Forum Discusses AIDS Conference

BOSTON--Representatives to the Harvard-Amsterdam International Conference on AIDS discussed the evolving international effort against AIDS yesterday in a forum at Harvard Medical School.

In July, the Harvard AIDS Institute sponsored the Amsterdam Conference to exchange information and encourage global unity in fighting the disease.

"Solidarity is the crucible in which the future of AIDS and the future of health is being forged," said conference chair Jonathan Mann.

The conference was originally scheduled to take place in Boston but was moved due to immigration restrictions on HIV-positive foreigners.

Mann, director of the International AIDS Center and the Harvard AIDS Institute, heralded an urgent need for action.

"To work against AIDS is to become, to some extent, a revolutionary," Mann said. "Our goals and the concrete needs of people require change in the status quo."

More than 11,000 registered participants from 145 countries took part in the eighth annual event this summer.

This year's conference had a larger representation than previous years from developing countries, where 80 to 90 percent of all people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) live, Mann said.

Lawrence Gostin, executive director of the American Society for Law and Medicine, said AIDS victims need social protection as well as medical attention.

"HIV is a status, and to discriminate against this status is just as vexatious as any other kind of discrimination," Gostin said.

Phyllis Kanki, assistant professor ofpathobiology at the School of Public Health, saidHIV-infected women generally had a worse prognosisfor survival than HIV-infected men because ofgreater barriers to getting treatment.

Kanki said cultural barriers in underdevelopedcountries lead to unequal access for women to AZT,currently a leading treatment for HIV-infectedpatients.

In addition to the sociological aspects of theAIDS epidemic, several speakers discussed thescientific aspects of the disease.

About 200 people attended the forum at HarvardMedical School yesterday. Most said they wereimpressed with the presentations, though somecomplained that too much emphasis was placed ontechnical medical information

Phyllis Kanki, assistant professor ofpathobiology at the School of Public Health, saidHIV-infected women generally had a worse prognosisfor survival than HIV-infected men because ofgreater barriers to getting treatment.

Kanki said cultural barriers in underdevelopedcountries lead to unequal access for women to AZT,currently a leading treatment for HIV-infectedpatients.

In addition to the sociological aspects of theAIDS epidemic, several speakers discussed thescientific aspects of the disease.

About 200 people attended the forum at HarvardMedical School yesterday. Most said they wereimpressed with the presentations, though somecomplained that too much emphasis was placed ontechnical medical information