 February 28, 2007
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Mexico Can’t Boot Positive Soldiers
The Mexican Supreme Court ruled yesterday that it is both discriminatory and unconstitutional for the armed forces to kick out HIV positive soldiers, ordering the Department of Defense to reinstate four soldiers expelled because of their status.
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No NYC Rent Hike
A New York State commissioner yesterday reversed Governor Pataki’s decision to increase the amount that poor people with HIV pay for their New York City subsidized housing, a change that would have left some with a daily budget as small as $3.
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Feds Can Cut Off AIDS Groups
A U.S. Court of Appeals judge ruled yesterday that the Bush administration’s denial of funding to international AIDS groups that don’t condemn prostitution is not a violation of free-speech rights.
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February 27, 2007
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Just Test the Women?
South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission is urging policymakers to reconsider plans to require all women working in brothels or adult entertainment venues to have an HIV test.
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Needle Exchange No-No
The international body that monitors UN drug conventions is hurting HIV prevention efforts among injection drug users, according to a new report by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and the Open Society Institute.
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Gambia Boots UN Official
Gambia is expelling the nation’s top United Nation’s official for questioning President Yahya Jammeh’s claim to have found an herbal cure for HIV.
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February 26, 2007
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Youth AIDS Day Shout-Out: Get Creative!
Activities this week to mark Youth AIDS Day include a noisy visit to Abbott Laboratories’ Chicago headquarters with giant eyeballs to show the company is being “watched” to make sure AIDS med Kaletra becomes more affordable in developing countries.
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Not Down With the Down Low
The perception that it’s mostly black men who are on the “down low” could damage efforts to prevent HIV, according to a column in the March issue of The Annals Of Epidemiology.
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February 23, 2007
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Circumcision Makes the Cut
The United Nations has scheduled a meeting of international AIDS experts for early next month to discuss recent findings that male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual men by up to 60 percent.
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A Campaign Against BMS Pricing
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is launching an “AIDS Drug Prices to Die For” ad campaign criticizing Bristol-Myers Squibb for its HIV med pricing overseas, including limited access policies in “middle income” nations such as Mexico.
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India’s Big Problem
India is believed to have the highest number of people with HIV in the world at 5.7 million but information is scarce and news reports suggest an epidemic of anti-HIV stigma.
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February 22, 2007
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Gambia’s Cure is Bananas
Gambian President Yahya Jammeh is causing international alarm by claiming to cure AIDS with an undisclosed herbal recipe.
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Herpes Med Reduces HIV Viral Load
Taking antiviral valacyclovir to treat herpes also reduces HIV viral load among women infected with both viruses, according to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Pot Suit
A patient advocacy group is suing the federal government in hopes of forcing the Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies to admit that marijuana has medicinal value.
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February 21, 2007
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Organ Transplant Oops
Italian doctors transplanted kidneys and a liver from a woman who later turned out to be HIV positive after her medical records were marked incorrectly.
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February 20, 2007
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NYC Church Slams Condom Plan
Catholic leaders called New York City’s new campaign to distribute free subway-themed condoms “tragic and misguided” because it promotes the idea that “anything goes.”
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China Frees AIDS Activist
The Chinese government released 80-year-old AIDS doc and activist Gao Yaojie from house arrest following an international outcry, freeing her to attend a Vital Voices Global Partnership ceremony honoring her in Washington D.C. in March.
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HIV at the Osbourne’s
Kelly Osbourne, reality TV star and daughter of heavy metal rocker Ozzy, revealed that a member of her family is HIV positive at a benefit concert for AIDS group Body & Soul—but she didn’t specify who.
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February 16, 2007
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Viagra Without a Prescription?
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) plans to petition the Food and Drug Administration not to allow Pfizer to sell erectile dysfunction drug Viagra over the counter.
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Sex and the Cities
Washington, DC has launched a special line of condoms with the logo “Coming Together to Stop HIV” (the double entendre is allegedly unintentional) and plans to dispense at least 1 million of them this year at no charge.
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Murder of an HIV Ad Man
Mark Norris, 46, head of the ad agency that designed a controversial Philly HIV prevention campaign last summer featuring rifle cross hairs was gunned down in his company’s boardroom earlier this week.
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A Merck Price Cut
Pharma company Merck has agreed to lower the price of HIV med efavirenz (known as Sustiva in the U.S.) by 14% in developing countries.
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February 15, 2007
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Anti-Generics Lawsuit Sparks Protests
California Representative Henry Waxman (D) wrote pharmaceutical company Novartis AG a letter yesterday asking them to reconsider a lawsuit against the Indian government for developing generic versions of the company’s patented drugs.
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HIV May Have a Soft Spot
Researchers have located a spot on the surface of the HIV virus that may be vulnerable to antibodies and therefore a possible target for a vaccine, according to a report in Nature.
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UK Med Money is Tight
Thirty-five percent of sexual health clinicians in the UK say funding shortages cause them to consider or implement drug rationing strategies such as not prescribing the ideal meds, according to a national survey by Terrence Higgins Trust.
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February 14, 2007
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POZsters on Oprah and The Today Show!
Tune into Oprah today, on ABC at 4pm EST, and see Hilary Beard, editor of Real Health, the black health and wellness magazine from the publishers of POZ.
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HIV Goes Primetime—Visit our CSI: NY/POZ Forum
In tonight’s episode of CSI: NY (10pm ET on CBS), lead character Stella Bonasera learns she may have been infected with HIV at a crime site—and POZ and AIDSmeds want to know what you think.
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Thailand’s Valentine’s Day Vice Squad
A special Valentine’s Day patrol in Bangkok is fighting HIV by patrolling teen hangouts today and calling teens’ parents if they catch them out of the house after 10 p.m.
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February 13, 2007
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Jesse Jackson Chides Pharma to Find a Cure
Reverend Jesse Jackson opened this week’s National Conference on African Americans and AIDS in Philadelphia by calling on pharmaceutical companies to focus on finding a cure for HIV, not just more meds to treat it.
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HIV On the Line
Health workers in 10 African countries will use the latest mobile phone technology to log and download HIV case info in a new program called Phones for Health.
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February 12, 2007
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HIV Scare on Philly Campus
A woman arrested last week for sexual solicitation of students at Cheyney University outside Philadelphia had told police that she is HIV positive, causing panic on campus and a buzz citywide.
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Congress Axing Program for Pregnant Women
The 2007 spending resolution passed last week by the House of Representatives would completely wipe out a $30 million program aimed at getting HIV testing, treatment, prevention and counseling to pregnant women.
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Abbott Loosens its Tie in Thailand
Abbott Laboratories is reportedly offering a Kaletra (lopinavir/ritonavir) price cut to the Thai government in order to block its threat to break the company’s patent on the HIV drug and import a generic version.
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February 09, 2007
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Footballer Faces Prison for Not Disclosing
Former football player Trevis Smith, once a linebacker for Canada’s Saskatchewan Roughriders, was found guilty yesterday of aggravated sexual assault for having unprotected sex with two women without disclosing his HIV status.
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A Vaccine Super-Trial
Three thousand South Africans will take part in the first large-scale trial of an HIV vaccine that has already been tested on smaller groups in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean and Australia.
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February 08, 2007
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SF Serosorting Meeting Today
A new serosorting study will be presented today to San Francisco’s HIV Prevention Planning Council and HIV Health Services Planning Council.
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D.C. Shakeup on AIDS
Washington, D.C. Department of Health Director Dr. Gregg Pane, criticized recently for lax policies as interim director of the city's HIV/AIDS Administration (HAA), has laid out new citywide strategies and goals to combat the epidemic.
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February 07, 2007
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HIV on ‘Top Design’ Tonight
Tune in to reality show Top Design on Bravo tonight at 10 ET/PT and catch John Gray, one of the interior designers competing for the top spot, disclosing that he has HIV.
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Iron Curtain of HIV Misinformation
Young people in the Czech Republic fear HIV less than the generation before them, despite the fact that HIV rates in Eastern Europe are steadily rising, according to a survey by Mlada fronta Dnes.
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The Little Needle Exchange Program That Could
The Washington Post profiles Prevention Works! today, a needle exchange program in D.C. that relies on private donations because Congress prohibits the District from allotting public funds to such programs.
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February 06, 2007
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Calling All African-American Women
The GRACE study (Gender, Race and Clinical Experience) is recruiting HIV treatment-experienced women, especially African-American women, for a study evaluating whether gender impacts the efficacy, safety and tolerability of HIV meds.
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Extravagances at the Global Fund?
Dr. Richard G.A. Feachem, head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, has used hundreds of thousands of dollars in Fund cash for limousines, cruises and four-star meals, in addition to his $320,000 tax-free salary, according to a report released by the Global Fund’s inspector general.
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February 05, 2007
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Another Benefit of HIV Disclosure?
Positive people who are open about their HIV status and their sexual
orientation have higher CD4 cell counts over time compared to those who
keep it to themselves, according to a study in Psychosomatic Medicine.
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Crystal Meth Use Falls
Crystal methamphetamine may be showing signs of decline in the U.S., according to a new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
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February 02, 2007
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Drug-Resistant Strain in Seattle
Four gay men in Seattle have been diagnosed with a highly drug-resistant strain of HIV since late 2005, leading experts to believe that these hard-to-treat viruses are becoming more common.
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On the Road With HIV in India
India is launching a $2.6 billion campaign to get HIV info, condoms and testing to migrant workers traveling to cities with high HIV rates and cordon them off in “safe zones.”
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Call Now! Fight AIDS in D.C.
The Campaign to End AIDS is asking Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty to declare a State of Emergency to deal with D.C.’s HIV rate, which is the highest in the nation.
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February 01, 2007
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Democrats Are in the House
The House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday that would boost domestic and international AIDS funding significantly as part of a $16 billion push to implement Democratic Party priorities.
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Bulgaria Charges Torture
Bulgaria announced plans this week to try 11 Libyan police officers in absentia for allegedly torturing five Bulgarian nurses until they confessed to deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV.
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High Rates of Dementia in Africa
Due to extremely high rates of HIV-related dementia in Africa, HIV is now challenging Alzheimer’s and stroke as the leading cause of dementia worldwide, according to a study by Johns Hopkins University.
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