Chicago Tribune (CT) - TUESDAY June 2, 1987 Edition: SPORTS FINAL Section: NEWS Page: 5 Word Count: 1,027
Ronald Kotulak and Jon Van, Chicago Tribune

The new information, rather than being a cause for panic, may help scientists identify these viruses early so that precautionary actions can be taken to prevent them from starting an epidemic, Gallo said.

Reporting to the Third International Conference on AIDS, Gallo, a doctor with the National Cancer Institute in Washington, said the new virus belongs to the same family of retroviruses as the AIDS virus. Early evidence indicates that it can cause suppression of the immune system, although less efficiently than the AIDS virus.

Unlike other viruses, such as those that cause the common cold, retroviruses are capable of incorporating their genetic material in a host cell's genetic code. These types of viruses are often called "slow viruses" because they remain latent for many years before causing disease.

"We found it in rural Nigeria," said Gallo. "It's good to know about it. We have no reason to believe it's anywhere else. Will it ever be anywhere else? Maybe never or maybe it'll be a problem for our children's children's children. It's nice that we know about it now."

The conference at a hotel here is the largest AIDS meeting ever held. It attracted so many scientists and health officials from around the world that Washington fire officials ordered organizers to stop registering new participants because of overcrowding.

More than 7,000 people are registered for the meeting, 2 1/2 times more than the number who attended the Second International AIDS Conference in Paris last year. Besides the overflow crowd of participants, the meeting attracted more than 1,000 reporters and television news people.

Vice President George Bush delivered the conference's keynote speech Monday, in which he called for the testing of prisoners, prospective immigrants and couples seeking marriage licenses. His remarks echoed President Reagan's proposal Sunday, but Bush went somewhat beyond the President, specifically mentioning that homosexuals are still the leading group victimized by the disease.

Bush stressed that the those who submit to tests must be guaranteed that the results will be kept confidential, and he said the efforts to fight AIDS should be aimed at the disease and not at its victims.

"This is not a partisan fight, not a witch hunt. We must never create a climate where friend turns against friend and countryman against countryman," Bush said. He said "reasonable people " may differ about what to do, but it is up to the nation's political leadership to decide.

Meanwhile, 64 people were arrested Monday for blocking traffic in front of the White House in a demonstration protesting what organizers called the Reagan administration's inadequate action against AIDS. The demonstrators, who included AIDS victims, carried placards reading "We're dying of red tape" and "Mr. Reagan, your apathy is killing us."

Police who arrested the protesters wore yellow rubber gloves, which the city police department last week said would be made available to officers to protect against exposure to AIDS and other communicable diseases.

The unexpectedly large turnout at the international conference reflects the growing global concern about AIDS, said conference chairman Dr. George Galasso, of the National Institutes of Health. The meeting is sponsored by institutes and the World Health Organization.

Galasso acknowledged that it was highly unusual for a scientific meeting to draw nearly as much media attention as a national political convention, but he said public health officials welcomed the attention as a means of informing the public about AIDS.

Although AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, was first recognized in this country in 1981, the virus that causes the disease was not identified until 1984 by a team of scientists at the National Cancer Institute headed by Gallo and by another team at the Pasteur Institute in Paris under the direction of Dr. Luc Montagnier.

A second AIDS-like virus was discovered in 1985, but scientists did not know until this year that it may also suppress the immune system.

Gallo said that even before the AIDS outbreak, some researchers believed that retroviruses, long known to infect animals, were also infecting humans.

"The announcement of the new Nigeria virus is what everybody was expecting," said Dr. Peter Piot of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. "It's logical and makes sense."

All of these viruses appear to have some effect on the human immune system, with the AIDS virus, known as HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), the deadliest one found so far, said Gallo. One of the retroviruses, HTLV-1, causes leukemia in some people.

The retroviruses, which commonly infect monkeys, probably have been infecting humans in Africa for decades or even centuries, he said. The reason some of them may be spreading now is because of the dramatic social upheavals in Africa during the last several decades, in which populations became concentrated in cities and promiscuous sex became more common, he said.

Developing a vaccine against the AIDS virus will be the most complex undertaking of that nature ever attempted, Gallo said. Development of a vaccine will require such a new, fundamental understanding of biology that it will profoundly advance science's ability to make vaccines against a wide range of diseases, possibly including some cancers, he said.

Research may also provide new treatments for Kaposi's sarcoma, one of the main opportunistic infections that kill AIDS patients, he said. Scientists have found that the sarcoma secretes a hormone that stimulates its growth, along with other cellular products. The new information may enable scientists to develop techniques to inhibit these substances, which could lead to a cure for the sarcoma, he explained.

CAPTION: Photo: Metropolitan police officers frisk and handcuff protesters Monday at an AIDS rally in front of the White House. Tribune photo by Paul F. Gero. Photo: (color) AIDS protest. An officer wearing rubber gloves arrests a demonstrator Monday outside the White House. A coalition including gay rights activists protested an AIDS conference. A report on a new AIDS strain is on Page 5. AP Laserphoto.

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