                     AIDS Daily Summary
                      February 14, 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
of this text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC
Clearinghouse should be cited as the source of this information.
Copyright 1995, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD


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"Injections Delay Progress of AIDS"
"Children's AIDS Study Finds AZT Ineffective"
"Decoding the AIDS Numbers"
"A San Francisco Talk Show Takes Right-Wing Radio to a New 
Dimension"
"Why I Want to Be Surgeon General"
"Infected by Man with HIV, Women Get $25,000 Each"
"Blood Transfusion Safety Breakthrough"
"AIDS Drug Is Searle's Last Hope"
"Making Global Blood Safety a Priority"
"Friendly Fire on the Upper West Side"
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"Injections Delay Progress of AIDS"
New York Times (02/14/95) P. C13;  Altman, Lawrence K.
     A team of French researchers lead by J.J. Lefrere of the Hopital 
Saint-Antoine in Paris has reported that repeated injections of 
plasma from HIV-infected people into AIDS patients slowed 
progression of the disease.  Lefrere's findings were published in
Tuesday's issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of 
Sciences.  The injections delayed the appearance of opportunistic
infections, wasting, cancer, and encephalopathy frequently 
associated with AIDS.  Drs. Anthony S. Fauci of the National 
Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Harold W. Jaffe
of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both said these
results could lead to a new drug for AIDS  patients.
      
"Children's AIDS Study Finds AZT Ineffective"
New York Times (02/14/95) P. C13;  Altman, Lawrence K.
     Federal health officials have halted a large study on AZT in 
children with AIDS because the drug appeared to be ineffective in
slowing the disease's progression.  In addition, AZT was 
associated with a higher-than-expected incidence of adverse 
effects, such as bleeding and biochemical abnormalities.  Dr. 
Anthony S. Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and 
Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said that experts should meet soon to
decide whether HIV-infected children should receive ddI alone or 
in conjunction with AZT.  The study was sponsored by NIAID and 
the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
      
"Decoding the AIDS Numbers"
Washington Times (02/14/95) P. A19;  Fumento, Michael
     The key to the seemingly inconsistent stories and statistics 
about AIDS is understanding that, compared to most fatal 
diseases, there is a huge lag time between infection, diagnosis, 
and death, writes Michael Fumento in a Washington Times 
commentary.  It is important to remember that the statistics on 
death from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 
for example, are from 1993.  This means that the infections 
occurred on average in the early 1980s, before AIDS even had a 
name.  Also, the change in the definition of AIDS last year 
caused a significant increase in the number of reported AIDS 
cases.  Using consistent definitions, AIDS cases would have 
increased 3 percent, according to the CDC.  This is approximately
the same rate as last year, and the year before.  Thus, the 
epidemic has been flat for three years.  The AIDS doomsayers, 
however, have taken "a snapshot of the early past of the epidemic
and extrapolated it forward."  This allowed predictions of a 
disease that would make the Black Death "seem pale by 
comparison," according to former Health and Human Services 
Secretary Otis Brown.
      
"A San Francisco Talk Show Takes Right-Wing Radio to a New 
Dimension"
New York Times (02/14/95) P. A10;  Tierney, John
     In San Francisco, Hot Talk KSFO-AM is a station taking right-wing
radio to new levels.  The 24-hour talk station recently replaced 
its young, liberal hosts with conservatives.  Topics of 
discussion have centered around such questions as whether 
American citizens should be paid a bounty to shoot illegal 
immigrants, and whether President Clinton is controlled by a 
coven of Communist lesbian members of the Trilateral Commission. 
The most outspoken host, J. Paul Emerson, stirred up the city by 
suggesting that a quarantine should be considered to protect the 
public against people who spread HIV by coughing droplets of 
blood into the air--a mode of infection that medical experts have
dismissed as implausible.  "We believe that Mr. Emerson's speech 
has crossed the line from enlightening the listener to inciting,"
said Edwin M. Lee, the executive director of the San Francisco 
Human Rights Commission, an advisory board that has been 
investigating complaints against KSFO.  The station's hosts, 
however, have relished the controversy as an opportunity to 
reinforce their audience's solidarity.
      
"Why I Want to Be Surgeon General"
Washington Post (02/13/95) P. A21;  Foster, Henry
     In a Washington Post editorial, surgeon general nominee Henry 
Foster comments on the close scrutiny of his life before he had 
even said anything at his confirmation hearings in the Senate.  
The obstetrician-gynecologist said he wished to solve health 
problems ranging "from the epidemic of violence to the spread of 
AIDS to the terrible problem of substance abuse."  Foster also 
said, however, that he will give top priority to fighting teen 
pregnancy, which President Clinton has called "our most serious 
social problem."  He said that it is ironic that his work to 
fight teen pregnancy has been obscured by his opponents' talk 
about abortion.  The one lesson he has emphasized to the young 
people he works with in Nashville is that there is a reward for 
sacrifice.  Earning that reward has the added benefit of allowing
an individual to give something back.  Foster writes that he 
wants "to give something back to a country that has rewarded my 
work and sacrifice."
      
"Infected by Man with HIV, Women Get $25,000 Each"
Toronto Globe and Mail (02/13/95) P. A3
     The individual awards given to three women who contracted HIV 
from the same man have been increased from $15,000 to $25,000.  
On Friday, three judges rejected a decision of Ontario's Criminal
Injuries Compensation Board--which ruled last year that the 
maximum award of $25,000 permitted under provincial law should be
reduced by 40 percent, on the grounds that the women contributed 
to their predicament by engaging in unprotected sex.  The judges 
ruled that the criminal injuries board "erred in law in demanding
an unreasonably high standard of behaviour" from the women.  The 
court said the board "wrongly assumed that the victims knew that 
there was a big risk, and that they had a significant degree of 
control with respect to unprotected sex."  Although Charles 
Ssenyonga died of an AIDS-related illness before the court could 
rule whether he had committed a crime, the criminal injuries 
board concluded that his failure to disclose his condition while 
having unprotected sex constituted criminal negligence.
      
"Blood Transfusion Safety Breakthrough"
PR Newswire (02/13/95)
     On Monday, Advanced Medical Sciences, Inc. announced the results 
of a new study on Viralex, an investigational compound that was 
previously found to be extremely effective in inactivating 
hepatitis B virus and HIV without damaging red blood cells and 
platelets.  The study confirmed earlier studies which found that 
Viralex can inactivate cell free Parvo virus.  "This new data 
provides strong additional support that Viralex is the first 
broad spectrum antiviral agent for use against HIV, hepatitis 
"B," and Parvo viruses that has been shown to be biocompatible 
with red blood cells and blood platelets," said Terrence McGrath,
chairman of Advanced Medical Sciences.
      
"AIDS Drug Is Searle's Last Hope"
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (02/13/95) P. 2BP;  Steyer, Robert
     By the end of 1995, G.D. Searle & Co. will know whether one AIDS 
drug has passed an important test after the failure of other 
experimental products.  Searle began a clinical test in Germany 
in 1993 and another test at several universities in the United 
States in 1994 for an experimental drug called a protease 
inhibitor.  Protease is an enzyme needed by HIV to reproduce.  
Although the drug performed well in laboratory tests, it did not 
help patients.  Tests were stopped in late October.  In fall 
1992, Searle began clinical tests of the last drug in its AIDS 
arsenal--a version of another of its experimental drugs, for 
which tests were stopped after three years because the drug 
caused severe diarrhea.  The results should be known by the end 
of the year.
      
"Making Global Blood Safety a Priority"
Nature Medicine (01/95) Vol. 1, No. 1, P. 7;  Butler, Declan
     In December, leading politicians from 42 countries promised at 
the Paris AIDS summit to make improving blood safety a priority. 
Many governments, however, still do not recognize the need to 
organize proper blood transfusion systems, enforce appropriate 
standards, and train staff.  The international community has yet 
to make blood safety a priority and to take advantage of the 
opportunity to eliminate the cause of up to 10 percent of all HIV
infections.  Jean Emmanuel, head of the WHO's blood safety unit, 
notes that the international community does not need to spend 
huge amounts of money to make major changes in blood safety.  
Promoting voluntary and unpaid blood donations, and testing and 
retaining regular groups of healthy donors could significantly 
limit the damage in areas that lack the funding or facilities for
screening.  Still, without political commitment and funding from 
the international community and from governments in developing 
countries, such counsel will come to nothing.  So far, little new
money has been forthcoming for either the WHO's new blood unit or
the alliance's programs, but WHO officials are optimistic that if
the alliance can put forward solid proposals it will obtain 
funding.
      
"Friendly Fire on the Upper West Side"
Village Voice (02/07/95) Vol. 40, No. 6, P. 16;  Schoofs, Mark
     Barbara Keleman, a member of the prominently liberal Upper West 
Side's Community Board 7 (CB7) in New York City, was appalled by 
a proposal to place a moratorium on the placement of homeless 
people with AIDS (PWAs) into the neighborhood's commercial 
welfare hotels.  In supporting ACT UP's position, she said that 
closing the hotels to PWAs would be "just wrong."  ACT UP's 
confrontational tactics at the CB7 committee meeting exposed the 
underlying stereotype of homeless PWAs as drug-abusing petty 
criminals, and challenged official callousness to the pain AIDS 
causes.  The activists succeeded in revising the measure, which 
now urges the city to stop placing PWAs in "medically 
inappropriate and substandard commercial SROs [single-room 
occupancies]" wherever they might be.  The change is designed to 
stress to the city that "dumping" ill people into seedy hotels 
with no services is inhumane and harms New York's general quality
of life.  ACT UP's B.C. Craig and others, however, say the 
revisions are only cosmetic.  Meanwhile, AIDS activists and CB7 
regard each other as enemies, although they are both angry with 
the city for the same reason--inadequate services for New Yorkers
who have the disease.
      
