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In This Issue:
FDA rejects Adefovir after activist protests
One-a-day dose of Videx approved
HIV rates down for US prisoners
Mbeki's AZT claims set off debate
Senate passes bill on African AIDS drugs
Commission restructuring committee appointed
Majority of Asians with HIV don't know that they are infected
Giuliani to force homeless to work in shelters
New video released for HIV+ people of color
A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel has rejected Adefovir, a new treatment for HIV, after leading AIDS activists broke with tradition and argued that the experimental drug had too many side effects and too few benefits.
The 13-to-1 vote by the advisory committee was a crushing blow to Gilead Sciences of Foster City, because the FDA usually follows its panels' recommendations in deciding whether to approve new drugs.
Adefovir is a reverse transcriptase inhibitor that is being studied as second-line therapy for HIV-positive patients who have not responded to antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Early studies of adefovir have suggested that the drug is useful against strains of HIV that have become resistant to AZT and 3TC.
According to the FDA panel, the available data are insufficient to conclude that adefovir is effective and safe at the proposed 60 milligram dose.
Adefovir is in fact notorious for its potentially harmful effects on the kidneys. In a pivotal study involving a 120 mg dose of adefovir, as many as 61 per cent of patients had at least one laboratory abnormality indicative of kidney stress. In eight cases, the damage was severe enough to require dialysis.
"We're obviously disappointed with the committee's decisions,'' Gilead chief executive John Martin said in a statement. "However, we plan to work closely with the FDA to resolve the outstanding issues and respond to the questions they have raised.''
The FDA panel's meeting began badly for Gilead when FDA staff scientists testified that Gilead's Adefovir was not very effective in treating HIV and that even low doses seemed to cause kidney problems in many patients.
In the past, companies seeking approval for HIV drugs could rely on strong support from AIDS activists to shout down such FDA concerns. But leading AIDS groups, like the Treatment Action Group in New York, voiced the same reservations as the FDA scientists yesterday and urged the advisory panel to reject Adefovir.
"Adefovir marks a turning point for the AIDS community,'' said Martin Delaney with Project Inform in San Francisco. "Nobody has worked harder than we have to get new treatments approved. But with 14 other drugs out there, you tend to look a little more harshly at the new ones.''
A recent report by the Frost & Sullivan market research firm estimates that nearly $3 billion worth of AIDS drugs will be sold in 1999. It projects sales will grow an average of 19 percent a year through 2005.
Delaney said the very robustness of the HIV drug market meant AIDS activists and advisory panel members could consider Adefovir's performance without the sense of urgency with which they have scrutinized previous drugs.
Panel members were concerned that Adefovir accumulated in the kidneys of many recipients. Part way through the human trials, Gilead cut the dose of Adefovir in half to reduce possible kidney toxicity. But that left Gilead with less evidence that Adefovir was effective.
"The paucity of data on safety and efficacy is quite obvious to all of us today,'' said advisory panel member Wafaa El-Sadr, an AIDS expert in New York.
Not all AIDS activists cheered Adefovir's rejection. Ronald Baker, editor of HIVandHepatis.com, said AIDS doctors understand the risks of new medications and should have the choice of prescribing Adefovir for patients who are resistant to other drugs.
Even if Adefovir's future as an HIV treatment is uncertain, AIDS activists say Gilead has a more potent and less toxic variant of the drug in the wings. Gilead hopes to get this drug, called Tenofovir, into Phase III trials later this year.
"We advised Gilead two years ago to drop Adefovir and concentrate on Tenofovir,'' Delaney said, but the company felt it could not afford to wait the extra year or so to get Tenofovir to market. (Bloombsurg News/CATIE News)
One-a-day dose of Videx approved
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new 200 mg strength of Videx indicated for once-daily dosing.
Videx (didanosine, ddI), is a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (nucleoside analog) that is prescribed in combination with other antiretroviral drugs for the treatment of HIV infection.
Like other antiviral treatments, Videx helps reduce the growth of HIV, helping the body maintain its supply of CD4 cells, which are important for fighting HIV and other infections. Simplified regimens, such as once-a-day dosing, may help improve adherence to therapy in patients who are currently being treated for HIV infection with complex, multidrug regimens necessitating dosing several times a day.
Along with the supplemental approval for the once-daily dose of Videx, the already existing product labeling describing possible clinical complications related to pancreatitis is being strengthened.
The manufacturer of the drug, Bristol-Myers Squibb, of Princeton, New Jersey, will be sending detailed safety information about the use of Videx to health care professionals prescribing drugs for treating HIV. This information will help guide care providers to most safely prescribe the drug and monitor patients.
HIV rates down for US prisoners
The rate of prisoners dying of AIDS dropped by more than half between 1995 and 1997, the Justice Department has announced.
The report on 1997 data found that 48 of every 100,000 prisoners died of AIDS, down from an all-time high of 100 per 100,000 two years earlier. The actual number of inmate deaths in 1997 caused by AIDS dropped to 538 from 907 in 1996.
Cases of HIV infection also fell - there were 23,548 HIV-infected inmates at the end of 1997, 333 fewer than in 1996. Of those infected, 1,030 were federal inmates and the rest were state prisoners.
The Justice Department's statistics bureau found a strong link between HIV infection and an inmate's drug use before being imprisoned. Of the state prisoners who used drugs in the month before their current offense, 2.7 percent said they were HIV positive, as did 4.6 percent of those who used
a needle to inject drugs and 7.7 percent of those who shared a needle.
New York had the highest percentage of infected inmates, with 10.8 percent; followed by Connecticut, 5.1 percent; and Massachusetts, 3.7 percent.
In most states, female inmates had higher HIV infection rates than male inmates. Overall, 2.2 percent of male inmates and 3.5 percent of female inmates were HIV positive.
At the end of 1997, the rate of confirmed AIDS in prison was at least five times the rate in the U.S. general population.(Associated Press)
Mbeki's AZT claims set off debate
South African President Thabo Mbeki's claim that a widely used AIDS drug is dangerous has set off an uproar, producing bafflement and shock among physicians and advocates who say AZT is safe.
The drug is the mainstay of efforts around the world to prevent HIV-infected mothers from passing the AIDS virus to their babies during birth.
Mbeki said in the South African Parliament in early November that AZT is toxic and was being challenged by court cases in the United States, Britain and South Africa - a claim the manufacturer, Glaxo Wellcome PLC, has hotly denied.
The issue is critical in a nation with one of the world's worst AIDS problems, where 3.6 million people, or 8 percent of the population, are estimated to be HIV positive. The controversy threatens to set back efforts to fight the disease.
In his speech Thursday, Mbeki spoke of a "large volume of scientific evidence alleging that, among other things, the toxicity of this drug is such that it is in fact a danger to health."
Mbeki said that it would be "irresponsible" not to heed the "dire warnings" of researchers about the safety of AZT, which is one of the world's oldest and best-known AIDS drugs.
The government promised to investigate the safety of AZT. Mbeki said he has asked the health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, to oversee the inquiry.
Tshabalala-Msimang told the South African Broadcasting Corp. that AZT would not be barred from the market but she was deciding how to investigate the matter "so that we really have concrete information in our hands."
The drug has been approved by regulators in South Africa and around the world, and is commonly used in combination with other drugs to control HIV infection or prevent infection among health care workers exposed to it.
Many studies have shown that AZT cuts in half the risk that women will infect their babies during delivery.
AZT, also known as zidovudine, is "perfectly acceptable" in those three areas, said Dr. Joseph Perriens, head of the care and support division of the U.N. AIDS program in Geneva. It causes slight side effects like nausea or anemia, but, he noted, so do many medicines.
Worries about AZT's safety surfaced in the early 1990s but have long faded, Perriens said.
French researchers reported in February that two babies who had received AZT in a study had died, but no link between the deaths and the drug was established.
Perriens suggested Mbeki "inform himself better about the toxicity of (the drug), which is not really as serious as he thinks, and he should probably recast the debate in terms of cost. It's not doing his people a service."
With an average of 1,500 South Africans infected with HIV each day, the government has come under increasing pressure to provide drugs like AZT to infected pregnant mothers and rape victims. The government has said before that it cannot afford to do so, but this is the first time in the public debate than an official has so forcefully said a health danger is the reason.
Mbeki's comments are "very distressing because it sets back the whole agenda once again" after previous controversies, such as a scandal-plagued anti-AIDS musical, which paralyzed the government AIDS program, said Dr. Saul Johnson, a pediatrician and researcher at Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, where AZT has been studied as a way to prevent mother-child transmission.
"It raises the issue of where he gets advice," he said.
A presidential spokeswoman was quoted over the weekend as saying Mbeki received his information from the Internet. "I think if the president doesn't want to provide AZT, he should find an excuse based on fact," said Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, head of AIDS research at the Medical Research Council, which is similar to the U.S. National Institute of Health.
"It's the standard of care in many countries," he said.
When asked why Mbeki would make such a statement, he said: "I can only assume that he has been given this information and accepted it in good faith. I don't think the president would deliberately try to mislead us." (Associated Press)
Senate passes bill on African AIDS drugs
The US Senate has approved a measure that may help guarantee access to cheap generic AIDS drugs for African countries that have been devastated by the epidemic.
The measure's approval was a major defeat for the American pharmaceutical industry, which had pressed Congress to stop foreign countries from producing generic versions of their drugs.
Some AIDS groups applauded the measure's approval, saying the price of AIDS drugs is critical because the vast majority of the world's HIV and AIDS cases are in developing countries, where people can't afford expensive drug cocktails. "In the case of drugs that can give men, women and children a new lease on life, we should not be bickering over obscure trade policy," said Daniel Zingale, executive director for AIDS Actions, a Washington advocacy group.
Others, however, criticized the new legislation as too weak, and that it is likely to be eliminated once the bill goes into conference with a House version which does not include the protection language.
Although exact figures are unavailable, generic drugs tend to be significantly cheaper than brand name AIDS drugs, which can cost $12,000 to $15,000 a year.
The conflict pitting intellectual property rights vs. access to AIDS drugs began in 1997. That's when South Africa passed legislation allowing it to circumvent Western pharmaceutical firms by granting small local companies permission to produce their own AIDS drugs, or import them from countries, such as India, that make cheaper generic versions.
However, trade officials and lobbyists for U.S. drug companies have fought back, pressing Congress to protect intellectual property rights.
U.S. drug companies appeared poised to win a battle in that fight early on, when the Senate was considering an African trade bill that would have allowed the U.S. Trade Representative to impose sanctions on Sub-Saharan African countries that produce cheaper generic versions of U.S. AIDS drugs.
But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., persuaded Republican leaders to accept an amendment to the trade bill that would allow those African countries to continue to produce their copycat AIDS
drugs.
Feinstein said banning these generic AIDS drugs in Africa would have caused needless suffering and death in countries where AIDS is so widespread it is a public health emergency.
"If you don't have generic drugs, you effectively say that people in Africa are not going to get the treatment that can sustain life," Feinstein said in an interview.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Feinstein said about 34 million people in Africa about the size of the population of California are infected with HIV or AIDS. About one-third, or 11.5 million these
people, have died from the disease, she said.
She said those deaths represent 83 percent of the total HIV and AIDS-related deaths worldwide.
"The impact of AIDS in Africa is huge," Feinstein said. "It continues to be a major threat to the well being of the entire African continent. ... It is clearly in the national interest to prevent the further spread of HIV\AIDS in Africa," she said.
Feinstein's amendment, in its original form, prohibited the US government from using taxpayer money to hassle countries that are using compulsory licensing, parallel importing and other tools to make medicines affordable -- as long as the policies a country is adopting are consistent with WTO obligations.
Some AIDS activists claimed that Feinstein worked with the Republicans to water down the amendment, eliminating protections for parallel importing and provisions which would have extended the policy to cover other drugs in addition to AIDS medications.
They also criticized the Feinstein amendment for being limited only to sub-Saharan African countries, and only if those countries do not have a drug industry that can compete with the US.
The bill now goes to conference where the House and the Senate will try to reconcile the huge differences between the two bills. Activists expect congressional leaders to try to strip out the pharmaceutical amendment there. (Hearst Newspapers/HealthGap)
President Clinton has, as expected, vetoed the Labor-Health and Human Services budget bill passed by the Republican Congress, decrying the 1% across-the-board funding cut that would have reduced funding available for AIDS services and other human service programs.
Clinton said that the GOP bill would "damage vital priorities" and interrupt research projects currently funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Congressional sources told the media that Clinton may be seeking to negotiate a small across-the-board cut.
HIV program funding in the vetoed bill included a small increase in HIV prevention funding and "flat" funding for substance abuse prevention and treatment. Funding for Ryan White CARE Act programs, which provide most of the financing for direct AIDS care services in the US, would have been increased by roughly $148 million, but that figure is almost $50 million less than what was sought by the Clinton Administration. (Congress Daily/AIDS Action)
Commission restructuring committee appointed
Philadelphia Health Commissioner Estelle Richman has appointed a 14-member committee to propose improvements to the community-based AIDS planning process.
Most of the members of the ad hoc group are members of the Philadelphia HIV Commission or its three planning committees. Richman "suspended" the activities of the HIV Commission itself after what she called complaints that it has become redundant and mired in internal controversy.
Among those appointed to the new committee are Commission members who were highly critical of the suspension, including Stacy Bryant, a consumer advocate, and Tyrone Smith, executive director of Unity, Inc., a black gay AIDS service organization.
Other members of the committee, which Richman said is expected to complete its work before Christmas, include Pedro Rosado, of Congreso de Latinos Unidos; Ralph Moses, a longtime AIDS activist from the city of Chester in Delaware County; Jose Quann of Camden; Roy Hayes, former president of We The People and a case manager with Philadelphia FIGHT; Judith Peters, director of an adolescent AIDS program at Children's Hospital and a member of the Board of Directors of the Colours Organization; Dorothy Mann, executive director of the Family Planning Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania; Kevin Conare, executive director of ActionAIDS; Dawn Acero, a local AIDS activist from the city's Frankford section; Charlene Moore, an activist on behalf of transgendered people living with HIV; Warren Hunt, operations director at We The People; Andre Ford, a local businessman and another board member from Colours; and Erme Mauler, an Asian AIDS activist.
Most of the members of the committee are people living with HIV disease, and most are people of color.
Richman asked a local consultant, Anita Rogers, to facilitate the group's discussions. Rogers has previously done work for a variety of AIDS service organizations as well as for the Commission's African American caucus. She also appointed another local consultant, Joseph Lewis, to manage the Commission's staff during the transition period.
Meanwhile, representatives of the City Controller's office told the Philadelphia Gay News that they intend to seriously investigate charges by members of the Commission that Bernard Warren, who resigned as the Commission's manager on August 31st, had misused Commission funds.
"We've received serious allegations of wrongdoing, and we are going to look into the matter," First Deputy City Controller David Volpe told PGN. "We're going to try and get an understanding of the commission's relationship with the city, the participants involved, and go from there."
The Commission has questioned Warren's use of thousands of dollars in Commission funds to reimburse himself for travel and lodging expenses. Despite a commitment to move to Philadelphia within six months of his hiring a little over a year ago, Warren never changed his main residence from the Washington, DC area.
Warren has said that his reimbursements were authorized by Health Department officials. Commission members indicated that they were never formally advised that such approval was given, and that in any case, the funds should not have been drawn from the Commission's accounts.
Commission members have charged that the disputed reimbursements total about $25,000, but other sources said that the actual total is closer to $10,000.
PGN quoted Commission co-chairs Dale Grundy and Michael Hinson as alleging that Warren also mismanaged funding for decoration to the Commission's offices and of expenses related to the Commission's recent move to larger quarters in center city.
Grundy also told PGN that Warren allegedly gave himself and commission staffers a 3.5-percent raise shortly before Warren resigned, and that Warren continues to be paid even though his resignation has officially been announced.
Majority of Asians with HIV don't know that they are infected
The vast majority of people infected with HIV in Asia and the Pacific have not been tested and do not know that they are infected, according to Australian researcher David Stephens of the University of Latrobe in Bundoora, Victoria.
In addition, "many of those who are aware of their HIV status are reluctant to speak out due to the potentially massive danger to themselves, their families, and loved ones," Stephens wrote in an abstract of his presentation at the Fifth International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.
"For many of these people, HIV is only one of a number of issues they face daily," Stephens continued. "Just surviving may be a priority that overrides any other consideration, regardless of how pressing HIV may be."
Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), told meeting attendees that despite "optimistic figures" from some parts of the region, there are more than 7 million people in Asia and the Pacific living with HIV/AIDS and the epidemic continues to grow.
According to Dr. Piot, China has more than 400,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. Cambodia has nearly 200,000 cases, or close to one in 25 of the adult population. It is estimated that there will be 10,000 AIDS-related deaths there in the year 2000, in a country that has only 8,000 hospital beds in total.
In India, two states have an HIV prevalence of 2%, Dr. Piot said. Bangladesh has equally high infection rates among users of injectable drugs.
Dr. Piot offered the good news that the number of HIV infections in the Philippines remains low and is "growing very slowly...Similarly low numbers are being seen for the moment in Bhutan, Laos, Pakistan and South Korea."
Both Australia and New Zealand maintain "managed" epidemics with few new infections, Dr. Piot said. Thailand's well established prevention efforts have resulted in decreases in HIV prevalence among both pregnant women and young male soldiers.
Dr. Do Nguyen Phuong, Vietnam's Minister of Health and Vice-Chairman of the National AIDS Committee, told a plenary session that only about 15,000 HIV cases have been recorded in Vietnam to date, including 3,000 that had progressed to AIDS, and that 2,000 AIDS deaths have been documented. He estimates that the number of people living with HIV/AIDS ranges from 135,000 to 165,000.
The spread of HIV in Asia is being exacerbated by the region's 2-year economic crisis, according to Martha Ainsworth, an economist with the World Bank. She warned that the AIDS epidemic in Asia could erase the region's economic gains over the past two decades unless governments maintain funding for social programs.
More migrants are crossing borders in search of employment, which is pushing up cross-border transmission of HIV, Ainsworth explained. There are concerns that as more young girls and housewives are drawn into "informal" prostitution and the sex trade becomes less organized, shifting into hotels and bars, condom use will decrease.
Dr. Piot noted that a recent study in Kuala Lumpur indicated a willingness among sex workers strapped for money to attract a dwindling pool of clients by offering them unprotected sex.
Meanwhile, others at the conference said that economics should not dictate suboptimal AIDS therapy for people with HIV.
Physicians in Asia and the Pacific must not compromise on highly active antiretroviral therapy in treating HIV disease, Dr. Chris Tsoukas, Director of Montreal General Hospital in Quebec, Canada, asserted.
"Anything short of potent therapy including a protease inhibitor is compromising...you can't compromise because it becomes dangerous," he said, because of the potential to develop viral resistance. "If countries can't afford it...they can't afford it ...but don't change the standard because of the country."
"Look at what people have here in Kuala Lumpur. They have beautiful buildings and highways, you can't tell me they can't afford therapy," Dr. Tsoukas said in an interview with Reuters Health during the meeting.
"There has been a lot of controversy whether triple therapy is cost-effective...but studies have shown that for every $1 spent on triple therapy, $2 is saved overall on hospital and other treatment costs," Dr. Tsoukas told the conference.
Dr. David Butcher, Medical Director and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Chase Brexton Health Services in Baltimore, Maryland, pointed out that in the United States, 80% of the original patients involved in a triple therapy trial of indinavir, zidovudine and lamivudine still have undetectable viral loads after more than three years on therapy.
"Physicians in Asia can learn from the mistakes we made in the West...giving unpotent therapy or adding in one drug to a failing regimen," Dr. Butcher said.
In the opening ceremony of the conference, Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad said that "...the high cost of HIV drugs need not be so if developing countries can get together and challenge the pharmaceutical companies to reduce the prices."
Mr. Mahathir conceded that pharmaceutical companies spent a lot of money on research and needed to recoup this investment in order to continue their work, but he added that they should not achieve this through the suffering of the poor.(Reuters)
Giuliani to force homeless to work in shelters
A plan to force homeless people to work in return for shelter, and place children in foster care if their able-bodied parents refuse to work, was condemned Tuesday as "a throwback to the days of Dickens."
A storm of angry reaction greeted Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's announcement that the city will seek to extend its welfare policy in 60 days -- the brunt of winter -- to 4,600 families and 7,000 single adults in the shelter system.
"Typical Republican simpleton logic," said Greg Bowens, a spokesman for Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, who is a Democrat. "Jesus was born in a manger. They didn't turn Mary away. Would Joseph and Mary get a spot in New York today? Amazing."
"We cannot tolerate this morally or legally," said City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, a Democrat, who made the Dickensian analogy. Vallone acknowledged, however, that he -- or the City Council -- had little power to stop the policy.
The city's requirements are supported by 1997 state regulations aimed at moving the homeless to work and ultimately to self-sufficiency. In February, an appellate court ruled against the objections of advocates.
While the overall policy has been deemed legal for homeless families, the city has not yet sought to require homeless single adults to work. Challenges to the foster care component still could occur.
Giuliani, who laughed when he was told that Vallone compared his policy to turn-of-the-century Dickens, defended his plan.
"The apostles of dependency want to bring us back to where we had 1.1 million people on welfare and a city where dependency was the rule, working the exception," said Giuliani, who was upstate campaigning for a fellow Republican.
"I think this is the highest form of compassion and love -- to help people to help themselves, to get them to the point where they can take care of themselves, to ask them to do something in return for the help that they're being given," he added.
But Nica Person, 26, who lives at the Help Bronx-Morris shelter, called Giuliani's plan unreasonable, and said the city would have to provide day care, transportation, and job training for it to work.
"There are parents who have four kids. . . . They can't get day care to work, who's going to pay for the day care?" asked Person, who has three children -- an 8-month-old son who lives with her and a 12-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter in foster care.
The jobs the city sends the homeless to are often menial, with poor pay, she added.
"That just puts me right back to welfare. . . . You have to give people bigger goals, bigger dreams," she said.
Giuliani, who has made welfare reform a centerpiece of his administration, previously has vowed to end public assistance by next year to people who do not work. The work-for-a-bed rule takes his goal one step further and is identical to rules that city welfare offices have used since 1995 to move more than 400,000 people off public assistance.
Already, many homeless parents clean parks or do other jobs in exchange for welfare benefits while their children are in shelter day care. However, thousands of such families are on a waiting list for child care.
"If parents are unable to take responsibility for themselves, then it raises a real question of whether they can take responsibility for their children," said Anthony Coles, a senior adviser to Giuliani.
The city estimates its homeless population at about 23,000.
"This policy takes us back a century. We're moving in the wrong direction," said Patrick Markee, senior policy analyst with New York City's Coalition for the Homeless. (Bergen Record)
New video released for HIV+ people of color
MEE (Motivational Educational Entertainment) Productions Inc., an internationally-recognized communications firm targeting urban populations, has debuted its latest video production, "Life is What You Make It(TM)," designed to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS treatment options within America's inner cities. Supported by an unrestricted education grant to Outreach Inc., an HIV/AIDS community-based organization located in Atlanta, from Agouron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., MEE's latest video was made for African Americans and Latino(a)s living with HIV/AIDS.
"We all know that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is now disproportionately affecting people of color, but too many education and prevention campaigns have continued to use a mainstream approach to reach a non-mainstream audience," said MEE President Ivan J. Juzang. "By using video, a medium which people of color respond to very positively, we have been able to incorporate the cultural perspectives of the people whose lives we are trying to save. Viewers feel that their experiences, though sometimes difficult, are legitimate and valuable, because they see the lives of people just like them reflected on the screen." The 23-minute video, based on months of focus group research, includes actual people living with the disease, an example of a support group, and comments from a physician who specializes in the treatment of HIV for people of color.
The video was created to help adults diagnosed with HIV better understand the range of treatment options and services, and to encourage them to become actively involved in choosing a treatment regimen that fits their lives. Reflecting MEE's respect for the oral communications culture prevalent in many urban environments, the video was designed to generate positive "word-of-mouth" throughout the community about the importance of HIV treatment.
"Community Action Teams" will distribute the free video at appropriate events and activities throughout communities. It will also be made available through MEE's Website and by calling a toll-free telephone number. The issues tackled include:
-- Understanding the importance of treatment,
-- Accessing treatment resources in one's community,
-- Feeling in control and empowered in living with HIV/AIDS, not dying from it,
-- Dealing with hidden concerns and anxieties around HIV and its long-term treatment, and
-- Potential barriers to an effective treatment regimen.
"There are too many people who feel abandoned and alone in their fight to live with HIV," said Juzang. "They need a message of hope in order to keep on fighting and `Life is What You Make It' says it all. Agouron Pharmaceuticals has been at the forefront of identifying and delivering positive messages to all communities. Their support made it possible to reach people who really need it most."
MEE Productions, a Philadelphia-based company, first received national attention in 1992 with the release of The MEE Report: "Reaching the Hip-Hop Generation", a study on the cultural and communication dynamics of urban teens funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The company was selected for this project based upon its combination of cutting-edge, research-based methodologies, and its ability to design and execute culturally relevant, yet cost-effective public health campaigns.
The "Life is What You Make It" video is the latest in a series of HIV/AIDS communications projects MEE has managed over its 10-year existence. Other clients have included the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Philadelphia's Health Department, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and UNICEF South Africa. The company's productions have won national awards from organizations such as American Women in Radio and Television, the National Black Programming Consortium, and the New York Film Festivals.
For information on the "Life is What You Make It" video and related support materials, contact MEE at 1-877-MEE-PROD or visit the web site at http://www.meeproductions.com. "Life is What You Make It" is a registered trademark of Agouron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.