The New York Times - May 19, 1983
Lawrence K. Altman

Of the seven women in the study, which was reported in today's issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, one developed the disorder, another appeared to be in early stages of developing it, four had abnormalities linked to the syndrome and one was healthy.

Several other similarly suggestive but inconclusive cases have been identified by Federal epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the head of the AIDS research group there said yesterday.

An epidemic affecting at least 1,410 people has developed since 1980. The cause of the disease is unknown and as of May 9, 541 victims have died, according to the Atlanta center.

Four Groups Are at Risk

Most cases have involved male homosexuals, intravenous drug users and people from Haiti. A few cases have occurred among people receiving blood transfusions and hemophiliacs who have received blood products.

Because the transmission of the disease appears to have resulted occasionally from blood products, many researchers have strongly suspected that the syndrome may be caused by a virus or some other transmissible agent.

For that reason, a team of physicians headed by Dr. Carol Harris from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine studied the regular female sexual partners of the 17 heterosexual male patients with the syndrome who were treated at Montefiore Medical Center, North Central Bronx Hospital and the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center.

Dr. Harris's team learned that the 17 men had 12 regular female sexual partners. Seven female partners agreed to cooperate in the study; four could not be found and one refused to participate. None Sought Doctors' Help

None of the seven women had sought medical attention. All said that their sexual relations were only with men and all denied using intravenous drugs or inhalants such as cocaine.

Six of the seven male partners of these females had injected heroin or cocaine; the seventh inhaled cocaine without injecting it. Six of them males were strictly heterosexual; the seventh had had homosexual encounters two to four years before becoming ill.

None of the women had any of the known risk factors. None were Haitian and none had hemophilia. They were 23 to 39 years old. "The only common risk factor we could identify was prolonged monogamous contact" with a male AIDS patient, Dr. Harris's team reported.

The study presented limited evidence that the scope of the syndrome may extend beyond the previously suspected groups of victims. Comparison to Hepatitis B

Speaking of the findings, Dr. James Curran, the head of the group working on the syndrome at the Atlanta centers, said it was possible that the transmission of the disorder was similar to hepatitis B. This common liver infection can be spread by heterosexual contact as well as by blood and other ways.

Dr. Curran cautioned that the new findings did not necessarily mean that the seven women were infected specifically by sexual contact. Dr. Curran said: "They could have gotten it by sharing razors or something else. It is known that wives and husbands of hepatitis B carriers have higher rates of hepatitis B infection than other family members do. This may be something like that." ---- Social Security Responds

WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) - The Social Security System is instructing its offices to grant virtually automatic disability benefits to victims of infections linked to AIDS, officials said today.

"Given the high mortality rate, we felt it appropriate to go ahead where we've got a documented case," said Jean Hinckley, deputy director of Social Security's office of disability programs.

AIDS-related infections include Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare cancer, and a rare, highly fatal form of pneumonia, pneumonocystis-carinii pneumonia.

Social Security issued emergency instructions last month ordering benefits be granted to all applicants with AIDS-related infections, so long as they were not working and had paid in enough payroll taxes to qualify.

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