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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 26, 1995)
. - . I - -. - - ■ ! . ■ Sb=_ £) Qggj Thursday, January 26,1995 Page 2 Unintentional experiment implies AIDS vaccine safe BOSTON — One man’s HIV in fection over a decade ago is giving scientists their first evidence of the safety of an AIDS vaccine that has been considered too dangerous for people. In a kind of unintended natural experiment, the man caught a geneti cally weakened form of the AIDS virus. It is virtually identical to the weakened virus used in the experi mental vaccine, which works well on monkeys. Typically people fall ill within 10 years of contracting HIV. But this man, now 44, appears to be perfectly healthy at least 12 years after getting infected. About 5 percent of HIV-infected people show no signs of immune sys tem damage more than a decade after catching the virus. Understanding the factors that keep them healthy is a major goal of AIDS research. The study is the first to show that long-term HIV survival clearly may result from catching a crippled ver sion of the virus. Certainly, one healthy patient does not prove safety. And it also does not demonstrate whether the vaccine wards off other HIV infections, al though the researchers said it may have kept the man, a hemophiliac, from getting more lethal forms of the virus from his clotting material, which was produced before it was routinely screened for HIV. Recently, doctors discovered that the man’s virus was crippled by a mutation in one of its nine genes. By coincidence, this mutation is identi cal to the one deliberately engineered into an experimental vaccine for SIV, “ When there is a new person infected every 15 seconds, we can’t sit around and scratch our heads and say we need to think about this for 10 more years. ” m DR. JOHN SULLIVAN University of Massachusetts author the monkey form of the AIDS virus. Scientists showed two years ago that giving monkeys this weakened form of the virus protects them from catching the lethal variety, despite deliberate exposure. Yet it does not make the monkeys sick. The case of the man who was inadvertently vaccinated was de scribed in Thursday’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine by researchers from the New England Regional Primate Research Center and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The search for a human AIDS vaccine has been disappointing. Giv ing dead fragments of the virus does not appear to stimulate the body enough to ward off infection. Yet giving a weakened but live virus - called an attenuated vaccine - is con sidered too risky because of the chance it will cause the disease it is intended to prevent. Dr. Ronald C. Desrosiers of the primate center said many scientists agree that a live attenuated AIDS vaccine is likely to be the most effec tive at preventing infection. “But the big concern is safety, safety, safety, safety,” he said. “This guy is doing fine. This is evidence of sorts that it can be safe.” In an accompanying editorial in the journal, Dr. David Baltimore of Massachusetts Institute of Technol ogy wrote that “continued study of an attenuated vaccine is reasonable.” He noted that a still-unpublished study, conducted by Dr. Ruth Ruprecht of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, found that the crippled virus caused AIDS when given to baby monkeys. Because infants’ immune defenses are immature, a virus that is harmless to grownups may be lethal to them. Her study raises the possibility that mothers who get an attenuated vac cine might pass the AIDS virus to their babies. And Dr. Dani Bolognesi of Duke University is skeptical about the pos sibility of attenuated vaccines. “This study in monkeys is scary,” he said. Dr. John Sullivan of the Univer sity of Massachusetts, a co-author with Desrosiers, said he thinks re searchers should try to test such a vaccine. “When there is a new person in fected every 15 seconds, we can’t sit around and scratch our heads and say we need to think about this for 10 more years,” he said. “It’s time to move forward with the idea that an attenuated vaccine might in fact be used.” News... in a Minute Collisions Mil five FRANKFURT, Germany—Five people died in car accidents on icy roads Wednesday, and flood-stricken residents along the Rhine and other key rivers braced for the water to rise even higher. Storms and freezing rain have lashed Germany for the past three days. Heavy rains have flooded the Rhine, the Mosel and other rivers over their banks. Some people living in Cochem, a wine-growing town on the Mosel, were using rowboats to reach their homes. All three passengers in a car were killed in a collision with a truck in the east German state of Thuringia. One woman was killed in a second crash, and a 28-year-old man died when his car rammed a tree. Barge traffic on the Rhine River remained shut down from Koblenz, where the Mosel enters the Rhine, to Cologne about 50 miles to the north. The national weather service predicted more rain for Thursday, and warned the flooding could worsen. Mob attacks, Mils robber LISBON, Portugal — Dressed in underwear and pajamas, an angry mob of neighbors attacked a young man caught in a pre-dawn robbery and beat him to death. Police Lt. Pires da Costa said the sound of breaking glass early Tuesday morning sent dozens of residents of the small town of Carregado rushing to the street, where four men were fleeing an appliance store. The mob caught one man, bound him with belts, and kicked and punched him to death, da Costa said. The other three managed to escape in a car. “Apparently nobody used a weapon, just their hands and feet,” da Costa said Wednesday. He said the victim was African, but did not identify him further. Most residents of Carregado have refused to speak about the incident. Jose Maria Rapagao, the owner of the store, said “40 or 50 people” in pajamas and underwear were standing around the bleeding, semi conscious victim when he arrived, according to the newspaper, A Capital. No one in the mob has been arrested, da Costa said. But police were searching for the three who escaped. Portugal is traditionally a country low in crime, but fear has grown in recent years of gangs formed by young men from its former African colonies. Jews return to Auschwitz OSWIECIM, Poland—Jews from abound the world returned Wednes day to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Na zis’ biggest death complex, where 1.5 million people were killed before it was liberated 50 years ago. Jews accounted for more than 90 percent of those killed at the camps from 1940 until they were liberated by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945. But a dispute over the degree of Jewish participation in Friday’s anni versary ceremonies has marred the event. Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel, who heads the official U.S. delega tion, complained that the government organized commemoration does not focus sufficiently on the suffering of Jews, the main victims of the Nazi Holocaust. “There are still problems. I hope to resolve them” during a lunch meeting Thursday with Polish President Lech Walesa, Wiesel said before leaving Paris Wednesday night. “I’m con vinced that the Polish authorities will understand why we are so sensitive to the question of Jewish participation.” The government’s ceremony re flects the view of the Polish people, half of whom equate the word “Auschwitz” with the martyrdom of their nation. About 6 million Polish citizens were killed during the war, the majority in death camps. Half of them were Jews. One issue that caused anguish among Jews was the failure of orga nizers to list the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, separately on the anniversary program. Instead the pro gram notes that prayers of several religions will be held during Friday’s events at Auschwitz. That led some Jews to say they wouldn’t attend and others, like Wiesel, to accuse the Polish organiz ers of showing a lack of respect for Jewish sentiments. Polish organizers said they al ways intended to have the Kaddish as part of the Friday program. Moreover, a separate Jewish prayer and remembrance service Thursday at Birkenau was added at the instiga tion of Szymon Szurmiej, leader of Poland’s Jewish community. The World Jewish Congress later said they, too, would attend the Thursday event. Birkenau is where the Nazis constructed gas chambers to kill Jews and anyone else deemed unfit for work at the various factories that employed slave labor from the Auschwitz concentration camp com plex. “The symbols of Polish suffering and of Jewish extermination are com bined in this week’s commemora tion,” said Rabbi Andrew Baker, part of a delegation of the American Jew ish Committee. Nebraskan FAX NUMBER 472-1761 The Daily NebraskanlUSPS 144-080) is published by the UNL Publications Board, Ne braska Union 34, 1400 R St., Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, Monday through Friday during the academic year; weekly during summer sessions. Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The public also has aocos* to the Publications Board. For information, contact Tim Hedegaard, 436-9258. Subscription price is $50 for one year. Postmaster: Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St Lincoln NE 68588-0448. Second-class postage paid at Lincoln, NE. , ' all MATERIAL COPYRIGHT1995 DAILY NEBRASKAN Clinton wants financial aid money for Mexico WASHINGTON — The Clinton administration, joined by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, appealed to Congress Wednesday to quickly approve a $40 billion rescue package for Mexico to keep that country’s fi nancial crisis from deepening. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin told the House Banking Committee that the stakes were high in avoiding a financial crisis that could spread to other develop ing countries. “Mexico has experienced a loss of confidence, but the damage is not yet irreversible,” he said. “It is critical that we prevent the current situation from deepening into a crisis with lasting implications for U.S. jobs, Mexican economic vi tality and the financial prospects of all emerging markets.” Rubin, Secretary of State War ren Christopher and Greenspan were the leadoff witnesses as the Banking Committee began hear ings into what committee Chair man Jim Leach, R-Iowa, said were the undesirable options facing Congress. “All alternatives at this time are lousy alternatives,” he said. “The question we have to deal with is what is the least lousy alterna tive.” Leach, who has been one of the chief negotiators working with the administration behind the scenes to craft legislation, said officials were now on their eighth or ninth draft and had been able to meet all of the administration’s demands. But he said congressional Democrats were still holding out for further conditions to be im posed on the loan guarantees. Sup porters of the rescue package are concerned that it could fail in Con gress because of opposition from conservative Republicans who have attacked it as a taxpayer bail out and from liberal Democrats who want to impose a number of conditions on the assistance. “We recognize that we’re go ing to have to continue to work with Congress and continue to build support,” presidential spokesman Mike McCurry said today. “We do have Democrats on board and are getting more Democrats on board, but we probably need to do more.” House Speaker Newt Gingrich said there is little public support for the concept, and it will be “dif ficult to pass.” He said he believes Congress ultimately will approve the mea sure, but he suggested it could take two weeks or longer, and said the president is going to have to work harder to generate support. Greenspan, who has been a highly visible supporter of the ad ministration effort, said the situa tion is serious because of the threat it posed of triggering a flight of capital from other developing countries. He said Brazil and Argentina had already experienced problems and other countries in Asia and central Europe “not even remotely related to Mexico” were also at risk of financial instability caused by nervous investors. State seeks March 22 execution The Nebraska Supreme Court on Wednesday set a March 22 execution date for death row inmate Robert E. Williams. /^Williams, 58, was sentenced to death on June 30, 1978, for killing two Lincoln women and raping one of them in 1977. In 1977, when Williams was cap tured in a Lincoln rail yard, he also was wanted for a killing in Iowa and kidnappings and rapes in Iowa and Minnesota. In a related development, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a full court hearing of an appeal filed by Williams’ attorneys. Attorneys Paula Hutchinson and Vince Powers of Lincoln asked for the full hearing after a three-judge panel turned down an appeal three weeks ago. Attorney General Don Stenberg said he was pleased the state Su preme Court granted his motion for a sentencing date. Stenberg said he hoped the sentence would be carried out as scheduled. Hutchinson said she would file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as possible. Williams was sentenced to death for the Aug. 11, 1977, murders of Catherine Brooks and Patricia McGany, both 25 and of Lincoln. Williams is one of 10 men on Nebraska’s death row. None aside from Williams have execution dates scheduled. Nebraska on Sept. 2 con ducted its first execution in 35 years when Harold Lament Otey died in the electric chair.
