Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1992. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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The Wall Street Journal - 28 Oct 1992
Helene Cooper, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
In November 1991, the agency first proposed expanding the definition to simplify identification of AIDS and to give medical providers and patients a more complete picture of the illness. Currently, a person generally is characterized as having AIDS if he or she has contracted the human immunodeficiency virus and exhibits one of the 23 specific symptoms, including various types of pneumonia, cancer, and fungal and parasitic infections.
The definition proposed last November would also include measuring an individual's T4 lymphocytes -- white blood cells whose levels indicate how well the immune system is functioning. If that number drops below 200 lymphocytes, then a person would be identified as having AIDS. (The normal level is about 1,000.)
The expanded definition, which is scheduled to be published before year's end and implemented in January, would mean an additional 40,000 people diagnosed with AIDS each year, according to Dr. John W. Ward, chief of reporting and analysis in the CDC's division of HIV/AIDS. Currently, 242,000 individuals are classified by the federal agency as having AIDS, up from 196,000 a year ago.
The three additional illnesses -- pulmonary tuberculosis, recurrent pneumonia and cervical cancer -- would join the 23 other symptoms that, coupled with HIV infection, currently define AIDS. Those three illnesses, in turn, would likely add several thousand cases each year to the AIDS count, above and beyond the 40,000 linked to the T4 levels. This would mean that people with these three illnesses who are infected with the HIV virus would be eligible for programs and drugs to fight AIDS.
Female AIDS activists, who have complained that many diseases that primarily affect women with AIDS haven't been included in the definition, have pushed for the inclusion of invasive cervical cancer.
"I think this is a move in the right direction," said Debbie Trott, clinic manager at the AIDS Resource Center in Dallas. "But it's certainly not the end of the war." Ms. Trott said she would like to see other female illnesses that plague women with AIDS, like recurring vaginal yeast infections, included in the definition.
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