                     AIDS Daily Summary 
                       March 7, 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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"AIDS Advocates Fear GOP Will Be Knifing Programs"
"U.N. Vows to Involve Victims in World AIDS Fight"
"Bringing HIV Fight Home"
"Johnson Planning AIDS Fund-Raiser"
"SJC to Review School Condom Plan"
"SAIC Awarded $400 Million Contract to Support National Cancer 
Institute"
"Gene Therapy and Immune Restoration for HIV Disease"
"Debugging Blood"
"Japan Has Sharp Increase of AIDS Patients"
"AIDS Fear: No Suit"
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"AIDS Advocates Fear GOP Will Be Knifing Programs"
Los Angeles Times--Washington Edition (03/07/95) P. A5;  Cimons, 
Marlene
     AIDS advocates are feeling vulnerable about the fate of their 
programs under the new, Republican-controlled Congress.  Many 
believe they could have a more difficult time than other 
constituency groups because Congress sees theirs as an unpopular 
constituency.  Everything the Republicans will do "will be done 
in a cost-saving context, and public relations will not play in 
our favor," said Christine Lubinski, who until recently was 
acting executive director of the AIDS Action Council.  The battle
over AIDS cuts began recently with two House subcommittees voting
to cut back on several major programs.  Under heavy lobbying 
pressure from AIDS advocates, some of the money was restored.  
The full Appropriations Committee voted to reject the cuts from 
the Ryan White Care Act and from the Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention's (CDC) HIV prevention programs, but elimination 
of an $186 million housing subsidy program for people with AIDS 
is still possible.  Other areas of concern are the possible 
capping or "block granting" of Medicaid--where about 40 percent 
of AIDS patients end up--and possible new battles over prevention
and education programs, such as sex education, condom 
distribution in schools, and needle exchange programs.
      
"U.N. Vows to Involve Victims in World AIDS Fight"
Reuters (03/06/95);  Boyle, Brendan
     In his first public policy statement, Peter Piot--executive 
director of the Joint U.N. Programme on AIDS--on Monday said that
the world will have to accept that no relief for the disease is 
imminent.  Piot also said that people with AIDS must play an 
important role in the worldwide campaign to fight the disease and
in the development of strategies to live with it.  "This is not a
disease outbreak that science can bring under control overnight. 
Neither a vaccine nor a cure is a realistic prospect in this 
century at least," he told the opening session of a five-day 
multinational conference on living with AIDS in Cape Town, South 
Africa.  South African and foreign delegates gave varying 
indications of the scale of AIDS and HIV infection.  Piot stated 
that there were 11 million HIV-infected people in Africa.  South 
African Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma, however, said the best 
possible estimate was that there were 8.5 million infected in 
South Africa alone, and that the rate had been doubling every 
year since 1991.
      
"Bringing HIV Fight Home"
Philadelphia Inquirer (03/07/95) P. B1;  Vrazo, Fawn
     HIV infection and AIDS-related deaths are occurring all around 
the residents of the Puerto Rican community of North 
Philadelphia.  Recently, Evelyn Martinez opened her home to 
anyone who wanted to attend a very different sort of house party.
A wide variety of condoms were displayed, and participants 
voluntarily took turns going upstairs to a quiet back bedroom 
where their blood was drawn for an HIV test.  The AIDS house 
party concept was developed by the Congreso de Latinos Unidos 
Inc. (Congress of United Latinos), a nonprofit agency reaching 
out to the city's mostly Puerto Rican community.  The agency's 
workers are familiar with the special problems that AIDS presents
in the Puerto Rican neighborhoods--that it is predominantly 
transmitted through intravenous drug use, and then often spread 
by infected men having intercourse with their wives or 
girlfriends, who don't realize they are at risk.  The strong 
Hispanic tradition of machismo, which gives males power, makes it
difficult or impossible for Puerto Rican women to demand that 
their men use a condom.  Congreso staffers and city officials say
that, so far, the house parties have been a success and have 
already reached 900 Puerto Rican women and more than 300 men.
      
"Johnson Planning AIDS Fund-Raiser"
New York Times (03/07/95) P. B15
     On March 19, athletes such as Lawrence Taylor, Mark Messier, and 
Patrick Ewing will join Magic Johnson to play a basketball game 
to benefit the Magic Johnson and Robin Hood Foundations.  The 
event will raise funds for HIV and AIDS education.  "We've just 
got to keep getting the message out about HIV and AIDS," said 
Johnson, who said he hopes to raise $500,000 for education and 
prevention programs in New York City.  The program will also 
include a dinner and sports auction.
      
"SJC to Review School Condom Plan"
Boston Globe (03/06/95) P. 13;  Ellement, John
     For the first time, the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) on Tuesday 
will examine the practice of providing condoms to secondary 
school students as a means of preventing the spread of AIDS.  
Since 1991, the town of Falmouth, Mass., has made condoms 
available to junior high and high school students as part of its 
AIDS-prevention curriculum that the state departments of 
Education and Public Health have urged local districts to create.
Although Falmouth and 22 other districts offer some variation of 
condom availability, 43 other communities have rejected the idea.
Four Falmouth families have opposed the condom plan in the courts
since its inception, claiming it violates the First Amendment 
right to religious expression.  They are being represented before
the SJC by the American Center for Law and Justice, a public 
interest group founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.  Attorneys
for the Falmouth School Committee, however, said the plan is 
legal and does not violate any constitutional rights because 
student participation is voluntary, and because no student is 
forced to violate his or her parents' wishes.
      
"SAIC Awarded $400 Million Contract to Support National Cancer 
Institute"
PR Newswire (03/06/95)
     Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) has been awarded 
the National Cancer Institute's largest contract, the operations 
and technical support contract for the Frederick Cancer Research 
and Development Center.  At the center, research into the cause, 
treatment, and cure of AIDS and cancer is performed.  The 
year-long contract is potentially worth $400 million.  "We at 
SAIC would like to reaffirm our commitment to serve the national 
cancer and AIDS research programs," said Chairman and Chief 
Executive Officer J. Robert Beyster.  The contract will be 
managed by SAIC Frederick and led by Dr. Peter Fischinger, an 
internationally known scientist and manager of cancer and AIDS 
research.
      
"Gene Therapy and Immune Restoration for HIV Disease"
Lancet (02/18/95) Vol. 345, No. 8947, P. 427;  Bridges, Sandra H.;  
Sarver, Nava
     Recent studies have begun to explore innovative strategies that 
can target the viral, immunological, and cellular components of 
HIV disease.  Current studies of HIV gene therapy involve gene 
transfer into mature CD4 T cells.  Efforts, however, are being 
made to deliver antiviral genes to pluripotent hematopoietic stem
cells to guarantee a renewable supply of HIV-protected cells for 
the life of the patient.  Immune restoration strategies deal with
the transfer of various cell populations to HIV-positive people 
with the purpose of restoring immune function.  It is generally 
agreed that restoring immune cells is more likely to have a 
therapeutic effect if the cells are altered to resist HIV 
infection.  Nucleic acid-based therapeutic vaccines involve 
direct delivery of HIV genes into the patient's tissue to imitate
natural infection, and thus, enhance immune responses against 
HIV.  The combined use of gene therapy, adoptive immune therapy, 
and nucleic acid-based immune enhancement represents a 
comprehensive treatment regimen that focuses on the key elements 
of HIV disease--the virus and the immune system.
      
"Debugging Blood"
Science News (02/11/95) Vol. 147, No. 6, P. 92;  Adler, Tina
     All U.S. blood banks must screen donations for syphilis, 
hepatitis B and C, two types of HIV, two types of human T cell 
leukemia virus, and other infectious agents.  However, most 
HIV-tainted blood that reaches transfusion recipients comes from 
recently infected people who have not yet developed antibodies to
HIV.  Although HIV researchers have developed tests that detect 
the virus earlier in infection, the more sensitive screens may 
not prove cost-effective if widely used, said an advisory panel 
to the National Institutes of Health last month.  The panel also 
recommended that blood banks stop doing a test that measures the 
activity of the enzyme alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in the 
blood.  ALT enters the bloodstream in response to liver damage, 
such as that caused by hepatitis.  Other factors, however, such 
as heavy alcohol consumption and obesity, that do not make people
unsuitable donors may also increase ALT activity.  Each year, 
blood banks discard about 200,000 units and turn away 150,000 
potential donors because of elevated ALT readings.  The hepatitis
B core antibody (anti-HBc) tests--developed to detect non-A, non 
B hepatitis virus--was found to indirectly identify HIV-tainted 
blood that would otherwise go undetected.  The panel concluded 
these detections compensate for the test's high false positive 
rate.
      
"Japan Has Sharp Increase of AIDS Patients"
Nikkei Weekly (02/13/95) Vol 33, No. 1658, P. 17
     There were 435 new HIV and AIDS cases reported in Japan during 
1994--a 20 percent increase from 364 in 1993, according to the 
Health and Welfare Ministry's AIDS Surveillance Committee.  A 
record 268 cases were among Japanese, of which 226 were male AIDS
patients and HIV carriers, and 42 were female.  Of the 167 
non-Japanese, 65 were male and 102 were female--compared to 52 
males and 129 females in 1993.  By the end of the year, there 
were 1,845 reported cases of AIDS and HIV, with 1,053 male and 
792 female.  The total jumps to 3,637, however, if those infected
through blood transfusions are included.  The committee also said
that two cases of maternal-infant infection were confirmed 
between November and December, and that infection through 
heterosexual intercourse reached 194 last year--up 14.1 percent 
from 1993.  A total of 114 people were infected through 
homosexual intercourse, up 96.6 percent.
      
"AIDS Fear: No Suit"
National Law Journal (02/27/95) Vol. 17, No. 26, P. A10
     The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that a woman's fear of 
contracting AIDS from her infected doctor does not justify 
compensation because she feared a risk that hardly existed.  The 
Minneapolis woman was one of 52 who sued the doctor and the 
clinic where he worked prior to his death from AIDS in 1991.  
During a gynecological exam, the woman noticed open sores on the 
doctor's hands and that he looked thinner.  When she asked about 
it, the doctor said that he had a bad sunburn and was on Weight 
Watchers.  The woman was later notified in a letter that the 
doctor had AIDS and that she should be tested.  Even though she 
tested HIV-negative, her attorneys said she deserved to be 
compensated for the emotional distress caused by the possibility 
of contracting the disease.
      
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