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Last year, Magic Johnson found out that he had the virus that causes AIDS in his body... ...hounded by a new wave of rumors that he must be bisexual, fearing the rejection of NBA players and aware that a $2 million lawsuit from a onetime lover that accuses him of giving her HIV was sure to burst public, Johnson last week rescinded his decision to return to the Los Angeles Lakers.... Of all the turmoil that drove Johnson back out of basketball, it is the grievous lawsuit in Michigan filed by a woman called only Jane Doe that threatens most...

UNICEF’s new campaign, “Poo2Loo,” targets India’s public defecation problem with a series of music videos, pranks and advertisements featuring a giant feces mascot. According to the campaign, 620 million Indians are defecating in public every day. “That’s half the population dumping over 65 million kilos of poo out there every day. If this poo continues to be let loose on us, there will be no escaping the stench of life threatening infections, diseases and epidemics,” the Poo2Loo website says, while asking visitors to sign a pledge to ending public defecation. YouTube videos for the campaign feature giant, walking, talking, dancing,...

MOORPARK (CBSLA.com) — A 2-year-old Moorpark boy is the latest to be diagnosed with a mysterious polio-like illness. When Lucian Olivera was 11 months, he had an ear infection. Then, he couldn’t stand or use his legs. For months, doctors didn’t know what was wrong. “I felt helpless. It was extremely frustrating. It was hard to sit and not be able to help him,” Olivera’s mother, Erin, said. On Friday, the family went to Stanford University, where it was confirmed Olivera had the polio-like syndrome. “You don’t realize what you have until something goes really, really wrong,” Erin said. So...

Dr. Keith Van Haren, a pediatric neurologist at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital who has worked with Glaser’s team, will present the cases of five of the children at the American Academy of Neurology’s upcoming annual meeting. He said all five patients had paralysis in one or more arms or legs that reached its full severity within two days. None had recovered limb function after six months. “We know definitively that it isn’t polio,” Van Haren added, noting that all had been vaccinated against that disease. Glaser wouldn’t provide the number of illnesses. Van Haren said he was aware...

Wilmington, Del., has a big problem: Large groups of black people are going crazy. And this collective “mental illness” is causing record levels of crime and gun violence in this mostly black town of 70,000. That is the official diagnosis of the city council, which, by unanimous agreement earlier this month, asked the Centers for Disease Control to investigate a wave of psychological mayhem that has turned this historic and once-charming city into an unrecognizable husk of its former self. Chief diagnostician of this crisis in public health is city council member Hanifa G.N. Shabazz: “There is a well known...

A push by activists to ease the 30-year-old blanket ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men faces a key test this week as a federal panel hears results of the latest research. The findings will be released amid growing pressure from politicians and advocates, including college students, to change the policy. Critics say the ban is a hangover from the early, fear-filled days of AIDS, stigmatizing gay men and ignoring advances in treatment and detection in the decades since...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Deadly diseases, once nearly wiped out, are making a frightening comeback in Maryland and across the country. Now — a warning that parents who don’t vaccinate their children are putting others at risk. Linh Bui explores an alarming and controversial trend. Measles, mumps, whooping cough — all deadly diseases. Until recently — virtually eliminated thanks to vaccines that prevent kids from getting sick. But now doctors see an alarming trend — more and more people are coming down with these diseases. “Kids die from measles on a regular basis. Kids are in hospitals and can die from...

How activist misinformation wastes time, money, and harms AmericansDavulcuHealth activists, nutrition nannies, medical paternalists, and just plain old quacks regularly conjure up a variety of menaces that are supposedly damaging the health of Americans. Their scares ranging from the decades-long campaign against fluoridation to worries that saccharin causes cancer to the ongoing hysteria over biotech crops to fears of lead in lipstick. The campaigners’ usual “solution” is to demand that regulators ban the offending substance or practice. Here are five especially egregious examples.5. Americans should consume no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day, in order to reduce everybody's...

It's a basic human act, and it says a lot about society -- and the state of homelessness in Santa Cruz in the year 2013 -- that a discussion about keeping people from doing it in public places is even warranted. But here we are. The problem: An increasing amount of human waste is being found along the San Lorenzo River levee and in downtown-area open space. People relieving themselves in public spots is apparently a growing problem in the city, one that has residents who regularly walk the levee path and business owners along Front Street -- many of...

German doctors are calling for gay men to be allowed to donate blood. Currently a Europe-wide ban prevents them from doing so, but the German Health Minister said he would welcome a relaxation of the rules. The German Medical Association (BÄK) said that it would do everything “within its means” to remove the blanket ban on men who have sex with men, those with lots of sexual partners and prostitutes, from donating blood. …

The recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report regarding dietary sodium1 has generated considerable interest and debate, as well as misinterpretation by advocates on both sides. Further discussion is necessary to inform the public and the health care community and to inform public health strategies for sodium reduction. CURRENT PUBLIC HEALTH RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING DIETARY SODIUM Dietary sodium intake averages approximately 3400 mg/d in US adults, far in excess of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) recommendation of less than 2300 mg/d for those older than 2 years and less than 1500 mg/d for certain high-risk subgroups, including African Americans, individuals with...

The federal blood donor agency is lifting its lifetime ban on gay men giving blood. Canadian Blood Services announced Wednesday it has received approval from Health Canada to reduce its restriction on men who have sex with men donating blood from indefinitely to five years. ... Both the United States and some European countries have kept their lifetime bans, while the United Kingdom and Australia have reduced the restriction to a one-year deferral.

... A new, casually transmittable infection — a unique strain of bacterial meningitis — has cast a pall over the gay night life and dating scene, with men wondering whether this is AIDS, circa 1981, all over again. Seven men have died in New York City, about a third of diagnosed cases, since 2010. And in the last few months, the contagion seemed to be accelerating. It has targeted gay and bisexual men, and nobody knows exactly why. The city’s best hope to curb the outbreak is to vaccinate as many at-risk men as possible, focusing on those most in...

France's health ministry on Wednesday reported the country's first case of a SARS-like virus that has killed 18 people so far, mostly in Saudi Arabia. An unidentified person who came back to France from a trip to the United Arab Emirates was diagnosed with the deadly novel coronavirus, the ministry said. "This is the first and only confirmed case in France to date," it added. The patient is currently in intensive care in hospital and has been placed in isolation. The virus, known in medical jargon as nCoV-EMC, was first detected in September 2012 and since then more than 30...

“Gay” sex is becoming even more dangerous. Health officials are warning sexually active “gay” men about an outbreak of potentially deadly bacterial meningitis in Los Angeles and New York. The disease has infected 22 people in New York and caused seven deaths since 2010. Health officials in Los Angeles are testing to see if the strain infecting “gay” men there is the same one hitting New York. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation began offering free meningitis vaccines today after a “gay” man from West Hollywood was declared brain dead on Friday. Thirty-three-year-old lawyer Brett Shaad died within a week of feeling...

"Health officials work to diffuse fears of national epidemic"“Gay” sex is becoming even more dangerous. Health officials are warning sexually active “gay” men about an outbreak of potentially deadly bacterial meningitis in Los Angeles and New York. The disease has infected 22 people in New York and caused seven deaths since 2010. Health officials in Los Angeles are testing to see if the strain infecting “gay” men there is the same one hitting New York. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation began offering free meningitis vaccines today after a “gay” man from West Hollywood was declared brain dead on Friday. Thirty-three-year-old lawyer...

In the name of public health Nanny Bloomberg in New York City won't let his subjects gulp down a 16-ounce soda or light up a cigarette at a bar but as the HIV epidemic continues unabated it's apparently still okay to cruise for anonymous sex among the maze-like corriders of the East and West Side Clubs where gay men can rent claustrophobic cubicles for their presumed hookups. A new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concludes that "one in five gay men in the United States has HIV, and almost half of those who carry the...

Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), Pete King (R-N.Y.) and more than two dozen Democrats have introduced legislation that would create a national nurse to work alongside the surgeon general. The National Nurse Act, H.R. 485, would designate the chief nurse officer of the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) as the "National Nurse for Public Health." The bill would have the national nurse work alongside the surgeon general and "focus on health promotion, improving healthcare literacy, and reducing health disparities." "As the first registered nurse in Congress, I know from experience how nurses play a critical role in health promotion and...

Some of the most common and most powerful prescription painkillers on the market will be restricted sharply in the emergency rooms at New York City’s 11 public hospitals, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday in an effort to crack down on what he called a citywide and national epidemic of prescription drug abuse.