UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, March 2, 1995
7A
New AIDS treatment revealed
Natural protein helps to revive immune system
The Associated Press
BOSTON — Doctors have shown for the first time they can rebuild the immune systems of people infected with the AIDS virus, dramatically increasing the blood cells that HIV destroys.
The AIDS virus typically takes 10 years to kill a person. During this time, the virus relentlessly destroys a variety of disease-fighting white blood cells called helper T cells.
If the new treatment works as doctors hope, it could tip the balance in favor of the body, allowing it to produce these cells faster than the virus can kill them.
"This is the first time I truly in my gut feel excited" about an AIDS treatment, said H. Clifford Lane, a researcher at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who reported his findings in last
Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The new approach involves on- and-off infusions of interleukin 2, a natural protein that regulates the body's immune defenses. It had worked only in those patients who were infected with the virus but had not yet developed AIDS.
Some patients have been taking it for up to 3 1/2 years with no sign of waning effectiveness — something no other medicine has accomplished.
Other treatments, such as the drug AZT, attack the virus directly. While this may temporarily spare T cells from destruction, allowing them to rebound modestly, the drugs quickly lose their punch. White-cell levels fall again.
The new treatment carries a serious drawback — side effects that mimic a severe case of flu. Furthermore, researchers have not tested it long enough to be able to prove that it actually helps patients stay healthy longer.
"While extremely provocative, it remains to be shown that this will translate into resistance to opportunistic infections or prolongation of life," said William Paul, head of
A key to the new treatment appears to be its intermittent use. Once every two months, doctors give patients a five-day continuous dose of IL-2, which requires them to be attached to an infusion pump.
federal AIDS research.
Healthy people have between 800 and 1,200 helper T cells per cubic millimeter of blood. These levels fall during the course of an AIDS infection.
The study found that IL2 can drive T cells back up again, but only if people still have at least 400 cells per cubic millimeter to start with. Among 10 patients described in the study, six responded to the treatment with at least 50 percent increases in their helper cells. One patient's levels rose from 554 to 1.998.
In all, the doctors have treated about 100 patients, and the results look consistently good in people whose T cells had not already been depleted.
"You stimulate the cells, let them rest, and they grow." Lane said.
However, among people with very low levels of helper T cells, especially under 200, the treatment actually might be dangerous, since it
triggers an initial burst of virus production but fails to boost the immune system.
IL-2, a genetically engineered drug, already has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of kidney cancer.
"I'd be the last one to say you should wait until the FDA puts its seal of approval on every therapy before you use it," he said. "But on the other hand, if you go ahead with this, you'd better know what the data are."
Robert Schooley of the University of Colorado noted that some doctors routinely were using the treatment without understanding the hazards for people with very low cell counts.
The side effects typically last about two weeks. While not life-threatening, they are severe and often include rash, fever, aches, diarrhea and fatigue.
"No patient has ever said, "This wasn't as bad as you told me it would be." Lane said.
He said it eventually may be possible to reduce the ill effects by using lower doses and giving them less often.
Colombia tops U.S.'s list of guilty parties in drug trade
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Clinton administration yesterday sharply criticized Colombia's counter-arcatotics performance, but it stopped short of imposing economic sanctions.
It decided against that step in light of Colombia's role as the most important country in the U.S. anti-drug strategy in the Western Hemisphere.
Colombia was one of 29 drug-producing or drug-transit countries on which the administration issued judgments yesterday concerning cooperation in the war on narcotics.
Eleven were found not to be cooperating fully, but only five were subjected to economic sanctions, four of them holdovers from last year. The new country on the list was Afghanistan.
American Free Trade Agreement.
Because of national-security interests, Clinton exercised his authority to waive sanctions in the cases of Colombia, Bolivia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Paraguay and Peru.
At stake in Clinton's decision was the small portion of Colombia's $40 million aid program unrelated to counter-narcotics efforts. Colombia could lose those funds, as well as certain trade benefits and future membership in the North
A State Department report on the international narcotics situation described Colombia as having a "lackcluster" counter-narcotics performance in 1994.
"Weak legislation, corruption and inefficiency hampered efforts to bring mid- and high-level narcotics traffickers to justice," the report said. "No drug-related assets were forfeited, while already lenient sentences were further reduced pursuant to automatic sentencing reductions."
Officials said Colombia had not moved aggressively against the Cali cartel, which controls about 80 percent of the world's cocaine traffic. Colombians have argued that hundreds have died in the drug war and that the United States had not done nearly enough to curb the demand for drugs within its borders.
The administration is seeking a record $14.6 billion for drug-enforcement programs for the next fiscal year. At the same time, it has acknowledged that illegal drug use by American teenagers is up sharply.
The congressional mandated "certification" process requires Clinton each year to assess foreign cooperation in counter-narcotics efforts.
The four holdover countries from last year that were denied certification again this year are Burma, Iran, Nigeria and Syria. Their inclusion on the list is essentially symbolic, since none had been a recipient of U.S. assistance for years.
Briefing reporters, Assistant Secretary of State Robert Gelbard said Afghanistan was added to the list of decertified because of a 39 percent increase in opium poppy production.
The State Department report said drug cartels had demonstrated an unprecedented degree of sophistication in feeding the world appetite for narcotics and in fighting international efforts to subdue them.
Despite some breakthroughs,1994 "was not a banner year for global counter-narcotics cooperation and progress," the report said.
"the principal drug trafficking organizations did a brisk business in cocaine and heroin," said the report, titled the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report.
"They demonstrated an unprecedented degree of sophistication, rivaling that of the world's great multinational corporations," it said.
'Suicide Diaries' lost after author is found dead, inquiry begins
The Associated Press
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Anne Barrett had finished her novel, the veiled story of her own fight against depression and suicide.
Then, the day she was to show the final version to her agent, she took her own life.
Perhaps, in some way, it was the final chapter, the end of the process of writing "The Suicide Diaries." Or maybe it was the inevitable outcome of her 20 years of depression.
We may never know: The manuscript has disappeared.
It vanished from the office of the state medical examiner in Springfield, where a staffer had brought it from the scene of the woman's suicide in September. Apparently, he thought it would corroborate a cause of death.
For weeks, the author's sister, Susan Barrett, asked to have the manuscript back. She said the medical examiner in Springfield eventually told her his office had thrown out the book, which contained her sister's last thoughts and the final version of her 422-page typewritten novel.
The chief medical examiner's office in Boston has begun an inquiry into whether the book was accidentally destroyed and whether disciplinary action is warranted, Joanne Richmond, a deputy medical examiner, said Tuesday.
"It's about time. I want someone to answer to me for that. That's what I want most," Susan Barrett said. "I really can't let this go, mostly because my sister wouldn't want me to."
Anne Barrett, who has published short stories in major magazines, killed herself with an overdose of her own antidepressant drug on Sept. 29. That day, the 43-year-old writer was to have shown the reworked version of the novel to her New York literary agent.
Her family has an earlier version, but it lacked the substantial revisions that the agent said
made the novel more marketable.
The new manuscript was found near Barrett's body when police and a medical examiner's staffer from Springfield arrived at her Northampton home. The novel was seized as evidence for the investigation of her death.
Susan Barrett said a staff member of the Springfield medical examiner's office told her it would return the manuscript when it was no longer needed.
But on Jan. 5, she said, the regional medical examiner in Springfield, Loren Mednick, told her his office no longer had the manuscript. He told her it was his office's policy to dispose of such unclaimed items after three months.
In an interview this week, Mednick said he was out of the office "when the incident happened." He also said he may have told the writer's sister the book was thrown out. But he said he "didn't know all the facts at the time." He would not discuss details.
Jess Taylor, the writer's agent, said that he is pitching the novel to publishers but that it will be more difficult to sell without Barrett's final revisions.
"It's an irrecoverable loss," he said. "There's not going to be any way to reconstruct that material."
Under state law, belongings not required as evidence must be turned over to the victim's family or, if not claimed within 60 days, to a public administrator connected with the Probate Court.
William Newman, head of the regional office of the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union, said the loss of the manuscript may violate that law.
"When the state seizes property, it has an obligation to return that property to its rightful owner," Newman said. "Protection against the government seizing property is a fundamental constitutional protection."
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The University of Kansas Chancellor's Student Awards Committee is accepting nominations for the following:
The Agnes Wright Strickland Award The Donald K. Alderson Memorial Award The Class of 1913 Award The Alexis F. Dillard Student Involvement Award The Rusty Leffel Concerned Student Award The Caryl K. Smith Student Leader Award
Nominations forms for these awards are available at the Organizations and Activities Center, 400 Kansas Union, Lawrence, Kansas 66045.
Nominations must be returned to OAC by 5:00 p.m.on Friday, March 10, 1995.