                     AIDS Daily Summary 
                      December 5, 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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"Abbott Labs Plans Lottery to Give Away AIDS Drug"
"Man Charged in Needle Case Fled Hospital"
"Judge Frees Check Forger Who Has AIDS"
"As Larger Cities Gain Ground on Ills, Smaller Ones Lose"
"Nationline: Shooting Spree"
"50 Calvert High Students Test Positive for TB Germ"
"A Howl of Anger"
"Eurocourt Tells France to Pay AIDS Victim, Now Dead"
"AIDS Watch: Drug Research Slows"
"Shopping for Life"
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"Abbott Labs Plans Lottery to Give Away AIDS Drug"
Wall Street Journal (12/05/95) P. B6
     More than 2,000 advanced AIDS patients across the world will 
receive free doses of Abbott Laboratories' new experimental drug 
ritonavir by participating in a lottery, the company said.  
Specific details of the program will be made available to 
patient-advocacy organizations and to physicians who treat people
with AIDS.  Only limited amounts of the protease inhibitor will 
be available, Abbott said, because of the "extraordinarily 
difficult manufacturing process" involved.  AIDS advocacy groups 
have beseeched protease-inhibitor makers to provide the drug 
prior to receiving U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval 
because some late-stage AIDS patients could otherwise die, but 
until now, Abbott has maintained that it needed all of its supply
of ritonavir for clinical tests.  Related Stories: Washington 
Post (12/05) P. A10; New York Times (12/05) P. C6; Washington 
Times (12/05) P. A10
      
"Man Charged in Needle Case Fled Hospital"
New York Times (12/05/95) P. B1;  Sexton, Joe
     Law enforcement officials and a spokesman for the New York State 
Office of Mental Health report that a homeless man who is accused
of stabbing a child with a hypodermic needle on the subway last 
week ran away from a psychiatric hospital in 1993.  When Angel 
Coro disappeared from the Rochester Psychiatric Hospital after 
six years, he was identified as an escapee who was a danger to 
both himself and others.  Coro has now been arrested and charged 
with jabbing a hypodermic needle into the leg of six-year-old 
Colete Lopez.  The girl has been given shots to fight possible 
infection from tuberculosis and hepatitis, and will be screened 
today for HIV infection.  The New York City Medical Examiner's 
office has not yet determined whether or not the needle was 
contaminated.  Prosecutors have charged Coro, who was ordered to 
undergo psychiatric examination, with second-degree assault.  
Related Story: USA Today (12/05) P. 3A
      
"Judge Frees Check Forger Who Has AIDS"
Washington Post (12/05/95) P. B3;  Bates, Steve
     A federal judge released an AIDS patient who pleaded guilty 
Monday to cashing some $250,000 in bad checks, noting that 
federal sentencing guidelines do not take into account criminals 
who have the disease.  "I don't have to tell this defendant the 
future he faces," said U.S. District Judge Albert V. Bryan Jr.  
The Alexandria, Va. judge reduced Kerry Shotsberger's sentence to
the 17 months that he has already served in prison cells and 
hospitals.  Court documents show that Shotsberger and his 
co-defendant, Dennis Stokes, used computers and blank check forms
to make phony payroll checks, allegedly collecting nearly 
$260,000 before being arrested last year.  Stokes was scheduled 
for sentencing Monday as well, but was quarantined for 
tuberculosis and AIDS.
      
"As Larger Cities Gain Ground on Ills, Smaller Ones Lose"
New York Times (12/05/95) P. B10;  Janofsky, Michael
     Although such problems as violent crime, infant mortality, and 
the spread of HIV have started to subside in the country's 
largest cities, they are growing in smaller cities, according to 
a new report from the nonprofit National Public Health and 
Hospital Institute.  The report is based on census data, federal 
crime statistics, and health-care surveys from the United States'
100 largest cities.  Dennis P. Andrulis, the institute's 
president, noted that several of the largest cities had found 
answers to difficult problems out of desperation, and that their 
methods should be considered by smaller cities with similar 
issues.  The report, for example, showed that Cleveland's health 
officials had made significant inroads in fighting the spread of 
tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and HIV.  The report also found that 
smaller cities struggling to cope with one problem, did not 
always experience others as severely.  In El Paso, for instance, 
there were no appreciable improvements in poverty rates between 
1980 and 1990, but during that same decade, the city became the 
leader among the largest cities in its rate of AIDS prevention.
      
"Nationline: Shooting Spree"
USA Today (12/05/95) P. 3A;  Leavitt, Paul;  Rivera, Patricia V.;
Goodwin, M. David
     In San Antonio on Sunday, 22-year-old Ulysses Miller entered the 
home of a woman he said had given him AIDS and shot five 
individuals, killing two, police report.  Miller then killed 
himself as well.  An autopsy will determine whether he was 
infected with HIV.
      
"50 Calvert High Students Test Positive for TB Germ"
Washington Post (12/05/95) P. B5;  Shields, Todd
     Health officials in Calvert County, Md., discovered 50 students 
carrying the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (TB), after 
learning that one student at the crowded Calvert High School had 
the disease.  However, none of the 50 has either developed TB or 
is contagious, health officials said Monday.  An initial 
screening in May identified 19 people with the bacterium, while a
second one in September located an additional 31.  County health 
officer David Rogers said there was no way to determine how many 
of the initial 19 infections were the result of contact with the 
original case, but added that the remaining 31 were likely caused
by such contact.
      
"A Howl of Anger"
Los Angeles Times--Washington Edition (12/05/95) P. B9;  Levine, 
Bettijane
     Author Elinor Burkett sees little sense in what she calls the 
AIDS industry, a combination of specific doctors, politicians, 
federal research scientists, drug companies, and others she 
believes have cashed in, copped out, been misled, or succumbed to
greed in the fight against HIV.  In her new book, "The Gravest 
Show on Earth," Burkett presents a series of complaints against 
nearly every group involved with the epidemic.  She admits that 
it is not so much a book, but as a "howl of venom, hysteria, 
fury, and desperation."  Her objective, she says, was only to 
tell the truth and voice her objections to the continuing errors 
in the battle against HIV and AIDS.
      
"Eurocourt Tells France to Pay AIDS Victim, Now Dead"
Reuters (12/04/95)
     The European Court of Human Rights ordered France to pay Daniel 
Bellet, a hemophiliac who died of AIDS 11 days ago, damages 
totaling more than $200,000.  The Strasbourg-based court said 
Monday that Bellet was denied his right to access to an appeals 
court in his legal battles against the national blood bank for 
being given an HIV-contaminated transfusion in 1983.  Three years
ago, Bellet was also awarded $260,000 in HIV-infection 
compensation from the French government.  Monday's ruling was the
fourth instance in which the European Court of Human Rights has 
ruled against France in HIV-related cases filed by hemophiliacs.
      
"AIDS Watch: Drug Research Slows"
Men's Fitness (11/95) Vol. 11, No. 11, P. 28
     According to a federal advisory panel, drug makers have cut back 
on their AIDS drug research and development endeavors.  The 
slowdown is partly due to pharmaceutical companies who see no 
potential for profit in continuing research, circumspect 
investors, and a reduction in government support.  The panel 
suggested providing companies dedicated to AIDS research with tax
cuts and other economic incentives.
      
"Shopping for Life"
Advocate (11/28/95) No. 695, P. 35;  Foster, R. Daniel
     Unlike any other disease, AIDS has inspired a wave of specialty 
items and merchandise tie-ins.  It is also the only disease to 
have its own gift shop.  San Francisco's Under One Roof, which 
only features products which carry a red ribbon or other symbol, 
sells merchandise from 60 Northern California AIDS organizations 
and donates 100 percent of its profits to the war against AIDS.  
Although some complain that such items trivialize and 
sentimentalize the disease while making it marketable, others 
caution against such broad generalizations.  Daniel Wolfe, a 
spokesman for Gay Men's Health Crisis, observes that these 
products can be considered "useful stand-ins" or "shorthand" for 
a stigmatized illness that is difficult for the general public to
face.  Still, some wonder if AIDS merchandise is a facile 
substitute for action.  A customer at Under One Roof said, "I 
think people in this country equate shopping with doing 
something.  The more we shop, the more control we have--over AIDS
and over a lot of other things."
      
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