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LIFE
THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2004
A war
inside HIV
infected
cells
Enzyme and its
nemesis may
prove key in
defeating AIDS
By David Brown
THE WASHINGTON POST
Most of the time, life with
the AIDS virus appears to be
a placid affair.
Except for the days imme
diately after infection, people
fighting human immunode
ficiency virus (HIV) don’t
suffer the roller coaster of
fevers or aches t3T)ical of
many infections. The debili
tating symptoms of AIDS
occur mostly at the end,
years after the virus has
taken up residence in bil
lions of cells.
AIDS virologists know,
however, that appearances
deceive. The body’s fight
against HIV is steady and
fierce. Rough estimates are
that hundreds of millions of
cells called lymphocytes —
the immune system’s foot
soldiers — die in the struggle
and are replaced each day.
The body mounts two
broad forms of attack.
Antibodies produced by the
immune system kill individ
ual virus particles, called
virions, before they can
infect cells. At the same
time, killer lymphocytes
hunt down and destroy their
unfortunate brethren
already infected with HIV in
order to prevent the virus
from making more virions
inside them.
Both of those modes of
attack take place outside
cells in .the vast battlefields
of bloodstream and lymph
nodes. But it turns out
they’re not the only places
where the fight is underway.
In the last two years, AIDS
researchers have discovered
a much different struggle
that is waged in the quiet
confines of the cell interior.
There, it’s a cloak-and-dag
ger game between two indi
vidual molecules — one pro
duced by the virus, the other
by the infected cell.
This insight is one of biolo
gy’s more exciting discover
ies in years. It has shed new
light on the shadowy work
ings of innate immunity, the
body’s ancient, although far
from primitive, form of
defense. It has deepened
virologists’ profound respect
for HIV’s wiles. At the same
time, it has offered a new,
previously unrecognized tar
get where the virus might be
attacked by a drug of the
future.
The AIDS virus contains
only nine genes. Molecular
biologists have known for
many years that one of them
enhances the virus’s infec
tiousness. It was named Vif,
for virion infectivity factor.
But until recently, nobody
actually knew what it did.
Two years ago, researchers
Ann M, Sheehy and Michael
Malim at the University of
Pennsylvania School of
Medicine began to answer
that question. Much of what
they learned came from
watching what happens
when human lymphocytes
See HIV/3B
omo
Witness to
change
Dorothy Height on women, rights and aging
PHOTO/WADE NASH
Livingstone Coliege President Algeania Freeman chats with civil rights activist Dorothy Height after a luncheon and
book-signing session Tuesday. Height is going strong at age 91. She turns 92 March 26.
By Artellia Burch
artelliaburch@ihecharlottepost.com
SALISBURY — Dorothy Height has
seen a lot over 91 years.
Livingstone College celebrated
Women’s History Month by bringing
Height, one of the most influential
civil rights activists of the 20th cen
tury, to its campus Tuesday.
After a luncheon and question
answer session, Height signed copies
of her book “Open Wide The Freedom
Gates A Memoir.” The book tells
Height’s life story and what she feels
it means to be black and a woman.
Height has been on the forefront for
for hiiman rights. Government and
social service associations have
employed her. A great deal of her
fame came from her work at the
YWCA and the National Council of
■Negro Women.
In 1965, Height was named direc
tor of the Center for Racial Justice, a
position she held until 1977.
She was considered one of the “Big
Six” of the Civil Rights Movement
along with Martin Luther King Jr,
Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, A.
Philip Randolph and John Lewis.
President Ronald Reagan gave
Height the Citizens Medal Award for
distinguished service in 1989.
On March 26, Height will celebrate
her 92nd birthday. Aging has its own
rewards, she insists.
“Longevity gives you the opportuni
ty to witness the problems in society,”
she said. “But it also gives you the
chance to see the progress. You see
changes people said would never
take place. So you begin to have faith
that you can bring about a change.”
Height says the most pressing issue
for women in the U.S. is economic
equality.
“Achieving full equality for women
in this country is the most important
issue,” she said. “We must help
women to bring their worth and
wages up to where men are. So many
women are responsible for families.
We talk about helping families.
There is no way to help families with
out improving the situation for
women.”
As Height progressed in age she
continue to work for improving soci
ety In 1986 she organized the Black
Family Reunion Celebration.
According to the African American
Registry in Minneapolis, Minn., the
event has attracted more than 11.5
million people. Height says there are
requirements of an individual to live
in service to others.
“In order to serve others a person
must have sense of purpose,” she
said. ‘You certainly must draw upon
your fgith. Put yourself into your
work. And look at things as if it’s your
life’s work.
“I believe my purpose is to work to
improve life and to work for social
justice.” .
Blacks divide over equating gay rights struggle
By Allen G. Breed
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
.RALEIGH, - When small
town Mayor Jason West
started presiding over gay
weddings, he saw it as noth
ing short of "the flowering of
the lai^est civil rights move
ment the country’s had in a
generation.”
“The people who would for
bid gays from marrying in
this country are those who
would have made Rosa
Parks sit in the back of the
bus,” said the Green Party
mayor of New Paltz, New
York. Parks was the black
seamstress whose arrest for
refusing to give her bus seat
to a white passenger led to
the 1955-56 Montgomery.
Alabama, bus boycott, a
turning point in the civil
rights movement.
West’s words have a strong
resonance for gays and les
bians who feel their rights
are being denied, but for
blacks who worked to end
racial discrimination in the
1950s and ‘60s, the reaction
is decidedly mixed. Some
civil rights leaders find the
comparison apt, but other
blacks call it downright dis
graceful.
“The gay community is
pimping the civil rights
movement and the history,”
said the Rev. Gene Rivers, a
black Boston minister and
president of the National
Ten-Point Leadership
Foundation. “In the view of
many, it’s racist at worst,
cynical at best.”
With gay marriage emerg
ing as the nation’s hot-but-
ton social issue, American
blacks find themselves being
courted as a special ally by
both camps. Many are con
flicted over attempts to
equate the civil disobedience
of homosexual unions with
still-vivid memories of vot
ing-rights protesters mauled
by snarling poUce dogs and
knocked down by firehoses.
Some conservative groups
are appealing directly to
black congregations to block
attempts to co-opt the lan
guage of the civil rights
•movement.
Please see IS GAY/4B
S. Africa
boards
mostly
white
By Nicole Itano
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JOHANNESBURG, South
Africa — Head office at
Lechabile Technology
Solutions looks like any other
business executive’s _ motiva
tional posters on the wails, a
small plastic putting green in
the comer.
But one key difference sets
Lechabile apart in South
Africa: It was founded by
blacks, and most of its 80
employees are black.
With apartheid abolished,
new black-owned companies
like Lechabile are gaining
groimd, major white-owned
corporations are bringing in
new black partners, and a
black middle class is emerg
ing.
But as South Africa heads
into its third democratic elec
tions on April 14, and two
weeks later the 10th anniver
sary of the end of apartheid,
many complain the country’s
much vaunted economic
transformation has benefited
only a small black elite.
‘You see more successful
black people than ever before,
you see more rich black peo
ple,” said Winston Mosiako, a
former IBM employee who co
founded Lechabile in 1998
and is among the coirntrys
most successful black entre
preneurs. "But there’s still a
long, long way to go.”
Mosiako was 41 when
apartheid ended. He has
since moved from the crowd
ed black township of Soweto
to a large house in one of
Johannesburg’s wealthiest
and whitest suburbs. He now
spends his weekdays manag
ing the company’s expanding
consultancy business and
golfs on weekends.
“Life has really changed,” he
said — but adds he is among a
lucky few.
When they took the reins of
government after South
Africa’s first all-race elections
in 1994, Nelson Mandela and
his party, the African
National Congress, inherited
a deeply skewed economic
system built on cheap black
labor.
Whites, who make up about
10 percent of South Africa’s
45 million people, controlled
most of the country’s vast
mineral wealth and fertile
land. Blacks lived in poverty,
squeezed into crumbling
townships on the fiinges of
white cities and towns.
Hoping to stimulate growth
after years of economic stag
nation and political isolation,
the once socialist ANC has
sought a delicate balance
between redistributing
wealth and retaining busi
ness confidence. But trans
forming that economy has
Please see SOUTH/4B
Men talk about painting Joe Louis fist white
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROIT - Two white men who spread white
paint on a sculpture of the fist of black heavyweight
boxing champion Joe Louis say they did it to
protest violence and not as a racist gesture.
Brett J. Cashman, 45, and John T. Price, 27, both
of Washtenaw County’s 'Superior Tbwnship, are
charged with malicious destruction of property in
the Feb. 23 defacement of the 8,000-pound sculp
ture, a 24-foot-long arm with a fist suspended from
a frame.
They admit they vandalized the sculpture but
they say they intended only to make a statement
about Detroit’s recent surge of shooting deaths.
“We targeted the fist because of its violent
imagery and the inappropriateness of a clenched
fist as a prominent city symbol,’ Cashman told the
Detroit Free Press. "In a sense, we wanted to
unclench the fist.
“It was a political statement meant to convey one
message: ‘Stop the violence.”
At the base of the monument, police found photo
copies of pictures of Detroit pohee Officers Jennifer
Fettig and Matthew Bowens, who were slain Feb.
16. The two officers were white. The man suspect
ed of killing them is black.
Cashman and Price left a line on the photos that
said, “Comtesy of Fighting Whities.”
Price said the expression “Fighting Whities” was
a parody.
“Our protest was against violence, which is not
unique to any one group” he said. “The Fighting
Whities comment was simply a goof on political cor
rectness.”
A Detroit stat
ue of heavy
weight traxing
champ Joe
Louis was
painted white.