published by We The People Living with AIDS/HIV of the Delaware Valley, Inc.
We The People reorganizes management structure
City study highlights importance of prenatal care
We The People reorganizes management structure
The Board of Directors of We The People dissolved it's three-member management team structure on Friday, eliminating two top positions and re-instituting an "executive director" led structure dropped only five months ago.
The immediate reason for the action, according to We The People board president Gregory Hardy, was the decision of WTP's fiscal director to utilize funds originally set aside for emergency housing grants to pay for other expenses of the organization.
Hardy said that he expected delays in paying emergency grants would be relieved with the assistance of the city's Office of Housing and Community Development, and ActionAIDS, which has said it is willing to help with WTP's current cash flow crisis.
We The People policy is that emergency grants funds, called LifeSavers funds, may not be used for any other purpose no matter what the financial stress on the agency. The fiscal director had used the funds to pay expenses related to the agency's housing program for people with AIDS, The Lombard Street Community, which is being constructed at Broad and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia.
Hardy said that other internal personnel issues were also factored in to the board's decision, including complaints by some members about what they felt was a deterioration of programming at We The People's Life Center under the leadership of former Operations Director Sabrina Cason and former Fiscal Director Billy Blackwell. Many members had been seriously concerned at a decision by Blackwell and Cason to close We The People's Life Center -- which had been open every day of the year for almost five years -- in order to make minor repairs.
Hardy said that most board members felt that the two management team members had not been forthright in reporting to the board their mistakes nor in responding to complaints from members about Life Center programs.
Both Cason and Blackwell were laid off from their respective positions immediately, Hardy said, as a result of the restructuring. Both had been employees of We The People for about three years.
Joseph Cronauer, who also was part of the original three-member management team set up in March, will remain as the organization's executive director with new authority to manage both fiscal operations and the day-to-day affairs of the Life Center. We The People accountant Mary Louise Cervone, CPA, will also take on additional financial management duties, Hardy said.
WTP Treasurer Robert Capone said that the Board's actions were not based on any concern about illegal activity or misappropriation of funds. "Some members of the management team made some bad choices," he said. "These choices threatened the ability of We The People to meet the emergency needs of its members and brought into question our longstanding commitment that the needs of people with HIV/AIDS will always be foremost in everything we do."
Both Cason and Blackwell are African American; Cronauer is white. Hardy said that there were no racial implications to the board's decision, noting that 74% of the WTP board and its executive officers, and all but one staff member, are people of color.
Hardy said that the Board of Directors has created two new positions at the agency, one responsible for the day-to-day direction of Life Center programs and the other an administrative assistant to the executive director and accountant. He said that as with all employment positions at We The People, minority people living with HIV/AIDS will be given preference for consideration for these positions.
Gene therapy shows promises
A researcher at Colorado State University says he has discovered a way to deliver genes that are resistant to HIV which could make a single treatment last a lifetime.
The technique is based on getting the disease-resistant genes into the blood-forming stem cells in a person's bone marrow, where they replicate to alter the genetic makeup of the bone marrow cells.
Stem cells are considered a good target for gene therapy since they generate progeny cells that produce blood. If a stem cell is made to be HIV resistant, all forms of blood cells produced by the stem, including the key T-cells that are attacked by HIV, would also be resistant.
Putting the discovery into practice, however, hinges on the development of an anti-HIV gene proven to be effective.
A number of companies are involved in research into AIDS-resistant genes, but all are still in early clinical studies, meaning they would not come onto the market for years in a best-case scenario.
"The problem is that there are now about 10 different strategies to treat AIDS by gene therapy. But when you really put in into the patient, is it going to work well or not?" said Professor Ramesh Akkina, head of the pathology department at Colorado State. Details of the new delivery method were published in the latest edition of the Journal of Virology.
And others involved in HIV gene research stress that even a successful HIV-resistant gene combined with a proven delivery method would not alone be enough to treat AIDS.
"With almost all of these (anti-HIV) genes, patients will still require multiple therapies," said Dr. James McArthur, senior scientist of Cell Genesys Inc, one of the companies involved in gene therapy research.
Still, Akkina said his findings were a breakthrough since he reached a near 100 percent success rate in genetically altering the stem cells, compared with a much lower 30 to 40 percent in past experiments.
Without a means to penetrate the stem cells successfully, Akkina said, gene therapy would be a much more cumbersome process of removing the T-cells from a patient's blood, treating them and then reinfusing them. T-cells live between six months and two years, so the AIDS patient would have to undergo repeated treatments.
The new technique to penetrate the stem cells works by replacing the substance that usually coats HIV with a harmless virus that is very efficient at sticking to, or infecting cells. But because only the outer coating of the virus is used, it poses no threat to people with weakened immune systems, Akkina said.
Measles vaccine kills PWA
U.S. health officials have announced that they were reviewing whether some people with AIDS should avoid getting measles vaccinations because an HIV-infected man with a weakened immune system died after one.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said a 20-year-old man was given a measles vaccination that caused him to fall ill almost a year later. He died in 1993 but it was not until last year that sophisticated laboratory tests determined that his death from pneumonitis was caused by the measles virus.
The CDC said this was the first known case of serious complications from measles vaccination in an HIV-infected person with a severely weakened immune system.
"HIV-infected persons who are not severely immuno-compromised should continue to receive the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine," Dr. Will Schluter of the CDC's National Immunization program said. "Because they may have a better immune response, they should be vaccinated early in the course of their HIV disease rather than waiting until they're severely immuno-compromised."
Health officials currently recommend vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella at the age of 12 to 15 months, with a second dose at four to six years or 11 to 12 years. Measles vaccination is also recommended for adults born after 1957 who have not been vaccinated or otherwise developed immunity, even if they are HIV-infected or have developed AIDS.
"This is the first case where there's been an adverse event in an HIV-infected person,"Schluter said. He said published scientific studies indicate 750 HIV-infected people had been vaccinated against measles without complications.
Until new recommendations are made, the CDC said HIV- infected people should still be given measles-mumps-rubella vaccine unless their immune system is severely weakened. Infants born with HIV infection should receive the vaccine as soon as possible after their first birthday, the CDC said.
City study highlights importance of prenatal care
With adequate prenatal care, adverse birth outcomes can be cut in half for children born to women infected with HIV, researchers at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia report. Barbara J. Turner and colleagues reviewed New York State Medicaid records of more than 2,200 HIV-infected women who gave birth between 1985 and 1990. The researchers report that the odds of low birth weight and preterm birth for women with adequate prenatal care were 48 percent and 21 percent lower, respectively, than for those individuals who had inadequate prenatal care.
Viatical company gives up
Dignity Partners, one of the first companies to buy life insurance policies from people with AIDS, has announced a halt to its business
The company noted that new drugs that prolong survival of people with AIDS may hurt their business.
The company's share price on the Nasdaq stock market dropped 77 percent to $1.375 on the news, down $4.6875. More than 95 percent of Dignity Partners' business involved policies held by people with HIV or AIDS, the company said.