The Nation in Brief

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Child thought to be cured of HIV isn't

A child in Mississippi who was thought to have been cured of HIV with aggressive drug treatment immediately after birth is showing signs of infection with the virus, federal health officials announced Thursday -- a serious setback to hopes for a cure for AIDS.

The report in March 2013 that the child had apparently been cured raised the possibility that aggressive early treatment might be able to reverse infections in newborns -- and perhaps even in newly infected adults. About 2.3 million people around the world were newly infected with HIV in 2012, the last year for which figures were available; 260,000 were infants infected at birth or immediately afterward.

During a telephone news conference held by the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Hannah Gay, the pediatrician at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson who first put the child on large doses of anti-retroviral drugs, said it was "like a punch in the gut."

With hopes raised by the Mississippi case, doctors had made plans for a worldwide clinical trial in which about 450 babies -- chosen because their infected mothers had no testing or treatment before the births -- would be put on the three-drug regimen called triple therapy.

Tapes depict response to vet's collapse

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Emergency dispatch tapes released Friday reveal further details about efforts to revive a Vietnam veteran who collapsed with a heart attack in a Veterans Affairs hospital in Albuquerque.

Two calls were made while 71-year-old Jim Napoleon Garcia lay on the floor as an ambulance was called to take him to an emergency room 500 yards away. He later died.

In the first, a female caller described how the man was unresponsive and bleeding from his mouth and nose. She also expressed her frustration that doctors at a cafeteria table weren't doing more to help.

"We called our rapid response here at the hospital but unfortunately they won't respond to him because he's out of the main medical building," said the caller, whose name was not provided.

"Paramedics are already on their way out there," the dispatcher told her.

In a second call minutes later, a male caller said nurses were performing CPR but the man didn't appear to be breathing.

Navy Yard report: Police hit snags

WASHINGTON -- An internal District of Columbia police report on the response to last year's Washington Navy Yard shooting says officers were hindered because they couldn't access live surveillance-camera footage of the shooter.

Military contractor Aaron Alexis killed 12 civilian workers at the Navy Yard's Building 197 in September before he was fatally shot by police. The Metropolitan Police Department released its 83-page After Action Report on the shooting Friday.

The report says the contract security guard who was monitoring the surveillance videos locked the door to the control room and didn't contact law enforcement personnel. That prevented police from tracking Alexis' movements in real time or ruling out reports of a second shooter.

Officers also were delayed in getting to the scene because Navy Yard employees called an internal emergency communications number instead of 911 and because officers couldn't get through locked gates when they arrived. That's because the base personnel working at the entrances had followed emergency protocol to lock the gates and respond to the shooting, the report said.

Naval District Washington spokesman Chatney Auger said in a statement that Navy Yard leaders are working with police "to strengthen our joint procedures during crisis situations."

Accused in 6 deaths collapses in court

HOUSTON -- A man accused of killing six members of his ex-wife's family, including four children, after forcing his way into their suburban Houston home collapsed in court twice Friday as a prosecutor read out details of the crime.

A shackled Ronald Lee Haskell was standing before a state district judge during a probable cause hearing when he fell to the ground. Deputies lifted him to his feet, and the 33-year-old Haskell stood for about another minute before collapsing again.

He was then lifted into a chair and wheeled from the courtroom.

"His face, he obviously lost blood in his face, and his knees buckled," said Haskell's attorney, Doug Durham. "He's scared. I think he has a limited mental capacity of what's going on."

Before the collapses, Haskell had acknowledged with a quiet yes a couple of questions put to him by State District Judge Mark Kent Ellis about his legal rights. Ellis ordered Haskell held without bond.

Authorities have said Haskell was searching for his ex-wife, who is the sister of a woman slain in the home, when he came to the house in the northern Houston suburb of Spring.

He tied up the family and put them face down on the floor before shooting each in the back of the head, according to investigators.

A Section on 07/12/2014