Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 11:11:31 PST (200 lines of text) From: National AIDS Info Clearinghouse Copyright 1997, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD AIDS Daily Summary February 14, 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 ****************************************************** "Panel Asserts Politics Hurts AIDS Fight" "HIV-Resistant Kenyans Spur Vaccine Hopes" "Obituary: Thomas Stoddard, 48, Dies; An Advocate of Gay Rights" "Used-Needle Exchange Gets House Support" "Across the USA: Florida, Missouri" "Policy Paper, Califano Speech at Odds" "House Committee OKs Needles-For-Addicts Bill" "Editorial: Needle Exchanges Save Lives" "A Mother's Agony" "Physician-Assisted Suicide and Patients With Human Immunodeficiency Virus Disease" ****************************************************** "Panel Asserts Politics Hurts AIDS Fight" Washington Post (02/14/97) P. A1; Okie, Susan Effective initiatives against AIDS--including needle exchange programs, explicit safer sex education for teens, and drug treatment programs--are often blocked by misguided political and social objections, a panel of experts chosen by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) panel reported Thursday. After reviewing the scientific findings on various behavioral strategies, the 12-member group concluded that "the behavior placing the public health at greatest risk may be occurring in legislative and other decision-making bodies." The panel's criticism of sex education programs that focus only on abstinence brought disagreement from some legislators and conservative organizations. "The reasons why kids become sexually active and why HIV is a problem now ... have to do with our cultural atmosphere of saying sex within the teenage years is not just permissible but absolutely normal," said Gracie Hsu of the Family Research Council. "HIV-Resistant Kenyans Spur Vaccine Hopes" Washington Times (02/14/97) P. A13; Orr, David A group of about 40 prostitutes in Majengo, Kenya, who are apparently resistant to HIV infection, are providing clues to researchers hoping to develop an AIDS vaccine. Researchers from the University of Nairobi, the University of Washington, the University of Manitoba in Canada, and Oxford University are collaborating to map the women's genes in an attempt to uncover what offers them protection from the virus. "We are taking blood from the HIV-negative women and their relatives, as well as from some women who have tested positive," says Dr. Ephantus Njagi of Majengo's clinic for sex workers. He explained that the researchers "believe some women have a genetic makeup which enables them to produce something which kills off the virus. Eventually we hope it will be possible to produce a vaccine which will immunize people against AIDS." Of the nearly 1,900 sex workers treated at the clinic over the past 10 years, some 400 have died of AIDS and more than 90 percent are infected with HIV. Although condoms are provided for free, only an estimated 70 percent of the prostitutes use them. "Obituary: Thomas Stoddard, 48, Dies; An Advocate of Gay Rights" New York Times (02/14/97) P. B6; Dunlap, David W. Thomas Stoddard, a lawyer who battled discrimination against gay men, lesbians, and people with AIDS, died of AIDS Wednesday at age 48. He had served as executive director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York, seeking equal rights for homosexuals and AIDS patients in employment, housing, health care, insurance, family law, and military service. AIDS cases made up one-fifth of those handled by Lambda when Stoddard took over in 1986, and grew to nearly 50 percent in 1988. Stoddard learned that he had Kaposi's sarcoma, an AIDS-related cancer, in 1989. He later joined the board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, and attended the first White House AIDS conference in December 1995, as well as the 11th International AIDS conference in Vancouver, British Colombia, last year. "Used-Needle Exchange Gets House Support" Baltimore Sun (02/14/97) P. 2B The Maryland House of Delegates voted Thursday to extend indefinitely a three-year-old needle-exchange program in Baltimore aiming to curb the spread of HIV among injection drug users. While opponents of the measure argued that the program condones illegal drug use, supporters noted that the exchange had been more successful than expected in reducing HIV transmission and helping drug users seek treatment. The state Senate has given preliminary approval to its version of the bill. "Across the USA: Florida, Missouri" USA Today (02/14/97) P. 11A AIDS-related deaths in Florida decreased for the first time last year, falling from 4,381 in 1995 to 3,296 in 1996. The decline was reported across all ethnic groups and in both sexes. Meanwhile, in Missouri, the state AIDS program has a $700,000 surplus that it is unable to spend by the end of the fiscal year on March 31. AIDS advocates say officials have not spent the money because they overspent by $1.6 million in 1995. "Policy Paper, Califano Speech at Odds" Washington Times (02/13/97) P. A2; Wetzstein, Cheryl In a recent speech at the Heritage Foundation, Joseph A. Califano Jr., director of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, called for a "move, front and center, to combat substance abuse and addiction." He estimated that substance abuse and addiction cost society $400 billion a year by contributing to such problems as crime, violence, welfare dependency, and the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Meanwhile, a draft copy of the Clinton administration's 1997 drug strategy suggested that the government's war on drugs approach was no longer effective and that drug use should be treated as a chronic problem rather than one that can be ultimately defeated. Robert S. Weiner, spokesman for the National Drug Control Policy, said the draft was outdated and that the portrayal of the war on drugs as "unwinnable" has been dropped. Philanthropist George Soros has supported an end to the war on drugs, claiming in a recent Washington Post commentary that it is "doing more harm to our society than drug abuse itself." Soros has also advocated programs to make drug treatment and sterile needles available to addicts. "House Committee OKs Needles-For-Addicts Bill" Rocky Mountain News (02/07/97) P. 18A; Luzadder, Dan A House panel in Colorado has voted in favor of a controversial bill that would aim to curb the spread of HIV by giving drug addicts in the state legal access to clean needles. Health officials supported the measure, citing the success of similar programs in other states. "Over three-fourths of the HIV-infected children in the state are infected as a result of injection drug users," Dr. Ellen Mangione of Colorado's Department of Public Health told the committee. Denver police spokesman Tony Lombard voiced his opposition to the bill, but Mangione and others cited five national studies of 100 needle exchanges in 20 states which have shown that the programs reduce HIV transmission among injection drug users but do not cause a significant rise in drug use. "Editorial: Needle Exchanges Save Lives" Denver Post (02/09/97) P. 4D A bill before the Colorado legislature to allow needle exchange programs would save both lives and money, according to a Denver Post editorial. The editors point out that injection drug users reportedly account for half of all new HIV cases and that an additional 20 percent of new cases are linked to the sex partners of drug users. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Joan Johnson and Rep. Alice Nichol, both Democrats from Adams County, would allow free needle exchanges in the state. The authors cite five national studies, including those by the National Academy of Sciences and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which have shown that needle exchanges reduce HIV transmission but do not increase drug use. Additionally, the state could save $119,000 per patient in Medicaid costs for each person who does not contract HIV, the editors note. In conclusion, the authors applaud the Colorado House Judiciary Committee for passing the measure, and they encourage the full legislature to do the same. "A Mother's Agony" Maclean's (02/03/97) Vol. 110, No. 5, P. 23; Bergman, Brian Janet Conners, of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, lost her husband, a hemophiliac, to AIDS three years ago, after he contracted HIV through a tainted blood transfusion in 1986. After intense lobbying by Conners and her husband, the Nova Scotia government agreed in 1993 to financially compensate hemophiliacs who contracted HIV from tainted blood products. Although she is now ill with the disease herself, Conners continues to pursue the truth behind the Canadian tainted blood tragedy. "Nobody has taken any accountability through any of this," she said, commenting specifically on the news that federal health officials had destroyed documentation of the Canadian Blood Committee. While trying to maintain her vigilance, Conners is also trying to maintain her health. She has added a protease inhibitor to her drug treatment. She is also raising her 16-year-old son, which she says involves "trying to cram in a lot of mothering in the time I have left." "Physician-Assisted Suicide and Patients With Human Immunodeficiency Virus Disease" New England Journal of Medicine (02/06/97) Vol. 336, No. 6, P. 417; Slome, Lee R.; Mitchell, Thomas F.; Charlebois, Edwin; et al. Researchers conducted a survey of AIDS specialists in San Francisco to assess both attitudes about physician-assisted suicide for AIDS patients and the prevalence of the practice. (Participation in a physician-assisted suicide was defined as prescribing a lethal dose of narcotics.) Between November 1994 and January 1995, Lee R. Slome, a private practitioner in San Francisco, and colleagues, surveyed 118 doctors in the Community Consortium, an association of health care providers for HIV patients in the area. In response to a sample case, 48 percent of the respondents said they would be likely or very likely to assist in an AIDS patient's suicide, compared to just 28 percent in 1990. Fifty-three percent of the respondents said they had granted the request of an AIDS patient for suicide assistance on at least one occasion. The authors noted that selection bias may have influenced the study, as physicians who had more interest or experience with assisted suicide were more likely to respond. The AIDS Daily News will not publish on Monday, February 17, 1997, in observance of President's Day. Publication will resume on Tuesday, February 18.