In this issue:
Protein found that helps HIV enter body
Resistant HIV infection on the rise
Debate begins on CARE Act reauthorization
Wisconsin may add HIV+ to Medicaid program
Formula-feeding cuts baby's HIV risk
AIDS Fund denies charge on pox scare
Committee backs HIV testing for sex offenders
CT bill would allow the purchase of needles without prescription
The Body launches Spanish HIV/AIDS forum
NIH starts clinical trials website
FIGHT program to discuss therapies
Quilt display set for West Chester
Researchers have identified a protein, common in the cells lining the vagina, cervix and rectum, that protects HIV and ultimately delivers it into the body so it can infect and destroy the immune system.
In a study published in the journal Cell, the researchers offer new details on how HIV invades the body. Their work also suggests new ways to block the infection and, perhaps, create a practical vaccine.
"We have identified the key molecule that HIV uses to hijack dendritic cells," said the study's author, Dr. Dan Littman of the New York University School of Medicine.
The findings "are likely to provide us with vital information on how the virus is first transmitted and amplified in the body," Littman said.
Normally, the skin and the cells that line the body's orifices provide a barrier to viruses. But Littman's team found that HIV readily latches onto the protein, which they have named DC-SIGN.
DC-SIGN is found in a class of cells known as dendritic cells that are common in the tissue lining the rectum, cervix and vagina, where some people are exposed to HIV-infected bodily fluids.
Not only does the shape of the DC-SIGN protein allow it to embrace an HIV virus particle, it appears to protect the usually brittle virus from deteriorating.
Once locked onto a DC-SIGN protein, the virus is transported to the lymph nodes, where it comes into contact with immune cells called T-lymphocytes.Normally that is a good thing. When a virus is presented to a T-lymphocyte, it sparks a series of reactions that prompt the immune system to attack the invading virus.
But HIV is not a typical virus. Its target is the T-lymphocytes themselves. It hijacks them and uses them to spread the infection, eventually causing the immune system to collapse and leading to the symptoms that are the hallmarks of AIDS.
That means the DC-SIGN protein facilitates the work of the AIDS virus, the researchers said.
Doctors have suspected that the AIDS virus interacts with dendritic cells, but until now it was unclear how that interaction works, said the team, which also included Helen and Martin Kimmel of New York University and Yvette van Kooyk of the University Hospital Nijmegen in the Netherlands. (Reuters)
Resistant HIV infection on the rise
A substantial proportion of individuals who have been recently infected with HIV-1 carry a virus that is resistant to most available antiretroviral drugs, according to Investigators of the Quebec Primary Infection Study, who believe that this has become a serious public health problem.
Dr. Mark A. Wainberg of the McGill AIDS Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and colleagues performed resistance testing for 81 patients infected with HIV between 1997 and 1999. The subjects included 56 infected through sexual contact, 21 through injection drug use, and 4 through an unknown source.
"Automated sequencing was used to genotype the reverse transcriptase (RT) and protease regions of virus isolated from patients' plasma," the investigators report in the January 28th issue of AIDS. Phenotypic susceptibility to antiretroviral drugs was then determined.
Overall, Dr. Wainberg's group detected multidrug resistance in 9.9% of the cohort. This included resistance to non-nucleoside RT inhibitors, nucleoside RT inhibitors and protease inhibitors (PI).
At least one RT mutation was detected in 20% of the subjects. They found "mutations in codons 215 (zidovudine), 184 (lamivudine), 69 (zalcitabine), and 103 (multi-NNRTI)." Furthermore, "6% of patients carried major mutations associated with high-level PI resistance." Another 4% carried the K103N mutation, which "confers cross-resistance to all NNRTI."
"Transmission of multidrug...resistance in eight subjects (9.9%) was confirmed by showing that source partners possessed viruses of similar genotype," the investigators add.
Based on these findings, Dr. Wainberg's group concludes that multidrug resistant HIV transmission is "a serious problem that merits further attention by public health officials as well as virologists and clinicians." (Reuters)
Debate on CARE Act begins in Congress
Congress should refocus efforts, moving from an emphasis on people with AIDS to one on people with HIV, a physician/congressman urged a Senate Committee on March 1st at hearings on the reauthorization of the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act.
The CARE Act is the legislation which results in hundreds of millions of federal dollars to support care services for people living with HIV disease throughout the U.S. Over $23 million in CARE Act funds are allocated annually to the Philadelphia region.
Rep. Tom Coburn (R-OK), a longtime critic of the priorities for CARE Act funding, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that Congress needs to take into account the need to prevent HIV infection in the first place, and to treat HIV before it develops into AIDS.
Currently, the law awards grants based on AIDS data. But, said Coburn, "because AIDS is the last stage of HIV disease and develops on average 10 or more years after infection, this formula is blind to the current extent of the epidemic. This means that women, African Americans and other demographic groups which have experienced significant increases in new HIV infections that have not yet progressed to AIDS have been neglected, shortchanged, and often left to fend for themselves."
Coburn, a family practitioner who helped negotiate the last reauthorization of the Ryan White programs in 1996, also renewed his call for required testing of pregnant women and/or newborns, citing recent studies showing that new drugs and other techniques can effectively reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV to near zero.
"No one will ever know how many babies died because we failed to address this issue during the last reauthorization," he told the committee. "We must not condemn any more babies to early deaths."
Also testifying in favor of the programs was Jeanne White, the mother of Ryan White, the Indiana teenager for whom the act was named at its inception in 1990. Speaking on behalf of the AIDS Action Council, White agreed with Coburn that the focus of the program needs to shift with the evolving epidemic, and called for even more money for services.
"The remarkable fact that people with AIDS are living longer has contributed to an increased demand on the HIV/AIDS safety net," she said in her testimony.
While the Ryan White Act enjoys broad bipartisan support in Congress, fights are expected over some issues, particularly whether the funding should be awarded in "block grants" to the states (rather than in awards to individual cities) and the issue of partner notification.
Coburn told the committee that women are particularly hurt by a lack of partner notification policies. "They did not know they were at risk and no one told them. In some cases, law forbade them from being notified," he said. "Partner notification is a simple matter of life and death. And all too often, silence does indeed equal death."
But Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), challenged Coburn on the partner notification issue.
"I'm cautious that we don't inhibit people from getting tested," Harkin said. (Reuters)
Wisconsin may add HIV+ to Medicaid program
Wisconsin could be the second state to provide Medicaid benefits for people with HIV and AIDS following federal approval of a similar plan in Maine.
Federal officials approved Maine' s plan in February after judging that the policy' s costs would not rise over five years.
Wisconsin' s plan, however, would be more comprehensive than Maine' s. A provision to expand benefits for AIDS was included in the state budget proposed by Gov. Tommy Thompson and adopted by the Legislature in October.
With Maine receiving approval for AIDS coverage, Wisconsin plans to petition the federal government for similar permission, said Pris Boroniec, deputy administrator of the state Bureau of Health Care Financing.
A plan to extend Medicaid to people with HIV was rejected two years ago by the Clinton administration, which said it would be too expensive.
Expanding Medicaid, a program for the poor, elderly and disabled, to cover AIDS would bring medical care to about 320 people statewide, said Mike Gifford, deputy executive director of the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin has 5, 000 to 8, 000 people with HIV, 1, 900 of whom have developed AIDS, health officials say. (Associated Press)
Formula-feeding cuts baby's HIV risk
HIV-infected women can dramatically reduce their infant's risk of infection by choosing to formula-feed instead of breast-feeding, results of a new study suggest.
The rate of HIV transmission in breast milk is about 16% and formula-feeding could reduce the HIV-infection rate in children by 44%, according to a report in the March 1st issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Formula-feeding does not completely eliminate the HIV risk for infants, who can become infected with the AIDS virus before or during birth.
However, it is not clear that formula-feeding increases a baby's chance of survival. Overall, the study of more than 400 HIV-infected mothers and their infants in Kenya found that the mortality rate at 2 years of age was similar in both groups -- 24% in breast-fed infants and 20% in formula-fed babies.
Dr. Joan Kreiss of the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, and colleagues found that by the end of 2 years, 37% of the breast-fed infants and 20% of the formula-fed infants were HIV positive.
Most of the transmission of HIV in breast milk occurs early on with "75% of the risk difference between the two arms occurring by 6 months, although transmission continued throughout the duration of exposure," the authors write.
"Given that information, it is important that HIV-infected pregnant women be counseled regarding the risks and benefits of breast-feeding and formula-feeding," Kreiss said.
The challenge of trying to put this kind of knowledge into practice is "daunting," she continued.
Kreiss pointed out that many women in the study who were given formula decided to breast-feed anyway. Unlike women in some other countries, the study participants had access to clean water, free formula, and education and support on formula-feeding. Still, 30% of the women breast-fed their child even though they were supposed to formula-feed.
Many factors are responsible for this, Kreiss explained. "It's important to remember that in a primarily breast-feeding population, there's a lot of pressure on women to breast-fed."
Secondly, HIV infection carries a great deal of stigma in developing countries throughout the world.
"Many women are afraid that if they are seen to be formula-feeding their child that it might be inferred that they are HIV-positive." This is an issue that needs to be addressed on a population level and will require improvements in HIV education.
"Thirdly, in developing countries, it's very difficult to formula-feed. It requires access to clean water -- and we encourage women to boil water, even though the water is potable in Nairobi," she said.
"Finally, there is the financial issue, which was not present in our trial, but would need to be addressed if you tried to implement this on a larger scale.
Formula is not inexpensive. Our estimate was that 6 months of formula would cost about $300 in Nairobi, and that may be beyond the means of many HIV-infected pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa."
Subsidization of formula will need to be addressed by ministries of health, WHO, UNICEF and other groups, she said.
Kreiss' group believes that the prevention of mother-to-child HIV-1 transmission will require "a multipronged effort," including short-courses of treatment with drugs such as AZT or nevirapine and the introduction of formula-feeding as well. "It's of limited benefit to try to do one without the other." (Reuters)
AIDS Fund denies charge on pox scare
AIDS Fund executive director has denied a charge levied by a volunteer with the organization that the group refused a city request for help in alerting its supporters that a person with chicken pox had attended its February Gay Bingo event, which attracted over 600 people.
The Health Dept. says that because the event probably attracted a number of people with HIV and people who have never had chicken pox, it was important to alert the public so that attendees could check with their doctors to make sure they had not contracted the disease.
An AIDS Fund volunteer, talking to fastfax on the condition of anonymity, reported that after internal debate, the agency refused a request from the Health Dept. to make an announcement about the problem itself. Eventually, the city issued a press release so that bingo participants would be alerted to their risk.
Susan Higginbotham, the AIDS Fund's director, denied the charge, saying in a letter to fastfax that "the AIDS Fund never refused to notify anyone about the possible exposure to the varicella virus. I take any threat to those at risk very seriously, and as soon as I was notified about the risk, I began calling experts to get advice about the best way to deal with the issue. AIDS Fund is not a health provider or a public health official, and it is the role of the Health Department to determine how to notify individuals and to advise AIDS Fund on how we can assist the process."
Health Dept. officials say that they advised the AIDS Fund that the best way for them to assist the notification process was to contact their volunteers who helped at the event and to announce the problem through its own channels.
"The issue is that AIDS Fund does not have the names and addresses of most individuals who attend Gay Bingo," Higginbotham said. "It is a public event where we sell tickets to people who walk into the office, call by phone, or buy tickets at the door. The only names we actually have are of those individuals who purchase tickets by credit card. Because of this fact, I completely agree with the Health Department's decision to notify the public through public service announcements, and I was consulted about the decision."
Health Dept. officials declined to comment on the issue.
Committee backs HIV testing for sex offenders
A bill requiring convicted sex offenders to take HIV tests has attracted new allies and adversaries as lawmakers mount another effort to pass a proposal that would bring in hundreds of thousands of federal dollars.
Commissioner of Public Safety James Walton, a supporter of past versions of the bill, said Thursday he could not back a proposal that requires him to use part of the $200,000 federal grant money for victim services. He would consider making victim services a priority for some of the grant money, but did not want to be mandated to use those funds for that purpose, he said.
"I have grave concerns about something that forces us to be a funding source for victims," said Walton. "It's not appropriate, we're not the health department."
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill Thursday that gives the victims of sexual crimes the option of obtaining a court order requiring a convicted offender to be tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The bill contains a new provision outlining a host of victim services that would also be covered by the money if no other sources were available. Those services include HIV tests, crisis counseling and the option of a prophylaxis treatment, a drug treatment used to prevent the onset of HIV after exposure.
"I respect the commissioner's position, but I think we did the right thing," said Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, chairman of the committee. Sears said the bill gives the state the opportunity to net more federal money that could pay for services that aren't currently offered to victims of sexual offenses.
At least one member of the committee anticipated Walton's concerns and voted against the bill.
Sen. John Bloomer, R-Rutland, said he was not comfortable with the proposal. He suggested the committee made broad strokes on what started out as a simple testing bill and turned into a counseling and treatment bill. Bloomer added that he'd withdraw his dissenting vote if, after talking to Walton, he found that the commissioner was in favor of the proposal as written.
Walton's department administers the $2.1 million in Byrne grants. He has supported the HIV bill in the past because of its financial benefits to the state, but says this proposal is one he cannot get behind in part because of the blind cost of the services.
Concerned that the Byrne money could one day dry up and leave his department on the hook for the service, Walton pledged to fight any language that would allow such a scenario. Another sticking point was the lack of any statistics on the number of victims who would take advantage of the services, he said.
"It's a black hole for me," he said.
Walton's reason for opposing the proposal for the first time in eight years is exactly what changed the mind of the AIDS community. Wary of opening the door to criminalizing the transmission of the virus, leaders in the AIDS community opposed any mandatory testing bill until this one.
"It's worth the risk if we can get prophylaxis testing," said John Hannah, volunteer coordinator with the HIV Positive Public Policy Project. "We are absolutely behind having services for victims and this year the focus has been on the victim in a comprehensive way."
The project, a consumer policy group representing people living with HIV and AIDS, fought particularly hard for the inclusion of the prophylaxis treatment in the bill. The treatment, estimated to cost $2,500 per patient, is an intensive regimen that is now used mainly by nurses, physicians and other emergency workers who are accidentally exposed to the virus. It is a 28-day treatment involving drugs that are used to suppress the virus in AIDS patients. It must be administered within 72 hours of the potential exposure, Hannah said.
The AIDS community warned that its approval was contingent upon the federal funding of victim services. The group was particularly protective of the funds now administered by the Department of Health for services to AIDS patients.
"We feel very strongly that the money be tied to these particular kinds of services," he said. "The money spent on AIDS services is already spread so thin."
At $300 per test, some estimates of possible sex offender testing hover in the $10,000- to $15,000 range, Walton said. Estimates given to the committee predicted that the victims' tests would cost a little over $81,000 a year, while the prophylaxis treatment could go as high as $84,000 annually.
The grant program is based on a formula of criteria. Each state's grant depends on the number of criteria they meet through laws and programs. In Vermont's case, the state has been penalized 10 percent of its total grant - approximately $200,000 - for not having a law requiring sex offenders to take HIV tests. That penalty was the impetus behind the testing bill and has kept it alive these past eight years.
"Part of it is about the money there's no question about it," Sears said.
The bill also includes a sex offender registry provision that would allow the state to recapture $200,000 in Byrne grant money that is in jeopardy. The state was notified last year that it would be penalized for its sex offender registry. Vermont does have a registry, but it fails to meet the federal standards set by the Byrne program. The bill brings it into compliance, Sears said. It also changes it slightly, making it easier for the public to obtain information from the registry as long as the inquirer has the name of the offender. (Vermont Press Bureau)
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CT bill would allow the purchase of needles without prescription
Patricia O'Keefe has helped orphaned children in New Hampshire pick up the pieces when their parents died of AIDS from abusing drugs intravenously.
So, for the third-term Democratic legislator, allowing drug abusers to buy hypodermic needles without a prescription is simply a necessity in the fight against acquired immune deficiency syndrome and the hepatitis C infection.
"Some people say we're promoting drug use," said O'Keefe, who is a counselor at a residential treatment program for emotionally disturbed and behaviorally challenged children. "You can look at it the same as the gun lobby when they say it's not the gun. It's not the needle."
Rather, there are drug abusers throughout the state with a "serious addiction" to heroin who already use needles, she said. By making it legal to buy clean needles, accompanied by pamphlets promoting ways to get help for their addiction, as well as instructions on how best to dispose of the syringes, the state would be trying to stop the spread of blood borne diseases, O'Keefe said.
"If I could bring in a bill preventing people from ever wanting to do this stuff, Lord knows I'd do it," she said. "In the meantime, a good interim, not a solution, is this bill."
Certainly, it is not the first time a measure removing the prescription requirement for hypodermic syringes has made its way through the Legislature. A similar bill was passed by the House and Senate, only to be vetoed by the governor in 1992, said Representative Cecelia Kane, a longtime supporter of the measure, whose son died from AIDS.
But this time, Kane, a retired nurse, and others are optimistic the bill could become law. She said there are many new legislators, a new governor and a pilot needle exchange program that passed a few years ago, although it hasn't been taken up by any community yet.
"This is a statewide problem," O'Keefe said. "It's just everywhere. It's in small towns. People don't want to admit it, but it's here in New Hampshire."
Currently, New Hampshire is one of only 10 states requiring a prescription to buy hypodermic needles.
Although the incidence of AIDS in the state is relatively low at 4.7 per 100,000 persons in 1997, 38 percent of the AIDS cases reported in the state that same year were associated with injecting drugs. The Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California has said that intravenous drug users are half of all new HIV infections in the United States, and intravenous drug use is the most common risk factor in persons with hepatitis C, which can cause chronic liver disease.
"We believe anything that can help reduce the spread of AIDS and hepatitis C is helpful," said Janet Monahan of the New Hampshire Medical Society, one of about nine medical groups supporting the current bill. "Our border states don't require prescriptions for needles and they haven't reported problems."
In Maine, where the law was repealed in 1993, pharmacists were not required to sell needles without prescriptions, but were given the option, which would be the same in New Hampshire. But by 1995, Monahan said, a survey showed about 95 percent of the pharmacists were selling needles without prescriptions.
There also is a provision in the New Hampshire bill that would retain prescriptions for diabetics to get their needles so that they could keep insurance coverage, O'Keefe said.
"We keep pounding away at these issues and eventually some people manage to get it," said Marion Copenhaver, who sponsored past versions of the bill. "It's crazy when you have something like AIDS, if there is something we can do to prevent it we should enact laws to do that."
Another bill, sponsored by Larry Emerton, calls for establishing a committee to study requiring health care workers to use retractable needles.
Health care issues account for many of the 750 proposals before the Legislature this session.
One bill stipulates managed care plans already selling chiropractic benefits allow 12 self-referral chiropractic visits before treatment review. At the time of the assessment, a chiropractor must be consulted, who then will report to the insurer and/or primary care doctor.
Another measure calls for managed care groups to have a New Hampshire licensed physician as a medical director.
It also prohibits contracts between health carriers and participating providers from including financial incentives to deny medically necessary care.
In addition, lawmakers have begun holding hearings on whether to outlaw smoking in the state's restaurants. (Boston Globe)
The Body launches Spanish HIV/AIDS forum
The Body (http://www.thebody.com), a major online resource for HIV/AIDS information and services, has announced the launch of an expert medical question and answer forum in Spanish. The free, online forum allows users to ask anonymous questions regarding HIV/AIDS treatment issues to Spanish-speaking medical experts.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hispanics accounted for 20 percent of all new AIDS cases in the United States in 1998, although they represented only 13 percent of the entire population. The rate of new AIDS cases among Hispanics in 1998 was 28.1 per 100,000 population, almost four times the rate for whites.
"As the number of HIV and AIDS cases among Hispanics continues to rise, there is a significant need to reach this population with the right information on prevention and treatment," said James D. Marks, CEO, president and founder of The Body. "Offering Spanish-speaking individuals free access to HIV/AIDS experts in their own language is an enormous step in our attempt to create the most comprehensive, international HIV/AIDS resource."
The Body's Spanish Q&A forum, found at http://www.thebody.com/cgi/treatespans.html, allows users to anonymously post questions and receive a timely response from medical experts, Pablo Tebas, M.D. and Jorge Santana Bagur, M.D. The forum posts archived questions to improve the ease of searching for answers and offers users the opportunity to volunteer for clinical studies online.
"The Body's mission is to help patients across the globe find reliable information, access experts, take greater control over their own health and improve their quality of life," continued Marks.
Both Dr. Tebas and Dr. Bagur have extensive experience with HIV/AIDS patients and therapies. Dr. Tebas is an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine and serves as the medical director of the infectious diseases division outpatient clinic and an investigator in the AIDS Clinical Trial Unit at Washington University. Dr. Tebas provides primary care for more than 100 HIV patients and is involved in clinical trials for new therapies. Dr. Bagur is the director of the Infection Control Program at the Industrial Hospital and Alejandro Otero Hospital. Additionally, he is as an infectious disease consultant for the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine and the San Juan AIDS Program Medical Center, where he was formerly the director.
NIH starts clinical trials website
The National Institutes of Health has announced the launch of the first phase of a consumer-friendly database, "ClinicalTrials.gov", with information on more than 4,000 federal and private medical studies involving patients and others at more than 47,000 locations nationwide. The new database may be reached at http://clinicaltrials.gov/.
Clinical trials are medical research studies that seek to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of new drugs, medical procedures, or other means of treating, diagnosing, or preventing diseases. This type of research helps investigators learn how different people respond to medications or other therapeutic approaches, and such investigations may lead to new or improved treatments.
Trials are conducted when there is no proven treatment for a specific disease, or to test which treatment works best for a particular disease or condition.
"ClinicalTrials.gov" provides patients, families and members of the public easy access to information about the location of clinical trials, their design and purpose, criteria for participation, and, in many cases, further information about the disease and treatment under study. There are also links to individuals responsible for recruiting participants for each study.
Acting NIH Director Ruth L. Kirschstein, M.D., said, "Through this new database, NIH offers up-to-date information on promising patient-oriented research on hundreds of diseases and conditions. Most of the 4,000 clinical trials now in the database are funded by NIH Institutes and Centers, and result from a long, fruitful partnership between NIH and the American people who support and participate in our work."
"If we are to continue making the giant strides in diagnosis, treatment, and cure of illness that marked the last century, we must have active participation in clinical trials by well-informed volunteers," said Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D., Director of NIH's National Library of Medicine, which developed and administers the new database.
"'ClinicalTrials.gov' is a resource that will benefit trial participants, researchers, health care professionals and, over time, the general public."
Dr. Lindberg noted that "ClinicalTrials.gov" may also be reached through the National Library of Medicine's Web site at http://www.nlm.nih.gov and through its consumer health information service, MEDLINE"plus" at http://medlineplus.gov. MEDLINE"plus" has extensive links to information about 350 diseases and health conditions, much of it from the NIH Institutes and Centers.
"ClinicalTrials.gov" grew out of 1997 legislation that required the Department of Health and Human Services, through the NIH, to broaden the public's access to information about clinical trials on a wide range of diseases by establishing a registry for both federally and privately funded trials "on drugs for serious or life-threatening diseases and conditions."
"The project is proceeding in several major phases," noted Alexa T. McCray, Ph.D., who directs the "ClinicalTrials.gov" project at the National Library of Medicine. "In the first phase we were interested in collecting information primarily about studies that are being funded by NIH, or that are being conducted right here on the NIH campus. With the release of "ClinicalTrials.gov", the first phase is well under way. In the next phase we will include non-NIH sponsored trials from other Federal agencies and private industry."
"ClinicalTrials.gov" is a completely confidential Web site. No registration or personal identification of any kind is required. People who search the site will not be contacted by the sponsors of clinical trials or by anyone else.
FIGHT program to discuss therapies
The uses of Western medicine and complementary therapies to manage side effects of anti-AIDS drugs is the topic of an upcoming Philadelphia FIGHT forum.
The free forum is scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. March 14 at the Bluemle Building of Thomas Jefferson University, 10th and Locust streets.
Speakers include health-care specialists Joseph Ondercin and Christopher Hudson. Refreshments will be served at a reception, to begin at 6:30 p.m. March 14. For more information, call Philadelphia FIGHT at (215) 985-4448.
FIGHT's Frontline Information Series will take place on Wednesday, March 29, 2000. It will be held at St. Luke's & the Epiphany Church, located at 330 S. 13th St., 13th Street between Spruce and Pine Streets. The topic is "HIV and Mental Health". The speakers are Jeff Hoetzel, M.Sc., Program Director at the Community Living Room, and Jeff Jin, MSW, Program Counselor at the Community Living Room. Understand more about the philosophy and conceptual framework behind psychosocial service for HIV+/mental health clients, plus specific issues and needs that should be met. Hear from service providers about the obstacles to providing effective services.
Learn more about resources for your clients and how to work within the mental health system. The seminar is from 3:00 pm-5:00 pm. Admission is free and refreshments will be served. This training also counts 2 hours toward the Case Management Coordination Project continuing education requirements for Ryan White Year 10. For more information, call (215) 985-4448.
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Quilt display set for West Chester
A Display of the Names Project AIDS Memorial QUILT will open on Wednesday, March 22, at West Chester University, Sykes Student Union Ballroom, Rosedale Avenue, West Chester.
Opening ceremonies will begin at noon that day, and the exhibit will remain open until 6 pm. The display will be open from 10 am to 6pm on Thursday, March 23rd; from noon to 9pm on Friday; and from 10 am to 4pm on Saturday, with a closing ceremony beginning at 4pm.
The display is sponsored by West Chester University, Chester County AIDS Support Services, Planned Parenthood of Chester County, Camp Dreamcatcher, Brandywine Hospital, Family Service of Chester County, and the Chester County AIDS Consortium.
Parking available during the day at Farrell Stadium; shuttle transportation to exhibit provided.
Proceeds benefit Camp Dreamcatcher and the Chester County AIDS Consortium.
For information, call 610-466-7848.