Resources

** "Nutrition and HIV" 20-Minute Video

A 20-minute videotape on maintaining proper nutrition,
overcoming eating obstacles, and safe food handling presents
information from Larry Waites, M. D., M. P. H., who has a large
HIV practice in San Francisco, and from Laurie Mello, a clinical
nutritionist who specializes in nutrition for immune-compromised
persons.

Despite an introduction consisting of an "FBI warning" about
unauthorized commercial duplication, various disclaimers, and
sudden music, the material presented is well organized. It is
divided into four sections: nutrition, weight loss, and the
immune system; overcoming poor nutrition, caused, for example, by
nausea, diarrhea, and loss of appetite; defensive eating (food
safety); and total parenteral nutrition (TPN). The last section
says little about TPN, beyond explaining what it is.

This tape, priced at $19.95, is the first in a LIFETAPES
series, which is produced by a not-for-profit venture of North
South Films and Clinical Homecare. For information on how to
order, call 415/281-8375.

** AIDS Treatment Politics Newsletter, and Activist Survey

A newsletter from the Human Rights Campaign Fund, a gay and
AIDS lobbying group in Washington, D. C., has started to fill a
serious gap in information about what is going on within the
Federal government concerning the funding, management, and
politics of AIDS treatment and research. The founder and editor
of AIDS Treatment Politics is Terry Beswick, who recently moved
to HRCF from Project Inform. The current ten- page issue (#5,
May/June 1992) includes an additional four- page supplement of
treatment activists' comments on AIDS research, in response to an
earlier survey by HRCF.

Issue #5 includes information on Congressional testimony by
Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan (notable
for its failure to mention AIDS), Assistant Secretary James O.
Mason (which didn't occur at all because not enough committee
members planned to attend), and Anthony Fauci ("Director of the
NIAID (since November 1984), NIH Associate Director for AIDS
Research, Director of the NIH Office of AIDS Research, Chief of
the Laboratory of Immunoregulation, as well as Chief of the
Immunopathogenesis Section within the Laboratory of
Immunoregulation. In addition, Dr. Fauci serves as Executive
Secretary of the NIH AIDS Program Advisory Committee and Chair of
the National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Diseases Council.")

Other articles reviewed a meeting of APAC (AIDS Program
Advisory Committee), not to be confused with ARAC (AIDS Research
Advisory Committee), which was reviewed in AIDS Treatment
Politics issue #4. Another article reviewed the CDAC (Combined
Division Advisory Committee), which includes members from ARAC
and from NAAIDC (National Advisory Allergy and Infectious
Diseases Council).

The CDAC meeting, which Beswick described as the most
interesting advisory committee he has attended, included some
remarkable discussion by top scientists about what is needed and
not being done in the management of Federal AIDS research:

"What made the meeting interesting was a discussion of
what was not being done. Dr. Maurice Hilleman, a senior,
highly respected researcher with the Merck Institute for
Therapeutic Research, elevated the level of discussion by
raising a little hell. What follows is a loose paraphrase
of his remarks from my notes: 'The failing of the science
of AIDS is pathogenesis. If I were doling out this money,
I'd be doling it out for pathogenesis...

"'What is the shortage? It isn't scientists,
investment capacity, dollars...What about the organization?
I've been around even before polio. Research in the U. S.
and around the world is investigator-initiated. But this is
directed at basic knowledge and publication. But what does
it take to do target development research? You need a
critical mass of people sticking together, working together.
Working together with the requisite discipline. Dedicated
facilities. Sole intent. A benign dictator...Ideally you'd
like to have a Manhattan Project. The single room concept:
One big warehouse, one boss. But I don't think this is
going to happen.

"'Yet if you could get a group together every month or
two and present results...Stand together, and determine what
remains to be done. Use a collective committee structure --
not an advisory committee -- with a mechanism supported by
contract. The way we did it (with polio), we had a contract
officer sitting at the table with us, and the dollars went
out immediately. The six months wait is a waste of time.
These grant reviews -- sure death...But these models have
worked in the past. That sort of thing is going to have to
be created, hopefully by the Public Health Service...Form a
collective group, get a benign leader -- just do it...'

"After this little lecture, discussion relapsed to what
was meant by 'coordination' and whether there was enough
money to undertake such a different approach. Hilleman
explained that he was talking about coordinating basic
research and that there was "probably too much money and too
little thinking... Maybe what we need is guts in
government. At some point we need government to tell
government what to do. Piddling is getting us nowhere.'"
[AIDS Treatment Politics #5, pages 6-7]

Other news concerned positive statements on AIDS by
Presidential candidate Bill Clinton, and Derek Hodel's move from
New York's PWA Health Group to Washington, D. C., to do treatment
advocacy for the AIDS Action Council, starting in July. A number
of upcoming meetings on vaccines, TB, and other topics were
listed. There was also a report of Project Inform's immune
restoration conference in Washington (see AIDS TREATMENT NEWS
#151, May 15, 1992).

Activist Survey

The four-page supplement to AIDS Treatment Politics #5
published the responses to a survey sent out in a previous issue
-- responses from "treatment activists on both coasts, a
congressional aide, a treatment newsletter editor, a few
directors of community-based treatment organizations, and a
prisoner with AIDS. " It would be hard to summarize the
responses, which were published in full and anonymously. The
questions they address concern the major obstacles or problems
with current research efforts, problems in the efforts of AIDS
treatment activists, what could be done to improve research
efforts, and specific steps that might strengthen the activist
movement. The many well-considered viewpoints expressed will
help stimulate ideas and discussion.

To obtain a copy of the newsletter and the survey results,
send a self-addressed stamped envelope (with three ounces
postage) to: AIDS Treatment Politics, Human Rights Campaign
Fund, 1012 14th Street, N. W., Suite 607, Washington, D. C.
20005. To subscribe, send a postcard with your name and address.
AIDS Treatment Politics is free, although donations to HRCF are
appreciated.