Free Republic

Don't ask, don't tell? Ask those who've fought in Iraq or Afghanistan about the Pentagon's move to consider letting gays serve openly, and it's clear that the ranks are still split. The Army's official Facebook site has been swamped with hundreds of comments, pro and con, since Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee Tuesday that it's wrong to require gays to "lie about who they are" to defend their country. It's unclear which people posting on the site are currently serving, veterans or nonmilitary. While active-duty troops are cautious about commenting because...

An HIV-positive Bath man previously convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl and owning 96 images of child pornography will not go to trial in three other cases. Assistant District Attorney Patricia Broscius decided to drop charges against Shaun Patrick Austin of interfering in child custody and having sex with two teenage girls. Broscius said the decision was made in part because of the “substantial” prison sentence Austin is facing from his two previous convictions. •Austin was sentenced in December to 72 years to 192 years in state prison for the child pornography. Austin is asking Judge Edward G. Smith to...

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Tuesday used Twitter to restate his position that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military. At a congressional hearing, Adm. Mike Mullen said he believes repealing the 1993 law is the "right thing to do." Minutes later, Mullen tweeted, saying that he stands by what he said: "Stand by what I said: Allowing homosexuals to serve openly is the right thing to do. Comes down to integrity." Mullen's words represent the strongest statement to date by a top military official in support of the repeal. Hearings...

* Study solves puzzle that eluded scientists for 20 years * Finding should help development of new HIV/AIDS medicines * Allows scientists to see how Merck and Gilead drugs work LONDON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Scientists say they have solved a crucial puzzle about the AIDS virus after 20 years of research and that their findings could lead to better treatments for HIV. British and U.S. researchers said they had grown a crystal that enabled them to see the structure of an enzyme called integrase, which is found in retroviruses like HIV and is a target for some of the...

Jacob Zuma's 'Love Child' Sparks Political Row By Jonah Fisher BBC News, Johannesburg South Africa's main opposition party has accused the country's president of contradicting the government's message on HIV/Aids prevention. The Democratic Alliance issued a statement after claims that Jacob Zuma had fathered a child out of wedlock last year. There has been no comment from the woman, Sonono Khoza, Mr Zuma, or his party, the ANC. Mr Zuma married for the fifth time earlier this year. Although he is thought to have at least 20 children, Mr Zuma has always refused to say exactly how many offspring he...

Woman Claims to Have Infected 500 People With HIV Friday, January 15, 2010 DETROIT — Authorities are trying to determine whether a woman who claims in an online video that she intentionally infected more than 500 people in suburban Detroit with HIV is real or a hoax. The unidentified woman says in a nearly 11-minute video posted on mediatakeout.com that since contracting HIV in 1998, she has been "pretty upset" about having to "suffer," and has "set out to "destroy the world" because a cure for the virus that causes AIDS has not been found. Deputy Police Chief James Tolbert...

If you’re among the nearly half a million people who’ve seen “Jackie” claim on You Tube that she purposely slept with as many men and women in Detroit as she could in order to spread HIV, now comes the news that the viral video was a hoax. The video, which was posted on Mediatakeout.com (”The most visited urban website in the world”), included the woman’s chilling claim that she had infected more than 500 people since contracting HIV in 1998. But according to a Detroit News story published about an hour ago, the woman’s online performance — naming names and...

DETROIT — Authorities are trying to determine whether a woman who claims in an online video that she intentionally infected more than 500 people in suburban Detroit with HIV is real or a hoax. The unidentified woman says in a nearly 11-minute video posted on mediatakeout.com that since contracting HIV in 1998, she has been "pretty upset" about having to "suffer," and has "set out to "destroy the world" because a cure for the virus that causes AIDS has not been found. Deputy Police Chief James Tolbert tells The Detroit News that tipsters have told police that the woman lives...

Scientific fraud often ends up killing people. Joseph Stalin's fraudulent "agronomist" Trofim Lysenko caused harvest failures when Soviet agriculture was ordered to follow his bizarre pseudo-science. "Scientific Marxism" killed 100,000,000 people, according to Marxist historians themselves. The medical truth about the AIDS epidemic, that it was communicated by anal intercourse, especially among men, was suppressed for decades, causing thousands of more young men to die. And now it seems that the global warming fraud, just one aspect of broader EcoFraud, is killing people in the Third World. The proximate cause? A doubling of food prices. Why? Because of the diversion...

The United States has lifted a 22-year ban preventing anyone with HIV or Aids from entering the country. President Obama said the measure was not compatible with American ambitions of becoming a world leader in the fight against the disease.

WASHINGTON (AP) - After a sleepless, overnight flight to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month, President Barack Obama made a not altogether surprising admission. He was tired.

Scientists seeking to understand how to make an AIDS vaccine have found the cause of a major roadblock. It turns out that the immune system can indeed produce cells with the potential to manufacture powerful HIV-blocking antibodies – but at the same time, the immune system works equally hard to make sure these cells are eliminated before they have a chance to mature. "These studies show that a potentially protective neutralizing antibody against a viral disease is under the control of immunological tolerance," said Barton Haynes, M.D., director of the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI) at Duke University Medical...

The BBC has apologised after complaints about an online debate which asked: "Should homosexuals face execution?" in response to proposed anti-gay legislation in Uganda. Critics flooded the British broadcaster's website after it launched the provocative debate ahead of a World Service Africa Have Your Say feature. The headline question asking if gays should face execution was later changed to: "Should Uganda debate gay laws?" and the BBC World Service admitted the original version overstepped the mark. "The original headline on our website was, in hindsight, too stark. We apologise for any offence it caused," the director of BBC World Service,...

snip Christianity Today spoke on the phone with Niringiye about the cultural context of the bill and how he thinks American Christians should respond.How are Ugandan Christians generally responding to this legislation?This is not just a Christian response. I can certainly say the objectives of the bill have the total support of most of Uganda, not just Christians, but also Muslims and Roman Catholics. It would not be right to talk about how Christians feel. They're all agreed on the objectives. There will be a difference of opinion on the details of the bill.The second thing I need to say...

A coalition of human rights groups is condemning a proposed amendment to Rwanda's criminal law that would criminalize homosexual behavior and advocacy. Meanwhile, Rwanda's northern neighbor, Uganda, is receiving heat for a "draconian" anti-gay bill being debated in its legislature. The coalition Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders says the draft language to criminalize homosexuality could be voted on in the Rwandan lower house of parliament by Friday.  The draft code would then pass to the Rwandan senate for approval. The amended language for Article 217 acquired by the group would give offenders - those who "practice," "encourage,"...

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa's former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who gained notoriety for her dogged promotion of lemons, garlic and olive oil to treat AIDS, has died. She was 69. The ruling African National Congress said Tshabalala-Msimang died in a Johannesburg hospital Wednesday from complications related to a 2007 liver transplant. Media outlets said she was possibly undergoing tests for a possible second transplant when she died. Tshabalala-Msimang's disastrous HIV policies during her nine years in office made her the most unpopular government minister in post-apartheid South Africa. She was ridiculed locally and internationally and nicknamed "Dr. Beetroot" — another...

Fistgate instructor Margot Abels had been with the Massachusetts DOE “Safe Schools” program for seven years by the time she ran the scandalous workshop documented at the GLSEN-Boston conference in 2000. That takes her back to 1993, the year the “safe schools” program began in the DOE. She had run “at least five” workshops similar to Fistgate prior to 2000.... It was in 1992 that Kevin Jennings joined radical David LaFontaine at the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, to “run its education committee” – which set up the “safe schools” programs in the Department of Education..... Isn’t it...

Members of the curling community are excited about a joint fundraising program between United States Curling Association and Central Coast HIV/AIDS. With the help of the curling team’s sponsor, Kodiak Technology Group, they will sell Hurry Hard condoms. “Hurry Hard!” is part of the curling vocabulary. The condom’s logo will feature a smiling curling stone on a house. The condoms will be sold leading up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games in British Columbia, Canada.

KAMPALA, Uganda, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Uganda is considering legislation that would impose a death sentence for intentional or willful transmission of the virus that causes AIDS, authorities say.

An HIV-positive man has infected his sleeping wife with the virus, which can cause AIDS, by pricking her with a sewing needle dipped in his own blood. It's believed he wanted to give her the disease so she would start having sex with him again, the Sunday Star Times reported. It's the first case of its kind in New Zealand. Other cases have seen HIV-positive people infect others through unprotected sex. The man, 35, admitted infecting his wife, 33, and has been remanded in prison awaiting sentence for wilfully infecting another with a disease, an offence that carries a maximum...

An HIV-positive husband injected his wife with his contaminated blood while she slept, infecting her with the virus so that they would be 'equals' and she would start having sex with him again. The 35-year-old man wanted to give her the disease because she had refused to have sex with him, fearing she would be infected. But he took things into his own hands and pricked her twice with a sewing needle laced with his infected blood while she slept.

Shanghai HIV cases on the increase Cai Wenjun SHANGHAI reported 886 new HIV carriers and 392 AIDA patients, with 25 fatalities, from January to November 20 this year, the city's Health Bureau said yesterday. The release of statistics yesterday comes ahead of World AIDS Day today. Cases positive to HIV tests were 26.5 percent more than for the same period last year. People from outside Shanghai accounted for 72 percent of this year's new HIV cases, while Shanghainese covered 60.5 percent of the new AIDS patients. People younger than 45 and men covered the majority of HIV/AIDS cases registered this...

Public health and AIDS experts hailed President Obama's announcement Friday to end a two-decade ban on people with HIV from entering the country, a restriction they described as archaic and discriminatory. The United States is among just a handful of countries, including Yemen, Qatar and Sudan, that bar HIV-visitors from entering their borders.

Latino immigrants considered at risk for HIV are less likely to be tested or to have access to healthcare services if they are in the country illegally and have not fully adapted to U.S. culture, according to a new study. The findings underscore the need for more targeted education and prevention programs within the diverse Latino community, which accounts for a disproportionate number of new HIV and AIDS cases in the U.S., said Janni Kinsler, one of six UCLA researchers who conducted the study. “HIV is not declining, and it should be,” Kinsler said. “If you don’t know that you...

Ban Lifted For Green-Card Applicants With HIV A two-decade-old rule kept those with the virus out of the U.S. Now such immigrants will be able to visit the country and apply for legal status. By Anna Gorman November 25, 2009 A stamp in Heidemarie Kremer's passport reveals her health status as HIV-positive. Because of the disease, Kremer -- a native of Germany -- has been barred from becoming a legal resident of the United States. She and her two children are fighting possible deportation, and their plans for the future are on hold. But that soon may change. This month,...

At a time when our country is sick, it shouldn't surprise that one our sickest places is our nation's capital. The poverty rate of Washington, DC, almost 20 percent, is one of the highest in the nation. Its child poverty rate is the nation's highest.. DC's public school system, with a graduation rate of less than 50 percent, is one of the worst in the country. According to DC's HIV/AIDS office, three percent of the local population has HIV or AIDS. The Administrator of this office notes that this HIV/AIDS incidence is "...higher than West Africa...on par with Uganda and...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Friday the U.S. will overturn a 22-year-old travel and immigration ban against people with HIV early next year. The order will be finalized on Monday, Obama said, completing a process begun during the Bush administration. The U.S. has been among a dozen countries that bar entry to travelers with visas or anyone seeking a green card based on their HIV status. "If we want to be the global leader in combatting HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it," Obama said at the White House before signing a bill to extend the Ryan White HIV/AIDS...

The US is to end its 22-year ban on people with HIV entering the country, President Barack Obama has confirmed. Mr Obama made the announcement as he extended funding for an act that provides HIV/Aids related health care. "If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/Aids, we need to act like it," Mr Obama said. The US is one of only about a dozen countries barring entry on HIV status. The ban is expected to be lifted at the beginning of 2010. 'End the stigma' Mr Obama confirmed the move as he signed the Ryan White HIV/Aids...

President Obama called the 22-year ban on travel and immigration by HIV-positive individuals a decision "rooted in fear rather than fact" and announced the end of the rule-making process overturning the ban. The president signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009 at the White House Friday and also spoke of the new rules, which have been under development more more than a year. "We are finishing the job," the president said. The regulations are the final procedural step in ending the ban, and will be published Monday in the Federal Register, to be followed by the standard...

A Toronto man who contracted HIV from his former stripper wife is hoping he's alive to see her get deported to Thailand. Whiteman and his lawyer appeared before a Federal Court of Canada last Thursday in an ongoing battle with immigration officials to get Iamkhong deported due to her criminal record. He has launched a $30-million lawsuit against the Canada Border Services Agency and Zanzibar Strip Club in Toronto in connection with the case. He claims Iamkhong, 40, a former stripper at the Zanzibar, was allowed into the country with HIV and that led to his life being placed in...

The sponsors of the largest ever HIV vaccine trial yesterday hailed a "historic" moment as they formally announced the trial's results at an international AIDS vaccine meeting in Paris. The results received rapturous applause from an audience of more than 1,000 HIV researchers. But some scientists are much more sceptical of the findings, arguing that the response of the HIV research community, long deprived of any good news from vaccine trials, is based more on hope than on rigorous science.The US$119-million phase III trial, sponsored by the health ministry of Thailand and the US Army, started in Thailand in 2003....

Needle exchanges prevented 32,000 HIV cases: reportBy Brendan Trembath for AM Updated 6 hours 30 minutes ago A new report has found needle and syringe exchange programs have directly prevented tens of thousands of cases of HIV and hepatitis C. There are nearly 1,000 sites around the country where clean needles and syringes are handed out to drug users. Researchers from the University of New South Wales, who authored the report, say it is also saving on health costs. For every $1 spent on needle and syringe exchange programs, state and federal governments save $4. In the heart of Sydney's...

A deeper analysis of the results of an HIV vaccine tested in Thailand suggests that the vaccine may not have been as effective as originally indicated. When first publicly disclosing the outcome of the Thai trial in September, researchers said the vaccine had lowered the risk of infection by about 31%. That result was modest but statistically significant, meaning it wasn't the result of a fluke. That announcement, coming after two decades of failed HIV vaccine trials, garnered headlines around the world. Now, two other analyses of the trial data suggests that the results could have been due to pure...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Human-Rights-Campaign-Dinner/ THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary __________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 10, 2009 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN DINNER Walter E. Convention Center Washington, D.C. 8:10 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. Please, you're making me blush. (Laughter.) AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you, Barack! THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Applause.) To Joe Solmonese, who's doing an outstanding job on behalf of HRC. (Applause.) To my great friend and supporter, Terry Bean, co-founder of HRC. (Applause.) Representative Patrick Kennedy. (Applause.) David Huebner, the...

FORT LAUDERDALE - The Broward General Medical Center is urging patients to get tested for Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B and the HIV virus after it was revealed that a nurse re-used supplies when administering IV fluids during stress tests. (Snip) 1,800 patients treated by the nurse may have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis (/snip) The nurse, identified as Qui Lan, was suspended pending the outcome of a full investigation. Lan, who is out of the country, has resigned and been reported to the Florida Board of Nursing. Ft. Lauderdale police have said no charges will be filed against Lan...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — More than 1,800 patients treated by one nurse at a South Florida hospital may have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis. Broward General Medical Center said Monday the nurse reused saline bags and tubing during cardiac stress tests involving the injection of fluids. The hospital has sent letters to all 1,851 people who may have been affected from January 2004 to early September. Hospital officials say the risk of exposure is low, but all affected patients should be tested for HIV and hepatitis B and C. The nurse, who has not been identified, resigned and was...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2ND, 2009 AT 8:51 AM A Call to Action from the Office of National AIDS Policy Posted by Jeffrey S. Crowley Every nine-and-a-half minutes, someone in the United States becomes infected with HIV, which results in more than 56,000 new infections each year. In addition, there are 1.2 million people in this country living with HIV/AIDS, many of whom require services and support. President Obama is committed to developing a coordinated, measurable and successful National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) to address the HIV epidemic in the...

A gay man who repeatedly gave blood after lying about having sex with other men is suing Canadian Blood Services, alleging the questionnaire used by the agency to screen out unsuitable donors is a violation of his charter rights. Kyle Freeman alleges the blood collection agency violates his charter rights and those of other gay men by asking male donors on the questionnaire whether they had ever had sex with a man, even once, since 1977.

BANGKOK - For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible. The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 percent in the world's largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, researchers announced Thursday in Bangkok.

Philippe Padieu

"A 20 year-old man with HIV from Linköping has been remanded in custody for having unprotected sex with a 15-year-old girl. The man has previously been imprisoned for having intercourse with seven woman who were not aware he was infected. The pair had sex with mutual consent on September 11 but the man did not inform the girl he had the HIV virus, nor did they use a condom. He told the girl of his condition sometime after they had been intimate."

It seems that Andrew Sullivan’s application for US citizenship hangs in the balance — but not really, and that is the issue. Gawker and other sites report that this past summer, blogger and columnist Sullivan was arrested on national seashore in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for illegal possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor that would incur a $125 for Sullivan, if he was found guilty. No big deal — it happens a lot in that area of our country. The only stumbling block is Sullivan’s pending U.S. citizenship, which might have been adversely affected should he have been brought to court. Enter...

Panic over syringe stabbings spreads to Beijing Jane Macartney, China Correspondent The Chinese authorities are anxious that mysterious syringe stabbings that have caused panic in the restive far west have now reached the capital. The threat of such needle attacks comes as an enormous security blanket has been thrown across Beijing to ensure that a huge military parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule passes off without a hitch on October 1. Indications that the bizarre attacks may have extended from the mostly Muslim, riot-torn region of Xinjiang to Beijing came in the form of directives from...

A team of scientists in the US has discovered two new antibodies that could lead to an HIV vaccine. Researchers from the Scripps Institute in California, the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and US-based biotech companies Theraclone Sciences and Monogram Biosciences discovered these two broadly neutralising antibodies using high-throughput screening of serum from patients infected with HIV.When people are first infected with HIV, they produce antibodies that are specific to the infected strain, but a few years later some start to make antibodies active against other strains of the virus - known as broadly neutralising antibodies. 'There is a huge variability in...

An Aids-awareness advert depicting Adolf Hitler having unprotected sex has been condemned by mainstream health charities for stigmatising people infected with the virus. The provocative commercial, which ends with the tag-line "AIDS is a mass murder", aims to scare young people into using condoms by associating the deadly disease with the German dictator. But what appears to be a typical, if steamy, advert for perfume or underwear takes a macabre twist when the camera pans to man's face at the moment of climax - revealing him to be Adolf Hitler. "Of course there are many HIV organisations that run their...

A Foley physician said what appears to be the first case of HIV/AIDS cure in the world is getting little mention in the media. Dr. Awadhesh K. Gupta, medical director at Foley Walk-In Med Care, said he first heard of the medical breakthrough in April when he attended the Annual Conference of the American College of Physicians in Internal Medicine in Philadelphia. It’s a conference Gupta tries to attend every year. “This is the most prestigious organization of physicians in Internal Medicine and is responsible for certifying post graduate training in Internal Medicine. It is also one of the oldest,”...

Woman abducted off street, dies after she's shot in neck A Lauderhill woman died after she was abducted and shot by her gun-toting ex-boyfriend last night, according to police. Dominique Duval, 23, died at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood after she was shot in the neck by ex Anton Josey, according to a police report. The bizarre incident happened when Duval was abducted at gunpoint from a Fort Lauderdale street and thrown into a dark Mercedes around 11 p.m. just as she was leaving her job. Just 20 minutes later, the dark Mercedes was spotted speeding through a gas station...

Public health officials are considering promoting routine circumcision for all baby boys born in the United States to reduce the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The topic is a delicate one that has already generated controversy, even though a formal draft of the proposed recommendations, due out from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by the end of the year, has yet to be released. Experts are also considering whether the surgery should be offered to adult heterosexual men whose sexual practices put them at high risk of infection. But they acknowledge that a circumcision drive...

Rationing and triage (in which only people to whom immediate medical treatment means a life or death difference receive it) apply in disaster and battlefield situations in which there are simply not enough resources for everybody. We state up front that we do not believe that the American medical system is anywhere near this point, especially because 30 to 60 cents of every health care dollar are squandered on waste and inefficiency. These include administrative costs, inefficiencies such as doctors and nurses having to walk or wait to get or record information, and easily preventable medical mistakes such as medication...