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AIDS Treatment News
Contents:
Poppers: Large Cancer Increase and Immune Suppression in
Animal Tests
New Frontier of AIDS Activism: International Trade Rules and
Global Access to Medicines. Interview with Eric Sawyer,
HIV/AIDS Human Rights Project
Clinton/Gore Top Staffs: Pharmaceutical Background
Federal Guidelines for the Treatment of HIV: Free Telephone
Conference May 10
Online Chat with Expert Physician, April 28
T-Cell Activation Predictive of Poor Survival in Advanced
Disease
Fish Oil Reduced Heart Disease in Controlled Trial
San Francisco General Outpatient Pharmacy Problems
Poppers: Large Cancer Increase and Immune Suppression
in Animal Tests
By John S. James
A new study found that mice injected with cancer cells were
more than three times as likely to develop tumors if they
inhaled isobutyl nitrite--"poppers"--and that when tumors did
develop, they grew four times as rapidly in the inhalant-
treated animals.(1) 75% of the mice receiving nitrite
developed the tumors in this test, vs. 21% of the control
mice (which received the same cancer cells but breathed only
air instead).
The amount of inhalant used--900 parts per
million for 45 minutes a day--was selected to approximate
social use of the drug.
Other laboratory tests found that isobutyl nitrite did not
increase growth of the tumor cells; instead it suppressed
certain immune functions, including cytotoxic T lymphocyte
(CTL) activity, and the killing of tumor cells by
macrophages--which was reduced 86% by 5 days exposure to the
inhalation.
Previously published work by the same team(2)
found that immunity in the mice recovered within 14 days of
stopping the inhalant. (The current paper suggested that
permanent damage might still be done if immune suppression
allowed cancer, KS, or HIV itself, to become established.)
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This is the first study showing directly that nitrite
inhalant can promote tumor growth. Previously,
epidemiological studies had found that use of poppers is
associated with KS, and also is an independent risk factor
for infection with HIV (suggesting that poppers may increase
the risk that exposure to HIV will lead to infection).
KS is believed to be caused by a different virus, HHV-8, that
presents little risk unless the immune system is suppressed
by other factors. (The tumor cells used in this research were
not KS, but they were a well-known cell line used in animal
tests to measure immune suppression.)
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AIDS Treatment News
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Comment
Malignancies are a major and increasing problem in AIDS, and
it will be important to find out if use of poppers is
contributing to their higher incidence.
One way to research
this question would be to ask whether or not patients with
lymphoma or other malignancies are more likely than others to
have used these drugs.
References
1. Soderberg LSF. Increased tumor growth in mice exposed to
inhaled isobutyl nitrite. TOXICOLOGY LETTERS, 1999; volume
104, pages 35-41.
New Frontier of AIDS Activism: International Trade
Rules and Global Access to Medicines
Interview with Eric Sawyer, HIV/AIDS Human Rights Project
By John S. James
Eric Sawyer is a co-founder of ACT UP/New York, and director
of the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Project, a new 501(c)(3)
organization. He was one of five U.S. AIDS activists at the
March 25-27 meeting in Geneva, Switzerland on compulsory
licensing of essential medical technologies--the first time
U.S.
AIDS activists have attended an international meeting on
trade and intellectual-property policies which affect access
to lifesaving drugs.
About 90% of people with HIV live in developing countries and
have no access to modern medicines even when necessary to
save their lives--in part because new drugs are usually
patented for 20 years and priced for the developed world.
When generic copies are available, they often sell for a
small fraction of the price; some essential medicines could
be sold at a profit for a tenth of their current prices, and
be available to millions of people now denied them.
The patent holders are multinational pharmaceutical companies,
who have little interest anyway in marketing their drugs in
poor countries--but the industry is intensely interested in
preventing any precedents which might threaten major markets
in the U.S., Europe, or elsewhere.
Until recently the U.S. government has heard only from
industry on this issue, and therefore it has sided completely
with the large pharmaceutical companies, and used its
economic powers and diplomatic influence to coerce countries
around the world to prohibit even the limited relief allowed
by international treaties--sacrificing the health and lives
of their citizens for the interests of U.S. and multinational
companies.
As a result, the great majority of the world's
people have been written off; if they need a modern drug to
save their life, they are out of luck.
In the last few weeks there has been explosive growth of
efforts to bring this issue to the attention of opinion
leaders and the public, so that U.S. and other officials will
at least be required to weigh opposing views, and modify the
grossly unbalanced policies which today sacrifice essential
health needs of millions of people for the most nebulous,
symbolic, or ideological wishes of the world's richest
companies.
Since persons denied medicines do not contribute any money
toward corporate profits or research funding--as no sale
occurs--it might be possible to develop trade policies and
rules which would allow those persons to buy the drugs they
need at prices they or their governments could pay, with no
loss at all to the patent holders, or even a modest gain
through additional royalties.
Creativity in designing systems which could work for everyone may be more important than
taking away current profits.
What is intolerable today is
that up to 90% of the people who need modern medicines for
HIV, drug-resistant tuberculosis, and other conditions are
denied them--partly through poverty, which will be hard to
remedy, but also partly through unconscionable trade rules,
which sacrifice many of the world's people to maintain high
prices for the minority who live in countries rich enough to
constitute a viable market.
A growing international consensus holds that the current
situation is intolerable--that in the future, critical health
consequences must be on the table when trade rules and
intellectual-property policies would deny access to essential
medical care.
On March 25-27, in Geneva, Switzerland, about 130 physicians,
government officials, industry executives, academic experts,
and representatives from dozens of non-governmental health
organizations met to discuss these issues.
Although this
meeting has already been reported accurately (in the
Financial Times of London, Reuters news wire, The Lancet, and
the Web site of the Journal of the American Medical
Association among others), AIDS Treatment News interviewed
AIDS activist Eric Sawyer for an in-depth look at what is
happening now, and how people can help. The interview took
place on April 10, 1999.
Interview with Eric Sawyer, HIV/AIDS Human Rights Project
AIDS Treatment News: How was the Geneva meeting important?
Eric Sawyer: It was highly educational--an opportunity for
everyone involved to learn the perspectives of other
stakeholders on this issue, what is happening in various
countries, and what the different groups are doing.
There were representatives from non governmental AIDS and
health groups working on a national level in African
countries, Thailand, India, Pakistan and elsewhere; trade
representatives from the U.S., South Africa, and Thailand;
pharmaceutical industry trade associations, and companies
including Glaxo Wellcome, Merck, and Hoescht-Roussel; and
generic drug companies from both developed and developing
countries [the generic companies have very different
interests from the larger and richer companies which sell
patented drugs, because they want as much freedom as possible
to manufacture and sell low-cost products]. There were also
presentations by leading academic scholars in areas including
treatment access and patent law.
Some of the key concepts are compulsory licensing (a
government's ability to issue a license to produce a patented
product for an important public purpose, without the
permission of the patent holder, under royalty and other
terms set by the government), and parallel importing
(allowing the importation of a patented drug without the
permission of the patent holder--often the identical drug
sold more cheaply elsewhere by the same patent holder--
allowing the importing country to get the best price).
Compulsory licensing is not the only way a patented drug can
be legally produced off-patent. For example, India has not
had pharmaceutical patents in the past, but now those laws
have to be implemented during a 10-year period under the
terms of the TRIPS agreement (Trade Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights), part of the GATT
international-trade treaty.
Some drugs including AZT were
manufactured in India before there were any applicable patent
laws, and are manufactured there today before India has to
comply with GATT/TRIPS.
ATN: What was the most important outcome of the meeting?
S awyer: An amazing coalition of like-minded individuals
formed there; many people working on patent and trade issues
joined in a strong coalition with healthcare and AIDS
activists in building a strategic plan to increase access to
essential medicines, especially in the developing world.
Plans were made for communication mechanisms--fax, mail, and
telephone lists, and probably more importantly a number of
email list servers--and an overall advocacy strategy to take
us through the next couple of years. This strategy includes
organizing around certain upcoming events (see "Action
Calendar," below).
Hopefully the combined efforts of doctors, organizers,
generic drug manufacturers who want to protect their ability
to produce essential products, and especially government
representatives from the developing world, who want to
maintain their ability to issue compulsory licenses and do
parallel importing, will allow us to protect these provisions
of global trade treaties and national laws--one of several
necessary components for increased access to medicines in the
developing world.
ATN: Did pharmaceutical industry representatives say they
would try to change the international treaties, to take away
the possibility of compulsory licensing and parallel
importing of pharmaceuticals?
Sawyer: Yes, they did.
Shut Up or Die
ATN: What was most controversial at the meeting?
Sawyer: Some industry representatives, after saying that the
corporations that hold the patents "paid for" most of the
research and development on new drugs for AIDS, tuberculosis,
and many other infections diseases, basically threatened that
aggressive pursuit of these legal options by health advocates
threatened future research and development, especially in
areas from which activist pressure was coming.
They very pointedly stated that if we in the AIDS community
aggressively pursued the protection and defense of compulsory
licensing and parallel importing of AIDS drugs, that might
directly result in a withdrawal of research and development
of treatments for AIDS.
Later, I said that as someone living with symptoms of HIV
since 1981, I was thankful to the drug industry for still
being alive, and that I owed my long-term survival to having
access to the latest drugs as soon as they became available.
But I was angry with the pharmaceutical industry for not
making those drugs available to people in the developing
world, because I had to watch my friends who were just as
deserving to live die premature deaths, because price gouging
by the industry put these drugs out of reach for the majority
of people living with AIDS, especially in the developing
world--as well as refusal by the drug companies to market
their drugs in the developing world.
An industry representative said I should indeed by thankful to the drug
industry for saving my life, and that I should realize that
if it wasn't for its ability to have the levels of profits I
was criticizing, research and development could not happen--
and that if I continued with this tactic, very likely
research and development on new drugs would dry up--meaning
shut up, or we're not going to develop new drugs and we'll
let you die. Many in the audience were outraged by his
audacity.
U.S. Policy, South Africa, and Vice President Gore
Sawyer: There was also controversy around the presentation of
Lois Boland of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, who said
that the U.S. opposed compulsory licensing and parallel
importing, and did not feel these were viable provisions of
international trade law.
Academic experts, and trade
representatives from developing countries, asked if it wasn't
hypocritical of the U.S. government to say this is not an
option, when the U.S. itself had issued over 100 compulsory
licenses in recent years.
In several of these cases involving
computer technology, the compulsory license provided no
royalty at all to the patent holder--a more drastic remedy
than what healthcare advocates are seeking for essential
medications.
Just last week, after the Geneva meeting, we obtained a U.S.
State Department document which shows how aggressively the
pharmaceutical industry has infiltrated the highest levels of
the U.S. government ("U.S. Government Efforts to Negotiate
the Repeal, Termination or Withdrawal of Article 15(c) of the
South African Medicines and Related Substances Act of 1965,"
February 5, 1999).
This 10-page document, written for three
Congressional committees, provides a date-by-date, meeting-
by-meeting history of pressure by the U.S. government on the
South African government, to get South Africa to repeal a
1997 amendment which allowed for the parallel importing and
compulsory licensing of essential medicines in South Africa.
It says the State Department understands the desire to make
essential medicines available, but then says the U.S.
government will defend the profits and patents of its
multinational pharmaceutical companies. It's there in detail,
including trade sanctions imposed, and ongoing involvement of
Vice President Gore, who made pharmaceutical patents in
particular a central issue in his discussions with South
African Deputy President Mbeki during their meeting in
Washington in August, 1998.
Ralph Nader and James Love of the
Consumer Project on Technology, in an April 8, 1999 letter to
Gore, described the document as "chapter and verse of a two
year campaign to use the weight of U.S. power, short of
military warfare, on South Africa to prevent that country
from implementing policies to obtain cheaper sources of
essential medicines"--at a time when "public health officials
estimate that one in five pregnant women in South Africa are
HIV positive, and that more than 45% of the South African
military personnel are infected."
Some of the top officials on Clinton's staff and on Gore's
staff came out of the pharmaceutical industry, either as
executives of the companies, or lobbyists in law firms that
work for them (see "Clinton/Gore Top Staffs: Pharmaceutical
Background," below).
And we learned in Geneva that this
industry is also putting people into key positions in
international organizations as well, where they continue to
represent the interests of the industry, not for the larger
public interests they were ostensibly hired to serve.
ATN: What about the issue of pharmaceutical companies not
wanting to market drugs in the developing world anyway?
Sawyer: Data from both the pharmaceutical industry and
independent academic experts agreed that the developing world
accounted for a very small part of the global market in
pharmaceuticals, 10% or less.
Industry representatives
basically said that making drugs available in the developing
world through generic mechanisms, or a lower-cost segmented
market, would not impact industry profits to any great
extent. But they were concerned that if lower-cost equivalent
drugs were introduced, that would help erode the huge markets
in the developed world, hundreds of billions of dollars per
year.
Their real concern is that if governments like the
U.S., which actually pays for much of the research and
development of these drugs anyway, realized how cheaply they
can be manufactured and sold, and still at a profit,
governments would no longer be willing to pay current prices,
and would force price reductions, eroding the profitability
of the industry. So this dispute is really about industry
continuing the price gouging it does in developed countries.
ATN: What is the role of the World Trade Organization (WTO)?
Sawyer: The WTO representative gave an honest account of what
its authority is, and backed up all the presentations by
trade experts and academics about how and why compulsory
licensing and parallel importing are legal.
But he explained
that the WTO was set up to adjudicate disputes, and the
secretariat has little real power; ultimately it must rely on
the good will of powerful states.
[For example, the WTO acknowledges that Article 31 of TRIPS
permits compulsory licensing, and it provides information
about Article 31 to countries. But bilateral pressure from
the U.S. and domestic pressure from industry cause problems
for countries. That is why South Africa and Thailand have not
yet issued a compulsory license.]
ATN: What can people do now?
Sawyer: Contact your Congressional Representative and
Senators and let them know you are concerned about this
issue.
Write to President Clinton, and especially to Vice
President Gore, and to Health and Human Services Secretary
Donna Shalala, and to U.S. Trade Representative Charlene
Barshefsky, and let them know you think it is outrageous for
the U.S. government to pressure India, Thailand, South
Africa, and other governments at the behest of the
pharmaceutical industry, to try to prevent them from
exercising their right to manufacture or import patented
essential medicines for the protection of the public health
of their people.
Our government should not abuse its power to
protect the profits of industry above the human rights of
life and health of people in the developing world.
Inform yourself about this issue, and about the African trade
bills now before Congress, and why activists are supporting
the HOPE for Africa Act, and opposing the African Growth and
Opportunity Act.
Make it clear that the U.S. government must use its position
as the world economic superpower to protect human rights and
advance access to essential medicines.
Because in the global
village we have today, the public health of sub-Saharan
Africa, India, Thailand, and elsewhere is the public health
of the United States. As there is now one global economy,
there is also one global public health. We need to start
acting accordingly.
Action Calendar
Here are some of the events which will be a focus for
organizing around this issue:
The international AIDS Candlelight Vigil, May 16 in
hundreds of cities around the world, is organized this year
by the Global Health Council (www.globalhealthcouncil.org)
and Mobilization Against AIDS (www.hooked.net/~candle).
This year the event will
highlight access to treatment; see the Mobilization Against
AIDS site for more information, including regional
coordinators;
The World Health Assembly, starting mid May, in Geneva; at
this meeting the World Health Organization will propose its
Revised Drug Strategy, to give WHO a clear mandate to address
the public healthy implications of trade agreements, as well
as quality assurance and other access issues;
Actions to encourage governments to support the Revised
Drugs Strategy;
Ongoing advocacy around the meeting of the international
trade ministers, November 26 - December 2, in Seattle,
Washington;
World AIDS Day, December 1, which happens to occur during
the Seattle meeting of the trade ministers.
And the Health GAP Coalition will continue activism on
these issues through the World AIDS Conference in Durban,
South Africa, July 9-14, 2000.
For More Information
Eric Sawyer and the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Project can
be reached at esawyer@igc.org, or by fax at 212-316-0020.
For news and background on the issues discussed in this
interview, see the treatment-access forum,
www.hivnet.ch:8000/treatment-access; click on 'list of
messages'.
This electronic discussion includes many issues of
treatment access in developing countries; and starting in
late March, 1999, there are many reports, documents, and
personal messages as well on compulsory licensing and related
issues of trade policy and access to essential medical
technology. If you have email access only, you can still
participate; write to aids98.community@hivnet.ch.
* For extensive background and documents, see the Web pages
on intellectual property and health care maintained by James
Love of the Consumer Project on Technology; start with
http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/.
This well-designed site
includes sections on the recent Geneva meeting, South Africa
disputes, compulsory licensing, parallel imports, data
exclusivity, and other issues of intellectual property and
access to essential medicines.
Clinton/Gore Top Staffs: Pharmaceutical Background
By James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
John Podesta is the Chief of Staff for the President of the
United States. He and his brother once ran Podesta and
Associates together. Today it is run by his brother Anthony
Podesta, and renamed Podesta.com.
According to lobbying
disclosure reports, Podesta.com represents PhRMA (the U.S
trade association that represents the large pharmaceutical
companies), as well as individual firms like Genentech,
Genzyme (the firm that sells Ceredase, a U.S. National
Institutes of Health invention, for as much as half a million
dollars for a year of treatment), Serono Laboratories, and
other companies.
According to 1997 lobbying disclosure reports, Podesta had
ten lobbyists working on the Genentech account, six on the
Genzyme account, and 11 persons working on the PhRMA account.
To illustrate what a small town this is, consider that the VP
for government relations at Genentech who hired Podesta was
David Beier. Last April David Beier was hired by Vice
President Gore to be his chief domestic policy advisor.
[Originally published online, titled "Washington, D.C. As a
Small Town: podesta.com."]
Federal Guidelines for Treatment of HIV: Free Telephone
Conference May 10
Leading experts will discuss the Federal guidelines for HIV
treatment in a nationwide telephone teleconference on May 10.
Participants can ask questions, or just listen.
The panel will be John Bartlett, M.D., of Johns Hopkins
University, Paul Volberding, M.D., of the University of
California San Francisco School of Medicine, Cornelius Baker
of the National Association of People with AIDS, and
moderator Ron Baker of HIVandHepatitis.com.
The teleconference is free, but participants must register in
advance. To register--first names only--call 800-880-5121.
The teleconference will take place Monday, May 10, at 1 p.m.
Pacific time, 4 p.m. Eastern time.
For More Information
The guidelines themselves are at
www.hivatis.org.
If you miss the teleconference, you can hear a recording
later by calling 880-207-2647, 24 hours a day. Also, a
transcript will be available at
www.HIVTreatmentLive.com within about two weeks of the
call.
If you want to email questions to the panelists in advance,
send them to HIVTxLive@aol.com.
Online Chat with Expert Physician, April 28
Joel Gallant, M.D., M.P.H., will conduct an online chat for
people living with AIDS and their friends and families on
Wednesday, April 28, 12:30-2:00 p.m. Pacific time, 3:30-5:00
p.m. Eastern time. To participate, go to
http://www.hopkins-aids.edu/chat at that time.
Dr. Gallant runs two expert question-and-answer forums on the
Johns Hopkins AIDS site,
http://www.hopkins-aids.edu, which handles hundreds of
questions a month. The chat will allow patients to ask
questions that they have not or may not want to discuss with
their physicians.
T-Cell Activation Predictive of Poor Survival in
Advanced Disease
A new research paper suggests that abnormal T-cell activation
may be more predictive of risk of death than viral load, in
patients with advanced HIV disease (CD4 cell count under
50)(1); an earlier report on the same study was presented at
the Retroviruses conference over a year ago.(2) This study
analyzed stored blood samples collected between 1986 and
1994, deliberately choosing older samples so that the results
would not be confounded by the effects of modern, highly
active antiretroviral therapies.
From 684 HIV-infected men in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort
Study (MACS), 37 were selected as meeting the entry criteria
for this study.
The researchers then looked for differences
between the 11 who survived less than six months, and the 26
who survived more than 18 months. They also selected a random
sample of HIV-negative men from the same study, to use as a
separate comparison group.
Immune activation (as measured by expression of CD38 antigen)
of both CD4 and CD8 cells was strongly associated with
earlier death. Naive cells were low in both those who
survived and those who did not.
Higher viral load was
correlated with CD8 activation, but surprisingly not with CD4
activation--and after adjusting for other factors, viral load
was not associated with lower survival. Also, whether or not
the viruses used the CXCR4 receptor (meaning that they were
SI, or syncytia-inducing viruses) did not predict survival
difference in this study.
Comment
This research is important as progress toward understanding
the immune-system pathogenesis of AIDS. But it may not have
immediate clinical use, since the CD38 test for immune
activation is not readily available. And even if the test
were available, it is not clear today how doctors would use
it in making treatment decisions.
References
1. Giorgi JV, Hultin LE, McKeating JA, and others. Shorter
survival in advanced human immunodeficiency virus type 1
infection is more closely associated with T lymphocyte
activation than with plasma virus burden or virus chemokine
coreceptor usage. The Journal of Infectious Diseases 1999;
volume 179, pages 859-870.
2. 5th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic
Infections, Chicago, February 1-5, 1998 [abstract 110].
Fish Oil Reduced Heart Disease in Controlled Trial
A low dose of fish oil (comparable to eating fish twice
weekly) modestly improved the course of coronary
atherosclerosis, and appeared to be associated with fewer
coronary events, in a major European study.
Volunteers were
given either a specific fish oil concentrate, or a placebo
"with a fatty acid composition resembling that of the average
European diet"; the dose was 6 grams per day for three
months, followed by 3 grams a day for the rest of the two-
year study. 223 patients diagnosed with coronary artery
atherosclerosis participated in this study.
Hundreds of epidemiological, laboratory, and animal studies
had suggested a role for dietary omega-3 fatty acids in
reducing atherosclerosis, but there have been few controlled
studies, and their results have sometimes been inconsistent.
Much is unknown about the mechanism of action of this
potential treatment. For example, fish oil has paradoxically
been found to increase LDL cholesterol (the "bad
cholesterol), especially in patients with elevated
triglycerides.
Comment
This was not an AIDS study; as far as we know all the
volunteers were HIV-negative. We noted the article because
fish oil might (or might not) be appropriate in treating some
patients with lipid abnormalities caused by antiretrovirals
or by HIV disease. As information develops, expert panels can
prepare nutritional guidelines.
References
1. von Schacky C, Angerer P, Kothny W, Theisen K, and Mudra
H. The effect of dietary omega-3 fatty acids on coronary
atherosclerosis: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-
controlled trial. Annals of Internal Medicine April 6, 1999;
volume 130, pages 554-562.
San Francisco General Outpatient Pharmacy Problems
By Alex MacDonald
Since the closing of a satellite pharmacy at San Francisco
General Hospital, long lines and longer waits at the
Outpatient Pharmacy of San Francisco General Hospital have
alarmed staff, who fear that seriously ill patients will be
too ill or become too frustrated to persevere for the hours
it takes to pick up a medicine.
Since the consolidation of
the pharmacies, at least one patient collapsed while waiting
and had to be admitted to the emergency room, which is also
operating far beyond its design capacity.
The crowding and
delays in the outpatient lobby result from budget shuffling
in response to a projected $30 million shortfall in the
Department of Public Health's $802 million budget. Hospital
administrators hope to save $1,000,000 by consolidating the
hospital's outpatient pharmacies.
Waits of four hours are now common, nor is it unusual for
patients to leave and try again on another day. When this
writer, hoping to avoid a long wait, arrived at the
outpatient lobby shortly before the pharmacy opened on Easter
Sunday, he found that all the chairs were taken and a small
line of elderly and infirm outpatients had already formed.
Several complained that this was their second attempt, and
one woman said it was her third in as many days.
Officials are trying to inform Medi-Cal (Medicaid) patients
that they can use any pharmacy they choose. Department of
Public Health Director Mitch Katz, in his March 6th report to
the Health Commission, said that half of the Medi-Cal
patients now use neighborhood pharmacies.
In addition, officials hope to persuade people in high places
that more money is needed. To that end, they are urging staff
to document all patients who have suffered injury or required
hospitalization because of the new pharmacy policy. This
information, they hope, will convince budget officers that
the cuts cost more money than they save.
In the meantime, the hospital hopes to raise some money from
the patients themselves by requiring a "co-payment" of two
dollars for each prescription. The policy, to judge by the
Easter Sunday crowd, has frightened many patients, especially
those with little income who must take life-saving
medications.
None seemed aware that the payments can be
waived in some instances. Several feared that even at $2 per
script, they could no longer manage. On the first day that the new
policy was in effect, the pharmacy filled 1,200 prescriptions,
according to director Katz, and took in $1,117.75. On an average day,
the Pharmacy fills approximately 1,500 prescriptions.
Patients can help staff document the human and health effects
of the new policies by calling (415) 206-4600.
AIDS Treatment News
Published twice monthly
Subscription and Editorial Office:
P.O. Box 411256
San Francisco, CA 94141
800/TREAT-1-2 toll-free U.S. and Canada
415/255-0588 regular office number
Fax: 415/255-4659
Email: aidsnews@aidsnews.org
Editor and Publisher: John S. James
Associate Editor: Tadd T. Tobias
Reader Services: Tom Fontaine and Denny Smith
Operations Manager: Danalan Richard Copeland
Statement of Purpose:
AIDS TREATMENT NEWS reports on experimental and standard treatments, especially those available now. We interview physicians, scientists, other health professionals, and persons with AIDS or HIV; we also collect information from meetings and conferences, medical journals, and computer databases. Long-term survivors have usually tried many different treatments, and found combinations which work for them. AIDS Treatment News does not recommend particular therapies, but seeks to increase the options available.
ISSN # 1052-4207
Copyright 1999 by John S. James.
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