WashingtonBlade - October 25, 2002

New York - Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche and its U.S. partner Trimeris Inc. said Oct. 18 that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration granted a priority review to their AIDS drug, Fuzeon, according to the Associated Press. The priority review means the drug will go through the approval process within six months instead of up to 12 months. Fuzeon is a potentially expensive drug that represents a new class of AIDS medicines that attacks the virus in a different way from existing treatments. It will be targeted for patients with drug-resistant strands of the virus, and be used in combination with other drugs. AIDS activists are excited about the new treatment but fear its cost will put it beyond the reach of many patients. Basel-based Roche and Durham, N.C.-based Trimeris will not discuss price, but experts have said the drug will cost between $10,000 and $15,000 a year. Fuzeon is the first in a class known as fusion inhibitors, which are designed to block HIV from entering blood cells.

Democrats accuse HHS of deleting health info

WASHINGTON - Two Democratic members of Congress charged on Monday that the Bush administration is putting ideology over science, citing appointments to advisory committees and the removal of information from Web sites, according to the Associated Press. Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) demanded explanations in a letter to Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. They complained that information about the effectiveness of condoms had been removed from a Centers for Disease Control & Prevention Web site; that experts serving on advisory committees were being replaced because their views do not match the administration's; and that HHS is singling out AIDS groups with probing audits. "Scientific information ... has been removed, apparently because it does not fit with the administration's ideological agenda," Waxman and Brown wrote. HHS spokesperson Bill Pierce said it is Thompson's prerogative to appoint advisory committees. By contrast, he said, Waxman and Brown "would like all of us to follow their agenda, their liberal agenda, on these issues."

Cheaper AIDS test shows disease progression

NEW YORK - A less expensive test can predict the speed at which someone infected with HIV will develop full-blown AIDS, Reuters reported. The test, which is also easier to store and transport, would be helpful in countries with small health care budgets, according to research led by Dr. Timothy R. Sterling of Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Sterling and his team demonstrated that a test that looks for an HIV protein called p24 antigen offers a "statistically equivalent" prediction of when someone will develop AIDS, compared to the more expensive test that measures levels of CD4 T-cells.

CDC says syphilis at all-time low in U.S.

PITTSBURGH - Quick responses to outbreaks, bolstered by a public-awareness push the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention began in 1998, are likely to put sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis on the endangered list nationwide by 2005, the CDC says, according to the Associated Press. Syphilis is most prevalent among prostitutes, addicts who trade sex for drugs and among gay men, experts say. It can make those infected far more susceptible to HIV. The disease is spread only by sexual contact. Left untreated, syphilis can damage the heart, brain, nervous system and other organs, but it can be cured in its early stages with a two-week regimen of penicillin. After peaking at 20.3 cases per 100,000 people in 1990, the U.S. rate bottomed out at 2.2 cases per 100,000 people in 2000 - the lowest since the government started tracking the disease in 1941. The CDC believes that number could drop to 0.4 cases per 100,000, or 4 in 1 million, by 2005 with continued education and vigilance, said CDC spokesperson Jessica Frickey.

Gay parents win support from family doctor group

WASHINGTON - The American Academy of Family Physicians, representing more than 93,000 doctors around the country, approved a resolution Oct. 16 supporting legal rights for gay parents. The measure approved by the academy's Congress of Delegates says the group should work to "establish policy and be supportive of legislation which promotes a safe and nurturing environment, including psychological and legal security, for all children, including those of adoptive parents, regardless of the parents' sexual orientation." The group approved support for medical and life insurance coverage for domestic partners, as well as joint and second-parent adoptions, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group. "As family physicians who care for all ages, we believe the health of American's children is one of the utmost importance," Dr. Warren A. Jones, president of the academy, said in a written statement. "Children deserve to be raised and protected in a safe and nurturing environment. This policy advocates for the family in all its complexities and particularly for children." The American Academy of Pediatrics has a similar policy.
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