AIDS Group in L.A. Joins Call for HIV Testing

AIDS Project Los Angeles, following by a month a similar recommendation made by its counterpart agency in San Diego, said Friday that it will recommend voluntary anonymous testing for the AIDS virus based on scientific evidence that the drug AZT delays the disease’s progress in people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus who have not developed symptoms.

At the same time, the Health Insurance Assn. of America in Washington said the new findings make it more likely that insurers will reimburse policyholders for prescriptions of the expensive drug in cases of early infection. Until now, some insurers had limited their coverage to patients with either full-blown AIDS or severe AIDS-related complex.

Smaller Dose Possible

And, although medical economists and others have been worried about the high costs of a large-scale AZT treatment program, a key element of the new findings shows that less than half the current recommended dosage for full-blown AIDS may be effective, potentially saving a patient thousands of dollars a year in treatment costs.

The decision by AIDS Project Los Angeles, coupled with similar announcements in San Diego, San Francisco and earlier this week by the Gay Mens Health Crisis in New York, represents a major shift in perceptions of the epidemic.

Until recently, some gay men have resisted taking the test because of fears of discrimination and the belief--mistaken, it now appears--that there was little they could do if they learned they were infected. The San Francisco AIDS Foundation endorsed testing earlier this year.

With HIV infection viewed increasingly as a chronic but manageable illness, there will likely be a surge in demand for new AIDS testing nationwide and added pressure on policy makers to create financing mechanisms to cover treatments with AZT and other anti-AIDS drugs for uninsured Americans or those without prescription benefits.

“Whoever is going to deliver these services--testing, counseling, monitoring and treatment--has got some fast (work) to do,” said Peter Arno, a medical economist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. “Right now, we are not in a position to deliver any of this stuff.”

Arno has estimated that a national early intervention program could cost from $2.5 billion to $10 billion a year, depending on how many infected individuals come forward and the level of care that they need.

‘Planning Has Been Negligible’

“The U.S. now has to face foursquare the issue of health care for people who have HIV and other long-term, catastrophic illnesses,” added Tom Sheridan, director of public policy of the AIDS Action Council in Washington. “Everybody has known this study was in progress and had been anticipating these results, yet the level of planning has been negligible.”

Stephen Bennett, executive director of APLA, said the call for voluntary testing will be coupled with “a very strong push for counseling, education and making early intervention available to those who test positive.” He said APLA’s board will probably enact the new policy at its regular meeting Tuesday evening.

Just more then a month ago, the San Diego AIDS Project “took a public stance to encourage those who suspected they had taken part in risky acts to get tested” for HIV through a voluntary, anonymous program, AIDS project executive director Marc Herstand said Friday.

The project’s board of directors took that stand because “more people than ever are living with HIV for a much longer time,” Herstand said. “A lot more doctors know more about what to do. . . . There are already a lot of things that enable people to live longer.”

The San Diego organization “didn’t make a public statement (previous to a month ago) because during the early years of AIDS, there was nothing you could do,” Herstand said. “And, there were lots of problems with discrimination so we weren’t urging people to get tested.”

Public health officials recommend testing for homosexual men, intravenous drug users, people who have received blood transfusions before widespread screening for the virus and their sex partners.

The trend toward widened testing will likely gain ground if, as expected, Congress enacts a Bush Administration-supported bill barring discrimination against disabled people, including those with HIV.

Arno said the push should be for better access to health care rather than testing.

“What is the use of telling people to get tested if they don’t have a doctor?” Arno added. “Poor people need what we don’t give them in our society: decent primary health care.”

National Institutes of Health AIDS researcher Dr. Daniel Hoth said Thursday’s announcement, along with a similar finding two weeks ago that AZT is useful in people with early AIDS symptoms, “means that there has been a more than tenfold increase in the number of people who need treatment.”

Doctors estimate that up to 600,000 HIV-infected Americans have “helper T-cell” counts of below 500 and would thus benefit from treatment, compared to the roughly 40,000 people who are living with full-blown AIDS. Helper T-cells are white blood cells that act as key sentinels of the body’s immune system and are destroyed by the AIDS virus.

Hoth said half to two-thirds of the estimated 1 million to 1.5 million people infected with HIV have not yet been diagnosed.

As for the dosage of AZT required, the study revealed Thursday showed that a regimen of 500 milligrams per day of AZT was as effective in staving off AIDS as 1,500 milligrams. The standard dose for full-blown AIDS is 1,200 milligrams a day and costs $8,000 to $10,000 a year.

“If you cut the costs, you are at least putting it in the ballpark for more people,” said Dr. Philip Lee, director of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at UC San Francisco’s School of Medicine.

Lee said paying for AZT for asymptomatic people testing positive is both humane and cost-effective “because it will reduce the cost for hospitalization, at least in the short term.”

In announcing the findings of the AZT trial, which involved more than 3,200 volunteers, Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan said the federal Medicare program will reimburse for AZT used for early intervention. He also called for state Medicaid programs, which are paid for jointly by states and the federal government, to do the same.”