Heeding the advice of Ventura County s public health officer, the supervisors put aside their personal feelings about drug abuse and voted Tuesday to declare a medical emergency and begin a needle exchange program. Dr. Robert Levin, medical director of the county Public Health Department, warned officials that the spre
U.S. syphilis rates reached an all-time low in 1999, suggesting that it may be possible to virtually eliminate the disease from the American scene, but gonorrhea rates reversed a two-decade trend by rising 9%, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. The syphilis decline was the res
BEIJING--The AIDS epidemic has been around as long as 20-year-old Li Fang has. But that doesn t mean the ponytailed college student knew much about the disease until recently. I had a rather vague idea about it, said Li, a junior at People s University here in the Chinese capital. I only knew it s incurable, but I was
With cases of AIDS soaring among women, health experts are taking a hard look at an old question. When a woman s partner won t wear a condom, is there another way for a woman to protect herself from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases? Researchers at dozens of U.S. organizations are working on a safe-sex soluti
In the search for chemical agents to battle sexually transmitted diseases, scientists are following a number of novel approaches. Some of the products in the research pipeline include: * ReProtect, a Baltimore firm, is developing a gel that would create an environment inhospitable to HIV when applied in the vagina. The
WASHINGTON--In the latest effort to trim the number of pills HIV-infected patients swallow, the government on Wednesday approved Glaxo Wellcome s Trizivir -a combination of the company s older AIDS drugs AZT ,
The complex entanglements between pharmaceutical companies and academic medical researchers have taken a bizarre twist in which a Carlsbad company is accusing UC San Francisco of suppressing favorable data about an anti-AIDS vaccine developed by the late Dr. Jonas Salk. Dr. James O. Kahn of UC San Francisco and his col
In body and spirit, Cage Garrett Jr. had withered like an old, crooked elm in the dead of winter. He could barely lift his head or speak, and his T-cell count was dangerously low. He didn t know the day of the week, but that didn t matter, because each seemed molded by the same gray agony. It was almost Thanksgiving, 1
TOKYO--Japan s political establishment was jolted by the election this week of outsider Etsuko Kawada to the lower house of parliament. The 51-year-old ran as an independent, attacking collusion between politicians and bureaucrats, slamming irresponsible big corporations and pledging to fight for a government open to t
Hundreds of people will gather Sunday to help raise money for AIDS services during the ninth annual Ventura County AIDS Walk for Life. The event aims to raise more than $110,000 for three county AIDS charities, said Virginia Weber, program manager of the Ventura County AIDS Partnership. Forty teams from church and busi
HOLLYWOOD--In 1992, about 18,000 people marched through the streets, raising more than $3 million for AIDS Walk Los Angeles. Seven years later, their numbers increased to 28,000, but by day s end the final tally was only $2.6 million. Stuck in a nationwide trend that has seen an increase in the number of participants b
WASHINGTON--The states rights movement has been gaining strength at the Supreme Court, and Alabama s lawyers urged the justices Wednesday to take another step by shielding states from federal discrimination claims brought by people with disabilities. A nursing supervisor who was demoted after she underwent treatment fo
PASADENA--Some walk because they have lost someone. Others walk because they fear being lost. They will all walk because there is still no cure for AIDS, and the epidemic is far from over. Thousands of people are expected to turn out Oct. 15 for the 16th annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles, which will begin and end at Paramou
A small number of patients stopped taking their AIDS drug cocktails and still managed to keep the virus under control, researchers report in one of the first studies to suggest that people with HIV may not have to be on medication for the rest of their lives. The study involved eight people, all of whom began taking po
WASHINGTON--Sex education courses in America s schools often are based on either an abstinence only curriculum or a more comprehensive program that also includes contraception. But a study released Tuesday found that the line between the two approaches increasingly has blurred. While local or state laws often mandate w
AIDS patients aren t the only people who have been stung by viatical settlements. Some investors too are feeling pain--because a new generation of drugs has changed the equation. Investors who buy the rights to an AIDS patient s life insurance policy earn a high return only if the insured person dies soon. By prolongin
SAN DIEGO--In 1996, Tom Lindner moved here from North Carolina. He was dying of AIDS and tens of thousands of dollars in debt. But he had friends in San Diego, and they knew a way to earn money fast. Call a certain insurance broker, they said. There s no trick to it. You only have to tell one lie. That lie was to tell
Francisco Ortega packs $30,000 in AIDS medications into the battered 1982 Chrysler LeBaron parked outside a Huntington Beach garage, secures the trunk with a rope and heads south to Mexico . It s an inauspicious start to a mission of mercy. Ortega secretly exports American AIDS drugs and other supplies to barracks-like
JARIPEO, Mexico--The migrant workers leave their Mexican villages with hopes of sending home fat money orders, but some are returning with a deadly U.S. export: the AIDS virus. Once a stranger in many parts of rural Mexico, HIV has infected between 4,300 and 16,000 villagers, and the number is rising rapidly. Mexican h
LONDON--New scientific evidence unveiled Monday appears to undermine a British journalist s controversial theory that the AIDS virus was passed from chimpanzees to humans during testing of a polio vaccine in Africa in the 1950s. Independent tests on samples of the experimental vaccine, warehoused in the
LONDON--Independent laboratory tests have found no evidence to support the theory that an experimental polio vaccine used on about 1 million Africans in the 1950s inadvertently triggered the AIDS epidemic. The findings, presented Monday at a conference at the Royal Society in London, found no evidence that the vaccine,
Despite the potential controversy, Ventura County should consider starting a free needle-exchange program to help stem the spread of HIV virus and hepatitis among drug addicts, maintains a top county health official. Public Health Officer Robert Levin said he is seriously considering suggesting county supervisors appro
ABUJA, Nigeria--President Clinton warned Nigerians on Sunday that their impressive new democracy will be imperiled unless they openly and aggressively tackle the problem of HIV and AIDS. AIDS can rob a country of its future, Clinton told a predominantly female crowd at the National Center for Women s Development in Abu
AIDS cases are on the decline in Ventura County, but the number of instances in which people are contracting the virus that leads to the deadly disease is increasing, a county health official said Wednesday. About 350 county residents have been diagnosed with AIDS, but an estimated 1,000 to 4,000 people are likely to b
Children are among the main victims of the rampaging AIDS epidemic in southern Africa, and the world s response has been shortsighted and incompetent, according to a scorching report issued Wednesday by the United Nations Children s Fund, commonly known as UNICEF. Eleven million children have been orphaned by the disea
A widely used antibiotic that costs as little as 9 cents per dose could sharply alleviate suffering among millions of African AIDS patients by preventing pneumonia, toxoplasmosis and many of the other opportunistic infections that characterize full-blown AIDS, researchers said Tuesday. Other drugs that are far cheaper
Life expectancies in some African countries will soon drop below age 30 because of the staggering number of AIDS deaths, experts said Monday. And for perhaps the first time in their history, some nations in southern Africa will experience negative population growth as a result of AIDS, according to the U.S. Census Bure
For the first time since the world s scientific community began international meetings to examine the AIDS epidemic some 17 years ago, the group is convening in a country, South Africa , ravaged by this modern day plague. Recent meetings have been held in cities such as Yokohama, Vancouver and Geneva, in industrialized
The numbers of AIDS deaths and new HIV infections in the United States have remained stable for the second year in a row, public health authorities will announce today. But increases in risky behaviors and growing infection rates among the young are setting the stage for a resurgence of the disease, officials cautioned
MONTCLAIR -- A federal judge has ordered a local business that assembles kits to test for HIV, pregnancy and hepatitis to stop operations and destroy its existing inventory because it failed to get U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for some of its products. In Washington, FDA spokeswoman Sharon Snider said
New HIV infections in San Francisco increased sharply in 1999, primarily because of increases in sexually risky behavior, the San Francisco Department of Public Health said Friday. New infections had run at about 500 cases a year during most of the last decade, but the number jumped to more than 800 last year, accordin
And as Jesus passed by he saw a man who was blind from birth, and his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifest in him. --John 9:1-3 In this biblical passa
SAN FRANCISCO--An insurance company may not deny disability benefits to an AIDS patient just because the policyholder had tested HIV-positive before he bought the insurance, the California Supreme Court decided Monday. Gay-rights lawyers hailed the ruling as a major victory, contending that AIDS patients frequently are
RANCHO CUCAMONGA -- A partnership with the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation has allowed the Foothill AIDS Project to open a medical and service office in Rancho Cucamonga. Geographically, it s going to fill a gap that has existed for a very long time, said Angel Love, community educator for the Foothill AID
Washington -- Officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a rare show of discord between two major health agencies, are saying that the Food and Drug Administration is holding off the market new AIDS tests that give quick results and could reduce new infections. The Atlanta-based CDC estimat
WASHINGTON--President Clinton agreed with South African President Thabo Mbeki on Monday that the United States and other wealthy countries must do their part to help reverse the spread of AIDS in Africa, both by reducing the cost of drugs and by alleviating the poverty that contributes to the epidemic. Meeting at t
MWANZA, Tanzania--American actress Susan Sarandon, the latest celebrity to take on the role of U.N. goodwill ambassador, said she had been deeply moved by how communities were coping with AIDS in Africa. I find it very moving to see how these villages really cooperate and take responsibility, she said during a weekend
WASHINGTON--As the AIDS epidemic continues to ravage sub-Saharan Africa, President Clinton issued an executive order Wednesday meant to help nations in the impoverished region obtain inexpensive drugs and medical technologies to treat the disease. The presidential order, which could be overturned after Clinton leaves o
Nicholas Riccarrdi, Terence Monmaney, Times Staff Writers
The Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science and its affiliated health care center, Los Angeles County s Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital, have stopped hundreds of clinical studies after federal officials found more than two dozen violations of regulations and rules protecting people who take part in research.
At a congressional hearing last week, Dr. Nils Daulaire, the president of the Global Health Council, told legislators that treatable infectious diseases have become the leading cause of death worldwide and contended that not acting when you have the ability to act is an act of immorality. Bipartisan support is indeed g
It s the blue line for uncertainty. At the county s Health Care Agency clinic at 1725 W. 17th St. in Santa Ana, the entrants, a good many in their mid-teens, are told to follow the blue line to complete free testing for a variety of sexually transmitted diseases, known by the acronym STD. More than 10,000 in this count
The number of syphilis cases reported in an outbreak among gay men in Los Angeles County has doubled to 51 in the past two weeks, adding urgency to public health officials efforts to contain the spread. Twenty-eight of the 51 infected people also have the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS--worrisome becau
The county Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to launch a comprehensive media campaign to promote safe sex and aggressive condom distribution in response to a syphilis outbreak among gay men. Supervisors also directed the county Department of Health Services to develop strategies for faster reporting of syphilis and ot
An outbreak of syphilis among gay men in Los Angeles County is one more troubling sign that the safer sex message often is not getting through or is being shrugged off, experts said Thursday. Syphilis, though easily treatable when caught in its early stages, is a good marker for the level of risk a population is willin
Paul Jacobs, Peter G. Gosselin, Times Staff Writers
Scientists have uncovered what they believe are glaring errors in a patent issued last month to Human Genome Sciences Inc. for a human gene that plays a crucial role in AIDS. The potential setback comes amid concerns that the race to patent human genes could lead to shoddy science and profiteering. Indeed, Human Genome
Paul Jacobs and Peter G. Gosselin, Times Staff Writers
A newly issued patent on a gene that controls how AIDS begins infecting its victims is fueling controversy over who should own and profit from the torrent of genetic discoveries emerging from research labs and biotech companies across the country. The patent, issued earlier this month to Maryland-based Human Genome Sci
HARARE, Zimbabwe--Death has a way of bringing the living to their senses. Or so says Brilliant Mushipe, a 20-year-old bank clerk who is among the leaders here of an unusual crusade against dying young. When young adults die in Africa it generally means one thing: AIDS. Across the continent, about half of infections fro
The Los Angeles Times - Saturday, February 19, 2000
Dean E. Murphy, Times Staff Writer
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa--In a sign of growing worries about the economic toll of AIDS, South Africa s telephone company said Friday it will buy 5 million condoms to distribute to its employees. The purchase by Telkom, which has about 58,000 workers, reflects a sobering realization in big business that the cash-strap
There were times last year when the casual consumer of mainstream news could have been forgiven for thinking that cures were suddenly being found for an uncommonly large number of the world s health problems. In July, the lead story on ABC s World News Tonight touted the results of research on mice as the very best new
WASHINGTON--Researchers in Houston and Memphis may have accidentally exposed more than two dozen young cancer patients to the virus that causes AIDS in a gene therapy experiment, the Washington Post reported on Friday. The newspaper said the researchers at St. Jude Children s Research Hospital in Memphis and Baylor Col
The popular herbal supplement St. John s wort interferes with essential medications prescribed for people with the AIDS virus and for organ transplant recipients, according to two reports released Thursday. Based on the findings, the Food and Drug Administration warned against taking the herb and the AIDS drug
SAN FRANCISCO--One is called the Berlin patient. Another is the Washington patient. A third is the Bethesda patient. The three men and a handful of others were on the minds of AIDS researchers gathered here last week, because they have been able to achieve something that few others have--staying off expensive and burde
The Los Angeles Times - Wednesday, February 2, 2000
Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Medical Writer
SAN FRANCISCO--At least 8% of all cases of HIV infection result from oral sex, according to researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The finding is disturbing because many gay men have switched from anal to oral sex based largely on their perception that it is a safe practice. This false as
The Los Angeles Times - Wednesday, February 2, 2000
Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Medical Writer
SAN FRANCISCO--The deadly human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS has existed in human populations for at least 70 years--far longer than most researchers had thought--according to a new analysis at Los Alamos National Laboratory using the world s fastest computer. The finding that the virus first jumped from chi
WASHINGTON--For the first time since the AIDS epidemic began nearly two decades ago, the number of cases among minority gay men has climbed higher than that among white gay men, federal health officials announced Thursday. Data also indicate that African American and Latino gay men are being infected at younger ages th
James Gerstenzang, Maggie Farley, Los Angeles Times
Vice President Al Gore, addressing the U.N. Security Council s first meeting on an issue of global health, announced yesterday that the White House would seek to double federal spending to fight AIDS, with a particular emphasis on battling the disease in the world s poorest countries. Gore said the fiscal 2001 budget t
UNITED NATIONS--U.N. peacekeepers are supposed to bring stability to countries in conflict. But now the world organization is grudgingly admitting an unsettling secret: In addition to aid, the troops provide a network for the transmission of AIDS. I regret to say that AIDS is being spread, among other people, by peacek
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