Aids

Services for Robert N. Mehl, a founder of the AIDS Response Network in Baltimore who also had been active in AIDS work in New York City, will be held at 1 p.m. today at the Leonard J. Ruck Funeral Home, 5305 Harford Road.Mr. Mehl, who was 47 and lived on George Street, died Wednesday of acquired immune deficiency syndrome at the Joseph Richey Hospice.In Baltimore, he had helped found Moveable Feast, which takes meals to the homes of AIDS patients. He also headed a Baltimore Health Department program called Positive Directions and lectured about AIDS in public schools, at medical schools and at Health Department meetings.

LOS ANGELES -- Rap artist Eazy-E, a founding member of the group N.W.A. and a major figure in the commercial development of "gangsta" rap, has AIDS.Eazy-E, whose real name is Eric Wright, was in critical condition yesterday in the intensive care ward of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said hospital spokeswoman Paula Correia.Eazy-E is one of the first major music performers to announce he has AIDS. Health experts and AIDS activists said his declaration forces the public to again confront the danger of AIDS.

The Baltimore City Council's Judiciary and Legislative Investigations Committee has scheduled a hearing Wednesday on a bill that would establish a commission on HIV/AIDS. City Council President Sheila Dixon sponsored the bill, which would create an organization in city government to try to coordinate the city's efforts to prevent the spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The hearing will be held at 5 p.m. in City Council chambers in City Hall. Dixon formed an advisory group two years ago that recommended declaring AIDS a public health emergency in the city, studying the effectiveness of the city's prevention efforts, and soliciting more money from federal, state and private sources to fight the disease.

The central convention of teen-message dramas has always been to make the least likely character victim of the sin or danger at hand. It's the "A" student government president who gets pregnant, or the football hero who succumbs to beer and drives his car into a truck.Viewers should know that "In the Shadow of Love: A Teen AIDS Story" fulfills the convention. Indeed, the title alone suggests that. But the show also fulfills the other worthwhile goal of dramas conceived with preaching in mind: offering blunt, firm information in a realistic setting.

A former top government AIDS research scientist has been been fined $12,000, put on three years' probation and ordered to serve 1,750 hours of unpaid community service on corruption charges tied to his work as an AIDS researcher at the National Institutes of Health.Sayed Zaki Salahuddin, 49, tearfully apologized to Judge John R. Hargrove at sentencing yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore and assured him that such conduct "will never happen again."Salahuddin, world renowned for his research into acquired immune deficiency syndrome, pleaded guilty last month to accepting $12,000 worth of illegal gratuities from Pan Data Systems Inc., a Bethesda supply firm that his wife, Firoza, founded.

Nearly six years into the search for an AIDS vaccine, researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine say they are battling not only scientific obstacles but also the reluctance of people to roll up their sleeves for experiments.While gay men remain loyal to the effort, the Hopkins vaccine program has been frustrated in its attempt to recruit women and blacks -- two groups that would help scientists evaluate vaccines across racial and gender lines.People invoke a variety of reasons not to participate, according to recruiters.

IF THE Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, no single problem would demand more of his attention than the HIV/AIDS crisis. Though Dr. King died well over a decade before we heard of AIDS and though people promoting every human cause and every political persuasion enlist him freely for their version of what is best for America, this preventable virus is one of the greatest moral challenges of our times. His own words help to make the case: "As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars.

As researchers gather in Berlin for the Ninth International Conference on AIDS, many see growing evidence that once-promising approaches to fighting the disease may be useless or even harmful.Emerging new knowledge about the AIDS virus is making it harder to decide how to treat infected people, they say, and raising fears that use of AZT and other anti-viral drugs may be promoting more virulent strains of the virus."I'm not at all sure what to give my patients, when to give it, how to combine drugs, or which patients are most likely to benefit from what treatments," Dr. Paul Volberding, a leading U.S. AIDS physician, told colleagues last month at a Harvard AIDS Institute gathering.

RECENT figures putting AIDS as the No. 1 killer of men in Baltimore between the ages of 25 and 44 stand out as a warning to members of the gay community that AIDS is still an active danger in their lives.I feel like a snitch for writing this, but the fact is that gay men are often tempted to engage in risky behavior. Because of this, they need to be told the consequences they face when seeking a proper partner.This problem is aggravated by the fact that our long-awaited access to the corridors of power, the Mayor's Task Force on Gay and Lesbian Issues, has avoided discussing AIDS.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 6,782 doctors, dentists and other health care workers have AIDS. More than 50,000 others are thought to be infected with the virus that causes AIDS.New federal guidelines say certain health care workers should voluntarily be tested for the AIDS virus and should voluntarily stop certain procedures and tell their patients if they find they have the virus.But, as a recent article in the New York Times states, "Many who are infected have decided not to follow the new federal guidelines."