Advertisement

Rock Hudson Flies to UCLA for AIDS Care

Share
From Associated Press

Screen star Rock Hudson, battling for his life against acquired immune deficiency syndrome and a liver disorder, arrived home from Paris early today to seek treatment at UCLA Medical Center.

Hudson, 59, star of the “McMillan and Wife” and “Dynasty” television series, left Paris late Monday on a chartered Air France Boeing 747. He arrived at Los Angeles International Airport about 1:50 a.m. today and was transferred by helicopter to the University of California medical center shortly before 3 a.m.

Watching the airport arrival was Hudson’s publicist Dale Olson, who said the decision to return did not reflect the opinion of physicians. He said: “Mr. Hudson is going back to L.A. on his request because he believes he’d feel more comfortable in his own environment than in a foreign environment.”

Advertisement

“I don’t believe he’s aware of the kind of activity that’s going on,” Olson said in reference to the increased focus on AIDS that has followed revelation of Hudson’s condition. “But it’s been his desire, if he can do anything at all to help the rest of humanity by acknowledging that he has the disease, (to) help the rest of the world.”

AIDS clinical research centers have been established at UCLA and UC San Francisco, UC spokeswoman Valerie Sullivan said in Berkeley.

Hudson had been in an isolation unit at the American Hospital in the Paris suburb of Neuilly but had not been treated for AIDS since he was admitted July 21, said his Paris spokeswoman, Yanou Collart.

“Mr. Rock Hudson came to Paris in September, 1984, and was treated over a period of six weeks with HPA 23 (an experimental drug not yet available in the United States) at Percy Hospital in Clamart under supervision of Dr. Dominique Dormont. His treatment took place as part of an overall research program. . . ,” she said.

“Mr. Hudson’s physicians in Paris decided that his current physical condition was not compatible with the continuation of the HPA 23 treatment, which would have required a transfer to another Parisian hospital. His physicians consequently authorized him to return to the U.S.A.”

Collart said Hudson remained in stable condition, the same term used to describe him since Thursday.

Advertisement
Advertisement