Subject: CDC Summary 3/2/93 Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1993 07:39:14 PST (239 lines) Archive-Number: 309 From: Billi Goldberg Note: Copyright 1992, Dan R. Greening. Non-commercial reproduction allowed. sold. Copyright 1992, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD AIDS Daily Summary March 2, 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 ====================================================================== "HIV, AIDS Sufferers Seek Shelter" Chicago Tribune (03/01/93), P. 1-7 (Griffin, Jean Latz) There has been a recent increase in calls to private and public agencies in the Chicago area from people with HIV or AIDS who are in need of housing--either an emergency overnight stay or long-term shelter. Kupona Network, a Chicago social service agency for HIV- positive African-Americans, is seeking shelter for 450 people already, and the number is rising "by leaps and bounds," said case manager J.D. Detwyler. "We have added 50 new clients since the first of the year," he noted. Sally Edwards, dispatch clerk with the Department of Human Services, said she gets three to four calls per week from HIV-positive people who have no place to sleep. She said the rate is up from only about one call a month a year ago. Some officials attribute the increase of calls to more people becoming infected with HIV, in addition to an increase in poverty. One couple who came to Detwyler for help were advised by him to apply for a Section 8 low-income housing grant because their income was not enough to pay for the rental of an apartment. But Detwyler said Section 8 certificates are limited, and it can take three to four months for HIV-infected people to receive supplemental Social Security benefits--money that could help them pay the rent for a small apartment. ====================================================================== "District Bars AIDS Curriculum" New York Times (03/02/93), P. B6 (Dillon, Sam) A Queens, N.Y., school district that has argued with Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez in the past over a multicultural teaching guide said yesterday that it was prohibiting classroom use of an AIDS curriculum developed by Fernandez's staff and approved last year by the central Board of Education. Mary A. Cummins, the president of School District 24, said in a letter to Fernandez that her board did not approve of the AIDS curriculum in part because of its references to anal sex in the section targeted at fifth and sixth graders. Cummins said the section, which details how the disease is transmitted, was unsuitable for elementary school students. She said in a statement, "If the Chancellor thinks parents are going to let him subject their children to that sort of filth, he's badly mistaken." Cummins added, "He's in for another fight and another defeat." Her letter and statement may be an attempt to force Fernandez into another public debate now that his authority has been threatened by last month's decision by the New York City Board of Education not to extend his contract after June 30. Since 1987, state education laws have mandated that elementary schools educate all students, starting in kindergarten, about AIDS. The seven-member board approved a revised AIDS education curriculum written by Fernandez's staff last June, which was d distributed in October to community school districts. ====================================================================== "China--AIDS" Associated Press (02/27/93) (Biers, Dan) Beijing--An AIDS hotline in China is attempting to educate a nation which has traditionally been prudish. The hotline was established last April and demonstrates the uphill struggle the nation of 1 billion faces as it tries to prevent HIV infection from becoming epidemic. The number of people with HIV infection in China has increased from four in 1988 to about 1,000 now. Approximately three- fourths of those infected are drug users, but health officials are concerned about HIV spreading through sexual contact. Wan Yanhai, who runs the hotline, said the largest problem is that China's government has yet to implement an aggressive health education campaign to fight the disease. The hotline was established by the China Health Education Research Institute as an attempt to break social barriers by allowing people to get information anonymously. Wan said the number of callers has risen to an average of eight to ten per day. About nine out of 10 callers are men, and 15 percent of them say they are homosexuals. Wan said many people fear that others will find out that they have called the hotline. "Some are concerned we'll tell friends, family, or police," he added. The hotline is intended to provide basic information about AIDS to each caller in order to battle widespread ignorance. Wan has answered questions on whether HIV can be contracted through swimming, eating, or shaking hands with foreigners, or by a mosquito bite. Hotline counselors try to get as much information as possible about the callers for institute records, with the exception of their names. However, asking questions sometimes angers the callers, who will then end the conversation. ====================================================================== "A Defiant Casualty of the War on AIDS" Los Angeles Times--Washington Edition (03/01/93), P. B10 (Getlin, Josh) A renowned physician who fought for more AIDS funding in the 1980s has turned down a position as head of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta offered to him by President Clinton's transition team. Dr. Don Francis is known as a brilliant health professional who had mobilized early reaction to the epidemic, and a straight talker who knew how to make an impact. Regarding the job offer by the transition team, Francis said, "I'm far too angry to work in the system now, especially after what I've been through in the last 19 years." When politicians were reluctant to do anything about AIDS, Francis blew the whistle. He started working for the U.S. Public Health Service 20 years ago, but AIDS changed him. Many of his earlier recommendations concerning AIDS have become reality today. These include expanded HIV testing, safeguards on the nation's blood supplies, and early medical intervention for those infected with HIV. Francis decided by the mid- 1980s that the Reagan Administration would not allot money for serious research. Therefore, he switched his efforts toward prevention programs. He proposed a $32-million program called Operation AIDS Control, which was rejected. He left the CDC in 1985 because of that rejection, and served as the agency's liaison to California's AIDS programs through February 1992. Now he continues to work as a private consultant. Francis said the U.S. needs to raise money for an AIDS vaccine. He also said that early intervention programs for HIV-positive people, which he helped create, should be federally funded. Francis said, "I fought this battle as long as I possibly could, and everybody has limits. Even me." ====================================================================== "Gay Cleric Comes Out and Joins AIDS Battle" Baltimore Sun (03/01/93), P. 1B (Durai, Melvin) The Rev. David F. Shipley, who had kept his HIV-positive status a secret within his church, has decided that hiding his condition and his homosexuality is not as important as educating others about the disease. Shipley serves as minister of the Otterbein Memorial United Methodist Church in Hampden, Md. He also travels to churches, high schools, and universities, saying: "There is no such thing as safe sex; only safer sex." According to Shipley, many clergymen oppose his urging teenagers to use condoms and believe he is condoning premarital sex. However, Shipley said, "I don't think teenagers should be condemned to die simply because they don't listen to the message of the church." Shipley said that he decided to disclose his illness when a friend and former class mate asked him to speak about AIDS at a church. "I told myself, 'I have a life-threatening disease. These may be my last years and I don't want to spend them hiding the fact that I am gay,'" said Shipley. The Rev. Roger Gench, Brown Memorial's pastor, said Shipley's AIDS education attempts were "absolutely critical." He added, "We don't know folk for whether they are gay or straight, but what kind of people they are inside." Shipley said he is hopeful that scientists will find a cure for AIDS, but if it doesn't happen in time to save him, then he hopes he at least helped save other people's lives. ====================================================================== "AIDS Groups Struggle Financially" Los Angeles Times--Washington Edition (03/01/93), P. B3 (Boxall, Bettina) Due to the vast numbers of AIDS organizations and the lack of donations in Los Angeles, many local AIDS agencies are struggling to stay afloat. There are about 150 AIDS service groups in Los Angeles county, but there is an increasing feeling that there are too many. It is also believed that the competitiveness between the groups should be replaced with cooperation. Moreover, volunteers who are often motivated by compassion rather than expertise are finding that they need increasing sophistication and fund-raising savvy to keep their organizations functioning. Approximately 40,000 Los Angeles county residents are infected with HIV, and about 17,000 have AIDS. Public spending on AIDS care in the county has risen from $9 million in 1985 to $75 million this year as the AIDS population continues to grow. However, only about 25 percent of the money goes to community-based organizations, according to county figures. The rest pays for county clinic and hospital facilities. As a result, most AIDS groups rely heavily on--and are competing most intensely for--private donations. Even though there is a wide variety of AIDS groups, there is a general consensus that they need to target other donors. Mary Nalick, executive director of All Saints AIDS Service Center in Pasadena, said, "A lot of the gay community is tapped out. We do need to identify new and different folks." AIDS advocates hope that the Clinton administration's promise to increase funding for AIDS will not only boost the amount of government funds, but also put AIDS into the mainstream and spur more donations. ====================================================================== "Shalala Backs Reorganization" Science (02/12/93) Vol. 259, No. 5097, P. 889 (Cohen, Jon) Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala recently expressed support for a Senate bill addressing the reorganization of the National Institutes of Health's Office of AIDS Research (OAR). The proposal has incited opposition from some scientists and NIH officials who argue that it would add another layer of bureaucracy to AIDS research. The Senate proposal is designed to improve planning and coordination of AIDS research at the 21 NIH institutes by giving the OAR more authority over NIH's AIDS budget and establishing a discretionary fund for the OAR director to use at his or her discretion. Those who oppose the Senate bill include NIH directors, who on Jan. 22 sent a memo to NIH Director Bernadine Healy addressing their fears that the budget process would be "severely disrupted" by the proposed changes which "may inadvertently be detrimental" to AIDS and non-AIDS research. Healy sent the memo to Shalala, who subsequently showed it to members of the House subcommittee on health and the environment. She told the subcommittee that although she doesn't think "a reorganization alone will yield improvements in science necessarily," HHS backs the bill because it hopes that a strengthened OAR will elicit "a clearer view of where we're going." She added that if the plan backfires and hampers AIDS research, "we will be the first ones back here at this table to tell you that we have a structure that doesn't work." ====================================================================== "Use of Evolutionary Limitations of HIV-1 Multidrug Resistance to Optimize Therapy" Nature (02/18/93) Vol. 361, No. 6413, P. 650 (Chow, Yung-Kang et al.) Convergent combination therapy may be beneficial to the treatment of HIV-1 infections and in post-exposure prophylaxis, write Yung-Kang Chow et al. of the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. Certain drug combinations may prevent the co- existence of adequate reverse transcription function and multi-drug resistance (MDR). Retroviral drug resistance is conferred only by mutations in its own genome and is limited by genome size. Therefore, combination drugs directed against the same essential viral protein may thus prevent HIV-1 MDR, whereas the conventional approach of targeting different HIV-1 proteins for combination therapy may not. This is because genomes with resistance mutations in different HIV-1 genes might recombine to develop MDR. The researchers tested whether combinations of mutations giving rise to single-agent resistance might further compromise or even abolish viral replication, and if multidrug- resistant virus could be constructed. Certain combinations of mutations conferring resistance to AZT, ddI, and pyridinone are incompatible with viral replication. These findings suggest that evolutionary limitations exist to restrict development of MDR. Furthermore, elimination of reverse transcription by convergent combination therapy may also limit MDR, the researchers conclude. ====================================================================== "A 'Manhattan Project' for AIDS?" Science (02/19/93) Vol. 259, No. 5098, P. 1112 (Cohen, Jon) While Bill Clinton was campaigning for the presidency, he promised a "Manhattan Project" for AIDS, but now that he is in office he still has not elaborated on what it would entail. Although some ideas by activists and researchers have yet to be widely circulated, several influential scientists are supporting the Manhattan Project concept. Proponents of the project contend that if the government stepped in and aggressively directed the scientific effort, redundancy would be eliminated, gaps in research would be filled, cooperation would be enhanced, and answers would emerge much more quickly. However, critics claim that not enough is known about HIV at the level of basic science to implement a goal-oriented project like the one that led to the making of an atomic bomb. They also say that any effort to do so could impede scientific creativity needed to develop a cure or a vaccine. Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases--which receives 43 percent of the NIH's AIDS research budget-- said, "The science base isn't there for a Manhattan Project for AIDS." But he adds that he would support additional coordination among the branches of the government, which he believes the incoming AIDS czar will address.