Announcements

National AIDS Benefits Handbook

The AIDS Benefits Handbook, subtitled "Everything You Need
to Know to Get Social Security, Welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, Food
Stamps, Housing, Drugs, and Other Benefits," by Thomas P.
McCormack (Yale University Press, 1990), tells how to qualify for
medical and disability benefits throughout the United States. The
first half of the 257-page paperback provides an easy-to- read
introduction to the different programs, including how procedures
differ in different states. The second half consists of
appendices with addresses, phone numbers, tables of benefit
amounts, government regulations, and forms.

We asked a benefits expert at AIDS Benefits Counsellors in
San Francisco to help us evaluate the book. She said that because
they specialize in California, they could not judge the
information for other states, but that everything they could
evaluate was correct.

We believe that this book will be especially useful in
providing introduction and background on different benefits
programs and how to meet their requirements. Persons with AIDS or
HIV may want to read it before seeking local advice about the
programs in their areas.

San Francisco: New Clinical Trials Directory

The Summer 1990 edition of the Directory of HIV Clinical
Research in the Bay Area, compiled by the Community Consortium
(formerly County Community Consortium) is now available. It lists
several dozen AIDS-related clinical trials in or near San
Francisco. For a copy of the directory, send your name and
address to the Community Consortium, attn: Zach Weingart, 995
Potrero Ave., Bldg. 90, Ward 95, Room 514, San Francisco, CA
94110.

San Francisco: GM-CSF Trial Recruiting

A new trial of GM-CSF, a drug to treat low neutrophil levels
sometimes caused by AZT or ganciclovir, is now recruiting at R. K.
Davies, and at Children's Hospital, in San Francisco.

Volunteers need an ANC (absolute neutrophil count) between
500 and 1500. They should be on AZT, or be willing to be
rechallenged. Volunteers will usually be persons with AIDS or
related conditions who believe that AZT is helping them and want
to continue using it, but have difficulty tolerating the drug
because of the low neutrophil levels, which can cause dangerous
infections.

The formal trial will last 90 days; then volunteers will
begin a maintenance phase for a total time in the study of one
year. The drug is injected once per day subcutaneously, starting
with one microgram per kilogram of body weight, and going higher.
When patients respond well to the drug, neutrophil counts can
increase greatly in days.

One disadvantage for the patient is that volunteers will be
randomized to either begin the drug immediately, or wait 90 days
in order to provide control-group information. Patients who
develop an opportunistic infection can go on the drug
immediately, however.

This trial should not be confused with an earlier GM-CSF
trial at Children's Hospital in San Francisco. The current trial
has had difficulty in recruiting, because AZT is used in lower
doses today, so few people have neutrophil problems. Also, ddI
provides another option to people who have depressed neutrophil
counts on AZT, as ddI does not cause this toxicity.

The sponsor, Schering Plough, has applied for marketing
approval for GM-CSF. However, the drug will be approved for
patients with low neutrophil counts due to cancer chemotherapy,
so insurance companies may be able to avoid paying for it for low
counts caused by AZT.

Many physicians familiar with colony-stimulating factors
(the class of drugs to which GM-CSF belongs) would prefer to use
G- CSF, instead of GM-CSF, for treating persons with HIV. But G-
CSF is not available.

For more information about the GM-CSF trial at Davies
Hospital, call Stephanie LaCarrubba, 415/565-6524. At Children's
Hospital, call Jaime Geaga, 415/750-6529.



Corrections

* AIDS TREATMENT NEWS #102 listed the hypericin herbal
extract study by San Francisco's Community Research Alliance (now
Project Inform Community Research Alliance) as one rejected by
the Sixth International Conference on AIDS. In fact, this
abstract was accepted by the Conference, for publication only. We
had heard unofficially that it was rejected, and were unable to
reach the principal investigator to confirm.

* Issue #103 incorrectly reported the date on which Skip
Harris died. The correct date is May 14.

* The parallel track article in issue #104 gave incorrect
page numbers of the proposal in the May 21 Federal Register. The
correct pages are 20856-20860.

* Some copies of #104 misspelled the name of the physician
who used hyperthermia to treat an AIDS patient. The correct
spelling is Kenneth Alonso, M. D.

Back issues of AIDS Treatment News are available. For more
information, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to: AIDS
Treatment News, P. O. Box 411256, San Francisco, CA 94141, or call
415/255-0588.



STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

AIDS TREATMENT NEWS reports on experimental and
complementary treatments, especially those available now. It
collects information from medical journals, and from interviews
with scientists, physicians, and other health practitioners, and
persons with AIDS or ARC.

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.

We also examine the ethical and public-policy issues around
AIDS treatment research and treatment access.