Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 11:11:31 PST (187 lines of text) From: National AIDS Info Clearinghouse Copyright 1997, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD AIDS Daily Summary Thursday, February 13, 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 ****************************************************** "American Home Unit Gets Approval to Sell Clot Drug" "Band Still Plays on in Gay Community" "Panel Votes for Extension of Drug-Needle Program" "AIDS-Causing Virus Not Only One to Lurk for Years Before Striking" "Dr. Burzynski and His Patients" "New Clues to Cause of Dementia in AIDS Sufferers" "Science & Health Bulletin: Zimbabwe--AIDS" "Science & Health Bulletin: Mozambique--AIDS" "Politics Polarizing Issues in Needle-Exchange Study" "Down But Not Out" ****************************************************** "American Home Unit Gets Approval to Sell Clot Drug" Wall Street Journal (02/13/97) P. B2 The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first hemophilia B clotting factor that is not derived from human blood, a product developed by American Home Products' Genetics Institute. Because it is made without blood products, the new treatment, BeneFix, eliminates the risk of patients contracting viruses and other pathogens. The conventional treatment for hemophilia B, a rare inherited disease, is infusions of Factor IX, a blood-clotting protein made from human blood and treated to reduce the risk of disease. BeneFix will cost about 7 percent more than Factor IX, or an average of $20,000 to $25,000 per patient per year. "Band Still Plays on in Gay Community" Wall Street Journal (02/13/97) P. A19; Socarides, Charles W. In a Wall Street Journal letter to the editor, Dr. Charles W. Socarides reiterates his claim, made in a previous commentary in the newspaper, that the spread of HIV among young gay men can be curbed by treating homosexuality with psychotherapy. The author cites the high-risk behavior of young homosexual men, as well as the report in Clinical Psychiatry News that an estimated "30 percent of all 20-year-old gay men will be HIV-positive or dead of AIDS by the time they are age 30." Socarides contends that psychotherapy can help men who experience unwanted homosexual attraction, thus protecting them from possible infection. People who advocate gay rights undermine efforts to provide this life-saving treatment, he concludes. "Panel Votes for Extension of Drug-Needle Program" Washington Times--Metropolitan Times (02/12/97) P. C4; Scully, Sean An experimental needle-exchange program in Baltimore, which costs the state $320,000 a year, should be continued indefinitely, a state Senate committee voted on Tuesday. The three-year-old program offers clean needles to illegal drug users in an attempt to curb the spread of AIDS. Advocates of the program say it has prevented 84 people from contracting HIV over the past three years, based on lower transmission rates among drug users in the program. State Sen. Paula Hollinger, a Democrat representing Baltimore, noted that the state was saved $120,000 a year in AIDS care costs for each person. The bill, which will soon be considered by both the House and the Senate, is likely to face a heated debate. "AIDS-Causing Virus Not Only One to Lurk for Years Before Striking" Richmond Times-Dispatch (02/13/97) P. E3; Brody, Jane The hepatitis C virus (HCV), like HIV, can cause serious damage to the body for years before patients know they are infected. While lurking in the body, before symptoms are shown, hepatitis C can disrupt liver functions, leading to serious damage, organ failure, and even cancer. The virus, spread mostly through blood, claims more lives than hepatitis A and B combined. No cure exists for HCV, and even if it is treated soon after infection, it is still likely to cause chronic liver damage. HCV is most commonly transmitted through intravenous drug needles. Needle exchange programs could help reduce the spread of the hepatitis C as well as HIV. However, HCV can also be spread through sexual contact, and people with multiple sex partners are at especially high risk. People who know they are infected are thus advised to use condoms, avoid sharing toothbrushes, or razors, and keep cuts covered. "Dr. Burzynski and His Patients" Washington Post (02/13/97) P. A24; Childers, Gloria B. In response to a Washington Post article about Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, who provides controversial antineoplastons drugs to terminally ill patients, Gloria B. Childers defends his methods in a letter to the editors of the Post. She points out that while Burzynski has been the subject of four grand jury investigations, he has never been indicted. She also contends that the standards set by the Food and Drug Administration for clinical trials of the treatment are unreasonable. Childers emphasizes that, while the FDA allows patients with cancer and AIDS to obtain unapproved drugs from other countries, the agency will not allow Burzynski's drug to be distributed beyond the state of Texas, where the FDA lacks jurisdiction. "New Clues to Cause of Dementia in AIDS Sufferers" Reuters (02/12/97); Bremer, Catherine Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have reported findings that help to explain how HIV infects the brain and causes AIDS-related dementia. Between 20 percent and 30 percent of AIDS patients develop some type of brain disease, causing symptoms like memory loss and loss of bodily function. The researchers, led by Dana Gabuzda, reported in the journal Nature that the CCR3 and CCR5 receptors in the brain could enhance HIV's ability to infect the central nervous system. The researchers found that patients with defective CCR5 showed resistance to HIV-1, suggesting that this receptor is important in HIV infection. The study identified CCR3's role in HIV infection for the first time, which could lead to new treatment strategies. "Science & Health Bulletin: Zimbabwe--AIDS" PANA Wire Service (02/12/97) Zimbabwe's government is establishing a national code of practice on AIDS to make AIDS discrimination illegal. Under the new policy, employees with HIV or AIDS would be protected from job discrimination. "We know some people have lost their jobs because they were HIV-positive and we want to put a stop to this," said the National Employment Council for the Transport Operators Industry. Over 1 million people in the country of 11.5 million are estimated to be infected with HIV. "Science & Health Bulletin: Mozambique--AIDS" PANA Wire Service (02/12/97) Recent statistics about the HIV epidemic in Mozambique disprove the claim of a Muslim cleric who said AIDS was God's punishment for homosexuality. New reports that for the period up to November 1996 show that most HIV cases in the country were contracted through heterosexual contact. A total of 3,635 AIDS cases had been recorded up to that time, including 1,853 males, 1,519 females, and 263 cases in which the sex was not identified. "Politics Polarizing Issues in Needle-Exchange Study" Scientist (02/03/97) Vol. 11, No. 3, P. 1; Benowitz, Steven Despite numerous studies that show the effectiveness of needle-exchange programs for reducing the spread of disease and estimated public support of such programs, the U.S. government refuses to lift a ban on federal funding for the programs. The government contends that there is no conclusive evidence that needle exchanges both reduce incidence of disease and do not promote drug use. However, a controversial trial in Alaska, which would compare the efficacy of providing access to syringes through needle exchanges and at pharmacies, would also attempt to determine if access to clean needles encourages drug use. Ethical and scientific concerns have been raised about the University of Alaska, Anchorage study, which was allowed to continue with the December approval of a federally-appointed panel of scientists. The three-year trial will compare the rates of hepatitis B virus among participants who use clean needles through exchange programs to those who obtain them at pharmacies. But bioethicist Arthur Caplan, of the University of Pennsylvania, says the study is a "$2.4 million waste," and that Congress is using it as a way to put off the issue, rather than deal with it. For many scientists, the study illustrates the problems that arise when politics is involved in the funding of scientific studies. According to Robert Heimer of Yale University's medical school, the federal ban represents a "blatant example of science not being able to change policy and of policy made without consideration of science." "Down But Not Out" Village Voice (02/04/97) Vol. 42, No. 5, P. 44; Schoofs, Mark Research presented at the recent AIDS meeting in Washington, D.C., gave new promise to the possibility that the immune system may be able to renew itself after HIV infection. French researcher Brigitte Autran reported results of her study of eight patients who exhibited a critical third phase of immune response. Although researchers had suspected that HIV could kill all the T cells generated by the immune system for certain diseases, leaving the body defenseless against opportunistic infections, Autran found that, after at least six months of therapy, levels of these cells increased dramatically. Other research presented at the meeting suggested that, while drug therapy is only effective for a short time after a patient's lymph tissue has been seriously damaged, some damage may be reversed if the therapy is started while the lymph tissue is still relatively healthy. The immune system may not need to recover completely, researchers noted, pointing out that new drug therapy has had dramatic results, even in patients with PML, which causes lesions in the brain and is incurable.