Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1992. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle - Thursday, September 3, 1992
A new definition of the disease will be prepared this fall.
An expanded definition could mean that many more people would qualify for health and social benefits.
Critics of the current definition said at a public meeting yesterday that women infected with HIV, the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome, are dying of aggressive cervical cancer, pelvic inflammatory disease and yeast infections even though they are never counted as AIDS patients.
"How long will women continue to die, literally on the streets?" said Wendi Alexis Modeste of Syracuse, N.Y., who has the AIDS virus. "I and my sisters will be a visible and vocal lesion in the side of the CDC until we are treated equally."
Dr. James Curran, deputy director of the CDC's AIDS division, defended the way the CDC developed its current definition but said the agency will reconsider that position using data presented yesterday. The CDC will accept public comment until September 18.
The 23 illnesses the CDC now considers to be symptoms of AIDS include pneumonia and Kaposi's sarcoma, a type of cancer found largely in men. Curran said these are on the list because AIDS, when first defined, was predominantly a male disease. All the HIV-related cases of the cancer have occurred in men.
Currently, HIV patients are told that they have full-blown AIDS when they get one or more of the 23 indicators.
The CDC, which called yesterday's meeting, has proposed revising its definition to include HIV-infected people whose level of the body's master immune cells, called CD4 cells, dips to 200 per cubic millimeter, or one-fifth the level of a healthy person. This definition would include 160,000 people who are infected with HIV but are not seriously ill.
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