ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 5, 1996 TAG: 9601050057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO
SOURCE: MARK EVANS ASSOCIATED PRESS
AIDS PATIENT AND ACTIVIST hopes baboon cells, naturally resistant to the AIDS virus, will provide a cure.
Joking with friends and looking well-rested, AIDS patient Jeff Getty left the hospital Thursday, three weeks after receiving a risky infusion of baboon bone marrow that doctors hope will save his life.
It will be weeks or months before doctors can determine whether Getty's body has adopted the baboon cells, which are naturally resistant to the AIDS virus.
Even with an uncertain prognosis, Getty said it's so far, so good.
``To the naysayers who said that I would never recover from this procedure, well, here I am. And you were wrong,'' the 38-year-old AIDS activist said at San Francisco General Hospital. ``Now I'm ready to leave to go home. I'm ready to take my sailboat out this weekend.''
Getty's face was full of color as he walked out of the hospital. He shook hands and laughed with friends and hospital workers, and cracked a smile when well-wishers shouted, ``We love you, Jeff!''
Getty returns to the hospital next week for a battery of tests.
``So far, the only thing we can really conclude is that the procedure was safe, safer than we had initially expected. Jeff tolerated everything very well,'' Dr. Steven Deeks said. ``The more critical question, about whether or not this procedure actually provided any benefit for Jeff, remains unclear. Quite honestly, we just don't know.''
If the transplant fails, Getty will probably die quickly because his battered immune system had to be further suppressed with drugs and radiation to reduce the risk of his body rejecting the baboon cells, doctors say.
His immune system hit its weakest point Dec. 22 but has since rebounded to about where it was before the Dec. 14 operation, Deeks said.
Deeks said there are no signs that Getty has been infected by baboon-transmitted organisms, as some had feared.
At a hospital news conference, Getty , wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a button reading ``Silence Equals Death,'' noted that his new status as part-baboon has led to ``a lot of banana jokes.''
He chided one TV reporter for adding clips from the virus movie ``Outbreak'' to a recent report on the transplant.
And when he was asked if he felt like a freak or a ``medical miracle.'' He replied, ``I feel like an AIDS activist.''
``It is time for science and government to realize that AIDS research should be done, as much as possible and as soon as possible, and even [with] some risks. AIDS patients are willing,'' he said. ``To wait and to do nothing is to die.''
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Gettyby CNB