COCAINE ACCELERATES HIV, SCIENTISTS FIND

Cocaine speeds the spread of HIV in mice and probably does the same in
humans, according to UCLA researchers. Dr. Gayle Baldwin and her
colleagues injected cocaine or a placebo into mice with an HIV
infection. They reported Thursday in the Journal of Infectious
Diseases that the mice who received cocaine had 200 times as many
viral particles in their blood as those that received a placebo. After
10 days, they also had twice as many HIV-infected cells. The mice
receiving cocaine also had fewer disease-fighting CD4 cells.