark" by prominent AIDS plaintiffs' litigator David B. Baum of San Francisco's Baum, Wiss, & Blake. U.S. District Judge Arthur D. Spatt of the Eastern District of New York, ruled on Jan. 26 that a Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) employee who was accidentally stuck with a hypodermic needle while cleaning a railroad station can sue his employer for his fears that he became infected with HIV. ===================================================================== "Supermarket Video: AIDS Committee Sets Fund-Raiser to Start Nov. 24" Supermarket News (02/08/93) Vol. 43, No. 6, P. 37 A multi-million dollar fundraising effort will be led by the Video Industry AIDS Action Committee between Nov. 24 and Dec. 1, 1993. The program, called "A Penny for AIDS," asks retailers to donate one cent to VIAAC for every video rental and sale. The campaign was announced during the Video Software Dealers Association Regional Leaders Conference in La Jolla, Calif. The fundraiser program will also request that suppliers donate one cent for every $2 of revenue during the period. ===================================================================== "Unexplained Opportunistic Infections and CD4+ T-Lymphocytopenia Without HIV Infection" New England Journal of Medicine (02/11/93) Vol. 328, No. 6, P. 373 (Smith, Dawn K., et al.) The mysterious AIDS-like condition without evidence of HIV infection that has recently been reported appears to be rare and not transmissible, write Dr. Dawn K. Smith and colleagues of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga. Researchers conducted investigations to determine the demographic, clinical, and immunologic features of patients with idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia (ICL); whether the syndrome is epidemic or transmissible; and its possible causes. The researchers reviewed 230,179 cases in the CDC AIDS Reporting System and performed interviews, medical reviews, and laboratory analyses of blood specimens from adults and adolescents who met the CDC definition of ICL. The patients' sexual contacts, household contacts, and persons who had donated blood to them were also tested. The researchers interviewed 31 of the 47 patients identified with ICL, as well as 23 of their contacts. A total of 18 patients had one or more risk factors for HIV infection: seven had hemophilia, six had engaged in homosexual sex, six had received blood transfusions, and two had had heterosexual sex partners who were at risk for HIV infection. The other 29 patients had no risk factors for HIV infection. When blood from 28 patients was tested, eight were found to have T-cell counts of less than 300 cells per cubic millimeter, and 6 had fewer than 250 T-cells per cubic millimeter. The researchers determined that 10 sex partners, three household contacts, and four children of the ICL patients, as well as six persons who had donated blood to the patients, were immunologically and clinically normal.