SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (SF) - WEDNESDAY September 28, 1988 Edition: FINAL Section: NEWS Page: A23 Word Count: 477
Lori Olszewski, Chronicle Staff Writer

The noon demonstration outside the Kaiser Medical Building at O'Farrell and Broderick streets is a symbol of the increasing frustration AIDS-infected people express about what they see as the unavailability of aggressive early treatment.

"The overwhelming evidence shows early intervention is the way to prolong lives. But that is not what is happening at Kaiser," said Alex Captanian, a San Francisco real estate agent who helped initiate the demonstration.

The protesters, organized as the 200-member Kaiser Patients Advocacy Union, say that Kaiser is withholding treatments and tests in the interest of cutting costs.

Philip R. Madvig, physician-in-chief of the Permamente Medical Group in San Francisco, said medical issues, not costs, are at the heart of the debate about early treatment therapies, such as aerosol pentamadine.

"None of this involves cost concerns. Yes, the trend is to move toward early interventions. But there is still debate about whether many of these things are helping or hurting patients," Madvig said, adding that research is continuing on many of the therapies being sought by the patients' union.

"Physicians cannot leap in and say, 'You're dying so we'll try whatever you want.' We are flying blind on a lot of this," he said.

Kaiser San Francisco, with 450 to 500 patients diagnosed as having full-blown AIDS, serves 21 percent of the AIDS cases in San Francisco. Those numbers make it second only to the county health system as an AIDS provider, according to a federal Office of Technology Assessment report released earlier this year.

An estimated 6,000 of Kaiser's 159,000 San Francisco members may be infected with the AIDS virus, including many who still do not show any symptoms. An estimated 27,000 San Franciscans are living infected with the AIDS virus.

The Kaiser Patients Advocacy Union has been meeting with Kaiser representatives since March, when the patients' concerns began to become known at community meetings sponsored by Project Inform and other AIDS groups.

The patient union wants Kaiser San Francisco to commit itself to an outpatient clinic that specializes in HIV or AIDS infection. Now, HIV patients gamble on whether they will get a Kaiser physician well-versed in AIDS, the group said.

Madvig said he opposes the clinic concept, but he said Kaiser is taking steps to encourage more physicians to learn about AIDS.

Captanian and others say Kaiser has not done enough, so they will picket tomorrow. The protesters then plan to drive in a symbolic funeral motorcade to the steps of City Hall, where they will deliver a plea to Mayor Art Agnos and the Board of Supervisors to intervene.

"These are my friends' lives at stake," Captanian said.

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