                     AIDS Daily Summary 
                        May 6, 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 National AIDS 
Clearinghouse, or any other organization. Reproduction of this 
text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC 
National AIDS Clearinghouse should be cited as the source of this 
information. Copyright 1996, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD
     
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"A 'First Sane Step'"
"Canadian Parents Warned of Bad Blood" 
"Risks of Importing Monkeys"
"Price of Hiding Truth on AIDS"
"Incidence of AIDS"
"Obituary: Frankie Mason-Alston, AIDS Activist"
"Maternal HIV Screening Discussed by Obstetricians at ACOG 
Meeting"
"Costa Ricans Sue U.S. Lab for Selling Contaminated..." 
"Multidrug Tuberculosis Outbreak on an HIV Ward--Madrid, Spain, 
1991-1995"
"India's Railways Relent Over AIDS Passengers" 
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"A 'First Sane Step'"
Wall Street Journal (05/06/96) P. A14
     In a Wall Street Journal editorial, the authors applaud the 
decision by Congressional leaders to incorporate HIV testing of 
pregnant women into the Ryan White reauthorization bill.  The 
bill calls for counseling for mothers now, and mandatory testing 
of newborns in the future if many mothers do not get tested.  The 
so-called Baby AIDS compromise, the editors note, will make 
prenatal testing more common, allowing more perinatal infections 
to be prevented through AZT therapy.  The editors further point 
out that testing newborns reveals whether mothers are infected, 
and thus gives doctors the chance to caution them against 
breastfeeding.  New York State found that mothers often refused 
testing even after counseling on HIV testing was official policy. 
The editors claim that the new provision is a victory, noting 
that it is ridiculous to test for other, more rare diseases in 
infants and not for HIV.
     
"Canadian Parents Warned of Bad Blood" 
Washington Post (05/06/96) P. A16
     The Canadian Red Cross, facing a judicial inquiry into the 
tainted blood tragedy of the 1980s, is now being questioned about 
the distribution of blood infected with a deadly brain virus.  
Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children has notified 525 families 
that a blood donor died last year of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.  
The risk of getting the disease from a transfusion is very small, 
but the hospital decided to notify parents and has suggested that 
other hospitals do the same.  The blood products were used at the 
hospital between 1989 and July 1995.
     
"Risks of Importing Monkeys"
Washington Post (05/06/96) P. A18;  Cohen, Murray J.
     In a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, Murray J. 
Cohen, co-chair of the Medical Research Modernization Committee, 
points out that articles on the recent outbreak of Ebola virus in 
monkeys did not mention the human risks of importing monkeys for 
research.  Cohen claims that HIV may be the human form of simian 
immunodeficiency virus that crossed the species barrier and that 
AIDS in Central Africa is probably the result of the 
cross-species transmission of SIV.  He also says hepatitis B may 
have been caused by human exposure to chimpanzees.  Other monkey 
viruses, including Marburg, the macaque herpes B virus, and 
monkey STLV, can also create risks for humans.  Importing monkeys 
for research, Cohen claims, is dangerous and unwise.
     
"Price of Hiding Truth on AIDS"
Philadelphia Inquirer (05/03/96) P. B1;  Boldt, David
     In the Philadelphia Inquirer, columnist David Boldt reacts
to a Wall Street Journal article that exposed the government's 
exaggeration of the AIDS risk for the general population in order 
to win popular support for AIDS programs.  The article reported 
that if more money had been devoted to HIV education for the 
high-risk population, it would have been more effective and lives 
would have been saved.  Boldt says that the media, while aware of 
the deception, did nothing to disclose it.  He points to a book, 
Michael Fumento's "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS," which exposed 
the government's conspiracy in 1990 and resulted in protests by 
the AIDS activist community.  Fumento was fired from his job and 
widely criticized.  Two recent books by gay authors have praised 
his work, however.  Boldt concludes that the media failed to be 
honest and will probably suffer for it.
     
"Incidence of AIDS"
Washington Post (05/04/96) P. A14;  Murray, David
     David Murray, director of research at the Statistical
Assessment Service, responds to a recent editorial in the 
Washington Post that said AIDS statistics reported by the Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention were skewed by a change in the 
definition of AIDS in 1994.  In his letter to the editor, Murray 
claims the newspaper should have objected to the increase in AIDS 
cases reported in 1994 due to the redefinition.  Murray argues 
that recent evidence proves that the number of new HIV infections 
is declining nationwide, as the CDC reported, and asserts that 
"accurate and full reportage of the epidemic" should be the 
primary concern.
     
"Obituary: Frankie Mason-Alston, AIDS Activist" 
Washington Post (05/04/96) P. B6
     Frankie Mason-Alston, an AIDS activist who conducted AIDS 
education at high schools, churches, civic groups, and 
universities in the Washington, D.C., area, died of the disease 
on April 29.  Ms. Mason-Alston began her work as an AIDS educator 
in 1989, working with such organizations as Life Link, the D.C. 
Women's Council, the Sister Care Program, D.C. public schools, 
and the Whitman-Walker clinic.  Ms. Mason-Alston founded a 
program in Alexandria, Va. to educate black women about AIDS and 
also addressed AIDS conferences nationwide.
     
"Maternal HIV Screening Discussed by Obstetricians at ACOG 
Meeting"
Reuters (05/03/96)
     At the annual clinical meeting of the American College of 
Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Denver, John W. Larsen of 
George Washington University and colleagues at NTD Laboratories 
reported that prenatal maternal serum HIV-1 antibody screening may 
be feasible.  The researchers suggested that screening pregnant 
women for HIV-1 antibody can be performed along with prenatal 
birth defect screening during the first or second trimester.  The 
scientists used an HIV-1 antibody assay kit to test 857 samples.  
Three tested positive "repeatedly," and no false positives or 
indeterminate results were reported.  The test may provide an 
accurate and effective method to meet the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention's recommended routine HIV counseling and 
voluntary testing of all pregnant women, Larsen said.  David 
Jackson and colleagues at Sacred Heart Medical Center reported, 
meanwhile, that HIV seroprevalence in pregnant women was found to 
vary widely by geography.  Maternal HIV seroprevalence was highest 
in New York and lowest in Montana.
     
"Costa Ricans Sue U.S. Lab for Selling Contaminated..." 
Xinhua News Agency (05/04/96)
     The family members of a group of hemophiliacs in Costa Rica
have sued the Miller-Couter Laboratory in a Dallas court for 
selling HIV-contaminated plasma.  The amount of compensation 
sought will be decided by the jury.  Sixty-eight hemophiliacs 
were infected with HIV between 1985 and 1986.
     
"Multidrug Tuberculosis Outbreak on an HIV Ward--Madrid, Spain, 
1991-1995"
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (04/26/96) Vol. 45, No. 16, 
P. 330;  Herrera, D.;  Cano, R.;  Godoy, P.; et al.
     Between June 1991 and January 1995, multidrug-resistant 
tuberculosis (MDR-TB) was found in 47 patients and one health 
care worker in a hospital HIV ward in Madrid, Spain.  D. Herrera 
and colleagues in the Spanish Field Epidemiology Training Program 
report that their investigation of the outbreak found that 
nosocomial transmission of MDR-TB occurred in the ward.  The 
average time from the patients' MDR-TB diagnosis to death was 78 
days.  An analysis showed that patients involved in the outbreak 
were more likely to have been exposed to potentially infective 
wardmates and to have more days of exposure than the control 
patients.  Moreover, it revealed that 104 of the isolates from 
the TB cases were drug-susceptible, while 12 were resistant to 
one drug and 66 were resistant to isoniazid, streptomycin, 
ethambutol, and rifampin.  An editorial note accompanying the 
article says the case is the first documented outbreak of 
nosocomial MDR-TB to be investigated in Spain, but it is similar 
to previously reported outbreaks elsewhere.  To control the 
outbreak, the MDR-TB patients were isolated; family, community 
members, and wardmates of the patients were notified and offered 
isoniazid preventive therapy; hospital staff were notified and 
most were screened for TB; and personal respiratory protection 
devices were used by staff exposed to the TB patients.
     
"India's Railways Relent Over AIDS Passengers"
Lancet (04/27/96) Vol. 347, No. 9009, P. 1178;  Kumar, Sanjay
     The Indian Railways recently reversed its policy of
preventing people with AIDS from traveling on Indian trains. 
Prior legislation had added AIDS to the list of contagious 
diseases that can keep passengers off the railways.  The Health 
Ministry tried to get AIDS removed from the list in 1993, but was 
unsuccessful.  Only after intense lobbying by AIDS patients 
resulted in the media exposing the discriminatory rule did the 
government remove AIDS from the list.
     
     
