                     AIDS Daily Summary 
                       March 12, 1996

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
of this text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC
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Copyright 1996, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD


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"New Issue Update: Gilead Sciences"
"John-John Dies of AIDS at 11 Still Speaking of Hope"
"Unusual Molecules Could be Key to Cancer Patients' Weight Loss"
"Portraits of Lives with AIDS"
"Thalidomide Returns With New Hope, Old Fear"
"Neurex SNX-111 in the Treatment of Neuropathic Pain Caused by 
AIDS; Early Results Promising"
"Identification of Levels of Maternal HIV-1 RNA Associated With 
Risk of Perinatal Transmission"
"Syringe Exchange in the United States: 1995 Update"
"JAMA, Glaxo Wellcome Create HIV/AIDS Site on Web"
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"New Issue Update: Gilead Sciences"
Investor's Business Daily (03/12/96) P. A6
     Gilead Sciences Inc. has announced that preliminary results from 
an independent clinical trial of VISTIDE indicate the drug is 
effective in treating CMV retinitis.  The study was carried out 
by SOCA, a research group founded by the National Eye Institute.
      
"John-John Dies of AIDS at 11 Still Speaking of Hope"
Baltimore Sun (03/12/96) P. 1B;  Olksker, Michael
     Eleven-year-old John-John Cummings, who was infected with HIV by 
his mother, died of AIDS recently, but was still full of hope.  
His grandmother Ethel Jackson, who lives in Baltimore and is a 
retired nurse's assistant, took care of him.  His mother died in 
August.  Jackson described John-John as a typical boy who loved 
to play and sing.  A study by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention found that 1 percent of women on child-bearing age in 
Baltimore are known to have HIV.  Vicki Tepper of the University 
of Maryland School of Medicine, who was John-John's psychologist,
says that about 250 Baltimore children under the age of 13 are 
infected with HIV.  John-John was not found to have HIV until he 
was 7, but he suffered from illnesses throughout his life.  When 
John-John was dying, Jackson said, he knew, but he told her he 
had talked to the angels, and they said he was going to be 
allright.
      
"Unusual Molecules Could be Key to Cancer Patients' Weight Loss"
New York Times (03/12/96) P. C3;  Grady, Denise
     British researchers report that they have found a clue to the 
process of wasting, or the extreme weight loss that plagues 
cancer and AIDS patients.  Their finding is specific to wasting 
in cancer patients, but, Dr. Carl Grunfield, a medical professor 
at the University of California at San Francisco, who was not 
involved in the research, says he will begin a study to look for 
the same factor in AIDS patients.  Wasting affects about half of 
all cancer patients, and has a significant impact on the health 
of people with AIDS.  The cancer study, led by Dr. Michael 
Tisdale at Aston University, reveals the role of a substance made
by tumor cells that seems to cause the weight loss.  A treatment 
to block the chemical may be developed to combat the problem.  
Cancer patients with wasting live about half as long those with 
the same tumor and no wasting.  Patients lose their appetite, 
burn extra calories, and lose muscle mass, but giving a patient 
more food does not help and may cause the tumor to grow faster.
      
"Portraits of Lives with AIDS"
New York Times (03/10/96) P. 33;  Alvarez, Lizette
     AIDS has become a growing problem among teen-agers, a problem 
emphasized in a report from the White House Office of AIDS Policy
released last week.  The report called for community leaders and 
the medical establishment to increase education and treatment 
efforts for young people.  One of every four people who are 
infected with HIV is under the age of 20, the report said.  Poor 
inner-city teens, who are having sex at younger ages and live in 
areas where AIDS is more prevalent, are especially susceptible to
the virus.  In New York City, nearly 11,000 people aged 13 to 29 
have died of AIDS.  Fifteen percent of the AIDS cases in Newark, 
N.J., are among 20- to 29-year-olds.  Complicating the problem is
the fact that most young people are not likely to be tested or 
see a doctor, and may not even know they have the virus.  Young 
people who grew up learning basic HIV prevention methods seem to 
be ambivalent about their sexual behavior.  Dealing with poverty,
grief, and feelings of abandonment, they turn to sex for comfort 
and seem to think they can defy AIDS, and that if they cannot, it
is beyond their control.
      
"Thalidomide Returns With New Hope, Old Fear"
Chicago Tribune (03/11/96) P. 1-1;  Goering, Laurie
     Thalidomide, the infamous sedative that caused severe birth 
defects in babies of mothers who took the drug in the late 1950s 
and early 1960s, is still prescribed in Brazil as the only 
effective treatment for leprosy and is gaining popularity again 
in the West as a treatment for AIDS-associated wasting and mouth 
ulcers.  The drug may also be effective as a treatment for 
tuberculosis, cancer, degenerative eye disease associated with 
diabetes, and autoimmune diseases such as lupus and multiple 
sclerosis.  To use such a potentially dangerous drug again, 
however, U.S. Food and Drug Administration policy experts and 
other health officials are searching for ways to get the drug to 
those who need it without repeating the tragedies of the past.  
Efforts to make thalidomide less likely to fall into the hands of
pregnant women include new labeling which makes it clearer that 
the drug is dangerous for pregnant women and is not able to 
induce abortion, as some mistakenly believe, and distribution 
methods that limit prescriptions to small amounts of the drug.
      
"Neurex SNX-111 in the Treatment of Neuropathic Pain Caused by 
AIDS; Early Results Promising"
Business Wire (03/11/96)
     Neurex Corp. has announced the promising results of treating two 
patients with HIV-related neuropathic pain with SNX-111, a 
calcium channel blocker.  Both patients had failed opiate 
treatment, but responded well to initial treatment with SNX-111. 
Severe neuropathic pain, which is thought to be caused by the HIV
infection invading the nervous system, is a common clinical 
problem, and not easily treated.  The company added that it needs
to confirm the response in controlled studies.
      
"Identification of Levels of Maternal HIV-1 RNA Associated With 
Risk of Perinatal Transmission"
Journal of the American Medical Association (02/28/96) Vol.275, 
No.8, P. 599;  Dickover, Ruth E.;  Garratty, Eileen M.;  Herman, 
Steven A.; et al.
     Zidovudine has been shown to reduce the risk of perinatal 
transmission of HIV by two-thirds in asymptomatic HIV-infected 
women who had not taken the drug previously.  Dickover and 
colleagues followed 92 HIV-positive pregnant women to determine 
if the amount of virus in maternal blood can predict perinatal 
HIV transmission, how zidovudine prevents HIV transmission, and 
why it sometimes fails.  Of the 92 women, 42 received zidovudine 
therapy during pregnancy, labor, and delivery.  Twenty of the 97 
infants were perinatally infected with HIV.  The mothers' HIV-1 
RNA levels were found to be highly predictive of the risk of 
perinatal transmission, and zidovudine showed a major protective 
effect by reducing maternal HIV-1 RNA levels before delivery.  
Transmission was most likely to occur in women with plasma HIV-1 
RNA levels above 50,000 copies per milliliter.  According to the 
researchers, intervention strategies should try to reduce the 
maternal HIV-1 RNA levels to at least below 20,000 copies per 
milliliter.  Further strategies are needed, the authors say, to 
prevent perinatal transmission in women with high or increasing 
virus levels or zidovudine-resistant virus.
      
"Syringe Exchange in the United States: 1995 Update"
The U.S. Conference of Mayors: HIV Capsule Report (02/96) No.1, 
P. 1
     Syringe exchange programs (SEPs) provide sterile syringes and 
other services to injection drug users, reducing the risk of HIV 
transmission through shared needles.  Programs are now in 
operation in 46 cities in 21 states.  In 1994, 8 million new 
syringes were exchanged for used ones, compared to 2.4 million in
1993.  However, laws that require prescriptions to obtain 
syringes or that criminalize having syringes often make SEPs 
illegal.  Of 60 SEPs that responded to a 1995 survey, 55 percent 
reported that they operated legally; 32 percent said a local 
group or council supported the program, despite laws against it; 
and 13 percent said they operated illegally.  Among other 
services offered, 45 of the programs offer condoms and 23 provide
HIV counseling and testing.  In addition, 85 percent of the 
programs counsel drug users about medical hygiene relating to 
injection drugs.  Furthermore, a recent study by the Chemical 
Dependency Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York 
found that SEPs are cost-effective, with the average yearly cost 
for programs about $131,000.  The average estimated lifetime cost
of treating one HIV-positive individual is $120,000.  Federal 
funds cannot be used for syringe distribution.  In short, 
although 53.3 percent of the AIDS cases reported to the Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention in 1994 were associated with 
injection drug use, SEPs are continually opposed by communities 
leaders and lawmakers.  Communities should therefore investigate 
whether SEPs are appropriate for the needs of their region, but 
should also consider effective prevention strategies can be 
implemented at the local level
      
"JAMA, Glaxo Wellcome Create HIV/AIDS Site on Web"
American Medical News (02/19/96) Vol. 39, No. 7, P. 9
     The Journal of the American Medical Association and Glaxo 
Wellcome Inc. have created an HIV- and AIDS-related World Wide 
Web site which is intended to serve both patients and health care
workers.  Information on the site, located at 
"http://www.ama-assn.org," is peer reviewed by HIV/AIDS experts, 
and a community advisory panel will also be created to assist the
site editors.  The site features information on a range of topics
including clinical protocol, training information for health care
workers, answers to common questions about HIV/AIDS, and a 
lexicon of HIV/AIDS terminology.
      
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