just out ▼ juno 6, 1997 ▼ 13
SMUT! COMIX! WEIRDNESS!
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o Gay photo and art erotica
o Hard-to-find gay mags (T*R*A*S*H, STH)
o Erotic gay fiction and non-fiction
Plus, of course, the usual stuff on (yawn) body piercing,
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from Powell’s). 11-7 M-Sat, 12-6 Sun.
Research roundup
HIV/AIDS study results released recently offer
what amounts to a fine tuning of current knowledge
▼
by Bob Roehr
series o f articles and presentations at
meetings in early May has deepened
our understanding o f HIV but offers
no significant departure from what
has been known for months or years.
The knowledge will have an impact on
ing therapies and preventative vaccines, but will
not immediately affect existing standards o f care.
Three articles in the current issue o f Nature
looked at the effect o f protease inhibitor-based
combination therapy in reducing levels o f HI V in
blood and tissue. Drs. David Ho and Alan Perelson
demonstrated a two-stage pattern o f reduction of
HIV levels. They theorized that the level of infec
tion could be reduced to zero in 2.3 to 3.1 years.
Dr. Ashley Haase showed that HIV activity in the
blood mirrors that in tissue. The data from both
A
The researchers said the likely explanation is that
women have a lower average body weight than
men and so the same dose results in the higher
concentration in their blood.
This points to the need for more research and
develop
clinical trials involving women, and also for greater
attention to weight-specific dosing. It is possible
that people o f both genders are on regimens that
provide a less than optimal concentration of drug
throughout the body, while others are being ex
posed to higher than necessary doses and toxicities.
The National Cancer Institute held a meeting
primarily for asking questions, not answering
them. HIV researchers long have speculated that
with success in extending survival, they would
see the emergence of medical problems such as
cancers, which take a longer time to develop.
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studies had been presented earlier at meetings but
was only now being published.
More troubling news came from Tae-W ook
Chun and Robert F. Silicianoof the Johns Hopkins
School o f Medicine. They showed that even after
the live virus has been cleared, in a small percent
age of cells fragments of HIV remain as both
loose intra-cellular particles and sometimes as
pieces integrated into cell DNA. W hile these
shards do not have the capacity to reproduce and
hence spread the virus, it is theoretically possible
that under certain circum stances they may recom
bine or grow into complete virus to again chal
lenge the body with HIV infection. This could
create additional difficulty in achieving a “cure”
for HIV.
Meanwhile, at the National Conference on
W omen and HIV, held in Pasadena, Calif., re
searchers from Pharmacia & Upjohn, the maker
o f delavirdine, reported that women on a com bi
nation therapy o f delavirdine and AZT had a 1.8
higher trough concentration o f the drugs in their
blood than did men. There is no indication that
men and women metabolize the drug differently.
Some evidence does point to a higher probability
o f long-term HIV survivors developing certain
types of cancer, but the extent of the problem is
not clearly understood.
A major fault lies with data collection. Cancers
are often not reported or correlated with HIV. The
Centers for Disease Control, the nation’s principal
epidem iological data collection system, only
records cancer if is part of the initial AIDS diagno
sis. And its definition of AIDS— a CD4 count
below 200 and certain opportunistic infections—
has become of limited value. It indicates either
that a person is unaware of his or her serostatus and
shows up at an emergency room with an AIDS-
defining illness, or that therapy has failed.
A further limitation is the time lag in the
C D C ’s reporting of data. Its figures for 1995 were
released only in November 1996. Finally, there
are the changing dynamics in standards of care, of
when and how to intervene, and with new thera
pies. All of these provide an increasingly com
plex and moving target which the CDC seems ill-
equipped to measure. It makes projections for the
future course of the epidemic even more difficult.
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