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His derogatory public statements about PWAs had earlier offended activists, but Colombian Health Minister Virgilio Galvis appointed three HIVers as advisers in December—an epidemiologist, a journalist and…an activist.

An HIV positive U.S. State Department custodian was awarded $250,000 in December after a DC court found that a hospital receptionist had accessed his medical records and told his co-workers he was poz. The judges said the hospital had failed to protect the privacy of the files.

Researchers found that coupons helped sell condoms in British Columbia, Canada drugstores. Necessity was also the mother of invention in France: Health officials offered clean needles in vending machines, which they found popular with younger IV-drug users.

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The CDC announced that as of 1999 the AIDS cases among gay and bisexual men of color now exceed cases among their white peers and Latino and African-American men are becoming infected at an earlier age.

Fallout at Puerto Rico’s San Juan AIDS Institute intensified in January as two more men accused of using federal funds to bribe government officials—and pay for their own maid service—went on trial. Three people, including the institute’s director, were convicted last year of stealing $2.2 million.

Though a January U.S. News and World Report story said Clinton would increase the HIV prevention budget by $100 mil, the 2001 budget proposal allocated only half that amount. The $50 mil (in addition to a $1 billion increase for research) still requires Congressional approval.