HIV and AIDS: Questions of Scientific and Journalistic Responsibility

HIV AND AIDS

WHAT THEY SAID
At a meeting sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse
(NIDA) on the toxic effects of nitrite inhalants, 23 and 24 May
1994, Rockville MD:...according to Jay Paul of the University of California at San
Francisco, the highest risk' for AIDS involves the use of poppers
and four other drugs. And Lisa Jacobson of Johns Hopkins
University (Baltimore, MD) reported that 60-70 percent of the
several thousand gay men at risk for AIDS who participate in the
Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) have used nitrites.
In addition, those favoring a more direct role of nitrites in AIDS
pointed to data from the MACS showing that HIV-negatives had,
on average, 25 months of nitrite use, HIV-positives had 60
months of nitrite use, and AIDS patients had over 65 months of
nitrite use -- an apparent dose-response relation. When asked
whether there was even one gay AIDS case in the cohort who had
not used drugs, a somewhat-surprised Jacobson replied, "I have
never looked at the data in this way."
[Reported in the article "NIH reconsiders nitrites' link to AIDS"
by John Lauritsen, Biotechnology, 12 August 1994.]