The Food and Drug Administration this month gave accelerated approval to a California-based pharmaceutical company to market the protease inhibitor nelfinavir mesylate. The approval means the company can sell the drug to any patient who needs it but that it must continue gathering research data to prove the drug is eff
A study involving 37 patients who started on triple-drug therapy within six months of becoming infected with HIV has found that after as many as 18 months, all 37 patients are still doing well. In a Dec. 1 press release, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco added their voices to the growing chor
Gay men who were identified as popular among the patrons of Gay bars in several U.S. communities demonstrated a remarkable ability to convince their peers to adopt safer sex practices, according to a report in the Nov. 22 issue of the British medical journal, The Lancet. The findings were reported by researchers at the
As expected, a study published in the medical journal Science Nov. 14 confirms that triple-drug protease inhibitor regimens will probably need more than three years to eradicate HIV from the body -- if they can, in fact, eradicate it. Formalizing on reports he began making at various scientific conferences earlier this
A study in the Nov. 6 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine reports there is strong evidence to indicate that anal cancers are sexually transmitted via the human papillomavirus. HPV is most commonly known as the virus which causes genital warts, and which can lead to cervical cancer in women. Generally speaking,
It was only two patients and only one year, but the Treatment Action Group s October newsletter called the results remarkable. A researcher in France published a letter in the British medical journal Lancet in August saying that two patients, who took the combination ddI-hydroxyurea for one year soon after infection, h
NEW YORK -- The direct action AIDS activist group ACT UP celebrated its 10th anniversary March 24 by returning to Wall Street, the site of its first demonstration, and protesting the high price of AIDS drugs. According to the Associated Press, about 250 people marched outside the New York Stock Exchange, demanding that
A decade ago, some 200 protesters, furious at what they saw as the country s business-as-usual attitude in the face of the AIDS epidemic, gathered for a morning rush hour demonstration in the heart of New York s financial district. That traffic-stopping action, which included demands for faster government approval -- a
**Genetic exceptions may not be safe after all The genetic mutation touted last year as a possible natural immunity against HIV infection may not provide protection after all. In a letter to Nature Medicine in its March edition, researchers in Australia report they found a man who has this mutation but also has HIV inf
Almost five years after the D.C. government declared its interest in funding a needle exchange program, the program is set to become a reality. The D.C. government, late last month, awarded Whitman-Walker Clinic and the KOBA Foundation -- a nonprofit organization providing HIV/AIDS services to minority populations -- a
Gay civil rights and AIDS advocacy groups last week expressed strong opposition to an AIDS reporting bill introduced by Rep. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). The Coburn bill would allow doctors to refuse to treat patients who have not been tested for HIV and would require state health departments to keep a list of people who test
**Treatment for Tylenol overdose may help Researchers at Stanford University reported last week that a drug used to treat overdoses of Tylenol and other acetaminophen painkillers might help people with HIV to live longer. According to Reuter news service, the researchers told a conference of immunologists meeting in Sa
**Volunteers sought for three studies A physician practice group in D.C. is seeking volunteers for three clinical trials it is conducting: --One study needs 16 or more volunteers for a study of the drug BIC-C parvum to treat cryptosporidium-related diarrhea. Participants must have CD4 counts between zero and 180. -
The National Association of People With AIDS has generated a slight financial surplus in the first quarter of fiscal year 1997, and it has reduced its back debt from $220,000 to about $150,000, according to a quarterly financial statement released by the group last week. The latest, unaudited finance statement comes tw
President Clinton on February 14 named Eric P. Goosby, director of the Office of HIV/AIDS Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as the acting director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. Goosby is the former director of San Francisco General Hospital s AIDS Clinic and a former assoc
**Vitamin B deficiency may hasten AIDS Gay men with HIV infection and a low level of vitamin B-12 in their blood are twice as likely to see their disease progress quickly than Gay men who have adequate levels of B-12. That conclusion comes in this month s issue of the Journal of Nutrition, a publication of the American
If you re thinking about selling your life insurance policy to a viatical company, you can get some help from the Whitman-Walker Clinic, says Legal Services Director Laura Flegel. What we offer, says Flegel, is a chance for people to hear some questions: Q: Were you going to cash in a life insurance policy and drop you
Mark Leny, a 36-year-old Los Angeles Gay man with AIDS, says he needs money: He wants to buy a new used car, pay off some federal tax debts, and go on vacation and enjoy the rest of my life, without fear of financial crunches. Leny s hopes depend on making a viatical settlement -- selling his $120,000 life insurance po
**Study and meeting on marijuana President Clinton s drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, said last month that the government would spend about $1 million to have the independent Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences investigate whether marijuana has medicinal benefit. In an interview with the New York
RITONAVIR DOSING: A number of posters at the Fourth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections indicated that patients are having a harder time tolerating ritonavir compared to the other two protease inhibitors currently approved for marketing. While some patients have difficulty initiating therapy with th
The triple-pronged consensus at last month s big AIDS conference here in D.C. was that people with HIV infection should initiate therapy with a three-drug combination, that they should start it as soon after infection as possible, and that the combination should include at least one protease inhibitor. The good news is
Another shift in AIDS treatment strategy appeared to emerge during a major gathering of researchers in Washington last week. Rather than suggesting that patients have two basic strategies to choose from, most experts at the conference seemed to be backing just one strategy now: Get very aggressive, very early. That mea
The following reports are brief summaries of some of the abstracts on reports scheduled to be presented by Blade deadline yesterday at the Fourth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections: GRADUAL DOSING FOR PCP A report from the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and two universities
**More eligible for protease nelfinavir The California pharmaceutical company which is developing the protease inhibitor nelfinavir mesylate announced last week that it is increasing the number of people who can receive the drug under its current expanded access program. Agouron Pharmaceuticals announced last Septem
The Whitman-Walker Clinic, starting February 1, will become the first major public testing site in the country to test for the presence of HIV antibodies using oral specimens rather than blood samples drawn with a needlestick. Whitman-Walker Clinic Executive Director Jim Graham said at a Jan. 15 press conference that s
City budget officials have asked the D.C. Agency for HIV/AIDS to prepare an impact statement for a 25 percent cut in the city s $6.4 million AIDS budget for fiscal year 1998, said the administrator of the agency. Mel Wilson, the AHA administrator, said yesterday that budget officials asked him to conduct an exercise t
COMPLIANCE AND DANGER: Some new data at last week s Retrovirus Conference indicated that some patients who have been able to reduce their viral loads to below detectable levels have had those levels suddenly shoot up after missing only a few doses of their treatment regimens. The concern comes most intensely with the t
**NAPWA warns against one anemia therapy The National Association for People With AIDS last week sent out an alert advising people with HIV to use extreme caution in deciding to have a blood transfusion to treat anemia. Anemia is a somewhat common symptom among people with HIV -- sometimes caused by drug therapy, somet
**New protease study looking for volunteers A California pharmaceutical company announced Monday that it will begin recruiting 1,300 people for a study that tests its new protease inhibitor -- nelfinavir mesylate -- against an already approved protease inhibitor called ritonavir . Both drugs will b
Some legal analysts expected that homosexual sodomy laws might come up during oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday on two cases challenging laws which ban physician-assisted suicide. Sodomy and suicide? As Notre Dame law professor Douglas Kmiec explained it in an American Bar Association preview of th
This spring the Whitman-Walker Clinic will unveil nearly $400,000 in refurbishments on its four-year-old Max Robinson Center -- an HIV/AIDS services clinic in Southeast Washington. I think the center has come a very long way. The community really appreciates what Max Robinson is doing for us, said Jacqueline Massey, an
The prospects for eradicating AIDS were dampened again this week, as famed researcher David Ho acknowledged that scientists don t know whether the virus can be completely eliminated from the body, won t know for at least another year, and may ultimately know only after patients whose bodies seem to be free of virus sim
**Free seminar on viral load testing People interested in learning the nuts and bolts of viral load testing can attend a free seminar in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Jan. 21. The five-hour program will begin at 2:30 p.m. at the Omni Shoreham Hotel and will include presentations by a number of experts in the field. The
Clinton administration officials this week unveiled a plan to block two new laws legalizing the medical use of marijuana in California and Arizona by threatening doctors with loss of their federal registration and possible prosecution if they prescribe the drug. Many people with AIDS smoke or ingest marijuana to combat
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.