                     AIDS Daily Summary 
                   Wednesday, July 3, 1996

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National AIDS
Clearinghouse makes available the following information as a public
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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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"Precious Pills: New AIDS Treatment Raises Tough Question of Who 
Will Get It"
"Report Says AIDS May Curtail African Growth"
"All Day, Every Day, A Global Forum on AIDS"
"AIDS Fighters See Ray of Hope"
"The Battle's Big Gun: Protease Inhibitors"
"Science Meets Nature in AIDS Study"
"A Victory in Funding AIDS Treatment"
"New Advances Toward Effective Protease Inhibition of HIV"
"The Risk of Transfusion-Transmitted Viral Infections"
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"Precious Pills: New AIDS Treatment Raises Tough Question of
Who Will Get It"
Wall Street Journal (07/03/96) P. A1; Waldholz, Michael
     While protease inhibitors, the new class of AIDS drugs,
offer the promise of healthier and longer lives for people
with the disease, the cost of the treatment is a major concern.
A three-drug combination, which can lower the viral load in 
patients to undetectable levels, can cost between $12,000 and 
$16,000 a year.  The therapy also requires careful and consistent
dosing, and experts worry that drug-resistant strains of HIV 
could develop if patients miss even a few days worth of 
treatment.  For these very reasons, doctors at Harlem Hospital in
Manhattan say they will not prescribe the drugs to some patients.
Providing the drugs for eligible patients may be difficult as 
demand grows, though President Clinton has said he is committed 
to the cause.  New York, which has allocated $9 million of 
federal AIDS funds for the protease inhibitors, could see the 
cost for the drugs reach $120 million a year.  Medicaid currently
provides the drugs for its recipients, but some private insurers 
and managed care companies restrict coverage to patients with 
advanced disease.
     
"Report Says AIDS May Curtail African Growth"
New York Times (07/03/96) P. A5
     Despite the devastating impact of AIDS on the world's
population, a new report says that if  birth rates in some
developing countries are maintained, world population could
reach 100 billion by the end of the century.  The Population
Reference Bureau reported on Tuesday that the AIDS epidemic in
parts of Africa will dampen population growth there much more
than was previously thought.  The report said that sub-Saharan
Africa's population will be 1.25 billion by 2025--100 million less
than it would have been without the impact of AIDS.  "It now seems
quite likely that AIDS will alter the demographic prospects of some
20 to 30 countries" in Africa, with Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda,
Zambia, and Zimbabwe being the most affected, the report 
concluded.
     
"All Day, Every Day, A Global Forum on AIDS"
New York Times (07/03/96) P. C7; Rifkin, Glenn
     An ongoing global AIDS forum on the Internet, designed to
allow an exchange of AIDS information for health care workers in 
developing countries, was launched last week by the Satellife 
Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Boston.  AIDS researchers
from the Harvard AIDS Institute and Harvard School of Public 
Health, the European AIDS Commission, the Uganda Viral Research 
Institute, and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences 
collaborated to create the Program for Collaboration Against AIDS
and Related Epidemics (Procaare).  The project is to be operated 
like a professional medical conference, providing a low cost way 
for health care workers and researchers to exchange information 
on the spread, treatment, and prevention of AIDS.  Procaare's 
World Wide Web site can be reached at 
http://www.healthnet.org/procaare.html.
     
"AIDS Fighters See Ray of Hope"
Washington Times (07/03/96) P. A12; Osterman, Cynthia
     As the beginning of the 11th International Conference on AIDS
in Vancouver nears, the AIDS research community is in an optimistic 
mood, buoyed by major advances is treating the disease.  The 
meeting, which will begin on Sunday, will be the largest ever, 
attracting some 15,000 researchers, policy-makers, patients, 
activists, and journalists.  The mood will likely be that of 
cautious optimism, a change from the atmosphere of disappointment
that has pervaded previous meetings.  While protease inhibitors 
have shown promise for managing the disease, questions still 
remain about their long-term effectiveness and the virus' 
potential to become resistant to them.
     
"The Battle's Big Gun: Protease Inhibitors"
USA Today (07/03/96) P. 1D; Painter, Kim
     AIDS patients, researchers, and doctors are optimistic about
the promise of protease inhibitors, which some say may make AIDS a 
manageable disease.  Three of the new drugs are on the market, 
and several others are on the way.  The treatments are not 
effective for everyone, they have side effects, and no one knows 
how long they will work or which combination of drugs is best.  
Patients responding well to the drugs, however, say they have new
hope for healthier and longer lives.
     
"Science Meets Nature in AIDS Study"
Toronto Globe and Mail (07/02/96) P. A6; Immen, Wallace
     While patients increasingly seek alternative treatments for
AIDS, from acupuncture to Chinese herbal medicines to tai chi, 
researchers studying the use of such therapies are hard-pressed 
to come up with evidence that they are effective.  A study of 
alternative therapies led by Carlo Calabrese at Bastyr 
University, an alternative medical school in Seattle, will be 
presented, along with similar studies, at the International 
Conference on AIDS in Vancouver next week.  Calabrese's study 
currently consists of a survey of AIDS patients' use of 
alternative therapies, with a follow-up study planned of any that
show promise.  Patients seeking alternative therapy are advised 
to stop smoking, using drugs, or consuming alcohol, and to take 
vitamins and exercise.
     
"A Victory in Funding AIDS Treatment"
Toronto Globe and Mail (07/02/96) P. A6; Matas, Robert
     Michael O'Shaughnessy, director of the British Columbia
Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, has been influential in
persuading the provincial government to provide new AIDS drugs
almost as soon as they are available.  British Columbia will
spend about $15 million on AIDS drugs this year as a result, up
from $1 million in 1992.  O'Shaughnessy's center, which operates
out of St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, was created in 1991 to
evaluate the AIDS epidemic in the province.  It was later given
authority to distribute drugs for HIV and has enrolled about 1,600
patients who receive the drugs in exchange for information about
the AIDS community.
     
"New Advances Toward Effective Protease Inhibition of HIV"
Reuters (07/02/96) 
     HIV can develop resistance to currently approved protease 
inhibitors, but researchers report in the July issue of Nature 
Medicine new ways to counteract this resistance.  Thomas Gingeras
of Affymetrix in Santa Clara, Calif. and colleagues analyzed the 
protease genes of different subtypes of HIV found in patients 
before protease inhibitors were used.  The researchers found that
many mutations linked to protease inhibitor resistance had 
already existed in these patients, suggesting that therapy should
be started before viral replication results in a variety of 
strains.  In a second study, led by Dale J. Kempf of Abbott 
Laboratories, researchers report that resistance to the protease 
inhibitor ritonavir increased in direct proportion to the 
appearance of nine specific mutations in the protease gene.
     
"The Risk of Transfusion-Transmitted Viral Infections"
New England Journal of Medicine (06/27/96) Vol. 334, No. 26; P. 
1685; Schreiber, George B.; Busch, Michael P.; Kleinman, Steven 
H.; et al.
     To estimate more accurately the risk of contracting HIV and
other viruses from a blood transfusion, George B. Schreiber of
Westat, Inc. in Rockville, Md., and colleagues calculated an
estimate that incorporated the risk of receiving blood donated
before the virus could be detected.  Donations made during this
"window period," the time between infection and when the body
begins producing detectable antibodies, pose the greatest threat
to transfusion recipients.  The researchers calculated rates of 
seroconversion among blood donors for HIV, human T-cell 
lymphotropic virus (HTLV), hepatitis C (HCV), and hepatitis B 
(HBV) from 1991 to 1993.  Only people who donated blood more than
once and whose blood passed all screening tests were included.  
Risks were then determined from estimates of the length of the 
window period for each virus.  The risk of  receiving HIV- or 
HTLV-infected blood was found to be two per million donations.  
The estimated risk was five times greater for HCV and eight times
greater for HBV.  The researchers also report that viral antigen 
and nucleic acid testing for HIV would be expected to detect from
seven to 12 HIV-infected but seronegative donations per 12 
million screened units.

The AIDS Daily News will not be published on Thursday, July 4, 1996,
in observance of Independence Day.  Publication will resume on 
Friday, July 5.