
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 25, 1990                   TAG: 9004250317
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The New York Times and The Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

GROUP TO LEAD AIDS FIGHT URGED

The federal government's top advisory panel on AIDS told President Bush Tuesday that AIDS policy in the United States was like "an orchestra without a conductor" because the government had failed to lead the campaign against the epidemic effectively.

"All across the country there is a cry for leadership from the federal government and partnership between the different levels of government," the panel, the National Commission on AIDS, said in a report to the president.

"There is no question that there have been creative and often heroic efforts at every level of government, but coordination of these efforts is the missing link to an effective national strategy."

The commission recommended that a Cabinet-level group be set up to coordinate a national plan to cope with AIDS.

Such a group should have the authority to recommend policy directly to government agencies and the White House, the commission suggested.

It also recommended that the president support disaster relief for the cities hit hardest by the AIDS epidemic, that money be allocated to provide housing for those made homeless by AIDS, that Congress bar job discrimination against people with AIDS and that government restrictions on the content of educational brochures be eliminated.

Meanwhile, a study published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association said that despite efforts to discourage them, drug abusers who are infected with the AIDS virus are still selling blood plasma to commercial collection centers, and that more needs to be done to stop them.

But a spokesman for plasma collection centers says they are doing a good job of excluding such donors and keeping the AIDS infection out of blood products.

"The current products that are out there are considered to be 100 percent safe," said James Reilly, spokesman for the American Blood Resources Association.

"There are no known cases of [AIDS] transmission from products currently on the market," he said.

The study found that more than 23 percent of 2,921 intravenous drug abusers contacted in the Baltimore area in 1988 and 1989 said they had sold plasma or donated blood after they began injecting illegal drugs. Tests revealed 24.1 percent of them were infected with the AIDS virus, said researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore.

by CNB