The Relationship between the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (Draft)

DRAFT
sarcoma in the United States was 0.021 to 0.061 per 100,000 population (Rothman, 1962a;
Oettle, 1962). In addition, a more aggressive form of KS that generally occurred in younger
individuals was seen in certain parts of Africa (Rothman, 1962b; Safai, 1984a). By 1984,
never-married men in San Francisco were found to be 2,000 times more likely to develop KS
than during the years 1973 to 1979 (Williams et al., 1994). Through June, 1993, 30,055
patients with AIDS in the United States had been definitively diagnosed with KS (CDC,
1993a).
PCP, a lung infection caused by a pathogen to which most individuals are exposed
with no undue consequences, was extremely rare prior to 1981 in individuals other than those
receiving immunosuppressive therapy, or among the chronically malnourished, such as
certain Eastern European children following World War II (Walzer, 1990). Records from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that only one request had been
received between January 1976 and June 1980 for pentamidine isothionate to treat an adult in
the United States who had PCP and no underlying disease (CDC, 1982f). In 1981 alone, 42
requests for pentamidine were received to treat men with PCP and no underlying disorders
(CDC, 19820. At the time, CDC was the sole supplier of pentamidine. By June 30, 1993,
107,230 patients with AIDS in the United States had been definitively diagnosed with PCP
(CDC, 1993a).
Another rare opportunistic disease, disseminated infection with the Mycobacterium
avium complex (MAC), also was seen frequently in the first AIDS patients (Zakowski et al.,
1982; Greene et al., 1982; Wong et al., 1985). Prior to 1981, only 32 individuals with
disseminated MAC disease had been described in the medical literature (Masur, 1982a). By
June 1993, disseminated MAC had been definitively diagnosed in 20,726 patients with AIDS
in the United States (ODO, 1 993a).

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