Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary Date: Mon Feb 3 07:31:03 PST 1997 (193 lines) From: National AIDS Info Clearinghouse Copyright 1997, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD AIDS Daily Summary February 3, 1997 The CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention makes available the following information as a public service only. Providing this information does not constitute endorsement by the CDC. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC National AIDS Clearinghouse should be cited as the source of this information. Copyright 1996, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD ****************************************************** "Hispanics Suffer Loss of Health Care, Too" "Lethal Consequences of Winter Pneumonia Warrant Immunization" "AIDS Patient Can Choose Suicide, Florida Judge Rules" "Vitamin B-12 Deficiency Linked to Accelerated AIDS" "The Drug War 'Cannot Be Won'" "Kitty Contracted Feline AIDS From Transfusion, Owners Say" "Clinton Requests Release of Birth Control Funds" "Membrane May Help Man Meet Machine" "We're on a Perilous Path" "This Is Smart Medicine" ****************************************************** "Hispanics Suffer Loss of Health Care, Too" New York Times (02/03/97) P. A16; Byrd, Brian I. In response to an article published in the New York Times about the increased number of poor Hispanics, Brian I. Byrd of New York points out in a letter to the editor that Hispanics have difficulty getting proper health care. Byrd notes that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics show that the highest rates of diabetes and asthma are among Hispanics, and that the rate of AIDS is three times higher among Hispanics than among other groups. Byrd asserts that more support is needed for minority physicians, primarily because they are more likely to practice in low-income areas. "Lethal Consequences of Winter Pneumonia Warrant Immunization" Wall Street Journal (02/03/97) P. B1; Chase, Marilyn Due to this year's especially serious flu strain, some hospitals are seeing an increase in pneumonia cases, despite available preventive measures. "We've seen a lot of pneumonia, and a lot of influenza with pneumonia as a complication--a lot more than in 1996," said John Bartlett of Johns Hopkins University's medical school. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that deaths due to pneumonia and influenza have been increasing since the week ending Dec. 14, and "haven't peaked yet," according to CDC researcher Keji Fukuda. Anyone age 65 or older is urged to get vaccinated against both influenza and pneumonia prior to the start of the flue season, as are people with respiratory disease, immune suppression, or other chronic health conditions. While more than half of the people in this group get annual flu shots, only 30 percent are vaccinated against pneumonia. "AIDS Patient Can Choose Suicide, Florida Judge Rules" Washington Post (02/01/97) P. A9 A Florida man dying of AIDS has been granted the right to have a doctor help him commit suicide. Circuit Judge Joseph Davis ruled on Friday that Charles Hall, the only surviving plaintiff in a lawsuit over physician-assisted suicide, has a "constitutional right" to decide to end his life and to "determine the time and manner of his death." An appeal by the state automatically stayed the decision. "Vitamin B-12 Deficiency Linked to Accelerated AIDS" Chicago Tribune (02/01/97) P. 1-6 HIV-positive men seem to develop AIDS more quickly if they are deficient in vitamin B-12, Johns Hopkins University researchers reported Friday. Among 310 homosexual and bisexual men infected with HIV, those with adequate levels of the vitamin did not progress to AIDS for about eight years, compared to four years for those with deficient vitamin levels. The researchers, led by Dr. Alice M. Tang, also found that vitamin B-6 and folic acid had no similar association with disease progression. Tang said that further study was needed to confirm the link and to "see if improvement in the levels of nutrients like B-12, with vitamin supplements, delays disease progression." The study results were published in the February issue of the Journal of Nutrition. "The Drug War 'Cannot Be Won'" Washington Post (02/02/97) P. C1; Soros, George George Soros, a philanthropist who gave financial backing to state initiatives to legalize the medical use of marijuana, defends his actions in a Washington Post commentary by arguing that he is supportive of a rational drug policy, not the legalization of hard drugs. Soros says he was called the "Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization" by Joseph Califano in the Post and accused of "bamboozling" the voters in California and Arizona. He explains that he thinks the war on drugs is more harmful to society than drug abuse itself and that the anti-drug effort in the United States has produced unintended results that the drug warriors refuse to recognize. Soros contends that criminalizing drug abuse blocks effective treatment and has resulted in high rates of incarceration, especially for African Americans. Moreover, he notes that AIDS is the leading cause of death for African Americans aged 25 to 44, and that half of those cases are attributed to needle sharing. The war on drugs has also increased drug-related disease and death, Soros suggests, saying that restrictions on sterile syringes facilitates the spread of HIV and other diseases. "Kitty Contracted Feline AIDS From Transfusion, Owners Say" Washington Post (02/01/97) P. B8; Vick, Karl The owners of Peaches, a cat who died after undergoing surgery for bone cancer, say the Angora died of feline AIDS after contracting the disease in a blood transfusion. H. Steven Steinberg, medical director of VCA Veterinary Referral Associates, the Gaithersburg, MD, facility where Peaches was treated, says the cat could have died even more quickly without the transfusion. The clinic did not have enough blood for the emergency transfusion and no approved donor cat was available, so a clinic vet volunteered her own cat, who had not been tested for two years. The owners, Dena Caulkins and her husband David Rohde, believe that Peaches contracted feline AIDS, which interfered with further cancer treatments. They say they are concerned because the clinic has refused to change its practices. Steinberg explained that the clinic follows national guidelines, "but in a situation where the cat's life is on the line, we will go get blood for that cat." "Clinton Requests Release of Birth Control Funds" Washington Post (02/01/97) P. A4; Harris, John F. Delaying the release of funds for birth control to foreign countries is harming women and increasing unwanted pregnancies, President Clinton told Congress Friday. Clinton wants Congress to approve the early release of $385 million by the State Department's Agency for International Development (AID), although a compromise last year set the release date for July 1. AID estimates that delaying the funding from March 1 to July 1 would deny men and women in 60 countries some 50 million condoms, 500,000 IUDs, and 4.8 million cycles of birth control pills. Antiabortion groups oppose the spending because they believe the family planning programs support abortion. "Membrane May Help Man Meet Machine" Wall Street Journal (01/31/97) P. B1; Takahashi, Dean Researchers from Stanford University have discovered a way to attach a living cell to a computer chip via a microscopic membrane. "The synthetic cell membrane fools the living cell into thinking [it's touching] another living cell," said chemistry professor Steven Boxer. The method may eventually be used to test new drugs on living cells, with the chip measuring the drug's effects on the cells, suggested independent researchers who reviewed the study. Pharmaceutical firms may also be able to use the chip to perform thousands of blood tests for AIDS in the time it now takes to do just one, they speculated. "We're on a Perilous Path" Newsweek (02/03/97) Vol. 129, No. 5, P. 27; McCaffrey, Barry R. The merit of marijuana as a medical treatment must be proven by scientific study before it can be legalized for this purpose, argues Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, in Newsweek. McCaffrey points to the conclusion by the National Institutes of Health that "there is no scientifically sound evidence that smoked marijuana is medically superior to currently available therapies." He asserts that marijuana, like other drugs, should be evaluated thoroughly by the Food and Drug Administration before it becomes accessible to the public. Should researchers conclude that the drug's compounds have medical benefits, they would then become available to the medical community. However, until that time, McCaffrey argues that the California medical marijuana law wrongly permits anyone of any age to have unregulated access to marijuana without a doctor's prescription. He claims that much of the support for the California initiative comes from individuals who advocate the wholesale legalization of drugs, adding that young people are too tempted by drugs already. "This Is Smart Medicine" Newsweek (02/03/97) Vol. 129, No. 5, P. 26; Conant, Marcus The government should not interfere with doctors who want to prescribe marijuana for seriously ill patients, contends AIDS specialist Dr. Marcus Conant of the University of California, San Francisco. Conant, who has treated more than 5,000 patients with HIV in his private practice, says he has seen the immediate benefit of the drug in hundreds of patients with AIDS and cancer. He also notes that the Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of Marinol, a drug that contains the active ingredient in marijuana but which Conant claims is not as effective as smoking marijuana. A study of the medical use of marijuana has received FDA approval, but the federal government refuses to provide the drug to researchers. Furthermore, the government has allocated $1 million to a review of the findings on the issue but will not allow a clinical trial. Conant claims that the U.S. government's threat to sanction doctors for prescribing marijuana infringes on the rights of doctors as well as the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship.