 
                     AIDS Daily Summary 
                     September 21, 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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"AIDS, HIV Patients Hurt by Medical Bias"
"2 Firms Will Offer Wider Access to Experimental AIDS Drugs"
"Alpha 1 to Sell Stake in Anti-AIDS Business"
"TV: Tenacious TB"
"Greek Police Hunt "AIDS" Kidnappers"
"Needles Vetoed in New Bedford"
"AIDS Data Animation Maps Evolving US Epidemic"
"Project Alerta: Building Lives to Save Lives"
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"AIDS, HIV Patients Hurt by Medical Bias"
Baltimore Sun (09/21/95) P. 1A;  Sugg, Diana K.
     Researchers at Johns Hopkins University report that HIV-infected 
women and minorities develop AIDS sooner than others because they
are not receiving adequate health care.  A study, published in 
the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the difficulties 
in obtaining health care outweigh demographic factors in 
determining the speed of disease progression and survival.  Until
now, researchers thought that some groups were dying earlier 
because of biological variations.  However, a team of scientists 
led by Dr. Richard E. Chaisson discovered that of the nearly 
1,400 HIV-infected patients being treated at Johns Hopkins 
Hospital, one-third died with no significant survival differences
according to sex, race, housing status, type of health insurance,
education, or drug use.  The study also corroborated a previous 
finding that showed that HIV-positive women, blacks, and 
injection drug addicts referred to Hopkins were much less likely 
than white males to have received proper care in the past.
      
"2 Firms Will Offer Wider Access to Experimental AIDS Drugs"
Washington Post (09/21/95) P. A3;  Gillis, Justin
     Two pharmaceutical makers announced this week that they would 
increase patients' access to experimental AIDS drugs called 
protease inhibitors--moves which mean that more than 7,000 people
will receive the drugs under "compassionate use" programs next 
year.  Nutley, N.J.-based Hoffmann-La Roche said that 2,000 
patients will be able to participate in an upcoming lottery for 
its drug, in addition to the nearly 2,300 who were selected 
earlier this year.  Meanwhile, Abbott Laboratories of Abbott 
Park, Ill., said that at least 1,400 individuals would be offered
its drug by early 1996.  A third company, Merck & Co. of 
Whitehouse Station, N.J., is now in the advanced testing stages 
of its protease inhibitor, which will be offered to about 1,400 
patients this fall.
      
"Alpha 1 to Sell Stake in Anti-AIDS Business"
Washington Times (09/21/95) P. B9
     Alpha 1 Biomedicals Inc., Bethesda, Md., will sell its 50 percent
share of Viral Technologies Inc. (VTI) to Alexandria, Va.-based 
CEL-SCI Corp., which already controls 50 percent of the company. 
The two companies formed VTI nine years ago to design a drug that
would prevent, diagnose, or treat AIDS.  Under the agreement, 
Alpha 1--which will now focus on the development of drugs for 
cystic fibrosis, chronic bronchitis, and asthma--will receive 
about $750,000 worth of CEL-SCI common stock.
      
"TV: Tenacious TB"
Wall Street Journal (09/21/95) P. A20;  Phillips, Barbara D.
     On Monday Oct. 2, PBS will air "The People's Plague: Tuberculosis
in America."  Diane Garey and Lawrence Hot's two-hour documentary
presents the disease as a public health threat, a civil liberties
problem, and a killer of millions.  The program tells the story 
of the scientists, doctors, and patients affected by 
tuberculosis, as well as the fresh air sanitoriums, strange 
treatments, multidrug therapy, and drug-resistant strains that 
have appeared over the years.
      
"Greek Police Hunt "AIDS" Kidnappers"
Reuters (09/20/95)
     Greek police said on Wednesday that a boy was abducted and 
threatened with HIV-infection unless his family paid a $174,000 
ransom.  The boy was kidnapped after he got off a school bus last
week, held for five days, and then released when the money was 
paid.  In their ransom note, the kidnappers claimed to be AIDS 
patients, and noted that they had "nothing to lose."  According 
to the police, the kidnappers appeared to know about the family's
financial status, as they originally requested $553,000 in 
ransom, a sum which the boy's grandmother has recently won in the
lottery.
      
"Needles Vetoed in New Bedford"
Boston Globe (09/20/95) P. 31
     New Bedford, Mass. Mayor Rosemary Tierney rejected a 
needle-exchange program on Tuesday that had been approved last 
week by the City Council.  Tierney explained she could not 
support the program without the endorsement of the town's police,
who oppose the plan.
      
"AIDS Data Animation Maps Evolving US Epidemic"
Journal of the American Medical Association (09/13/95) Vol. 274, 
No. 10, P. 784;  Stephenson, Joan
     A new animated mini-movie on the Internet illustrates how AIDS 
spread across the United States.  The project represents the 
efforts of Dr. Timothy R. Cote, a resident in pathology at the 
National Institutes of Health's Clinical Center, to show the 
epidemic's gradual development within the time frame of a movie, 
instead of a series of data points on a graph.  Cote teamed up 
with the Consortium for International Earth Sciences Information 
Network in Saginaw, Mich.; Cleveland, Ohio's Environmental 
Modeling Inc.; and Information Management Systems of Silver 
Spring, Md., to achieve his goal.  The result is a short animated
graphic that contains 600 images-- maps of the United States with
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's AIDS mortality 
rates plotted by counties--displaying weekly "snapshots" of AIDS 
deaths between 1981 and 1993.  According to Cote, the mini-movie 
format presents the data in a universally comprehensible form.  
"Anyone from any background or walk of life can look at this 
graphical representation and understand from the data what's 
happened [in the AIDS epidemic] over the past three years," he 
explains.
      
"Project Alerta: Building Lives to Save Lives"
United States Conference of Mayors: AIDS Information Exchange 
(08/95) Vol. 12, No. 4, P. 8
     The goal of Albuquerque, N.M.'s Project Alerta was to train women
in the county jail to be HIV peer educators and counselors.  The 
now-defunct project--a collaborative effort between the State 
Department of Health AIDS Prevention Program, the Albuquerque 
Family Health Center, and the Bernalillo County Detention 
Center--emphasized increasing the self-esteem and confidence of 
the peer educators, and paid the participants for their work.  
When selecting the participants, the Project Alerta staff tried 
to select women representative of the jail population, but also 
used such factors as the neighborhoods the women came from and 
would return to, as well as their high-risk activities.  The 
two-day, 10-hour training consisted of group rulemaking, 
team-building exercises, HIV 101, HIV testing and counseling 
issues, listening exercises, role playing, and a discussion of 
the relationship between addiction and HIV infection.  During the
six-week period they spent working as peer educators, the women 
established their own goals and objectives, and were required to 
develop a plan for spreading the information to other inmates, as
well as those outside the prison.  Although the organizations 
involved considered Project Alerta a success, the high cost of 
paying the women to participate and the fact that providing HIV 
prevention education to inmates was not specifically within the 
scope of any of the groups involved forced the program's 
cancellation.
      
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