Subject: CDC Summary 2/22/93 Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 07:57:59 PST (262 lines) Archive-Number: 266 From: Billi Goldberg Note: Copyright 1992, Dan R. Greening. Non-commercial reproduction allowed. sold. Copyright 1992, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD AIDS Daily Summary February 22, 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 ====================================================================== "Bill Seeks to Coordinate NIH Research on AIDS" Washington Post (02/22/93), P. A4 (Brown, David) The question of whether or not a more centralized AIDS research effort would help put an end to the AIDS epidemic is currently being raised by researchers. Last week, the Senate passed a bill that would give more power to the National Institutes of Health's Office of AIDS Research (OAR) and make its director, if not a "czar," then at the very least an official with unprecedented authority over how the government spends money studying the disease and searching for a cure. The bill requires the office to develop an overall budget for AIDS research and eventually acquire major influence in the decisions of what scientific questions will be most researched--and funded. But many scientists are skeptical that central planning will lead to better science and are fearful that a new AIDS coordinating office will add another layer to the NIH bureaucracy and possibly slow the pace of research. The proposal was written into the Senate version of the NIH Revitalization Bill by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). A House subcommittee will consider a similar bill on Tuesday. The Senate bill calls for the OAR to have a full-time director with no other responsibilities at NIH and an advisory council of scientists and lay people. The director would decide what is the best balance of basic and applied research and how much should be done inside and outside the NIH. The OAR director would have full authority over the AIDS budget, which could not be altered by the head of NIH or the secretary of Health and Human Services. ====================================================================== "Engineered Blood Factor for Clotting Passes Tests" Journal of Commerce (02/22/93), P. 9A A genetically engineered form of a blood clotting factor has been found to be safe and effective in a long-term test of children with the most severe type of hemophilia, according to a report published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. People who suffer from hemophilia A lack what is known as factor VIII. Approximately 1 in 10,000 males are born with hemophilia A, but females rarely suffer from the condition. Factor VIII has previously been extracted from donated blood. But filtering out deadly viruses, including HIV, has been difficult even though significant progress has been made in attempts to distinguish blood-borne illnesses. The study shows that genetically engineered factor VIII made by Miles Inc. was safe among infant test subjects, a group selected because they had never received any treatment for hemophilia. The safety and efficacy of the engineered factor VIII among patients previously treated for hemophilia have been proven in earlier studies. An additional 75 patients have now been treated and the entire group has been followed for a longer period. The researchers examined 95 hemophiliacs given the genetically engineered factor VIII between Jan. 1 1989, and July 1, 1992. The median age of the subjects at the time of first treatment was about nine months. The treatment demonstrated its effectiveness in every case with only three reports of minor side effects in the 3,315 times it was administered. ====================================================================== "Forgotten in World of AIDS" Los Angeles Times (02/21/93), P. A1 (Schoch, Deborah) Although women account for a small percentage of AIDS cases in the United States, they are contracting the disease at a much quicker pace then men. Women comprise 27,000--or 11 percent-- of the 250,000 AIDS cases reported nationwide since 1981. But they are becoming infected at a higher rate than men, often through heterosexual sex--the fastest- growing means of infection among women. The Center for Disease Control reported last year that the number of newly reported AIDS cases among women was 9 percent higher than the year before, compared to a 2.5 percent increase in new cases among men. However, women lack the support network that the male homosexual population has established over the last decade. Women often suffer their disease alone, due to the lack of medical attention to their unique problems. Because few doctors would expect middle-class women to have AIDS, it makes it that much more difficult for infected women to find help. In addition, some don't discover for years that they have HIV infection because their doctors don't consider them at-risk. Now, as gay men did a decade ago, women are beginning to start their own support groups. More than a dozen women's support groups have emerged across Los Angeles, Calif. One of them, the Hermosa Beach group, consists mostly of middle-class women who kept their illness a secret. These women are considered lucky, because most have health insurance, giving them access to private physicians. Also, most have husbands or partners, and some have children. The support group was formed in the summer of 1991 under the sponsorship of Women at Risk, a small foundation that now operates two other groups in Santa Monica and San Luis Obispo. ====================================================================== "The Sharp Edge of Hope and Fear" New York Times (02/21/93), P. 29 (Navarro, Mireya) Since new findings were reported last week that a potentially promising strategy could inhibit HIV's spread, a familiar hopefulness was exhibited by many AIDS patients. Phone lines were inundated with calls from thousands of people asking how they can enroll in the trials to test the therapy or where they can buy the drugs to try them on their own. The news dominated discussions in support groups, medical offices, and social gatherings where people with HIV meet. The latest research finding was a report that a combination of three drugs prevents HIV from replicating in test tubes. The three drugs--AZT, DDI, and an experimental one, nevirapine--attack an enzyme that makes copies of the virus's genetic material. This forces HIV to try to evade the drugs through a number of mutations that are incompatible with replication, thereby rendering it incapable of spreading. Officials from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., said drug trials were expected to begin by July. But on Friday, more than 100 patients had signed up at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in New York City, which says it plans on being one of the locations for the test. Dr. Daniel Hoth, director of the AIDS division for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is planning the drug trials, said Friday that the drug is not available for sale or importation because it is still in the experimental phase worldwide. Dr. Hoth added that medial sites for the trials or their number have not yet been selected. He did say that parallel trials for children are currently being developed. ====================================================================== "Students Get Chance to Compare Condoms" United Press International (02/22/93) Dekalb, Ill.--The student health service at Northern Illinois University will be providing 5,000 gift packs of condoms containing seven brands, along with a form asking students to evaluate them as part of the university's safe-sex campaign. The effort, called the Great Condom Rating Contest, begins Monday and runs through Friday. The ratings are also a change from the way the health service has traditionally tried to encourage condom use. The health service previously relied on radio spots. Condoms used for the contest were donated by condom manufacturers, who will receive the data collected from the ratings contest. University Health Service Director Michael Haines said, "Many people think that all condoms are alike. If they have a bad experience with the first one they try, they write them all off." He added, "We're not saying students must use all seven and provide us with a detailed analysis. We're trying to introduce students to the idea that there is more than one type of condom." Although it is unclear exactly how many of the 24,500 students would participate in the contest, 78 percent of students claim they are sexually active. But Scott Stoking, a campus minister at Christian Campus Ministry, mentioned that condoms are not 100 percent effective against preventing infection with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). However, Haines said the health service has promoted condoms and safe sex since 1989, and the rate of students with STDs has dropped by half, from 8 percent to 4 percent. The Illinois Post-Secondary HIV Prevention Project helped sponsor the event by providing a $1,000 grant to the university. ====================================================================== "Business Responds to AIDS Program--December 1992-February 1993" Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (02/12/93) Vol. 42, No. 5, P. 95 Since the Business Responds to AIDS (BRTA) program was begun on Dec. 1, 1992 by the Centers for Disease Control, business and labor groups, the media, state and local health agencies, and AIDS organizations have reported that it is effective in providing a background for development of workplace anti-AIDS policies. BRTA is a public and private collaboration comprised of five components: policy development; training for supervisors and union leaders; HIV education for employees; HIV education for employees' families; and community service and employee volunteerism. In October and November 1991, advance information on the BRTA teleconference was sent to 35,000 corporations with communication systems that could receive the broadcast. After the broadcast, the BRTA teleconference was reported on stations in 64 of the nation's largest 75 television markets and in major newspapers. It has been found that communities in nearly 33 states and the District of Columbia have used the BRTA teleconference as a means to involve local business leaders with public health and AIDS groups to promote HIV workplace education. About 1,500 managers from a national insurance company watched the broadcast at 165 sites through an in-house corporate television network. The BRTA Resource Service at the CDC's National AIDS Clearinghouse received 3,047 requests for assistance from Dec. 1, 1992 through Feb. 5, 1993. During the same time period, the Resource Service also received orders for 1,844 managers kits to be used in HIV education for employees. Those groups contacting the Resource Service included small businesses, state and local health agencies, large multinational and national corporations, and labor organizations. ====================================================================== "Heterosexual Transmission of HIV: To the Editor" Journal of the American Medical Association (02/17/93) Vol. 269, No. 7, P. 870 (Rodrigues, Laura C. and Moreno, Claudia Garcia) Safe sex should be practiced at all times among women who do not wish to become pregnant, and conditions should be created to make this possible for women, write Dr. Laura C. Rodrigues and Dr. Claudia Garcia Moreno of the University of London in England. The authors write that they are pleased to see a feature in the medical literature in the Journal of the American Medical Association discussing the right health education message, but this might not be enough to protect women against HIV infection. Dr. Guinan's assertion that a comprehensive program to prevent HIV infection in women should stress "having one lifetime partner" fails to be realistic, the authors say. If most heterosexual intercourse involving infected individuals took place in stable relationships, long-term partners would be most at risk from unprotected sex. A study in Sweden found that 53 heterosexual partners of people with HIV infection were infected--32 by steady partners and 21 by casual partners. In the United Kingdom, 80 percent of women with heterosexually contracted HIV were infected by a long-term partner. The emphasis on promiscuity and prostitution in research on AIDS and women, especially in Africa, may reflect an interest in women as transmitters, rather than recipients, of infection. The focus on monogamy ignores the fact that a growing number of men are infected, and mostly not through heterosexual contact. The emphasis on monogamy can also give women a false sense of security--making women believe they do not need to practice safe sex because they only have one partner, conclude Rodrigues and Garcia Moreno. ====================================================================== "Heterosexual Transmission of HIV: In Reply" Journal of the American Medical Association (02/17/93) Vol. 269, No. 7, P. 870 (Guinan, Mary E.) Safe sex is not clearly defined in Drs. Rodrigues and Garcia Moreno's letter to the editor, and therefore their recommendations are unclear, writes Dr. Mary E. Guinan of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga. The risk of HIV infection increases with the number of sex partners. Children should be educated that having intercourse with multiple partners is unhealthy and they should also know how to protect themselves if they choose to have sex. Both of these messages should be heeded by adults, also. Which one to emphasize depends on the particular clinical situation, but neither message should be avoided, concludes Dr. Guinan. ====================================================================== "AIDS Hits Blacks and Latinos Hard, Commission Says" Advocate (02/23/93) No. 623, P. 23 (Coward, Cheryl) The National Commission on AIDS reported on Jan. 11 that the spread of HIV among black and Latino communities is becoming rampant, and urged the federal government to stop considering AIDS as a disease of gay white men and start treating it as an ethnic issue. The report states that blacks and Latinos account for 46 percent of all known AIDS cases in the United States, although they only comprise 21 percent of the American population. The reported number of new AIDS cases increased 11.5 percent among Hispanics and 10.5 percent among blacks between 1990 and 1991, the report said. However, the number of reported cases among whites dropped 0.5 percent during the same period. The commission said, "The cumulative effects of racial discrimination, the chronic lack of access to resources, and the resulting underdevelopment of community infrastructures have had lasting effects." Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino Political group, said the report was "a long-awaited acknowledgment from the federal government that AIDS poses a special challenge to minorities. We commend the commission for recognition that the spread and virulence of the AIDS epidemic among minorities reflect not a predisposition but rather the result of a complex set of factors." The report also urged the federal government to take immediate action to deal with AIDS among Asian-Americans and Native Americans, even though these groups are not currently disproportionately affected by the disease. ====================================================================== "Dossier: Move Over, Elvis" Advocate (02/23/93) No. 623, P. 9 The U.S. Postal Service will release an AIDS awareness postal stamp at some point this year, but no definite date has been disclosed. Jean Ann Hlavacek, a Madison, Wis., resident who has lobbied the U.S. Postal Service to issue the stamp for the past six years, designed the stamp in 1986. She obtained support from several members of Congress, former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, National Commission on AIDS Chair Dr. June Osborn, and actor Jimmy Stewart. But Hlavacek says, "the stamp had to be placed before the committee more than a dozen times before approval came through." Even though the postal service says the stamp will be used some time this year, it has not confirmed whether Hlavacek's design will be used. Nevertheless, Hlavacek says the stamp will use the words prevention, research, education and compassion, which are all part of her design.