Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1989. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
'Age of intervention' fewer AIDS cases expected
San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, October 13, 1989
Randy Shilts, David Tuller, Chronicle Staff Writers
A dawning "age of early intervention" with AIDS will reduce the number of cases that can be expected in the early 1990s, the federal government's top AIDS researcher told a scientific conference in San Francisco yesterday. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the associate director for AIDS research of the National Institutes of Health, said researchers in recent months have forged "conceptual breakthroughs" in the management of the disease. The career immunologist cited in particular two recent studies which found that the drug AZT delayed the progression of people from AIDS-related complex to more fully developed AIDS and also slowed the immunological damage among people who are infected but showing no overt signs of the disease. "This has proven a point that needs underscoring," said Fauci, who also serves as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the agency conducting most of the government's biomedical research on HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS. "We have proven conceptually that you can control HIV infection," he said. "We can't cure it yet . . . but the skeptics who said that (we could never) find a cure or control already have been proven incorrect." Because of AZT and other medications to prevent the common AIDS-related diseases, Fauci said that there would probably be fewer AIDS cases in 1992 than the 365,000 now officially projected by the national Centers for Disease Control. "The '90s clearly are going to realize the age of early intervention," he said, because more people will be availing themselves of drugs such as AZT before they fall ill with an HIV-related infection. Fauci was less optimistic about the prospects of developing a vaccine that could prevent HIV infection, saying that it will be the late 1990s before such a breakthrough is likely. He also cautioned that the sharp increases that marked federal financing for AIDS research through the 1980s are not likely to continue, as representatives of efforts for other diseases, such as cancer and heart disease, argue more forcefully that too much money is going to AIDS research. In other conference news, the California Medical Association issued an appeal to patients to raise the issue of AIDS with their doctors -- especially since many physicians are reluctant to initiate discussions on the topic. The association said studies indicate that about 2 million Californians have engaged in activities that may have put them at risk for infection. Although almost 80 percent of Californians visited physicians last year, only 6 percent of those discussed AIDS with their doctors, according to the group. Doctors may be afraid to discuss AIDS because "it's a very sensitive issue, and it's not like asking a patient if they had a cold last week," said Dr. Mervyn Silverman, president of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, who presented the study findings.
Keywords: AIDS; SF; CONFERENCES; ANTHONY FAUCI
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