San Francisco Chronicle - Tuesday, June 6, 1989
Charles Petit, Chronicle Science Writer

The results from a nationwide survey revealed yesterday seem to confirm fears of doctors in many parts of the country that if they treat people with AIDS they risk losing a large share of their other patients.

They also underscore continued confusion among ordinary citizens about how the fearful disease is passed from person to person.

The findings from a San Francisco research team were presented yesterday in Montreal at the fifth International Conference on AIDS.

"The one message we don't want to deliver is that doctors really should avoid AIDS patients," said the project leader, Barbara Gerbert, an assistant professor and chairman of the Division of Behavioral Sciences in the School of Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, medical center.

Many of the phobias about AIDS, she said, seem to come from areas of the nation where the disease is still relatively rare.

The polling firm Communications Technologies of San Francisco performed the survey for Gerbert's group, paid for by federal and university grants. Two thousand English-speaking American adults were queried by telephone.

One-third of respondents believe it likely that people can get AIDS from an infected physician during routine care, despite overwhelming evidence that essentially all AIDS is passed through sex or mixing of blood, such as through transfusions or sharing of hypodermic needles.

Forty-five percent believe that doctors who are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, that causes AIDS, should be barred from medical practice.

If their doctor were infected, fifty-six percent of Americans would find another doctor. PROMISING DRUG

In other research being reported in Montreal this week, scientists in Boston and San Francisco said CD4, a promising new experimental anti-AIDS drug, can be given safely in high doses.

Still to come are tests of whether CD4 slows or stops AIDS itself. The drug is manufactured by Genentech Inc. of South San Francisco. Laboratory work showed that it selectively binds to the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, and prevents it from attacking immune system cells.

The first safety results were released yesterday by a group at San Francisco General Hospital led by Dr. Paul Volberding, and by Dr. Jerome Groopman at New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston.

The drug is a copy of a protein found naturally in the outer membrane of T-cells crucial to the human immune system. These CD4 "receptor sites" appear to be major routes of invasion by the virus.

Another UC San Francisco group reported that CD4 may not be the only point of attack by the AIDS virus on T-cells. Dr. Jacques Homsy and Dr. Jay A. Levy of the Cancer Research Institute at UCSF said the virus may sometimes be guided to other ports of entry by antibodies produced by the patient's own immune system.

If true, a family of decoy proteins, not just CD4, may be needed to confuse and block the viral attack.

Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 1989. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.

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