San Francisco - Kevin Reed launched his medical marijuana business two years ago, armed with big dreams and an Excel spreadsheet. Happy customers at his Green Cross cannabis club were greeted by bud tenders and glass jars brimming with high-quality weed at red-tag prices. They hailed the slender, gentle Southerner as a
IN THE 25 YEARS since it was identified, the virus that causes AIDS has traveled a highway of humanity to all corners of Earth. It has crossed oceans and continents; it stalks the world s most marginal people as they struggle to survive. K. Sangeetha s husband brought HIV/AIDS home to their village of Gangaikondacholap
After Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and others spoke out, federal officials said Monday they would continue to fund an AIDS research program that offers advanced treatment to mostly low-income, minority patients on L.A. s Eastside. Officials with the National Institutes of Health pledged continued backing of the clinic
A Los Angeles-based AIDS advocacy group is calling for the manufacturer of Viagra to halt a marketing campaign that the group says promotes the drug s recreational use, increasing the risk of acquiring HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation will run advertisements in publications in
Circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection by half, according to a new study conducted among nearly 8,000 adult males in Kenya and Uganda , researchers reported Wednesday. Circumcision proved so effective that the study was halted a year early and the procedure was offered to all study participants.
A genetic analysis of the AIDS virus in Libyan children appears to exonerate a Palestinian physician and five Bulgarian nurses accused of deliberately injecting 426 children with HIV at a Benghazi hospital in 1998, researchers reported today. The genetic history of the human immunodeficiency virus indicates that it is
Los Angeles County supervisors unanimously backed emergency efforts Tuesday to save an AIDS treatment program that has provided cutting-edge medication to uninsured and largely minority patients for two decades, after the National Institutes of Health announced plans to end millions in funding. Of 33 such clinical tria
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois told more than 2,000 evangelical leaders in Orange County on Friday that he respectfully but unequivocally disagrees with those who oppose condom distribution to fight the AIDS pandemic. But he said a solution to the worldwide spread of AIDS would also come from churches guiding peopl
OF ALL THE international forums and events to mark World AIDS Day on Friday, what may be the biggest will happen in an unlikely place: little Lake Forest, Calif., just north of Mission Viejo. Its coming signals a shift in political momentum as AIDS awareness is promoted not just by Hollywood celebrities and gay activis
They came from different worlds: Rick Warren was the conservative white pastor of a 20,000-strong evangelical church in Orange County; Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was a liberal black politician, and a rising star in the Democratic Party. After meeting in Washington, D.C., in January, they started chatting regularly on t
Taking HIV patients off their medications during periods when the disease appeared to be under control is a risky - and sometimes fatal - treatment strategy, according to a large international study published today. Patients who cycled on and off their drugs were 2.6 times more likely to die or develop AIDS-related sym
Los Angeles County health and community leaders are calling for renewed efforts at testing and educating minorities about AIDS, noting that Latinos and blacks in the county with HIV tend to learn of their infection too late to get the maximum benefit from drug therapies. Seventy-two percent of Latinos find out they are
In 1990, nine years after the AIDS virus was identified, the map showing the worldwide spread of the disease displayed most of Africa in the palest pink. The infection rate among adults was less than 1%. Since then, the colors have deepened faster here than anywhere else on Earth. Southern Africa now is colored a blood
A Dutch worker with the Clinton Foundation was shot to death outside the house of Lesotho s trade and industry minister, police said. Heavy gunfire erupted when Samuella Jacobina Verwey, 36, her husband and two U.S. aid workers got out of a car at Minister Mpho Malie s house. The minister and his wife were in neighbori
The AIDS epidemic has continued to grow in all regions of the world this year and surged back in some areas where there had been declines, according to the annual AIDS report issued Tuesday by the United Nations and World Health Organization . Although the rate of growth has slowed since the early years of the epidemic
The Rev. Angelo D Agostino, an American Jesuit priest who founded the Nyumbani orphanage in Kenya for children with HIV and was an advocate for the country s HIV-infected children, has died. He was 80. The Rev. D Agostino died Monday of a heart attack after being hospitalized at Karen Hospital in Nairobi, according to
For 17-year-old Justin Sosa, a student at Central High School in Los Angeles, the subject of the play In the Continuum does not represent new turf. The women who wrote and perform the play - Zimbabwe-born Danai Gurira and Los Angeles native Nikkole Salter - say they were inspired by the AIDS pandemic among African and
BOSTON - Abandoning its 20-year-old policy of using code to store data on HIV/AIDS patients, Massachusetts will require the names of anyone testing positive for HIV to be reported to the state public health agency, starting in January. The decision Tuesday by the state Public Health Council makes Massachusetts a part o
AMERICANS more than just believe the health information they get from fictional television shows. Spurred by what they see on shows like ER or The Bold and the Beautiful, surveys suggest, they take action. They go to the doctor. They tell a friend to have that cough checked. They ask a lover to use a condom. Fans devel
A new type of gene therapy that injects a modified version of HIV into special immune cells appears to hinder the AIDS virus ability to replicate, according to a new study. In the five HIV-infected patients in the study, the amount of virus remained stable or decreased. The number of T cells - immune cells that fight t
Nov. 7, 1991: With an announcement that stunned the nation, Earvin Magic Johnson, the brilliant guard who was the marquee name for the Lakers and the National Basketball Assn. for 12 years, retired ... saying he had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, The Times reported. Johnson, 32, was characteristically
SACRAMENTO - With pomp and a bit of pot-inspired pageantry, the battle-tested veterans of California s medical marijuana movement will come together this weekend to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Proposition 215, the milestone ballot measure that redefined cannabis as medicine. Those planning to gather today at the
On a recent Sunday morning, the Rt. Rev. Jon Bruno, bishop of the Los Angeles Diocese of the Episcopal Church, stood before a congregation in Ventura County with his hands clasped, the fingers tightly interlaced, as two boys summoned from the pews tried to pull them apart. It was not an easy task. Bruno stands 6 feet 5
BETTER RED than dead. That s what I figured when I stopped by a Gap store the day after Project Red s Oct. 13 U.S. launch to pick up a T-shirt and, incidentally, save the world. Project Red, the brainchild of U2 frontman Bono and Santa Monica City Councilman Bobby Shriver, is a cross-branding partnership in which Apple
Jeff Getty, an AIDS patient and activist who in 1995 received the first baboon-to-human bone marrow transplant in an effort to prolong his life, died Oct. 9. He was 49. Getty died of cardiac arrest at HiDesert Medical Center in Joshua Tree, Calif., his longtime partner Kenneth Klueh said Monday. He had been a resident
A record 30,000 participants turned out Sunday for the 10th annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles, raising a record $3.8 million, organizers said. We are thrilled, said Craig Miller, who founded the event in 1985. We are going to be able to help a lot of people with this money. Sunday s 6.2-mile walk through the streets of West
Welcome to Kstinovo, population one. Antonina Makarova, 78, spends her days watching news and soap operas in her peeling wooden dacha, the only inhabited structure in two lanes of sagging cottages that once were a village. Her nearest neighbor, 80-year-old Maria Belkova, lives in adjacent Sosnovitsy, population two. Bu
RIBBON CUTTING IS NICE. Inspirational speeches from the bully pulpit can be useful too. But on a list of priorities for elected officials, protecting public health ranks near the top. That s why Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger s veto last week of a bill that would have allowed condoms in prisons is more than just another cy
BANGKOK, Thailand - Like a proud parent, Father Joe Maier dotes on his children - such as the young beggar boy whose dad got him high on paint thinner and gave him broken bottles to cut his arms so he d look more pathetic to passing motorists. And the sexually abused triplets - the girls mother was dying of AIDS, thei
For 20 years, gay men have vigorously fought the contention that HIV is a disease of homosexuals. But now, one of Southern California s most influential gay institutions has embarked on a controversial ad campaign with this stark declaration: HIV is a gay disease. With that message and the tag line Own It. End It on b
The Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries, calling them magnets for crime and citing federal laws prohibiting the drug. The decision comes nearly 10 months after Riverside County became the first county in Southern California to issue photo identification cards i
LONDON - Giorgio Armani invaded London this week - sitting in the front row at a young designer s fashion show, receiving an honorary degree from the University of the Arts London and guest editing an issue of the Independent newspaper, where he tinted black the faces of famous models to help focus attention on AIDS in
Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writer, thomas.maugh@latimes.com
Every American between the ages of 13 and 64 should be screened for an HIV infection when they seek a doctor or a hospital in an effort to identify the quarter-million people who are infected and do not know it, government officials recommended today. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommended incr
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The United Nations special envoy for AIDS has likened her to the lunatic fringe, while a well-known comedian derides her as the angel of death. She is South Africa s top health official and one of the most important front-line fighters against AIDS in a country beset by an epidemic. But Hea
The Los Angeles County district attorney s office said Friday that it would not file criminal neglect charges against prominent HIV skeptic Christine Maggiore, whose daughter died last year of what the county coroner ruled was AIDS-related pneumonia. But in a separate development, the Medical Board of California filed
THE first order of business at colleges and universities is to dispense knowledge. Second may be collecting stuff. And institutions of higher education in California know how to bring in the goods. As the region s schools have proliferated, collections of books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, artworks, costumes, scien
The life spans of the healthiest Americans are more than 30 years longer than those of the least healthy, despite more than two decades of efforts to reduce the disparities, Harvard researchers reported Monday. At one end of the scale are Asian American women living in Bergen County, N.J., who have an average life expe
MOSCOW - In the eyes of Tatyana Myasoyedova, a pensioner who joined a recent protest against a Madonna concert set for Tuesday night, the pop icon s first performance in Russia is part of a plot against her nation. The United States first destroyed our great country, the Soviet Union, then they destroyed our economy an
Tracy Wilkinson, Times Staff Writer, wilkinson@latimes.com
MUNICH, Germany - Under glorious skies in this Bavarian capital where he once lived, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday warned Roman Catholics against letting modern concerns drown out God s word, adding that technology alone could not solve the world s problems. An overreliance on science has made too many Catholics deaf to
This year s AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival will include a 24-hour movie marathon and a one-man show by writer-director Peter Bogdanovich. The festival, scheduled to run Nov. 1 to 12, will be headquartered at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood. But the marathon will be held at AFI s Mark Goodson Theatre and
TORONTO - Delegates in saris, kente cloth, western suits and golf shirts trickled out of the largest-ever International AIDS Conference with a sense of guarded optimism, boosted in part by speeches by luminaries such as Bill Gates, and new data on treatments and prevention strategies that will set research agendas for
TORONTO - Patients who took a single antiviral drug to combat AIDS fared as well as those on the typical three-drug cocktail, suggesting a simpler and cheaper way of suppressing the virus in the bloodstream, according to several preliminary studies presented Thursday at the International AIDS Conference here. Three of
TORONTO - Work toward developing virus-blocking vaginal gels and other methods that women can use to protect themselves from HIV infection is making slow but steady progress, according to research discussed Wednesday at the International AIDS Conference here. One group of researchers reported that a vaginal ring, desig
TORONTO - Results from the first human trial using antiviral pills to prevent infection from HIV showed the drugs are safe and may offer some protection from the virus, according to a study discussed Monday at the International AIDS Conference here. The study s researchers reported that two women out of 469 taking the
TORONTO - Bill and Melinda Gates, whose foundation has contributed $1.9 billion to fight AIDS, said Sunday that developing antiviral gels and pills that would allow women to protect themselves is an urgent priority in fighting the epidemic. We want to call on everyone here and around the world to help speed up what we
MANY PEOPLE IN AFRICA have never seen a clock or a watch in their entire lives, said Andrew Natsios, the former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, when asked in 2001 why more Africans didn t have access to lifesaving AIDS drugs. Only when we have proof Africans could take their medicines on schedul
An experimental AIDS drug, part of a new class of medicines known as integrase inhibitors, worked faster in controlling HIV than one of the most widely used drugs now on the market, according to a preliminary study released Saturday. The integrase inhibitor, used in a drug cocktail with two others, reduced the amount o
By midnight the drag queens were at it full throttle, strutting about in billowy blond wigs, faces caked with rouge and offering up ample cleavage for those generous or inebriated enough to slip in a few bucks. Women yelped joyfully as taut, leggy guys dressed like Celine Dion and Cher belted out anthems on stage.
When Meshay was 6, her mother, Evelyn, took her to the hospital. Terrified of needles, Meshay took off running when she realized a big one was heading toward her arm. They had to hold her down, Evelyn said. What Meshay didn t know was that Evelyn had recently learned she had developed AIDS, and the hospital visit was n
Contradicting the perception that AIDS drug regimens are too complicated to be effective in Africa, an international study has found that sub-Saharan Africans are better at taking their drugs than North Americans. The study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., found that 77% of AIDS patients i
It seemed a mystery disease, as baffling as it was relentless. San Fernando Valley businessman David Glasberg went to the top Los Angeles hospitals and even the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for help. But his symptoms only worsened: He developed bloating, asthma, diarrhea, chronic vomiting, fevers, a bloody cough, inflammat
WASHINGTON - Sunil Shrestha knows all about inventory and cash flow from his years operating Dairy Queen and IHOP franchises. But nothing in his entrepreneurial career prepared him for his current challenges. What do you do when a South African supplier can t deliver on time because the only woman who knows how to make
SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver on Monday unveiled the first honorees for a new California Hall of Fame they hope will become a permanent fixture at the state museum in Sacramento. The honorees include 11 Californians and two prominent California families, the Hearsts and the Packar
Screening for the virus in annual physicals may be the best way to fight AIDS. EVEN WITH ALL THAT IS KNOWN about HIV, there are still 40,000 new infections a year in the United States . One of the main reasons is that a quarter of those infected today don t know it; research shows those people are behind half of all ne
Eighty-six beautiful women occupied a curving stretch of tables in the atrium of South Coast Plaza, Sharpies at the ready, as young men with camera phones and mothers with daughters in hair bows snaked past them for autographs. Jackie Fernandez signed Jackie, Miss Sri Lanka , sometimes with a smil
A $5-million community center built in 2001 to serve Santa Ana youths has been a disappointment to city leaders and others, who say it offers few programs for children and its building is underutilized. At the Delhi Center s groundbreaking, Santa Ana officials called the property in one of the city s poorest neighborho
WASHINGTON - Declaring it a tragedy that the Republican Party has alienated black voters, President Bush ended his five-year boycott of the NAACP convention on Thursday with a pledge to repair his relationship with the country s oldest civil rights group. But even as Bush won a rousing ovation for his promise to sign a
ON THURSDAY, PRESIDENT BUSH gave the sort of pedestrian speech to the NAACP that, but for a few obvious applause lines and anecdotes, could easily have been delivered to the Rotary Club or the AARP. The president deserves credit for resisting the urge to pander. But his speech also raises a question: If that s all he w
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Wednesday a $287-million donation to fund AIDS vaccine research and establish an international network focused on vaccine development. The main goal of the 16 grants is to shift the development process from independent efforts in separate laboratories to large-scale col
IF PRESIDENT BUSH AND THE REST of the Group of 8 leaders resuscitate the stalled Doha trade agreement at their meeting in St. Petersburg - it s unlikely, but there s still time, because the meeting doesn t adjourn until today - it will be a major victory for the global economy, especially the Third World. It could also
Fulfilling a long-held goal of AIDS researchers, federal regulators Wednesday approved the first anti-HIV drug that requires patients to take only one pill once a day. The drug, called Atripla, combines the three most widely prescribed HIV drugs into one pill, providing patients with a simpler medication regimen. At
Lauded recently for donating billions of dollars to improve public health, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are but the latest in a long line of American philanthropists determined to improve the health of others. In the early 18th century, donors focused largely on alleviating poverty or providing general healthcare to t
-- National advocacy group adds dietary and lifestyle issues to its familiar concerns such as jobs and immigration. On a crowded Los Angeles Convention Center floor Sunday, Gloria Ramirez winced as a medical technician poked her finger and pressed out blood into a hand-held device to measure sugar levels. The digital m
A woman who alleged that she was wrongly diagnosed as HIV-positive at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center has reached a settlement with the county, lawyers for both sides said Friday. Plaintiff Lynn Howard claimed the hospital s staff told her she was HIV-positive in October 2002, according to the lawsuit. She was to
One of the nation s largest Latino advocacy and civil rights organizations plans to meet in Los Angeles this weekend to instruct people how to mobilize and vote out those who fail to back generous new immigration laws. The National Council of La Raza will highlight immigration at its annual conference beginning today,
California s Supreme Court rightly decides that high-risk partners have disease-transmission liability before they know they re infected. SINCE THE FIRST SUCH CASE found its way into court more than two decades ago, only people who knew they had HIV and didn t inform their partners could be held liable by the people th
They gave up a semester s worth of Sundays. They missed practices, lunches and snack breaks. They shrugged off mocking classmates who said they were wasting time. And now, months of sacrifice behind them, eight Glendale High School sophomores who call themselves the YinYangs are gearing up to give world leaders their a
SAN FRANCISCO - Matt Traywick s personal life has been a treatise on how to contract AIDS. A gay man, he d been very sexually active in San Francisco in the late 1970s, he said, and tended toward unprotected encounters. Then he entered a long-term monogamous relationship, and after he lost both it and his job as a comp
California justices rule that those who don t inform their partners of previous relationships can be liable for transmitting diseases. People who don t tell their partners about their sexual pasts could be forced to pay damages for negligently transmitting AIDS or other sexually communicable diseases, the California Su
At the heart of author Eric Rofes work was a desire to liberate gay male sexuality from an identity he said was crafted by the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. That ill-informed identity of pathology and victimhood constrained gay men s sexuality, Rofes said, and persisted after AIDS was no longer a crisis for most gay men.
WASHINGTON - The government agency charged with overseeing the quality of testing in medical laboratories has failed to ensure that even serious repeat deficiencies are cited and corrected, federal auditors said Tuesday. A 93-page report by the Government Accountability Office concluded that the Centers for Medicare an
Anjali Gopalan depends on private donations to run her charity in New Delhi, which provides care for 380 orphans and families whose loved ones were killed or stricken by HIV/AIDS. She applauds the $200 million that Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates has provided for HIV/AIDS prevention and education in
Charles Piller and Maggie Farley, Times Staff Writers
Business titan Warren E. Buffett said today that his decision to donate most of his $40-billion fortune to the foundation run by Bill and Melinda Gates and other charities instead of his family reflected his long-held belief against creating dynastic wealth. The three - who are the sole trustees of the foundation - hel
With up to 5% of cosmetic injectables possibly counterfeit, doctors worry that consumers are choosing savings over health. In San Diego, two people fell gravely ill after receiving black-market silicone injections to plump up their faces. In Salinas, Calif., a woman died after receiving a supposed Botox injection that
Jodie Schooley has sold her car. Lydia Schaeffer has given her furniture away. And Melissa Herrmann is attending a last round of farewell gatherings with family and friends. All this in preparation for an unlikely plan: leaving the comforts of Southern California for indefinite servitude in a sweltering African town de
The District of Columbia will launch a campaign this week urging every resident between the ages of 14 and 84 to be tested for HIV, an ambitious undertaking that public health officials say is crucial to reversing rates of infection that are among the worst in the country. The citywide campaign, which appears to be unp
BILL GATES ANNOUNCEMENT on Thursday that he was phasing himself out of Microsoft s day-to-day operations drew the predictable round of cheers from Microsoft bashers, of which there is no shortage. Even some of the company s backers had yearned for a management shake-up at the company, whose marquee product - the next v
A 14-year-old who was infected with the virus and orphaned by the disease was brutally beaten by an uncle who struggled to care for him. Some blame not the killer, but an inadequate community of care. WANDUMBI, Kenya - After losing his parents to AIDS, Isaiah Gakuyo spent most of his short life shuttled among relatives
A 1980s-era ban no longer makes any practical sense. SOON AFTER THE FIRST AIDS CASES appeared in the U.S. in the early 1980s, the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the nation s blood supply, permanently banned practically all gay men from donating blood. At the time, the policy made sense. But a quarter of a
The red ribbons gave way to the pink ribbons, which were overtaken by the yellow wristbands - until light blue ribbons came along. And they ve all been shoved aside by the latest color to wash over Hollywood: green. Maybe it s the burnout factor. Or perhaps it s because Hollywood has a short attention span. But as AIDS
The 13th annual event holds special meaning with the epidemic now a quarter of a century old. For Paul Serchia, finishing the 585-mile AIDS/LifeCycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles on Saturday had a special beauty beyond all the ocean and mountain scenery. The 48-year-old Studio City resident has lived with HIV
Gao Jun is an orphan of the most desperate kind: Both his parents are dead from AIDS, and now the toddler is also HIV-positive. Residents in his remote village in southeast China - including some of his extended family - won t go near him, mistakenly fearing they could catch the deadly virus. As an outcast, his body re
Teenagers today are less likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol or have sex than their peers 15 years ago, according to a national study released Thursday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found that 54% of high school students last year had smoked one cigarette in their lifetime,
FOR THE LAST FEW YEARS, Los Angeles County health officials have relied on Phil the Sore - a pus-filled red cartoon character sporting an angry frown, a buzz cut and an earring - to warn people about the dangers of syphilis. Phil is gross to look at and maybe in bad taste, but we could forgive that if he were doing a b
Teenagers today are less likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol or have sex than their peers 15 years ago, according to a national study released Thursday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found that 54% of high school students last year had smoked one cigarette in their lifetime,
MICHAEL S. GOTTLIEB teaches at UCLA s medical school where he is affiliated with the AIDS Institute. He is a trustee of the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (www.thegaia.org). I MET MICHAEL, the man who became my Patient Zero, in early 1981. I was 33 years old; he was 31. He was rail thin with short, bleached-blond hair
In hindsight, the news reported on June 5, 1981, was the first cold slap of a new reality. The Centers for Disease Control announced that five homosexual men in Los Angeles had been stricken with Pneumocystis carinii, a rare form of pneumonia. Within a month, 26 cases of Kaposi s sarcoma, another rare disease that was
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi was a research associate at the Pasteur Institute in Paris when she was the first to detect the human immunodeficiency virus in 1983. She has studied the virus ever since. Barre-Sinoussi, 58, is now head of one of the institute s retroviral research groups. * PARIS — The retroviral group begins
Dr. David Ho, 53, pioneered the development of the three-drug cocktail that has led to the dramatic decline of AIDS deaths in the United States and elsewhere. He is director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York. * NEW YORK -- The schedule for today is packed. Ho has back-to-back meetings on using a n
As a UCLA researcher, Dr. Michael S. Gottlieb headed a team that first reported a new disease, now known as AIDS, on June 5, 1981. Gottlieb, 58, is now in private practice in Los Angeles, primarily treating AIDS patients. * In a room overlooking palm trees and high-rise buildings on Wilshire Boulevard, Gottlieb flips o
Thomas H. Maugh II and Jia-Rui Chong, Times Staff Writers
A quarter-century after the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, the rapid pace of scientific discovery has slowed to a crawl. The early years of the epidemic were a sprint, as researchers isolated the virus that causes AIDS, developed rapid tests for the virus and found drugs that could block its replication -- culminating
ATLANTA -- She is constantly sewing. Hunched over pieces of the quilt, the seamstress stitches fraying edges and little tears that have accumulated over the years. When she is finished mending a piece, she folds the fabric and carries it into a long, quiet gallery. Metal shelves stretch the length of the room. Each she
New syphilis cases in Los Angeles County rose sharply in 2005 after leveling off in the previous two years, according to a report released last week. The tally of 1,217 cases was an increase of more than 40% from the 2004 total of 865 and nearly three times the number reported in 2001. Two-thirds of the new cases were
UNITED NATIONS -- A three-day AIDS conference set a goal Friday of doubling spending to slow the spread of the disease, and 14 countries announced an airline ticket tax to fund greater access to AIDS drugs. The special session on HIV/AIDS was marked by political haggling over the mention of condoms, safe drug use and s
Prevention programs are credited for the gains, particularly in Haiti and Africa. India has become the nation with the most HIV cases. The rapid growth in global AIDS cases that characterized the first quarter-century of the epidemic is slowing as some regions of the world are showing evidence of bringing the disease u
The group meets today to talk about its failed AIDS plan and how to renew the fight against humanity s greatest threat. THE UNITED NATIONS, IT HAS BEEN SAID, is the only organization that holds meetings to commemorate the failures of previous meetings. No further introduction is needed for the General Assembly special
Millions of dollars for HIV and AIDS treatment for California could be at risk because of a proposal in Congress that would direct more federal money to rural and Southern states, local health officials are warning. A Senate health committee, by a 19-1 vote earlier this month, approved the proposal, which would renew a
Dr. Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the World Health Organization and the driving force in that agency s effort to expand AIDS treatment to the developing world, died Monday in Geneva following surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. The first Korean to head a United Nations agency, Lee was 61. A 23-year
Young women risk being infected with chlamydia more than once, researchers reported last week at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conference in Jacksonville, Fla. Chlamydia is the most common STD among women and, in 70% of cases, causes no symptoms. The bacterial infection can lead to pelvic inflammatory di
Would the state of California out Abe Lincoln, now that a controversial biography has suggested that he not only changed the course of a nation but also shared a bed with men? Would Eleanor Roosevelt be singled out not just for her seminal work pursuing the New Deal and fighting for human rights, but for her relationsh
The Board of Supervisors voted this week to spare HIV/AIDS care and treatment programs from a 5% funding cut that took effect May 1. Federal funding to Los Angeles County medical and social services was slashed by $1.9 million in 2006, a 5.2% reduction from 2005. Supervisors ordered county officials to search for addit
An unusually virulent form of chlamydia has emerged in the United States , primarily among gay men, after an outbreak in Europe two years ago, federal researchers said Wednesday. There are about 80 confirmed cases in the U.S., but infectious-disease experts fear the actual number is substantially larger because this fo
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - A judge acquitted the deputy head of South Africa s ruling party of rape charges Monday in a trial that divided the country and revealed a deep split over the future leadership of the party and the nation. A jubilant Jacob Zuma stood before a crowd of dancing supporters outside Johannesburg s
Syphilis rates in blacks, women and babies declined significantly between 1999 and 2004 but continued to rise overall, driven by a dramatic jump in infections among gay and bisexual men, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. About 64% of all the new syphilis cases in 2004 were in men who had engag
Women with AIDS, who tend to be urban and poor, get less benefit from medicines for the disease if they smoke, no matter if they smoke a lot or a little, researchers have found. The study of 924 women found that those who smoked while taking a cocktail of anti-AIDS medicines called highly active antiretroviral therapy,
As assistant district attorney in San Francisco, Keith Vines prosecuted one of the largest illicit drug busts the city had ever seen. Then he came down with AIDS wasting syndrome and lost 60 pounds over three years. To stimulate his appetite, he started taking marinol, an FDA-approved drug containing THC, one of the ac
IN THE WORLD OF SECULAR POLITICS, it would be called a trial balloon. Last week, Cardinal Carlo Martini, a Jesuit theologian and runner-up in the last papal election, told an Italian newspaper that condoms were the lesser evil when used to stop the transmission of AIDS. The cardinal s comments, which elicited praise fr
A safe and effective gel allowing women to protect themselves from the AIDS virus may be available by 2010 if current trials involving thousands of women are successful, researchers here said. Gita Ramjee, director of the HIV prevention research unit at South Africa s Medical Research Council, said microbe-killing vagi
KAMPALA, Uganda - When it comes to buying condoms, Gideon Byamugisha prefers to dart in and out of the drugstore, leaving his car engine running for a quick escape. But invariably, after watching a rattled clerk triple-bag his purchase or enduring disapproving glares from fellow customers, Byamugisha goes out and turns
SACRAMENTO - Concerned about threats that include a flu pandemic and bioterrorist attacks, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his support Tuesday for a new state Department of Public Health. The governor is embracing legislation by Sen. Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento) to establish a California office focused on concerns
I HAVEN T GONE shopping for a piece of non-underwear clothing in nearly two years. If it weren t for gifts from my parents, I d still be wearing clothes from the 1980s. This is why when men get old, they wear Members Only jackets. Men have no use for shopping. A guy s instinctive reaction to any piece of clothing isn t
Epidemiologists tracking the spread of HIV in California will begin using data based on patient names rather than relying on a flawed code-based system under a new law signed Monday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The shift will ensure that California continues to receive more than $50 million annually for HIV/AIDS care
Phillip Muck Brown once lived the life of a true gangster. By 17, he was a professional car thief, a PCP abuser and a war chief for a Crips gang in West Los Angeles. But in the summer of 1987, while he was serving a two-year prison term, his dangerous living caught up with him. He learned that he was HIV-positive, a re
The California Supreme Court, considering the case of a woman who said her former husband gave her HIV, appeared Tuesday to favor holding people responsible for failing to disclose previous, unprotected sexual contact with an infected partner. During an hour of arguments in Los Angeles, several justices indicated there
When it comes to sex, the Web has a dark side: It helps people hook up with strangers, fueling the spread of disease. But recently, health authorities in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities have been trying to use the Internet for healthier purposes. They are hiring counselors to visit sex chat rooms, advertisi
FOR YEARS, EXPERTS HAVE worried that India could be the next epicenter of the AIDS epidemic. The world s second-most-populous nation already has an estimated 5 million infected people, and some believed the country would soon have more AIDS cases than any other nation. But Indian researchers released some very surprisi
New cases of HIV in San Francisco dipped nearly 10% in the last five years, marking the first drop in infections since the late 1980s, according to preliminary estimates from the city s Department of Public Health. It looks like we re on the waning side of this wave in the epidemic, said department epidemiologist Willi
The state Assembly unanimously agreed Thursday to replace California s flawed system for tracking HIV infections, a move that would bring the state into the mainstream nationally and preserve millions of federal dollars for treatment and services that had been threatened. The 67-0 Assembly vote virtually guarantees the
The World Health Organization has fallen well short of its goal of getting 3 million AIDS patients in treatment by the end of 2005, with fewer than half that number now receiving life-sustaining antiretroviral therapy, according to a report issued Tuesday. The program tripled the number of people in low- and moderate-i
Johannesburg - An angry crowd boiled outside Johannesburg s High Court as people held aloft a woman s picture and set it alight. She was hustled through a back entrance to a courtroom where she faced days of grueling cross-examination. It almost seemed that she was the perpetrator of a heinous crime. But the woman is a
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - An angry crowd seethed outside Johannesburg s High Court as people held aloft a woman s picture and set it alight. She was hustled through a back entrance to a courtroom where she faced days of grueling cross-examination. It almost seemed that she was the perpetrator of a heinous crime.
WASHINGTON - One of the first independent studies of the Medicare prescription benefit has concluded that many low-income California seniors now have access to a narrower range of drugs than when the state covered their medications, according to a report being released today. The new federal program contains pitfalls f
David Merino stands Thursday morning in the midst of a storage garage full of groceries. You might call it his office, in that he runs the food pantry for the AIDS Services Foundation. Twice a month, the small bags of food go out to 450 people. It s supposed to supplement their daily diet, but some say it s the only fo
THE WEBSITE FOR ONE FACILITY says it s a place for men to play safely. Another describes itself as the friendly, no-attitude bathhouse you ve been looking for. Others boast of their cedar-lined saunas and private sundecks. Los Angeles County s 11 known sex clubs and bathhouses have long been popular places where gay me
Federal funding for medical and social services for low-income HIV/AIDS patients in Los Angeles County was slashed by $1.9 million in 2006, a 5.2% reduction from last year, according to data released this week by the Health Resources and Services Administration. The county will receive $34.9 million for medical and den
KAMPALA, Uganda - Two love-struck teens. A secret affair. Feuding families that tear them apart. It has all the elements of Romeo and Juliet, Uganda-style. With her pink-and-white school uniform and shy grin, Maska Justine was just 14 when she caught the eye of Wakalanga Alex after her family moved to his middle-class
Lemon juice is a good contraceptive. Exercise may cause cancer. And - this just in! - duct tape cures warts. Local television stations often add health reports to their usual coverage of crime, sports and weather, but the information they dispense is not all that useful, according to a new study. Sometimes it s flat-ou
Underwear always optional here, boasts one ad, offering three floors of pleasure, the hottest men and erotic theme nights. Another ad in the Los Angeles gay magazine Frontiers features a bare-chested worker, his utility belt bulging with condoms, with the logo, play safe--condoms are always FREE. And in a third, a musc
Nikolas Emerson, 11, who as a toddler was at the center of a prolonged legal battle over treatment of the virus that causes AIDS, died March 2 at his home outside Bangor, Maine. His family would not say whether the death was AIDS-related. Emerson s case drew international attention when the Maine Supreme Judicial Court
BERLIN - Open to anything and closed to no one, Richard Stein s cafe made the skittish wince. Sexually eclectic and politically charged, it was in the vanguard of a queer power movement in the 1990s, a place where homosexuals, cross-dressers, AIDS activists, lesbians, immigrants and some who preferred to just remain my
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert J. Sandoval, one of the city s first openly gay prosecutors, died Feb. 28 at City of Hope Hospital in Duarte. He was 56. Sandoval died of a heart attack while undergoing treatment for leukemia, said Bill Martin, his partner of 23 years. He had been diagnosed with leukemia in Janu
Gary Miller leaned back on his bed, looking very tired. He had already packed his bags and now was waiting for a cab he really didn t want to come. This is not what I had in mind for the last few days of my life, he said Friday. Miller, 59, was one of about 18 men and women who learned last week that they could not rem
Claudia Pena keeps three votive candles burning in her Cudahy apartment - one for each of her children and one for herself. Every day, she says, she prays to stay well enough to care for Jessica and Christopher, at least until they can care for themselves. I don t ask for much else, she says. This is not the life she h
SAN FRANCISCO - A former doctor in the Bay Area has been charged with 131 counts of performing fake medical exams on more than 1,400 immigrants seeking legal residency in the United States . Stephen Brian Turner allegedly injected patients - including children and the elderly - with saline solution in place of vaccines
NEW YORK - An announcement that the city s health department plans to develop a memorable wrapper for its free condoms had New Yorkers dreaming Tuesday about the possibilities: little subway maps, for instance, or a classic I {heart} New York, or the noble visage of Lady Liberty. The city has been distributing 1 millio
PRESIDENT BUSH HAS BEEN a reliable ally in the global fight against AIDS, proposing to increase federal funding to about $4 billion next year. With so much at stake, efficiency is vital, and according to a growing body of research, one procedure that is relatively inexpensive and can drastically reduce the transmission
AIDS patients who were given early single-drug treatments are increasingly facing a resistant virus that defeats the multidrug therapies common today. SAN FRANCISCO - In a consultation room at San Francisco General Hospital, Warren Ratcliffe rolled up the leg of his jeans to display an anachronism. Purplish brown, leec
NASHVILLE - President Bush today delivered an emphatic denunciation of isolationism and sought to soothe the anxiety and uncertainty that he said have settled on the nation, as he promoted his newly drawn agenda for the remainder of his term. Sixteen hours after delivering his State of the Union address, the president
IF IT WORKED FOR YELLOW, WHY NOT RED? Those yellow rubber Livestrong bracelets created to raise money for cyclist Lance Armstrong s cancer-fighting foundation quickly turned from a social statement to a fashion accessory. Rock star Bono has a similar idea, only bigger (and considerably more chic). Last week in Davos,
China revised downward the number of people in the country living with HIV, but health agencies warned that with 70,000 new infections last year, there was no room for complacency. By the end of 2005, China had about 650,000 people infected with HIV, 75,000 of whom had full-blown AIDS, according to a study by the
Mike Males is talking about his generation. They think they re going to live forever, he s complaining. They re in unbelievable denial about their vulnerability. Look at the numbers: dying of drug overdoses in this state at more than twice the rate documented in 1990. Fastest-growing age group for felony and violent fe
WASHINGTON - In four decades as a guitarist with such iconic rock bands as the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, David Crosby played in front of millions of fans at such venues as Woodstock, the Fillmore East, the Hollywood Bowl and London s Wembley Stadium. Lately, one of his regular gigs has been at one of
ATLANTA - Traditional African American churches are not known for being tolerant of homosexuals - especially not in the Bible Belt. But on Friday, more than 100 pastors and theologians from around the country filled Atlanta s First Iconium Baptist Church for a summit on homophobia in black churches. We may not all agre
The state Senate unanimously approved a bill Thursday that would track HIV patients by name, rather than alphanumeric codes, in order to preserve up to $50 million in federal funding. The bill, passed on a 33-0 vote, now goes to the Assembly. The Schwarzenegger administration has indicated its support. The code system,
SAN FRANCISCO - In a consultation room at San Francisco General Hospital, Warren Ratcliffe rolls up the leg of his jeans to display an anachronism. Purplish brown, leech-shaped splotches cover his left shin and calf. They exist also, he says, on his stomach and chest, and he fears they might appear on his hands and fac
Opposition has lifted to legislation that would allow California health authorities to track HIV patients by name, effectively ending a years-long debate over privacy concerns and paving the way for the bill s passage. Onetime critics of the measure had worried that the approach would discourage people from getting tes
Los Angeles County supervisors Tuesday finalized regulations requiring bathhouses and sex clubs to obtain health permits - a move that will make it easier for authorities to shut down facilities that don t meet stringent new rules. The new regulations require that so-called commercial sex venues, which are frequented b
Tory Dent, an award-winning poet who was diagnosed with HIV at age 30, later developed AIDS and wrote three volumes of poetry about her years of coping with her illness, has died. She was 47. Dent died Dec. 30 of complications from the disease, at her home in New York City, said her husband, Sean Harvey. In her books,
The state became the 11th to legalize medical marijuana - and the first since the Supreme Court ruled in June that patients who used the drug could still be prosecuted under federal law - when the state House of Representatives overrode a veto by Republican Gov. Donald R. Carcieri. The measure, approved by a vote of 59
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.