                       AIDS Daily Summary 
                       September 16, 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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"Agouron Pharmaceuticals to Give Away Experimental AIDS Drug to 
Some People"
"HIV Home Test Kit Picks up on Market"
"In Changing Face of Illness, an Optimistic Prognosis Emerges" 
"Drug War Isn't About Marijuana as Medicine"
"AIDS Patients Slipping Through Safety Net" 
"AIDS Claims Five Each Day in Northern Thailand"
"White House Releases Clinton Health Information" 
"Botswana Faces Serious Threat of AIDS"
"Frequent Infection of Peripheral Blood CD8-Positive 
T-Lymphocytes With HIV-1"
"Drug Therapy: Ganciclovir"
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"Agouron Pharmaceuticals to Give Away Experimental AIDS Drug to 
Some People"
Wall Street Journal (09/16/96) P. B6;  Rundle, Rhonda L.
     Patients in the advanced stages of AIDS will be eligible to 
receive the experimental protease inhibitor Viracept (nelfinavir) 
free of charge under an expanded-access program to be announced 
today.  Agouron Pharmaceuticals will offer the drug, which has 
not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, to AIDS 
patients who have stopped using the three commercially available 
protease inhibitors.  The number of patients expected to enroll 
in the program is estimated to be between several hundred and 
several thousand.  Patients and doctors should call 
1-800-621-7111 for information about the program.
     
"HIV Home Test Kit Picks up on Market"
USA Today (09/16/96) P. 4B;  Wells, Melanie
     While Johnson & Johnson's home HIV test kit, Confide, is now
becoming available at stores outside of Texas, its introduction 
has not been widely advertised due to a conflict in the company. 
J&J has been ordered to relinquish its rights to the test to its 
creator, Elliott Millenson, who was fired by the company in 1993. 
In the meantime, the company has filed a lawsuit, but has limited 
advertising of the test since it does not have much of an 
incentive to kick off a huge campaign--one which some say could 
have cost $20 million.  Some commercials have appeared, and J&J 
says more national advertising is coming soon.
     
"In Changing Face of Illness, an Optimistic Prognosis Emerges" 
Washington Post (09/16/96) P. A3;  Brown, David
     Deaths from infectious diseases will continue to decline
between now and 2020, while deaths from noncommunicable diseases 
and accidents will rise, according to a new report from the World 
Health Organization.  Although the rate of AIDS has not yet peaked 
in some countries, the fraction of deaths caused by infection, 
childbirth, and malnutrition, is expected to drop by more than half 
by 2020.  The authors of the study assumed that the AIDS epidemic 
will reach a plateau in 25 years, with regional death rates 
attributed to the disease about half of what they are now.  The 
trend is expected due to changes in demographics, economics, and 
technology.
     
"Drug War Isn't About Marijuana as Medicine"
New York Times (09/16/96) P. A14;  Szasz, Thomas
     Financier George Soros' support for the medical use of
marijuana appears inconsistent with his efforts to support the 
war on drugs, claims Dr. Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist at the 
State University of New York.  In a letter to the editor of the 
New York Times, Szasz says that legalizing marijuana for medical 
use would shift the responsibility to the physician who would 
prescribe it.  Marijuana would simply become another "dangerous 
drug" controlled by the government, he concludes.
     
"AIDS Patients Slipping Through Safety Net" 
New York Times (09/15/96) P. 24;  Kolata, Gina
     Due to increased demand for new AIDS drugs, and the high
cost of the treatments, government programs designed to provide 
the drugs free to needy patients are failing.  The AIDS Drug 
Assistance Program was established by Congress to give states 
money to provide the drugs to uninsured or underinsured people. 
Recently, however, states have been forced to limit the drugs they 
provide, or make applicants wait for treatment.  Nearly half of 
all states are limiting, or are expected to limit, access to the 
new protease inhibitors.  A lobbying group for AIDS patients 
estimates that the $190 million appropriated for the program in 
the 1996 budget is less than half of what is needed.
     
"AIDS Claims Five Each Day in Northern Thailand" 
Xinhua News Agency (09/15/96)
     In northern Thailand, five AIDS patients die each day, and 
100,000 people in the country contract HIV each year, the 
Population and Community Development Association reports.  The 
two provinces hardest hit by the disease are Chiang Mai, with 
6,370 patients, and Chiang Rai, with 4,802.  An estimated 900,000 
people in Thailand have AIDS, 70 percent of whom are between the 
ages of 15 and 24.
     
"White House Releases Clinton Health Information" 
Reuters (09/13/96)
     In response to challenges from Republican presidential
candidate Bob Dole, the White House released on Friday President 
Clinton's medical records.  The documents included a report that 
Clinton, as part of an insurance physical, tested negative for 
HIV in 1990.  The medical summary also said Clinton "has no 
history of hypertension, diabetes, tuberculosis, sexually 
transmitted disease, cancer, stroke, or heart disease."
     
"Botswana Faces Serious Threat of AIDS" 
Xinhua News Agency (09/13/96)
     Botswana's growing AIDS rate has prompted the government to
urge people to change their sexual attitudes and habits.  Last 
year, an estimated 12 percent of the country's 2 million people 
were thought to have AIDS.  Doctors are struggling to handle the 
increase in demand from the disease; some 40 percent of the 
hospital beds in the country are occupied by AIDS patients, 
according to Botswana President Ketumile Marire.
     
"Frequent Infection of Peripheral Blood CD8-Positive 
T-Lymphocytes With HIV-1"
Lancet (09/07/96) Vol. 348, No. 9028, P. 649;  Livingstone, W.J.; 
Moore, M.;  Innes, D.;  et al.
     Patients infected with HIV-1 suffer the loss of CD4 T-cells,
which are critical to the body's immune system.  However, while 
CD4 cells have been identified as the main target for HIV-1, the 
extent of infection of other immune cell types remains unknown.  
Scottish researchers, along with the Edinburgh Heterosexual 
Transmission Study Group, studied both the types of cells 
infected in 16 HIV-infected individuals and the relation of viral 
load to disease progression.  In seven of the eight patients who 
were asymptomatic for AIDS, CD4 T-cells were the main reservoir 
of HIV.  In five of the eight patients with AIDS, infection of 
CD8 cells accounted for 66 percent to 97 percent of the total 
proviral load.  This finding contradicts previous studies which 
found that CD8 cells remain uninfected.  The authors say their 
results provide evidence that HIV-1 more broadly infects 
different cell types in vivo than described in laboratory tests. 
They suggest that the decline in CD8 cells may be attributed to 
HIV's impact as AIDS develops.
     
"Drug Therapy: Ganciclovir"
New England Journal of Medicine (09/05/96) Vol. 335, No. 10, P. 
721;  Crumpacker, Clyde S.
     In the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Clyde S.
Crumpacker, of Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, Mass., discusses 
ganciclovir, the first antiviral drug effective against 
cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease.  CMV retinitis is a common and 
potentially blinding infection in AIDS patients.  In a study of 157 
AIDS patients, CMV retinitis was the initial AIDS-defining 
opportunistic infection in 3 percent, and it developed later in an 
additional 26 percent.  The disease progressed from unilateral to 
bilateral in 60 percent of patients who did not receive 
ganciclovir.  Among 18 patients with unilateral disease, none 
progressed to bilateral disease while taking the drug.  Studies 
with AIDS patients with CMV retinitis have found that ganciclovir 
and foscarnet are equally effective, and that a combination of the 
two drugs is superior against the disease, but neither therapy 
offered a clear survival benefit.  Oral and intravenous ganciclovir 
were found to be similarly effective for maintenance therapy.  
Moreover, those AIDS patients in whom disseminated CMV infection is 
associated with weight loss have gained weight while taking 
ganciclovir.  Oral ganciclovir has also shown promise in preventing 
CMV disease in AIDS patients.
     
     
