                     AIDS Daily Summary 
                       August 02, 1994


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National AIDS
Clearinghouse makes available the following information as a public
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Copyright 1994, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD

"Australia Seeking 30 Patients of HIV Doctor"
Reuters (08/02/94)
     Australian health authorities have launched a search for 30 of 
the 149 women who underwent operations performed by a surgeon now
identified as HIV-positive.  The New South Wales health 
department is employing police, government agencies, a toll-free 
telephone hotline, and the media in an effort to locate the 
women.  According to the state government, 96 of the women who 
were operated on by the trainee obstetrician at Sydney's King 
George V Hospital have tested negative for the virus.  The 
remaining 23 women have been found, but have not yet received 
test results.  Australian health officials say the chances of any
of the women testing HIV-positive are slim.  The infected doctor 
stopped performing operations once he was diagnosed on June 3.
      
"Mandatory 'Safe Sex' Training a Legacy of AIDS Czar Gebbie"
Washington Times (08/02/94) P. A8;  Larson, Ruth
     Although Kristine M. Gebbie's tenure as national AIDS policy 
coordinator ends today, she leaves behind a mandate for all 
federal employees to receive "safe sex" training.  More than 2 
million workers will have received the "AIDS at Work" training by
Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, but some public health advocates are 
challenging whether the effort is worth the time or the expense. 
The training addresses prevention techniques, risk assessment, 
and dealing with infected co-workers.  According to Lance Alworth
Jr., who manages the program, agencies were not provided with 
additional funding to conduct the training.  The cost of outside 
contractors usually amounts to $2 to $10 per employee, he said.  
Based on those figures, the cost of training 2.1 million workers 
is between $4 million and $20 million.  Also, with the average 
hourly salary at $19, the Office of Personnel Management 
calculates that costs reach $80 million for two hours of 
training.  Gebbie defends the cost, saying that "If we prevent 
even one individual from getting HIV-AIDS, we save hundreds of 
thousands of dollars in medical costs, in the costs to train new 
workers if an employee dies early."  About one-quarter of the 
training is complete thus far.
      
"AIDS Epidemic Seen Threatening "Asian Promise""
Reuters (08/02/94);  Liquicia, Rosario
     As a booming commercial sex industry and widespread intravenous 
drug use hasten the spread of AIDS in Asia, the epidemic is an 
obstacle to the area's growth and progress, said speakers at a 
Tuesday meeting sponsored by the Asian Development Bank.  
According to economist Myo Thant, the first cases of AIDS were 
reported in Asia in only the mid-1980s, but by 1991 more than 1 
million cases of HIV infection had already occurred.  He cited 
World Health Organization estimates predicting that, by the turn 
of the century, 30 percent of global HIV cases will come from 
Asia alone.  Thant said the region would need to look at 
attitudes toward the implicit use of prostitution as a tourist 
attraction.
      
"Summer Shot"
Richmond Times-Dispatch (08/01/94) P. C3
     The federal government has kicked off a nationwide effort to urge
HIV/AIDS patients, senior citizens, diabetics, and heart or lung 
disease patients to receive a pneumonia vaccination.  The need 
for immunization is especially urgent given the new 
drug-resistant strains of the bacteria.  Pneumonia sickens more 
than 200,000 people and causes 40,000 deaths annually.
      
"Clinic Ordered to Pay Damages in AIDS Fraud Case"
Reuters (07/30/94)
     In what is probably the country's first medical fraud case 
involving AIDS, a Superior Court jury has ordered the Medical 
Center of North Hollywood, Calif., to pay $1.8 million in damages
to two patients who received unconventional treatment for the 
disease.  Dr. Valentine Birds and Dr. Ranjindra Sethi were found 
to have treated several patients with a homemade drug called 
Viroxan, which is not medically approved.  The jury earlier 
issued a compensatory award of $925,000 against the two 
physicians.  That sum was shared by four patients, but two of 
them--Roderick Garcia and Mark Addy--received an additional 
$900,000 each after the jury found that they had been subjected 
to "oppressive, malicious, or fraudulent" conduct.
      
"European Meeting Says Decriminalize Prostitution"
Reuters (07/30/94)
     Prostitutes, health workers, and policy makers from more than 30 
countries, who recently held a three-day conference to discuss 
health and the sex industry, will urge the European Commission 
and the World Health Organization to decriminalize prostitution. 
"Contrary to public assumptions, prostitutes are not "riddled 
with HIV and AIDS," said Ruth Morgan Thomas, one of the 
conference organizers.  "And whatever the general public might 
think, you are actually far more likely to pick up the HIV virus 
through casual, unprotected, non-commercial sex than you are from
going to a prostitute."
      
"New Probe of Jailed French Official Sparks Furor"
Reuters (07/29/94);  Arieff, Irwin
     A new investigation of former French government health official 
Michael Garretta, who is already serving time in prison for his 
part in the country's contaminated blood tragedy, has sparked 
outrage among French judges, lawyers, and AIDS activists.  The 
debate squares off friends and relatives of hundreds of 
HIV-infected individuals against rights activists who are 
concerned that a man already being punished is being turned into 
a scapegoat.  The former head of the National Blood Transfusion 
Center was convicted of fraud and criminal negligence for 
allowing the facility to use up stocks of contaminated blood 
products in an effort to shave expenses, rather than import 
treated products.  Garretta was found guilty, but it was never 
proven that he acted willfully.  The new probe is seeking 
"poisoning" charges, under which prosecutors must prove that 
Garretta willfully sought to sicken or kill the individuals who 
became infected as a result of his actions.
      
"Old Drugs May Yet Control Resistant TB"
United Press International (07/29/94);  Emerson, Eva;  Schuster, 
Larry
     Calming fears that tuberculosis had become super-resistant, 
scientists at France's Pasteur Institute say it is poor 
treatment--rather than a challenging new strain--that is causing 
the emergence of drug-resistant TB.  While investigating how 
multi-resistant strains of the infection defy antibiotics, the 
French researchers discovered that resistance is the product of 
well-known genetic mutations in the genes targeted by drugs, and 
that lax treatment allows emerging resistant strains to take 
hold.  The findings suggest that existing treatment strategies, 
if strictly implemented, should be able to control TB.  Once 
thought to be well-controlled, TB has re-emerged as an epidemic 
in the past 20 years.  Its resurface can be attributed to the 
spread of AIDS, increased poverty, homelessness, and insufficient
health care.
      
"Gebbie and Grassroots: Toward a Mass-Movement Organizing Style: A Commentary"
AIDS Treatment News (07/22/94) P. 6;  James, John S.
     The author, who is the editor and publisher of AIDS Treatment 
News, believes that the resignation of Kristine Gebbie, former 
National AIDS Coordinator, will not attack the root of the 
problems that afflict federal AIDS policy, and he discusses a 
possible solution.  suggests that the AIDS and the gay 
communities haven't been able to effectively support the Clinton 
administration and defend the President from the effective 
attacks of the "right-wing hate industry."  This is because the 
"hate industry" has organized itself into a mass-movement, while 
the AIDS and gay communities haven't done so.  So the 
Administration deliberately weakened the office of the National 
AIDS Policy Coordinator so it couldn't act independently and 
attack the national attitudes that block an effective response by
the nation's institutions.  The solution is to create an 
effective mass movement to support a national response to AIDS.  
While the AIDS leadership is good at inside-the-Beltway work, it 
needs to learn how to generate and lead a mass movement. James 
suggests that AIDS groups practice and learn how to build such a 
movement by combining political action with social needs and 
other types of people's needs; becoming easily accessible to new 
people; making each and every meeting generate worthwhile results
from beginning to end; working on creating a mobilized base of 
people that responds to emergency calls; building consensus and 
creating coalitions; and looking for mass movement "role models."
      
