                     AIDS Daily Summary 
                      January 27, 1995

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
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Copyright 1995, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD


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"Wellcome Rejects Bid by Glaxo"
"Lifeline: AIDS Vaccine"
"Hemophiliacs Urge New Jersey to Allow AIDS Suits Against 
Pharmaceuticals"
"Latent AIDS More Dangerous Than Thought"
"UCSF Study Identifies Helpful and Unhelpful Behaviors for 
Friends and Family of Persons With AIDS"
"More Pregnant British Women Found With AIDS Virus"
"Indonesia Transvestites Think of Fun Not AIDS"
"Virologic and Immunologic Characterization of Long-Term 
Survivors of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Infection"
"Rapid Turnover of Plasma Virions and CD4 Lymphocytes in HIV-1 
Infection"
"Effective Response to Emerging Diseases Called an Essential 
Priority Worldwide"
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"Wellcome Rejects Bid by Glaxo"
New York Times (01/27/95) P. D1;  Stevenson, Richard W.
     Calling the bid inadequate, Wellcome PLC Thursday rejected the 
$14 billion takeover offer made Monday by rival drugmaker Glaxo 
PLC.  Wellcome acknowledged that it had no realistic hope of 
remaining independent because its largest shareholder, the 
Wellcome Trust, suddenly decided to sell its 39.5 percent stake. 
The company said that it was now putting itself up for sale in 
the hopes of attracting a better offer.  While analysts said 
Wellcome's decision was certain given the board's legal 
responsibility to seek the best price for shareholders, they said
Glaxo is likely to prevail because few other pharmaceutical 
companies have the desire or financial strength to exceed the 
offer.  The combination of Glaxo and Wellcome would create the 
world's largest pharmaceutical company.  Glaxo is best known for 
Zantac, an ulcer treatment.  Wellcome's leading drugs are 
Zovirax, a herpes treatment, and AZT, or Retrovir, which combats 
AIDS.  Related Stories: Wall Street Journal (01/27) P. A3; 
Washington Post (01/27) P. F2
      
"Lifeline: AIDS Vaccine"
USA Today (01/27/95) P. 1D;  Vigoda, Arlene
     A scientific advisory panel urged the Food and Drug 
Administration Thursday to heed AIDS patients' pleas for wider 
testing of the country's first therapeutic vaccine.  The Immogen 
vaccine was developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the first 
polio vaccine, and is intended to keep HIV-infected people 
healthier longer.  Related Story: Wall Street Journal (01/27) P. 
A1
      
"Hemophiliacs Urge New Jersey to Allow AIDS Suits Against 
Pharmaceuticals"
Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News (01/27/95);  Shaw, Donna
     Advocates for hemophiliacs asked a New Jersey state legislative 
committee on Thursday to approve a bill permitting lawsuits 
against drug companies whose medicines were once contaminated 
with HIV.  The bill would exempt one year from the state's 
statute of limitations, allowing hemophiliacs or their estates to
sue the drug companies despite the ten years or more since 
infection.  The government estimates that 8,000 to 10,000 
hemophiliacs were infected with HIV in the late 1970s and early 
1980s as a result of contamination in their blood-clotting 
medications.  Elena Bostick, executive director of the Hemophilia
Association of New Jersey, explained that "patients were 
frequently advised that HIV was not clinically significant and 
would not necessarily cause any disease."
      
"Latent AIDS More Dangerous Than Thought"
Reuters (01/26/95);  Kenen, Joanne
     There is increasing evidence that HIV is involved in a subtle 
struggle with the human immune system from the beginning of 
infection and is reproducing so abundantly that mutations form, 
creating drug-resistant variations.  The immune system eventually
surrenders.  John Coffin, the author of a new study on the 
"latent" stage of HIV infection, said this is the bad news from 
the study.  The good news, he said, is that a better 
understanding of the disease can guide researchers toward 
treatments that may be able to boost the immune system and enable
it to hold off the virus.  Coffin is a professor of molecular 
biology and microbiology at Tufts University Medical School in 
Boston.  His research team came up with a model that shows that 
HIV is more dynamic in its earlier stages than previously 
thought.  The work expands on research recently published in the 
journal Nature, which shattered some beliefs about AIDS and 
prompted experts to start thinking about new and earlier 
treatments.  "It seems the real disease caused by HIV occurs 
during the period when almost nothing seems to be happening," 
wrote Coffin in the journal Science.  AIDS does not suddenly 
happen after years of uneventful HIV infection, he said, but is 
the product of years and years of accumulated damage.
      
"UCSF Study Identifies Helpful and Unhelpful Behaviors for 
Friends and Family of Persons With AIDS"
Business Wire (01/26/95)
     A new study from the University of California at San Francisco 
(UCSF) has found that the friends and family of AIDS patients can
be invaluable sources of support and strength for the patient, 
but they can also unintentionally say or do things that are 
unhelpful or offensive.  Often, the friends and family members 
are uncertain or confused about how they can provide the most 
support to their loved ones.  The UCSF study identifies helpful 
and unhelpful behaviors from the point of view of a person with 
AIDS, and provides guidance for those who care but are not sure 
how to offer support to an AIDS patient.  Some of the unhelpful 
behaviors include avoiding interaction, acting embarrassed or 
ashamed, breaking confidentiality, and criticizing one's medical 
care.  Helpful behaviors include expressing love or concern, 
interacting naturally, and offering practical assistance.
      
"More Pregnant British Women Found With AIDS Virus"
Reuters (01/26/95)
     A British government study has found that more pregnant women in 
London are becoming HIV-infected, while homosexual men continue 
high-risk behavior that puts themselves and others at risk.  
Thirty percent of the heterosexual men found by clinics to have 
HIV had already been diagnosed as HIV-infected, but 74 percent of
homosexual and bisexual men and 52 percent of heterosexual women 
had previously been diagnosed.  The health department report 
showed that drug users and homosexual men were still the most at 
risk from AIDS.  The number of pregnant women diagnosed with HIV 
in London jumped from one in 1,220 women in 1990 to one in 570 in
1993.  There were 2.7 cases of AIDS per 100,000 population in the
United Kingdom in 1993, compared to 14.1 in Spain, 9.9 in France,
and 8.0 in Italy.
      
"Indonesia Transvestites Think of Fun Not AIDS"
Reuters (01/26/95);  Pardomuan, Lewa
     Last June, Indonesia--which has a thriving sex industry and an 
increasing problem with AIDS--issued its National AIDS Strategy 
with guidelines for matters such as preventive measures, 
education programs, and blood testing.  Health workers, however, 
argue that the guidelines are not widely known, which leads to 
ignorance in many people, particularly those with risky sexual 
behavior.  Transvestites are among those groups most at risk.  
Many say they are aware of the danger of AIDS, but their 
knowledge includes little more than trying to persuade their 
partners to wear condoms.  They frequently do not even bother.  
Aid workers say that officials in predominantly Muslim Indonesia 
want to publicize the danger of AIDS, but the fear of Muslim 
pressure has limited education campaigns to low-key promotions of
condom use and reducing the number of sexual partners.  By the 
end of 1994, 67 people in Indonesia had AIDS, and 208 were 
HIV-positive.  Health officials claim the number of HIV-positive 
individuals could be 200 times higher and could reach 500,000 by 
the end of the year.
      
"Virologic and Immunologic Characterization of Long-Term 
Survivors of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Infection"
New England Journal of Medicine (01/26/95) Vol. 332, No. 4, P. 
201;  Cao, Yunzhen;  Qin, Limo;  Zhang, Linqi et al.
     Although most HIV-infected people develop clinical or laboratory 
evidence of immunodeficiency with 10 years of seroconversion, a 
few infected people remain healthy and immunologically normal for
more than a decade.  Cao et al. studied 10 seropositive people 
who were asymptomatic and had normal and stable CD4 lymphocyte 
counts despite 12 to 15 years of HIV-1 infection.  Plasma 
cultures were uniformly negative for infectious virus, but 
particle-associated HIV-1 RNA was detected in four subjects.   
Standard limiting-dilution cultures detected infectious HIV-1 in 
peripheral-blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in three patients, 
while CD8-depleted culture found infectious virus in another.  A 
quantitative polymerase-chain-reaction showed that all 10 
subjects had detectable, but low, titers of viral DNA in PBMC.  
While there was no in vitro evidence of host CD4 lymphocyte 
resistance to HIV-1 infection, long-term survivors had a 
vigorous, virus-inhibitory CD8 lymphocyte response and a strong 
neutralizing-antibody response.  Cao et al. concluded that those 
people who remain asymptomatic for many years despite infection 
with HIV-1 have low levels of HIV-1 and a combination of strong 
virus-specific immune responses with some degree of attenuation 
of the virus.
      
"Rapid Turnover of Plasma Virions and CD4 Lymphocytes in HIV-1 
Infection"
Nature (01/12/95) Vol. 373, No. 6510, P. 123;  Ho, David D.;  
Neumann, Avidan U.;  Perelson, Alan S. et al
     Although an increased viral load correlates with CD4 lymphocyte 
depletion and disease progression, relatively little is known on 
the kinetics of virus and CD4 lymphocyte turnover in vivo.  
Researchers administered ABT-538, an inhibitor of HIV-1 protease,
to 20 HIV-1-infected patients to upset the balance between virus 
production and clearance.  They found that ABT-538 caused plasma 
HIV-1 levels to decrease exponentially and CD4 lymphocytes to 
increase significantly.  Minimum estimates of HIV-1 production 
and clearance and of CD4 lymphocyte turnover suggest that 
replication of in vivo replication of HIV-1 is continuous and 
highly productive, propelling the rapid turnover of CD4 
lymphocytes.
      
"Effective Response to Emerging Diseases Called an Essential 
Priority Worldwide"
Journal of the American Medical Association (01/18/95) Vol. 273, 
No. 3, P. 189;  Marwick, Charles
     Infectious diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide.  
New infectious agents and diseases once thought virtually 
eliminated are reappearing as public health problems.  The 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is trying to counter 
the threat of emerging diseases by implementing a number of 
goals, such as collaborating more closely with states to execute 
new surveillance systems and to improve existing ones.  Funding 
for surveillance, however, is largely limited to diseases that 
have already been identified.  Of the $40 million allocated to 
states for infectious disease surveillance, for example, 95 
percent goes only to tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted
diseases, and some vaccine-preventable diseases.  "No one denies 
that funds for AIDS are needed, but they have been taken from the
existing budgets of other public health programs.  Our ability to
respond in other areas has been siphoned off," says Dr. Michael 
T. Osterholm, state epidemiologist for the Minnesota Department 
of Health.  Public health officials claim that money spent now to
detect and prevent diseases before they become widespread is 
justified by the money that could be saved.
      
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