AIDS Daily Summary August 02, 1994 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 1994, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD "Australia Seeking 30 Patients of HIV Doctor" Reuters (08/02/94) Australian health authorities have launched a search for 30 of the 149 women who underwent operations performed by a surgeon now identified as HIV-positive. The New South Wales health department is employing police, government agencies, a toll-free telephone hotline, and the media in an effort to locate the women. According to the state government, 96 of the women who were operated on by the trainee obstetrician at Sydney's King George V Hospital have tested negative for the virus. The remaining 23 women have been found, but have not yet received test results. Australian health officials say the chances of any of the women testing HIV-positive are slim. The infected doctor stopped performing operations once he was diagnosed on June 3. "Mandatory 'Safe Sex' Training a Legacy of AIDS Czar Gebbie" Washington Times (08/02/94) P. A8; Larson, Ruth Although Kristine M. Gebbie's tenure as national AIDS policy coordinator ends today, she leaves behind a mandate for all federal employees to receive "safe sex" training. More than 2 million workers will have received the "AIDS at Work" training by Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, but some public health advocates are challenging whether the effort is worth the time or the expense. The training addresses prevention techniques, risk assessment, and dealing with infected co-workers. According to Lance Alworth Jr., who manages the program, agencies were not provided with additional funding to conduct the training. The cost of outside contractors usually amounts to $2 to $10 per employee, he said. Based on those figures, the cost of training 2.1 million workers is between $4 million and $20 million. Also, with the average hourly salary at $19, the Office of Personnel Management calculates that costs reach $80 million for two hours of training. Gebbie defends the cost, saying that "If we prevent even one individual from getting HIV-AIDS, we save hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical costs, in the costs to train new workers if an employee dies early." About one-quarter of the training is complete thus far. "AIDS Epidemic Seen Threatening "Asian Promise"" Reuters (08/02/94); Liquicia, Rosario As a booming commercial sex industry and widespread intravenous drug use hasten the spread of AIDS in Asia, the epidemic is an obstacle to the area's growth and progress, said speakers at a Tuesday meeting sponsored by the Asian Development Bank. According to economist Myo Thant, the first cases of AIDS were reported in Asia in only the mid-1980s, but by 1991 more than 1 million cases of HIV infection had already occurred. He cited World Health Organization estimates predicting that, by the turn of the century, 30 percent of global HIV cases will come from Asia alone. Thant said the region would need to look at attitudes toward the implicit use of prostitution as a tourist attraction. "Summer Shot" Richmond Times-Dispatch (08/01/94) P. C3 The federal government has kicked off a nationwide effort to urge HIV/AIDS patients, senior citizens, diabetics, and heart or lung disease patients to receive a pneumonia vaccination. The need for immunization is especially urgent given the new drug-resistant strains of the bacteria. Pneumonia sickens more than 200,000 people and causes 40,000 deaths annually. "Clinic Ordered to Pay Damages in AIDS Fraud Case" Reuters (07/30/94) In what is probably the country's first medical fraud case involving AIDS, a Superior Court jury has ordered the Medical Center of North Hollywood, Calif., to pay $1.8 million in damages to two patients who received unconventional treatment for the disease. Dr. Valentine Birds and Dr. Ranjindra Sethi were found to have treated several patients with a homemade drug called Viroxan, which is not medically approved. The jury earlier issued a compensatory award of $925,000 against the two physicians. That sum was shared by four patients, but two of them--Roderick Garcia and Mark Addy--received an additional $900,000 each after the jury found that they had been subjected to "oppressive, malicious, or fraudulent" conduct. "European Meeting Says Decriminalize Prostitution" Reuters (07/30/94) Prostitutes, health workers, and policy makers from more than 30 countries, who recently held a three-day conference to discuss health and the sex industry, will urge the European Commission and the World Health Organization to decriminalize prostitution. "Contrary to public assumptions, prostitutes are not "riddled with HIV and AIDS," said Ruth Morgan Thomas, one of the conference organizers. "And whatever the general public might think, you are actually far more likely to pick up the HIV virus through casual, unprotected, non-commercial sex than you are from going to a prostitute." "New Probe of Jailed French Official Sparks Furor" Reuters (07/29/94); Arieff, Irwin A new investigation of former French government health official Michael Garretta, who is already serving time in prison for his part in the country's contaminated blood tragedy, has sparked outrage among French judges, lawyers, and AIDS activists. The debate squares off friends and relatives of hundreds of HIV-infected individuals against rights activists who are concerned that a man already being punished is being turned into a scapegoat. The former head of the National Blood Transfusion Center was convicted of fraud and criminal negligence for allowing the facility to use up stocks of contaminated blood products in an effort to shave expenses, rather than import treated products. Garretta was found guilty, but it was never proven that he acted willfully. The new probe is seeking "poisoning" charges, under which prosecutors must prove that Garretta willfully sought to sicken or kill the individuals who became infected as a result of his actions. "Old Drugs May Yet Control Resistant TB" United Press International (07/29/94); Emerson, Eva; Schuster, Larry Calming fears that tuberculosis had become super-resistant, scientists at France's Pasteur Institute say it is poor treatment--rather than a challenging new strain--that is causing the emergence of drug-resistant TB. While investigating how multi-resistant strains of the infection defy antibiotics, the French researchers discovered that resistance is the product of well-known genetic mutations in the genes targeted by drugs, and that lax treatment allows emerging resistant strains to take hold. The findings suggest that existing treatment strategies, if strictly implemented, should be able to control TB. Once thought to be well-controlled, TB has re-emerged as an epidemic in the past 20 years. Its resurface can be attributed to the spread of AIDS, increased poverty, homelessness, and insufficient health care. "Gebbie and Grassroots: Toward a Mass-Movement Organizing Style: A Commentary" AIDS Treatment News (07/22/94) P. 6; James, John S. The author, who is the editor and publisher of AIDS Treatment News, believes that the resignation of Kristine Gebbie, former National AIDS Coordinator, will not attack the root of the problems that afflict federal AIDS policy, and he discusses a possible solution. suggests that the AIDS and the gay communities haven't been able to effectively support the Clinton administration and defend the President from the effective attacks of the "right-wing hate industry." This is because the "hate industry" has organized itself into a mass-movement, while the AIDS and gay communities haven't done so. So the Administration deliberately weakened the office of the National AIDS Policy Coordinator so it couldn't act independently and attack the national attitudes that block an effective response by the nation's institutions. The solution is to create an effective mass movement to support a national response to AIDS. While the AIDS leadership is good at inside-the-Beltway work, it needs to learn how to generate and lead a mass movement. James suggests that AIDS groups practice and learn how to build such a movement by combining political action with social needs and other types of people's needs; becoming easily accessible to new people; making each and every meeting generate worthwhile results from beginning to end; working on creating a mobilized base of people that responds to emergency calls; building consensus and creating coalitions; and looking for mass movement "role models."