Readers of AIDS TREATMENT NEWS often write to ask us if we ever reported on a particular treatment or diagnosis. The first 75 issues of the newsletter are thoroughly indexed in our book, AIDS TREATMENT NEWS, published by Celestial Arts, of Berkeley, California. But no such index has been available for issues #76 throug
The Sixth Annual National Pediatric AIDS Conference, first slated for last October but then canceled, has been rescheduled for February 9-12, 1991. As planned before, the Conference will be held in Washington, D. C., and is sponsored by the respective maternal and child health agencies of The U. S. Department of Health
The November 1990 issue of the Bulletin of Experimental Treatments for AIDS (BETA) offers a thorough overview of HIV complications in the eye, by Robert Neger, M. D. The article describes symptoms and treatments for eye involvement with CMV , herpes simplex , herpes zo
A December 7 report in Science[1] on laboratory and animal tests of a new AIDS antiviral has generated more than usual interest. Many AIDS laboratory findings appear in technical journals and are then picked up by the press, but most are not heard from again. The reason for the greater interest in this drug seems to be
Two years ago we published a list of treatments we believed would be most important in 1989 (see Footnote, below). Here is our list for next year. We based our selection primarily on the chance that a treatment could have a practical impact or show major progress in 1991. Despite the pessimism of most of 1990, we find
For ACT UP affiliates not included below, call ACT UP Network in San Francisco, 415/861-7505. For PWA Coalitions, call NAPWA (National Association of People With AIDS) in Washington, D. C., 202/429-2856. This list only includes organizations with a publishable phone number. We will publish an international list later.
The San Francisco HIV Health Service Planning Council is holding a public hearing for community input on the needs and priorities for HIV services in San Francisco. The Council has been appointed by Mayor Agnos to set the priorities for allocating the Ryan White CARE bill disaster relief money. The legislation directs
Philadelphia AIDS activist Temple Minner died November 19. A vocal force in the local treatment and services scene, Temple helped to build the Philadelphia organization We the People, and with Kiyoshi Kuromiya he co-founded the respected Critical Path AIDS Project newsletter. We spoke to Temple frequently on the phone
A pilot study of the potentially immune-enhancing substance dinitrochlorobenzene (DNCB) is being co-sponsored by Project Inform and Children s Hospital in San Francisco. DNCB was once in wide use by the HIV treatment underground, but the lack of a standard dose and application at the time produced mixed results. Becaus
A new service at Davies Hospital in San Francisco will search a database of local clinical trials and prepare a printout with description and contact information for all trials for which a patient may qualify. Anyone with AIDS or HIV may use this service. At present, only trials in the San Francisco Bay Area are listed
Most of the opportunistic infections identified with AIDS are considered treatable to some degree. But in nearly every instance, the treatments are limited by their side effects or their unreliability for obtaining a consistent response, especially against recurrent infections. Research into better drugs for opportunis
Martin Delaney, co-founder of Project Inform, has been actively involved since August in the effort to obtain rapid evaluation and, hopefully, approval of ddI and ddC . We asked him to outline what is happening in this effort. Before working full time in AIDS, Mr. Delaney taught negotiation and other business skills to
Since early this year we have been aware and concerned that many people who could benefit from the information in AIDS TREATMENT NEWS do not have access to it. In June we began developing an outreach campaign in order to reach a larger audience of HIV-impacted populations with our treatment message, and now we request
The Community Research Initiative will hold a one-evening forum on MAC (also called MAI) and tuberculosis , on Tuesday, December 4, 1990, 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Topics include azithromycin, liposome-encapsulated gentamycin, prophylaxis, results of a treatment survey, and overview of the epidemiology and treatment of t
December 1 is World AIDS Day, and the World Health Organization has chosen Women and AIDS as this year s theme. There will be actions and events all over the world to mark the day, many of them focusing on women and HIV. The World Health Organization s very conservative estimate is that there are over three million wom
There will be a conference on women and HIV in Washington, DC, on December 13-14, 1990. The conference is free, and is targeted at women with HIV, health care providers, and AIDS service providers. The goals of the conference are to: identify research needs, provide up-to-date treatment information on women with HIV an
Last May 18, in issue #103 of AIDS TREATMENT NEWS, we published an article on the experimental treatment glycyrrhizin. Since then, we received a communication from Paul Bergner, the editor of Medical Herbalism, correcting two points made in that report. The first error in our article regards the exact chemistry of glyc
On November 14 The New York Times published a front-page story alleging that news of a consensus panel s recommendation for using steroids in treating certain cases of pneumocystis had been delayed for five months, in part because researchers feared that announcing the information earlier would jeopardize publication o
A severe opportunistic viral infection of the brain called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) has long been considered by the medical establishment to be untreatable. But over a year ago Los Angeles activists Lisa and Peter Brosnan published a compilation of literature discussing experimental treatments f
Three anecdotal case reports have recently come to our attention about a potentially effective treatment for acyclovir- resistant herpes. The treatment, an ophthalmic (eye) solution called trifluridine (also called Viroptic, or trifluorothymidine), is available by prescription. It is currently used to treat patients wi
Preliminary results from a dose-finding trial of combination treatment with ddC and AZT suggest that the two drugs together, in small or moderate doses, may work better than standard treatment with AZT alone. These results must be interpreted carefully, howeve
AIDS TREATMENT NEWS is investigating options for international computer communication about AIDS, by medical scientists and others (see Proposal: Computerized International Publication of AIDS Research Results, issue #102, May 4, 1990). One motive for this project had been to substitute for the 1992 Eighth Internationa
On October 27 the U. S. Congress passed and sent to the President an immigration bill including a provision which allows the Department of Health and Human Services to decide whether HIV-positive visitors can enter the United States . President Bush has said that he will sign the bill. The travel restrictions had c
An observational study of 167 patients using low-dose oral alpha interferon (the active ingredient in the Kemron treatment from Kenya ) did not find any beneficial or harmful effect from the treatment. This study was conducted between June and October of 1990 by doctors Paul J. Rothman, D. O., and Robert Jenkins, M. D.
On October 25 the drug Imuthiol (also known as DTC, or diethyldithiocarbamate, or dithiocarb) was officially approved for marketing in New Zealand -- the first country to grant marketing approval. The drug is indicated for persons over 18, who either have a T-helper count under 200, or who have symptomatic HIV infectio
On October 10 the U. S. National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases published a note to physicians, Important Information on the Clinical Benefit of Systemic Corticosteroids As Adjunctive Therapy for Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia in AIDS. Several studies have found that early use of these steroids could cut
Introduction In spite of recent improvements in treatment, pneumocystis pneumonia remains the most frequent cause of death in people with HIV infection. In addition, all currently available treatments have potentially serious toxicities associated with them. Therefore, the best approach to dealing with pneumocystis is
Good Intentions -- subtitled How Big Business and the Medical Establishment are Corrupting the Fight Against AIDS, a sure-to-be-controversial book by Bruce Nussbaum, a senior writer at Business Week, appeared in bookstores this month. It is published by Atlantic Monthly Press. Good Intentions is based on over 100 inter
Primaquine, a drug which is vitally important for a few people with AIDS, has been unavailable at pharmacies in the United States for about three months, and could remain unavailable for months longer. Affected patients and their physicians must be informed that it is possible to get the drug. Primaquine is usually
On September 10 Hoffmann-La Roche announced that it planned to make ddC available through a compassionate access program for persons with AIDS or related conditions who could not effectively use other treatments. A number of patients are already on the program.
A study published October 11, 1990, in The New England Journal of Medicine compared three different doses of AZT (also called zidovudine, or Retrovir) and found all three equally effective, according to several different measures.(1) The doses were 300, 600, or 1500 mg per day; as expected, the low doses had less toxic
For some time, laboratory studies of two relatively new drugs related to the antibiotic erythromycin suggest they might be very useful for treating a number of major and minor infections, including toxoplasmosis, MAI (also known as MAC ), and cryptosporidiosis. A few reports of clinical experience which seem to support
On September 13, about a third of the 200 members of ACT UP/San Francisco left the group and formed a new organization, ACT UP/Golden Gate. The split was covered remarkably well in the three major San Francisco gay newspapers (the Bay Area Reporter, the Bay Times, and the San Francisco Sentinel), in the general-interes
December 1 will mark the third annual World AIDS Day, sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO). The focus this year is on women and AIDS. In August, WHO estimated that of the eight to ten million people with HIV infection around the world, at least two million are women. Although women have played a major role
On August 16, Martin Delaney of Project Inform wrote to physicians at the Antiviral Drugs Division of the U. S. Food and Drug Administration, to let the Agency know that in the coming months, many activists would be asking that two experimental AIDS treatments, ddI and ddC , be approved so
Introduction Many patients find themselves dissatisfied with one or more aspects of their relationships with their health care providers. For some, the problem is the amount of time and attention they receive during office appointments or in-patient hospital visits; for other, philosophical differences in treatment app
Some quiet developments may be breaking the miasma of research to find an effective treatment for Cryptosporidium parvum infection, which causes severe diarrhea. For background reports on various antibiotics and other approaches, see AIDS TREATMENT NEWS #95 and #107. Following is additional information on some of the d
A series of laboratory tests at the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto, California found that ascorbate (vitamin C) reduced the growth of HIV in cultured human lymphocytes, in concentrations not harmful to the cells. The experimental study, conducted by Steve Harakeh, Ph.D., and Raxit J. Jariw
Astra Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturers of the anti-viral drug foscarnet (Foscavir), has instituted an expanded access program for specified patients with acyclovir resistant herpes and CMV infections including retinitis, colitis, hepatitis, encephalitis, and pneumonia. Physicians of patients who meet the criteria de
Options for treating lymphoma have not increased much in number but have, like other AIDS-related therapies, grown in refinement. For background information on lymphoma, see AIDS TREATMENT NEWS #93, December 15, 1989. Radiation and Chemotherapy Radiation was one standard approach to lymphoma discussed at the Sixth Inte
Non-Hodgkin s lymphoma , a cancer of certain blood cells, has been associated with AIDS since early in the epidemic; published reports go back to 1982, and one article reported 90 cases, in 1984[1]. More recently physicians have seen a major increase in the number of patients with AIDS and lymphoma (which has also incr
Two years ago, then Vice-President George Bush asked the President s Cancer Panel to study the Federal role in new-drug development and approval of treatments for cancer and AIDS, and to suggest changes to speed research, improve patient access to new therapies, and facilitate their transfer to standard medical practic
Last year AIDS treatment activists joined with government and academic statisticians in an ongoing working group for improving the design of clinical trials. This Statistical Working Group, operating within the AIDS Clinical Trials Group of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is developing a
A new report on the longest-running study of human use of ddI, at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, shows a very good survival rate in patients using doses of the drug which were well tolerated. A total of 58 patients were involved in the study, 22 with AIDS and 36 with related conditions; their median T-helper count
Infection with Mycobacterium avium intracellulare (MAI), also known as M. avium complex ( MAC ), is a frequent AIDS-defining diagnosis, and often these infections are disseminated throughout the body. Several interesting developments have recently been set in motion for improving the treatment of MAI. They are surveyed
Since early in the AIDS epidemic, some research has suggested that ordinary aspirin (or certain aspirin substitutes) might have a role in treating the disease, other than the relief of minor symptoms. Aspirin could not be the whole answer, of course. But laboratory studies have suggested that reducing certain inflammat
On July 20 researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School, and at the Harvard University Department of Chemistry, reported the development of a new class of anti-HIV chemicals, in an article in Science magazine (Prevention of HIV-1 Infection and Preservation of CD4 Function by the Binding of
CMV ( cytomegalovirus ) is responsible for several serious opportunistic infections in people with AIDS. It most commonly infects the retina of the eye (CMV retinitis), resulting in blindness if untreated. CMV can also cause colitis and pneumonia and can infect other organs, including the spleen.
The Conference news on Toxoplasma gondii infections largely consisted of refinements in diagnosis and a growing acknowledgement of the value of prophylaxis for people at risk for toxoplasmosis. Although the Conference published abstracts of more than twenty studies of this infection, no truly new therapies available fo
A bill to expand war on drugs property seizure to cases involving unapproved medical treatments has passed the California State Senate, and could soon become law. The last chance for public input may be early next week. While this law would only affect California, it has national importance because other state legislat
New York s Community Research Initiative (CRI), one of the pioneers of community-based AIDS research, is developing a trial to see whether the antibiotic doxycycline can help certain patients with an ARC diagnosis -- and whether a blood test for mycoplasma infection can predict who might benefit. This trial will test t
Several antibiotics and antidiarrheals were among the treatments discussed at the International AIDS Conference last month for use against AIDS-related infections of Cryptosporidium parvum. Rosemary Soave, M. D., has been investigating new therapies for cryptosporidiosis at Cornell University. She presented results of
Most of the clinically useful information from the Sixth International Conference on AIDS concerned either fine-tuning of the use of drugs that are already approved and in standard use (e.g., AZT , alpha-interferon, and various prophylaxes for pneumocystis), or preliminary suggestions on how to use drugs that are not y
Dozens of different potential antivirals were mentioned in presentations at the Sixth International Conference on AIDS. But usually the results were too sketchy to be useful, or otherwise relevant to only a handful of specialists. If we were asked to name one sleeper at the Conference -- one project which we believe ma
Our previous issue included an overview of the most important practical treatment information from the Sixth International Conference on AIDS, from a public talk by Marcus Conant, M. D. This issue continues our Conference coverage: * New discoveries of potential drugs outside of the dominant preconceptions may offer th
Marcus Conant, M. D., is in private practice in San Francisco, where he has one of the largest HIV practices in the United States . He has treated AIDS since it was first discovered, and has conducted clinical trials of experimental treatments and published over 30 papers on AIDS and HIV since 1983. Immediately after t
The headline story from the Sixth International Conference on AIDS is that (as expected) no blockbuster advances were announced. But behind the headline, this Conference produced much useful information -- more than any previous meeting. Few reporters, scientists, or physicians can look through all the information pres
Recently a number of AIDS treatment stories have appeared in the press. Most of this news is good, although sometimes there is less to it than meets the eye. Yet critical problems remain. This article shows how community organizations can help to overcome the perennial problem of the lack of development of major new dr
In December 1989 the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rejected proposed guidelines intended to control conflict of interest in research supported by the U. S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). These guidelines would have greatly restricted Federally-supported biomedical researchers from having con
Anecdotal reports and at least one published article point to continued optimism around the use of trichosanthin, or compound Q, against HIV. AIDS TREATMENT NEWS has heard from at least three people who have experienced significant improvement in blood values and HIV-related symptoms since trying compound Q. All three
Over 45 major AIDS and health organizations (see list below) have endorsed a consensus statement, HIV/AIDS Biomedical Research Priorities: Recommendations to the National Institutes of Health. Some of the highlights: * Three areas of HIV research -- prevention, treatment, and health care must all be strengthened. *
Opportunistic infections of the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii are usually controlled by the standard therapies, pyrimethamine with sulfadiazine, or pyrimethamine with clindamycin for people who are allergic to sulfa drugs. (The toxicity of pyrimethamine can be countered with leucovorin). These drugs kill the mature paras
The long-awaited proposal for a formal parallel track for early access to certain experimental drugs in phase II clinical trials, for people not eligible for those trials, has been published in the Federal Register (May 21, pages 20856-20860). The public- comment period ends July 20, and it is important to write to the
On June 25 Hoffmann-LaRoche will begin an expanded access program to provide ddC (proprietary name HIVID) to patients who have failed or been intolerant to AZT and are intolerant to ddI. This program will proceed in parallel with the formal clinical trials of t
In the last week of May, CNN television and other media reported a single case of a patient with AIDS and Kaposi s sarcoma (KS), who seemed to be much improved after hyperthermia, a treatment which consists of artificially raising the body temperature. Hyperthermia was previously used for treating certain infections, s
** Senate Votes Overwhelmingly for AIDS Care On May 15 the U. S. Senate voted 95 to 3 to override objections by Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, and vote on a bill to provide emergency disaster relief to cities and states with many AIDS cases. The next day, the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 95 t
Don Gorman s name has not appeared in AIDS TREATMENT NEWS, but without him there would have been no newsletter. Over five years ago John James approached the newly formed Mobilization Against AIDS, and asked how he could help by researching and writing articles. Mobilization suggested calling the Documentation of AIDS
Hemophilia /HIV activist Skip Harris died on May 14. His death is a serious loss to both the AIDS and hemophilia communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. AIDS TREATMENT NEWS had interviewed Mr. Harris and published his remarks in our last issue, in an article addressing the challenges faced by people with both hemo
ACT UP groups and others have called for a boycott of Marlboro cigarettes, because Philip Morris is a major corporate contributor to the election campaigns of Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, who has consistently sabotaged U. S. AIDS policy and impeded Federal efforts against the epidemic. The boycott
An extract from the root of Glycyrrhiza, the licorice plant, has been studied for several years by Japanese researchers for anti-viral and immunomodulatory activity against HIV, and for therapeutic effects on liver disease. The extracted substance, glycyrrhizin sulfate, has been observed in laboratory tests to inhibit
Two separate reports of small trials of ddI appeared in the May 10 New England Journal of Medicine. These papers are unrelated to the current trials of ddI, and to the expanded access program under which several thousand people have been treated with the drug. Instead these papers describe earlier phase I studies: one
Before the current policies for screening HIV in blood supplies were instituted, many people were exposed to the virus through intravenous transfusions of blood or blood products. People with hemophilia routinely need certain blood-clotting components, and so for several years, primarily 1978 through 1985, many were in
Despite the annual international conferences on AIDS, serious obstacles impede the rapid dissemination of research information. For example, the abstracts published at each Conference are due in January but not available to the public until five months later. Each Conference casts a shadow ahead during this five-month
The Sixth International Conference on AIDS, the largest scientific meeting on AIDS in 1990, will take place June 20-24 in San Francisco, at the Moscone Convention Center and at the Marriott Hotel one block away. A number of related events -- some officially connected to the International Conference and some not -- are
A national demonstration for more effective AIDS research will take place May 21 at the headquarters of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), located in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, DC. NIH oversees most of the federal government s research into AIDS treatments through its AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG).
A study published in Science (April 20) showed that in a laboratory test, rat brain cells were injured by very small amounts of gp120, a protein made by the AIDS virus. The cells could be protected by small concentrations (100 nM) of nimodipine, a prescription drug used to reduce neurological damage in certain cases of
Startling claims, press reports, and rumors have turned a proposed AIDS treatment into the latest miracle cure. Meanwhile, almost all AIDS experts who have looked into this matter are deeply skeptical, and often distressed, at how it has been handled. This article tells what is happening, and outlines some unanswered q
A statement by Robert Gallo, M. D., of the U. S. National Cancer Institute, suggested that a much-improved potential treatment for KS may have been discovered (see AIDS TREATMENT NEWS #99, March 16, 1990, page 3). But neither Gallo nor anyone else is saying more. We do not know what the drug is, nor what tests have bee
Results of the major U. S. trial of AZT for early intervention in asymptomatic HIV-positive patients (ACTG 019) were published April 5 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The major findings were already known, but physicians have needed more details to guide them in deciding when to recommend AZT.
A proposed Massachusetts law (bill number S. 464), initiated by Burroughs-Wellcome Co., would make it difficult for the public to obtain protocols for clinical trials, including the informed-consent statements which volunteers entering trials are given to sign. While this particular law would only affect Massachusetts,
On February 14, ACT UP/New York sent AIDS organizations an Open Letter to the AIDS Community: Stop the Insurance Industry s Blacklist of Unapproved AIDS Treatments, together with a cover letter and five-page background paper by its Alternative and Holistic Treatment Subcommittee. Later, Grace Powers
Last year AIDS TREATMENT NEWS (issues #79 & #88) reported the efforts of two activists in Los Angeles to compile a list of possible treatments for a serious AIDS-related viral infection called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). Lisa Muller and Peter Brosnan have sent this list, with periodic updates,
In the course of pursuing information which could be of use to our readers, AIDS TREATMENT NEWS frequently calls on the experience and expertise of doctors who are familiar with the latest consensus of care for HIV and related diagnoses. For nearly ten years, AIDS-knowledgeable physicians have been facing problems neve
** Median AIDS Incubation Period Now Eleven Years The San Francisco Department of Public Health, which main- tains the oldest and probably the most accurate data on AIDS epidemiology, has published a study of HIV positive gay and bisexual men showing that the median incubation period from seroconversion to AIDS is elev
Last month, AIDS TREATMENT NEWS examined the arguments now being heard to reduce Federal AIDS research ( New Threats to AIDS Research Funding, issue #97, February 16). This article briefly describes some options by which you can make your voice heard in Congress. There is a widespread myth that an AIDS lobby is already
In less than ten years the AIDS epidemic has highlighted many failings of health care and social programs in the U. S. These include gaps in education and earnings which guarantee lives of poverty and poor health for disproportionate numbers of Blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans; the inconsistent and often no
Several different news reports on Kaposi s sarcoma (KS) may have much long-term importance. Unfortunately they have little immediate relevance to treatment -- and they have caused some confusion. New Treatment in Japan ? On February 22 Robert Gallo, M. D., of the U. S. National Cancer Institute, presented an overview o
On March 8 the U. S. Food and Drug Administration approved a re-treatment study of compound Q (also called GLQ223, or trichosanthin), to be administered by the Project Inform Community Research Alliance and conducted by physicians in four cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. This trial is for patien
Recently there has been much publicity about the risks of using the experimental AIDS treatment ddI. Some of the reporting has been misleading and unnecessarily frightening. But some risks are real, and experts recommend simple precautions that anyone using ddI should begin immediately. Background ddI is an antiviral i
RETICULOSE, OXIDATION THERAPIES: PROJECT INFORM PUBLISHES INFORMATION SHEETS In February Project Inform published two separate information sheets about proposed AIDS treatments, one on Reticulose, the other on oxidation therapies (such as ozone and hydrogen peroxide). Both concluded that the treatments are not useful.
For those familiar with clinical trials and drug development, the last few months have been particularly difficult. Aside from ddI, where the research and distribution programs have essentially worked and much of the news at this time is good, research on new treatments appears to have greatly slowed. We have been unab
On March 2 the U. S. Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) formally approved a change in the labeling of AZT , expanding the indications for use of the drug to include all adults with HIV and a T-helper count of 500 or less. For asymptomatic individuals, the dose recommended was 500 mg per day (100 mg every fo
Marcus Conant, M. D., a dermatologist and a leading AIDS expert in San Francisco, alerted patients at his February monthly public meeting that he has seen a major increase in scabies in the last few months, with 20 cases since Christmas. Scabies is caused by a mite, a small spider which burrows into the skin. It is ver
* San Francisco study shows longer life expectancy for people with AIDS. A study by epidemiologist Dr. George Lemp and others at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, pub- lished January 19, 1990 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that by 1987, median survival for all patients diagnosed
A wide range of mental status changes has been attributed directly or indirectly to HIV. Several recent studies have shown that asymptomatic people with HIV do not have deficits in cognitive or physical skills when compared to control groups without HIV. Some instances of disorientation, short-term memory loss, diminis
A growing chorus of voices in Washington and in the media is saying that AIDS has unfairly been given special treatment, that the epidemic is not as serious as had been believed, and that money should be taken away from AIDS research and distributed to other diseases or other purposes. AIDS TREATMENT NEWS focuses mainl
Researchers in Belgium and the U. S. have developed a new antiviral which appears to act more selectively against HIV than any other known chemical. Early results were published February 1 in Nature, which is widely considered to be the world s most prestigious scientific journal. In an important departure from res
AIDS TREATMENT NEWS #94 carried of brief report on the latest developments in the treatment of herpes and CMV infections. Recently we spoke with knowledgeable people who had addi- tional information. Our article had suggested that ganciclovir, approved last year by the FDA , may be at l
Background Hypericin is an antiviral found in St. John s wort, a plant long used as a medicinal herb. AIDS researchers at New York University have studied hypericin s activity against HIV, and also against other retroviruses in animals (Lavie and others, 1989; Meruelo and others, 1988). Hypericin works in an entirely d
On January 30, an advisory committee of the FDA unanimously recommended that AZT be officially approved for treating persons with T-helper counts of 500 or less, even if they have few or no symptoms. Approval is not yet official, but the agency almost always follows such recommendations of its advisory com
On January 29, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) approved fluconazole (brand name Diflucan), a major broad- spectrum antifungal especially important for treating cryptococcal meningitis. Fluconazole, which has long been approved in Eng- land, is about equally effective as amphotericin B, but has much less
During the last several months there has been a strong movement among physicians to prescribe lower doses of AZT for most patients -- not the 1200 mg per day which has been officially recommended. While there is still difference of opinion in the medical community, the standard of care seems to be moving toward 500 mg
Infections of the intestinal parasite Cryptosporidium can be extremely debilitating, causing abdominal cramping, watery stools, weight loss and fatigue. A recent report from Columbia University (Roberts, 1989) describes Cryptosporidium in patients who did not have any symptoms, suggesting that some people might be carr
Researchers at the U. S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington, D. C., and the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health, have found compelling evidence that a previously unrecognized opportunistic infection -- one potentially treatable with antibiotics -- may be a ma
Nathaniel Pier, M. D., one of the strongest advocates for faster development of AIDS treatments, died of AIDS complications on December 27, 1989. We first spoke with Dr. Pier in 1986, while researching lentinan. He had long urged trials for this drug, an immune modulator derived from the shiitake mushroom and widely us
Next week Congresswoman Barbara Boxer, Chair of the Human Resources Task Force of the House Budget Committee, will hold public hearings in San Francisco and Los Angeles on the Federal fiscal 1990 AIDS budget. The hearings will focus on impact aid/disaster relief to cities and regions with high incidence of AIDS, and on
The story of treatments for cytomegalovirus ( CMV ) infection contains more than its share of chapters on intrigue and neglect. When CMV was first recognized as an AIDS opportunistic infection, no drug was yet available to treat it effectively. Slowly the AIDS community became aware of ganciclovir (see DHPG, AIDS TREAT
On December 14, 1989, The New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial and two articles on measuring the amount of HIV in blood. Since then we have heard that many AIDS experts consider this work among the most important of the year. At first it was not clear to us why a new blood test should be so important,
A year ago, AIDS TREATMENT NEWS published a list of treatments to watch in 1989 (see Last Year s Predictions, below). This year we are less confident about which treatments may be important -- although there are some clear candidates, including ddI, ddC , AzdU, compound Q, and hypericin, among the antivira
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.