Word: viruses
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...April of last year, when the identification and mass production of the AIDS virus was announced in Washington, Health Secretary Heckler vowed that blood-screening tests would be available in record time. Medical scientists made good on that promise within nine months. Still, the fact that the test kits, manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, Electro-Nucleonics and Litton Bionetics, were produced in crash programs prompted many fears about the reliability and precision of the tests. Of particular concern was the chance that too many blood samples would register an incorrect positive reading, falsely suggesting the presence of AIDS antibodies. Last week...
However, the tests have created a few problems of their own. Because they merely detect the presence of antibodies to AIDS (which proves only that exposure has occurred), they cannot determine if a person currently has the live virus, is capable of spreading it or is likely to develop the disease. Nonetheless, the perception persists that the tests can be used for diagnosis. Health officials fear that homosexuals and other high-risk individuals will volunteer to give blood simply to get themselves tested. This would increase the chances that AIDS-contaminated blood could enter the donor supply through a slipup...
Meanwhile, clinical and molecular researchers are launching a biological attack on the virus. Their objective: the development of vaccines to prevent its spread and drugs to treat those already infected. But the AIDS virus is a formidable adversary. Because it can reproduce so rapidly, says Harvard's Haseltine, it can mutate frequently, changing its outer coat (the essential ingredient in making a vaccine) 100 to 1,000 times as fast as quick-changing flu viruses. As a result, he says, "trying to develop a vaccine for AIDS is like trying to hit a rapidly moving target." Scientists are now searching...
...treatment of AIDS has also been frustratingly slow. "We are no more effective today in prolonging survival than we were four years ago," says San Francisco's Volberding. Some potent antiviral substances are being tested, and several seem to stop or slow the reproduction of the AIDS virus at least temporarily. But they produce debilitating side effects, like kidney damage, which make them unsuitable for prolonged treatment. Among these drugs are HPA-23, a compound developed at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where Rock Hudson sought treatment; Suramin, originally used to treat such parasitic disorders as African sleeping sickness...
...last issue of the Advocate, the national gay newsmagazine, was emblazoned with the headline SAFE SEX GUIDELINES THAT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE. Following those guidelines, many gays are for the first time using condoms and avoiding the exchange of body fluids, the most likely way that the virus can be passed from one person to another. Condom machines, once considered almost laughable among homosexuals, have been installed in the rest rooms of many gay bars and restaurants. "Straights learned about birth control, and gays have to learn about safe sex," says Jim Brennan, an AIDS social worker in Washington...