Baltimore Alternative, February 1992

Stiffs &ste> ;1BS fumJs p. 4 fuliocs a HA (VUuujJtl p. 24 BALT V MORE ALTERNATIVE February 1992 ▼ Volume 7, Number 2 ▼ Serving The Baltimore /Washington Community Since 1986 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••■•••••••••••••••••••••••••«•••••••••••••••••••••••■••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••a Hopkins, Georgetown Win Major AIDS Research Grant BY GAREY LAMBERT THE ALTERNATIVE The Baltimore/Washington area maintained and enhanced its status as a center for AIDS research with the announcement on Thursday, January 30 that Johns Hopkins University had been re-funded as a member of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), and that Georgetown University had been awarded a grant to establish a new AIDS Clinical Trials Unit (ACTU) there. The AIDS Clinical Trials Group is the federally funded organization that conducts most of the clinical (human) research in AIDS. The ACTG operates under the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a branch of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. The federal grant awards nearly S60 million per year for the next four years to AIDS Clinical Trials Units in 27 cities across the country. For Baltimore, the award to Johns Hopkins means that the institution will continue its broad program of clinical research in AIDS for at least the next four years. The ACTU is the centerpiece of the Hopkins AIDS program, and includes research into drugs that attack HIV, the virus believed to cause AIDS, as well as a plethora of major studies into drugs designed to control the opportunistic infections. Virtually all of the clinical studies at the Johns Hopkins Moore Clinic are conducted through the Hopkins ACTU. For Washington, the award to Georgetown University means that the city will not be left without an ACTU. George Washington University elected to close its ACTU last year, and studies there were being phased out. But, establishing an ACTU is a complex process, and Georgetown is not expected to be conducting research until summer at the soonest. For PWAs in Baltimore and Washington, this funding means that the opportunities for participating in meaning¬ ful clinical studies are greater than ever. Extensive clinical research is now being conducted at Johns Hopkins and at the National Institutes of Health. New opportunities for access to clinical trials will soon be a reality at the new ACTU at Georgetown University. Also, community-based clinical research is underway in Washington through the Whitman-Walker Clinic, and will soon begin through the Baltimore Community Research Initiative in this city. The funding also includes money for clinical research in AIDS in children. The Children’s Hospital in Washington, DC has been selected as a site for pediatric AIDS research. Additionally, some cities with large HTV-positive popu¬ lations that had not had an ACTU site received awards, including Philadelphia, Denver, and Birmingham, Alabama. The ACTU in Philadelphia will be at the University of Pennsylvania. BY SCOTT ABEL _ JMR NEWS FEATURES wo lovers fight. One ends up with a black eye. The violence is not reported nor treated, and roost likely wifi happen again. This couple, like others nationwide, is caught up in a cycle of domestic violence that is more prevalent in the gay community than most care to realize. They, along with an estimated 500, 000 gay male couples, suffer from an enormous, yet seldom dis¬ cussed issue that is out-paced only by substance abuse and AIDS as the largest health problem facing homosexuals today. Although it is commonly believed women are its primary victims, domestic violence affects both men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals. And, while there are many theories, researchers are not sure what causes people to hurt the ones they love. Mental health professionals agree on one point — domestic violence is shrouded in secrecy by both the gay and straight communities. It’s a taboo topic, something both federal agencies and many health care professionals tend to ignore. The reason? Acts of domestic violence, although well-documented, have a long history of being swept under the rug. Public opinion polls indicate some Americans condone violence in families, saying such matters are private and of no concern to law enforce¬ ment officials. Domestic violence, according to researchers David Island and Patrick Letellier, is “any unwanted physi¬ cal force, psychological abuse, destruction of material or property inflicted by one man (or woman) on another" within the context of a relationship between two consenting adults. According to Island and Letellier, authors of the first book on gay men and domestic violence, “Men Who Beat The Men Who Love Them,” the incidence of domestic violence in gay male relationships is nearly double that of the heterosexual population. They say that because men in heterosexual couples commit 95 percent of the battering and there are two men present in gay relationships, the probability of violence occurring in a gay male relationship is dou¬ bled. See Domestic Violence page 14