Immunodeficiency Virus

JERUSALEM -- Israel's national blood bank acted properly when it discarded blood donated by Ethiopian Jews because of concerns about the AIDS virus, a government-appointed panel concluded yesterday.The policy by the Magen David Adom, Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross, enraged members of Israel's Ethiopian community, who attributed the blood dumping to racism. In January, after reports in the Israeli media about the blood dumping, thousands of Ethiopian Jews demonstrated outside the prime minister's office.

WASHINGTON -- Setting the stage for possible federal approval of a third antiviral AIDS drug, early findings in an ongoing study have shown that the experimental AIDS drug DDC, used in combination with AZT, produces more than twice the crucial immune system cells as does AZT used alone.The findings were presented yesterday to a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel that is expected to vote today on whether to recommend approval of DDC, which is manufactured by Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., of Nutley, N.J. Although recommendations by advisory committees are not binding, the FDA almost always follows their advice.

A story in yesterday's Evening Sun said Johns Hopkins Hospital officials had made a legislative proposal that would require surgeons and other health care workers infected with human immunodeficiency virus to report themselves.Such action would permit hospitals to decide what kind of work the health care workers should be allowed to do.Hopkins has not introduced or proposed any such legislation, but officials have indicated that they would support proposals on this issue.Dr. Hamilton Moses 3rd, Hopkins' vice president of medical affairs, told The Evening Sun that Hopkins would support and encourage legislation that would require surgeons and other health care workers infected with the AIDS virus to report their illness so that hospital officials would know how to assign them.

A legislative proposal to establish a needle-exchange program in Baltimore to help prevent the spread of AIDS among intravenous drug users won some heavyweight support yesterday -- and some heavyweight opposition as well.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. backed the plan to spend $50,000 in city funds for a three-year pilot program for up to 700 addicts that would be over- seen by the Baltimore Health Department.But Gov. William Donald Schaefer said yesterday that he opposed the idea, fearing it would encourage drug use.The proposed program, modeled after those in seven states, Washington, D.C., and eight foreign countries, would require an intravenous drug user to turn in a dirty hypodermic syringe in exchange for a clean one at a designated site.

Dr. Richard T. Johnson, a neuroscientist whose research has uncovered disorders of AIDS in the brain, promises to bring an extra dimension to the chairmanship of the new Governor's Council on HIV Prevention and Treatment.The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the virus that causes AIDS.The new council will have a leader who has an intimate knowledge of the biology of acquired immune deficiency syndrome -- one who knows how it is transmitted, how the virus works and what the legitimate concerns are.The Schaefer administration announced yesterday that Johnson would head the new panel.

SAN FRANCISCO -- There is a wall of memorabilia in Rob Anderson's art studio. It reveals poignant details of the painter's life -- and tells the story of what it means to be a gay man in San Francisco today.Sprinkled amid this collection are pictures of the dead -- a former boyfriend, a masseur who advertised "gifted hands," and the model who posed for some of Mr. Anderson's most beautiful pencil sketches. These pictures are hardly shocking here in the epicenter of the epidemic.The shocker is that the artist's own image is not among them -- and may well never be.On June 20, 1979, when San Francisco's gay community was still swinging with sexual freedom and no one had heard of AIDS, Mr. Anderson went to a city health clinic and volunteered his blood for hepatitis research.

A lawsuit seeking $1.5 million has been filed on behalf of a Frederick County man who claims he was arrested, jailed and forced to take an AIDS test after health officials targeted him as a potential carrier of the virus that causes the deadly disease.Attorneys for the man, identified only as John Doe in the lawsuit, claim that Frederick County sheriffs and health officials overstepped their bounds and put the man through public humiliation because of a heightened fear of AIDS.The man was arrested Aug. 3, 1992, after county officials obtained a search warrant for his blood, claiming he was "actively engaging in sexual activities with other persons in the gay community."

Surgeons should be routinely screened for the virus that causes AIDS, says state Sen. Paula Hollinger, a nurse and a member of the Governor's Advisory Council on AIDS."

PARIS -- Two prominent scientists have cast doubt on the significance of a report that a possible new virus causes an AIDS-like disease.The report, which is being published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was submitted by Dr. Sudhir Gupta of the University of California at Irvine, has stirred fear that a potentially fatal human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may be transmitted from person to person and through the nation's blood supply.Dr. Ludwik Gross, the 88-year-old National Academy of Sciences member from New York who sponsored Dr. Gupta's report in the science academy's proceedings, now questions the wisdom of having done so.Dr.

In the 3 1/2 weeks since Magic Johnson told a stunned nation, "It can happen to anybody, even me," unprecedented numbers of people have flocked to testing clinics around Baltimore to learn whether they carry the virus that causes AIDS.Not only did the basketball idol motivate people who once thought themselves immune to AIDS, but many others who took the test months ago and never showed up for results have suddenly appeared to see if their worst fears proved true."People are scared. People are worried," said Andy Rose, head of social work at Baltimore's three sexually transmitted disease clinics.