WASHINGTON--In the mid-19th century, Londoners were dying by the hundreds from cholera, then a mysterious disease whose origins were unknown. British physician John Snow correctly deduced that the source was the water supply. In one simple action--removing the handle from the Broad Street water pump so residents could
One-third of the nation s HIV patients have forgone medical care because they could not afford the time or the money, researchers from UCLA, the Rand Corp. and eight other institutions concluded in a study being released today. Minorities, women, drug abusers and poor people were most likely to stint on medical care be
Question: What is a viatical settlement? Answer: A viatical settlement is an insurance policy, usually one owned by a terminally ill individual, that is sold at a discount to the death benefit. The policyholder gets immediate cash, and the investor or investors profit when the policyholder dies. Q: It sounds gruesome.
It was April of 1995. Nine men, all HIV positive or with symptomatic AIDS, had come to a retreat at serene Zaca Lake in the Santa Ynez Mountains north of Santa Barbara. They sought inner peace, solace--and acceptance of their premature deaths, which seemed inevitable. Ignorance about AIDS, and AIDS hysteria, were wides
Ending months of speculation, Gov. Gray Davis on Monday appointed Washington, D.C., AIDS activist Daniel Zingale the state s first director of managed care. The move puzzled many in the managed-care industry, who had expected that the appointment would come from the ranks of consumer advocates or industry officials alr
VENTURA-More than 600 Ventura County residents hit the pavement Saturday morning to participate in the eighth annual AIDS Walk for Life. Donning tennis shoes and T-shirts, the 638 walkers made the 10-kilometer trip along the foggy Ventura coast and through downtown, raising more than $75,000 for AIDS prevention, educat
If a billion dollars were raised to address AIDS in the African American community, given how dysfunctional, culturally inappropriate and ineffective most models of AIDS service are for African Americans, the money would wind up paying for the expensive death and infection of many in our community, particularly women,
The Los Angeles Times - Thursday, September 30, 1999
Those in the fight against AIDS and HIV have been slow to respond to the latest infection trends, which show the disease taking a tenacious foothold among African Americans and Latinos. In Los Angeles County, for example, African Americans and Latinos account for 68% of all newly diagnosed AIDS cases. But the proportio
The Los Angeles Times - Wednesday, September 29, 1999
Jeffrey L. Rabin, Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Times Staff Writers
Tacitly acknowledging that Los Angeles County has failed to stem the rapid spread of HIV and AIDS in minority communities, the Board of Supervisors unanimously declared an emergency Tuesday and called on the state and federal governments to pay for expanded medical care and social services. The largely symbolic action
The Los Angeles Times - Monday, September 27, 1999
Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Times Staff Writer
From behind the front desk of their motel on a notorious stretch of Figueroa Street, owners Kevin Pickett and Cora King could see into the lives of their customers. The men and women who came looking for cheap rooms in South Los Angeles gave them a close-up view of homelessness, of drug use, of the sickness caused by H
The Los Angeles Times - Sunday, September 26, 1999
Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Times Staff Writer
That day at the bus stop Cora Weston saw a man walking toward her and for a split second didn t recognize him. The man was so thin she could see his bones. His eyes were sunken and sad. Not until he came closer could she tell it was him. Her only son. Now living on the street. Now a crack addict. Now dying of AIDS.
The Los Angeles Times, Saturday, September 18, 1999
Anna Gorman, Times Staff Writer
Even when Iris Waldron s uncle couldn t visit, he always called. So when the phone rang last Thanksgiving, Iris knew it was him. But this time was different. Something was wrong. Her uncle told Iris and her family that he had AIDS. I kept waiting to wake up and realize that it couldn t happen to him, Iris said. Two mon
The Los Angeles Times - Tuesday, September 14, 1999
Maura Dolan, Mary Curtius, Times Staff Writers
SAN FRANCISCO--A federal appeals court created a potentially major opening in federal drug laws Monday, ruling that medical marijuana centers may be allowed to distribute cannabis if they can prove that the drug is needed to protect patients against imminent medical harm. In its decision, the three-judge panel of the 9
The Los Angeles Times - Wednesday, September 1, 1999
Marlene Cimons, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON--The newest AIDS drugs have inspired a false sense of security among gay men, prompting them to engage anew in dangerous sexual behavior, according to several studies released Tuesday at a government-sponsored HIV prevention conference in Atlanta. One of the studies, conducted among 416 gay men in West Holly
WASHINGTON--Although deaths from AIDS continued to drop in 1998, the decline fell far short of the dramatic reduction of the previous year, public health officials said Monday, dampening hopes that powerful new drugs finally have brought the epidemic under control. That patients have been living longer and with a nearl
Joe Lopez checks his nails, straightens his nylons, pulls on a little black dress and heads for the Lion s Den, a Costa Mesa club that caters to a gay and cross-dressing clientele on Friday evenings. Lopez, who prefers the name Josie when dressing as a woman, is a gay man who often dresses as a member of the opposite s
The Los Angeles Times - Wednesday, August 18, 1999
Marlene Cimons, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON--This winter, when the nation is in the achy, feverish throes of its annual influenza epidemic, Americans will have a new drug to ease their suffering. Just approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the flu medicine is the first in a new generation of drugs that owe their development to a massive federal
Gov. Gray Davis has suggested he will veto a bill that lays out details for implementing Proposition 215, the controversial initiative that voters passed in 1996 to legalize the medical use of marijuana. Davis spokesman Michael Bustamante said the governor would be hard pressed to sign the bill, by state Sen. John Vasc
An HIV/AIDS prevention program is looking for 12 to 15 Ventura County teens to work as peer educators. The volunteers, who should be between the ages of 12 and 18, will spend 10 hours this summer learning to talk to other teens about HIV and acquired immune deficiency syndrome. They will also learn from people living w
The former president of the Southern Baptist Convention stepped across a theological divide in Los Angeles on Friday and told 1,500 delegates to an international convention of the world s largest homosexual church that the time had come to open a new dialogue that reaches beyond differences. The unprecedented appearanc
A cheaper and surprisingly powerful new drug regimen to prevent IDS virus transmission from mother to child could save as many s 400,000 children s lives annually in developing countries, esearchers reported Wednesday. Lowering the chances of HIV ransmission from infected mothers to their children has been a uge succes
A cheaper and surprisingly powerful new drug regimen to prevent AIDS virus transmission from mother to child could save as many as 400,000 children s lives annually in developing countries, researchers reported Wednesday. Lowering the chances of HIV transmission from infected mothers to their children has been a huge s
ESSELTON, South Africa--For the boys, a piece of wire is extended three feet above the ground. They are instructed to pull down their trousers and, without using their hands, urinate above the marker. For the girls, a straw mat is unraveled on the floor of a mud hut. They are required to undress, part their legs and su
Congress had an opportunity this year to set a national standard that would protect the privacy of medical records from snooping commercial eyes. Perversely, it is doing just the opposite. Like a midnight prowler, Rep. Greg Ganske (R-Iowa) tacked onto unrelated banking reform legislation an amendment that would allow h
A higher percentage of African Americans and Latinos are receiving AIDS care than was the case only a couple of years ago, but the gap between men and women is not closing nearly as rapidly, according to a new study by Rand researchers. The uninsured and those relying on Medicaid also received poorer care than those wi
Despite the blazing noontime sun, the mothers, grandmothers, daughters and sisters striding through the Crenshaw district Saturday all wore black. With voices more than 300 strong, the women cried out: Spread the word! Stop HIV! to draw public attention to the impact of HIV and AIDS on the African American community. T
Michelle DuPont sat down in her new primary care doctor s office and was immediately put at ease by medical forms that listed domestic partner as a choice for marital status. She filled in the name of her partner of three years, Lisa, and thought to herself how pleasantly progressive the doctor seemed. When Dr. Ronald
Orange County health officials are planning to dramatically expand their participation in a trial program in AIDS prevention that uses telephone calling cards to bring safe-sex messages to people at high risk for contracting HIV. The novel, state-funded program provides free calling cards with 10 minutes of long-distan
Catherine Cowden awoke early Sunday to honor an uncle and college friends. Sixty-seven-year-old Betty Head showed up with a T-shirt memorializing her son, snatched away almost a decade ago. Still in his teens, Richard Nguyen dragged a friend along, in the hopes that he would never know anyone who dies of AIDS. The thre
Several people in Australia who caught a weakened form of HIV in the early 1980s are beginning to show AIDS-like damage to their immune systems, a development that has disappointing implications for the development of a vaccine. Between 1980 and 1984, 9 people in Australia were found to be infected by HIV containing a
SACRAMENTO--It seemed like such a simple approach to sex education: Tell the truth, the whole truth. But Assemblyman Jim Cunneen (R-San Jose) has learned the hard way that in the emotional debate over what teenagers should be taught about sex and by whom, that was the equivalent of throwing down the gauntlet. As the mo
Lynnette Luis fans her hands slowly across Juliette s narrow back, her touch as soothing and tender as her thoughts. Let no harm come, she says silently to herself. It s as if she were rocking a baby, swaying gently to the memory of a faded lullaby. Gently, gently. She wants Juliette to know that she is safe, that time
WASHINGTON--In a major policy reversal, the Clinton administration is expected to announce today that it will release its hold on research-quality marijuana and make it available to scientists who want to study its medical effects. For more than 20 years, the production and distribution of marijuana for clinical resear
WASHINGTON--A daring experiment--having AIDS patients stop taking their powerful drugs in the hope that their bodies could control the virus without them--has produced disappointing results: The virus comes back. Researchers were not surprised. Even in patients such as these, where potent drug combinations had rendered
Escalating a feud with the Riordan administration over its handling of money for poor people with AIDS, the nation s leading health care provider for AIDS patients filed a lawsuit Monday alleging that the city of Los Angeles has mismanaged federal money by failing to disburse millions of dollars allocated to secure hou
Clad in black clothing, the women stood listening to the orders, like soldiers being prepped for war. We will show up en masse wherever people gather, they were told. We will wield our information like a weapon. We will not stop until people stop dying from AIDS. What we will do is create a presence, a consciousness an
Acknowledging the disproportionate impact of AIDS on African Americans, a coalition of ministers unveiled a plan Wednesday to enlist the power of the pulpit in the fight against the disease. The goal of the effort--which is being carried out in partnership with the California Department of Health Services--is to encour
WASHINGTON--In the major new civil rights law of this decade, Congress promised an end to job discrimination against Americans with disabilities. However, nine years after this promise became law, it is entirely unclear whether its legal shield protects many millions or just the relative few who are blind or need a whe
A major HIV education campaign has been launched in Los Angeles to provide information to Latino males, one of the most overlooked groups in need of sound information, according to health experts. The Spanish-language campaign, launched by Advocates for Youth, involves public service announcements on radio and TV that
The U.S. blood-banking industry has been repeatedly shaken by outbreaks of viral transmission, including the AIDS virus and three hepatitis viruses. In 1983, the risk of contracting the AIDS virus during a transfusion was a disturbing one in 100. Many people began to bank their own blood before elective surgery to cut
The Los Angeles Times - Wednesday, February 10, 1999
John-Thor Dahlburg, Times Staff Writer
PARIS--Sylvie Rouy, a mother of two who has AIDS and must use a wheelchair, came Tuesday seeking justice. But in pain and fatigued, she had to be whisked by ambulance from the courtroom to a hospital for injections of morphine and cortisone. This trial has destroyed me, has destroyed my family, my child, said the tearf
The mainstays of therapy for HIV infection have been two classes of drugs: reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors . Each targets a different enzyme required by HIV for proliferation, and combinations of drugs from the two classes have been quite successful in reducing viral proliferation in the majori
Solving a long-puzzling mystery about the origins of the AIDS epidemic, Alabama researchers have shown that the most prevalent form of the AIDS virus, human immunodeficiency virus type 1, almost certainly passed to humans from a common subspecies of chimpanzee. Studying the virus in these animals could lead to new ways
WASHINGTON -- At precisely 11 p.m. on Jan. 5, Mark Deal, a 37-year-old legal researcher and AIDS patient who lives in New Orleans, ushered in the Feast of the Epiphany by swallowing the last of the 25 daily pills that had been keeping him alive and thriving. Deal did it for the good of science and because he believes h
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