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The creation of UNAIDS, the joint United Nations programme on HIV and AIDS, was justified by the proposition that HIV is exceptional. The foundations of exceptionalism were laid when the "rights" arguments of gay men succeeded in making HIV a special case that demanded confidentiality and informed consent and discouraged routine testing and tracing of contacts, contrary to proved experience in public health.1 But exceptionalism grew—to encompass HIV as a disease of poverty, a developmental catastrophe, and an emergency demanding special measures, requiring multisectoral interventions beyond the leadership of the World Health Organization. The exceptionality argument was used to raise...

THE Senate is near to pass ing a massive $50 billion Emergency Plan for HIV/ AIDS Relief - a bill whose priorities are based on myth, just like virtually all anti-AIDS efforts worldwide. The world's top AIDS bureaucrat recently admitted the truth: "It is very unlikely that there will be a heterosexual epidemic" outside Africa, Kevin de Cock, director of the World Health Organization, told London's Independent newspaper. His bosses at the United Nations issued an official denial - but couldn't truly challenge his science.

Diagnoses of H.I.V. and AIDS in men who have sex with men rose significantly between 2001 and 2006 while declining in other demographic groups, the federal Centers for Disease Control reported Thursday. The increase in diagnoses was especially high among males between the ages of 13 and 24, with an annual increase of 12.4 percent, compared to 1.5 percent for men overall. The annual increase was still higher among young African-American men who have sex with men, nearly 15 percent. Among African-American men of all ages who have sex with men, the annual increase in diagnoses was 1.9 percent. Experts...

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA--The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) responsible for most of the AIDS cases in the world infected people approximately 100 years ago, more than 20 years earlier than previously believed, according to findings presented here this week at the Evolution 2008 meeting. Its lesser known cousin, HIV-2, jumped into humans decades later, from a monkey species that carried the virus for just a couple of hundred years, not the millions of years researchers had assumed, according to other research presented at the meeting. Researchers are trying to pin down the origins of both HIVs to understand how often new human...

The New York City health department plans to announce on Thursday an ambitious three-year effort to give an H.I.V. test to every adult living in the Bronx, which has a far higher death rate from AIDS than any other borough. The campaign will begin with a push to make the voluntary testing routine in emergency rooms and storefront clinics, where city officials say that cumbersome consent procedures required by state law have deterred doctors from offering the tests. “Routine would mean if you came into the emergency room for asthma or a broken leg, we test everyone for H.I.V., if...

The United Nations High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS took place at UN headquarters in New York this week to review progress made in fighting the global AIDS pandemic. The two-day meeting, which brought together members of government and civil society, was punctuated throughout by calls to end stigmatization and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS by expanding rights for "sexual minorities" and "commercial sex workers," including decriminalization of sodomy and prostitution. At the opening panel discussion, a representative from UNAIDS, a joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS, asserted that the international community "must move beyond the classical understanding" to include sexual...

Any hunter will tell you that when your quarry goes into hiding, you have to flush it out to get a good shot at it. Such is the case with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Though antiretroviral "cocktails" can target an active infection, they cannot get at the virus when it retreats inside the host's T cells, where it may lie dormant for decades, waiting for an opportunity to burst forth in a fresh round of infection. What HIV hunters need is a good bird dog. Now, Stanford chemist Paul Wender and his coworkers have found a way to...

WASHINGTON — Researchers must go back to the drawing board before they can develop an effective vaccine against H.I.V., AIDS experts said at a scientific meeting on Tuesday. And Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top federal official responsible for AIDS research, agreed that more fundamental knowledge is needed about H.I.V. and the way the body and experimental vaccines respond to it before the goal of a licensed H.I.V. vaccine can be reached. Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pledged to re-evaluate the use of all $1.5 billion his agency spends on AIDS research...

Watching the “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright gesticulate like a horny peacock and spew out ignorance, hatred, and bitterness towards America truly inspired my religious faith. Once Wright pointed out that he was “still in Bible country,” I began to “love the hell out of” rich, white people just as much as Wright does. How could so many people not understand that white people have caused all the world’s problems? As Wright pointed out to his congregation, the Bible says it’s so. I’m not sure what verse actually says that, but I’m now betting that rich, white people are responsible for my...

Even the best drugs currently available cannot weed out HIV from all of its hiding places within the body, according to a new study of HIV patients in the United States. The discovery seems to confirm doctors' suspicions that once the virus gains a foothold, it can never be fully eradicated from the body. After years of aggressive drug treatment, the virus still hides out in significant reservoirs, particularly in tissues surrounding the gut lining, the researchers report. Cells in these tissues, a part of the immune system called 'gut-associated lymphoid tissue', remain infected with the virus even though the...

BOSTON--Two prominent researchers have bluntly assessed the depressing state of AIDS vaccine research and have urged the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to correct its course. In back-to-back plenary talks at the 15th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections today, Ronald Desrosiers, director of the New England Primate Research Center in nearby Southborough, said he thought that NIH--the world's largest funder of AIDS vaccine research--had "lost its way," spending too much money on developing and testing products and not enough on basic research. Virologist Neal Nathanson, a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania who formerly headed NIH's Office...

Amid news that, in preparation for Brazil's Carnival celebrations, the government will be handing out millions of free condoms, Reuters indulges in some editorializing: Recife city also plans to distribute morning-after contraceptive pills -- a move that has angered the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.The church opposes Brazil's much lauded anti-AIDS campaign on the grounds that it promotes contraception.Wait a minute. How exactly does the morning-after pill prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS? That's right, it does not. Therefore, the distrubtion of morning-after pills can in no way be taken as being part of an "anti-AIDS campaign." Furthermore, the church does...

AP Medical Writer In the two decades since AIDS began sweeping the globe, it has often been labeled as the biggest threat to international health. But with revised numbers downsizing the pandemic - along with an admission that AIDS peaked in the late 1990s - some AIDS experts are now wondering if it might be wise to shift some of the billions of dollars of AIDS money to basic health problems like clean water, family planning or diarrhea. "If we look at the data objectively, we are spending too much on AIDS," said Dr. Malcolm Potts, an AIDS expert at...

ALTHOUGH the United Nations recently lowered its global H.I.V. estimates, as many as 33 million people worldwide are still living with the AIDS virus. This pandemic requires continued attention; preventing further deaths and orphans remains imperative. But the well-meaning promises of some presidential candidates to outdo even President Bush’s proposal to nearly double American foreign assistance to fight AIDS strike me, an H.I.V.-AIDS specialist for 15 years, as missing the mark. Some have criticized Mr. Bush for requesting “only” $30 billion for the next five years for AIDS and related problems, with the leading Democratic candidates having pledged to commit...

One of HIV’s strengths — its ability to use human proteins to enter human cells or integrate with host DNA — may prove to be its undoing. Researchers have now identified over 250 of the human proteins that are needed by HIV to help it spread throughout the body, providing a treasure trove of potential HIV drug targets. Antiviral drugs, which typically attack viral proteins, have had a huge impact on the quality and length of life of HIV-positive patients. But HIV mutates rapidly, so these drugs can quickly become outdated. And since HIV only makes 15 different proteins, there...

Fibres may be more important than viral load in determining transmission rates. A component found in semen can enhance HIV transmission by as much as 100,000-fold, researchers have found. The results, if verified in a clinical setting, could identify a new way to help prevent the spread of the disease. "I think this is tremendous," says Christopher Pilcher, an HIV researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not affiliated with the study. "It raises a lot of really fundamental questions about how HIV is transmitted." Over 80% of HIV infections are acquired through sexual intercourse, primarily via...

As regular VC readers know, I am one of several conspirators who is supporting Fred Thompson's campaign for President. I cannot speak for the others, but my reasons for supporting Thompson include his commitment to federalism, his candor on important issues other candidates would prefer to avoid (e.g. entitlements), and his record on regulatory reform and government oversight over the past thirty years. For National Review's pentultimate issue (the one before they endorsed Mitt Romney), I authored an article making the conservative case for Thompson. For those without subscriptions to the print magazine, here is an excerpt: Sen. Fred Thompson...

Abstinence stigma is a term coined by Martin Ssempa, an HIV/AIDS prevention educator in Uganda. It means that children who are staying abstinent are made to feel that there is something wrong with them if they are abstinent. This term can aptly be applied to DC youth and the adults supporting them as they are made to feel that there is something wrong with helping youth to stay sexually abstinent and drug free. Dr. Richard Nyankori has decided to selectively eliminate the ULTRA Teen Choice program based on his personal bias against directive abstinence programs. This is indicated by the...

As another World AIDS Day dawns this morning, prepare for the usual media blitz of stories designed to promote more spending on failed approaches to HIV/AIDS, and more bashing of the Bush Administration despite increases in spending by the billions each year.  Here are some of the questions that the media probably won’t ask the professional HIV/AIDS lobby, which grows ever fatter while the human tragedy rises: • What have American taxpayers gotten for the $20 billion per year (and rising) government spending on HIV/AIDS? • What has happened to the more than half a billion condoms that the...

To activists concerned about AIDS and prisoners' rights, it's an urgent, commonsense step that should already be nationwide policy -- letting inmates have condoms to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases behind bars. Yet their efforts have run headlong into a stronger political force: Authorities' desire not to encourage inmates who flout prison rules against sex. Only one state, Vermont, and five cities regularly hand out condoms to inmates. Mississippi does so only for inmates receiving conjugal visits from their spouses. Left out are the vast majority of America's 2.2 million prisoners -- many held in facilities where sex...

AIDS knows no age limit; more seniors getting busyBy LA PARKER TRENTON — If grandpa’s gettin’ some, he better use a condom. With seniors having sex, it’s important they understand that old sex doesn’t mean safe sex, and HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases know no age limit. “We know that people are not dead sexually once they reach the ages of 50, 60 or 70. They can get sexually transmitted diseases just like anybody else,” said Henry J. Austin HIV Program Coordinator Mary Lou Freund. Freund said a report released last week about more sex among the elderly...

As a longstanding fan of Bill Cosby, it pains me to criticize a man whose comedy and politics have been overwhelmingly constructive. But in the matter of AIDS, he needs to be a bit more forthcoming. A report published Monday by University of Arizona evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey has traced the path of AIDS from its origins in the Congo to the United States via Haiti as early as 1969.  It depicts an HIV epidemic ignited by Haitians returning home from Africa and spreading undetected for over 10 years within their country before expanding to America and, ultimately, throughout the...

TORONTO - Members of Canada's hemophilia community are awaiting a Superior Court judge's verdict Monday in what has been called the worst public health disaster in Canadian history. "At the end of the day, what's important for us is that justice be done and justice be seen to be done," said John Plater of the Canadian Hemophilia Society. "So that's really why we're anticipating tomorrow, and getting a hold of her decision and, in particular, the reasons for her decision." Dr. Roger Perrault, 70, a former national medical director with the Canadian Red Cross, has stood trial with three other...

The government has at last officially supported male circumcision as a tool to fight against HIV/Aids. But the acknowledgement comes with a call for maximum caution from the health ministry. As such, the government says it is about to start mass male circumcision as a way of reducing the spread of HIV/Aids and Sexually Transmitted Diseases.Recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended male circumcision as a tool for reducing risks of acquiring f HIV/Aids virus. It said circumcised men have around 60 percent-risk free chances of not acquiring the virus during sexual intercourse. The Health ministry says that Rwanda has...

FORT LAUDERDALE, August 23, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At a news conference at City Hall this week, Jim Naugle, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Florida has called on homosexual men to end their public sexual encounters in order to curb the local HIV/AIDS rate. "We want to put a stop to that activity," he said. Since his first public comments in July, Naugle has been attacked on all sides for being nearly the only US public figure to oppose on moral grounds the encroachment of homosexual activity in his town. Now Naugle is in the news again for his determination to...

JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 19 -- President Bush's $15-billion anti-AIDS program will begin investing significant money in making circumcision available to African men seeking to protect themselves from HIV, top U.S. health officials said Sunday. Recent research showing that circumcision dramatically cuts the rate of HIV infection is highly convincing, a delegation of U.S. officials, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, told reporters in Johannesburg. Countries taking part in the President's Emergency Program For AIDS Relief have been invited to seek money to expand access to the procedure. Circumcision funding would be small at first, with budgets in the...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government approved a novel drug Monday to help patients with the AIDS virus who are running out of options, while acknowledging lingering questions about the pills' long-term effects. Pfizer Inc.'s Selzentry is the first anti-AIDS drug that works by blocking a crucial doorway, called the CCR5 receptor, that the HIV virus often uses to enter white blood cells. New York-based Pfizer said the pill, known chemically as maraviroc, would be available next month. A spokeswoman said it would cost about the same as other HIV medicines, roughly $900 a month wholesale. It marks the...

Paterson and three other cities will provide clean syringes in a three-year pilot program approved by the state Health Department. The initiative includes $10 million for drug treatment, but no state funding to the municipalities for distributing clean needles to addicts in exchange for their dirty syringes. Making the case •  More than half of the nearly 67,000 New Jersey residents who have been infected with HIV/AIDS are intravenous drug users or are partners or children of drug abusers.•  New Jersey has the highest proportion of women infected with HIV in the nation, the third-highest number of pediatric cases, and...

Some people who contract HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, maintain low amounts of the virus in their bodies for years. These long-term nonprogressors—so called because a decade or more can pass before they develop full-blown AIDS—have attracted great attention from researchers. Now, using powerful, whole-genome scans, researchers have identified three genetic variations that partially explain why some HIV-infected people develop AIDS quickly while others keep it at bay. "This is a good head start to unraveling the genetic basis of good control of viral load," says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in...

PUEBLA, Mexico — Cres has spent almost half his 32 years working in the United States, in the fields of California and Texas and the factories of Chicago and New York. His wife and three children were with him some of the time. But he was alone for long spells, and it was during one of those periods that he figures he contracted H.I.V. “I don’t know how or where or when I got it,” said Cres, who spoke on condition that he would be identified only by his nickname. He paused whenever his pregnant wife entered the darkened home,...

Op-Ed Contributor 1. If confirmed, you will be working in the city with the highest rate of AIDS cases in the country. Intravenous drug users are estimated to make up about one-third of Washington’s new AIDS cases. The House recently lifted a ban preventing the District from using municipal money to set up a needle exchange program. However, the Bush administration remains opposed to the use of federal funds for needle exchange. If asked to advise the president about changing this stance, using the epidemiological data on the effect of needle exchange on H.I.V. transmission, what would you tell him?...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryJune 2, 2007 President's Radio Address   President's Radio Address  Audio  En Español       G-8 Summit 2007 THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Next week, I will travel to Europe to attend the G8 summit. At this meeting, the leaders of industrialized nations will discuss ways we can work together to advance trade, fight disease, promote development that works, increase access to education, and address the long-term challenge of global climate change. It is in America's interests to help these efforts succeed. When we help lift societies out of poverty, we create new markets for American goods and...

A GAY gang that allegedly raped victims lured on the internet, drugged them and infected them with the AIDS virus has shocked the Netherlands and raised questions over its liberal sex culture. A date rape drug known as "Easy Lay" and ecstasy were allegedly involved. Health Minister Ab Klink called the case "horrible", as the press splashed the news across its front pages today. The matter came to light yesterday, when police said they had arrested three men two weeks ago after four victims, men aged 25 to 50, accused them of rape and premeditated bodily harm. Ronald Zwarter, the...

This time it may be the Democrats who are getting religion. Former Sen. John Edwards invoked "My Lord" when asked about moral influences on his life in the first Democratic presidential debate. At a campaign event on the day of the Virginia Tech massacre, he offered a prayer and — in a pointed break from Democratic candidates' usual wariness of offending religious minorities — closed with the words "in Christ's name." Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. comfortably works in references to his faith at public appearances. Even before his presidential candidacy, he gave a well-received speech arguing for a greater role...

HIV-positive people should be denied entry to Australia as migrants or refugees, Prime Minister John Howard said today. While saying he would like "more counsel" on the issue, Mr Howard said HIV-positive people should not be allowed to migrate to Australia. "My initial reaction is no (they should not be allowed in)," he said on Southern Cross radio. "There may be some humanitarian considerations that could temper that in certain cases but prima facie - no." Mr Howard said Australia already stopped people with tuberculosis coming in and this was why he supported stopping HIV-positive people as well. "That's why...

NASHVILLE — Legislation that would require individuals convicted of promoting prostitution to be tested for HIV overwhelmingly passed the House on Thursday, but one lawmaker who voted against the measure believes it's unconstitutional. Bill sponsor Rep. Ulysses Jones Jr., D-Memphis, said he proposed the measure after a Shelby County judge suggested pimps should be tested for HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — just like prostitutes and those who have sexual contact with them. ''The ones promoting a lot of times test their wares, so they should also be tested,'' said Jones after the bill was approved 92-3. The...

SOMEWHERE in NORTHERN IOWA — The unthinkable has happened. Senator John McCain met a question, while sitting with reporters on his bus as it rumbled through Iowa today, that he couldn’t – or perhaps wouldn’t – answer. Did he support the distribution of taxpayer-subsidized condoms in Africa to fight the transmission of H.I.V.? What followed was a long series of awkward pauses, glances up to the ceiling and the image of one of Mr. McCain’s aides, standing off to the back, urgently motioning his press secretary to come to Mr. McCain’s side. The upshot was that Mr. McCain said he...

Selenium supplements can slow the rise in virus levels in HIV-positive patients, which allows the number of beneficial CD4 immune cell to increase, according to results of a clinical trial supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health. Low blood levels of selenium have been linked to high HIV virulence and more opportunistic infections, Dr. Barry E. Hurwitz and associates at the University of Miami in Florida report in the Archives of Internal Medicine. In lab experiments, the element suppresses HIV-1 replication. Even when antiretroviral therapy (ART) is widely available, failure to keep the virus suppressed "is relatively common,...

Close window Published online: 15 February 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070212-10 HIV attacks the first line of defenceThe HIV virus enters a woman's body by attacking two types of cells simultaneously.Erika Check HIV virus particles attacking a human cell. DR KLAUS BOLLER / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Researchers have developed a better understanding of how the HIV virus enters the female body during sex. The discovery could help to protect women and girls, who are more vulnerable than men to transmission of the virus during vaginal sex. HIV attacks two types of cells in the skin of the human vagina, the US-based...

Close window Published online: 14 February 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070212-7 HIV reveals site of vulnerabilityPotential vaccine target identified.Michael Hopkin Medical researchers have found a chink in the constantly shape-shifting armour of the HIV virus. The discovery could be a significant step forward in the ongoing quest for a vaccine. The AIDS virus evades the immune system because most of the proteins that cover the surface of the virus constantly change their structure. But researchers have now identified a site that doesn't change, and shown how an antibody can bind to it. If the body could be stimulated to produce its...

Four men in King County have been diagnosed with a strain of HIV that is extremely hard to treat, and health officials are concerned it could spread further. At least two types of HIV drugs don't work against the strain, and another type has limited effectiveness, officials from Public Health — Seattle & King County said Thursday. "It's conceivable there can be more infections, and the gay community is at highest risk," said Dr. Bob Wood, the HIV/AIDS program director for Public Health. All the men were diagnosed with the strain as soon as they tested positive for the virus...

Women can take the anti-AIDS drug nevirapine to protect their unborn children without endangering their ability to undergo life-saving antiretroviral treatment later on, a new study has found. The results are good news for poor women in Africa, Asia and Latin America who must take nevirapine, an inexpensive first-line drug that often prevents the transmission of H.I.V. from mother to child. The drug lingers in the blood up to three weeks, and if the mother has the virus that causes AIDS, its presence encourages the growth of nevirapine-resistant strains. That has led to fears that any antiretroviral drug cocktail containing...

New Jersey has the fifth highest number of AIDS cases in America, and yesterday became the last state to allow intravenous drug users to get clean needles, hoping it will slow the spread of the deadly virus. Gov. Jon Corzine ended a 13-year stalemate by signing a law to permit six communities to host needle exchange sites, where clean syringes and referrals to drug treatment will be available. The bill includes $10 million for drug treatment and counseling programs. "This is an historic day for public health," Corzine said, calling the law "a potential bridge to hope for addicts." After...

Santa Cruz, Calif. -- A gay student prevented from donating blood because of his sexual history has stirred debate among Santa Cruz school officials over whether to continue hosting campus blood drives. Ronnie Childers, 17, student body president at Harbor High School, said he volunteered at a blood drive at his school earlier this month for five hours and waited in line for three more before being turned away. "I was turned away because of my sexual contacts," Childers said. "The reasoning behind me not being able to give blood is ridiculous. ... It made me feel like an outcast."...

IN THE 25 YEARS since it was identified, the virus that causes AIDS has traveled a highway of humanity to all corners of Earth. It has crossed oceans and continents; it stalks the world's most marginal people as they struggle to survive. K. Sangeetha's husband brought HIV/AIDS home to their village of Gangaikondacholapuram on a rickety bus from Chennai, the coastal city better known to many as Madras. Each day, poor men like him from villages throughout the world's second most populous country head to the booming cities to find work. The road from Sangeetha's village to Chennai to the...

Close window Published online: 19 December 2006; | doi:10.1038/news061218-3 Medics sentenced to death in Libya Health workers accused of deliberate HIV infection found guilty.Declan Butler Valya Chervenyashka, one of five Bulgarian nurses on death row in Libya.© Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch 2005 A Libyan court today condemned to death six foreign health professionals accused of infecting over 400 children with HIV in 1998. The court refused to take into account a swathe of independent scientific evidence indicating that the outbreak had begun several years before the accused began working there and was caused by poor hygiene at the hospital....

MUKONO, Uganda, December 6, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Janet Museveni, First Lady of Uganda, has continued her strong support for the country’s successful abstinence campaign against HIV/AIDS with a statement encouraging youth to live lives of “love, faith and purity,” New Vision reported December 2. "I would not be caught advising you to take any shortcuts or compromise your lives by using any device invented by man, such as condoms, in order to facilitate any desire to go against God's clear plan for your life,” Mrs. Museveni told students at the Uganda Christian University, Mukono, for World AIDS Day. “God's plan...

In a major shift of policy, the federal government recommended yesterday that all teenagers and most adults have H.I.V. tests as part of routine medical care because too many Americans infected with the AIDS virus don’t know it. The recommendation, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urges testing at least once for everyone aged 13 to 64 and annual tests for those with high-risk behavior. The proposal is a sharp break from the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when the stigma of the disease and the fear of social ostracism caused many people to avoid being tested....

All Americans between the ages of 13 and 64 should be routinely tested for HIV to help catch infections earlier and stop the spread of the deadly virus, federal health officials recommended Thursday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Americans should have an AIDS test during their annual doctor's visit, along with other procedures they might normally have, reported CBS News' Cami McCormick. "We know that many HIV infected people seek health care and they don't get tested. And many people are not diagnosed until late in the course of their illness, when they're already sick with...

Adult stem-cell research may lead one day to cures for terminal and debilitating diseases "I hope we will always be guided by both intellect and heart, by both our capabilities and our conscience." -President George W. Bush1 Few areas of scientific study hold as much potential as adult stem-cell research. This research is already generating medical breakthroughs and treatments for debilitating diseases and disabilities, such as spinal cord injuries, sickle cell anemia and Parkinson's. Indeed, scientists laud stem-cell treatments as the "miracle cure" of the 21st century. Unlike so many areas of biotechnology, adult stem cells do not spark a...