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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...

Out of Control AIDS and the corruption of medical science Posted on Friday, April 7, 2006. Originally from Harper's Magazine, March 2006. By Celia Farber. Joyce Ann Hafford was a single mother living alone with her thirteen-year-old son, Jermal, in Memphis, Tennessee, when she learned that she was pregnant with her second child. She worked as a customer service representative at a company called CMC Call Center; her son was a top student, an athlete and musician. In April 2003, Hafford, four months pregnant, was urged by her obstetrician to take an HIV test. She agreed, even though she...

ASSOCIATED PRESS ATLANTA -- The drug nevirapine prevents the spread of the AIDS virus from mother to child time after time, a new study suggests, challenging earlier findings. The new research presented Wednesday at a scientific meeting in Denver found that in Ugandan women who received the drug during a first pregnancy, HIV transmission was prevented during second pregnancies as well. The research may ease concerns raised in previous studies that HIV develops resistance to the drug, said Dr. Michael Thigpen, a medical epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Based on these findings, we believe nevirapine...