                     AIDS Daily Summary 
                        May 05, 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


"Dutchman Faces Murder Charge in AIDS Attack"
Reuters (05/04/94)
     A 39-year old Netherlands man faces murder charges after he 
intentionally infected his former girlfriend with HIV, reported 
the Dutch news agency ANP.  Last year, the man stuck the 
36-year-old woman with a syringe filled with the contaminated 
blood of an HIV-positive friend.  His behavior was a deliberate 
act of revenge against the woman for ending her relationship with
him.  She has subsequently tested positive for HIV, and has been 
given only three to four years to live.  Her attacker will stand 
trial next week in Amsterdam.
      
"D.C. Fails to Isolate Inmates With TB"
Washington Post (05/05/94) P. C1;  Duggan, Paul
     A lawyer monitoring health care at the District of Columbia jail 
informed a judge yesterday that, despite a months-old injunction,
corrections officials still are not properly quarantining inmates
who have infectious tuberculosis.  Grace M. Lopes told Judge 
William B. Bryant that the D.C. Corrections Department has been 
providing "inaccurate and misleading information about their 
isolation capabilities" for prisoners who have the disease or 
exhibit symptoms of infection.  Anna Blackburne, a spokesperson 
for the D.C. corporation counsel's office, which represents the 
D.C. Corrections Department, conceded that the reports were 
inaccurate, but blamed the false information on an administrative
error.  The Corrections Department has agreed that, starting May 
13, it will pay fines amounting to $5,000 per day, per inmate, 
for every day that an inmate with infectious TB is not isolated 
in a properly equipped room.  The daily fine would double to 
$10,000 on May 27.  Although it generally is not fatal, TB--which
is carried by droplets in the air--has been cited as the cause of
death for at least 14 District prisoners in recent years.  The 
highly infectious disease has recently become more prevalent, 
particularly in prisons, where crowded conditions prevail.
      
"Activist Dying of AIDS"
United Press International (05/04/94)
     Omar Ali-Bey, a Cleveland man who rose from a life of drug abuse 
and crime to become a college-educated civil rights activist, 
announced that he is dying of AIDS.  Ali-Bey's physician told him
that he has only 12 weeks to live.
      
"10,000 Athletes Signed for Gay Games"
United Press International (05/04/94);  Reilly, William M.
     More than 10,000 athletes have registered to participate in Gay 
Games IV, June 18-25 in New York City, event officials said 
Wednesday.  In a briefing for reporters, organizers said they 
expect more than 1 million visitors in the city from 42 different
countries, including Indonesia, Bulgaria, Zimbabwe, and New 
Zealand.  They also confirmed that the Justice Department in 
March waived a ban that prohibits HIV- and AIDS-infected 
foreigners from entering the United States.  America will honor 
special 10-day visas that coincide with the games.
      
"L.A. Quake Rocks New York-Based Actors' Fund"
Reuters (05/04/94);  Morehouse III, Ward
     Southern California's January 17 earthquake is placing an 
unanticipated strain on the New York City-based Actors' Fund of 
America, which could threaten the organization's annual AIDS 
initiatives.  As of 1992, 322 clients of the fund had died from 
AIDS.  HIV-positive clients receive assistance in the form of 
regular home and hospital visits, plus money to defray the costs 
of food, lodging, and medical needs.  The Actors' Fund of America
prides itself on putting absolutely no limits on providing aid to
theater and other entertainment professionals who find themselves
in crisis situations.  However, nearly four months after the 
California quake, the organization still "is getting deluged by 
requests from help from victims of the earthquake," according to 
Tom Dillon, president of the Actors' Fund of America.  General 
Manager Joe Benincase also expressed concern.  "We think we are 
going to go over our budget because of the earthquake," he said.
      
"Reality of AIDS Can't Be Denied"
Richmond Times-Dispatch (05/04/94) P. A18
     In response to commentaries appearing in the editorial-opinion 
pages of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, readers have written 
letters reprimanding the publication for its seemingly gross 
misunderstanding of the AIDS epidemic.  One such reader is Robert
O. Orenstein of the Infectious Diseases Section of McGuire 
Veterans Administration Medical Center.  The Times-Dispatch 
continues to misrepresent the facts concerning HIV and AIDS, 
Orenstein laments.  Have the media blown the issue out of 
proportion, as suggested by Michael Fumento in the April 10 
issue, he wonders.  Just because most white, middle-class, 
heterosexual suburbanites are not HIV-positive, Orenstein notes 
that this does not diminish the problem.  The HIV epidemic is 
thriving in inner-city Richmond.  It primarily affects homosexual
and lower socioeconomic populations, he concedes, but everyone is
affected by the disease's social, economic, and political 
consequences.  The epidemic is a global crisis that affects more 
than 11 million people.  Is, then, Fumento's implication that the
issue has been blown out of proportion valid?  Orenstein notes 
that his place of employment cares for more HIV patients than any
other single health-care provider.  These are the same people who
served their nation to defend the freedoms so callously abused by
the media, Orenstein concludes.
      
"Haemophiliacs Seek Charges in AIDS Scandal"
Nature (04/21/94) Vol. 368, No. 6473, P. 680;  Swinbanks, David
     As the scandal in Japan over HIV-infected blood products 
continues to mount, a group of hemophiliacs and their family 
members has asked the Tokyo District Prosecutor's Office to file 
charges of "willful negligence" against Takeshi Abe, a leading 
hemophiliac specialist.  Two court cases in which nearly 100 
AIDS-infected hemophiliacs are suing the government and 
pharmaceutical firms have been in Osaka and Tokyo courts for 
several years now, but this is the first attempt in Japan to 
bring criminal charges against individuals for their role in the 
country's blood product policy in the early- to mid-1980s.  
During that time, nearly 2,000 hemophiliacs became infected with 
HIV through the use of contaminated blood coagulants.  The group 
claims that Abe, who in 1983 headed a group organized by the 
Ministry of Health and Welfare to help formulate policy on blood 
products, knew by late 1984 that a large number of his patients 
had contracted the virus.  However, he continued to treat 
uninfected patients with blood products that had not been 
heat-treated to kill the virus.
      
"AZT Lowers Risk of Maternal Transmission of HIV Virus"
Nation's Health (04/94) Vol. 24, No. 4, P. 8
     AZT therapy slashed by two-thirds the risk of HIV-positive 
mothers passing the deadly virus on to their babies, according to
the preliminary findings of a study conducted by the AIDS 
Clinical Trials Group.  An interim review of the study revealed 
the HIV transmission rate to be 25.5 percent among patients who 
received a placebo, and only 8.3 percent when both mothers and 
infants received AZT.  "Although this treatment did not protect 
all babies in the study, the news that the risk of HIV 
transmission to newborns can be significantly reduced is very 
promising," said Health and Human Services Secretary Donna 
Shalala.  The results highlight the need for long-term follow-up 
of children born to mothers in the study to "learn more about the
risks and benefits of the treatment beyond these encouraging 
early results," said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the 
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, which 
sponsored the trial.  HIV is the leading cause of mortality in 
American children under age 15, calculates the National Center 
for Health Statistics.  Approximately 7,000 HIV-positive women 
give birth each year, and an estimated 25 percent infect their 
babies with the virus.
      
"New AIDS Definition Reduces AIDS Cases Never Reported"
AIDS Alert (04/94) Vol. 9, No. 4, P. 56
     Due to last year's expanded case definition for AIDS, the number 
of AIDS patients still alive at the time of reporting rose to 88 
percent--a 23 percent increase from 1992, according to figures 
released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "You
can flip that around and say the 12 percent who died [about 3,000
people] would have been missed if we had not changed the 
definition," explains Dr. John Ward, director of the CDC's AIDS 
surveillance branch.  Critics of the old definition argued that 
people with HIV were dying before being diagnosed with AIDS.  By 
expanding the definition to include CD4 counts lower than 200, 
recurrent tuberculosis, pneumonia, and cervical cancer, reporting
now reflects more accurately the effect of the epidemic on 
people's lives.  "It was clearly appropriate for these conditions
to be included...one of the objectives of AIDS surveillance is to
capture severe death and disease due to HIV," Ward says.  In 
1993, the number of reported AIDS cases grew 111 percent over the
previous year.  That dramatic increase, which exceeded CDC 
projections of a 75 percent increase, represents a one-time 
effect that is the result of reporting of people who had the 
newly added conditions diagnosed before 1993.  That number is 
expected to decrease significantly this year.
      
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