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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1997)
A cruel Irony When some AIDS patients live longer, others die sooner - LL ByDanaCalvo Associated Press TIJUANA, Mexico — Every Thursday, Fred Scholl fills an old travel bag with AIDS medicines. The pills are leftovers, no longer needed by patients who have died. Then he drives his battered, gray Mazda south across the U.S. Mexico border to a clinic with one examining table and eight chairs where 240 infected Mexicans line up for the AIDS-suppressing medi cines. But Scholl’s bag has become alarmingly light in the last year as more and more Americans with AIDS stave off death, at least tem porarily, and continue courses of drugs some consider miraculous. “Two years ago, we had so much medicine that we were send ing it to clinics all over Mexico,” Scholl says, standing behind the drug counter of the only AIDS clinic in Tijuana that can offer medicine to combat the virus. “Now, I’m just barely able to keep up with the demand.” Scholl, a pharmacist by train ing, now a realtor, helped establish Clinica ACOSlDA (Alliance Against AIDS) 10 years ago. Chi his weekly trips to the clinic, he used to bring dozens of bottles of AZT, the most common AIDS fighting drug. One recent evening, he carried only four bottles of par tially consumed prescriptions. His six-month back-up supply has dwindled to six weeks’ worth. Fear of resistance : Beyond the immediate fear of losing patients because they have no medicine, health workers on both sides of the bolder worry about the worst-case possibility, that the deadly virus will gather resistance to effective treatments because they are interrupted or halted. John Ward, chief of HIV/AIDS Surveillance at the Colters for Dis ease Control and Prevention in At lanta, says AIDS adapts swiftly to drugs, especially if they are inter mittently administered. “Anytime you interrupt treat ment, there’s the concern of the emergence of resistance,” he says. “By stopping the treatment you give the virus a chance to recover. It replicates faster.” Health officials from San Diego County and Tijuana met in Febru ary. “We spoke of this exact prob lem, but the obstacle is the economy,” says Nelson Bonilla, director of Tijuana’s only govern ment-run AIDS clinic. “We cannot provide these medications.” His small clinic and group In Mexico, especially on the border, if you're HIV-positive the only treatment accessible, maybe, is vitamins ” Skip Rosenthal U.S. - Mexico Border HealthAssociation therapy program- has “not one peso” for AIDS-fighting medicine, he said. His patients receive free HIV testing, AIDS counseling and treatment for infections, such as tuberculosis and pneumonia. “On the border, some have their medicine, but they are all from American donations. Here,” he says, gesturing to his small office, “we don’t have a choice because they’re not accessible. It is too costly.” a montn s supply ot az 1 in northern Mexico ranges from $150 to $448, putting it out of reach for nearly everyone, including the gov ernment. In the United States, federal as sistance or health insurance picks up the pharmaceutical tab of most AIDS treatments. One month’s supply of AZT costs about $290. The so-called AIDS “cocktail,” a mixture of AIDS-fighting medica tions including the promising new protease inhibitors, can run $ 1,200 a month, depending on the combi nation. In February, the CDC reported that the number of AIDS deaths in the United States had fallen signifi cantly for the first time since the epidemic began in 1981. Statistics from San Diego County reflect the nationwide figures, with deaths dropping from 615 in 1995 to 362 in 1996. Experts say it is too early to link the drop-off to protease inhibitors because the drugs were introduced only a year ago. But Scholl and Mexican health care providers say whatever the reasons, the good news north of the border may mean increasing tragedy to its south. “We’ve had people who come with prescriptions that we just can’t fill,” says Jose Navarro, another ACOSIDA founder. “It’s going to be very critical for us — the more medication they have up there the less resources we’ll have down here.” No support While Mexico’s lagging AIDS treatment can largely be attributed to economic drawbacks, patients and caretakers must also battle an entrenched “machismo” culture that associates AIDS with homo sexuality and responds with deri sion or denial. In Mexico, no one can state the incidence of AIDS because the gov ernment doesn’t collect such sta tistics. In Tijuana, a city of 1.7 mil lion, about the size of Houston, no hospital has an AIDS ward. At funerals for people with AIDS, caskets are closed because morticians will not prepare the corpses. “The taboo against even talk ing about it is unbelievable,” says Slap Rosenthal, who works for the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Asso ciation in El Paso, Texas. He has taken donated medicine to neigh boring Ciudad Juarez for about five years. in Mexico, especially on the border, if you’re HIV-positive the only treatment accessible, maybe, is vitamins,” Rosenthal says. While he’s been able to tuck away some pharmaceutical prizes for his 150 patients, Rosenthal knows the donations could stop anytime. “We’ve even been able to get some protease inhibitors, but we’re very uncomfortable with it because we can never guarantee they will continue coming down,” he says. Waiting and hoping In Tijuana, Scholl’s patients quietly wait in line for the precious AIDS-fighting drugs. Leaning on a wooden cane, 26 year-old Efrain Flores is wasting away with full-blown AIDS. When his turn comes, he’ll be given a plastic bag filled with bottles of medicines from dead patients. New handwritten labels are taped over the old typewritten prescriptions. It is illegal in the United States to redistribute or administer medi cine prescribed to another person. But for Scholl, it is a “no brainer” to bring them to Mexico. “You had people dying, leaving behind a lot of medication,” he says. “And 18 miles south of the border, you had people dying right and left because they had no medi cal supplies.” APPLY NOW!!! Student Summer Employment in Housing May 12 - August 22 Custodial.. „$5.70/hour Building Maintenance....$6.10/hour • Project work in one or more of the building trades. •Part-time weekend custodial schedules available for summer school studentsJ •Occasional overtime available! Apply in person between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.to : • Mike Kansier at Harper-Schramm-Smith Maintenance - For further information, call Central Housing Maintenance, 472-3753. Missing warplane likely found in Colo. EAGLE, Colo. (AP)—A helicop ter crew hovering beside a sheer cliff in the central Rocky Mountains found what is likely the wreckage of a miss ing bomb-laden warplane, but saw no sign of the pilot, the Air Force said Sunday. Because of high winds, a ground crew could not be sent in to examine the wreckage stuck in the snow. The search could begin today. “It is our collective judgment that what we have seen is likely to be A 10 airplane pieces,” Maj. Gen. Nels Running said, adding that he is 99.9 percent sure it was Capt. Craig Button’s A-10 Thunderbolt. Hie plane has been missing since April 2, when Button, 32, took off from a Tucson, Ariz., base on a rou tine training mission and veered north, heading to Colorado with four bombs* aboard. An Army National Guard helicop ter crew spotted the wreckage while hovering within 30 feet of the steep cliff. A close-up look revealed pieces of gray painted metal that could have been from the plane’s interior and sev eral smaller pieces of metal, Running said. Yellow-green paint used as an anti-corrosion coating inside the air plane was also visible, he said. “Our next step will be to determine with certainty that the sighted wreck age is in fact our missing aircraft,” Running said. “We will need to get some pieces to make that absolutely certain.” There was no sign of Button, who could have ejected without the Air Force’s knowledge. The Air Force plans to suspend a military search team from a helicop ter to collect pieces of wreckage and look for Button’s remains. The wreckage was spotted on an unnamed cliff near New York Moun tain and Gold Dust Peak, mountains 13,000 feet high, about 15 miles south west of Vail. Army National Guard Chief War rant Officers Richard Rugg of Denver and Dale Jensen of Eagle discovered the wreckage in a site they had previ ously examined. Snow has melted in the area since it was last searched. Netanyahu not indicted JERUSALEM (AP)—Prime Min ister Benjamin Netanyahu escaped indictment in an influence-peddling scandal Sunday, with prosecutors say ing they lacked evidence to try him on fraud and breach-of-trust charges despite his “puzzling” conduct. Netanyahu, his reputation and credibility damaged, still faces a po litical crisis that reduces the likelihood of progress in the limping peace pro cess with the Palestinians. Opposition leaders urged him to step down and call new elections, and coalition par ties were considering whether to bolt. The prosecution’s 52-page repot was critical, but fell short of the po litical earthquake predicted after po lice recommended charges last week. “The decision is to close—for lack of sufficient evidence — the case against the prime minister,” Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein said at a news conference. Rubinstein said evidence provided by police suggested that Netanyahu might have appointed Roni Bar-On as attorney general to satisfy a coalition ally who is facing a corruption trial. Netanyahu’s actions “raised puz zling questions,” he said. “From the evidence there is suspicion that there were other (than legitimate) consid erations” in the appointment. “But we don’t think this can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Questions? Comments? Ask for the appropriate section editor at 472 2588 ore-mail dnOunlinfo.unl.edu. Editor: DougKouma A&E Editor: Jeff Randall Managing Editor: Paula Lavigne Photo Director: Scott Bruhn Assoc. News Editors: Joshua GiHin Art Director Aaron Steckelberg Chad Lorenz Web Editor: Michelle Collins Night Editor: Anne Hjersman Night News Opinion Editor: Anthony Nguyen Editors: Bryce Glenn APWire Editor John Fulwider Leanne Sorensen Copy Desk Chief: Julie Sobczyk Rebecca Stone Sports Editor: Trevor Parks Amy Taylor General Manager: DanShattil Publications Travis Brandt Advertising Manager: AmyStruthers Board Chairman: 436-7915 Asst Ad Manager: Cheryl Renner Professional Don Walton Classified Ad Manager Tiffiny Clifton Adviser: 473-7301 FAX NUMBER: 472-1761 The Daily Nebraskan (USPS144-080) is published by the UNL Publications Board, Nebraska 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 Nebras kan by calling 472-2588.The public has access to the Publications Board. Subscription price is $55 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, Neb. ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1997 DAILY NEBRASKAN Women's Studies International Colloquium Series Lerke Foster, Teaching & Learning Center, UNL Academic Women: Perspectives from ' International Teaching Assistants Wednesday, April 23,3:30 p.m., City Union __m_ AA® The Support Groi Alcoholics Anonymous Tuesday Meeting 12-1 P.M. Health Center L.L. Conf. Rm. F For more information, call Community