TOKYO - Japan's scandal-battered bureaucrats got another black eye Wednesday when a former top Health Ministry official was arrested for allegedly taking $530,000 in bribes from a nursing home developer in exchange for lucrative government subsidies.
A single mom with a 12-year-old son enrolls in the cheapest medical plan her employer--the county of Ventura--offers, saving herself more than $100 a month.
For this year's Day Without Art, more than two dozen Orange County arts organizations are distributing thousands of fliers this week from Brea to Laguna Beach encouraging support for area AIDS groups.
The Southern California Bilingual HIV/AIDS Hotline in East Los Angeles commemorated World AIDS Day on Wednesday night, vowing to spread the word to the Eastside that there is a neighborhood center comforting people with AIDS.
TOKYO - Japan's bureaucratic elite reeled from another major corruption scandal Tuesday as a senior official resigned amid charges he had accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks, a golf club membership and use of a luxury car from a nursing home operator.
WASHINGTON - Researchers are subverting some of nature's most potent viruses--the infectious agents responsible for HIV, the common cold and herpes--to enlist them in defense of the ailing human brain.
Patrick J. McDonnell; Maura Dolan; Times Staff Writers
The Wilson administration's plan to cut off subsidized prenatal care for illegal immigrants will result in an increased incidence of sexually transmitted disease, endangering tens of thousands of mothers, their children and their partners, according to a Los Angeles County study released Wednesday.
The five years that have passed since Magic Johnson was found to be HIV-positive have been marked by what can only be called a revolution in the care and treatment of AIDS patients and in the fundamental understanding of AIDS itself.
There had been so many calls like it before, so many solemn voices informing Tammy Goldsworthy that her father, Bill, was in the hospital or drying out at a rehabilitation center, that she had no reason to think this time was any different.
Arthur Ashe called that tearful day in April 1992 his "outing." And although he took pains in his memoirs to say he understood the reasoning of the journalists involved, his bitterness was evident and without apology.
Almost five years to the day that Magic Johnson stunned the nation by announcing that he was retiring from the Lakers because he had tested HIV-positive, an HIV-positive boxer stepped into a ring in Tokyo and knocked out his opponent in less than two minutes.
SACRAMENTO - At the heart of the roiling debate over the medical marijuana initiative on next week's statewide ballot lies a simple question: Does pot truly help the ill?
The blessing of the Internet and technology in general is also their curse: You can reach anyone, and anyone can reach you--even when you don't want to be reached.
One of the few South Bay drop-in centers for people with the AIDS virus has opened its doors in Hawthorne after being denied space in three buildings in the area.
He was the kid in junior high who campaigned for liberal politicians, who worried about supersonic transport planes and collected signatures to halt the clubbing of baby seals.
SVETLAHORSK, Belarus - First came the power station and the chemical plant. Then they built the prefabs and filled them with young workers from across the Soviet Union. The planners even left some green space in this model city of the Khrushchev era.
WASHINGTON - The door opens to a narrow row house in the southeast section of town and Dr. R. Scott Hitt steps in out of the heat. The room is smoky and cluttered with papers. A neglected cigarette burns in an ashtray.
For charity, for one last fight, for reasons that elude the rest of the boxing world, heavyweight Tommy Morrison says he is coming back to fight again, seven months after announcing he would retire after contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
A public-private effort to treat AIDS patients in the San Fernando Valley will employ new advances in the war on the deadly disease and try to set the course for similar action nationally, a team of doctors and health care providers said Wednesday.
The first comprehensive, worldwide study of how people die has produced a number of startling findings, including the prediction that within 25 years smoking will become the single largest cause of death and disability in the world.
The state has withdrawn charges of physical and emotional neglect against a pioneering Los Angeles agency that cares for young children with AIDS after reaching a settlement in which the group agreed to restructure its administration and improve staff training.
Despite the presence of 300 sometimes angry protesters, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday refused to bail out the San Fernando Valley's largest AIDS clinic, and instead chastised the foundation that runs the clinic for alleged fiscal mismanagement.
The sign hanging on the wall at the Costa Mesa Planned Parenthood clinic is aimed especially at the nervous teenagers who often populate the waiting room.
SHERMAN OAKS - The largest AIDS clinic in the San Fernando Valley is closing, its officials said Thursday, in part because it's caught in an ironic trap: New drug therapies that offer the best hope yet of beating the disease are too expensive for its budget.
TOKYO - In Japan, where bureaucrats write the laws, chart the nation's course and manipulate many politicians from the shadows, Health Minister Naoto Kan has shattered conventions.
Connie Norman, a nationally known transsexual AIDS activist who pioneered commercial radio talk shows focusing on homosexual issues, has died. She was 47.
VANCOUVER, Canada - A new emphasis on methods for preventing the spread of AIDS through sexual contact and a major new clinical trial of techniques to stop its transmission from mothers to children were announced here Tuesday as the 11th International Conference on AIDS focused on women's health concerns.
VANCOUVER, Canada - An alarming increase in high-risk sexual behavior among young gay males, once thought to be restricted largely to San Francisco, is spreading rapidly throughout North America and Europe, researchers said here Monday at the 11th International Conference on AIDS.
Cautious optimism is the refrain of the 11th International Conference on AIDS, currently in session in Vancouver, Canada, and that comes as welcome news.
VANCOUVER, Canada - Kicking off what promises to be the most optimistic gathering of experts in the history of the AIDS pandemic, researchers provided details Sunday of studies showing that combinations of new and old drugs not only can reduce virus levels in AIDS patients but also can save lives.
VANCOUVER, Canada - In January 1995, 2% of drug users in Ukraine were infected with the AIDS virus. Less than a year and a half later, the proportion had grown to 55%, a U.N. official said Saturday.
Los Angeles Times - SATURDAY July 6, 1996 5 Pt. A Word Count: 480
Craig Turner; Times Staff Writer
TORONTO - As thousands of AIDS researchers and activists from more than 100 countries headed toward Vancouver for this weekend's 11th International AIDS Conference, controversy erupted Friday over the Canadian government's commitment to fighting the epidemic.
Los Angeles Times - FRIDAY July 5, 1996 1 Pt. A Word Count: 915
Sheryl Stolberg; Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - A Los Angeles County woman has been identified as the first person in the United States to carry a rare form of the AIDS virus, a discovery that federal health officials said will prompt changes in AIDS testing to protect the nation's blood supply.
Los Angeles Times - THURSDAY July 4, 1996 1 Pt. A Word Count: 1,885
Thomas H. Maugh II; Times Medical Writer
For the first time since the AIDS epidemic began sweeping across America and the world, physicians think they may have the weapons to place them on an equal footing with the deadly virus.
After 10 years of intense searching, scientists have identified a key molecule that allows the AIDS virus to infect human cells, a discovery that promises a new approach to treating the deadly disease and that yields insight into why some individuals are apparently more resistant to the virus.
Hoping to close a tragic chapter in the AIDS saga, representatives of thousands of hemophiliacs infected with HIV from tainted blood products told four drug makers Thursday that they are prepared to accept a modified $640-million settlement.
NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Barry McCaffrey, the Clinton administration's new drug czar, reemphasized the importance of prevention on Thursday during commencement exercises for an anti-drug program at Fair Avenue Elementary School.
Declaring a "global crisis" and warning that "no country is safe from infectious diseases," the World Health Organization reports today that scourges such as malaria and AIDS continue to run rampant, killing more than 17 million people worldwide last year, including 9 million children.
VENTURA - Christopher House, Ventura County's first hospice for AIDS patients, must close temporarily later this month because of a slew of health-care code violations, its board of directors said Wednesday.
WASHINGTON - Setting up an election-year confrontation with President Clinton, the House on Wednesday passed a $267-billion defense authorization bill loaded with such hot-button provisions as a revival of the ban on homosexuals in the military, a requirement to discharge HIV-infected service personnel and a prohibition on the sale of skin magazines at base stores.
WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration approved the first home AIDS test kit Tuesday, acknowledging that conditions surrounding the controversial idea have changed substantially in recent years.
GARDEN GROVE - Pearl Jemison-Smith used to be the "neighborhood mom," the fun-loving one with the easy smile and the inviting Slip 'N Slide in her Anaheim front yard.
WASHINGTON - In a move that environmentalists and water utilities said is a major step toward attacking a deadly form of drinking water pollution, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it will begin to monitor large municipal water supplies for the microbe cryptosporidium.
Stepping up federal efforts to combat AIDS among pregnant women and infants, the House on Wednesday approved legislation that eventually could require mandatory HIV testing of newborns--but only if a new drive to encourage voluntary prenatal testing of women fails to reduce the number of infected babies.
Consider two people with AIDS. One lives in San Francisco, the other in Los Angeles. The federal government will spend more than twice as much on the care and treatment of the San Francisco resident as on the Angeleno.
Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) Thursday won subcommittee approval of a bill calling for mandatory discharge of military personnel who test positive for the virus that causes AIDS.
House Republican leaders turned their backs Wednesday on Rep. Robert K. Dornan, agreeing to repeal the law he wrote requiring the honorable discharge of military personnel who test positive for the AIDS virus.
Concluding that recent court decisions allowing assisted suicide apply only to physicians, a Los Angeles Municipal Court judge refused Monday to dismiss felony charges against a man who helped his AIDS-ravaged lover commit suicide last year.
As his HIV gradually asserts itself, so does a sense of inevitability. There will come a time, this Los Angeles policeman knows, when he develops AIDS. And there will come a time when he cannot hide that fact.
SANTA ANA - Sexually transmitted diseases decreased dramatically last year in Orange County, a trend that health officials attributed to increased awareness about AIDS.
Facing uncertain government funding, AIDS advocates in Ventura County have launched an unparalleled campaign to raise private donations for groups working to stamp out the disease and care for those afflicted by it.
WASHINGTON - Congressional Republicans declared Tuesday that they will push to increase the Clinton administration's proposed $242.6-billion Pentagon budget to avert projected cuts in military procurement and missile defense programs.
In a major about-face that could affect thousands of HIV-positive state residents, the California Medical Assn. rescinded its year-old policy supporting mandatory reporting of people who test positive for the AIDS virus.
Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and leaders from nearly half the cities in Los Angeles County launched Tuesday what they said was the nation's first intergovernmental AIDS policy committee.
TOKYO - Baxter International Inc., the U.S. drug giant accused of knowingly selling blood products contaminated with the HIV virus in Japan in the early 1980s, is discussing a settlement that could set a costly precedent for similar pending lawsuits worldwide.
WASHINGTON - Moving with unusual speed, the Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced full approval of a powerful new AIDS drug that has been shown to reduce episodes of illness and prolong the lives of very sick patients.
WASHINGTON - The end of 1986 was a heady time for AIDS researchers, who finally had found a drug, called AZT, that seemed to have an impact on this unforgiving new disease.
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.