                      AIDS Daily Summary 
                        August 30, 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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"Japan Arrests Doctor in Case of Bad Blood"
"Widow Asks Full Court to Review AIDS Case" 
"Baxter Sets Aside $68M for Immuno's HIV Costs" 
"'Hope Is Back in America'"
"AIDS Fears Prompt Brothel Raids"
"Risks and Rewards of One-Product Stocks" 
"Testing for TB"
"HIV Testing Among Women Aged 18-44 Years--United States, 1991 
and 1993"
"Pneumocystis Pneumonia--Los Angeles"
"Blood Safety Issues Working Group Convened" 
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"Japan Arrests Doctor in Case of Bad Blood"
New York Times (08/30/96) P. A9; Pollack, Andrew
     A Japanese doctor and hemophilia expert was arrested
Thursday on charges that he prescribed blood products to a 
patient knowing they carried the risk of HIV infection.  Dr. 
Takeshi Abe, the head of a government panel on AIDS in the 1980s, 
has been accused with other officials of delaying the approval of 
heat-treated blood products even though evidence had suggested 
that they could prevent the spread of HIV.  Law enforcement 
officials also raided the offices of the Ministry of Health and 
Welfare Thursday, and had previously raided the Green Cross 
Corp., a drug company involved in the distribution of tainted 
blood products.  The activity suggests that criminal charges may 
be filed against current or former officials.
     
"Widow Asks Full Court to Review AIDS Case" 
Journal of Commerce (08/30/96) P. 8A
     The widow of a man who died of AIDS in 1991 is asking a
federal appeals court to reconsider the lawsuit she filed against 
a life insurance company that did not tell her husband he had 
HIV.  A federal judge and a three-judge panel of an appeals court 
has already ruled in favor of the insurer, Jackson National 
Insurance.  The company had refused to disclose why they found 
Frank Deramus medically unsuitable for increased coverage after 
he took a blood test in 1988.  Jackson National said it was not 
legally responsible to advise Deramus of his results. Jody 
Deramus said she would seek a review from the Supreme Court if 
the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refuses to hear her 
case.
     
"Baxter Sets Aside $68M for Immuno's HIV Costs" 
Financial Times (08/30/96) P. 1; Green, Daniel
     To cover the potential costs of lawsuits brought by
hemophiliacs against Immuno International, a company being 
acquired by Baxter International, the new parent is setting aside 
$68.5 million.  Immuno makes blood products in Europe, as Baxter 
does in the United States.  Both companies have been among the 
firms to face lawsuits by hemophiliacs infected with HIV. 
Settlements have been reached in the United States and Japan, but 
not in Europe.
     
"'Hope Is Back in America'"
Washington Post (08/30/96) P. A36
     In President Clinton's acceptance speech Thursday night to
the Democratic National Convention, he pointed to progress made 
in various areas of American society during his administration.  
Among them, he mentioned that "more rapid development of drugs to 
deal with HIV and AIDS and moving them to the market quicker have 
almost doubled life expectancy in only four years--and we are 
looking at no limit in sight to that.  We'll keep going until 
normal life is returned to people who deal with this," he said.
     
"AIDS Fears Prompt Brothel Raids"
Toronto Globe and Mail (08/29/96) P. A12; Stackhouse, John
     In the capital of Nepal, and seven other Indian cities, 456 
prostitutes including more than 100 children have been held in 
poor conditions for six months and have been subjected to HIV 
tests.  The women and girls were taken from Bombay brothels 
during a raid ordered by the state court to clear the city of 
HIV-infected prostitutes.  In response to a public outcry, the 
government allowed 124 Nepalese women and four of their children 
to return home, however.  About 100 other Nepalese women refused 
to leave Bombay, saying they would return to their brothels.
     
"Risks and Rewards of One-Product Stocks"
Investor's Business Daily (08/30/96) P. A1; Gessel, Chris
     Dignity Partners, a San Francisco company that bought life 
insurance policies from people with HIV, was the first viatical 
settlement company to go public.  Its stock peaked at 14.5 just 
after its IPO in February.  After the approval of protease 
inhibitors, however, Dignity said it would no longer buy policies 
from AIDS patients, and its stock dropped 77 percent in one day. 
The company's experience illustrates the risks of investing in a 
company that relies on only one product.
     
"Testing for TB"
Financial Times (08/30/96) P. 16; Graham, Jill
     A new tuberculosis (TB) test, developed by the British
company Biotec Laboratories, could have important implications for 
diagnosing the disease.  The World Health Organization has 
declared TB a "global emergency," and accurate diagnosis is 
especially critical to treating the disease.  The new test is a 
simple microbiological assay which a relatively unskilled person 
can perform.  Moreover, it can detect TB within 10 hours.  The 
test will be evaluated in feasibility studies in British labs and 
in third world countries.
     
"HIV Testing Among Women Aged 18-44 Years--United States, 1991 
and 1993"
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (08/30/96) Vol. 45, No. 34, 
P. 6
     HIV testing and counseling is important for women so they
can seek early treatment for themselves and reduce the risk of 
transmission to others, including their children.  A report from 
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides 
information about HIV testing in women aged 18-44 based on 
interviews in 1991 and 1993 of women selected at random from the 
U.S. population.  During those years, the proportion of women who 
said they had been tested for HIV rose from 18.8 percent to 31.8 
percent, an increase of 60 percent.  In both 1991 and 1993, 
higher percentages of black and Hispanic women, compared to white 
women, had been tested.  Moreover, women with less than 12 years 
of education were more likely to be tested than more educated 
women, as were women living in poverty compared to those living 
at or above the poverty level.  In 1991, women who had given 
birth in the past five years were more likely than others to be 
tested for HIV.  Among them, Hispanics and blacks, women with 
less than 12 years of education, and those living in poverty were 
again more likely to be tested.  The rate of testing was about 
double in never-married women who had given birth in the past 
five years, compared to all married women in the age group.
     
"Pneumocystis Pneumonia--Los Angeles"
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (08/30/96) Vol. 45, No. 34, 
P. 1; Gottlieb, M.S.; Schanker, H.M.; Fan, P.T.; et al.
     The first published report of what later became known as
AIDS was published by researchers from the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 
on June 4, 1981, and reprinted today.  Dr. M.S. Gottlieb and 
colleagues reported that between October 1980 and May 1981, five 
homosexual men were treated for Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia 
(PCP) at three Los Angeles hospitals.  Two of them died.  All 
five had evidence of cytomegalovirus infection and candidal 
mucosal infection.  Diagnosis of PCP was confirmed in all five. 
The men did not know each other or know of sexual partners who 
had similar illnesses.  Two of the men reported having frequent 
homosexual contacts with various partners.  Three of the men had 
very low in vitro proliferative responses to mitogens and 
antigens.  In a new editorial note, the authors point out that 
PCP in previously health men with no other apparent underlying 
immunodeficiency is very rare.  They suggest there may be a link 
between the disease and some aspect of the homosexual lifestyle. 
They concluded that the evidence points to the possibility of a 
cellular-immune dysfunction related to a common exposure that 
predisposes an individual to opportunistic infections.
     
"Blood Safety Issues Working Group Convened"
Lancet (08/24/96) Vol. 348, No. 9026, P. 540; Bayer, Ronald
     A meeting held in Italy in July launched a two-year inquiry
into the tainted-blood tragedies in several countries that 
resulted in people becoming infected with HIV through 
contaminated blood products.  Doctors, social scientists, and 
blood safety experts attended the meeting, sponsored by both the 
Japan Foundation's Center for Global Partnership and the Toyota 
Foundation.  The group explored the policy responses of 12 
countries to evidence presented in the 1980s that HIV posed a 
threat to the blood supply.  Some countries developed safeguards 
more quickly than others during the period before HIV-antibody 
tests were available.  These precautions included excluding 
high-risk donors, conducting surrogate testing for hepatitis B 
antibody, heat treating clotting factors, and recalling 
potentially contaminated blood products.  Meeting participants 
also considered the emergence of advocacy groups calling for 
compensation of HIV-infected hemophiliacs, and they tried to 
determine why some efforts were more successful than others.  At 
future meetings, the group plans to discuss the legal, ethical, 
and political factors that account for the differing national 
responses to the threat of HIV in the blood supply.
     
The AIDS Daily Summary will not be published on Monday, September 
2, 1996, in observance of Labor Day.  Publication will resume on 
Tuesday, September 3.
     
