MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - The family of a pregnant woman who died while taking experimental AIDS drugs to protect her baby from getting the disease is suing the doctors, drug makers and hospitals involved in the study for $10 million. Joyce Ann Hafford s mother and sister allege in the suit filed Tuesday that doctors conti
WASHINGTON (AP) - President George W. Bush defended U.S. generosity Wednesday, even as his administration figures out how to pay for help beyond the $35 million it has already promised to tsunami victims in Asia. In his first remarks since the weekend disaster that so far has killed more than 76,000, Bush - like some i
NEW YORK (AP) - Susan Sontag, a leading intellectual and activist of the past half-century who introduced the concept of camp to mainstream culture and also influenced the way many thought about art, illness and photography, died Tuesday. She was 71. Sontag died at 7:10 a.m. Tuesday, said Esther Carver, a spokeswoman f
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government approved a drug Tuesday that offers a new way of fighting severe pain - an option for patients who no longer benefit from morphine and other traditional pain medications. It s the first in a new class of drugs that selectively blocks the nerve channels responsible for transmitting pain
WASHINGTON (AP) - A suggestion by a U.N. official that the world s richest nations were stingy irritated the Bush administration, especially when U.S. aid for Asia s earthquake is expected to eventually rise from the millions to more than $1 billion. The comment reopened the question of how to measure American generosi
Highly paid federal doctors are not protected by the whistle-blower act and have no appeal rights if fired, a judge ruled. WASHINGTON - Thousands of federal doctors and medical researchers who receive some of the highest salaries in government don t enjoy the same protections to blow the whistle on wrongdoing as other
NEW DELHI (AP) - In a dingy, poorly lit corridor in a government building, dozens of foreign visitors have been making rounds of offices, escorted by men and women wearing the black, tuxedo-like robes of Indian lawyers. The building houses India s pharmaceuticals ministry. The foreign visitors are representatives of mu
Specialized clinics have opened to treat the physical, mental and emotional problems of children adopted from foreign countries. ST. LOUIS - Almost immediately after Yvette and Paul Hubbman brought their adopted daughter home from Russia , they made some puzzling discoveries: Louise avoided making eye contact. She got
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - No one really wants to see Timothy Carroll and his crew at their doorstep. But when he s needed, he helps grieving family members with a cleanup task they d rather not even think about. When someone is murdered or commits suicide at home, family members or friends are responsible for cleaning up. Ca
NEW DELHI (AP) - In a dingy, poorly lit corridor in a government building, dozens of foreign visitors have been making rounds of offices, escorted by men and women wearing the black, tuxedo-like robes of Indian lawyers. The building houses India s pharmaceuticals ministry. The foreign visitors are representatives of mu
WASHINGTON (AP) - Thousands of federal doctors and medical researchers who receive some of the highest salaries in government don t enjoy the same protections to blow the whistle on wrongdoing as other civil servants, a judge has ruled. Administrative Judge Raphael Ben-Ami of the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board rul
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - Four-month-old Thomas Bekele lies in a crib in the Kidane Meheret Children s Home awaiting an HIV test, the result of which will determine his chances of being adopted and growing up in a Western country. His mother died a month ago of tuberculosis, a telltale sign of HIV. He is one of 150
A rare and potentially serious sexually transmitted disease has turned up in a few patients in San Francisco, prompting health officials to issue a public warning. The disease is called lymphogranuloma venereum, or LGV. It s a form of chlamydia, a common sexually transmitted infection, but LGV can cause scarring of the
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - George Srour was visiting an orphanage in Kampala, Uganda , this summer when he turned a corner and was swarmed by a group of double orphans - children who lost both parents to AIDS and were infected themselves. All they wanted was to shake his hand. I couldn t stop smiling, but at the same time I f
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - The sleazy doctor brushes off the advances of a student nurse in the parking lot, but asks her out in a hospital corridor. A male nurse enters a patient s room and realizes she s the woman he ran into with his motorcycle last night -- and the wife of the nursing school principal. Taste
MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) - Ruling party presidential candidate Armando Guebuza was declared the winner Tuesday in an election marred by voter apathy so overwhelming that it raised questions about the health of Mozambique s emerging democracy. Mozambique s Electoral Commission said Guebuza got 64% of the presidential vot
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - After two drug companies announced Monday that they will collaborate on developing the first all-in-one, one-a-day pill to treat HIV infection, advocates of such a pill praised the move. To have it all in a single pill is terrific, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy an
NEW YORK (AP) - The latest Apprentice has been hired and the newest Survivor has, well, survived. But fans shouldn t fret. In the downtime before the next installments, they can own a piece of reality TV history. Props from NBC s The Apprentice and CBS Survivor are now available on eBay with proceeds benefiting the Eli
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Two drug companies announced Monday they will collaborate on developing the first all-in-one, once-a-day pill to treat HIV infection -- a long-sought goal that would make it much easier for patients to stick with their medication. Currently, the best AIDS treatment requires patients to take two to
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - Five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in Libya for allegedly infecting children with HIV plan to seek compensation from Tripoli for illegal arrest and torture, Bulgaria s justice minister said Monday. The nurses were sentenced in May for allegedly infecting more than 400 Libyan children with H
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - A Ugandan health official said Friday a country study found that 20 percent of pregnant women and 46 percent of their babies developed resistance to nevirapine after taking one dose to protect the newborns from HIV infection. Scientists, however, don t know the possible long-term effects on
Concern about an AIDS drug threatens the South African program credited with protecting thousands of infants from HIV infection. JOHANNESBURG - Charmaine and her husband tried for more than year to have a child. The day she found out she was pregnant, a doctor told her she was HIV-positive. Devastated, Charmaine consid
CHICAGO (AP) - The Rev. Jesse Jackson called for a congressional investigation into reports that U.S. health officials withheld research from the White House that showed an AIDS drug distributed to hundreds of thousands of Africans posed serious risks. He also said the U.S. government should immediately halt the drug s
VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican established a foundation Friday to fund Catholic organizations assisting AIDS victims, urging people to contribute even if they object to the Church s opposition to the use of condoms to fight the spread of the disease. Pope John Paul II has set aside $132,000 for the Good Samaritan Foun
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - Doctors and AIDS activists in Africa are worried governments may halt use of an AIDS drug that has protected thousands of babies from HIV infection in reaction to new concerns about the drug s testing and effect on pregnant women. The Rev. Jesse Jackson is calling for a U.S. congressional investi
JOHANNESBURG (AP) - President Thabo Mbeki s African National Congress published a stinging attack Friday on top U.S. health officials, accusing them of treating Africans like guinea pigs and telling lies to promote the sales of a key AIDS drug. The article reinforces the fears of doctors and activists that new question
LONDON (AP) - Andy Bell, lead singer of synth-pop duo Erasure, said he was feeling fine six years after being diagnosed with HIV. In a statement posted on Erasure s Web site, Bell, 40, said he had been diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS in 1998 after falling ill with pneumonia on a trip to the Spanish island of
WASHINGTON (AP) - The British government will give UNICEF $88 million for its work with children orphaned by AIDS, both parties announced Thursday. Most of the money will be spent in sub-Saharan Africa, where the AIDS epidemic continues, said Gareth Thomas, British international development minister, at a news conferen
A pregnant Tennessee woman who enrolled in federally funded research in hopes of saving her soon-to-be-born son from getting AIDS died last year when doctors continued to give her an experimental drug regimen despite signs of liver failure, government memos say. Family members of Joyce Ann Hafford say the 33-year-old H
Excerpts showing key differences between an original safety report written by the National Institutes of Health s Dr. Betsy Smith concerning research on the AIDS drug nevirapine and the rewritten version of the report by AIDS research chief Dr. Edmund Tramont. Smith s original version: Acceptable or required t
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. government s research on using an AIDS drug to protect African babies was so flawed that health officials had to use blood tests after the fact to confirm patients got the medicine. Ultimately, they had to acknowledge the study broke federal patient protection rules. But the National Institut
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government s chief of AIDS research rewrote a safety report on a U.S.-funded drug study to change its conclusions and delete negative information. Later, he ordered the research resumed over the objections of his staff, documents show. Dr. Edmund Tramont, chief of the National Institutes of Health
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Religious leaders on Monday debated methods to halt the spread of AIDS - a usually taboo subject in the conservative Arab world - but they stopped short of agreeing to recommend the use of contraceptives to prevent the disease. More than 80 religious leaders, Muslim and Christian, met at a United Na
THE DRUG: Nevirapine, an AIDS drug pronounced Nee-VERA-peen, is made by Boehringer Ingelheim Corp. and is marketed under the brand name Viramune . There are two generic versions, Nevimune, made by Cipla , and Nevirex, made by Aurobindo Pharma.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The woman offering flu shots for $20 in the commons area at Augsburg college seemed plausible enough -- green scrubs, white lab coat, stethoscope -- that some three dozen people willingly paid their money, rolled up their sleeves and let her plunge the needle in. But no one had scheduled a flu clinic
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - Ten percent of Ethiopia s 46 million children are orphans whose parents died of AIDS , poverty and poor health conditions, a new report said Monday. Ethiopia needs $115 million a month, slightly less than its annual health budget of around $140 million, to help look after the orphans, said
Piscataway, N.J. - Researchers at Rutgers University have developed a trio of drugs they believe can destroy HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to a published report. The drugs, called DAPYs, mimic the virus by changing shape, which enables them to interfere with the way HIV attacks the immune system. Tests con
WASHINGTON (AP) - Weeks before President Bush announced a plan to protect African babies from AIDS, top U.S. health officials were warned that research on the key drug was flawed and may have underreported thousands of severe reactions including deaths, government documents show. The 2002 warnings about the drug,
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A nurse who sent fears through a Minnesota college by selling flu shots at what the school called an unauthorized clinic said Sunday she had permission from an administrator to be there. Michelle Torgerson, 33, said she sold vaccine left over from clinics she had run in the past and maintained the va
MINNEAPOLIS - Tests show the shots administered by a woman at an unauthorized flu clinic this month contained the real flu vaccine, calming fears the shots could have contained something dangerous. The Minnesota Health Department said Friday that all the vials seized by police when they arrested 33-year-old Michelle Ly
OSLO - The first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, environmental activist Wangari Maathai, received her award Friday to the beat of drums and dancers that broke with the usual stodgy ceremony, and she urged her audience to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. Ms. Maathai receive
BOSTON (AP) - David Brudnoy, one of Boston s most recognized talk radio voices for more than a quarter of a century, died Thursday night, Massachusetts General Hospital officials said. He was 64. Brudnoy, whose soothing voice could be heard every weeknight in 38 states and in Canada on WBZ-AM since 1986, told liste
WASHINGTON (AP) - A novel type of antibiotic has been shown in laboratory tests to powerfully attack and control tuberculosis, and some experts predict it could become the first new drug in 40 years to effectively combat the killer disease. Results from mouse experiments conducted by researchers in a
LONDON (AP) - More than half the world s children are suffering the effects of poverty, war and HIV/AIDS, denying them a healthy and safe childhood, UNICEF s annual report said Thursday. The United Nations children s fund report on The State of the World s Children found more than 1 billion children were growing up hun
TRIPOLI (AP) - The son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi Thursday ruled out the execution of five Bulgarian nurses who were sentenced to death for infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV-contaminated blood. Seif el-Islam Gadhafi also said the Appeal Court might change the death sentence to a prison sentence. Th
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned member states Wednesday they must act quickly to reform the United Nations if the world is to successfully tackle 21st century global threats such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation and AIDS. The United Nations has done a good job in many instanc
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - A senior Bulgarian official ruled out paying any compensation to get Libya to reconsider the death sentences of five Bulgarian nurses accused of infecting children with HIV. Deputy Foreign Minister Gergana Grancharova said her government believes the nurses are innocent and that such a payment co
BEIJING (AP) - The head of a global AIDS group warned Tuesday that the disease is spreading rapidly in China , disputing government figures that suggest the infection rate has remained the same since last year but praising Beijing s newly aggressive efforts to fight the illness. China has said for more than a year that
CHICAGO (AP) - Jennifer Longley wears her yellow bracelet in honor of her many relatives who have had cancer, including a grandfather who lost his tongue and voice box and an aunt who died of ovarian cancer. I also wear it for me, because I know that this is something that I will continue to deal with in my future, sa
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - War, AIDS and grinding poverty have prevented the world from reaching many of its goals for helping young people, the U.N. children s agency said Monday ahead of a major report on the state of the world s children. The three issues have been major obstacles to progress, even when the internat
(AP) - Some examples of organizations with fund-raiser bracelets, arranged by color: RED: * The Diabetes Research Institute is raising funds with its Insulin Is Not a Cure bracelets. www.DRInet.org * This month, the nonprofit Keep a Child Alive will begin selling bracelets to raise funds for children With HIV/AIDS: www
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday that the government should review federally funded sexual abstinence programs, under fire from Democrats who say they contain false and misleading medical information. The abstinence-only programs, which get $170 million from Congress this year, teach chil
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) - Guyana will receive $20 million from the U.S. next year to help fight AIDS, the health minister said Saturday. Among other initiatives, the funds will go to preventing transmission from mothers to children and improving testing capabilities in the country, Health Minister Leslie Ramsammy said.
WASHINGTON - Amid the discord over administration foreign policy, President Bush has won wide acclaim for two initiatives: helping overseas AIDS victims and countries that adopt democratic reforms. But those ambitious goals could be imperiled by the realities of an expensive war and a growing budget deficit. In the fac
WASHINGTON (AP) - Anthrax attacks and a flu vaccine shortage troubled the first and last years of Tommy Thompson s tenure as Health and Human Services secretary. A much brighter note, he said Friday, was the Medicare prescription law he helped pass in 2003. Thompson, 63, announced his resignation Friday, saying he was
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) - At a recent task force meeting on the epidemic of methamphetamine use in Appalachia, Gov. Phil Bredesen winced when a federal prosecutor described the illegal drug as an aphrodisiac. Doctors and government officials don t like to talk much about it, but there is an obvious reason people get ho
GENEVA - From Armenia to Zambia , thousands of activists turned out to sing in mighty cathedrals, light candles in city squares and march and hold dance-athons on World AIDS Day as the United Nations focused on protecting women and girls, often sidelined in the fight against the disease. Nearly half the 39.
Recently, troubling news about several high-profile drugs has sapped confidence in the system charged with exposing dangerous medicines. BOSTON - In a sharp pivot, many medical authorities are questioning the fundamental safety guarantees for American drugs, threatening to dull the national appetite that has demanded a
ATLANTA (AP) - Despite the government s promise to break the back of the AIDS epidemic by 2005, about 40,000 U.S. citizens test positive for the HIV infection every year - the same number as a decade ago. The figure is double the annual goal of 20,000 new HIV cases laid out by the Centers for Disease Control and Preven
SPRINGFIELD - The Blagojevich administration Wednesday defended its decision to stop distributing flavored and colored condoms that health activists consider helpful in fighting AIDS, even as dozens of people rallied at the Capitol to remember victims of the disease. At the Capitol and other state buildings, lights wer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Henry Waxman says federally funded abstinence education programs that are used in 25 states contain false and misleading information about contraception, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases. A report Wednesday from the California Democrat said 11 of the 13 most widely used programs underes
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - The government said it was considering legislation to protect people with HIV/AIDS from discrimination, two weeks after coming under criticism from a human rights group for not doing enough to address the problem. The legislation would seek to protect people who face discrimination at work or e
ATLANTA - Nearly a million Americans now have the AIDS virus and the nation s ability to keep others from becoming infected still lags despite a government pledge four years ago to break the back of the AIDS epidemic by 2005. The campaign, launched by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in February 2001, int
GENEVA (AP) - From Armenia to Zambia , thousands of activists turned out to sing in mighty cathedrals, light candles in city squares and march and hold dance-athons on World AIDS Day as the United Nations focused on protecting women and girls, often sidelined in the fight against the disease. Nearly half the 39.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - U.N. troops fired shots in the air on Wednesday, blocks away from the National Palace where U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was to meet with Haitian political leaders and opponents of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It wasn t clear whether Powell was in the palace when people
LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair said the U.K. has a moral duty to help Africa cope with the fight against HIV/AIDS, but emphasized the situation wasn t a hopeless one. In an interview being broadcast Wednesday to mark World Aids Day, Blair said good leadership, locally and internationally, and financial investm
JAKARTA (AP) - Unprotected sex and rampant drug use in Asia s overcrowded and run-down prisons is fueling the AIDS epidemic in the region, and governments have been slow to recognize the threat, activists say. Prisons are HIV factories, said Elizabeth Pisani of Family Health International, an AIDS prevention group in J
BANGKOK (AP) - Activists, entertainers and health workers gathered Wednesday across Asia to mark World AIDS Day, amid warnings that women and girls are increasingly at risk of becoming infected with the deadly disease. National infection rates remain lower in Asia than in other parts of the world - particularly worst-h
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Worldwide aid workers meeting in Pakistan to discuss saving women and girls from AIDS were expected to set an agenda for fighting the pandemic in the Asia-Pacific region Wednesday. About 400 aid workers were at the Islamabad conference with a focus on empowering women in a region where men usually have
HANOI (AP) - Vietnam asked international aid donors Wednesday to open their wallets wider to help the communist country achieve its development goals over the next five years. During the opening of the annual Consultative Group meeting in Hanoi, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan hailed Vietnam s successes in poverty reduc
SEATTLE (AP) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is further expanding its presence in India with plans to open a research center in Bangalore. The latest Microsoft Research campus will open in January 2005, the Redmond, Washington-based software giant said Tuesday. The researchers in India will focus on ways to create, store and
NEW YORK (AP) - Criticism of condoms and restrictions on access to them are undercutting the fight against HIV/AIDS in countries ranging from Nigeria to Peru to the United States , Human Rights Watch said in a report Tuesday.
WELLINGTON (AP) - A quarter of the 108 New Zealanders diagnosed as being HIV positive so far in 2004 are women and children, latest national figures revealed Wednesday, but an analyst said the country had avoided AIDS becoming an epidemic among heterosexuals. The numbers, compiled by the AIDS Epidemiology Group at Otag
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell will meet with Haitian leaders Wednesday during a one-day visit to reaffirm U.S. support for a democratic transition and to review American efforts to help overcome recent natural disasters. Powell also will commemorate World AIDS Day by meeting with Haitian youth who r
BEIJING (AP) - President Hu Jintao was shown on state television Tuesday shaking hands with AIDS patients for the first time, as a report warned that the disease is spreading in China from high-risk groups such as drug users to the general population. The number of people contracting the AIDS virus in China is rising,
SYDNEY (AP) - Australia is joining seven faith-based agencies to combat an HIV/AIDS epidemic in the troubled half-island nation of Papua New Guinea , aid workers said Tuesday. Australia s international development agency AusAID will provide A$25 million over the next five years to suppor
GENEVA (AP) - The U.N. health agency said Tuesday that it has reinstated two Indian-made generic drugs to its list of approved HIV/AIDS medicines for use in developing countries after the manufacturer was able to prove they were the same as the patented versions. The drugs - lamivudine tablets and a combination of lami
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Empowering women will help stem the spread of AIDS, international experts said as they discussed ways to help those who are most at risk. About 400 aid workers from around the world are attending a three-day conference that opened Monday with a focus on how women and girls - whom experts say are 2.5 ti
World AIDS Day is Dec. 1 NEW YORK - Good things come in small packages, and Viva Glam lipstick is a prime example. Over the past 10 years, the lipstick by MAC Cosmetics has raised $40 million for the MAC AIDS Fund. John Demsey, the chairman of the fund and acting president of MAC, says the lipstick is a good, respectab
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court appeared hesitant Monday to endorse medical marijuana for patients who have a doctor s recommendation. Justices are considering whether sick people in 11 states with medical marijuana laws can get around a federal ban on pot. Paul Clement, the Bush administration s top court lawyer, noted
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Taking the fight against AIDS to those most vulnerable, government officials and aid workers from the Asia-Pacific region on Monday opened a three-day conference in Pakistan aimed at helping women and girls avoid the deadly disease. From street children to sex workers, the challenges are as wide and va
GENEVA (AP) - The United Nations is failing to protect millions of people displaced by conflict in Sudan s Darfur region and violence in other hotspots around the world, a U.N. report said Friday. The global body s approach to the problem of people who have fled their homes but not crossed any international borders is
BEIJING (AP) - China has approved human testing of a domestically developed AIDS vaccine and pledged to speed up approvals of new drugs to fight the disease, state media said Friday. The first-stage test of the vaccine to determine its safety is to be carried out on 30 volunteers aged 18-50, state television said on it
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - As the mob around Victor Jarrett grew, so did the chanting. Gays must die! onlookers yelled as two policemen allegedly took turns beating him beneath the blazing afternoon sun. His crime? Staring at a teenage boy on a beach, one witness said. After chasing him to a nearby house, the crowd of ci
LONDON (AP) - Efforts to combat diseases such as malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis and polio in the developing world are being thwarted by a critical shortage of 4 million health care workers, a new report has found. Money is beginning to flow for health programs in poor countries and drugs, vaccines and technologies are now
MEXICO CITY (AP) - As many as 260,000 Mexicans have the HIV virus, but the official number of cases remains far lower because thousands of those infected don t know they have it, the country s top HIV-AIDS expert said Wednesday. Jorge Saavedra, director of the National Center for the Prevention of AIDS, said the estima
RIYADH (AP) - The number of AIDS cases in Saudi Arabia has increased during the past 12 months to 7,808 from 6,787, Saudi health authorities said Wednesday. The kingdom began monitoring AIDS, short for acquired immune deficiency syndrome, 20 years ago. The release of the figures came ahead of World AIDS Day on Dec.
* All 31 states will be on board in the coverage program for the poor by next week. MEXICO CITY - All 31 of Mexico s states will join the country s first nationwide health coverage program for the poor, Health Secretary Julio Frenk said Tuesday. Twenty-nine states already have joined the joint federal-state Popular Ins
BRUSSELS (AP) - Efforts to forge closer ties between the European Union and Libya will depend on the fate of five Bulgarian nurses facing a death sentence there, the new president of the E.U. s head office said Wednesday. The kind of answer the Libyan authorities give to this specific problem is important for the overa
LONDON (AP) - The women s rights movement and the AIDS movement must come together if the world is to ultimately win the fight against HIV, the United Nations said in a report released Tuesday. Women and girls in the developing world are increasingly becoming its main victims, but current safe-sex prevention strategies
LONDON (AP) - The global battle against HIV will ultimately fail unless serious progress is made on women s rights in the developing world, the United Nations says. The pandemic is increasingly taking on a feminine face as it enters its globalization phase. and the lack of women s equality - from poverty and stunted ed
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Women in East Asia are contracting HIV at a faster rate than in the rest of the world, and there s a worrying new trend in Thailand: men who have visited prostitutes are increasingly passing on the infection to their wives, the United Nations says. In many parts of the world, but particularly i
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Research is the key to reducing glaring health inequalities worldwide, but only if governments do a better job implementing long-lasting and effective policy based on its findings and communicate what works to their neighbors. That was the theme of a statement released by health leaders from more tha
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Health ministers gathered for a global summit here have learned that funding problems, treatment inequities and the crippling cost of catastrophic care to the uninsured are not confined to the poorest corners of the world, Mexico s Health Secretary said Friday. We have increasingly similar problems w
LONDON (AP) - Prince William would want to fight on the front line if he were in the British army, but he is not sure whether he will sign up after graduating from a university, he told British media. William, who is in his final year of geography studies at Scotland s St. Andrew s University, said he was not sure what
LONDON - A week after his death, speculation still swirls around what killed Yasser Arafat. Cirrhosis of the liver, AIDS, a blood disorder and poisoning are frequently mentioned in unconfirmed reports - all consistent with the little that is publicly known about the medical condition that landed the Palestinian leader
GENEVA (AP) - India s Hetero Drugs is withdrawing six of its generic versions of antiretroviral drugs from the World Health Organization s list of approved HIV medicines, saying it is not certain they are biologically the same as the patented drugs. Hetero decided to withdraw the drugs -- the only prequalified retrovir
WASHINGTON (AP) - Tissue banks that process donated skin, ligaments and bones for transplant must meet new federal safety standards, aimed at preventing infection and disease, under regulations issued Thursday. The Food and Drug Administration regulations, which will take effect in May, set standards for an industry th
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - When mothers kiss their babies or taste food to make sure it s cool enough for toothless gums and tender mouths, they may pass on germs that will decay teeth when they sprout, researchers say. A new study at the LSU Health Sciences Center dental school will look at whether babies whose mothers regula
ARUSHA, Tanzania (AP) - Leaders of a fund set up to combat three of the world s deadliest diseases met in northern Tanzania on Wednesday to discuss whether to call for more grants for projects to fight AIDS , tuberculosis and malaria. U.S. officials have been lobbying directors of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS , Tuberc
CARLSBAD, Calif. (AP) - Immune Response Corp. said Wednesday that preliminary data for its experimental HIV treatment Remune suggest the drug improves immune response in patients who have not undergone anti-retroviral therapy. The company s stock rose 13 cents, or 14 percent, to $1.08 on the Nasdaq following the report
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. has eliminated the jobs of 70 scientists, chemical engineers, managers and support staff at its facilities in New York and New Jersey as it begins to align manufacturing operations for its new portfolio of medicines. The majority of the job cuts took place Tuesday in East
PARIS (AP) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates is Wednesday due to sign a cooperation agreement with the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to improve access to computers, the Internet and IT training in developing countries, the U.N. body said. The Microsoft cofounder and Koichiro Matsuura
MOSCOW (AP) - HIV/AIDS is spreading at an alarming pace in Russia , but the government lacks the political will to combat the epidemic that may claim tens of thousands of lives within the next few years, leading AIDS experts warned Wednesday. Russia remains among countries with the highest rates of the spread of the AI
WASHINGTON (AP) - The world s developing countries this year will turn in the strongest economic growth in three decades and should continue to enjoy solid expansion in 2005 and 2006, the World Bank predicted Tuesday. The bank, issuing its latest Global Economic Prospects, said the economies of developing countries wou
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Health activists on Tuesday demanded more money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria ahead of the group s board meeting where U.S. representatives are expected to push for a suspension of new projects. Since 2002, the Global Fund has become a major donor, helping to improve
GENEVA (AP) - The conflict in Ivory Coast , strife in Sudan and a multimillion dollar funding shortfall are endangering efforts to wipe out polio by the end of 2005, the U.N. health agency said Tuesday. Experts fears previously centered on Nigeria , where a vaccine boycott spurred a
NEW YORK - Good things come in small packages, and Viva Glam lipstick is a prime example. Over the past 10 years, the lipstick by MAC Cosmetics has raised $40 million for the MAC AIDS Fund. John Demsey, the chairman of the fund and acting president of MAC, says the lipstick is a good, respectable beauty product on its
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell, widely viewed as the moderate in an administration dominated by hawks, announced Monday he will step down as America s chief diplomat once a successor is in place. Powell told reporters he has been discussing his departure with Bush in recent weeks and months. I always
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - After a 23-year war of independence and three terms as president, Sam Nujoma of Namibia is ready to step down, bringing an end to an era marked by fiery rhetoric as well as pragmatism and stability. The 75-year-old Nujoma is the father of his southwest African nation and the only leade
SINGAPORE (AP) - AIDS activists urged Singapore s health authorities Saturday to stop portraying HIV/AIDS as a disease that mainly afflicts homosexuals. The group Action for AIDS was responding to comments made Wednesday by Balaji Sadasivan, the minister of state for health, that gay men are a bigger concern in the cit
LITTLE ROCK, AR (AP) - President George W. Bush and former presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter will speak and rock legends Bono and The Edge will perform to honor Bill Clinton at the dedication of his presidential library Thursday. More than 30,000 invited guests - including dignitaries, celebrities and contri
GENEVA (AP) - The U.N. health agency Thursday said it plans to use the Internet to help prostitutes in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. Launching its computer-based information campaign, the World Health Organization said that prostitutes - whether male, female or transsexual - are at high risk of HIV infection but r
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A memorial fund established in Princess Diana s name agreed Wednesday to pay $25 million toward charitable causes to settle a dispute with the Pennsylvania-based Franklin Mint over a commemorative plate bearing her image. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund said the money would be spent on suc
-- Trinity Biotech HIV Test Is Expanded After FDA Approves a Waiver; Stock Rises on News NEW YORK (AP) -- Trinity Biotech PLC, a maker of health-related diagnostic devices, on Wednesday said the Food and Drug Administration approved a waiver for its HIV test to be used with finger-stick whole blood, increasing the numb
A Kennedy relative jumped into Santa Monica politics -- and won a seat on the council -- following a row over a hedge law. SANTA MONICA, Calif. - When city officials demanded that Bobby Shriver trim the hedges around his posh home or face misdemeanor charges, the outraged Kennedy nephew did what came naturally -- he ju
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - From advocating for gay rights to pushing for stem cell research, life beyond the governorship appears to be full of possibilities for James E. McGreevey. As the soon-to-be former governor contemplates a future that begins with his resignation at midnight Monday, his options are seemingly wide open
ROME (AP) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev honored the singer once known as Cat Stevens with a peace prize on Wednesday, praising him for charity work and for standing by his convictions despite personal hardships. Yusuf Islam was awarded the Man for Peace prize in Rome at the opening of a meeting of Nobel Peac
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - South African playwright Gibson Kente, lauded for fighting the stigma of AIDS by publicly announcing he was HIV-positive, died Sunday, relatives said. He was 72. Kente was among the first to write about the township realities of crime, hooliganism, alcoholism, love and politics. His pl
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - Brad Pitt spent four days in Ethiopia to learn more about AIDS in Africa as part of a fund-raising campaign to combat the disease on the world s poorest continent. The trip was organized by DATA, a Washington-based lobby group co-founded by rock star Bono that campaigns on Third World trade
GENEVA (AP) - India s Ranbaxy Laboratories (500359.BY) is withdrawing all of its generic versions of antiretroviral drugs from the U.N. health agency s list of approved HIV medicines, saying it is uncertain they are biologically the same as the patented drugs, the World Health Organization said Tues
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - A man was convicted by a judge Monday on charges he deliberately exposed 17 women to HIV by having unprotected sex with them. Five of the women have tested positive for the virus, which causes AIDS. Anthony E. Whitfield, 32, faces a minimum sentence of 137 years in prison on the 17 counts of first
-- V.I. Technologies Amends Terms of Merger After Encouraging Results From Panacos Drug WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) - Biotechnology company V.I. Technologies Inc. said Monday that it amended the terms of its merger with a privately held developer of HIV treatments after better-than-expected results from early trials of a Pan
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Rev. Cecil Chip Murray, pastor for 27 years at one of the nation s most influential black churches, retired Sunday, delivering a final sermon before a stomping crowd of more than 1,000 worshippers. Murray, 75, joined the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1977 and built the congregation
PITTSBURGH (AP) - A nurse has asked a judge to order a man to take an HIV test because she was accidentally stuck with a needle she used to give him insulin. According to her petition, filed Friday in Pittsburgh, Kimberly Pitts was stuck with the needle Oct. 31 at Mercy Hospital. The man, who isn t named in the petitio
BRUSSELS (AP) - The European Union and the U.S. recommitted themselves to a smooth trans-Atlantic relationship Friday and hoped the second term of President George W. Bush would no longer be marred by nasty political and trade disputes. But French President Jacques Chirac, wary of Washington s global economic and polit
WASHINGTON - With federal deficits already running amok, it is unclear how President Bush will pay for his second-term agenda, a potentially multitrillion-dollar smorgasbord that includes overhauling Social Security and revamping the tax system. Bush laid out lofty goals Thursday at his first news conference since his
OLYMPIA, Wash. - A verdict will be announced Monday in the trial of a man charged with intentionally exposing 17 women to HIV, a county judge said. Sex machine, Russian roulette and sex addiction were among the phrases lawyers used Thursday in 2 1/2 hours of closing arguments in the case of Anthony E. Whitfield, 32, of
UNITED NATIONS -- Three hundred years from now, the world s population will have stabilized at about nine billion and we will look forward to living until age 95. In Japan , that bastion of longevity, people will be hanging around until they re 106. India , China and the U.
VANCOUVER, Wash. - A man whose conviction on a charge of exposing a woman to HIV through unprotected sex led to a change in Washington state law has died. Forty-five-year-old Randall Louis Ferguson of Camas expired Sunday at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane. He was accused eight years ago of having deliberately expo
WASHINGTON (AP) - When Jennifer Peterson joined the Peace Corps in 2000, she wanted to go to the Middle East. That left her with just one option -- Jordan , where she spent two years teaching English to girls. At a time when the United States is striving to fight growing anti-Americanism
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The world s population is projected to peak at 9.22 billion in 2050, shrink slightly and then stabilize at about 9 billion by the year 2300, according to a new United Nations report. The report, released Thursday, projects that fertility rates will decline significantly -to less than two children
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - State media said Thursday that 40 Zimbabwean employees of the U.K. Embassy were engaged in a work slowdown to protest racism and pay conditions, but embassy spokeswoman Gillian Dare denied the report carried by state radio and the government news agency. President Robert Mugabe s government ha
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - With President Bush firmly elected to a second term, Californians on opposite sides of the presidential divide reacted with relief or sorrow Wednesday after a campaign that sparked voter passion like none in recent memory. For some, it was too much to bear. Ugh, break my heart, said Los Angeles res
LONDON (AP) - U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair congratulated U.S. President George W. Bush on his re-election Wednesday, pledging to work with him in the war on terrorism and in revitalizing the Middle East peace process. Blair also called on Europe and the U.S., whose relationship was strained over the
BERLIN (AP) - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder held back on congratulating President George W. Bush for winning a second term as U.S. president on Wednesday, even as news filtered out that challenger John Kerry had conceded the election. Should it happen that Kerry has given up, then I will heartily congratulate Geo
JOHANNESBURG (AP) - In the months after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Africa found an unlikely benefactor in President George W. Bush. Convinced that many African nations could play a role in the war on terror by rooting out al-Qaida cells, the Bush administration poured more aid into the continent than anybody ha
GENEVA - Children with HIV and AIDS are dying needlessly because of ignorance and a lack of suitable medicines, and the U.N. must increase efforts to change the situation, the international medical relief group Medecins Sans Frontieres said Tuesday. HIV-positive adults in developing countries are increasingly able to o
LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) - A pharmaceutical company producing AIDS drugs in Zambia is ready to start clinical trials on 28 HIV-positive volunteers, a newspaper reported Tuesday. PHARCO, which is 28% government-owned, said it would start full production of the anti-retroviral drugs after the three-month trials, the Zambia Da
INDIAN RIVER, Mich. (AP) - Kay Ward gazes at the towering bronze sculpture of Christ on the cross as gray clouds obscure the afternoon sun, draping the scene in shadow. The closer you get to the feet, the hands, the face ... you re just in awe, says Ward, 57. This isn t the first time Ward has seen the Cross in the Woo
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The family of a 28-year-old man who died at the county-owned Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center after a nurse turned down his vital signs monitor has filed a $1 million claim against Los Angeles County and the nurse for negligence, an attorney said Monday. Mario Nelson died Oct. 7 after a nur
GABORONE, Botswana (AP) -- President Festus Mogae was reassured of a new term as his ruling Botswana Democratic Party swamped the opposition, keeping its 38-year lock on power in one of African s most stable democracies, election officials said Monday. With just four seats yet to be decided, the governing party had won
GABORONE, Botswana (AP) -- Botswana chose a parliament Saturday, with the ruling Democratic Party favored to keep the lock on power it has had for 38 years. Some voters said they feared the party s loss would undermine AIDS treatment programs in a country that has one of the world s highest HIV infection rates. In
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The European Union s head office proposed new regulations Friday to allow the export of cheap copies of patented drugs to poor nations fighting AIDS and other killer diseases. The EU regulation, which must be approved by the bloc s 25 national governments and the European Parliament, would imp
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Sexual violence against women is taking place on a massive scale in countries in conflict, and the international response remains inadequate, one of the U.N. s highest-ranking women told the Security Council. Four years after the council adopted a landmark U.N. resolution committing governments t
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) - The World Health Organization was sending an expert to Croatia on Thursday to check whether thousands of patients could have been infected by syphilis through blood transfusions three years ago. Croatian Health Minister Andrija Hebrang invited WHO to investigate the
ATLANTA (AP) -- Who should get the flu shot first: A sick nursing home resident or a toddler? A pregnant woman or a jail inmate with AIDS? Those are the choices health officials across the country are struggling with as the government doles out the nation s short supply of flu shots. The decisions are so daunting that
LOS ANGELES -- A group trying to prevent closure of the trauma center at troubled Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center sued the county for discrimination Wednesday, alleging it intentionally has tried to dismantle the inner-city hospital. The nonprofit group Friends of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center
PARIS -- Doctors Without Borders on Tuesday urged for massive international investment for drugs and testing for tuberculosis, the curable lung disease that kills about 2 million people per year. Ahead of Thursday s start to an international conference in Paris on lung health, the France-based aid group called for rad
SEATTLE (AP) -- When Judith Billings left her post as Washington state s school chief eight years ago after being diagnosed with AIDS, her main priority was survival. Now she wants her old job back. The disease that retired her after two terms is in check thanks to medication, and Billings says she is up to the task of
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. narrowed its loss for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, helped by increased HIV drug sales and stronger revenue from collaborative research and development projects. The company reported a loss of $38.8 million, or 49 cents per share, smaller than the loss of $86.4 million, or $1.12, in the
-- Seniors and those at risk are being urged to get the shot that protects against pneumonia and other infections. WASHINGTON - The flu-shot shortage makes it more imperative for elderly Americans to get a second, often overlooked vaccine that protects against a type of pneumonia germ that s a common complication of fl
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Serono Inc., the U.S. branch of the Swiss biotechnology giant, is looking at a possible expansion into Cambridge, Mass., but company officials said they have made no commitment, according to a newspaper report. We re always on the lookout because of our growth, Fereydoun Firouz, president of Roc
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - If Robert Haaland wins a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Nov. 2, he will be make history as the nation s first transgender elected official. An activist who once sued city police for groping him to determine his gender identity, the 40-year old Haaland was born and raised as a female
WASHINGTON -- Cardinal James A. Hickey, former archbishop of Washington, who led the Roman Catholic Church in the nation s capital for two decades, died Sunday. He was 84 years old. One of 13 Americans in the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Hickey led the Washington Diocese from 1980 to 2000. He died in a Washington nur
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Vikram Kumar is hardly your typical tech chief executive. He shares a two-bedroom apartment with a sister and a nephew and gets around town by bicycle or in a 20-year-old Mercedes Benz. The 28-year-old MIT graduate works days as a pathology resident at Brigham and Women s Hospital across the Cha
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - Outgoing European Union Commission President Romano Prodi Friday said the warming of E.U.- Libya relations could aid Sofia s efforts to secure the release of five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death by a Libyan court. The court in May sentenced to death five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doc
JOHANNESBURG (AP) - The World Food Program Thursday appealed for $404 million to feed about 5.5 million people over the next three years in southern African countries ravaged by food shortages and high HIV infection rates. The U.N. agency said it needs an immediate $63 million to help people survive what it called the
CHICAGO (AP) - Saying its saliva-based test for HIV works properly, OraSure Technologies Inc. on Wednesday said the test will start shipping early in November. The launch was delayed after a clinical trial of the OraQuick Advance Rapid HIV-1/2 Antibody Test indicated a higher rate of unconfirmed positive results than t
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - The largest training center in Africa for health workers treating AIDS sufferers opened outside of Uganda s capital Wednesday in what officials said was a major step toward dealing with the epidemic on the world s poorest continent. The $15 million Infectious Diseases Institute at the University
THE HAGUE (AP) - Developing democratic institutions and combating HIV/AIDS were the main themes at a meeting Wednesday between ministers from southern Africa and European Union officials. Ministers and top officials from six countries in the Southern African Development Cooperation group met with Dutch Foreign Minister
QUITO (AP) - The spread of AIDS in parts of Ecuador s most populated province is reaching levels comparable to those seen in Africa and the Caribbean a decade ago, and could mushroom into a national epidemic if left unchecked, U.N. officials warned Tuesday. In 10 or 15 years, if there isn t important prevention work, w
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - U2 lead singer Bono and a civil rights leader from Georgia received awards Monday from the National Civil Rights Museum at the site of Martin Luther King Jr. s assassination. Bono, a native of Ireland , was honored with the international Freedom Award for promoting gr
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in Vietnam is among the worst in the world and must be overcome to control the epidemic, a top United Nations official said Monday. After visiting Ho Chi Minh City, Haiphong and Hanoi, UNAIDS Deputy Executive
WASHINGTON (AP) - The flu-shot shortage makes it more imperative for elderly Americans to get a second, often overlooked vaccine that protects against a type of pneumonia germ that s a common complication of influenza. Called pneumococcal vaccine, it s a one-time shot for anyone 65 or older. Younger people with heart a
Scientists have long sought a vaginal gel that women could apply before sex to block the AIDS virus. Now they ve found a new lead - a chemical designed to thwart the way HIV penetrates women s cells. The experimental drug isn t ready for human testing, but it provided potent protection to female monkeys exposed to larg
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States told the U.N. General Assembly it strongly supports a U.N. plan adopted 10 years ago to promote every woman s right to education, health care, and to make choices about childbearing -on the understanding that it doesn t promote abortion. Sichan Siv, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) - Croatia s health minister will ask international experts to investigate suspicions that thousands of patients may have been infected with syphilis through blood transfusions in 2000 and 2001, a newspaper reported Friday. Health Minister Andrija Hebrang told the newspaper Jutarnji List he want
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - The nation s capital of intravenous drug use is not New York or Miami, not Chicago or Detroit - but Fresno. It is an unlikely distinction for a city of fewer than 500,000 people in the heart of one of the nation s richest agricultural regions. The percentage of people shooting up heroin and other
WASHINGTON (AP) - A chemical specially designed to thwart how the AIDS virus invades during sex offers scientists a new lead in the long quest for a vaginal gel that women could apply to protect themselves when men don t use a condom. The experimental drug isn t ready for human testing yet, but it provided potent prote
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - Africa must brace itself for an AIDS time bomb as 8,000 people are infected with HIV a day in the region worst hit by the pandemic, the U.N. warned Thursday. A total of 70% of the 45 million people worldwide infected with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa - even though the region is home to on
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States has refused to join 85 other heads of state and government in signing a statement that endorsed a 10-year-old U.N. plan to ensure every woman s right to education, health care, and choice about having children. President Bush s administration withheld its signature because the st
LOS ANGELES - Along with fighting alien menaces and criminal masterminds, the Green Arrow comic book will now feature a sidekick engaged in a more personal struggle - this one against HIV. It s the first major comic book to deal with the illness, and a dose of hard-edged reality to the usually fanciful world of costume
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - All three men heading to the international space station in a Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft this Thursday will be riding the tiny craft for the first time, breaking with 30 years of tradition. In the past, at least one crewman heading into space had ridden in a Soyuz before, but many veterans ha
LITTLE ROCK - As a campaign for a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage picks up strength, the voice of the Arkansas gay-rights community has become muted. When the state Supreme Court ruled last week against an American Civil Liberties Union challenge of the ballot language for the marriage amend
WASHINGTON - The 108th Congress soon will be history, a tumultuous two years that, depending on party affiliation, was the best of times or the worst of times. Of course Republicans, who control both the House and the Senate, expressed pride in a Congress that passed a major Medicare prescription drug bill, gave Presid
LOS ANGELES - A nurse turned down an audio alarm on an AIDS patient s vital-signs monitor and failed to notice when the man had a heart attack and died, county officials said. The incident Thursday was the latest crisis for troubled Los Angeles County-run Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. Federal inspectors s
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - There s a whiff of crisis in the air at the Dutch Health Ministry: It s sitting on a pile of pot that it just can t sell. The Netherlands rolled out a program last year that allows patients to buy prescription marijuana at any pharmacy. Some medical insurance policies cover at least part o
CAPE TOWN (AP) - A study by South African medical journal warned Tuesday that the country needs more nurses as the number HIV/AIDS infections rises among health care workers. The report published in the October edition of the South African Medical Journal on the prevalence of HIV/Aids among South African health workers
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - Africans gave their governments poor grades on the way officials run 28 of the continent s nations, in a landmark survey presented by a senior U.N. official Monday. Corruption, poor tax systems and dilapidated public services were the main complaints of some 50,000 African families and 2,00
WASHINGTON - A cartoonish painting of President Bush in the nude has been taken down from the wall at the City Museum of Washington. The picture, called Man of Leisure, King George, adopts the pose of a famous Impressionist painting, Edouard Manet s Olympia, that scandalized Paris in 1863, and now hangs in the Gare d O
LUXEMBOURG - The European Union on Monday ended 12 years of sanctions against Libya and eased an arms embargo to reward the North African country for giving up plans to develop weapons of mass destruction. The decision by the EU foreign ministers brought the 25-nation bloc in line with a U.N. decision last year and ref
OSLO, Norway (AP) - The committee that bestows the Nobel Peace Prize could use the honor to draw focus to great threats to world, such as weapons of mass destruction or AIDS. Members may also try to jump-start a flagging peace effort. Or, as has happened so often in the past, they might just surprise everybody with a d
LOS ANGELES (AP) - County health officials sent letters to producers and directors in the porn industry, urging them to use condoms during sex scenes as part of a stepped-up effort to prevent a repeat of April s HIV outbreak. The letters, which began arriving this week, come as state lawmakers have threatened possible
RENO, Nev. (AP) - A white supremacist accused of making threats to two newspapers told a federal judge Thursday he has the virus that causes AIDS. Steven Holten, 40, Reno, the self-proclaimed leader of Aryan Nations chapters in Nevada and California, pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of transmitting a threat in int
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair -bedeviled by Iraq and in search of a more positive legacy -departed Ethiopia late Thursday after calling for a concerted international action to finally address the crises afflicting Africa, the only continent to have grown poor
UNITED NATIONS - In Sierra Leone , one in four children dies before age 5. In Iraq , one in 10 doesn t make it to a fifth birthday. Across the globe, poor care for newborns, malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and measles snuff out lives of the very young, according to a U.
MILWAUKEE - A man filed a civil discrimination lawsuit Tuesday alleging that a Milwaukee doctor refused to operate on him when he learned he was HIV-positive. Steve Spera, 54, accuses orthopedist James Cain of violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act in refusing to perform a spin
A long-used AIDS drug appears to be the first effective, long-term treatment for hepatitis B in those with advanced liver disease caused by the virus. The drug lamivudine, also known as 3TC , has been available for the treatment of hepatitis B since 1998, but the consequences of using it for years in those with serious
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair moved from the crisis in Sudan to addressing the roots of conflict and poverty Africa, the only continent to have grown poorer in the last quarter century. Blair was in the Ethiopian capital Thursday to chair the second meeting of his Africa Commission, whi
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, making a rare two-day state visit to former enemy Zimbabwe, accused Western nations of pushing condom use to make a profit on a continent ravaged by AIDS. Europeans say: Use condoms, but there are sexual sicknesses condoms cannot stop, Zimbabwe s state newspap
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Meeting with black religious leaders and traveling with Jesse Jackson, Sen. John Kerry reached out this week to black voters as his presidential campaign entered its final month. Kerry s contacts focused on Ohio and Pennsylvania, states teetering in a virtual tie between the Democrat and President B
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - Because AIDS was not identified as the potential killer it now is, it has become South Africa s biggest threat, former President F.W. De Klerk said Monday. The disease has already reduced life expectation from 63 years in 1990 to only 47 years now, De Klerk said at the annual conference
Legislation that would allow municipalities to operate their own needle exchange programs was approved by an Assembly committee Monday and $10 million was added to the measure for drug treatment programs. The Assembly Appropriations Committee passed the legislation that had recently received approval from the Health an
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The spat between the Franklin Mint and Princess Diana s memorial fund can head to trial. A California judge has ruled that the Franklin Mint may go ahead with a $25 million malicious prosecution lawsuit against the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, an official of the collectibles company said
KANO, Nigeria (AP) - Nigeria s president kicked off a mammoth effort to immunize 80 million children against polio in 23 sub-Saharan African countries, described by international health experts as the single-largest public health campaign in history to wipe out the disease. President Olusegun Obasanjo led other regiona
NAIROBI -- A Kenyan company has signed an agreement with a German pharmaceutical company to make generic versions of a drug to treat AIDS and to help prevent transmission of the HIV virus from mother to child, its managing director said Friday. Kenya will be the second country in sub-Saharan Africa to produce
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - The University of California-Berkeley and the Samoan government agreed to split profits from any AIDS drug that researchers derive using a rainforest tree. The pact, announced Thursday, involves the gene sequence of prostratin, an experimental anti-HIV compound extracted from mamala tree bark th
BRIGHTON, England - Rock star Bono called Wednesday on Europe and the United States to do more to tackle the scourge of AIDS and poverty in Africa and said the continent was bursting into flames. The front man of the Irish band U2 is well known as an activist for the world s poor and brought his campaign for fair trade
BELGRADE (AP) - Serbia-Montenegro s president Thursday said there is hope for five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in Libya , hinting at progress in talks to have their sentences reviewed. President Svetozar Marovic and former Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic have been mediating in negotiations between Bulgaria and L
GENEVA - African countries are sinking deeper into the red and creditors should cancel the continent s debts to give it a chance to meet global poverty reduction goals, the United Nations said in a report. Africa requires a minimum economic growth rate of 7 percent to 8 percent to stand a chance of achieving the United
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The head of the Non-Aligned Movement urged its 114 member countries on Wednesday to put our houses in order to avoid outside intervention, warning that detractors have already consigned the once powerful bloc of Third World countries to the dustbin of history. Poverty and backwardness still charac
The Rev. Lou Sheldon wasn t thrilled when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation requiring health insurance policies to offer equal coverage to partners of gay and lesbian workers. Sheldon, a conservative activist and president of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, grew more upset after Schwarzenegg
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The widow of an AIDS researcher who died of arsenic poisoning almost four years ago was indicted Monday on a first-degree murder charge in his death. A Wake County grand jury made the decision hours after prosecutors began laying out their case against Ann Kontz, who surrendered to police later in
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - The rate of HIV/AIDS infection in northern Uganda is nearly double that in the rest of the country because of devastation caused by 18 years of civil war, an international aid group said Monday. The conflict has shattered the health care system, forced thousands to flee their homes and left score
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger thrilled delegates at the Republican National Convention last month with a thundering endorsement of the party s conservative principles. Back home, though, he has governed more like a Democrat on such issues as gay rights, guns and the environment. In his first round of
NAROK, Kenya - Jonathan Mwanza was once a powerful man in this rural town - a county councilor and lifetime member of Kenya s former ruling party. His hefty build spoke of wealth and authority. That was before he contracted HIV. Without access to anti-AIDS drugs, he wasted away - stripped of his weight, his job, his co
BRIGHTON, England (AP) - Britain will provide more debt relief for the world s poorest countries and challenge other rich countries to do the same, Prime Minister Tony Blair s government said Sunday. Treasury chief Gordon Brown said many developing countries were crippled by servicing their debt and could not invest in
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The Rev. Lou Sheldon wasn t thrilled when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation requiring health insurance policies to offer equal coverage to partners of gay and lesbian workers. Sheldon, a conservative activist and president of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, grew more ups
CHEYENNE (AP) - A program that helps HIV and AIDS patients in Wyoming with care and drug costs is running short of money and will stop accepting new patients after next Thursday, officials said. We didn t feel we could continue to take people, said Kurt Galbraith, the HIV/AIDS coordinator for the Wyoming Department of
CHICAGO - Beyond the tired cliches and sperm-and-egg basics taught in grade school science class, researchers are discovering that men and women are even more different than anyone realized. It turns out that major illnesses like heart disease and lung cancer are influenced by gender and that perhaps treatments for wom
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Cardinal Roger Mahony said he will begin a three-week sabbatical on Oct. 6 that will take him to Italy and several Central African countries. In a letter that appeared in Friday s edition of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles newspaper The Tidings, Mahony said he hoped to gain a renewed sense of commitm
AMARILLO, Texas (AP) - City officials have filed a lawsuit against a prostitute with the virus that causes AIDS, asking a court to send her into treatment to get her to stop spreading the infection. The woman, identified in court papers only by the initials T.T., has infected at least one person and refused efforts by
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - In one of the nation s richest agricultural regions, where cotton, grapes and citrus have long been king, the area s largest city finds itself struggling with a new and more dubious distinction. A national study found that the Fresno area has the highest rate of intravenous drug users in the count
MIAMI (AP) - A man was sentenced Friday to 100 years in prison for recording his sex acts with at least 120 children in Cuba and Ecuador , and distributing the videotapes and CDs to customers in the United States . Angel Rafael Mariscal was found guilty in Apri
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Wednesday that he was making progress in his plan to drastically reduce homelessness from its current record levels, announcing the opening of new homelessness prevention centers, tens of millions of dollars in housing funding, and optional HIV testing for homeless men. Some homeless advoca
NAIROBI (AP) - A London-based pharmaceutical company Wednesday licensed a Kenyan company to produce generic versions of two of its life-prolonging AIDS drugs for sale in five African countries. The move by GlaxoSmithKline PLC makes Kenya the second African country, after South Africa , to star
WASHINGTON (AP) - Protesters gathered outside the Treasury Department Tuesday to call for a 100% elimination of debt for impoverished countries that owe money to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. About 35 people met during their lunch hour to listen to speakers, rally and discuss their hope that debt canc
UNITED NATIONS - Text of President Bush s speech Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly, as provided by the White House: PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. Secretary General, Mr. President, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen: Thank you for the honor of addressing this General Assembly. The American people respect the idealis
With Americans obesity driving the focus on weight loss, scant attention is paid to the other side of the scale -- underweight people who are trying to put on pounds. Being underweight is not a common problem in the United States , affecting only about 2 percent of adults, compared to two-thirds who are overweight or o
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Up to half a million HIV-positive Africans die each year because health chiefs have failed to coordinate the fight against HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, the United Nations said Tuesday. Expanding access to tuberculosis treatment, combined with introducing HIV testing and delivery of life-prolonging
SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Monday making it easier for drug users to buy clean hypodermic needles without a prescription, but he rejected another AIDS-prevention bill that would have loosened rules on free needle exchanges. Under the bill by Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, cities and
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California s landmark domestic partners law goes into effect on Jan. 1, but many gay and lesbian couples are choosing not to register, or are even dissolving their current legal partnerships. Many committed couples are worried they could lose public benefits or face financial or legal trouble under
LOS ANGELES - The Sopranos became the first cable show to win the Emmy award for best drama series and fellow HBO entry Angels in America received a record 11 awards as Fox s surprise comedy winner Arrested Development proved a rare bright spot for broadcast TV. Broadcast networks also collected performance awards for
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - The spread of HIV/AIDS is fueling a massive tuberculosis crisis that could see 1 billion people infected in the next two decades, the World Health Organization warned Monday. A staggering 35 million people could die of tuberculosis in that time if its growth continues unchecked, the WHO sai
LOS ANGELES - The Sopranos became the first cable show to win the Emmy for best drama series and fellow HBO entry Angels in America received a record 11 awards as Fox s surprise comedy winner Arrested Developed proved a rare bright spot for broadcast TV. Broadcast networks also collected performance awards for comedy s
LONDON - In a new documentary about his volunteer work with AIDS victims in Africa, Prince Harry, son of the late Princess Diana, said he s determined to carry on her legacy. The 20-year-old royal said all the bad stuff that s come out about his mother in the media is a shame, given all the good she did as a high-profi
LOS ANGELES (AP) - State officials have taken unprecedented regulatory action against the porn industry, fining two adult film companies more than $30,000 each for allegedly allowing actors to perform unprotected sex. The citations against Evasive Angles and TTB Productions, which share the same address in the San Fern
LOS ANGELES (AP) - California officials fined two adult film companies more than $30,000 each for allowing actors to perform without using condoms, the first time the state has taken such action. The fines against Evasive Angles and TTB Productions follow an investigation into a complaint filed by a porn industry worke
NEW DELHI - India has the world s largest number of HIV infected people, the head of a top international AIDS-fighting fund said Wednesday, dismissing official figures. I don t believe in the official statistics. India is already in first place, said Richard G.A. Feachem, executive director of the Geneva-based Global F
LONDON (AP) - Wealthy countries are falling billions of dollars short of their promises to help fund reproductive health care and improvements in the status of women around the world, the United Nations said Wednesday. The world body s Population Fund said there has been significant but uneven progress in the past deca
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate committee voted to boost funds for battling AIDS and other diseases in poor nations but provided less than half what President George W. Bush wanted for prodding countries to adopt democratic reforms. The effort to combat AIDS , malaria and tuberculosis abroad -largely in Africa -would get $2
SHANGHAI (AP) - With AIDS making disastrous new inroads in the Asian-Pacific region, World Health Organization experts are evaluating progress toward providing anti-AIDS drugs to 3 million people in developing countries worldwide by 2005. The program, launched last year, aims to reduce AIDS deaths and improve quality o
CAPE TOWN (AP) - India and South Africa have agreed to work together in overcoming AIDS and poverty, and bringing technology and education to millions of Africans, the two countries presidents said Wednesday. Indian President Abdul Kalam and his South African counterpart, Thabo Mbeki, announced the agreements after an
NEW DELHI (AP) - Dismissing official figures for HIV-infection in India , the chief executive of the world s premier AIDS-fighting fund said Wednesday that India is home to the largest number of HIV-infected people. I don t believe in the official statistics. India is already in first place, said Richard G.A. Feachem,
WASHINGTON - While working relentlessly to portray Democratic Sen. John Kerry as a flip-flopper, President Bush has his own history of changing his position, from reversals on steel tariffs and nation-building to reasons for invading Iraq . Most recently, Bush did an about-face on whether the proposed new direc
SHANGHAI (AP) - The head of the World Health Organization called on Monday for steps to narrow growing inequality in medical care between rich and poor, saying the gap is undermining health security for all, especially in efforts to combat AIDS. Tackling challenges ranging from the new - avian flu and SARS - to the fam
BOSTON (AP) - The Legislature yesterday approved nearly $400 million in additional spending and dedicated an additional $336 million to reserves, using $723 million remaining in the state s coffers at the end of the fiscal year, which ended June 30. The spending includes $75 million in state aid to cities and towns, $1
A widely used antibiotic long considered safe dramatically increases the risk of cardiac arrest, particularly when taken with some popular drugs for infections and high blood pressure, a huge study found. The drug is erythromycin, which has been on the market for 50 years and is prescribed for everything from strep thr
AUSTIN – What s too much sex for a textbook? Social conservatives and sex-education advocates debated Wednesday whether health textbooks should focus on abstinence or include information on birth control and sexually transmitted diseases. Spectators and speakers jammed a meeting room for the final public hearing before
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell calls it the most promising development in foreign assistance in decades. That is quite a claim for a program that has yet to disburse its first dollar. But it is clear that President Bush s Millennium Challenge Account, first proposed 21/2 years ago, represents a fresh
HOUSTON (AP) - Most Americans are careful about what they eat, believe they will live a long time, go to their doctor regularly and support biotechnology and medical research, particularly stem cell research, according to a poll commissioned by the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The nationwide po
AUSTIN - Social conservatives and sex education advocates are clashing head-on in the debate of what Texas public school students should learn from their health textbooks. On Wednesday, the state Board of Education holds the final public hearing on which books will be used in the 2005-06 school year, replacing 11-year-
DURHAM, N.C. - Gaps in North Carolina s Medicaid program are costly and cause more illness because a provision requires patients to pay for a certain amount of their medical expenses, according to a Duke University study. The study focused on patients with HIV, but researchers said the findings were applicable to Medic
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - The United Nations called on Romanian authorities to help the thousands of HIV infected children here attend school with other children, in a statement released Tuesday. Less than 60 percent of Romania s 7,500 HIV infected children attend public schools, the U.N. Children s Fund said. Most of
CHICAGO - Children who watched a lot of TV with sexual content were about twice as likely to start having intercourse during the subsequent year as those with little exposure to televised sex, researchers found. High exposure to TV sex among those age 12 to 17 also was linked with a lower but still substantially increa
NEW YORK (AP) - CBS is auctioning off everything but the kitchen sink to benefit the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation - and promote the network s new fall season. The network will put up for bid on eBay from Sept. 8-26 a slew of CBS memorabilia and celebrity experiences, such as David Caruso s CSI: Miami sun
LONDON (AP) - U.S. President George W. Bush is undermining women s reproductive rights and health around the world with policies that have caused thousands of unwanted pregnancies, unnecessary deaths and HIV infections, delegates at a conference on population and development charged Thursday. The representatives delive
NEW YORK (AP) - A New York judge ordered the immediate release of nearly 500 protesters just hours before President George W. Bush was to speak Thursday night at the Republican National Convention, then fined the New York City for refusing to comply with his order. New York State Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo fine
NEW YORK (AP) - About 100 anti-Bush demonstrators staged a quick, loud and well organized protest at Grand Central Terminal during the early morning rush Thursday, unfurling banners and colorful balloons that called on the president to do more in the fight against AIDS. Nineteen people were arrested after they refused
GENEVA (AP) - The successful development of an AIDS vaccine will require global cooperation, but countries will have to carry out their own research to fight different strains around the world, the New York-based International AIDS Vaccine Initiative said Thursday. Only a vaccine can end the epidemic, said Dr. Seth Ber
NEW YORK (AP) - As President George W. Bush prepared Thursday to accept the Republican nomination for a second term, Vice President Dick Cheney portrayed his boss as a decisive commander in chief. He doesn t waffle, he doesn t agonize, Cheney said Thursday. That s exactly what we need in a president. We don t need inde
NEW YORK (AP) - AIDS demonstrators disrupted a Republican youth gathering on the floor of the party convention Wednesday, shortly after President Bush s twin daughters left the stage. The incident occurred after Jenna and Barbara Bush introduced White House chief of staff Andrew Card. As he began speaking, about 10 pro
NEW YORK (AP) - Congressional Republicans on Tuesday used their time at the Republican National Convention to tout the party s conservative principles, with one noting saying she still believes character is king. Marriage between a man and a woman isn t something Republicans invented, but it is something Republicans wi
NEW YORK (AP) - President George W. Bush considers the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq his foreign policy priorities. Sen. John Kerry considers the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq his foreign policy priorities. With the theme of this year s presidential election obvious from the start, what
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Using a creature as hideous as any big-screen sci-fi monster, scientists have produced a one-minute horror movie starring a menacing, spidery virus swooping in on a hapless blob of bacteria. While the shape-changing virus is clearly the villain, the bacterium is E. coli - a less than sympathetic vic
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A California man who once tested positive for HIV has learned the diagnosis made eight years ago was mistaken and he never had the virus that causes AIDS. Jim Malone spent years battling depression and losing weight, expecting to die at any time. He attended support group meetings and accepted free
Some jeer the country s first big movie on the topic and others walk out, unhappy to see top stars in unusual roles. BOMBAY, India - India s first mainstream movie that tackles AIDS opened worldwide Friday, with the film s creators expressing hopes that it can help end the stigma surrounding the disease. But some f
NEW YORK (AP) - In the first major clash between police and demonstrators converging for the Republican National Convention, nearly 250 bicyclists were arrested during a protest ride that snaked through the city and passed by Madison Square Garden. Bikers chanted anti-Bush slogans, stifled traffic and, in some places,
PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) - Two people who believe they were infected with HIV and hepatitis C by a lab worker who reused needles, plan to appeal a judge s dismissal of their cases. The woman, known as Jane Doe in court documents, discovered she was HIV-positive after Elaine Giorgi drew her blood in 1997 and 1999. I jus
FARGO, N.D. (AP) - A biotechnology company started by two North Dakota State University students who maxed out their credits cards for financing has landed a $2.45 million government contract. Aldevron is working for the Department of Defense on methods of testing a DNA-based vaccine against bioterrorism threats such a
INDIAN RIVER, Mich. - Kay Ward gazes fixedly at the towering bronze sculpture of Christ on the cross as gray clouds obscure the afternoon sun, draping the scene in shadow. Visibly moved, she struggles for words. It s an incredibly powerful symbol, she says quietly. This isn t the first time Ward has seen the Cross in t
NEW YORK (AP) - Three days before the Republican National Convention convenes in New York City, the protests have already begun. DNC2RNC, a march that began at the Democratic Convention in Boston, ended Thursday 258 miles away near Madison Square Garden, where the Republican National Convention will begin on Monday.
MUMAI (AP) - India s first mainstream movie that tackles AIDS opened worldwide Friday, with the film s makers expressing hopes that it can help end the stigma surrounding the disease here. Phir Milenge, or We ll Meet Again, is a departure for India s prolific film industry, Bollywood, which is best known for its sugarc
NEW YORK (AP) - An anti-war group suggested Thursday that protesters could still gather in Central Park on the eve of the Republican National Convention, despite a judge s ruling that it may not stage a rally there. The group, United for Peace and Justice, said it would hold a march past Madison Square Garden and endin
GENEVA (AP) - Countries are improving access to clean drinking water but falling behind on sanitation goals fixed at a summit four years ago, the United Nations said Thursday. About 2.4 billion people will likely face the risk of needless disease and death by the target date of 2015 because of bad sanitation, the
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Vietnam s president visited an HIV/AIDS hospital ward in Hanoi on Wednesday in a bid to reduce the stigma surrounding the disease and prove that the communist country s leaders are committed to tackling it. President Tran Duc Luong spoke with several HIV/AIDS patients in Bach Mai Hospital before
DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University Medical Center will get $4 million from the National Institutes of Health to study infectious diseases that AIDS patients acquire in Tanzania . The region of northeast Tanzania where the work will take place has a population of about 10 million and about 10 percent of them live with HIV
BEIJING (AP) - China s communist leaders are easing their official prudishness about sexuality, and carrying out the first nationwide survey on women s sex lives. The 2004 China Female Sex Survey will ask respondents how often they have sex, whether they ve had extramarital affairs and other questions, the official Xin
MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) - The AIDS pandemic is threatening food production in Mozambique and across southern and eastern Africa, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned Tuesday. As adults become incapacitated by disease, they stop planting many varieties of crops, according to a major new study of subsistence
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Help is on the way for more than 960 low-income North Carolinians with HIV who need money to pay for anti-viral drugs, state health officials said. The Legislature recently appropriated $2.75 million in extra money for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. That money, coupled with extra aid promised
MIAMI (AP) - A man suspected of fatally shooting a sheriff s deputy during a search for child pornography told a judge Friday that he has a mental illness caused by AIDS. There was no independent confirmation that Kenneth Wilk has full-blown AIDS and AIDS dementia , as he told U.S. Magistrate Judge John O Sullivan. AID
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) - A state Assemblyman has sent a letter to the adult entertainment industry asking it to adopt safe-sex measures or face the possibility of a state law that would push performers to use condoms. Assemblyman Paul Koretz, chairman of the Labor and Employment Committee, said adult film stars sh
WASHINGTON (AP) - Insurers and drug makers are battling over how the government should set rules for insurers to use in deciding which medicines to cover in the Medicare prescription drug program. Neither group was happy with a proposal released Thursday that could form the basis of lists of drugs that would be covered
Researchers have found that tissue donations can be made safer with genetic screening for viruses. BOSTON - Just a single donor s tissue infected with HIV or hepatitis might slip through each year, but U.S. donations could be made even safer with genetic testing for the viruses, researchers have found. The U.S. Food an
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Dozens of chimpanzees from a Dutch laboratory face a housing crisis after plans for their early retirement on the Spanish coast collapsed because of residents fears they would carry infectious diseases. The simian saga illustrates the dilemma of what to do with research chimps as more coun
DURBAN (AP) - South African President Thabo Mbeki urged poor nations to unite Thursday to create a more equitable world order as ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement met in the southeastern port city of Durban. Mbeki said in the opening address developing countries must find their own answer to the question of how to
Human tissue donations could be made safer with genetic testing for HIV and hepatitis, according to a Food and Drug Administration official. The FDA is moving toward recommending genetic screening for tissue, said Jesse L. Goodman, who runs the agency s unit overseeing safety of the blood and tissue supply. Genetic tes
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. challenged other countries Wednesday to pay their share of the world s premier AIDS-fighting fund by the end of September or lose $120 million in U.S. cash. At issue is financing for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS , Tuberculosis and Malaria, a program initiated by the U.N. It was supposed to p
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) - Africa s most populous nation plans to spend $248 million on AIDS drugs for 200,000 HIV-infected Nigerians by the end of 2005, Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo said Wednesday. Aside from procuring the antiretroviral drugs, the money will also be used to diagnose and monitore the 200,000 HIV sufferers
WASHINGTON - Japan , Germany and many other large industrialized countries face long-term population slowdowns or declines as more young adults have fewer children or delay child-raising, demographers say. While the world s population is expected to increase almost 50 percent by 2050, Japan could lose 20 percent of its
PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona State University s new Biodesign Institute is getting a five-year, $7.4 million federal grant to work on drugs that kill sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS. ASU is working with the National Vaccine Testing Center at the University of Maryland-Baltimore and Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. in San
MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) - Four Bahrainis have been diagnosed HIV-positive this year, bringing the total number of infected citizens to 26, a state health officer was quoted as saying Tuesday. This year s cases have not yet developed full blown AIDS, the manager of the National Sexually Transmitted Diseases Program, Somaya
WASHINGTON (AP) - Many of the world s largest industrialized nations will lose population between now and 2050 as low birth rates, struggling economies and immigration curbs stifle growth, says the author of a world population report. The annual study by the private Population Reference Bureau said while the world s po
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. AIDS program said it was concerned Monday about the detention and reported mistreatment of 39 members of a group that works with gays and other sexual minorities in Nepal . Nepalese police arrested members of the Blue Diamond Society on Aug. 9, and they are still being held,
TOKYO (AP) - Five years ago Japanese women s rights advocates won their battle to legalize the birth control pill. Now they are waging an even tougher fight - getting women to use it. I don t know anyone who is on the pill among my friends, and we don t really talk about it, said Junko Okihiro, 24, a software company e
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Some athletes of past Olympics who made it known, either during or after their sporting careers, that they were gay or lesbian: -Tom Waddell, a U.S. decathlete who competed in the 1968 Olympics. He founded the Gay Games in 1981 and died of AIDS in 1987. -John Curry, British figure skater who w
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - U.S. equestrian Robert Dover is among the rarest of all 10,500 athletes in Athens, not only for his six Olympic appearances but because he is one of a tiny handful of competitors who publicly identifies himself as gay. Dover -- along with some prominent ex-Olympians who came out after retiring
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Churches and aid groups warned that a proposed law to regulate non-governmental organizations in Zimbabwe effectively criminalizes aspects of Christian charity work and deprives millions of impoverished Zimbabweans of aid. The bill, proposed ahead of key elections, does not interfere with strict
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - Former South African President F.W. De Klerk has withdrawn from the party he once led from apartheid into democracy following the New National Party s decision to merge with the ruling African National Congress. I am accordingly withdrawing from the NNP. I am not considering joining the A
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Friday praised the pace of reforms in Bulgaria and said he hopes the European Union will sign an accession treaty with the Balkan country next spring. Schroeder also expressed concern about the security situation in
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Government secrecy about its grain reserves has jeopardized millions of Zimbabwean s access to food and renewed fears that officials plan to use food relief as a political weapon ahead of key elections, Human Rights Watch warned Thursday. The U.N., aid groups and donor countries have questioned
WASHINGTON - Doctors cannot be arrested for properly prescribing narcotic painkillers that are the best treatment for millions of suffering patients, according to new guidelines from pain specialists and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The guidelines, written by leading pain specialists together with the DEA, are
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia s premier ordered a halt to plans for human trials of an anti-AIDS drug in his country that would have recruited hundreds of sex workers to determine if the medicine could prevent new HIV infections. Health Minister Nuth Sokhom said he had been instructed by Prime Minister Hun Sen to sto
BEIJING (AP)--A couple arrested in central China last month for protesting the closure of an AIDS school has been freed, a human rights group said Tuesday. Police took Wang Guofeng and Li Suzhi into custody in Henan province July 12 after authorities shut down their children s school, which served pupils whose parents
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A 3-pound baby boy born prematurely at Grant Medical Center lacked the reflexes to nurse from his mother, who was also struggling to produce milk. Little Tristan Casto needed the enzymes and hormones found only in human milk to ward off infection and to grow bigger and healthier. The hospital had
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - John Kerry called for an end to limits on federal funding of stem cell research during the Democratic Party s weekly radio address Saturday. The Democratic presidential nominee criticized the restrictions, imposed by President Bush nearly three years ago, saying they have have shut down work aimed at
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Bono sang at a private funeral for Susan Buffett, wife of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. The lead singer of U2 flew into Omaha Sunday night and left shortly after Monday s service at Countryside Community Church. She and Bono had shared a concern for AIDS awareness and prevention. Buffett, 72,
YANGON (AP)-- Myanmar has received a $7 million grant from an international medical aid fund for a program to fight tuberculosis, a U.N. development official said Thursday. The money is the first installment of $35.7 million promised over the next two years from the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS , Tuberculosis
KIGALI, Rwanda -- Rwanda will use international aid to offer free generic drugs by year s end to 90,000 people who have been infected with HIV or have developed AIDS, a 20-fold increase in the number of people receiving treatment, an official said Thursday. The program would treat some 100,000 people by 2007 and would
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government refused to intervene Wednesday against a rapid price increase for an important AIDS drug, deciding not to override patents on Norvir in an effort to force a lower price. Patient groups and some members of Congress had pushed the National Institutes of Health to take the unprecedented
GENEVA (AP)--The U.N. health agency has removed three Indian-made generic versions of antiretroviral drugs from its list of approved HIV medicines, saying it s uncertain they re biologically the same as the patented drugs. The generic drugs, which are manufactured by India s Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., will be kept
KABUL -- Religious leaders joined the struggle to contain Afghanistan s booming drug economy Tuesday, issuing a fatwa against a sinister phenomenon soiling the country s image and threatening its citizens with addiction and disease. Ahead of the autumn planting season, the General Council of Ulema issued a religious de
WASHINGTON -- Two new AIDS drugs, each of which combines two medications within a single tablet, have been approved by federal regulators, the Food and Drug Administration s acting commissioner said Monday. The drugs give AIDS sufferers in poor countries a better chance of survival. It received a speedier review to ens
WASHINGTON -- A substance long used to make dissolvable stitches now can help plump up faces left sunken and gaunt by the AIDS virus, the Food and Drug Administration ruled Tuesday. The FDA s approval of Sculptra, an injectable filler, marks the first treatment specifically for the loss of facial fat common among HIV
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday he opposes the testing of drugs on Cambodians, a position that could derail a planned trial for an anti-AIDS medicine here. His remarks seemed directed at a test, partially funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, of the drug
BEIJING -- Two villagers in central China have been arrested for leading a group of HIV-infected protesters to break into a hospital, an AIDS activist said Sunday. Fan Zhenbang and Pan Zhongfeng, from Shuangmiao in Henan province, were taken into custody on July 8 and will be detained for 30 days for assembling a cro
ATLANTA (AP) -- Doctors in major U.S. cities aren t doing enough counseling of HIV patients to prevent the spread of the virus, researchers reported Tuesday in a government-funded study. Doctors in Atlanta, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Miami were more likely to provide HIV risk-reduction counseling to those newly diagno
GABORONE, Botswana (AP) -- Inadequate health care systems and insufficient involvement of HIV/AIDS victims in the campaign against the disease are among the challenges facing African governments, participants in a U.N. AIDS conference said Tuesday. We as policy makers are making decisions without listening to communit
NEW DELHI (AP) -- Sitting cross-legged on the cement floor of a home for abandoned children, 7-year-old Rupa - one of at least 60,000 Indian children infected with the AIDS virus - laughed excitedly, clicking the beads on an abacus. I ve done it. I ve won, she shouted, finishing her simple math problem ahead of a dozen
GABORONE, Botswana (AP)--Inadequate health care systems and insufficient involvement of HIV/AIDS victims in the campaign against the disease are among the challenges facing African governments, participants in a U.N. AIDS conference said Tuesday. We as policy makers are making decisions without listening to community
BOSTON - The Edison Electric Institute s leader is one of President Bush s top fund-raisers, but that isn t stopping the power company lobby from courting Democrats at the party s convention. Like several other industries that lean Republican in their employee and political action committee campaign donations, the ener
WASHINGTON - Fewer people believe the overall threat of AIDS is very serious these days, but a majority of Americans say they worry about the impact of the sexually transmitted disease on the nation s children, an Associated Press poll found. That decline in fears about AIDS comes at a time the disease is showing signs
LONDON - Rates of sexually transmitted infections in Britain rose again last year despite new programs aimed at reining in a decade of increases, health experts said Tuesday. The number of infections - 708,083 - was 4 percent higher than in 2002, but Britain s Health Protection Agency said the pace of the increase appe
The text of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton s speech as prepared for delivery Monday at the Democratic National Convention: Twelve years ago, when our country needed new leadership, Americans elected a Democrat who gave us eight years of peace, prosperity, and promise. Tonight I have the pleasure of introducing the next gr
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The spread of West Nile virus is at the heart of a pitched competition between a California firm and a Swiss drug maker over dominance of the U.S. blood screening market. The companies, Emeryville-based Chiron Corp. and Roche Holdings, have been honing their screening systems, testing them in blood
WASHINGTON - People with signs of West Nile infection, including headache and fever, should be barred from donating blood until nearly two months after the symptoms wane, federal health officials proposed Friday. A Food and Drug Administration official briefed the agency s Blood Products advisory committee about the re
WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than half of Americans are worried their children might become infected with the virus that causes AIDS, even though fewer people believe the overall threat is very serious, an Associated Press poll found. That decline in fears about AIDS comes at a time the disease is showing signs of making a
OLYMPIA, Wash. -- State health officials are calling for changes to cumbersome rules they claim discourage people from getting tested for HIV. Doctors and public health officials say many physicians and patients balk at the 30 minutes or more of detailed counseling required before and after each test. They re suggestin
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The Dave Matthews Band is putting on a free concert in Golden Gate Park to benefit several San Francisco Bay area charities. A general admission ticket will be required to attend the Sept. 12 free concert at the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park, according to a statement placed in the band s officia
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A doctor who headed the Presidential Advisory Council on AIDS and HIV during the Clinton administration lost his medical license after being arrested for investigation of possessing a controlled substance. Dr. R. Scott Hitt s surrender of his license became effective Tuesday. The state medical board
IRVINE, Calif. (AP) -- Tennis anyone? Elton John and Billie Jean King will play a celebrity doubles match to open the 12th annual World Team Tennis All-Star Smash Hits to benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the National AIDs Fund. The Oct. 11 event will be held at the Bren Center at the University of California,
SEATTLE (AP) -- Judith Billings, who resigned as Washington state school superintendent in 1996 after learning that she had become infected with the AIDS virus from artificial insemination, announced Wednesday that she is running to get her old job back. She said her HIV infection will not prevent her from campaigning,
WASHINGTON (AP) -- New international aid must flow rapidly to Haiti to bring jobs, better roads, water fit to drink and other improvements to people s lives, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday. Opening a donors conference for the Western Hemisphere s poorest nation, he urged support for the interim governmen
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell urged the international community on Tuesday to rally behind Haiti s new government and help its impoverished people build a stable democratic government with a sound economy. Opening a donors conference at the World Bank for the Western Hemisphere s poorest nation, Po
GENEVA (AP) -- Conflicts, natural disasters and unchecked development have left about 50 million people homeless in their own countries, a new estimate that dwarfs the number of refugees known to aid workers, a U.N. official said Tuesday. The United Nations knows of about 14 million refugees worldwide who have fled the
LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair Tuesday met with women and children suffering from HIV/AIDS and renewed his pledge to combat the disease in developing countries. Ignoring the issue of AIDS is simply not an option, said Blair, who had breakfast at his Downing Street office with some 20 AIDS victims from Africa,
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Sudanese Arab militiamen rape women and girls as young as eight in the violent campaign intended to hurt, humiliate and drive out black Africans from the troubled region of Darfur, a human rights organization said Monday. The Sudanese Janjaweed Arab militiamen sometimes torture and break limbs of
WASHINGTON (AP)--The House voted Monday to restrict U.S. aid to Vietnam if that country fails to improve what lawmakers said was a deplorable human rights record. Vietnam needs to come out of the dark ages of repression, brutality and abuse and embrace freedom, the rule of law and respect for fundamental human rights,
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- The fight against diseases such as HIV/AIDS cannot be won without a strong network of diagnostic laboratories, U.S. and Cambodian officials said Monday. They were speaking at the opening of a weeklong conference on upgrading and improving labs, especially to combat HIV/AIDS, in Southeast As
BANGKOK, Thailand - When historians reflect on the global battle against the HIV epidemic, one possible bright spot could be women s empowerment in the developing world, specialists say. The accelerating feminization of the HIV pandemic is gaining ever wider recognition as public health experts chart the global respons
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration will withhold $34 million in congressionally approved assistance to the U.N. Population Fund because of the fund s connection to China and forced abortions, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday. The State Department said it was convinced the fund helped China manage programs
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The largest AIDS conference to date ended Friday with delegates highlighting soaring infections among women and warning of explosive epidemics in Asia. Nelson Mandela, who turns 86 on Sunday, took the podium at the closing ceremony and declared he cannot rest until the world turns the tide aga
BANGKOK (AP) - Scientists, policy-makers and activists Friday were wrapping up the biggest-ever AIDS conference, highlighting the soaring HIV infections rates among women in some parts of world and warning of the potential for explosive epidemics in Asia. Much of the six-day conference on humanity s worst epidemic focu
BANGKOK (AP) - Thailand s most prominent AIDS worker launched an idealistic campaign at the International AIDS Conference Friday to get the world s 6 billion people to give US$1 each to fight the epidemic, and immediately raised a few hundred dollars from delegates. Soon after Senator Mechai Viravaidya announced the in
BANGKOK (AP) - People infected with HIV are routinely arrested for demanding better treatment and care in China s worst-affected province, an AIDS activist said Friday, as Amnesty International called for the release of four infected people allegedly arrested there. The four were detained over the past two weeks in Hen
BANGKOK (AP) - India s new government on Friday pledged to do its utmost to reverse the HIV crisis in the country - often described as an AIDS time bomb - with the same determination that eradicated smallpox decades ago. AIDS control already accounts for 10% of the national health budget, Sonia Gandhi, the leader of In
BANGKOK (AP) - South African elder statesman Nelson Mandela, who turns 86 on Sunday, said he could receive no better birthday gift than a commitment by the world to take real and urgent action against AIDS. In a speech interrupted by loud applause and capped by a standing ovation at the closing ceremony of the Internat
BANGKOK (AP) - The leaders of the fight against AIDS admitted before a global conference Friday that they had failed on all fronts, saying they are ashamed that some 38 million people are living with the HIV virus. There is no reason why we have to continue to lose lives because of our inaction and our incompetence, G
BANGKOK (AP) - Nelson Mandela said he cannot rest until the world turns the tide against the HIV pandemic, as delegates concluded the biggest-ever AIDS conference Friday, highlighting the soaring infections among women and warning of explosive epidemics in Asia. Much of the six-day conference on humanity s worst pandem
BANGKOK (AP) - Human rights violations and inequalities are feeding the AIDS pandemic, the head of Amnesty International told an international conference Friday, and she rebuked host Thailand for state-sponsored discrimination against drug users. Irene Khan, the secretary-general of the London-based group, also demande
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Democracy icon Nelson Mandela called on governments, businesses and citizens Thursday to donate generously to the war on AIDS, saying no amount is too small, as the United Nations blamed the epidemic for declining life expectancy in parts of Africa. Mandela s fervent appeal at the 15th Internat
CHICAGO (AP) - Illinois on Thursday became the first state with a law specifically allowing HIV-infected people to donate organs to others with the virus. But before such donations can take place, federal rules will have to change. Currently, organs from HIV-infected patients are discarded to prevent them from being tr
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The U.N. s annual ranking of the global rich and poor Thursday showed that AIDS was pushing African nations further into misery while the most the world crept toward higher development. Of the 177 nations included in the U.N. Development Index, African nations occupied all but three of the last
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - They have lost their youth, but gained enough wealth to buy the company of many young consorts. These sugar daddies of sub-Sahara African are a hot topic with researchers trying to explain the region s alarmingly high HIV rates for teenage girls. Many AIDS experts believe liaisons between marri
BANGKOK (AP) - Average life expectancy in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa has dipped to 40 years or less because of AIDS, the epidemic also responsible for the growing poverty and hunger in the region, a U.N. agency said Thursday. The AIDS crisis cripples states at all levels, because the disease attacks people in
BRUSSELS (AP) - The European Union s head office said Thursday it is delivering another EUR42 million to a U.N.-sponsored global fund to fight AIDS , tuberculosis and malaria. The money - part of a EUR460 million pledge for 2002-2006 - will go toward programs geared to boost prevention, treatment and care of the three
LOS ANGELES - Angels in America, the HBO miniseries adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about New Yorkers affected by the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, received a leading 21 Emmy nominations Thursday. The Sopranos was the leading nominee among series, with 20. Changes in Emmy rules intended to broaden the field beyo
BANGKOK (AP) - South African icon Nelson Mandela called Thursday for stepped up efforts to control tuberculosis, saying the fight against AIDS is incomplete without targeting the lung disease. TB is too often a death sentence for people with AIDS. It does not have to be this way, said Mandela, who successfully battled
BANGKOK (AP) - Many AIDS prevention campaigns directed at teenagers and young adults are not working because they fail to deal adequately with sexuality, youth delegates and officials attending the 15th International AIDS Conference say. The youth delegates also faulted health care workers for not doing enough to reach
BANGKOK (AP) - Leaders of all major religions in South Asia have set up an interfaith council, pledging Thursday to provide leadership and mobilize communities in fighting the HIV/AIDS crisis, especially among the youth. Spiritual leaders are uniquely placed to provide comfort and guidance to those affected by the dise
BANGKOK (AP) - Thailand s health minister handed 100,000 condoms to the Corrections Department on Thursday for distribution to prisoners in a bid to prevent HIV infections among them. It is the first time condoms have been publicly given to prisoners, in an acknowledgment that homosexuality is present in Thai prisons,
BANGKOK (AP) - The AIDS virus in Asia is moving swiftly from drug users to gay men, sex workers and their clients, and countries in the region need to act now before it spreads into the general population, experts said Thursday. Scientists and other researchers warned at the 15th International AIDS conference that Asia
BANGKOK (AP) - Experts called Thursday for urgent work on HIV-killing gels that could help protect women who can t rely on condoms, while democracy icon Nelson Mandela told the world not to ignore tuberculosis in its battle against AIDS. With research over the past two years showing that an AIDS vaccine is still a long
BANGKOK (AP) - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said Thursday it will give an additional $50 million to a U.N.-sponsored global fund to fight AIDS, a day after the U.S. said it won t give the resource-short charity any more money. The Gates Foundation s announcement at the International AIDS Conference raises its
LOS ANGELES (AP) - George Weah, best known for his achievements on the soccer field, will receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for his humanitarian efforts in his war ravaged homeland of Liberia and other African countries. Athletes in 36 categories will be honored Wednesday during the 12th annual ESPY Awards at the K
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A biotech company that is using prostitutes in its AIDS drug experiments is being accused of exploiting the women and giving them poor education to further its research. Researchers in Africa and Cambodia are experimenting with Gilead Sciences Inc. s popular drug
LONDON - Rock star Bono on Tuesday praised the British government for pledging $2.8 billion over the next three years to combat HIV/AIDS in developing countries. Treasury chief Gordon Brown announced the funding boost Monday. What happened yesterday was hundreds of thousands of people with Aids who were not going to ha
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Pfizer Inc., the U.S. maker of Viagra, expects to win an appeal of last week s decision by Chinese regulators to overturn the company s patent there, according to the company s top executive. We intend to appeal this decision and I think we have a very good chance of prevailing.
TORONTO - The 29th annual Toronto Film Festival will spotlight South African productions during its two-week run Sept. 9-18, festival co-director Noah Cowan announced Tuesday. The festival is hoping to schedule more than 300 films from 50 countries on 21 screens. The full listing won t be finalized until late August, o
NEW HAVEN, Conn (AP) - Laura Howard says she was hoping her trip to a fertility specialist would make her dream of a second child come true. But as she was leaving the office, the doctor suddenly ran out to the lobby and called her back. He told her of a grave mistake. Instead of being inseminated with the sperm of her
The World Health Organization said the world has failed to provide the drugs needed to combat the global AIDS epidemic. The U.S. came in for much of the criticism. BANGKOK, Thailand - The World Health Organization said Tuesday the world has failed miserably in getting lifesaving drugs to millions afflicted with HIV,
The United States on Wednesday urged its detractors to end their bickering over condoms and drug patents and join hands with Washington in a global partnership to fight their common enemy: AIDS. Defending the Bush administration s policy from intense criticism, U.S. AIDS coordinator Randall Tobias said that the United
BANGKOK (AP) - Thai prison authorities want to release all of the country s hundreds of inmates with full-blown AIDS in an amnesty next month so they can spend their remaining days with their families, a corrections official said Wednesday. The proposal - announced during the International AIDS Conference taking place
BANGKOK (AP) - South African activists Wednesday decried their government s decision against recommending the use of a key anti-AIDS drug that could prevent the virus from being passed by infected mothers to their children. The South African government s drug council says it won t recommend that
BANGKOK (AP) - Migrant workers in Asia remain highly likely to contract HIV and spread it along the continent s main routes, and they need better access to health care while in the unfamiliar surroundings of their jobs away from home, U.N. and aid agency officials said Wednesday. Mobility exacerbates vulnerability to i
BANGKOK (AP) - Shouting activists held up a speech Wednesday by the top U.S. official on AIDS when they massed in front of the conference stage and tried to hand him a placard mocking Washington s policy on HIV drugs. Randall Tobias, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator, was at a podium to address the International AIDS Co
BANGKOK (AP) - The United States top AIDS official on Wednesday rejected outright a call by the U.N. chief for a $1 billion contribution in 2005 to a global fund combatting the epidemic, saying it is not going to happen. The hardline position by Randall Tobias drew a sharp response from Stephen Lewis, the U.N. s specia
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell is reaching out again to France to try to overcome differences that were exacerbated by the U.S. war with Iraq . The values that pull France and the United States together are far more powerful than any prob
BANGKOK, Thailand - The U.S. on Wednesday urged its detractors to end their bickering over condoms and drug patents and join hands with Washington in a global partnership to fight their common enemy: AIDS. Defending the Bush administration s policy from intense criticism, U.S. AIDS coordinator Randall Tobias said that
KIEV (AP) - Facing one of the fastest growing AIDS infection rates in the world, Ukraine joined an international alliance to battle the disease, Ukrainian health officials said Wednesday. By joining the alliance, Ukraine has recognized that the AIDS epidemic has exceeded the dimensions of a medical problem and that it
LOS ANGELES (AP) - George Weah, best known for his achievements on the soccer field, will receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for his humanitarian efforts in his war ravaged homeland of Liberia and other African countries. Athletes in 36 categories will be honored Wednesday during the 12th annual ESPY Awards at the K
BANGKOK (AP) - The global fight against HIV will fail without serious progress in addressing the plight of women in the developing world, including ways they can protect themselves from infection without their partners knowing, advocates say. Nearly half of all people living with HIV now are women, and their infection
A fast-spreading mutant strain of syphilis has proved resistant to the antibiotic pills that are offered to some patients as an alternative to painful penicillin shots. Since the late 1990s, doctors and public health clinics have been giving azithromycin to some syphilis patients because the long-acting antibiotic pill
BANGKOK (AP) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed concern Tuesday over the slow pace of democratic reform in military-ruled Myanmar , particularly the junta s failure to release detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Thai spokesman said. Government Spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said Annan made the comment
BANGKOK (AP) - About 100 noisy AIDS activists carrying mock corpses disrupted a speech Tuesday by the head of Pfizer Inc. (PFE), accusing his and other multinational drug firms of denying lifesaving drugs to HIV sufferers by charging inflated prices. The activists, carrying stuffed black plastic bags made to look like
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The World Health Organization on Tuesday put its seal of approval on four new Indian-made generic drugs against HIV. The four drugs are 150 mg lamivudine, made by Strides (532531.BY), and antifungal fluconazole in three strengths - 50 mg, 150 mg, 200 mg - made by
BANGKOK (AP) - China appealed Tuesday for outside help in its fight against HIV , with one of its top health officials telling the International AIDS Conference that his country lacks the resources to properly deal with its emerging epidemic. At present China is still facing challenges and difficulties in the fight aga
BANGKOK (AP) - France accused the U.S. on Tuesday of pressuring developing countries to give up their right to make cheap generic HIV drugs in return for free-trade agreements - with President Jacques Chirac calling the tactic tantamount to blackmail. A U.S. official dismissed the French allegation as nonsense, while
BANGKOK (AP) - The International AIDS Conference called Tuesday for scaling up access to life-prolonging medicine for those infected and raised a key question: Are patents preventing drugs from reaching millions of needy? Some 6 million people in poor countries need antiretroviral treatment, but only 5% of them are get
BANGKOK (AP) - The behavior of men who visit prostitutes will determine how bad the emerging HIV epidemics in Asia will get, according to an analysis by leading scientists. The potential course of the virus in the planet s most populous continent came under scrutiny this week during the largest international AIDS confe
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - President Bush s policy of fighting AIDS by promoting abstinence ran into strong opposition Monday from scientists, activists and policy-makers who touted condoms as a trusted weapon in the fight against AIDS. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was the only big-name speaker at the International
BANGKOK (AP) - The Thai government was roundly criticized Monday for pushing HIV infected people into the background at the opening ceremony of the International AIDS Conference. Row upon row of political leaders and bureaucrats are all too eager to speak to HIV-infected to curry favor with the popular and the powerful
NEW DELHI (AP) - India s HIV-infection rate fell last year from 2002, a news report said Monday, but the country continues to have the world s second highest number of cases. India reported 520,000 new infections in 2003, down from 610,000 the previous year, the Indian Express quoted a study by the state-run National A
BANGKOK (AP) - The HIV generic drug industry in developing countries is being threatened by free trade agreements such as the one Thailand is negotiating with the U.S., Medecins Sans Frontieres warned Monday. The Belgium-based group, participating in the 15th International AIDS Conference, urged Thailand to stand firm
BANGKOK (AP) - Scientists, activists and policymakers Monday touted condoms as a trusted weapon in the fight against AIDS, dismissing U.S. President George W. Bush s policy of abstinence as a serious setback in global efforts to control the pandemic. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was the only big-name speaker at th
BANGKOK (AP) - China now means business in tackling its HIV problem, but still has a long road ahead of it, the U.N. said Monday. I believe there is a reason to celebrate but not to cry victory, Peter Piot, the executive director of the U.N. s AIDS agency, said at the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok. Bec
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- The Ugandan leader credited with slashing HIV rates in his country insisted Monday that condoms are not the ultimate solution to fighting the AIDS scourge, saying abstinence and loving relationships in marriage are even more crucial. President Yoweri Museveni s comments on the second day of th
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- A few years ago, HIV was like a death sentence for tens of thousands of Thais who couldn t afford expensive imported drugs. Then came hope, in the shape of a one-pill generic drug cocktail. When the Thai Government Pharmaceutical Organization started producing the three-drug pill in March 2002
BANGKOK, Thailand -- HIV experts criticized Washington s decision to send a pared-down delegation to the International AIDS Conference beginning Sunday as an intrusion of politics into science. Conference organizers see the U.S. move as a reaction to the conference s lack of focus on abstinence as a way of preventing t
BANGKOK (AP)--The International AIDS Conference opened Sunday with nearly 20,000 delegates, including policy makers and scientists, coming together to discuss how to provide treatment to nearly 38 million victims of the world s biggest epidemic. We are here today to learn from each other and exchange experiences of th
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand doled out condoms at airport lobbies, tollbooths and restaurants to showcase its frontline defense against HIV at Sunday s start of a weeklong AIDS meeting focused on getting treatment to the 38 million victims of history s biggest epidemic. The conference venue even had an exhibit of dres
BANGKOK (AP) -- The International AIDS Conference opened Sunday with U.N. chief Kofi Annan challenging world leaders to do more to combat the raging global epidemic and warning that women are increasingly the unwitting victims of the disease. Three years after world leaders pledged at the United Nations to defeat the e
CHICAGO (AP) -- Government research shows a rapid HIV test can be used on women during childbirth, results that doctors hope will help reduce HIV infections in newborns. Though HIV infection of newborns is not widespread in the United States , it is of great concern in Africa and other developing areas. Interruptin
BEIJING -- Premier Wen Jiabao issued an unusual appeal for China s public to help stop the spread of the AIDS virus, promising in a published statement to spend more on research and treatment. All levels of government and the entire society must attach great importance to preventing and controlling AIDS, said Wen s sta
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP)--Brazil and seven other developing nations plan to form an alliance to exchange technologies for improving the production of drugs to treat HIV and AIDS, Brazil s health ministry said. Representatives from Brazil, Russia , China ,
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - History s biggest epidemic is the focus of a weeklong AIDS meeting that opens Sunday, drawing thousands of experts to address the urgent task of delivering treatment to Africa while defusing emerging epidemics in Asia. Thailand is hosting the 15th International AIDS Conference at a time when th
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The current strategy of leaving it to patients to request an HIV test is not working in the developing world, where 90 percent of those infected with the AIDS virus have no idea they are carrying it, U.N. health experts said Saturday. The U.N. AIDS agency and Wo
BEIJING (AP) - Premier Wen Jiabao issued an unusual appeal for China s public to help stop the spread of AIDS, promising in a statement published Saturday on the front pages of major newspapers to spend more on research and treatment. All levels of government and the entire society must attach great importance to preve
BANGKOK, Thailand - Prejudice keeps people in wealthy countries from paying attention to the worldwide AIDS epidemic, said British actor Rupert Everett, visiting Thailand to attend the 15th International AIDS Conference. We are extremely racist, the 45-year-old actor told reporters Thursday, adding that patients in dev
NEW YORK - Carl Stecker knows he could treat more AIDS sufferers with generic medicines than he can with brand-name drugs, which can cost up to three times as much. But Stecker s work, as program director of AIDS Relief, is constrained by policies on certifying generic drugs as safe. His group, a consortium of five org
PHETCHBURI, Thailand (AP) - For Malee, pregnancy was a time of torment. She lived in dread of passing on AIDS to the twin boys growing in her womb. But Malee s boys, Phet and Nakhorn, were born Oct. 8, 2003, free of the virus she carries. Their savior was a four-year-old program that is winning international accolades
FOSTER CITY, Calif. - Biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences on Friday said it is reducing the price of its HIV therapy Viread in developing countries by 37 percent, a change possible due to manufacturing improvements and increased economies of scale. Through its nonprofit Gilead Access program, the company offe
An experimental drug s success at blocking an HIV enzyme to dramatically stifle the infection in monkeys boosts hopes. WASHINGTON - Researchers may finally be on track to fight the AIDS virus by blocking a long-elusive target, an HIV enzyme called integrase. An experimental drug that inhibits the enzyme helped to keep
AUSTIN - Researchers at the University of Texas have developed a device that allows doctors in remote areas to quickly and cheaply conduct a key diagnostic test for the AIDS virus. The toaster-sized device was expected to be unveiled next week at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand
BANGKOK, Thailand - The increasing availability of generic anti-HIV medicines has raised hopes for millions of people in Asia, but a lack of doctors trained to administer them could create virus strains resistant to the drugs, a medical research group says. Such strains would eradicate years of progress in the treatmen
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - The top U.S. AIDS adviser got a firsthand look at Vietnam s growing HIV problem Friday as he met with health officials and HIV-positive patients. Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias, on a three-day visit to Hanoi, was hoping to get a clearer picture of the communist country s struggle to keep t
BANGKOK (AP) - About 5,000 security officers will be deployed at Thai airports, hotels and meeting halls for the 15th International AIDS conference next week, which is expected to bring 15,000 delegates together, officials said Friday. About 200 members of the combined military and police force were briefed Friday at t
BANGKOK (AP) - The U.N. warned Friday of a global health crisis among women due to a dramatic rise in HIV infections among them, largely because poverty has robbed them of the confidence to demand safe sex. Since 1985, the percentage of HIV/AIDS suffers who are adult women has risen from 35% to 48%. Young women now mak
LOS ANGELES - The writers of the TV miniseries Angels in America and the dark thriller Dirty Pretty Things won $25,000 Humanitas Prizes on Thursday, awards presented for works that entertain and enrich the viewing public. Tony Kushner won for Angels in America, the HBO miniseries adapted from his play about heavenly gu
HANOI, Vietnam - The U.S. government s point man on HIV/AIDS will examine how Vietnam is tackling the disease as it spreads from high-risk groups to the general population during a three-day trip to Hanoi, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday. Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias will meet with government officials and
WASHINGTON - Offering a promising new way to attack the AIDS virus, research on monkeys suggests that an experimental drug helps keep HIV in check by blocking an enzyme that is crucial to infection. The target is integrase, an HIV enzyme that the virus needs to hijack a patient s cells and spread. Repeated attempts to
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - As China and Thailand grapple with fresh bird flu outbreaks, Vietnam is bracing for the possible resurgence of the disease that killed 16 people here earlier this year, an official said Thursday. China and Thailand undertook massive poultry culls this week after both countries c
BANGKOK (AP) - When her husband died of AIDS more than four years ago, Lek found herself with no job, no home, and barely any savings. She also found herself with HIV and a one-month-old son to care for. All my thoughts were focused on how we would survive, said Lek, 31, who refused to be further identified. I wondered
WASHINGTON (AP) - Researchers may finally be on track to fight the AIDS virus by blocking a long-elusive target, an HIV enzyme called integrase. An experimental drug that inhibits the enzyme helped to keep the infection in check in monkeys. Far more research is needed to prove if Merck & Co. s approach really can b
ATLANTA (AP) - Los Angeles and San Francisco have yet to see the boom in HIV rates that health officials have been fearing ever since the two cities had syphilis outbreaks among gay and bisexual men earlier this decade. Health officials believed the syphilis outbreaks indicated that many gay and bisexual men were aband
SEATTLE - A fast-spreading mutant strain of syphilis has proved resistant to the antibiotic pills that are offered to some patients as an alternative to painful penicillin shots. Since the late 1990s, doctors and public-health clinics have been giving azithromycin to some syphilis patients because the long-acting antib
BANGKOK (AP) - The cost of the AIDS epidemic in Asia could jump by more than $10 billion annually by 2010 unless countries in the region take urgent steps to halt its spread, the Asian Development Bank and U.N. said Thursday. Failure to bolster current HIV treatment and prevention programs could result in about 10 mill
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - When 15,000 delegates fly in for next week s international AIDS conference, they will be handed condoms at Bangkok s airport and highway toll booths. They will be offered drinks by prostitutes and mingle with children infected by the virus. The man behind this work is Mechai Viravaidya, whose s
BANGKOK (AP) - Religious groups, many of them at first wary warriors against HIV/AIDS, are increasingly in the front lines of the battle against the deadly disease. From Uganda , where Islamic clerics have declared a jihad against AIDS, to northern Thailand , where Buddhist monks preach and practice compassiona
BOMBAY, India (AP) - Hollywood actor Richard Gere was looking to Indian film and sports stars to help carry his message of HIV-AIDS prevention to the country s billion plus people, as he prepared to launch a new campaign Wednesday in the western city of Bombay. The Heroes Project is the latest initiative by Gere, who
DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) - If African nations lose the war against AIDS, the continent risks becoming the next breeding ground for international terrorists such as al-Qaeda operatives, an American diplomat said this week. If they lose the war on AIDS, everything else doesn t matter, Dan Mozena said. The reason this is our to
WASHINGTON (AP) -A prestigious health advisory panel called Wednesday for a large-scale effort, akin to the Peace Corps, to battle AIDS worldwide. The Institute of Medicine issued a new report calling on international aid organizations and governments to take prompt action to help developing nations deal with the epide
IOWA CITY, Iowa - A man serving time for four counts of criminal transmission of HIV has filed a motion asking for reduced sentences. Adam Musser, 24, of Iowa City, was sentenced to up to 50 years in prison after being convicted of charges in four trials. In a motion to reconsider the sentences, Musser asked the court
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- British actor Rupert Everett met with Cambodians suffering from AIDS on Tuesday during a trip to raise awareness of the disease and promote a group that helps fight it. Everett, the voice of Prince Charming in animated movie Shrek 2, visited patients at a hospice in Phnom Penh and met with stude
LONDON (AP) - The world is losing the race against the AIDS virus, which last year infected a record 5 million people and killed an unprecedented 3 million, the United Nations reported Tuesday. The virus has now pushed deep into Eastern Europe and Asia, and tackling it will be more expensive than previously believed, a
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Asia has an opportunity to control its HIV/AIDS crisis, but failure to act quickly could lead to an epidemic of major proportions, a United Nations expert said Tuesday. Asia is facing life and death choices when it comes to the epidemic, said Kathleen Cravero, deputy executive director of
Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (AP) - A decade ago, health experts predicted an AIDS explosion in Latin America, striking hardest at Brazil, with its teeming population and sexual permissiveness. But the explosion never came, and experts say Brazil s handling of the problem may keep it from ever happening. If you look ove
BANGKOK, Thailand - Brazilian dresses made of condoms, a drag show from Indonesia and a special appearance by actor Richard Gere. These and dozens of other cultural performances, art shows, fashion parades and films from around the world will be featured at the international AIDS conference this month in Bangkok to bre
MOSCOW (AP) - U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson Thursday announced Russia would get a $34.6 million grant for fighting AIDS from an international fund to which the U.S. is the main contributor. Thompson, in a news conference with Russian Health Minister Mikhail Zurabov, said the grant comes from t
ATLANTA (AP) - Three people died of rabies after receiving infected organs from the same donor in what the government says are the first documented cases of the disease being spread through organ transplants. Federal agencies are now looking into whether transplant organs should be screened for the rabies virus. The
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Ashley Judd will visit Cambodia next week to raise AIDS awareness and to launch new health products and services, a U.N. program said Thursday. The star of Double Jeopardy and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood also will visit Thailand and attend this month s int
GENEVA (AP) - Health workers will begin vaccinating children for polio in the Nigeria s northern Kano state in the next few days after officials persuaded the governor that the vaccine will not render them sterile, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. Workers will be racing the imminent onset of the rainy seas
A study of HIV-infected African women found that daily doses of multivitamins appear to slow the disease and cut the risk of developing AIDS in half. The researchers, who conducted the study in Tanzania , suggested that vitamin supplements could be used in developing countries to delay the need for AIDS drugs. It
BALTIMORE (AP) - A federal judge has dismissed a civil lawsuit filed against a hospital that has been under scrutiny for giving patients hundreds of suspect HIV and hepatitis C test results. The lawsuit was filed by Kristin Turner, a former lab worker who blames a machine that was used for blood tests at Maryland Gener
NEW YORK (AP) - A study of HIV-infected African women found that daily doses of multivitamins appear to slow down the disease and cut the risk of developing AIDS in half. The researchers who conducted the study in Tanzania suggested that vitamin supplements could be used in developing countries to delay the need for AI
GENEVA (AP) - A northern Nigerian region that banned polio vaccinations last year citing safety concerns will resume them in the next few days, the World Health Organization said Wednesday amid heightened fears about the international spread of the crippling disease. Ibrahim Shekarau, governor of the mostly Muslim Nige
GENEVA (AP) - The U.N. health agency said Wednesday that it believes it will achieve its ambitious plan to get 3 million people infected with HIV onto anti-retroviral drugs by 2005. The target is likely to be reached, thanks to global campaigns and work by individual countries, said Alex Ross, chief of staff of the
WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) - A jury awarded $435,000 to a woman who was accidentally inseminated with unprepared sperm at a fertility clinic. The award to Kelly Chambliss -- $85,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages -- could later be reduced because of state limits on punitive damages. We re pleased w
BEIJING (AP) - A senior Chinese health official promised Tuesday to expand AIDS testing, saying many people in his country might be carrying the virus without knowing it. We have to find these HIV-infected people as soon as possible and find out if they need immediate treatment, said Vice Health Minister Wang Longde at
ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) - Four Central Asian countries and several international organizations signed an agreement on Monday to jointly fight the growing threat of AIDS epidemic in the region. The agreement lays grounds for a joint anti-AIDS project between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan ,
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider whether sick people who smoke pot on a doctor s orders are subject to a federal ban on marijuana. The court agreed to hear the Bush administration s appeal of a case it lost last year involving two California women who say marijuana is the only drug that
NAIROBI (AP) - A fund set up to combat three of the world s most devastating diseases has given aid agencies working in Somalia $8.9 million to combat malaria over the next two years. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS , Tuberculosis and Malaria granted the money to the U.N. children s agency and eight other aid agencies to
Eugene (AP) - Eugene s HIV Alliance says it will end its free needle-exchange program by the end of this year. That could mean the spread of more disease and more dirty used needles littering the city. The alliance will ask local government, medical and charitable institutions to save the exchange. Since 1999, HIV Alli
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said Friday it will permit wider use of an oral test for the AIDS virus that gives results in 20 minutes. The relaxed rules will allow screenings in HIV counseling centers, community health centers and doctors offices. In addition, the government will spend almost $5 million to augm
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The former chief financial officer of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics has been arrested on charges he defrauded the nonprofit out of at least $773,000, authorities said. Carl Gill, 43, of Oakland surrendered to authorities Thursday on a $1 million warrant. Gill admits some wrongdoing, but disputes
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan leaves this weekend on a three-week trip to the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. Annan will get a first-hand glimpse of the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan sparked by a 16-month conflict and attend the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa,
NEW YORK (AP) - AIDS activists rallied in the United States and South Africa on Thursday, demanding that President Bush do more to treat and prevent the disease. Help is not getting to those who need it most, and it is essentially being used to fund Big Pharma, said Aaron Boyle, one of 20 demonstrators at the Metropol
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - HIV/AIDS is increasingly striking young women, including married women previously thought to be at low risk of contracting the disease, a U.N. official warned Thursday. The HIV/AIDS epidemic ... now has the face of a woman, said Lucita Lazo, regional program director for the United Nations Deve
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - A man is charged with intentionally exposing at least 17 women to the AIDS virus after he ignored a directive from health officials to stop having unprotected sex. Four of the women have tested positive for HIV. Anthony E. Whitfield, 32, of Lacey, faces 17 counts of first-degree assault with sexua
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Hundreds of demonstrators marched Thursday to protest U.S. policies on AIDS, demanding that President Bush do more to treat and prevent the disease. The demonstrations outside the U.S. consulates in Johannesburg and Cape Town were part of a series of planned International Day of Action
HANOI (AP) - Vietnam on Thursday hailed its inclusion on a list of 15 nations chosen by the Bush administration to be part of its $15 billion global AIDS plan, saying the aid will help the country control its growing infection rates. Vietnam welcomes President George W. Bush s decision. This is a cooperative effort amo
(AP) - NEW YORK - OraSure Technologies Inc. stock rose Wednesday after the company said the Food and Drug Administration approved expanded use of its oral test for HIV. Shares of Bethlehem, Pa.-based OraSure ended at $9.44, up $1.73, or 22 percent, on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The FDA approved using the OraQuick tes
PHILADELPHIA - President Bush, on a fund-raising trip to Pennsylvania, said Wednesday he will commit more money to a program for delivering medications to people with HIV and AIDS. The administration said it would make an additional $20 million available immediately for the drug program. The announcement was made as Bu
PHILADELPHIA (AP)--U.S. President George W. Bush, on a fund-raising trip to Pennsylvania, said Wednesday he will commit more money to a program for delivering medications to people with HIV and AIDS. The administration said it would make an additional $20 million available immediately for the drug program. The announce
GENEVA (AP) - The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is threatening efforts to achieve sexual and reproductive health goals that are supposed to improve the lives of women and reduce poverty, the head of the United Nations population agency said Monday. The fight against AIDS has exhausted health services in many poor countries,
GENEVA (AP) - Africa is on the brink of the biggest polio epidemic in recent years, with the crippling disease re-emerging in Sudan s conflict-ravaged Darfur region, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. There is no question that the virus is spreading at an alarming pace, said Dr. David Heymann, who heads the U
JOHANNESBURG (AP) - Reeling from the triple blow of AIDS, hunger and weakened capacity to govern, Southern Africa faces the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today, a top U.N. envoy warned Tuesday. The crisis dwarfs even that in conflict-ridden Sudan , where thousands of people have been killed and more than a mil
MILWAUKEE (AP) - A high tech satellite-controlled pill dispenser has been invented by an associate professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin. The device patented by Mary Anne Papp is activated by a timer or from a remote control command from a doctor. It beeps and flashes when it s time for a patient to take the pi
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Accustomed to neglect from much of the medical establishment, the lesbian community is assigning itself the task of assessing -- often bluntly -- its members distinctive array of health problems. Even without a specific crisis as grave as the AIDS epidemic, the diagnosis is sobering: Compared to he
Nonprofit groups send Americans unused pills abroad, offering a lifeline to sufferers. But some health officials doubt the benefits. MEXICO CITY - Jose Clemente, who restores artworks in Mexico s capital, has never met Daphne Rivera, a Brooklyn health educator. But medicine donated by Rivera is keeping Clemente alive.
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - Tuberculosis testing will begin Monday for hundreds of people who may have been exposed to the disease by a hospital nurse who died of TB a week ago. A federal health official called it shameful that anyone should die of TB, which is preventable and curable. In the United States , fewer than 1
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - AIDS activists carrying props resembling giant condoms rallied outside the front door of porn mogul Larry Flynt s Beverly Hills office on Thursday, demanding actors in his company s adult films be required to use condoms. The approximately 20 demonstrators said the Flynt Publications office
WASHINGTON (AP) - Narcotics are easily purchased over the Internet from U.S. pharmacies with no prescription, congressional investigators maintained Thursday at a Senate hearing on the dangers of buying medications online. Investigators said they purchased the painkiller hydrocodone from eight Web sites. It seems that
BALTIMORE (AP) - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has subpoenaed records at Maryland General Hospital, which has been investigated by several agencies - including Congress - since reporting that HIV and hepatitis patients received questionable lab test results for over a year. The subpoena, received May
BANGKOK, Thailand - Activists were up in arms Thursday after a Bangkok hotel hosting an AIDS workshop moved all the participants - half of them HIV positive - to one floor, asked them to eat in a separate area, and told cleaning staff to take precautions. The incident, which took place earlier in the week, happened jus
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - The World Bank suspended more than $150 million in loans to war-divided Ivory Coast because of unpaid debts, disrupting funding for planned AIDS and disarmament programs, a bank spokesman said Wednesday. The World Bank suspended the loans to the West African nation Tuesday after it fell two
GENEVA (AP) - The U.N. health agency has removed two versions of antiretroviral drugs -- commonly used in developing countries -- from its list of approved HIV medicines, saying it s uncertain they are biologically the same as the patented drugs. We made a random check on the laboratory (testing the drug) and it did no
MANHASSET, N.Y. (AP) - A hospital notified 177 patients that they may have been exposed to HIV or hepatitis because equipment used to check their digestive systems might not have been properly cleaned. North Shore University Hospital spokesman Terry Lynam said doctors believed the risk of transmission was minuscule an
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - Crocodile, boa constrictor, tortoise and antelope top the menu, served up in banana-leaf sacks with french fries on the side. And for the willing, there s one dish that would make most carnivores squirm: monkey meat. At Mama Ekila s Inzia restaurant, African bushmeat is flown in -- and fried up -
SHANGHAI (AP) - A Chinese court has reduced the prison sentences of two executives at a major newspaper known for aggressive reporting on social problems who were convicted on embezzlement and bribery charges, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday. The Intermediate Court in the southern city of Guangzhou cut
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan s special envoy for humanitarian needs in southern Africa called off a visit to Zimbabwe on Tuesday after he was informed that neither President Robert Mugabe nor any of his top officials were available to see him. The decision underscores a deepening rift betwe
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP - The U.S. and American pharmaceutical giant Merck (MRK) on Monday announced a $200,000 grant to fight HIV/AIDS in Jamaica over the next five years. The money will help pay for an HIV/AIDS monitoring system on the Caribbean island, as well as awareness campaigns to combat stigma surrounding the vi
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House on Monday directed the government to increase its help for orphans and vulnerable children in developing countries and moved to set up a new office concentrating on children who lose their parents to AIDS. Under legislation passed by voice vote, the office in the U.S. Agency for Internationa
Twenty-six retired diplomats and military officers are urging the defeat of President Bush, saying his policies put national security at risk. WASHINGTON - (AP) - Angered by Bush administration policies they contend endanger national security, 26 retired U.S. diplomats and military officers are urging Americans to vote
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - Uganda Monday began distributing free generic HIV drugs to treat all of its estimated 100,000 people living with AIDS, becoming only the second country in Africa to do so, the health minister said. Vans carried $1.3 million worth of anti-retroviral drugs to 23 health centers, government and churc
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) - Unlocked with huge skeleton keys, the cell doors at the 162-year-old Paterei Prison open with a piercing squeal and slam shut with deafening clangs that echo along cold, labyrinthine hallways. The contrast between this jail in Estonia s capital and those in the Nordic nations a short flight acro
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Jose Clemente, who restores artworks in Mexico s capital, has never met Daphne Rivera, a Brooklyn health educator. But medicines donated by Rivera are keeping Clemente alive. From Mexico to Mauritania , India to Iran , patients in poor countries have to piece together drug co
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - African countries have doubled spending against HIV/AIDS over the past decade, but far greater funding and a better distribution of treatment are needed to curb the pandemic, African ministers and U.N. officials said Friday at a continent-wide population conference. About 30 African ministers
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- As Ronald Reagan s body was carried back to California for burial, Central American activists staged a protest Friday to remind the world that Reagan s foreign policies were linked to thousands of deaths in El Salvador , Guatemala ,
GENEVA - An estimated 10 million children worldwide are forced to work in slavelike conditions as domestic servants in private homes, the UN s labor agency said Thursday. The International Labor Organization said in a report that in parts of West Africa, Central America and Asia, thousands of girls as young as 8 work 1
CALCUTTA, India (AP) - Indian authorities have begun monitoring blood banks in this eastern city after some 30 children were reportedly infected with the AIDS-causing virus through transfusions over the past three years, a top health official said Friday. We are running a check on the blood banks to see how careful the
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. General Assembly elected its 10th African as president Thursday, voting by acclamation for Gabonese Foreign Minister Jean Ping to preside at the world body s next session beginning in September. He will succeed St. Lucia Foreign Minister Julian Hunte, who said Ping s more than three decad
SEA ISLAND, Ga. (AP) - President Bush made a parting plea to close allies Thursday to provide assistance to guide Iraq into a stable democracy, saying its people need help to defend themselves, rebuild their country and hold elections. French President Jacques Chirac remained skeptical of any additional NATO milita
SEA ISLAND, Ga. (AP) - President Bush appealed to his big-power allies Thursday to do more to guide Iraq s transformation into a stable democracy, saying the Iraqi people need help to defend themselves, rebuild their country and hold elections. Bush s comments, made after a private meeting with a skeptical French Presi
SHANGHAI (AP) - Police have released a Chinese AIDS activist who said Thursday he was detained for trying to commemorate the 15-year anniversary of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. Hu Jia said he was taken from his home on June 3 by police officers and was confined in a dank cellar until he was released Sund
SAVANNAH, Ga. - The Bush administration won backing from major allies for a proposal to accelerate development of an HIV vaccine, and President Bush proposed spending $15 million to launch it. The $15 million would gather scientists at a yet-to-be-determined medical center in the U.S. to advance vaccine research, said
LONDON (AP) - Mistakes made by industrialized nations in dealing with the AIDS epidemic could be repeated in developing countries unless HIV prevention efforts are expanded along with treatment, experts warned Thursday. In a report published ahead of the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok next month, scientists c
WASHINGTON (AP) - South African President Thabo Mbeki said Wednesday night American assistance to Africa is too focused on individual countries and should be directed in large measure toward the continent as a whole. Mbeki, making a stopover in Washington before heading to the G-8 summit at Sea Island, Ga., cited U.S.
SAVANNAH, Georgia (AP) - The Group of Eight leading industrial nations endorsed a proposal to try to accelerate development of a vaccine for the virus that causes AIDS. The agreement at this year s summit of the G8, which groups together Italy , France ,
For the next several months, a collaborative effort organized by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation will spread that message throughout the metro area to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS. Earlier this year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranked the Baton Rouge metro area in a tie with Miami as second
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - As one of the first physicians to confront AIDS when it began its rampage through the gay community, Dr. Marcus Conant lobbied the Reagan administration in 1982 to launch an emergency campaign to educate Americans about the disease. It took the president five more years to publicly mention the cris
SEA ISLAND, Georgia (AP) - As U.S. President George W. Bush plays host Tuesday to world leaders critical of his Iraq policies, White House officials are hoping the Group of Eight summit proves a turning point where he and his adversaries on the war permanently set aside their differences.
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - Jeffrey is a bisexual white man; Jerry is black; John is a former methamphetamine addict; and Chris is a young gay man living in Douglas County. All are HIV-positive Oregonians who will be sharing their stories as part of a statewide marketing effort aimed at stopping the disease s spread. The Web-b
ALBANY -- The number of newborns infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has reached a record low in New York, eight years after the state required that mothers be notified if their babies test positive. Analyzing data from infants born between 1997 and 2002, the state Health Department reported a 78 percent dro
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - One image shows a boy who lives in a Buddhist pagoda taking a nap on the side of a road. Others show orphaned children eking out a living by fishing, picking tobacco and collecting vegetables. These are a few scenes of Cambodian life that 18 young orphaned shutterbugs captured during a 10-we
SEA ISLAND, Georgia (AP) - U.S. President George W. Bush, bolstered by the prospect of allied support for a new U.N. resolution on Iraq , hopes to use the annual summit of powerful countries to heal the rift with Europe over U.S. policies in the Middle East.
BERN (AP) - Thousands of Roman Catholic youngsters from across Switzerland gathered in the country s capital Saturday to welcome Pope John Paul II, while several hundred youths staged a protest. John Paul, who arrived in the Alpine country around noon for a 1 1/2-day stopover in Bern, received rapturous applause as he
(AP) - Women s rights advocates and family-policy experts outlined strategies Friday for a global effort to combat child marriage, an age-old practice in many nations with often heartbreaking consequences. More than 100 million girls under 18 are expected to be married worldwide over the next decade, many of them pret
MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) - African business and political leaders wrapped up their annual economic summit Friday with an appeal to the developed world to take note of the progress taking place in the world s poorest continent and to invest. Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano, who delivered the closing remarks at the
MASERU, Lesotho (AP) - Under the harsh glare of fluorescent lights, hundreds of women bend over sewing machines and ironing boards amid piles of brightly colored cloth. Almost 25,000 T-shirts roll off the Shining Century production line each day, destined for store shelves at the Gap and Old Navy outlets in America.
MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) - Nearly two-thirds of companies in Africa surveyed by the World Economic Forum expect HIV/AIDS to have a significant adverse effect on their business, according to a study released Thursday. But few are taking action. Researchers interviewed 1,620 companies in 22 countries for the study publish
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Three years after leaving office, Bill Clinton is starting to show AIDS activists the leadership they wanted to see during his presidency. They say he is using his celebrity clout and fund-raising prowess to fight AIDS around the globe as never before. He has negotiated deals with several major
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - Rock star Bono lectured European Union governments Tuesday to spend more on forgiving debts and combating the spread of AIDS in Africa, causes that the U2 frontman has championed for the past decade. Bono, the lunchtime speaker to a conference of EU development ministers at Dublin Castle, said mo
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. President George W. Bush is renewing his push in favor of so-called faith-based initiatives, promoting the goal of letting religious groups compete for government money to help the needy. Launched in the earliest days of his administration and stalled in Congress, Bush s plans for religious-based
ROME (AP) - Some 35 countries - 24 of them in Africa - are currently facing serious food shortages because of wars, poor weather and disease, a U.N. agency said Monday. The report released by the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said that in southern Africa food assistance has been rushed to people lef
WASHINGTON (AP) - For the past year, as anti-Western sentiments boiled throughout the Arab world, the wives of 18 Arab ambassadors quietly planned a festival that harked back to a time of warm cooperation between the two cultures. Through their charitable group, the Mosaic Foundation, the women staged the Al-Andalus Fe
TORONTO (AP) - Patti LaBelle and supermodel Linda Evangelista brought their star power to one of the glitziest parties of the year as thousands gathered for the 2004 Fashion Cares event. LaBelle was the featured performer at the 18th annual HIV/AIDS benefit held Saturday night. Evangelista hosted the runway show. I
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -- What do you do when you sue U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and win? Fifty-one-year-old Valerie Corral, a 5-foot tall great-granddaughter of Italian immigrants, throws back her head laughing, her hands reaching to the clouds, hips wiggling, feet stomping. It s my happy dance! she says, throwing her
BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese political activist who participated in the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing s Tiananmen Square was released Sunday after serving nine years in prison, his mother said. Li Hai, 50, was sentenced in 1996 for divulging state secrets after he compiled lists of people imprisoned in the w
COPENHAGEN (AP) - Economic experts at a conference organized by maverick environmentalist Bjoern Lomborg ranked fighting AIDS and malnutrition, along with making foreign trade easier, the top solutions for easing global woes, they said Saturday. The list ranked three different solutions to solve global climate problems
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Ricky Martin has launched a campaign against sexual exploitation and the trafficking of children in the world. The 32-year-old singer presented a series of TV ads Thursday in which he speaks on the subject in Spanish, English and Portuguese. They are to be aired soon in the
BEIJING (AP) - Chinese political activists say they have been detained at home in an apparent government effort to head off public memorials for the 15th anniversary of the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. The effort to block dissent about the June 4, 1989, event, even 15 years later, high
PARIS (AP) - Their countries are among the richest, most powerful on Earth. But politically, European leaders heading to the United States for a summit with President Bush are walking wounded. Taking part in the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has hurt the British and Italian prime mi
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Aetna Inc. has sued pharmaceutical maker Abbott Laboratories Inc., accusing it of seeking a monopoly on AIDS drugs by raising the price of its popular drug Norvir by 400 percent. In the suit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, the Hartford-ba
KANO, Nigeria (AP) - A heavily Muslim northern state in Nigeria abandoned its eight-month moratorium on polio vaccinations, declaring that samples of newly imported vaccines were found safe, a state spokesman said Thursday. Kano government spokesman Sule Ya u Sule said the state will import directly vaccines from
MAMAIA, Romania (AP) - Leaders from 16 central and eastern European nations Thursday called for greater solidarity between European nations during a summit on the effects of the eastward expansion of the European Union. The heads of state hailed the recent expansion of the E.U., said Corina Cretu, spokeswoman for Roman
SHANGHAI (AP) - China must do much more to prevent AIDS from spreading in its huge cities and booming provinces, despite Beijing s newfound determination to fight the disease, the head of the United Nations AIDS program said Thursday. After years of denying AIDS was a problem and harassing activists pushing for better
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Scientists and social activists must join forces to successfully battle the worldwide AIDS epidemic, organizers of the upcoming 15th International AIDS Conference said Wednesday. To promote such cooperation, this year s meeting will be the first to have a program integrating all parties in the
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - A coalition of faith-based investor groups said Wednesday it will continue expanding its advocacy efforts to fight HIV/AIDS beyond pressuring companies that make medications for the disease to include firms employing people in the hardest-hit countries. The strategy comes even though shareholder pr
Organization labeled as front for drug companies. SACRAMENTO - The fight over bills allowing California to import prescription drugs from Canada gained another combatant Tuesday, as a drug industry-backed organization of patient advocates urged lawmakers to kill the proposed legislation. The members of Cures said l
BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese AIDS activist said Wednesday that authorities have placed him under house arrest to prevent him from traveling to an AIDS-infected village at the same time an American delegation would be visiting. Hu Jia said police began a round-the-clock watch on his Beijing home last weekend. At least six o
MOLEPOLOLE, Botswana (AP) - An influential Botswana paramount chief and 30 of his tribal leaders agreed to take an HIV test to encourage men in this AIDS-ravaged country to know their status, the chief said Tuesday. Bakwena Paramount Chief Kgosi Kgari Sechele III and about 30 headmen took the test Saturday after being
WASHINGTON (AP) - Patients advocates urged the government Tuesday to intervene to reduce the cost of a popular AIDS drug. Industry officials defended their pricing, and the author of a law being invoked to lower the price said it was never intended to be used to affect drug costs. After Abbott Laboratories
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Faced with recent declines in participation and missed fund-raising goals, organizers of the Pittsburgh AIDS Walk said this will be the last year for the walk. The Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force blames competition from other charity walks, a tight economy and a decreasing level of attention being paid to
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) - What do you do when you sue U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and win? Fifty-one-year-old Valerie Corral, a sinewy 5-foot tall great-granddaughter of Italian immigrants, throws back her head laughing, her hands reaching to the clouds, hips wiggling, feet stomping. It s my happy dance! she sa
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Thailand s prime minister said Monday that a key focus of the International AIDS conference in July will be the production of affordable anti-retroviral drugs. Thailand, which produces the drug cocktail, has been able to bring down the cost of monthly treatment to about 1,200 baht (US$1 = 40 ba
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The executive director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation plans to step down after 15 years on the job, a tenure during which she helped build the organization into one of the country s most important AIDS charities. Pat Christen said Friday that she wants to spend more time with her family.
SRINAGAR, India - India s army chief warned Friday of an incursion into Kashmir by Pakistan-based militants and said Pakistan has failed to dismantle terrorist training camps in the disputed region. Gen. N. C. Vij also also charged that Pakistan still backs the insurgency against the Indian-controlled portion of the di
CAPE TOWN (AP) - President Thabo Mbeki Friday mapped out an ambitious program to tackle poverty and promote growth as South Africa enters its second decade of all-race democracy. Let us get down to work in a people s contract to build a better South Africa and a better world, Mbeki told Parliament as he outlined gover
BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) - Undeterred by delays and allegations of ballot rigging, voters in Malawi -- one of the world s poorest nations -- flocked to the polls Thursday for their third multiparty elections in a decade. President Bakili Muluzi, Malawi s first democratically elected leader, is stepping down after failing
BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) - Voters waited in long lines to cast ballots Thursday in Malawi s third-ever multiparty elections, a poll marred by logistical problems and allegations of vote rigging before it even began. President Bakili Muluzi, who led the country from dictatorship to democracy, is bowing out after a decade o
WASHINGTON (AP) -- People who donate sperm, eggs and other commonly transplanted tissues will have to be screened for infectious diseases like blood donors are, under long-awaited federal rules announced Thursday. Donated blood and organs have been strictly regulated for a long time. But less subject to oversight are o
BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) - Voting delays and allegations of ballot rigging are casting a shadow over Malawi s third-ever multiparty elections Thursday, as President Bakili Muluzi bows out of office after a decade marred by deepening poverty and hunger. While the governing United Democratic Front seems certain to retain it
TRIPOLI (AP) - Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi on Wednesday heard a detailed legal review of the trial in which five Bulgarian nurses were condemned to death for infecting more than 400 children with the HIV virus. Pasi was in Libya to seek a review of the trial. The issue is no more considered a Libyan-Bulgari
SHANGHAI (AP) - Shanghai, China s biggest city, will provide free or discounted AIDS treatment to its poor, state media reported Wednesday, citing alarm over the rapid spread of the disease among young adults in the city. The city will cut or abolish charges for AIDS treatment for farmers and other needy patients, the
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Patients with HIV or AIDS get widely varying government aid for prescription drugs depending on where they live, according to a study released Wednesday. In North Carolina, people who earn more than $11,000 a year do not qualify for the state s AIDS drug assistance program, said the annual report, re
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Vivid Entertainment Group, the nation s top adult movie maker, has resumed new movie production nearly a month after a performer s positive test for the AIDS virus prompted a self-imposed moratorium that shut down much of the multibillion-dollar U.S. porn video industry. At least five performers tes
SACRAMENTO(AP) -- State senators voted Tuesday to ban random drug testing of California students, agreeing that schools should have reasonable suspicion before checking for drug or alcohol use. How many of you folks in this room would submit to random drug testing if that s what this bill did? asked one of the legislat
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Flushed from his game of hide-and-seek, 4-year-old Vasile munches a brownie as his mother recalls the day he entered her life. It was February 2001, and Emily Wilcox and her husband Andy had traveled to Romania to adopt a child. He just stood up in his crib and jumped into Andy s arms, Emily
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Vivid Entertainment Group, the nation s top adult movie maker, has resumed new movie production nearly a month after a performer s positive test for the AIDS virus prompted a self-imposed moratorium that shut down much of the multibillion-dollar U.S. porn video industry. At least five performers test
GENEVA (AP) - U.N. health bodies Tuesday welcomed new U.S. government guidelines on drug approvals which they say will make it easier for AIDS sufferers in developing countries to receive lower-cost treatments. The U.N.-administered Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said the fast-track Food and Drug A
ATLANTA (AP) - SARS. West Nile. HIV. Bird flu. Once-obscure and unknown diseases have caused some of the most worrisome outbreaks in recent years, and health officials can only guess what disease will strike next. Despite having the best medical and science know-how in history, today s health experts are struggling to
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush on Wednesday named his acting AIDS adviser, Carol J. Thompson, as head of the Office of National AIDS Policy. Bush s first two AIDS advisers, Scott Evertz and Joseph O Neill, were both male doctors who were openly gay. Thompson, a woman, is not a physician and is heterosexual. The appoi
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - African leaders approved an emergency strategy Monday to immunize 74 million children for polio in 21 nations, U.N. officials said. The approval came amid signs that a heavily Muslim state in Nigeria is ready to abandon it boycott of the vaccine, which allowed the disease to mushroom. Kano, in
BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) - An opposition coalition on Monday accused the ruling party and electoral commission of colluding to rig Malawi s third democratic elections, saying thousands of names are missing from voter rolls. We don t believe there can be a free and fair election, said Aleke Banda, deputy leader of the Mgwi
GENEVA (AP) - The Bush administration announced a new initiative to speed up the approval process for new combination AIDS drugs that will bring cheap, easy-to-use treatment to millions of people in Africa and the Caribbean. The announcement Sunday came as three major U.S. pharmaceutical companies said they ll work to
GENEVA (AP) - Public health officials were confident Monday that the spread of polio could be stopped worldwide by the end of this year, but acknowledged there is still much work to do in Nigeria and neighboring Niger. It could go either way right now. There could never be another child infected (after) December, or we
SINGAPORE (AP) - Singapore last year recorded the highest number of new HIV/AIDS infections since the disease first appeared here in 1985, the Health Ministry said Monday. A total of 242 people were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 2003, exceeding the 2001 high of 237 new infections, according to the latest ministry statisti
GENEVA (AP) - The U.S. government Sunday promised to provide lifesaving combination drugs at lower prices to millions of people suffering from AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. We are clearing the way to quickly deliver quality, lifesaving HIV/AIDS drugs to people who desperately need them in developing countries, U.S
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration on Sunday will promise rapid approval of AIDS drug combinations that could be used for lower-cost treatment in Africa, despite criticism that requiring stricter standards could delay care to the world s poor. The new system, being disclosed at a World Health Organization
BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) - Malawi s presidential and parliamentary elections, originally set for next Tuesday, will be held two days later following a High Court ruling to delay them, the electoral commission announced Saturday. Malawi Electoral Commission chief executive Rooseveld Gondwe said the agency had decided to co
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation nearly doubled its contributions and assets for a second straight year, according to tax filings Friday. The nonprofit foundation, which is building the $165 million Clinton Presidential Center in downtown Little Rock, collected $44.5 million in pu
OTTAWA (AP) - Rocker Bono visited Prime Minister Paul Martin to applaud Canada s increased funding to battle AIDS. Last week, Canada announced $73 million to fight AIDS, and on Wednesday doubled its contribution to the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS to $51.1 million. The money will be used for technical assistance and c
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government should pick up more of the costly medical tab for low-income Americans with HIV and create a new federal benefits program to do it, a scientific panel recommended Thursday. Such expanded coverage could cost $5.6 billion over 10 years, says the report by the Institute of Medicine, which
SINGAPORE (AP) - Hundreds of Singaporeans infected with HIV/AIDS regularly travel to Thailand to buy generic versions of anti-retroviral drugs because they cost about 20 times less than the patented foreign-made medicines available here, activists said Thursday. A month s supply of anti-retroviral drugs sold in the cit
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday named his acting AIDS adviser, Carol J. Thompson, as permanent head of the Office of National AIDS Policy. Bush s first two AIDS advisers, Scott Evertz and Joseph O Neill, were both doctors. Thompson isn t an M.D. She has held the post on an interim basis sin
LOS ANGELES - Nineteen adult movie performers have been cleared to return to work following an HIV outbreak that shook the multibillion dollar porn industry. About 50 performers were put on a voluntary quarantine list that prevented from doing sex scenes after the outbreak was discovered. The 19 were cleared to return
GENEVA - Small clinics should be opened across developing countries to treat HIV-infected people, boosting the onslaught against AIDS and helping improve general health, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. We are living in a time of unprecedented opportunities for health, said WHO Director-General Lee Jong-woo
WASHINGTON - Hunger and AIDS have trapped millions of Africans in a spiral of sickness and death, experts told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday. AIDS and hunger interact, said James Morris, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program. AIDS dramatically undermines food production. Malnouris
HONG KONG -- Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan spent a week digging up land mines during a recent trip to Cambodia to raise awareness about the issue there. Chan, a newly appointed U.N. goodwill ambassador, spent three days in Cambodia in late April, visiting land mine explosion victims
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday he plans to contact the Libyan government at a high level about the death sentences for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with AIDS . I am going to talk to them about the situation of the
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - Libyan authorities have launched legal action against a Bulgarian doctor for alleged malpractice - only days after a court in Benghazi sentenced to death five Bulgarian nurses in a high-profile AIDS trial, the Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday. Dr. Anton Botev, the physician working for a hospit
BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) - The government announced Tuesday it would begin a five-year program this month to provide free anti-retroviral drugs to people infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Health Minister Yusuf Mwawa told a news conference that the $196 million program funded by the Global HIV/AIDS fund would at l
SACRAMENTO (AP) - Counties and cities that run needle exchange programs would no longer have to review the programs every two weeks, under a bill approved Monday by the state Assembly. The bill, by Assemblywoman Patti Berg, D-Sebastopol, removes the requirement that counties or cities declare an emergency before starti
CAPE TOWN (AP) - Former South Africa president Nelson Mandela, speaking Monday to special session of Parliament, criticized the U.S. and the U.K. for the invasion of Iraq and abuse of Iraqi prisoners. We watch as two of the leading democracies, two leading nations of the free world, get
ST. LOUIS - Researchers at Saint Louis University are testing a smallpox vaccine that could be useful for people who are HIV-positive, undergoing chemotherapy or otherwise unable to use the existing vaccine, officials said Monday. There are limits to the current vaccine, said Dr. Sharon Frey of the university s Center
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) - Nearly 1,000 Libyans marched and burned a U.S. flag Sunday to protest U.S. criticism of death sentences for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the AIDS virus. Many of the protesters in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the trial
BEIJING (AP) - China s cabinet on Sunday called for more urgency in fighting the spread of AIDS , saying information on preventing the disease should be taught in middle schools and posted at bars and local officials caught hiding case reports would be punished. The cabinet, which is called the State Council, said in a
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional Democrats said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention undercounts HIV cases nationwide by refusing to accept data from California and other states that don t record patients names. Fifteen lawmakers including California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and Massachusetts
WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is undercounting HIV cases nationwide by refusing to accept data from California and other states that don t record patients names, Democrats complained Friday. Fifteen lawmakers, including California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Massachusetts Sen. E
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Bill Clinton s nonprofit foundation signed an agreement Friday with the United Nations to help deliver food to AIDS patients in poor countries wracked by the pandemic. The Boston-based Clinton HIV -AIDS Initiative already sends doctors, medicine and equipment to 18 developing nations in Africa, Asi
ST. PETERS, Mo. - An HIV-positive man was arrested on a felony charge of having unprotected sex with his girlfriend because authorities said he knew he was infected. The woman, who was not identified, is awaiting test results to find out whether she has the virus, which causes AIDS. Authorities said Aaron Sindelar, 28,
GABORONE, Botswana (AP) - African, Caribbean and Pacific countries ended two days of talks Friday with the European Union reassured that recent enlargement of the EU wouldn t reduce aid to poor countries. The most important thing to come from this meeting was to ally the fears of the ACP countries about an enlarged Eur
SHIBERGHAN, Afghanistan (AP) - Shackled and under guard, 434 alleged Taliban and al-Qaida fighters shuffled out of Afghanistan s most notorious prison Thursday, winning transfer to a Kabul jail after a weeklong hunger strike to protest being held without charges for nearly 2 1/2 years. The U.S.-backed government pr
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) - Libya sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad after convicting them Thursday of intentionally infecting more than 400 children with the AIDS virus in an experiment to find a cure. Relatives of the children shouted for joy as the sentences were handed down
BENGHAZI, Libya - A Libyan court condemned Thursday six Bulgarian medics to death by firing squad for infecting hundreds of patients with the human immune-deficiency virus that causes AIDS. The court is sentencing the defendants No. 1-6 to death by firing squad, said the head of the five-judge panel that heard the case
DUBLIN (AP) - The European Union expressed shock Thursday at the Libyan death sentences for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of infecting patients with the AIDS virus, and called for the verdict to be reversed. Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen said he conveyed the E.U. s profound concern at a
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) - A Libyan court on Thursday condemned five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad for infecting patients with the AIDS virus. A sixth Bulgarian accused, a doctor, received four years in prison for changing foreign currency on the black market. He stood trial for infecti
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - Lawmakers approved a measure Wednesday that would make Illinois the first state to let people with HIV donate organs to others with the virus. The bill now heads to the governor. The Senate voted 55-2 to approve the measure Wednesday, while the House voted 95-22 in March to approve it. Organs i
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A fifth adult movie performer has tested positive for the AIDS virus in an outbreak that has halted most porn production in the multibillion-dollar industry, a nonprofit medical group announced Wednesday. The porn actress had unprotected sex with HIV-positive actor Darren James, officials with the Ad
LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair said late Tuesday he hopes to forge a new global consensus on how to tackle Africa s woes, after leading the first meeting of an international commission examining the continent s problems. Blair said the Commission for Africa could be a powerful agitator for change in a continen
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A fourth pornography actor has tested positive for the AIDS virus in an outbreak that has prompted Southern California s adult-movie industry to halt production, according to an organization that tests the performers for HIV. The actor, a transsexual named Jennifer, was diagnosed Tuesday in a case th
GENEVA (AP) - Donor governments have failed to come forward with any money to help more than 600,000 women and children in Namibia survive the combined effects of erratic weather, severe poverty and a worsening AIDS epidemic, U.N. aid agencies said Tuesday. We ve received nothing. Not one cent, said Christiane Berthia
HARTFORD, Conn. -- The state s highest court ruled Monday that the virus that causes AIDS is a job hazard for certain prison guards, clearing the way for them to receive workers compensation for the deadly disease. The 5-2 ruling extends the protection to members of prison emergency response teams and lays the foundati
A county health official Monday disputed claims by an AIDS organization that the county is dragging its feet drafting an ordinance that would require bathhouses to provide testing for sexually transmitted diseases. The county Board of Supervisors on Feb. 3 gave the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services 90 da
After a month in which three adult film actors were diagnosed with HIV, Assemblyman Tim Leslie said Monday he will file a bill aimed at curbing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in the industry. The diagnoses has shaken the Southern California-based pornographic film industry, whose representatives called the
NEW YORK (AP) - A growing list of potential protesters - including abortion-rights supporters, anti-war activists and even off-duty police officers - wants permission to hold demonstrations during the Republican National Convention, police officials said Friday. About 17 organizations have contacted the New York Police
Labs to sniff out bioterror are expanding New laboratories able to study and identify biological weapons are being established around the country. Some people are fighting the project. SAN FRANCISCO - From Boston to Livermore, Calif., hot labs designed to combat bioterrorism and house the world s deadliest germs are be
LOS ANGELES - An adult-movie actress known as Jessica Dee was identified as the third performer to test positive for HIV in an outbreak that has mostly shut down the porn industry. Dee had sex with five men who were later placed on a voluntary quarantine list, after the first HIV case was announced April 12, said Sharo
MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) - The U.S. global AIDS coordinator has promised more help to Mozambique in its work to combat the pandemic. Randall L. Tobias, head of U.S. efforts to tackle the global AIDS pandemic, said Mozambique already had received $16 million this year to help fight AIDS and would receive another $27 mill
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A group of actors from San Fernando Valley s porn industry has agreed to try to form a union that would lobby for better health care, pay and work schedules. About 35 performers met in private Tuesday and voted unanimously to draw up a list of demands and a bill of rights for actors in the industry.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The Chinese government hired former U.S. president Bill Clinton s private foundation Thursday to deliver treatment and care for HIV-AIDS patients in China , the foundation announced. The William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation s HIV-AIDS Initiative will also help China develop better systems
SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) - Thrusting a celebrity s punch into a long-running battle, social butterfly-turned-social activist Bianca Jagger urged ChevronTexaco Corp. Wednesday to clean up an environmental quagmire in the Ecuador jungles where the oil giant once thrived. Jagger -- a former model who became an habitu De
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The head of U.S. efforts to tackle the global AIDS pandemic on Wednesday defended his government s refusal to fund the use of certain low-cost generic drugs in poor countries, saying the quality of the medicines hasn t been proved. Patients here in Africa deserve to have assurances about th
SINGAPORE (AP) - At least 100,000 health workers are needed to distribute anti-AIDS drugs in Africa, where 70% of the world s HIV/AIDS sufferers live, the head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday. It s difficult to grasp the magnitude of the problem, Dr. Lee Jong-Wook said during a visit to
SAO PAULO, Brazil — Flush with dollars, American erotic film directors swoop into Brazil for its exotic and uninhibited women, dazzling tropical backdrops and cheap production costs, a phenomenon that has turned South America s largest country into a prime destination for adult film outsourcing. But the announcemen
NORTH BRANCH, N.J. -- Merck & Co. Inc. executives told shareholders Tuesday that they expect a key drug approval soon and remain committed to improving their drug pipeline after having to halt development of two products in late-stage human testing last year. The pharmaceutical giant anticipates receiving regulator
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Sharon Stone has been recognized by the National Center for Lesbian Rights for her support of gay and lesbian civil rights. The actress who has helped raise millions of dollars for AIDS research and has portrayed lesbian characters in movies including Basic Instinct, received the NCLR Spirit Award
NEW YORK (AP) - When the new AIDS drug Fuzeon was launched last year, it was touted as a major breakthrough, with expectations so high it was feared the drug would be in short supply as patients clamored for it. Instead, Fuzeon sales are below estimates and analysts are slashing revenue projections. Fuzeon s $20,000-a-
WASHINGTON (AP) - World finance ministers pledged strengthened efforts to help reduce poverty in such areas as education, debt relief and AIDS, but critics complained about the lack of money to accomplish these objectives at the spring meetings of the 184-nation International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The three day
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Jackie Chan, who s best known for his daredevil stunts, was named a goodwill ambassador Monday for the United Nations Children s Fund and U.N. AIDS agencies. The Hong Kong action film star will help fight the spread of HIV/AIDS and discrimination against peop
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Despite grim facts about the spread of AIDS last year, a leader of a global AIDS program said there is hope, pointing out that most nations list the virus on political agendas, bringing resources that could turn the tide of the deadly pandemic. Dr. Peter Piot, the Belgian physician who heads
Flush with dollars, American porn film directors swoop into Brazil for its exotic and uninhibited women, dazzling tropical backdrops and cheap production costs -- a phenomenon that has turned South America s largest country into a prime destination for adult film outsourcing. But the infection of an American porn star
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - With $20 million in new U.S. federal grants, doctors at the University of Alabama at Birmingham plan to improve Zambia s public health system to help HIV and AIDS patients. The goal is to put at least 1,000 Zambians on antiretroviral therapy within two months and 10,000 within five years, said t
Sen. Harry Reid and five other senators have proposed legislation to increase federal spending on women s health, family planning and contraception programs. The bill, which was introduced last week, would also require health insurance companies to expand coverage for birth control and direct hospitals to provide emerg
Sharon Mitchell has two very different accomplishments -- a doctorate in human sexuality and a place in Hustler magazine s Hall of Fame. As a porn star in the 1970s, she lived a Boogie Nights -style life of fame and excess. During her 25-year career, she made more than 1,000 movies with titles like Jail Bait and Capta
CAPE TOWN (AP)--President Thabo Mbeki was elected unopposed for a second term Friday, pledging to fight poverty and improve opportunities for all South Africans after his party scored its biggest victory yet in a decade of multiracial democracy. Despite the fact of our hard-won freedom and democracy, very many of our
Paramedics in Norfolk and Richmond could begin giving an experimental blood substitute to badly injured people by July, medical officials said. The cities are two of about 20 localities nationally participating in a research project that has raised concerns about the patient consent process. The blood substitute, PolyH
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An HIV outbreak in the adult movie industry is contained, a health group said Thursday in arguing against a call for government regulation of the multibillion-dollar industry. Since announcing last week that two performers tested positive for HIV, the Adult Movie Industry Healthcare Foundation has i
IGANGA, Uganda (AP) - Natalie Portman toured charity projects in Uganda and appealed to international donors to do more to help African women deal with poverty and the AIDS pandemic. The 22-year-old Star Wars actress met Wednesday with women who have started small businesses with loans from the Washington-based Foundat
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Cirque du Soleil agreed Thursday to pay $600,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by an HIV-positive gymnast who was fired by the Canadian circus last year because it believed he posed a health risk to other performers. Matthew Cusick, 32, voluntarily disclosed his health status and spent four months trai
LOS ANGELES (AP) - For the past few years, the adult film industry has operated on a closed set of sorts, with many actors preferring to work within a few San Fernando Valley communities using a testing system that made them feel relatively safe from AIDS. The recent news that actor Darren James contracted HIV while fi
BERLIN (AP) - The head of U.S. efforts to tackle the global AIDS pandemic pushed the administration s policy emphasizing abstinence over condoms Thursday as he launched an eight-day trip to Africa, a continent ravaged by the disease. The message is not to say to young people in the schools: Either be abstinent or here
SAN FRANCISCO, April 21 (AP) A judge ordered the federal government on Wednesday not to raid or prosecute a California group that grows and distributes marijuana for its sick members. The decision, by Judge Jeremy Fogel of Federal District Court in San Jose, was the first interpretation of an appeals court s ruling in
NEW YORK -- Nearly two decades after they first erupted on stage, the fires in Larry Kramer s The Normal Heart still burn fiercely. Kramer s monumental call to arms over the AIDS crisis has returned home to the Public Theater where it opened in April 1985, starring Brad Davis (who was to die of the disease six years la
TORONTO - Rocker Bono praised Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin for showing real political guts in the global war on AIDS Bono, frontman for Irish band U2 and an AIDS-awareness crusader, commented Tuesday on changes to proposed legislation that would speed cut-rate drugs to developing countries. This kind of thing ke
UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Tuesday for a broad new U.N. mission in Haiti that would include 6,700 troops and more than 1,600 international police as well as experts to help turn the Caribbean nation into a functioning democracy. The U.N. military contingent would replace the 3,600-strong U.S.-
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Action movie star Jackie Chan will be in Cambodia next week to promote the work of the U.N. children s and AIDS agencies, the United Nations said Wednesday. The Hong Kong star, known for his daredevil stunts, will visit the capital, Phnom Penh, and Siem Reap,
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Health officials have asked the state to investigate two cases of HIV infection in the pornographic film industry and to consider applying workplace safety laws to adult movie sets. The discovery last week that two performers, one male and one female, are HIV-positive also could prompt the industry o
BALTIMORE (AP) - The president of a hospital that gave patients hundreds of suspect HIV and hepatitis C tests has resigned, along with two doctors who managed the hospital s laboratory, officials announced Tuesday. Timothy D. Miller stepped down from the helm of Maryland General Hospital, where more than 400 patients m
ATLANTA (AP) - Few of the 59 HIV-positive Georgia teenagers in a study were aware of the risk of being sexually active and some were not treated for months after their diagnosis, federal officials said Tuesday. Only a fifth of the teens - ages 13 to 19 - were diagnosed within six months of being infected, the Centers f
WASHINGTON (AP) - Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson told minority health care providers Monday that the Bush administration is committed to eliminating disparities in care even though a federal report understated the problem last year. Thompson insisted the administration is dealing with unequal care f
NEW YORK (AP) - U.S. President George W. Bush s efforts to ban gay marriage have incited gay rights activists to begin quietly planning protests and other attention-grabbing events to stage in New York City during the Republican convention this summer. Protesters opposed to the
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Adult movie actors said they would keep working in the multibillion-dollar industry despite an HIV scare, as more producers joined a voluntary moratorium that has shut down many sets. About a dozen porn production companies halted shooting until at least June 8 after two performers tested positive fo
MADISON, Wis. - Gov. Jim Doyle signed first-of-its-kind legislation Friday that requires students to get tested for HIV if teachers think they were exposed to contaminated blood. Privacy advocates say the law infringes on students medical privacy and could lead to discrimination against gays. Simon Davies, director of
LOS ANGELES (AP) - An AIDS scare prompted adult movie companies to halt production and bar dozens of performers from the set after two actors tested HIV-positive. At least 45 actors and actresses were under a voluntary work quarantine and about a dozen companies were adhering to a voluntary two-month moratorium until n
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - A year after launching the first drug in a new class of AIDS medications, Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. says it has overcome shortages of its hard-to-manufacture Fuzeon and is making it widely available. Fuzeon, which costs more than $20,000 a year, will be available starting April 26 at retail and specia
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - U.S. and Vietnamese military officials on Thursday concluded their first-ever joint conference aimed at HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, the latest step by the former enemies to expand cooperation. The conference drew about 130 participants, including senior U.S. and Vietnamese military official
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - An Iowa County jury deliberated for less than an hour before finding a man guilty of criminally transmitting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Tuesday s verdict marks the fourth time this year that Adam Musser, 23, of Iowa City, has been found guilty of the charge. In this case, moved to Marengo o
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) - A Libyan court Thursday postponed a verdict in the high-profile trial of six Bulgarian medics accused of willfully infecting more than 400 children with HIV , the virus that causes AIDS. Presiding Judge Fadlallah Sherif said the verdict was delayed until May 6 because one of the five judges on th
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Despite lingering poverty and an AIDS crisis, gratitude to the party that toppled apartheid a decade ago appeared to guarantee the African National Congress another victory as results trickled in Thursday in South Africa s third all-race national elections. The ANC was leading with
(AP) - Wisconsin s governor urged the government Wednesday to make it legal for Americans to fill their drug prescriptions in Canada . Victims of counterfeit drugs warned of dire consequences if that were to happen. They were among dozens of people who testified at the third meeting of a federal task force that is cons
BEIJING (AP) - China on Wednesday began offering free AIDS tests to anyone who wants one and free treatment for infected people who can t afford it, amid growing official urgency about stopping the spread of the virus. China says 840,000 of its people are HIV-positive and 80,000 have full-blown AIDS . But the U.N. AIDS
Updates a story published at 0513 GMT with more details.) JOHANNESBURG (AP) - South Africans of all races voted Wednesday for a new government for the third time in a decade with the party credited with ending apartheid assured of another sweeping victory. Braving an early morning chill, voters lined up from as early a
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - President Thabo Mbeki s African National Congress party is poised to retain - or even increase - its sweeping parliamentary majority in Wednesday s national election. While the outcome is certain, political leaders worry that interest in the democratic process is waning a decade after South Af
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) -- A $6.4 million grant to continue the state s AIDS Drug Assistance Program has been received by the Nevada Health Division. The grant will allow the state to provide drug treatment to people infected with HIV/AIDS who meet eligibility criteria. The program also provides eligible people with med
NEW DELHI - The world is likely to be free of polio next year, making it the second known disease after smallpox to be wiped out by mankind, but is losing the war against AIDS, the U.S. health secretary said Thursday. We re on the precipice of accomplishing it, the secretary, Tommy Thompson, said of the impending victo
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of children worldwide who have lost one or more parents to AIDS is expected to reach 25 million by the end of the decade, activist groups said. Sens. Mike DeWine and Hillary Rodham Clinton released the report Wednesday along with the two groups to raise awareness of the millions of childre
PHILADELPHIA - After an extended standoff between city and state health officials over a rule requiring the names of Pennsylvanians with HIV to be recorded in a state database, Philadelphia has received permission to use a coded system that maintains patient anonymity. The rest of Pennsylvania has been using a name-bas
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- Most people believe they do what s necessary to protect themselves, but nearly half don t use protection when engaging in sex, according to a new study. What surprised us and distressed us is the fact that so many young adults believe that they are not at risk of a sexually transmitted d
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A survey of more than 1,000 gays, lesbians and bisexuals found a population that is generally healthy practicing unhealthy habits such as smoking, unprotected sex and missed medical tests. The survey was conducted the Kansas City Health Department and the Lesbian and Gay Community Center of Grea
GENEVA (AP) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton s foundation said Tuesday that special drug prices it has obtained for some HIV/AIDS sufferers are being extended to all poor countries covered by U.N. and other partner organizations. With these agreements, we are one step closer to making sure future generations can li
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - A city councilor whose vote helped defeat a city needle exchange program six years ago now says he backs the proposal and will reintroduce it to the council. City Councilor Bud L. Williams had initially supported a needle exchange in 1998. But after a referendum showed voter opposition to the
HPV: Debate to add information about genital warts pits advocates of abstinence against supporters of teaching safe sex. It s just a little bit of wording on a condom packet - so small that Justin Kleinman hadn t noticed it until he squinted to read it recently. This is completely pointless, the 24-year-old Chicagoan s
LONDON -- A study found that uncircumcised men were nearly seven times more likely to get the AIDS virus, giving further support to findings that circumcision offers some protection. The study by Robert Bollinger and colleagues from Johns Hopkins University Medical School and the National AIDS Research Institute in Pun
BALTIMORE (AP) - Maryland General Hospital said it will notify more than 2,100 patients whose HIV or hepatitis C test results could be incorrect, and urge them to be retested. About 460 people were identified as receiving questionable test results during a 14-month period ending last August. The hospital has retested m
BALTIMORE (AP) - State health officials have ordered a hospital to take immediate action to fix a laboratory rife with equipment failures and other serious deficiencies or face fines of up to $10,000 a day. Maryland General Hospital already had said it will notify more than 2,100 patients whose HIV or hepatitis C test
CHICAGO - It s just a little bit of wording on a condom packet -- so small that Justin Kleinman hadn t noticed it until he squinted to read it recently. This is completely pointless, the 24-year-old Chicagoan said of the warning telling him that, while condoms can help prevent the spread of some sexually transmitted di
LOS ANGELES - CBS military drama JAG takes on a different battle - over HIV discrimination - in Friday s episode. In Hard Time, airing 9 p.m. EST, a Navy fleet training officer (guest star Gerard O Donnell) is removed from duty after it s discovered that he carries the AIDS-causing virus. Navy attorney Harm Rabb, playe
CHICAGO (AP) -- That tiny bit of print on a condom packet is at the center of a raging debate now that President George W. Bush has asked the Food and Drug Administration to modify the current warning to include information about human papillomavirus, commonly called HPV or genital warts. On one side are scientists who
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - In a blaze of publicity, a few dozen public hospital patients collected their first free AIDS medicines Thursday at the start of what South Africa promises will be the world s largest and most comprehensive national treatment program. South Africa has more people infected with HIV, the
HANGHAI, China (AP) - She was branded a tool of anti-China forces. Plainclothes security agents harassed her family and friends. Her phones were tapped and her mail was opened. But AIDS activist Gao Yaojie just kept on working. Now, amid growing openness about the disease, the diminutive 80-year-old doctor with the Cok
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -- Actress Kim Webster, who plays the recurring role of Ginger on NBC s The West Wing, says she was not happy when her parents adopted two HIV-positive babies when she was a freshman in college. I asked them, What are you trying to do, kill us all? she said Tuesday at a West Virginia University e
WASHINGTON -- Upbeat despite being snubbed by the Congressional Black Caucus, Michael Jackson took a break from his legal troubles in California to confer with several leading black lawmakers Tuesday about his upcoming mission to help fight AIDS in Africa. Flashing a victory sign, the conservatively dressed Jackson did
TORONTO (AP) -- Canadian health care advocates called on the government Tuesday to ban Internet pharmacies, saying the drug outlets are putting the health of Canadians at risk. The Canadian Treatment Action Council, an advocacy and education group for people living with HIV/AIDS, and the Canadian Hemophilia Society wer
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Two prominent AIDS researchers are departing the University of Alabama at Birmingham for Emory University near Atlanta, taking federal grants and key staff members with them. Eric Hunter, director of the UAB Center for AIDS Research, and his wife, Dr. Susan Allen, who developed much of UAB s re
South Carolina is getting more than $19 million for the treatment of AIDS and the virus that causes the disease. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C, said Tuesday that the money is coming from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The grant will be used for ambulatory and home-based health care as well as insur
BALTIMORE -- Maryland General Hospital is still looking for 180 patients who may have received questionable HIV and hepatitis C results, the hospital announced Tuesday. Hospital spokesman Lee Kennedy said 460 people were originally identified as receiving questionable results during a 14-month period ending last August
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - An Oklahoma native has been charged with infecting at least four women with HIV through unprotected sex, and investigators say there may be a substantial number of additional victims. Bail on Anthony Eugene Whitfield, 31, of Lacey, was doubled to $500,000 Monday by Thurston County Superior Court J
NEW YORK - Efforts to get AIDS medications to millions of HIV-infected people in poor countries may be on the verge of a breakthrough, some experts say. Disagreements abound over drug safety, trade rules, funding and the sincerity of U.S. government efforts, but there are signs of progress. Stephen Lewis, the United Na
GABORONE, Botswana (AP) -- International health experts opened discussions Monday about low-cost generic anti-AIDS medications that offer a ray of hope to AIDS-ravaged poor countries but that have become controversial after U.S. officials raised doubts about them. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the W
NEW YORK (AP)--Efforts to get AIDS medications to millions of HIV-infected people in poor countries may be on the verge of a breakthrough, some experts say. Disagreements abound over drug safety, trade rules, funding and the sincerity of U.S. government efforts, but there are signs of progress. Stephen Lewis, the U.N.
PHNOM PENH (AP)--A Bill Gates-funded plan to test an anti-HIV drug suffered a setback Monday when a group of Cambodian sex workers refused to participate, citing the lack of insurance against potential side effects. But the research team said it will keep trying to recruit some 960 sex workers needed for the yearlong s
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) -- A University of Virginia professor plans to help open an AIDS clinic by May 1 in Uganda s capital city, Kampala. An international coalition of physicians, including U.Va. s Dr. Michael Scheld and Dr. Nelson Mandela Sewankambo of Uganda, spearheaded the project. There s a clinic in Kampala n
SEOUL (AP)--The Red Cross illegally distributed more than 75,000 bags of blood donated by people who in the past had tested positive for hepatitis, and the organization s officials should be penalized for the wrongdoing, South Korea s state auditor said Monday. Nine people who received the blood have tested positive fo
MIAMI - The number of people with HIV or AIDS has risen faster in the South than any other region of the country, and the problem will worsen without changes, the authors of a new study said Sunday. The South accounted for only 38 percent of the U.S. population, but 40 percent of the country s AIDS cases in 2002, accor
MIAMI (AP) -- The three counties in South Florida have more people living with HIV and AIDS than 45 of the nation s 50 states. That s one reason the National HIV/AIDS Update Conference moved here after 14 years in San Francisco. The conference kicked off its second year in Miami on Saturday hoping to raise awareness an
JUBA, Sudan - Emmanuel Amoko lost his father to AIDS, but he shrugs off the social stigma still attached to the disease in the southern Sudan. The 16-year-old is determined to increase awareness among teenagers about the dangers of AIDS and to help orphans left behind. Amoko is one of about 250 young people in Juba who
BALTIMORE, (AP) -- An outside company brought in to manage an error-prone laboratory at Maryland General Hospital will present recommendations for improvements to administrators next week, a hospital spokesman said Thursday. We ll be expecting to get a comprehensive look at issues such as staffing levels, internal prac
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) -- A Thurston County man has been arrested for investigation of first-degree assault, accused of having unprotected sex with multiple partners while knowing he was infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Thurston County health officials are asking people to contact them if they have had sexual con
WASHINGTON - The White House should not push for more stringent standards on lower-cost AIDS drugs to be used to combat the disease in Africa, because the World Health Organization already has approved the medicines, lawmakers said Friday. Setting up an American system when WHO has approved the drugs would delay delive
WASHINGTON - The first oral test for the AIDS virus that gives results in 20 minutes won approval from the Food and Drug Administration Friday, a new option for people leery of blood testing. It is the second rapid HIV test on the market -- the other requires pricking a person s finger to test a spot of blood. With the
PHNOM PENH (AP) - Sex workers in Cambodia say they might opt out of a Bill Gates-funded study to test an HIV prevention drug if they don t get insurance that covers potential side effects, a newspaper reported Friday. Health authorities were recruiting 960 sex workers in Cambodia to participate in a one-year study of t
UAB researchers say the virus that causes AIDS may be most vulnerable to vaccines in the earliest stages of infection. Data for the study, published Friday in the journal Science, was collected at the University of Alabama at Birmingham s research clinic in Lasaka, Zambia . Health care workers in Zambia followed hetero
OMAHA, Neb. - More than $1.7 million has been awarded to Nebraska Health and Human Services for support services to people with HIV and AIDS. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services grant comes from the Ryan White Title II Grant Program. Families of people with HIV and AIDS sufferers also benefit from the prog
DETROIT (AP) - Happily involved in a relationship with a flirtatious, handsome man, Alice Renwick gave little though to the possibility of contracting HIV. At 65, Renwick, an infection control nurse at a methadone clinic, reasoned she was too old to become pregnant and the couple stopped using condoms. But then Renwick
SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Environmental damage from China s breakneck economic growth, the spread of AIDS and growing poverty threaten the future of China s drive to better living standards, the United Nations said in a report released Thursday. China faces daunting shortages of productive farmland and water, said the U.N
SHANGHAI (AP)--Environmental damage, rising HIV infection rates and growing urban poverty are threatening improvements in China s living standards, the U.N. said in a report released Thursday. China faces daunting shortages of productive farmland and water, said the report by the U.N. Development Program. Untreated sew
SHANGHAI, China - Shanghai s city government said Wednesday it plans to offer subsidized tuberculosis treatment, amid warnings that China is backsliding in efforts to control the disease. Tuberculosis patients will be able to apply for reduced prices on medicine and medical tests following initial treatment - which wit
HONG KONG - International AIDS experts urged Asian governments and communities on Wednesday to step up efforts to stop the deadly disease from spreading in the region. We don t need just doctors. We need everyone to help, Mechai Viravaidya, a Thai senator and family planning expert, told a discussion panel in
KIEV (AP)--U.S. officials urged international organizations and Ukraine s authorities Tuesday to increase efforts to stem one of the world s fastest-growing HIV infection rates. The call for more action came as the International HIV/AIDS Alliance reported on the results of a just-completed three year U.S.-funded projec
SHANGHAI, China - Viacom Inc., the owner of the CBS, Nickelodeon and MTV television networks, plans to collaborate with the Shanghai Media Group on producing TV programs for youngsters in China s largest city - the first such joint venture since China opened TV production to foreign investment. China already import
WASHINGTON (AP) - Fewer births and more deaths from AIDS are helping slow world population growth, the Census Bureau says. In a report Monday, the bureau forecast a world population of about 9.1 billion people by 2050, a nearly 50 percent increase from the 6.2 billion in 2002. However, the growth rate is slowing signif
TORONTO - Canada plans to make government-certified marijuana available in local pharmacies, a move that would make it only the second country in the world to allow the direct sale of medical marijuana. Officials are organizing a pilot project in the British Columbia province modeled on a year-old program in the
WASHINGTON (AP) - The world s population growth is slowing because women are having fewer children and more people are dying from AIDS , especially in Africa, according to a Census Bureau report released Monday. The report forecasts there will be nearly 9.1 billion people by 2050, a nearly 50% increase from the 6.2 bil
ATLANTA (AP) -- A special Choose Life license plate benefiting clinics that counsel against abortions was approved by the Georgia Senate after little debate Monday. The plan, sponsored by one of Gov. Sonny Perdue s floor leaders, was initially approved Friday as an amendment to another bill. That bill would let widows
TORONTO (AP) -- Canada plans to make government-certified marijuana available in local pharmacies, a move that would make it only the second country in the world to allow the direct sale of medical marijuana. Officials are organizing a pilot project in the British Columbia province modeled on a year-old program in the
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- This year s International AIDS Conference will attempt to mobilize political will to effectively distribute new medicines to combat the deadly disease, a conference organizer said Monday. Now that scientific breakthroughs have created effective and affordable medicines, a political commitment
NEW YORK (AP) -- At least 10 people reportedly received fake letters telling them that one of their sexual partners tested positive for HIV and warning that they might be infected with the virus. The letters claimed to be from Mount Sinai Hospital s HIV/AIDS Notification Service and were postmarked in Manhattan, The Ne
VATICAN CITY (AP) - A Vatican cardinal, Alfonso Lopez Trujillo of Colombia , made headlines last year when he said condoms don t prevent AIDS and may help spread it because they create a false sense of security. But three months later another cardinal, Godfried Danneels of Belgium ,
BALTIMORE (AP) - Thousands of patients could have received questionable HIV test results -- not just hundreds, as hospital officials have suggested, according to a former lab worker who says she believes she was infected in an accident involving a faulty blood analyzer. Every single test that came off that machine shou
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Jonathan Perry can understand how HIV infections have spread rapidly among the black college population. Despite common knowledge of his own HIV-positive status, men who claim to be heterosexual still seek to have unprotected sex with him. Health officials in North Carolina and across the South are di
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A private AIDS care provider has filed a lawsuit against pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories , accusing the company of false advertising for saying that state Medicaid programs would not be affected by a recent price increase for its AIDS drug. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation filed the Superior
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Alabama s AIDS drug assistance program is asking the state Legislature for a major funding increase to enroll the more than 300 people on its waiting list - the longest in the nation, the state HIV commission said Thursday. State Rep. Laura Hall, chairwoman of the commission, is requesting $5
WETUMPKA, Ala. (AP) - When she s released from prison, Bonita Graham wants to get a job, get her children back and stay off drugs. But being HIV-positive keeps her from learning job skills at Julia Tutwiler Prison in Wetumpka, the nation s last that completely segregates inmates who carry the virus. Graham, a 26-year-o
LONDON (AP)--African ape hunters are being infected by the same class of viruses that causes AIDS, scientists say, raising fears of a possible epidemic of a new disease in the future. The finding was the first study to confirm the transmission of a retrovirus from primates to humans in natural settings. The transmissio
GENEVA (AP) - An ambitious plan to cut AIDS deaths in developing countries is in danger because governments have failed to come forward with funding for an important part of the operation, U.N. officials and campaigners said Wednesday. The World Health Organization s 3 by 5 campaign - which aims to get three million pe
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) - The government will spend millions of dollars over five years to treat and prevent HIV in Trinidad and Tobago , where infection rates are high, the prime minister said Tuesday.
FERNDALE, Mich. - They may have arranged the Arabian Nights party, complete with loud Arabic dance music and flickering lights, but Chris Ayoub and David Ponsart came to the Ferndale bar mainly to spread a message of safe-sex. The audience to which the two health educators spoke about HIV and AIDS prevention was one of
TORONTO (AP) - The Quebec government is asking 1,200 people to undergo a blood test for HIV and hepatitis after needles were used more than once at a Montreal acupuncture clinic. Health officials told a news conference Monday the risks of infection were minimal. The patients who may have been affected went to the clini
NEW DELHI (AP) - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Monday donated $47 million to private agencies carrying out AIDS prevention programs in India , a senior foundation official said. The money will help to significantly expand access to AIDS prevention programs among high-risk groups in the Indian states of Mahar
NEW YORK (AP) - A program run by the city s Health Department has identified scores of New Yorkers who have HIV by tracking them down through former partners. Under the department s partner notification program, people diagnosed with HIV are urged to reveal past sex partners. Those partners are then contacted by health
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Some organ donation experts and doctors are backing a bill in the Illinois Legislature aimed at letting people with HIV donate organs to others who have the virus. If approved, Illinois would be the first state with a law specifically allowing organ transplants between people who already have the vi
LAGOS, Nigeria - Nigeria s AIDS treatment program, hit by drug shortages in recent months, is back on track with drug stocks replenished and local production underway, the Health Ministry said Friday. The program, which aims to provide cheap medicine for 10,000 adults and 5,000 children infected by HIV, faltered in Sep
BALTIMORE - Maryland General Hospital has mailed more than 500 letters to doctors and patients, urging retesting for those who may have received incorrect HIV and hepatitis test results, officials said Friday. The hospital also set up a 24-hour hot line. By Thursday night, 22 people had called and three were recommende
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is considering requiring warning labels on condom packages noting that the contraceptive devices don t protect users from all sexually transmitted diseases, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration official said Thursday. Most recent studies indicate condoms don t safeguard against
ATLANTA (AP) - Federal health officials are urging Southern states to be vigilant for signs of campus HIV outbreaks like the one that recently surprised health officials in North Carolina. But so far, little has been done. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it doesn t have the money to do widespread te
PHILADELPHIA -- Public health advocates rallied on Wednesday against President Bush s plan to expand abstinence-only education, calling instead for teaching youngsters about condoms and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. The advocates also criticized an upcoming congressional hearing on whether condoms should
BALTIMORE - More than 400 patients at Maryland General Hospital might have received incorrect HIV and hepatitis test results during a 14-month period ending in August 2003, state officials say. Some patients might have been told they were HIV-negative when in fact they were positive - and vice versa - and the hospital
ATLANTA - Federal health officials are urging Southern states to be vigilant for signs of campus HIV outbreaks like the one that recently surprised health officials in North Carolina. But so far, little has been done. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it doesn t have the money to do widespread testing
ATLANTA (AP) - Federal health officials are urging Southern states to be vigilant for signs of campus HIV outbreaks like the one that recently surprised health officials in North Carolina. But so far, little has been done. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it doesn t have the money to do widespread te
JOHANNESBURG (AP)- The U.N. food and children s agencies appealed Wednesday for $5.8 million to help more than 600,000 women and children in Namibia survive the combined effects of erratic weather, severe poverty and a worsening AIDS epidemic. The southern African country suffers deep poverty and perennial food deficit
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - A public telephone that mysteriously gives free local calls has been given an odd companion - a condom machine. The dispenser, charging 25 cents per condom, has been installed in a phone booth across the street from Penn State University s main campus. I m just surprised, State College resident Ste
PHILADELPHIA - Teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage have the same rates of sexually transmitted diseases as those who don t pledge abstinence, according to a study that examined the sex lives of 12,000 adolescents. Those who make a public pledge to abstain until marriage delay sex, have fewer sex partners
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A growing number of the world s new HIV/AIDS cases are women, a terrifying pattern that widely used prevention measures are ill-equipped to stop, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said. Annan, speaking Monday at a United Nations conference marking International Women s Day, urged governments to fi
GENEVA (AP) - The failure by governments across the Islamic world to respect women s rights has hampered steps toward political change, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said Monday as the United Nations observed International Women s Day. In New York, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan marked the occasion with a
BANGKOK, Thailand - Women in some areas of Asia are catching HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, at a faster rate than men, a U.N. agency announced Monday. Women are particularly vulnerable to HIV due to insufficient access to HIV prevention services, inability to get men to practice safer sex and a lack of HIV prevention
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Caribbean countries should adopt a regional approach to fighting AIDS and discourage social prejudice against those with HIV infection, health officials said Friday at a regional AIDS conference. Countries and territories are wasting resources by adopting different approaches in t
A bill pending in the Alabama House would require rape suspects to be tested for HIV after they are arrested. Darla Graves, executive director of the Alabama Coalition Against Rape, said Thursday that the bill is needed to protect the victims of rape. Alabama law currently only requires those convicted of rape to be te
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Government inaction, mixed messages and inadequate information are undermining South Africa s pledge to provide rape victims with drugs that can reduce their chances of contracting HIV, human rights activists said Thursday. The country s AIDS epidemic has turned sexual assault into a possib
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -The U.N. envoy charged with combating AIDS in Africa warned that the failure of wealthy nations to respond to an appeal for $200 million could sabotage plans to provide 3 million HIV-infected people with drugs by the end of 2005. Stephen Lewis, the secretary-general s special envoy for HIV/AIDS on
MOHALES HOEK, Lesotho - Britain s Prince Harry, seeking attention Wednesday for parentless children with AIDS, planted a peach tree at an orphanage in this HIV-stricken nation. Holding the hand of a 4-year-old orphan named Mutsu Potsane, the prince walked to a flower bed at the Mants ase Children s Home where he plante
KAMPALA, Uganda - Uganda will test thousands of men, women and children for the HIV virus in an effort to get a more detailed picture of infection rates in the East African country - the first such study since the late 1980s, a senior health official said Wednesday. Uganda has waged one of the world s most successful b
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Human rights activists have launched a revolutionary condoms campaign, using stickers on condom packages to urge Zimbabweans to stand up against President Robert Mugabe s autocratic rule. State radio on Wednesday blamed the U.S., the largest supplier of condoms to Zimbabwe, claiming the bright red an
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) - On an Academy Awards night lacking in surprises, celebrity Oscar watchers found dramatic tension and suspense at a charity auction, while Tolkien trilogy fans partied with the hobbits and the Hollywood elite celebrated late into the night at Vanity Fair s gala. Elton John raised money for
ATLANTA (AP) - More needs to be done to protect women against infectious diseases and other health dangers, international health experts said Saturday. Better research efforts, educational programs and diagnostic tools are needed to combat infectious disease threats against women, Centers for Disease Control and Preven
LAGOS - An emergency drive to immunize millions of Africans against a spreading polio outbreak ended with only mixed results in Nigeria s heavily Muslim north, where many families heeded Islamic claims the vaccine was part of a U.S. plot to render them sterile, U.N. officials said Friday. Families in some northern stat
GENEVA - International aid for six drought-hit countries in southern Africa appears to be drying up, even though the number of people needing help continues to increase, the United Nations said Thursday. U.N. agencies have received only half of the $642 million that they appealed for last July, and just $24 million - 1
Scientists say they ve discovered how some monkeys resist infection with the AIDS virus, a finding that might lead to a treatment that blocks HIV in people. Researchers found that once HIV enters monkey cells, it encounters a protein that stifles its attempts to replicate. That stops the virus from spreading in the ani
DUBLIN, Ireland - Fifty-five European and Central Asian nations vowed Tuesday to halt the fast-spreading virus that causes AIDS, agreeing on an ambitious agenda of providing increased and improved treatment and prevention. Officials pledged to provide universal access as early as next year to prevention, treatment an
WASHINGTON - Teenagers and young adults account for nearly half the cases of sexually transmitted diseases in the United States though they make up just a quarter of the sexually active population, according to the first extensive national estimate of STDs among young Americans. Researchers at the federal Centers for D
WASHINGTON (AP)--President George W. Bush unveiled a detailed five-year, $15 billion emergency plan Monday aimed at turning the tide in the global fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The plan, which Bush first announced during his 2003 State of the Union address, is described as the boldest international health initia
DUBLIN, Ireland - The virus that causes AIDS is spreading again in Western Europe and is rampaging through Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where it infected 250,000 people last year, a United Nations health official said Monday. Eastern Europe and Central Asia are experiencing the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in
DUBLIN - Fifty-five European and Central Asian nations - some home to the world s fastest HIV/AIDS growth rates - are joining forces to raise awareness and money to fight a disease that has gone global in 20 years and now affects 40 million people. Ahead of the two-day conference that Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern
KANO, Nigeria - Polio left Dauda Abdullahi unable to walk on twisted limbs, yet he refuses to allow his own children to be immunized against the disease that crippled him three decades ago. Only Allah can save us. I don t trust medicine, said the roadside shoemaker, 42. Immunizing toddlers with mouth drops has reduced
LOS ANGELES (AP) --State regulators have suspended the license of a doctor who once headed the Presidential Advisory Council on AIDS and HIV over sexual molestation allegations. The license of Dr. R. Scott Hitt was suspended for 60 days by the Medical Board of California, which accused the doctor in 2002 of sexually mo
SHANGHAI, China - China has sent 76 officials to live for a year in a group of villages with one of the world s highest rates of AIDS infection in an effort to improve official aid to communities devastated by the disease. The villages in Henan province were at the center of a scandal over a blood-buying industry that
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - A Brazilian group agreed Thursday to tone down its sexually explicit displays for the city s famed Carnival parade after prosecutors threatened to ban the floats. Grande Rio - whose carnival theme Let s Wear the Little Shirt, My Love, slang for using a condom - will modify the explicit decorati
ATLANTA - Fighting fire with fire, public health officials are using e-mail to try to stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among people who meet through Internet chat rooms and Web sites. In a pilot program in Los Angeles County, health officials use e-mail and the Internet to notify the sex partners of peo
TOKYO - A doctor blamed for the AIDS death of a hemophiliac because he allegedly opposed importing HIV-treated blood products is mentally unfit to stand trial, a Tokyo prosecutors office spokesman said Thursday. The medical test results for Takeshi Abe, a hemophilia expert and former vice president of Teikyo University
The number of new AIDS cases reported in Los Angeles County jumped a half-percent between 2001 and 2002 -- the first increase in a decade and a possible indication that high-risk sexual behavior is on the rise, health officials said. The number of cases rose from 1,555 to 1,562, according to preliminary figures from th
MAPUTO, Mozambique - Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi has been relieved of his functions so he can take up a position with the World Health Organization , President Joaquim Chissano said Tuesday. We relieved him so that he can join scientists and researchers on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, Chissano said in an add
MOSCOW - Russia , Ukraine and the Baltic nation of Estonia have some of the world s fastest HIV growth rates, the U.N. Development Program said Tuesday in a new report that says 1% of the adult population of the three countries is infected. It is already too late to speak of avoiding a crisis in East
BERLIN - Scientists in Germany on Monday launched the country s first test of an HIV vaccine, a yearlong program that will involve up to 50 volunteers and is backed by the New York-based International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. The trial will be conducted at university clinics in Bonn and Hamburg, and also at Belgian hos
KIEV - The U.N. Development Program in Ukraine on Monday denied allegations that it had mismanaged grants to fight HIV-AIDS, saying it had arranged emergency shipments of medicine to help stem one of the fastest growing infection rates in the world. UNDP s decision comes after the Ukrainian government accused the U.N.-
LINCOLN, Neb. - The state of Nebraska has reached a settlement with a man who sued the state nine years ago for denying his HIV -positive wife a chance to adopt a baby. Both parties signed an agreement saying they would not disclose financial terms. Jay Brummett and his wife, GayLynn, had fought to adopt a boy who was
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is proposing to double spending on sexual abstinence programs that bar any discussion of birth control or condoms to prevent pregnancy or AIDS despite a lack of evidence that such programs work. A study by researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on decl
KIEV -- Ukraine s Health Ministry criticized the decision by a U.N.-administered fund to withdraw $25 million in support for government-run HIV-AIDS programs as groundless and prejudiced, claiming the fund failed to authorize spending on much-needed drugs. The Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Ma
SHANGHAI -- China has more than 1 million drug addicts, most of them under age 35 - a crisis that is costing the country billions of dollars a year, contributing to the spread of AIDS and hurting social stability, state media reported Friday. Top law-enforcement officials meeting in Beijing reported that almost three-q
LOS ANGELES -- One of the nation s largest AIDS-care providers is suing pharmaceuticals giant Abbott Laboratories for raising the price of its drug Norvir nearly 400 percent, claiming the action threatens the lives of people infected with HIV. The federal suit, filed Tuesday, accuses the company of violating fede
NEW YORK - MAC cosmetics has introduced five new representatives - including Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliott - for Viva Glam products that will benefit the MAC AIDS Fund. Lipglass will go to the fund, which provides money to organizations that provide care and daily essentials to those afflicted with HIV/AIDS and
Someone at Elton John s annual Oscar night gala will drive home in a Bentley Continental GT, becoming the first person in the nation to own the coveted car. The highest bidder at the Feb. 29 fund-raiser will lay claim to the $150,000 luxury ride, named The most beautiful car in the world at the 2003 Design Awards in
LOS ANGELES - Magic Johnson and Showtime made their debut Wednesday facing Chick Hearn Court outside Staples Center. They will be there forever. A 17-foot bronze statue of the former Los Angeles Lakers star was unveiled at dusk before several hundred fans and a handful of former teammates and dignitaries including NBA
SAN FRANCISCO - A sudden, surprising increase in HIV infections has been discovered among male black college students in North Carolina, and officials fear the same is probably happening across the South. The upsurge is driven by young men having risky sexual encounters with other men. Typically they do not consider th
MAPUTO, Mozambique - AIDS is threatening Mozambique s education system by killing teachers and orphaning students who have to leave school to take care of relatives, Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi said Tuesday. About 17 percent of the country s teachers are HIV positive - 4 percent higher than the national prevalence r
NEW DELHI - A Geneva-based fund said Tuesday it was ready give the Indian government $26.1 million of assistance pledged toward its efforts to prevent the spread of AIDS. About a year ago, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria pledged $100 million to India to help fight AIDS. But disbursal was delayed
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The treatment used in poor countries to prevent the spread of HIV from mothers to their babies may have a serious drawback: It can make the women resistant to the AIDS drugs they may need later on, disturbing new research shows. In impoverished areas where the risk is greatest, researchers have se
CHICAGO - Investigators in Illinois and New York are trying to determine if Abbott Laboratories broke the law when it increased the cost of a commonly used AIDS medicine by nearly 400 percent. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan s office is investigating whether the North Chicago-based drug maker engaged in deceptiv
ABUJA, Nigeria -- With its polio outbreak spreading, Nigeria is sending a team of scientists, officials and Muslim leaders abroad Sunday to bring back proof that the vaccine is neither contaminated nor a Western plot to spread AIDS. Three predominantly Muslim northern states have suspended door-to-door vaccinations si
SILER CITY, N.C. - Adolfo Aguilar walks toward a chicken processing plant and heads turn skeptically. Few people are willing to acknowledge the bald guy with the goatee, blue sneakers and sack full of condoms. But soon, factory workers quietly pull Aguilar aside for whispered words in Spanish and handfuls of the mint,
GOREE ISLAND, Senegal - Wearing black leg, wrist and neck shackles he purchased off the Internet, Victor Mooney crawled through this Senegalese island s crumbling clay and brick slave house to a rowing machine perched on a stone floor. The brief act was part of an effort to drum up attention for the 39-year-old New Yor
MUMBAI (AP)--A South African judge charged with raping a countrywoman in his hotel room during the World Social Forum will be tried before a special fast track court and may not have to appear, his attorney said Friday. A South African AIDS activist, Salome Isaacs, 27, had told Mumbai police that the judge raped her la
AUSTIN, Texas - They re headed to Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East to work with street children, build shelters for the homeless and help AIDS-stricken communities improve medical care. But while a world away, these aspiring Episcopal missionaries know that the struggle at home over the U.S. church s acc
Alarmed by high rates of HIV, county supervisors on Tuesday ordered local health officials to strengthen plans to combat sexually transmitted diseases in gay bathhouses and sex clubs. The Board of Supervisors unanimously backed a motion instructing the Department of Health Services and other county workers to recommend
LAGOS, Nigeria - A government program to provide cheap medicine for people infected with HIV has run out of supplies, jeopardizing more than 14,000 who began taking the drugs two years ago, AIDS activists said Tuesday. A top health official in Nigeria - one of the top African nations affected by HIV, the virus that ca
NEW YORK - The city settled a federal lawsuit filed by five female students who were forced to undergo tests for pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases after they skipped school to attend a hooky party where there was sexual activity. School policy regarding medical tests for students would also be revised under
SAN FRANCISCO - Cirque du Soleil will reinstate an HIV-positive gymnast after federal labor investigators found reasonable cause to believe the Montreal-based circus engaged in job discrimination when it fired the performer because of his condition. The offer came Friday, hours after the Los Angeles office of the U.S.
WASHINGTON - Answering complaints from conservatives, the director of the National Institutes of Health has issued a forceful defense of government funding of research on human sexuality. Dr. Elias Zerhouni, in a letter to Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., said he had reviewed studies of California prostitutes, sex and drug us
GENEVA - A U.N.-administered health fund has withdrawn its $25 million support to HIV/AIDS programs in Ukraine over concerns about slow progress and management problems. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said it would seek a reliable organization to continue its programs in the country over the ne
WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration is letting more misleading drug advertisements air unchallenged, and doing little to stop companies that repeatedly overpromise their medications, a congressman contended Thursday. The FDA is supposed to ensure that drug promotions - both to doctors and in the $2.8 billion
VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II said Thursday that little ones must be protected from violence perpetrated by adults, including sexual abuse, forced military service and exploitation for organ trafficking. Children were the subject of the pope s annual message for Lent, a period for penitence and fasting between Ash W
THOMONDE, Haiti - Seven years ago, most children in this town had the orange hair and swollen bellies of the chronically underfed, and only 20 percent were immunized against childhood diseases. Now, they get hot school lunches and have access to a well-equipped clinic thanks to a partnership of the Haitian Health Minis
ARRAIJAN, Panama - The San Jose de Malambo Home had been sheltering poor orphans for more than a century when a new form of suffering appeared five years ago: a girl orphaned by AIDS and HIV-positive herself. The arrival of this girl of 2 1/2 years meant a lot of us, said Sister Lourdes, who administers the Roman Catho
CALCUTTA, India -- Melinda Gates, whose billionaire husband, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates, has donated millions of dollars to AIDS-related projects in India, visited one of Asia s biggest brothels on Sunday and discussed AIDS control program with prostitutes in this eastern Indian city. Some of those
MONTREAL - A children s hospital has received nearly 4,000 calls after it asked 2,614 patients to be tested for HIV because a surgeon had contracted the virus, the hospital said Friday. Ste-Justine s Children s Hospital had received 3,900 calls as of lunchtime Friday after announcing Thursday the infected doctor perfor
WASHINGTON - Researchers who reported on an antiviral factor that helps people fight AIDS are retracting their interpretation of the source of that compound. The team led by Dr. David Ho of Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York reported in 2002 that CAF, a natural substance that fights AIDS, contains a series
MONTREAL (AP)--More than 2,600 patients may be tested for HIV after a doctor at a Montreal children s hospital tested positive for the virus, an official said Thursday. The doctor performed surgery on 2,614 patients between 1990 and 2003 at Ste-Justine s Children s Hospital, said Lucie Poitras, the hospital s director
WASHINGTON - The Senate overcame Democratic delaying tactics Thursday and sent President Bush an overdue $373 billion bill financing a vast swath of government and bearing a bushel of victories for the White House. Senators approved the measure 65-28 a month after House passage. The bill finances agriculture, veterans
INGLEWOOD, Calif. -- Norm Nixon, Jamaal Wilkes and former Harlem Globetrotters star Meadowlark Lemon will be part of a legends team in a charity basketball game to be played Feb. 14 at the Forum. The game is the same weekend as the NBA All-Star Game to be played across town at Staples Center. Rapper Snoop Dogg and BET
SAN FRANCISCO -- The creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt is suing the nonprofit foundation that owns it, alleging he was fired after he raised concerns that the quilt has languished in a warehouse under its current leadership. Cleve Jones, who in 1987 stitched the first square of what became an international symbol of t
MUMBAI (AP)--A leading Indian women s group upheld a woman s right to say no Wednesday amid a furor over the arrest of a South African judge charged with raping a fellow delegate at the World Social Forum. Monday, police arrested and charged Serajuddin Desai, 53, a senior judge in the Cape Town High Court, with raping
TAIPEI (AP)--Investigators were checking whether HIV-positive gay men infected others at a sex-and-drugs party in Taiwan s capital last weekend that led to the detention of 92 people, the island s health chief said. Partygoers who had unsafe sex at the orgy even though they knew they were infected with HIV could face c
VIENNA (AP)--The head of the U.N. drugs and crime agency plans to travel to Libya this week in an attempt to expand co-operation with the country, the agency said Tuesday. Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, was set to meet with Libyan leaders, and to visit detention and d
ATHENS, Ala. - More than 200 male inmates who are HIV-positive at Limestone Correctional Facility in Athens will have a chance to earn GEDs, take part in vocational programs and spend time outside their dorms, ending the state s practice of segregating them. Last year, a commission appointed by ex-Gov. Don Siegelman r
MUMBAI -- Impoverished families with more than one member suffering from AIDS face wrenching decisions about who to keep alive with anti-retroviral drugs because the medicine remains too costly, activists at the World Social Forum said Tuesday. Seminars and workshops on HIV/AIDS dominated the fifth day of the annual Wo
BARAKA, Congo - Nursing her year-old daughter under a tree, Zaina Kisa talks softly about how her life was destroyed when she was raped by 10 rebels from neighboring Burundi and conceived the child. There is no future here for a woman stigmatized by rape, the 20-year-old woman said. Many times I look at this child an
BANGKOK (AP)--Activists urged AIDS sufferers and those who support them worldwide Saturday to use a legal victory against a U.S. pharmaceuticals giant in their fight for cheaper and more availble drugs against the deadly disease. After a two-year court battle, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY) has reportedly agreed to giv
SAN FRANCISCO -- A massive human experiment testing an AIDS vaccine now underway in Thailand is bound to fail and the U.S. government is wasting $119 million funding it, 22 leading HIV researchers charged. The scientists allege the 16,000 Thai volunteers who are expected to receive a shot over the next two years will r
BANGKOK -- Thailand dismissed criticism by U.S. HIV researchers that a test of a possible AIDS vaccine on thousands of healthy Thais would fail, saying Friday the U.S.-funded trial still had hopes of breaking new ground. Twenty-two leading U.S. HIV scientists allege the 16,000 Thai volunteers who are expected to receiv
BRASILIA -- Five pharmaceutical companies have agreed to offer average discounts of 37% on the sale of AIDS-combating drugs to the Brazilian government, Brazil s Health Ministry announced Thursday. These were tough, but satisfying, negotiations, said Health Minister Humberto Costa. They will save us the equivalent of 2
UNITED NATIONS -- Leaders of more than 20 media companies from around the world agreed to join a multimillion dollar campaign Thursday to educate people about AIDS via the airwaves. This is one of the instances where I believe the media can save more lives than physicians can, said Peter Piot, executive director of
SAN FRANCISCO -- A $119 million federally funded AIDS vaccine experiment that plans to inoculate 16,000 volunteers in Thailand is doomed to fail and never should have started, 22 leading HIV researchers charge. The scientists allege the Thai volunteers are receiving a crude cocktail made of two antiquated AIDS vaccines
NEW YORK - Former President Bill Clinton s foundation on Wednesday announced a deal with five leading medical technology companies that could reduce the cost of HIV/AIDS tests by up to 80 percent in Africa and the Caribbean. The deal could affect 90 percent of HIV-positive people in the Caribbean and one-third of those
CALCUTTA, India -- India s secretive gay community is emerging to fight the fast spread of the AIDS disease among homosexuals and street children. At least 10 homosexual groups have formed a common platform called Manas - the Hindi word for thought - with the intention of stopping the spread of the AIDS, gay activists
TRICHUR, India -- India s Roman Catholic bishops have asked the federal government to make HIV and AIDS tests compulsory before granting marriage licenses to help prevent the spread of the deadly disease. Bishop Yoohanan Chrysostom said the church had called for the requirement to stop people transmitting the disease t
TRIPOLI -- A Libyan court Monday postponed the trial of six Bulgarian medics accused of willfully infecting more than 400 children with HIV, court officials said. The verdicts - and possible sentencing - could come when the trial resumes Jan. 26, the officials said on condition of anonymity. The Bulgarians, five nurses
BRUSSELS -- Despite the Vatican s opposition to using condoms as a way to prevent AIDS, Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels has urged HIV-positive people to use them if they decide to have sex. Danneels, seen as a possible successor for the pope, told the Roman Catholic television program Kruispunt in the
COCHIN, India -- A priest s refusal to bury a parishioner who died of AIDS in the church cemetery has compelled the Roman Catholic Church in the southern Indian state of Kerala to ask its members to show compassion toward HIV/AIDS victims. In a circular issued to parish priests Sunday, Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil urged
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - President Thabo Mbeki launched the ruling African National Congress re-election campaign Sunday, promising jobs and a better life for the millions of South Africans still mired in poverty a decade after apartheid s end. Addressing thousands of dancing and cheering supporters at a stadium in
SOFIA, Bulgaria - It s a legal drama that has held Bulgaria on edge for half a decade - six Bulgarian medics accused of deliberately infecting 400 Libyan children with AIDS in what Moammar Gadhafi once called a U.S.-Israeli plot to undermine his regime. A verdict could come as early as Monday, and the defendants could
NAIROBI -- A judge approved an agreement Friday between the Ministry of Education and the country s oldest and largest AIDS orphanage under which public primary schools will admit children infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The Nyumbani home, which receives most of its funding from groups in the U.S., had s
NEW YORK -- City schools have failed to comply with statewide education mandates in their efforts to educate students on HIV and AIDS, a new report says. The New York AIDS Coalition s report, A Call for Reform: Strengthening HIV/AIDS Education in New York City s Public Schools, released Wednesday, criticizes the schoo
NAIROBI -- Preliminary findings of a government survey released Thursday show that Kenya may have a lower HIV prevalence rate than previously thought. Planning and National Development Minister Anyang Nyon go said researchers found that 6.7% of Kenyans are HIV-positive,compared with a health ministry 2003 estimate of 9
NAIROBI -- A Kenyan judge Wednesday ordered the government and the East African country s oldest and largest AIDS orphanage to try to work out a deal to get primary schools to admit children infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The Nyumbani home, which receives most of its funding from groups in the U.S., sou
LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair met Tuesday with Bob Geldof, the Irish pop star turned activist who drew attention to Ethiopia s 1984 famine, to discuss Africa and wider development issues, officials said. Geldof, organizer of the Live Aid concerts that raised millions of dollars for famine victims, wants Blair to m
TALLAHASSEE - While several of Florida s key public health measurements have improved during recent years, a number of goals set by lawmakers have not been met, including lowering the AIDS rate and raising the percentage of 2-year-olds being immunized, according to a legislative audit released Monday. STANDARDS NOT MET
CHICAGO -- A synthetic form of sea-snail venom can ease pain in cancer and AIDS victims who get no relief from morphine or other conventional painkillers, a study found. Laboratory research has found evidence that the venom that the snails inject to immobilize their prey also might have beneficial effects on some heart
BARAKA, Congo -- Nursing her year-old daughter under a tree, Zaina Kisa talks softly about how her life was destroyed when she was raped by 10 rebels from neighboring Burundi and conceived the child. There is no future here for a woman stigmatized by rape, says the 20-year-old woman. Many times I look at this child an
DURHAM, N.C. - A drag bingo event hosted by Tammy Faye Messner drew about 700 people to raise money for an AIDS service organization. The former Tammy Faye Bakker said she was one of the first women to speak out about caring for people with AIDS when she was on the The PTL Club television show with her ex-husband in th
SEATTLE - Research led by a team of Seattle scientists has concluded that people with genital herpes can reduce their sex partners risk of contracting the disease by taking a daily pill. The results were published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. For the first time, we were able to interrupt the transmi
BOSTON - A Fitchburg woman who received nine years of HIV treatments after she was misdiagnosed with the virus is suing the doctors and clinics who treated her. Audrey Serrano, 41, said she was diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS in 1994 by the Family Practice Clinic in Fitchburg, but six blood tests since Labor
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