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HIV/AIDS Briefs
NewsPlanet Staff
Thursday, August 12, 1999 / 06:25 PM

SUMMARY: 1969 U.S. HIV case reopens origin question ... new stats on
the calculated risk of safer sex ... FDA cautions online home test
buyers....

1969 AIDS Case Questions Roots
Recent genetic and mathematical studies seemed to have nailed the
origin of AIDS in non-human primates in Africa, but the issue has been
reopened by tissue saved from a young man who died in St. Louis,
Missouri in 1969. Physicians froze the sample because they were
surprised to find Kaposi's sarcoma in a 15-year-old African-American,
when at the time it was almost exclusively found in older men of
Mediterranean descent. The teen was described as a sex worker.

The sample was analyzed by Professor Robert Garry of the Tulane
University Medical Center, who presented his finding that the youth
was in fact infected with HIV at the 11th International Congress of
Virology in Sydney on August 10. That puts HIV in the U.S. a decade
earlier than had previously been recognized, and means that the theory
that the virus jumped species 50 - 60 years ago can only stand if a
very rapid rate of viral evolution is assumed. To Garry it seems
almost as likely that HIV has always been a human virus, its
evolutionary path splitting off from the simian virus' when humans and
monkeys diverged some 100,000 years ago.

The virus found in the young man's tissue lacks the infectivity that
has made HIV a global pandemic, because it targets T-cells rather than
the more mobile macrophages that help to transmit the contemporary
virus.

How Safe is "Safer" Sex?
A study published this month in the American Journal of Epidemiology
calculated the risk of HIV transmission in sex acts between men. These
statistical findings are of scientific interest, but do not predict
whether any given act by any particular individual will result in
infection.

The calculations by a team headed by Eric Vittinghoff at the
University of California at San Francisco were based on data from
2,189 "high risk" gay and bisexual men in San Francisco, Denver and
Chicago who participated in a study from 1992 - 1994; 60 of those men
converted from HIV- to HIV+. The riskiest activity, unprotected
receptive anal intercourse, made up only 15% of the sex acts engaged
in by those sixty men, based on their detailed descriptions. A single
instance of that act was calculated to pose an overall risk of 0.82%
with a partner known to be HIV+, or 0.27% with a partner of unknown
HIV status -- but there was considerable variation among the men, with
nine of the sixty men who seroconverted (15%) becoming infected after
reporting only one or two such acts.

Condom use was calculated to lower the odds for receptive anal
intercourse to 0.18%, attributed to condom failure. That was still
three times the risk of insertive anal sex, whether protected or
unprotected, or of unprotected receptive oral sex.

FDA Warning on Home HIV Tests
The Food and Drug Administration is investigating Internet sales of
home HIV tests which the agency has not approved for sale. The FDA is
contacting those who purchased EZ Med and Ana-Sal, to warn them that
those tests have not been proven accurate, and to seek evidence
towards prosecuting the sellers.

The FDA is now launching a new computer system to aid it in
identifying illegitimate sales, but the Internet poses new challenges
to regulation. Consumers are advised to investigate both the product
they intend to purchase and the site they intend to buy it from. The
FDA publishes information which can help. For pharmaceuticals, check
to see if the seller is licensed in your state.

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