The Washington Blade; Friday, January 3, 1997
Lisa Keen
People interested in learning the nuts and bolts of viral load testing can attend a free seminar in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
The five-hour program will begin at 2:30 p.m. at the Omni Shoreham Hotel and will include presentations by a number of experts in the field. The seminar is being sponsored by Roche Diagnostics, the maker of one of the viral load tests currently available. The organizers plan to provide complimentary snacks and dinner.
For more information, call (404) 233-6446.
**New protease seeks accelerated approval
A California-based pharmaceutical company announced last month that it has filed an application with the Food and Drug Administration to request accelerated approval for its new protease inhibitor nelfinavir mesylate.
Accelerated approval would enable the company, Agouron Pharmaceuticals, to sell the drug to any patient who wants to try it. Currently, this particular protease inhibitor is available only to patients participating in clinical studies who have 50 or fewer CD4 cells and cannot tolerate one of three approved protease inhibitors.
According to a press release from the company, nelfinavir mesylate (brand name Viracept) has been studied in more than 700 patients thus far, both alone and in combination with d4T, and in combination with AZT and 3TC.
**Volunteers sought to study dementia therapy
Another California-based company, Neurobiological Technologies, announced last month that it is moving into a second phase of trials testing a new treatment for AIDS-related dementia.
Trials testing the drug, memantine (pronounced MEM-un-teen) will be conducted by the National Institutes of Health and are currently enrolling about 120 patients. The closest study sites to the D.C. area are expected to include Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Howard University in D.C.
Patients must have been diagnosed with AIDS dementia complex and have been treated with an FDA-approved antiviral drug for at least eight weeks prior to the study. The memantine study will last for about seven months.
For information, call Becky Becker at Johns Hopkins at (410) 955-4370 or Yvette Butler at Howard at (202) 806-4700.
**Newsletters warns of risks of marijuana
The November issue of PI Perspective, a newsletter of San Francisco's AIDS treatment information group Project Inform, carried a thorough discussion of the precautions people with HIV should take in using marijuana to alleviate nausea and other AIDS-related side effects or to increase their appetites.
According to the newsletter, marijuana can contain mold and fungi, which can cause lung infections. (The newsletter also notes that putting the substance in a microwave or oven "may reduce the risk" of such infections.) But the publication also warns that smoking marijuana can cause irritation to the lungs which can also lead to infections. (And it suggests that using a water pipe or ingesting the substance instead of smoking it can help reduce this risk.)
The article also warns that some research shows that use of marijuana can weaken the immune system and that patients should be careful not to presume that weight loss is due only to loss of appetite.
"HIV-related weight loss can be caused by many factors," noted the article, "including life-threatening infections."
For the complete article, call 1 (800) 822-7422 or visit Project Inform's Web site at http://www.projinf.org.
In brief ...
The National Institutes of Health is sponsoring a three-day conference on the treatment of Hepatitis C March 24-26 at NIH. For more information, call (301) 770-3153 or e-mail confdept@tech-res.com.
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