SOFIA, Bulgaria - Bulgaria is insisting that an appeal by five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death in an AIDS case in Libya should be heard speedily, the foreign minister said Friday. We will follow and exhaust all means of defense that Libya s judiciary offers, Ivailo Kalfin told reporters.
CONCORD, N.H. - Federal authorities have unsealed a 44-count indictment against a New Hampshire woman and four Californians on fraud and conspiracy charges involving a drug used to treat people infected with HIV. U.S. Attorney Tom Colantuono said the indictment charges Beth Handy of Milford and the four Californians wi
PORTLAND, Maine - A New York-to-Portland flight carrying former Maine Gov. Angus King was delayed for more than two hours on Christmas Eve after a passenger passed along a note about blood and death. The man, whose name was not released, gave the note to another passenger, Tammy Budek, who gave it to a flight attendant
WASHINGTON - President Bush s ambitious AIDS-fighting program in poor countries has pushed so hard for fast results that basic record keeping and accountability often went by the wayside, making it hard to judge the true success, according to government audits and officials. Investigators found the three-year-old, $15-
TRENTON, N.J. - Shimmy Mehta discovered the satisfaction that comes from helping others as a toddler when he visited an elderly neighbor. He grew up volunteering at food banks and toy drives, and helped out at an HIV/AIDS care center when he was in college. All that had to stop, though, when he graduated from Rutgers U
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - A gay student prevented from donating blood because of his sexual history has stirred debate among Santa Cruz school officials over whether to continue hosting campus blood drives. Ronnie Childers, 17, student body president at Harbor High School, said he volunteered at a blood drive at his school
UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday he was deeply concerned about a Libyan court s decision to reimpose death sentences on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of infecting children with HIV. Annan offered U.N. support for the children and for efforts to find a humane solution
ALISO VIEJO, Calif. - Drug developer Valeant Pharmaceuticals International said Friday it will sell its HIV and cancer development programs to Ardea Biosciences, formerly Intrabiotics Pharmaceuticals. Under the agreement, Valeant will retain an option to reacquire rights to commercialize the HIV program outside the U.S
WASHINGTON - President Bush told Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov on Thursday that he was disappointed with a Libyan court decision to reimpose the death sentences on Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus. Bush spoke with Purvanov on the phone from the Whit
ST. PAUL - After 20 years of running clinical trials, an AIDS research program at the University of Minnesota is closing due to a cut in funding from the National Institutes of Health. The NIH has cut back on grants for domestic research for HIV and AIDS, and instead plans to perform clinical trials in developing natio
SOFIA, Bulgaria - Death sentences handed down in Libya for five Bulgarian nurses accused of deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV triggered outrage Wednesday in Bulgaria, where the rulings were described as a political farce and a mockery of justice. A court in Tripoli on Tuesday convicted the nurses and a
ROME - Fidelity in marriage and premarital abstinence from sex are the key weapons in the fight against AIDS, a senior cardinal who prepared a study on condom use said Wednesday. Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, who heads the Vatican office for health care, told The Associated Press that it was not yet known if the Vat
TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey on Tuesday shed its status as the only state without a way for drug addicts to easily get clean syringes as the governor signed into law a needle exchange program aimed at combatting the spread of deadly diseases. It s long overdue, Gov. Jon S. Corzine said. We need to protect those we don t
TRIPOLI, Libya - A court convicted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor Tuesday of deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV and sentenced them to death, despite scientific evidence the youngsters had the virus before the medical workers came to Libya. The United States and Europe re
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday signed bills to raise federal funding for autism, shift AIDS money to rural areas and the South and create a government unit to oversee response to a bird flu pandemic or bioterrorism attack. The autism bill increases federal funding by 50 percent for the disorder, which afflicts
BRUSSELS - The European Union Tuesday denounced a Libyan court s decision to condemn five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death after finding them guilty of infecting 400 children with the HIV virus. E.U. spokesman Johannes Laitenberger said there was no immediate decision on E.U. action against Libya, but
A Libyan court on Tuesday convicted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor of deliberately infecting 400 children with the AIDS virus and condemned them to death, provoking shouts of approval from the children s relatives. God is great! yelled Ibrahim Mohammed al-Aurabi, the father of an infected child, as soon
SAN FRANCISCO - The ONE Campaign, the nonprofit launched by U2 frontman Bono that s dedicated to fighting global AIDS and poverty, has tapped a prominent Republican strategist and an outgoing Yahoo Inc. executive to serve as co-chairmen on its board of directors. Jack Oliver recently worked as an adviser and strategist
NEW YORK - Biotech drug developer Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Monday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC will stop developing an HIV drug covered under a collaboration between the two companies. The affected drug is brecanavir, also known VX-385. GlaxoSmithKli
For more than two decades, Marjorie Hill has been touched by AIDS. In 1983, as the acronym AIDS was only just beginning to enter the public conversation, Hill watched a friend die. The next decade, as director of former Mayor David N. Dinkins Office for the Lesbian and Gay Community, Hill attended so many funerals - at
UNITED NATIONS - Although the rate of new HIV infections is leveling off in parts of Latin America, health officials urged the international community to keep supporting programs to fight the disease and keep those with the virus alive. At a Thursday briefing hosted by the U.N. AIDS agency, health officials from Latin
COLUMBIA, Mo. - If Dave Roberts has learned one thing in his 32-year career in vocational rehabilitation, it is that disability is a normal part of life. In a normal part of one s community you are going to run into someone with disabilities, Roberts said. What we are against is the short bus syndrome. The short bus is
WASHINGTON -- Circumcising adult men may cut in half their risk of getting the AIDS virus through heterosexual intercourse, the U.S. government announced today, as it shut down two studies in Africa testing the link. The National Institutes of Health closed the studies in Kenya and Ugan
HARTFORD, Conn. - Connecticut s Latinos are facing a health crisis, suffering higher rates of major illnesses such as cancer and diabetes while being less likely to have health insurance than other ethnic groups, according to a new report by a Hispanic advocacy group. The nonprofit Hispanic Health Council released the
LONDON - There are strong scientific reasons for British scientists to continue research using monkeys in carefully selected research problems, especially when it is the only way to save human lives, a committee of experts said Tuesday. There is a strong scientific case for maintaining work on non-human primates for ca
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Patients living with HIV/AIDS in rural parts of the country often find themselves struggling not only with their health problems, but also with finding ways to travel for medical help located miles away in urban areas. Advocates said Monday that long-awaited transportation programs in parts of the So
TRENTON, N.J. - After years of debate, New Jersey s lawmakers on Monday voted to allow pilot programs that offer intravenous drug users legal access to sterile syringes. Aimed at combatting the spread of HIV, AIDS, hepatitis C and other blood-borne diseases, the measure allows six municipalities to set up programs in w
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Charline might become a poet. Maybe a teacher or a diplomat. She might become a voice for all the children here who live alone or afraid in the city and in villages where people seem to die a lot. But Charline is just 16. She takes pride in her role as surrogate mother to the other children.
NEW YORK - An AIDS organization is launching an advertising campaign that says Pfizer Inc. s (PFE) marketing of Viagra encourages recreational use of the drug, which fosters the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation will begin its campaign this Wednesday by taking out a
TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey is closer than ever to providing sterile needles to intravenous drug users. The Assembly and Senate are slated to vote Monday on legislation that would give drug users access to clean needles in a bid to combat the spread of HIV, AIDS, hepatitis C and other blood-borne diseases. New Jersey is
NEW DELHI - The easy availability of cheap pharmaceuticals and the lax implementation of laws controlling the sale of such drugs in India are causing more and more people to inject drugs, raising the risk of HIV infections, HIV-AIDS experts said Monday. The transition from inhaling to injecting is rising at a rapid and
TRENTON, N.J. - In a public showdown 13 years in the making, New Jersey lawmakers are to decide Monday whether to allow clean needles to be handed out to drug abusers through startup programs in six cities. Needle exchanges, which are up for votes in both houses, have long been advocated by medical and health experts a
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Central Asia s poorest county is also one of the world s leading transit routes for heroin, opium and other drugs from Afghanistan . Sergei Makhkamov has been caught in the flood. I tried it, I liked it and it went from there, said the haggard, fidgety, out-of-work 24-year-old who got hooked on
WASHINGTON - AIDS legislation sent to President George W. Bush will shift care and treatment money to rural areas and the South as Congress voted to renew the largest program for people with HIV/AIDS. The House early Saturday agreed by voice vote to renew the $2.1 billion annual Ryan White CARE Act. The Senate passed t
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A Cambodian man has been stabbed by a sex worker in a brawl, after he refused her request to wear a condom, police said Friday. Suon Da, 25, was knifed twice in the abdominal area by Sa Rida, a 24-year-old sex worker, during the fight at a brothel in Battambang province Wednesday, said Koam Roeuy
NEW DELHI - The Indian government provides free drug treatment to less than 10% of its citizens infected with HIV, according to a news report Friday. India s National AIDS Control Organization - the AIDS arm of the country s health ministry - told the Supreme Court that only 46,000 people were receiving antiretroviral
WASHINGTON - Malaria is fueling the spread of AIDS in Africa by boosting the HIV in people s bodies for weeks at a time, says a study that pins down the deadly interplay between the dual scourges. It s a vicious cycle as people weakened by HIV are, in turn, more vulnerable to malaria. University of Washington researche
Racing against a courtroom deadline, scientists have produced new evidence that a Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses at a Libyan hospital did not deliberately infect hundreds of children with the AIDS virus. The health care workers are on trial in a Libyan court, where a verdict is expected in two weeks.
NEW YORK - Hip-hop and fashion mogul Russell Simmons said Tuesday he s selling bling to help raise money for the development and empowerment of Africans. The 49-year-old entrepreneur announced his Green Initiative jewelry, which is manufactured and designed by Simmons Jewelry Co. Twenty-five percent of proceeds from sa
HANOI, Vietnam - Former President Clinton was swarmed for autographs, handshakes and photographs on the streets of Hanoi Wednesday by throngs of admirers whose warm welcome contrasted sharply with the restrained reception given President Bush last month. Clinton, in town to sign an agreement between his foundation and
WASHINGTON - Northeast lawmakers dropped their opposition Tuesday to renewal of the biggest federal AIDS funding program, ending a months-long standoff that pitted urban against rural areas. The agreement by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and fellow New York and New Jersey lawmakers came in the final days of the GOP-contr
WASHINGTON - Returning from a trip to Africa, Sen. Russ Feingold faulted the Bush administration for what he called a failure to develop a policy on Somalia , even as the Wisconsin Democrat praised U.S. efforts to combat AIDS on the continent. Feingold, who will chair the Senate Foreign Relations African Affairs subcom
WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton struck a deal Tuesday with GOP leaders to free up more money for AIDS funding in rural states, while softening cuts to larger states such as New York and New Jersey. The deal ends a months-long standoff that pitted cities where the disease first made its mark against the rural c
LOUISVILLE - Hundreds of women in Kentucky are living with AIDS, and women account for nearly a quarter of Kentuckians diagnosed each year with the disease. Vicki Johnson, an AIDS coordinator for the Kentucky Department for Public Health, said some people still think AIDS is a disease of gay men. Well, it s not, she s
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Former President Bill Clinton praised Cambodia s efforts in fighting HIV/AIDS and pledged Monday to work with the government to expand treatment for children living with the disease. I think that the leadership you have shown ... gives us hope that Cambodia can be a model for the rest of Asia and
SOFIA, Bulgaria - Bulgaria Monday sharply protested against Libya s health minister, who reportedly linked the AIDS epidemic in his country with the work of five Bulgarian nurses accused of infecting children. The nurses and a Palestinian doctor have been charged with purposely infecting more than 400 Libyan children w
YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar s military junta insisted its HIV rates are not on the rise, calling such allegations a campaign by opponents to destabilize the country, the state-run media said Sunday. Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said he would seek to introduce a U.N. Security Council resolution that call
LAKE FOREST, Calif. - Potential presidential candidate Barack Obama stood before one of the country s largest evangelical churches Friday for a frank discussion of sexuality and spirituality that included the declaration that condoms should be made more widely available to fight AIDS. The Democratic senator s appearanc
LOS ANGELES - Fifteen years after disclosing he was HIV-positive, wide-smiling former basketball star Earvin Magic Johnson marked World AIDS day Friday by unveiling a campaign to end the disease within the black community. I Stand with Magic: Campaign to End Black AIDS is a joint effort between the Magic Johnson Founda
ELANDSDOORN, South Africa - Four women emaciated by AIDS, perilously close to death and abandoned by the state health care system, cling tenaciously to life at a remote clinic where doctors give them one last fighting chance. The women, sent home to die by doctors at a state hospital, arrived critically ill. Their immu
WASHINGTON - President Bush marked Worlds AIDS Day as a time to remember the United States responsibility to help the 39 million people living with the disease around the world. The pandemic of HIV/AIDS can be defeated, Bush said Friday in the Roosevelt Room, where he and the first lady met with Health and Human Servic
BERLIN - World AIDS Day was marked around the globe Friday by somber religious services, boisterous demonstrations and warnings that far more needs to be done to treat and prevent the disease in order to avert millions of additional deaths. Ukraine s President Viktor Yushchenko conceded his country was losing ground in
NAIROBI, Kenya - Every day hundreds of Kenyans from every walk of life visit the Hope Center at the Coptic Hospital in Kenya s capital to meet with doctors and receive life-prolonging HIV drugs, compliments of the United States . Before President Bush started his signature HIV program, the people at Hope Center would h
LAKE FOREST, Calif. - When famed pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren invited Barack Obama to his upcoming Global Summit on AIDS, it sparked protests from some evangelical Christians angered over the U.S. senator s stance on abortion. Warren ignored calls to disinvite Obama, and the Illinois Democrat and potentio
VIENNA - The head of the U.N. drug agency called on Friday for greater efforts to ensure universal access to AIDS treatment, care and support programs, particularly among those who fall through the cracks of society. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said vulnerable groups - injecting dru
KIEV - Ukraine has failed to stem one of the fastest-growing AIDS epidemics in Europe, the president warned Friday, arguing that new measures are needed to tackle the escalating problem. President Viktor Yushchenko said that 100,000 Ukrainians, one-tenth of them children, have been officially registered as HIV-positive
MOSCOW - International institutions must work out ways to help developing countries afford expensive new AIDS treatments, Doctors Without Borders said on World AIDS Day. New WHO-recommended drug regimens for patients starting treatment can be up to six times more expensive than today s most commonly used combination,
TRENTON, N.J. - Thousands of people suffering from HIV and AIDS in New Jersey could have been spared the disease had the state made it legal to provide needles to intravenous drug users, according to advocates for such a measure. But, 13 years after the first push for such a program here, New Jersey now is the lone sta
Walk into any Gap clothing store this holiday season and expect to see red T-shirts, red hats and red bracelets. Of course decorating with red is nothing unusual this time of year, but the merchandise is meant to remind customers of something not often associated with the holidays: the global AIDS epidemic. Gap is one
LONDON, United Kingdom - Circumcision, microbicides and microfinance. These are some of the most promising options being examined as potential ways to prevent AIDS. As World AIDS Day is marked Friday, some public health experts are saying the current focus on universal access to lifesaving antiretroviral drugs has had
NEW YORK - Iman is marking an anniversary she wishes she didn t have to: the 25th year of AIDS. She s a celebrity spokeswoman for Keep a Child Alive, which provides drugs for AIDS and HIV patients, and to support World AIDS Day on Friday, the organization is holding a charity auction on the Charity Folks Web site to ra
NEW YORK - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on people ahead of World AIDS Day on Friday to hold their leaders accountable and to keep momentum strong in the fight against AIDS. At a public commemoration ceremony held at St. Bartholomew s Church in New York on Thursday, Annan told the audience that the virus, wh
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Fewer than half of South Africa s 15-year-olds will live to see their 60th birthday because of HIV/AIDS, according to a new report. An estimated 950 people died per day during 2006 from AIDS-related diseases and a further 1,400 were infected each day - a total of 530,000 new infections, said t
NEW DELHI - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton was set to announce an agreement Thursday to cut prices of HIV and AIDS treatments for children, making the lifesaving drugs far more accessible worldwide, according to a statement from his organization. Three Indian pharmaceutical companies have agreed to supply antiretro
KUALA LUMPUR - The spread of AIDS threatens to drag down the Malaysian economy, so the government will continue to provide low-cost locally produced generic drugs to contain the disease, an official said Thursday. If the country doesn t take stronger measures to stop AIDS, the country faces the risk of an epidemic with
NEW DELHI - It s the beginning of another workday in New Delhi s bustling Kotla Mubarakpur market, and among the busiest lanes is Nashewali Gali - Addiction Alley in Hindi. Men sidle down the lane, an infamous hangout for addicts, to a sparsely furnished whitewashed room that s become a front line in India s battle aga
OKLAHOMA CITY - After living with HIV for 21 years, there are few outward signs that 46-year-old Tommy Chesbro has the virus, except for a combination of 12 pills that he takes every morning. Chesbro was one of more than 300 people who attended the Oklahoma HIV/STD Conference Wednesday where AIDS, HIV and sexually tran
CHICAGO - U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, contemplating a run for president, met privately Wednesday with rapper Ludacris to talk about young people. We talked about empowering the youth, said the artist, whose real name is Chris Bridges. Bridges was in town to launch the YouthAIDS Kick Me campaign to raise HIV/AIDS awareness
NEW YORK - One of the largest-ever studies of HIV treatment has found that patients who temporarily stop taking their powerful medicines more than double their risk of dying. Many HIV patients have sought doctors permission to periodically take a break from the tiresome regimen of AIDS-fighting drugs, which can cause i
WASHINGTON - Famed pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren on Wednesday defended his invitation to Sen. Barack Obama to speak at his church despite objections from some evangelicals who oppose the Democrat s support for abortion rights. Obama is one of nearly 60 speakers scheduled to address the second annual Global
SHANGHAI - The number of newly reported AIDS cases and HIV infections has jumped 70% from last year in Shanghai, China s largest city, the government said Wednesday. The 621 new HIV/AIDS cases reported through Nov. 20 of this year brought Shanghai s total to 2,216, of whom 97 have died, said an official at the Shanghai
LOS ANGELES - Beat the Drum, a 2003 film depicting the impact of AIDS on African children, will air Friday on 40,000 flights on 34 airlines to coincide with World AIDS Day. The screenings will raise $300,000 for African charities, said Bill Grant, president of Entertainment in Motion. The company licensed the film to A
LANSING, Mich. - Charles Snyder III says his rare disorder, nail patella syndrome, sometimes leaves him in so much pain he d nearly be bedridden without pain medication - such as marijuana. Snyder supports a bill discussed Tuesday in the state House that would make it legal for patients with debilitating medical condit
CROWN POINT, Ind. - A Hammond man was jailed without bond Tuesday after prosecutors charged him with donating blood even though he knew he was HIV positive. Michael D. Ivy, 45, could face two to eight years in prison if convicted of selling HIV contaminated blood. Authorities said Ivy was told in December 2002 he could
BEJING - A prominent Chinese AIDS activist who was organizing a symposium to help people with the disease fight for their legal rights was released Monday after being held by police for three days, a colleague said. Wan Yanhai was taken in for questioning by four police officers on Friday and returned to work late Mond
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton will visit Cambodia next week to tour a project on combating AIDS, a spokesman for the former president s foundation said Tuesday. The visit, scheduled to begin next Monday, is part of a wider tour that Clinton is scheduled to take through Asian countries hit by
JAKARTA - The World Health Organization warned Tuesday that AIDS is not under control in Indonesia as the government predicted that up to a million people may be infected by 2010. The WHO expressed concerned about an increasing number of infections among intravenous drug users, sex workers, and heterosexuals in the eas
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia - The 35-year-old mother of six flinched when asked if she has told her children that she and her husband were diagnosed with AIDS four months ago. She never will, she said. Can you imagine what their reaction will be? We ll be treated like pariahs, said Umm Muhammad, a Jiddah resident who decline
LONDON - If the world acts now to decisively contain the AIDS pandemic, 28 million lives could be saved by 2030. According to research published online Monday in the Public Library of Science s Medicine journal, AIDS is set to join heart disease and stroke as one of the leading causes of death worldwide. AIDS currently
SINGAPORE - Singapore has formed a national policy committee to combat the rise of HIV cases, local media reported Monday. The announcement came with the news that 137 HIV cases had been reported from July through October, bringing the total of new cases this year to 286, Channel NewsAsia quoted the Health Ministry as
NEW DELHI - A potential water shortage and the spread of HIV infections pose some of the biggest risks to India s economic future, the country s finance minister said Sunday as business executives from around the world discussed the opportunities and challenges facing its booming economy. Volatile global oil prices als
NEW DELHI - A potential water shortage and the spread of HIV infections posed some of the biggest risks to India s economic future, the country s finance minister said Sunday as business executives from around the world gathered to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing its booming economy. Volatile global oil
BEIJING -- A prominent Chinese AIDS activist has gone missing after meeting with police, the activist s organization said Saturday, amid a suspected clampdown ahead of World AIDS Day. Four police officers showed up at the Beijing offices of Aizhi, an AIDS advocacy group, on Friday morning and questioned Wan Yanhai for
LAWRENCE, Kan. - An HIV-positive man accused of knowingly exposing three women to the virus has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison. Robert Richardson II, 30, apologized at his sentencing Wednesday, but he argued that while his behavior was unethical, it wasn t criminal. Richardson was found guilty last mont
LONDON - Within the next 25 years, AIDS is set to join heart disease and stroke as the top three causes of death worldwide, according to a study published online Monday. When global mortality projections were last calculated a decade ago, researchers had assumed the number of AIDS cases would be declining. Instead, it
BEIJING - China s reported cases of HIV/AIDS jumped 30% in the first 10 months of 2006 with intravenous drug use the biggest source of infection, the Health Ministry said Wednesday. Joel Rehnstrom, coordinator for the UNAIDS China office, said the increase in reported cases indicates that China is doing more testing a
GENEVA - The global HIV epidemic is growing, leaving an estimated 39.5 million people worldwide infected with the deadly virus, the U.N. said Tuesday. AIDS has claimed 2.9 million lives this year and another 4.3 million people became infected with HIV, according to the U.N. s AIDS epidemic update report, published on T
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican s office for health care has concluded a study on the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS, and a long-awaited report on it is now being examined by the Vatican s doctrinal watchdog, a senior cardinal said Tuesday. But the prelate gave no indication of the position the study takes or when
NAIROBI, Kenya - The Rev. Angelo D Agostino, an American priest who opened one of the first orphanages for HIV-positive children in Kenya and fought to make AIDS drugs affordable to the poor, died Monday of a heart attack. He was 80. D Agostino had been hospitalized for a week with abdominal pain and died after surgery
LONDON - African countries are developing innovative methods to tackle illness and disease, but health problems across the continent remain enormous, the World Health Organization said in a report released Monday. The U.N. health agency s report assesses the enormity of problems ranging from the ongoing AIDS crisis to
SOWETO, South Africa - At an unlicensed bar in an inconspicuous house, men and women sip lukewarm beer, mingle, flirt and dance to driving music called kwaito. They share a secret. The bar, or shebeen, in the black township of Soweto in Johannesburg, is a place where young, black gays don t have to hide who they are, w
RICHMOND, Va. - Plagued by colon problems, Margarita Morales waited quietly Friday at Cross Over Ministry, a clinic in the city s Latino-rich south side. Moments later, the Guatemalan was seen by Spanish-speaking specialists who offered services within her meager budget - a big difference from her experience at a nearb
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A man charged with failing to tell sexual partners he was HIV-positive was granted more privacy recently when a judge closed a court proceeding to the public. Citing a 1988 Missouri law, attorneys for 40-year-old Albert L. Spicer succeeded in barring two spectators and a reporter Tuesday from a heari
LOS ANGELES - Another sign of the new Washington: bipartisan HIV testing. At a World AIDS Day conference in California next month, two potential 2008 presidential rivals - Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan. - each will take an HIV test and encourage others to do the same. To reduce stigma around the
New data shows a child is abused every hour in Zimbabwe and more than half the reported cases involve sexual abuse, a coalition of child protection groups said on Friday. Are Zimbabweans really horrified by these statistics? said Childline director Audrey Gumbo. Are we really being jolted into action? Because this is w
SAN DIEGO - A state judge on Thursday tentatively rejected San Diego County s challenge of California s decade-old law permitting marijuana use for medical purposes. After issuing his ruling, Superior Court Judge William R. Nevitt, Jr. heard oral arguments from the county and the state. San Diego County lawyers maintai
LONDON, United Kingdom - Amid all the dire warnings about the AIDS pandemic, researchers announce some good news: Young African women report they are increasingly using condoms with their partners. The study, published in the British journal The Lancet, analyzed data in 18 African countries from 1993 to 2001, looking a
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A man who purports to have the cure for terminal illnesses such as cancer and AIDS must remove the claims from his Web site under a temporary injunction issued Wednesday by a circuit court judge. The Tennessee attorney general s office sought the injunction against Oludare Samuel Olomoshua, saying he
HANOI - Vietnam , hailed for beating back bird flu and rallying against AIDS, is getting a chance to impress U.S. President George W. Bush by showing just how much it has done. Bush is expected to visit the Pasteur Institute - one of the country s top research institutes for communicable diseases - in Ho Chi Minh City
ATLANTA - The state medical board has suspended the license of an emergency room doctor who has been jailed for trying to have sex with a 15-year-old boy he met over the Internet. The Composite State Board of Medical Examiners acted Nov. 3 to suspend Adam Lebowitz s license. Lebowitz, 47, of Decatur, was arrested Nov.
BOSTON - Health care providers for HIV patients in Massachusetts will now be required to give their patients names to state authorities for the purpose of more accurately monitoring the number of cases. Department of Public Health spokeswoman Donna Rheume said the DPH board voted unanimously Tuesday to enact the new re
The humanitarian groups Medecins Sans Frontieres and Oxfam said Tuesday that live-saving medicines remain out of reach for most Africans infected with the AIDS virus five years after a historic declaration enabled developing nations to override patents and copy expensive Western drugs. MSF, also known by its English na
NEWARK, N.J. - A former Newark teacher pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that he sexually abused a student who now has the virus that causes AIDS. The 14 counts against Hassan Vann include failing to notify a sexual partner that he had a sexually transmitted disease. The victim claims he had unprotected sex solely w
PHILADELPHIA - The city settled a lawsuit Monday that accused Philadelphia officials of failing to comply with an earlier settlement over the treatment of AIDS patients. In September 2004, the Justice Department intervened in a lawsuit filed by an AIDS patient alleging that emergency medical technicians employed by the
CAPE TOWN - More than 235,000 South Africans with AIDS are receiving anti-retroviral medicines in the public health sector, up 55,000 from the end of June, the government said Monday. Officials said this proved the government s commitment to giving free drugs to all those in need. For years, the government of the count
CANGE, Haiti - AIDS made Marie Lourdes Israel so sick she could barely move her bowed, stick-thin body. The medicine almost killed her. Her plight wasn t due to a problem with the drug, but with something more basic: She had no food, and taking the AIDS cocktail on an empty stomach caused severe stomach aches, dizzines
For the first time in the Arab world, Muslim and Christian clerics from 20 countries have together launched a project to tackle HIV/AIDS in their societies. Announced at the end of the four-day Regional Forum for Religious Leaders on AIDS, the scheme aims to break the stigma attached the disease in the Arab world as we
JONESBORO, Ga. - The Clayton County sheriff s department has charged an Emory School of Medicine doctor with a felony for not revealing his HIV-positive status to a 16-year-old boy who says he had sex with the physician. Adam Lebowitz, 47, a resident at Emory School of Medicine and an emergency room doctor at Grady Mem
ATLANTA - An American diagnosed with the AIDS virus can expect to live for about 24 years on average, and the cost of health care over those two-plus decades is more than $600,000, new research indicates. Both life expectancy and the cost of care have risen from earlier estimates, mainly because of expensive and effect
ATLANTA - The FBI has joined the investigation into the past of an Emory School of Medicine doctor who says he is HIV positive and who is charged with soliciting sex from an underage teenager. Coweta County Assistant District Attorney Ray Mayer said Thursday that federal agents are deciding whether to file the addition
GENEVA - Dr. Margaret Chan, who spearheaded the World Health Organization s fight against bird flu, was chosen Wednesday to head the agency and lead the international assault on polio, AIDS and other global scourges, becoming the first Chinese to win such a high-profile United Nations post. Chan, 59, was Hong Kong s he
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - The South African government, long reluctant to face up to the country s overwhelming number of AIDS deaths and infections, has finally changed its stance, AIDS activists said Wednesday. The deputy president, Phumzile Mlambo-Ncguka, who was named last month to head a revitalized government cou
GENEVA - The Bush administration s drug and sexual-health policy is a key issue as the World Health Organization chooses its next leader, a post that wields great power in allocating billions of dollars in funds to alleviate misery around the world. After two days of closed-door deliberations, WHO is set to announce it
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa needs faster growth and more economic reforms to tackle poverty, unemployment and AIDS, a top official at the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday. John Lipsky, first deputy managing director of the IMF, spoke at the conclusion of his visit to South Africa Tuesday. Lipsky met with Fi
CAIRO - Religious and political leaders Tuesday expressed their concern over the number of cases of HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - in the Arab world and stressed the need to break the region s silence over the deadly epidemic. More than 300 Muslim and Christian leaders from 20 Arab states gathered in Cairo at the A
Geneva - The World Health Organization is convening this week to pick its next leader, and some leading public health officials are worried the new chief may not have the strength to stand up to Washington on drug and sexual health policy. Critics say WHO has been largely controlled behind the scenes by the
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - The United Nations on Monday called for greater efforts to prevent and treat AIDS among pregnant women and newborns in the Asia-Pacific region, where some 930,000 more people became infected last year. The call for better integration of HIV treatment and maternal health services was made at the
NEW YORK - As more celebrities get involved in helping African nations overcome debt, AIDS and poverty, some cynics have questioned whether their motives are spurred by good intentions or publicity - most notably, with Madonna s recent trip to Malawi to adopt a child. Alicia Keys, who is hosting her annual Black Ball c
WASHINGTON - The first test of a potential new gene therapy for HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - was encouraging enough for researchers to launch a more extensive trial. The goal of this phase I trial was safety and feasibility, and the results established that, said lead researcher Dr. Carl June. But the results als
NEW YORK - Fifty years after his first appearance on the show that became known as American Bandstand, Dick Clark is ready to let go of the microphone. The famed host is auctioning a number of items from his personal collection of musical memorabilia, including the microphone he used beginning July 9, 1956 - his first
DOTHAN, Ala. - Organizers of an HIV/AIDS awareness forum for teenagers expect a large turnout for the event in Dothan on Thursday. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System has partnered with the Black Entertainment Television Network for the Rap-It-Up forum, set for 6:30 p.m. at the Dothan Opera House. The panel discus
SAN FRANCISCO - A decade ago, California voters were the nation s first to approve medical marijuana, and 10 other states have since followed suit. But the future of the landmark California statute is no clearer now than when voters headed to the polls on Nov. 5, 1996. The federal government still refuses to recognize
COOL, Calif. - Dr. Mollie Fry never thought telling her patients where to get the medicine she recommended for pain, depression and nausea would be a problem. Federal drug agents who raided her home and office thought otherwise, and she was indicted last year on felony charges of conspiring to distribute marijuana.
TRIPOLI, Libya - Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with AIDS addressed a court hearing their retrial for the first time on Saturday, reiterating their innocence. The judge set a verdict date for Dec. 19 in the case, which has drawn international protests and
NEWARK, N.J. - Prosecutors want a former Newark teacher accused by a student of infecting him with the virus that causes AIDS to be tested for the disease. Hassan Vann, 29, a former music teacher at West Side High School in Newark, was indicted Thursday, accused of sexually abusing a student who now has AIDS, the Essex
WASHINGTON - Retiring Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe is apparently no longer being considered to lead the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The Global Fund board members had planned to announce their choice for a new executive director during their meeting this week in Guatemala
DALLAS - The piano on which John Lennon composed Imagine is being sent to Dallas by pop star George Michael to be featured in a photographic exhibition celebrating peace. The piano will be shipped to Goss Gallery for the display, which will include the work of three war photographers. The gallery is owned by Michael s
ST. ALBANS, Vt. - A 16-year-old boy accused of jabbing more than a dozen other students with a hypodermic needle he found in the street was charged Wednesday with aggravated assault, authorities said. Justin Darrah, a sophomore at Bellows Free Academy, was cited on 13 counts and ordered to appear in court Nov. 9, accor
WATERTOWN, N.Y. - Supermodel Maggie Rizer returned to her hometown this week to begin working on an AIDS documentary being directed by Alexandra Kerry, the daughter of U.S. Sen. John Kerry. The film, titled Maggie and Me, is being produced by AIDS activist Suzanne Engo, whose father is a former ambassador to the United
LONDON - In the first comprehensive global study of sexual behavior, British researchers found that people aren t losing their virginity at ever younger ages, married people have the most sex, and there is no firm link between promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases. The study was published Wednesday as part of a
NEW YORK -- More than 2,000 poor people who have the AIDS virus and live in government-subsidized apartments around the city won a last-minute reprieve Monday night from major rent increases. Their rent had been scheduled to rise Wednesday. But a federal court blocked the change for at least 45 days to allow time for a
PARIS - When scientists noticed that a deadly new form of tuberculosis was on the rise earlier this year, they had to confront another problem: old drugs and diagnostics that don t cater to emergencies. The TB drugs prescribed today are more than 40 years old, and they require patients to undergo a marathon 6-to-9-mont
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Guyanese health officials have criticized an American television evangelist for a series of advertisements they say suggest people can be cured of HIV/AIDS by attending the preacher s services in this South American nation. The ministry of Rev. Ernest Angley, a Pentecostal preacher who exhorts illn
DELHI, N.Y. - When MacKenzie Oliver s asthma flared up during gym class, she headed to the doctor s office - just a two-minute walk away. A nurse practitioner sat her down, checked her breathing, then let her rest. Then I just walked back to class, the 15-year-old sophomore said. School-based clinics, like this one in
PARIS - Nearly 400 children who Libyan authorities say were intentionally infected with the virus that causes AIDS are now being treated in European hospitals, French and Italian officials said Thursday. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said he hoped the move would improve relations with Libya as
ALMATY, Kazakhstan - Alleging they were being persecuted for a rash of HIV cases in which scores of children were infected, doctors in southern Kazakhstan appealed to lawmakers Thursday to end what they called unprecedented pressure on them. The doctors also demanded pay raises, saying they would otherwise have to keep
WASHINGTON - Few political ads - few ads, period - have this kind of star power. ONE.org, an anti-poverty organization, is airing a public service announcement that features actors George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Alfre Woodard, Julia Roberts, NFL quarterback Tom Brady, singer Toby Keith and others that urges viewers to vo
UNITED NATIONS - A Japanese organization that fights AIDS unveiled a new program Wednesday aimed at engaging the 12 million African children orphaned by the deadly disease by getting them to play soccer. The joint Japanese-African program seeks to address the social disruptions AIDS has caused on the continent by estab
NEW DELHI - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Tuesday pledged $23 million to help Indian health authorities in their efforts to combat HIV. The funds, to be disbursed over the next three years, will be used to enhance the capacity of the government of India s HIV prevention response, Tadataka Yamada of the Found
ATLANTA - A research center has dropped a controversial proposal to conduct medical experiments on up to 100 endangered African monkeys that are natural carriers of a form of the AIDS virus but do not get sick from it. The Yerkes National Primate Research Center sought to use sooty mangabey monkeys in a first-of-its ki
BEIJING - China has opened 206 methadone clinics over the past four months in a campaign to combat heroin addiction and reduce the spread of the AIDS virus by addicts sharing needles, a news report said Friday. The new outlets bring the number of methadone clinics to 307, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It didn t
TRENTON, N.J. - Led by a lawmaker and physician who promised this bill is going to come out of this committee today, an Assembly health panel advanced a measure that would make New Jersey the last state in the country to provide sterile needles to intravenous drug users. The bill would allow six cities or towns to set
WASHINGTON - Government auditors reminded the Bush administration Thursday that literature distributed by federally funded abstinence programs must contain medically accurate information about condoms effectiveness in preventing sexually transmitted diseases. The Government Accountability Office did not make any judgme
CLEVELAND - City schools will expand sex education curriculum to include age-appropriate lessons that begin as early as kindergarten, officials said. The initiative comes as Cleveland s teen birth rates are high but dropping - about 40 of every 1,000 girls ages 15-19 become pregnant every year, according to state data
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A Kansas City-area pharmacist pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts of selling counterfeit or misbranded medication. Douglas Albers, 55, of Leawood, Kan., was indicted last year as part of a ring prosecutors said planned to sell $42 million in stolen, misbranded and bogus pharmaceutical drugs, such
LUSAKA, Zambia - The new U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, Mark Dybul, called for increased awareness and greater efforts in the fight against HIV/AIDS during his first visit to Zambia on Wednesday. The U.S. government has committed $149 million in 2006 to programs that fight HIV/AIDS in this poor southern African nation t
BERLIN - Germany will invite African nations for talks on development, HIV/AIDS and poverty when it hosts the Group of Eight summit next year, but it won t push for rising powers such as India or China to enter the exclusive club. Helping economic development in Africa was one of the top goals sketched
BEIJING - An AIDS-prevention seminar held for prostitutes has sparked a heated debate in a northeast Chinese city, state media reported yesterday. The two-hour seminar was held last week in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, by the city s disease prevention center, the Beijing News said. The center is overse
SAN FRANCISCO - The federal government s plan to research lethal agents such as HIV and anthrax in a San Francisco Bay area suburb hit a legal snag Monday when an appeals court ruled the Energy Department must consider what would happen if the lab were attacked by terrorists. Acting in a case brought by neighbors of th
LILONGWE, Malawi - A chartered plane carrying a 1-year-old boy that Madonna is seeking to adopt left Malawi on Monday, an immigration official said. The boy, David Banda, was accompanied on the plane by two Britons and two Americans, one of whom listed her occupation as nanny, according to the immigration official at t
JOSHUA TREE, Calif. (AP) -- Jeff Getty, a prominent AIDS activist who in 1995 received the first bone-marrow transplant from a baboon to treat the disease, has died. He was 49. Getty died Monday of heart failure, following treatment for cancer and a long struggle with AIDS, at the High Desert Medical Center in Joshua T
Madonna and her husband, Guy Ritchie, jetted out of Malawi early Friday, after gaining preliminary custody of a 1-year-old boy they want to adopt in an apparently streamlined procedure that sparked criticism from a child protection organization. In a statement later, Madonna s spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg confirmed the ad
LAWRENCE, Kan. - A Douglas County man has joined a small group of people across the country tried and convicted for exposing people to the virus that causes AIDS. Women who had sex with Robert Richardson II said he either never told them of his HIV-positive status, lied about it outright or took off a condom during sex
YANGON - Myanmar will receive $99.5 million in foreign aid to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the three leading causes of death in the country, replacing funds withdrawn by a U.N.-formed international fund, state-run media reported Friday. The aid comes from a newly created consortium known as the Three Diseases
TRENTON, N.J. - A measure aimed at curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS by supplying intravenous drug abusers with clean needles cleared the Senate budget committee Thursday, moving the contentious bill farther along in the Senate than it s ever gone before. New Jersey continues to be the only state in the union that doesn t
CHICAGO - Talk show host Oprah Winfrey and humanitarian rocker Bono hit the city s Magnificent Mile on Thursday for a shopping spree to promote a new line of clothing, accessories and gadgets, including a special-edition iPod, that will raise money to fight AIDS in Africa. Dozens of (Product) Red items will go on sale
SYDNEY - The number of new HIV cases in Australia has surged more than 40% over the past five years, according to findings released Thursday. The study by the National Center in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research found that the number of new HIV infections reported in Australia rose from 656 in 2000 to 930 in 2005,
WASHINGTON - Retiring Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe is up for a job leading a group whose funding he helped determine as chairman of a House appropriations subcommittee. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria confirmed this week that Kolbe, a Republican, is one of five finalists to become its next executive d
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Reports that Madonna may have adopted a Malawian child have focused attention on foreign adoptions in Africa - and raised questions about whether it s in an African child s best interest to be spirited away to the wealthy West. Are celebrities doing it for the right reasons and not to make
NEW YORK - Medical device maker China Medical Technologies said Wednesday it successfully developed two HIV diagnostic reagents, used in the detection of the disease. In a statement, the Beijing-based company said the Chinese Ministry of Health chose the technology as one of its sponsored innovative research projects o
HANOI, Vietnam More work must focus on injecting drug users and men who have sex with men to prevent the spread of HIV in the Asia-Pacific region, a top World Health Organization official said. Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of the WHO s Geneva-based HIV/AIDS department, told The Associated Press on Monday that the human
WASHINGTON The Bush administration sought Tuesday to overturn a court decision that lets nonprofit AIDS groups apply for federal funding without signing pledges to oppose prostitution and sex trafficking. At least one of the groups, DKT International Inc., has refused to sign the pledge because it helps distribute cond
LIPUNGA, Malawi - Madonna has adopted a 1-year-old Malawian boy whose mother died a month after childbirth, the baby s father claimed Tuesday, saying he was happy his son was escaping poverty. Malawian government officials said last week the pop star planned to adopt a Malawian boy while she is in the impoverished Afri
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration sought Tuesday to overturn a court decision that lets nonprofit AIDS groups apply for federal funding without signing a pledge opposing prostitution and sex trafficking. At least one of the groups, DKT International Inc., has refused to sign the pledge because it helps distribute co
GAITHERSBURG, Md. - Biotech drug developer GenVec Inc. said Tuesday it will receive up to $3.6 million in new funds from the National Institutes of Health to research a vaccine for HIV. The company said the new award raises funding for the program to $53 million over the life of a subcontract, which extends until the e
GENEVA - Nineteen governments are committed to levying a tax on airline tickets as part of a new way to treat people in poor countries for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, France s foreign minister said Monday. We need to be and can be even more, said Philippe Douste-Blazy, who heads the program called UNITAID which bri
ABUJA, Nigeria - Microsoft founder Bill Gates met Nigeria s president this weekend for talks on fighting poverty and disease on the world s poorest continent, a senior official said Sunday. Information Minister Frank Nweke said Gates arrived in Nigeria with his wife, Melinda, on Saturday and met with President Olusegun
LILONGWE, Malawi - Madonna visited another orphanage in Malawi on Saturday amid persistent rumors that she plans to adopt a boy who lost his parents to AIDS. It was the pop star s third visit to an orphanage in as many days. She arrived in the impoverished country Wednesday and Malawian government officials have said r
LA CROSSE, Wis. - An Iowa man who crashed his minivan into a medical clinic and then went on a damage rampage inside pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity by mental defect to felony charges stemming from the July incident. Geoffrey Fitzgerald, 51, did not contest a state psychologist s finding that he
GENEVA -- Princess Stephanie of Monaco said Friday it was a shame the Roman Catholic Church opposed the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS. In her first speech as goodwill ambassador for the U.N. AIDS agency, Stephanie said there was no alternative to the use of condoms in the prevention of HIV/AIDS.
ATLANTA - Don t expect your doctor to nudge you toward an HIV test anytime soon, despite bold new government advice that most Americans be tested for the AIDS virus. Public health experts say testing in many parts of the country probably won t get going for a year, maybe longer, because of a complex tangle of state law
TUSKEGEE, Ala. - LIFE AIDS, an organization created by college students dedicated to stopping the AIDS pandemic within the black community, will host its Third Annual Historically Black College and University Teach-In and Town Hall Meeting at Tuskegee University this weekend. This year s program theme titled AIDS in Bl
BLANTYRE, Malawi -- Madonna arrived in Malawi on Wednesday on a mission to help AIDS orphans -- and may leave with a child adopted in this impoverished southern African country. Andrina Mchiela, secretary to the minister for gender and child welfare, said the pop star planned to adopt a child and launch six projects to
SEATTLE - Patients have more comprehensive rights while health care practitioners face more restrictions under new rules adopted by the state Health Department. The new regulations, which took effect Sunday, would make it easier for the state to discipline health care professionals accused of sexual misconduct. Previo
NEW YORK - Limited Brands Inc. s Bath & Body Works is latching on to the star power of Sir Elton John and his passion for candles - in time for the holiday season. The Columbus, Ohio-based company announced a new collection of home fragrances - a collaboration between the rock star and Harry Slatkin, president of H
AKRON, Ohio - County officials say they are outraged that a health care company has included dozens of jail inmates detailed medical records in court documents available to the public. The records are typically kept secret under federal privacy laws. NaphCare Inc. included files from 2004 and 2005, which in some cases
DENVER -- Gilead Sciences Inc., a leading producer of HIV drugs, said Monday it plans to acquire biotech Myogen Inc. for about $2.5 billion in cash, signaling a surprising expansion into treatments for pulmonary diseases. Gilead agreed to pay Myogen shareholders $52.50 a share, a premium of almost 50 percent over the s
NAIROBI, Kenya - Millions of Africans face food shortages that could lead to starvation because much of the $5.6 billion in aid spent each year to help them is wasted, a humanitarian aid organization said Tuesday. International aid arrives too late, is targeted at the wrong things and is usually only a short-term measu
LAWRENCE, Kansas - A Lawrence man was found guilty Monday of knowingly exposing three women to the virus that causes AIDS. He was acquitted of exposing a fourth woman. Attorneys for Robert Richardson II, 30, had told jurors that he had been taking an extensive series of drugs to lower the amount of the virus in his blo
It s an Achilles heel of HIV therapy: The AIDS virus can sneak into the brain to cause dementia , despite today s best medicines. Now scientists are beginning to test drugs that may protect against the memory loss and other symptoms of so-called neuroAIDS, which afflicts at least one in five people with HIV and is beco
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Almost half of the European Union population continues to have misconceptions about the ways in which HIV/AIDS can be spread, the European Commission said Monday. A survey by the EU executive found that although many know that sharing needles, receiving infected blood and having unprotected sex wer
Matt Moore and Karl Ritter, Associated Press Writers
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Americans Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for discovering a powerful way to turn off the effect of specific genes, opening a potential new avenue for fighting diseases as diverse as cancer and AIDS. The process, called RNA interference, also is being studied
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers were off to the campaign trail after the Republicans, in danger of losing their control of Congress, sought to play to their strength by pushing through a series of security-related bills. In a flurry of activity before their departure early yesterday morning, the Senate gave final approval to $
One of Southern California s most influential gay institutions has launched a controversial ad campaign that describes HIV as a gay disease. The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center s departure from 20 years of countering the idea of AIDS as a gay plague is designed to reach gay men who have grown complacent about the illness
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton took the congressional fight over HIV/AIDS funding to the floor of the U.S. Senate Friday, seeking to prevent treatment dollars from leaving New York and other big states. With little time left before lawmakers leave Congress for a month of intense campaigning, the Senate i
Dublin, Ireland - Ireland committed $88.7m on Friday to the global foundation run by former US President Bill Clinton, becoming the largest national contributor to its programme fighting HIV and Aids. Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and Clinton signed an agreement committing Ireland to pay $76.
WEST CHICAGO, Ill. - Wheaton Academy, a private Christian high school, has raised $403,000 since 2002 for projects benefiting families ravaged by AIDS in the southern African country of Zambia . Experts say the small school is at the forefront of a growing evangelical effort to assist rather than judge AIDS victims.
WASHINGTON - Supporters of a bill to shift AIDS money from urban to rural areas failed Friday to overcome objections from senators in New York and New Jersey but maneuvered to force a vote when Congress returns after the November elections. That left the fate of the $2.1 billion Ryan White CARE Act uncertain. The House
ATLANTA - The Georgia Department of Agriculture is urging people be careful eating raw oysters after the deaths of two Savannah-area women. Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin said the Chatham County women are believed to have died from Vibrio vulnificus -- a naturally occurring marine micro-organism that can be deadl
Indian authorities plan to nearly double the number of treatment centers providing free drugs and medical care to people battling HIV/AIDS, a senior official said Friday. The National AIDS Control Organization, part of India s health ministry, hopes to reach about 85,000 people with drugs and treatment once all the tre
SHYMKENT, Kazakhstan -- This industrial city is reeling after learning that at least 63 children have been infected with HIV through medical negligence that many blame on corruption and the illicit sale of blood. At least five infected toddlers have died after receiving injections or blood transfusions in hospitals in
The House agreed Thursday night to send more AIDS care money to rural areas and the South, overcoming angry opposition from big-state lawmakers who stand to lose millions. It s shameful and disgraceful, shouted Rep. Eliot Engel (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., before lawmakers voted 325-98 to amend the $2.1 billion
BALTIMORE - A transgendered inmate freed from prison last year because she was dying of AIDS has been charged with using a forged Maryland death certificate to get new criminal charges dismissed. Dee Deirdre Farmer, 41, was charged Wednesday with forging a Baltimore Circuit Court order to change the death certificate o
Los Angeles - How wonderful celeb news is when Elton John s in the world. The ever-opinionated popster weighs in on a variety of subjects in a two-part Access Hollywood interview, including Whitney Houston and Clay Aiken. On Houston, who recently filed for divorce from Bobby Brown after 14 years of marriage, John says,
BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) -- OraSure Technologies Inc., which makes a rapid HIV test, said it began testing on its over-the-counter version of its OraQuick Advance Rapid HIV antibody test. The laboratory studies on the oral test are part of the initial stage in its application asking for Food and Drug Administration approval
WASHINGTON -- A bill that would shift millions of dollars for AIDS care to rural areas is being held up in the Senate by Democrats from California, New York and New Jersey, whose states would lose out. The objections threaten to stall passage of the $2.1 billion Ryan White CARE Act before Congress wraps up work this we
SAN DIEGO - The nation s tissue bankers are considering new rules aimed at preserving public trust in their industry, following two recent scandals that made some of them appear more like body snatchers than people who help improve the lives of millions of Americans. The leading professional association will vote next
COLUMBIA, Mo. - The University of Missouri-Columbia, will soon be the first in the Big 12 Conference to distribute free condoms in residential hall bathrooms, school officials said Friday. Health advocates said the pilot program will help lower the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and prevent unwanted pregnancie
BASEL, Switzerland -- Roche Holding AG said Friday it will help three African companies to produce one of its anti-HIV drugs. Roche will provide the companies - Aspen Pharmacare in South Africa , and Cosmos Ltd. and Universal Corp. Ltd. in Kenya - with the technical assistance necess
SAN FRANCISCO -- The worst forms of the killer tuberculosis bug have been gaining ground in the United States , alarming public health officials over imported drug-resistant strains of a disease that is mostly under control in this country. Although the number of drug-resistant TB cases in the U.S. is small compared to
AUCKLAND - A resolution calling for universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment has been withdrawn from the World Health Organization s Asia conference because the U.S. insisted on changing it, senior officials said Friday. American officials submitted a series of last-minute amendments to remove expressions of support in t
WASHINGTON - A spending bill that would send more AIDS money to the South has passed a House committee despite opposition from some big-state lawmakers. Representatives from southern and rural states say revisions to the Ryan White CARE Act of 1990 were necessary because of how the epidemic has changed over the years.
ATLANTA -- All Americans between the ages of 13 and 64 should be routinely tested for HIV to help catch infections earlier and stop the spread of the deadly virus, federal health recommendations announced Thursday say. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said HIV testing should become about as common as
CHICAGO -- An AIDS activist and former city of Chicago health department employee was sentenced to 15 years in prison Wednesday for running over a cabdriver with his own taxi. Cook County Circuit Court Judge James M. Schreier sentenced Michael Jackson after a hearing that lasted several hours. With credit for good beha
WASHINGTON -- Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are giving gifts of $1 million each to two humanitarian organizations, an adviser to the couple said Wednesday. The recipients are Global Action for Children and Medecins sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders. In the most troubled parts of the world -- places that much of th
Salina, Kansas -- A high school science teacher was suspended for allowing students to use the same instrument to draw blood from their fingers as part of a class project, district officials said Tuesday. About 50 juniors and seniors in two science classes at Salina High School South used the same lancet, or small pin,
BAY MINETTE, Ala. - A 32-year-old Baldwin County man, charged with raping a 5-year-old girl, said he knew he was HIV positive at the time, according to authorities. Baldwin County sheriff s officers said the man, tentatively identified as Julio Cesar Cruz Martinez, was arrested Friday and charged with first-degree rape
TRENTON, N.J. - After a marathon public hearing that began Monday morning and ended after dusk, New Jersey moved a step closer to becoming the last state in the country to provide intravenous drug users access to clean needles. The Senate health committee approved a compromise measure that would grant six cities and to
MALIBU, Calif. - Democratic Sen. John Kerry on Monday urged people of faith to work cooperatively on problems such as poverty, global warming and reducing the number of abortions - godly tasks that transcend the nation s culture wars. In a speech laced with anecdotes of his own journey of faith, Kerry, a Roman Catholic
TRENTON, N.J. - State senators will debate this week whether New Jersey should allow drug addicts to receive clean needles to combat HIV and AIDS. They will also consider Gov. Jon S. Corzine s nomination of Stuart Rabner as attorney general. Special legislative committees will meanwhile take their efforts on the road t
ATHENS, Ala. - Inmates in the AIDS unit at Limestone Correctional Facility say the food is better and medical help seems improved since the settlement of a suit over their medical care in June. But some would like inmates to be able to provide hospice care to those dying in the unit, as they once did. Generally, we rec
SAN DIEGO - This seaside city was a bystander as liberal strongholds like San Francisco and Santa Cruz created identification cards for sick patients who use marijuana and wrote regulations to permit storefront pot dispensaries. Now, 10 years after Californians voted to decriminalize marijuana for medical purposes, con
CHICAGO - The lead singer of the band U-2 brought his fight against AIDS and poverty to town. Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, visited the downtown Nordstrom store Saturday to promote a designer T-shirt that will raise money to pay for AIDS medication and medical care in Africa. The shirts are emblazoned with the logo of
MIAMI - Medicare recipient J.D. got a $3,500 artificial leg and a $2,900 arm prosthesis. For F.R., it was a $2,320 prosthetic arm with locking elbow and a $6,840 artificial leg. Medicare provided M.C. with a $1,200 shoulder apparatus and a $1,700 device for a below-knee amputation. Each of these people, identified in c
WASHINGTON - Another member of the Bush family is getting cozy with former President Clinton. First lady Laura Bush joins the former president as a keynote speaker opening his three-day Clinton Global Initiative in New York next week. Clinton has famously formed a close friendship with the current president s dad. Clin
WASHINGTON - As lawmakers wrangle over renewing landmark AIDS legislation in the waning days of the session, several Republican senators joined Southern health officials Thursday in urging Congress to quickly pass the bill, insisting that the South is witnessing an emerging epidemic that demands new federal funding.
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Many Africans are dying needlessly because wealthy countries are not doing enough to end poverty and to stop diseases from devastating the continent, speakers at a forum at the University of Notre Dame said Thursday. They need our help to stay alive, said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the United Nation
SOFIA, Bulgaria - A senior Bulgarian official said Thursday Libya would likely convict five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of purposely infecting children with HIV. Feim Chaushev, the deputy foreign minister who handles the case, said in his opinion: the death sentences would likely be confirmed, b
JOHANNESBURG - A woman who left hospital even though she d been diagnosed with a deadly new tuberculosis strain is the first confirmed case of the strain in South Africa s most populous province, health officials said Thursday. The officials said the woman was persuaded to return to a Johannesburg hospital Wednesday an
NEW YORK - Drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Swedish drug developer Medivir AB said Wednesday they entered a collaboration to develop and sell a new HIV treatment. Under the agreement, Princeton, N.J.-based Bristol-Myers will pay Medivir $7.5 million upfront to help develop Medivir s MIV-170 drug candidate. Mediv
KANO, Nigeria - For Ramatu Garba, the polio vaccine is more curse than savior — part of an evil conspiracy hatched in the West to sterilize Nigerian girls. Allah used Muslim scientists to expose the Western plot of using polio vaccines to reduce our population, said the 28-year-old Muslim food vendor in this northern N
Public health experts accused the World Bank Tuesday of neglecting Africa s fight against tuberculosis, saying the institution should spend more fighting a disease whose resurgence in recent years has been linked to AIDS. The World Bank is spending virtually nothing on Africa s TB emergency, said Joanne Carter, of Resu
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Police and the Zimbabwean government declared a planned nationwide strike and protest marches illegal Tuesday and warned measures were in place to stop street gatherings. The main labor federation, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, scheduled a strike and processions in cities and towns across th
CHICAGO - As the twin scourges of AIDS and unemployment ravaged their rural district, the women of the South African fishing village of Hamburg decided to fight back with the weapons they were given: embroidery needles. And what began as their simple plan to earn money for medicine through handicrafts has led to the cr
MILWAUKEE - The oldest man charged in the case of an 11-year-old girl who authorities say had sex with as many as 20 people says she had looked like she was 19 or 20 to him. She looked grown to me, man, Freeman Gurley said in a telephone interview Sunday night with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from the Milwaukee Coun
ALTOETTING, Germany - Pope Benedict XVI traveled to the city of Altoetting to hold Mass on Monday, as his sentimental homecoming to Bavaria drew well-wishers and Roman Catholics eager to hear his words. Benedict left Munich by helicopter for the short hop to the city, where he was met by Bavarian Governor Edmund Stoibe
BOSTON - Gov. Mitt Romney has increasingly exerted control over the Department of Public Health and its decisions, including on such issues as the sale of needles to prevent AIDS and the giveaway of baby formula, officials said. The scrutiny and action by Romney, a Republican who is considering a run for president in 2
MUNICH, Germany - Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday warned modern societies not to let faith in science and technology make them deaf to God s message, and suggested that Asia and Africa could teach the wealthier West something about faith. In his sermon to some 250,000 pilgrims at an open-air Mass in Munich, Benedict said m
MILWAUKEE - Two more people were charged Friday in the case of an 11-year-old girl who authorities say had sex with as many as 20 people as a 16-year-old girl coached her. Freeman Gurley, 40, the 16-year-old s uncle, and Darnell Chaney, 17, were charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child. The 16
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The government scaled back the influence of its embattled minister for AIDS policy after a group of international scientists labeled South Africa s program inefficient and immoral and called for her to be fired. Government spokesman Themba Maseko defended Health Minister Dr. Manto Tshabalal
MILWAUKEE - An 11-year-old girl who allegedly had sex with as many as 20 people as a 16-year-old girl watched and coached her has had HIV since birth, an alderman who met with the family said Friday. Alderman Mike McGee Jr. told The Associated Press that he met with the girl Thursday and described her as distraught.
South Africa s death rate rose sharply over a seven-year period and the increase is partly due to the country s staggering AIDS epidemic, the government said. The government statistical office said the death rate for women aged 20 to 39 had more than tripled between 1997 and 2004, and had more than doubled for men aged
LAWRENCE, Kansas - A man charged with knowingly exposing four women to the virus that causes AIDS will go to trial after a Douglas County judge declined to dismiss the charges. Robert W. Richardson II, 30, had argued that the state s law on HIV exposure was too vague. But Judge Stephen Six ruled that the law is not unc
SEATTLE - University of Washington officials, twice rebuffed by candidates to head the new Global Health Department, have turned to a faculty member known for expertise on AIDS and infectious diseases. Dr. King K. Holmes, 69, currently director of the university s Center for AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, was
SAVANNAH, Georgia - The owners of a Florida-based company that dealt in blood derivatives used in treatment of cancer and other illnesses have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms in a multimillion-dollar drug fraud case. U.S. District Judge B. Avant Edenfield sentenced Martin J. Bradley III, 41, of Coral Cables, Fla
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - A killer strain of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis has been found in at least 28 hospitals across South Africa and might have spilled across borders, a specialist said Thursday. The super bug could jeopardize efforts to deal with an AIDS epidemic that has hit South Africa particularly
New York - Fashion will rock this week when two young artists - singer Rihanna and designer Zac Posen - get together for a charity event. The two are teaming to create the outfits the Barbados-born Rihanna will wear for the Fashion Rocks concert, the high-wattage kickoff to New York Fashion Week. The concert, which inc
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - More than 80 international scientists and academics condemned South Africa s AIDS policies as ineffective and immoral and called for the firing of the health minister in a letter to President Thabo Mbeki released Wednesday. The scientists called Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang an e
NEW YORK - Lisa Marie Presley, Debbie Harry, Eve and Dita Von Teese are the newest crop of unlikely makeup models in MAC Cosmetics Viva Glam ad campaign. It s not just the spokesmodels who are unusual, it s also the product they promote: 100 percent of the sales of Viva Glam lipsticks and lip glosses are donated to HIV
TUGELA FERRY, South Africa - A deadly new strain of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis discovered in South Africa is likely to have spread beyond the rural area where 52 of the 53 people diagnosed with it have died, the doctor who discovered the super bug said. The extent of the outbreak in the Kwazulu-Natal region
NEW YORK - Dancer Willi Ninja, whose skill in the gender-bending art of voguing influenced Madonna and was immortalized in the documentary film Paris Is Burning, has died, friends and relatives said Tuesday. Ninja died Saturday of AIDS-related illnesses at New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens, they said. He was 4
FREDERICK, Md. - Jessica McMullen s job includes burning bloody carpets and picking up pieces of brain matter. Ms. McMullen is the local manager of Advanced Bio-Treatment, an Atlanta-based company that specializes in cleaning up heavy-duty messes. The firm steps in after suicides and murders, in the aftermath of unatte
KINSHASA, Congo - Two hospitals, named for two mothers. One is mired in the past; the other represents beaten-down Congo s hopes for a better future. The 2,000-bed Mama Yemo, named after the mother of Mobutu Sese Seko, the late strongman, was once the pride of Central Africa. Now the public facility is in such bad shap
CHICAGO - The Illinois Appellate Court has overturned a $2 million award for a woman who sued her fiance s parents for allegedly hiding he was HIV-positive until a month before he died of AIDS. The woman, identified in court papers only as Jane Doe, sued Albert Dilling s parents, alleging Elizabeth and Kirkpatrick Dill
PHILADELPHIA - Kyle Korver would hardly seem to have the worldwide recognition of his Philadelphia 76ers teammate, Allen Iverson. But the 3-point ace discovered just how global the NBA has become in a visit last summer to Beijing. I d walk down the street and kids would come up to me and say, Kyle Korver! Three-point s
LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) - A new, deadly strain of tuberculosis has killed 52 of 53 people infected in the last year in South Africa , the World Health Organization said Friday, calling for improved measures to treat and diagnose the virus. The strain was discovered in the Kwazulu-Natal region of South
ZANZIBAR, Tanzania - A huge beach party to honor late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury must be stopped because the Zanzibar-born rock star was gay, a Muslim leader said Thursday. Mercury, who died of AIDS in 1991, violated Islam with his flamboyant lifestyle, said Azan Khalid of Zanzibar s Association for Islamic Mobiliz
For the second time in a year, people who received tendons, cartilage and other parts from donated cadavers are being urged to get tested for hepatitis and the AIDS virus because of scandals involving tissue suppliers. How much risk do they face? Answering that is tough right now because federal officials will not say
GAITHERSBURG, Md. - Biotech drug developer GenVec Inc. said Thursday that early stage clinical results for its HIV vaccine support a rationale for further development of the compound. The company said a vaccine using its adenovector-based technology stimulated the immune system in 40 volunteers against the HIV virus af
SIAYA, Kenya - Dancing and singing under the shade of an ondero tree, Mary Ahenda Otieno told her story. How she lost one son and then another to AIDS. How their wives died, too, leaving eight orphans for Otieno to raise. How she did menial jobs like weeding other people s crops to raise money. Millions of Africans
HARARE, Zimbabwe - A new report by human rights activists Wednesday paints a grim picture of life in Zimbabwe, more than a year after authorities demolished urban houses, shelters and market stalls in a campaign called Operation Drive Out Trash. The Solidarity Peace Trust, a group of Zimbabwean and South African church
WASHINGTON - Federal health officials urged doctors Wednesday to offer HIV and other tests to patients who received transplanted tissues collected by a body parts broker in North Carolina. The Food and Drug Administration investigation is the second involving tainted tissue this year and led the agency earlier in the d
CAPE TOWN - More than a third of a million South Africans have died of AIDS over the past year, the head of the country s Medical Research Council said Tuesday. There are now an estimated 5.54 million HIV-positive South Africans, or about 11.6% of the country s population, and the highest country total in the world.
TRIPOLI - Prosecutors on Tuesday demanded the death sentence for five Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian doctor accused of intentionally infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus. The five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian are charged with infecting more than 400 children with HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - a
DURBAN, South Africa - A South African judge Monday ordered the government to start providing anti-AIDS medication immediately to sick prisoners at a Durban prison, throwing out an appeal by the health and prison ministries against an earlier ruling. Judge Chris Nicholson said the government was in contempt of court fo
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Charity Mwende and her husband are a financial success story -- or what passes for one in what may be Africa s largest slum. They run Miugo Shop, a tiny convenience store they began with aid from a loan program meant to offer new opportunities to the people of Kibera. But Mwende says things are st
KOGELO, Kenya - Sen. Barack Obama pushed through surging crowds and hurtled down roads lined with screaming fans Saturday before settling into the calm of a quiet meal with his grandmother in the Kenyan hamlet where his father grew up and is buried. Obama stopped at his father s grave for a few moments before ending hi
NAIROBI, Kenya - Hundreds of U.S. Embassy employees and their families cheered and sang to greet Sen. Barack Obama after he met Friday with President Mwai Kibaki during Obama s first trip to his father s homeland since taking office. Obama also met survivors of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy and laid a wreath in
BOSTON - Summer vacation is nearly over, and the folks at an Andover company have a question for students returning to school band practice: Do you know where your instrument has been? Lips that once blew on the rented or borrowed flutes, piccolos, and clarinets being distributed may have left germs that aren t gone, a
NAIROBI, Kenya - Sen. Barack Obama will take a public HIV test at a remote Kenyan clinic this weekend to promote HIV/AIDS prevention in a country where an average of 700 people die each day from the disease. Obama, the only African-American in the Senate, was to arrive in Kenya Thursday and take the test in the western
NEW DELHI - Most lawmakers in India , the country with the most AIDS-virus infections in the world, remain ignorant about the disease, with many saying they believe the disease can be spread by sharing food, toilets and offices, an official said Thursday. The lack of AIDS awareness was revealed in a survey of 250 lawma
EASTON, Pa. - Cassey Weierbach gingerly lowered herself into a wheelchair from the back seat of a minivan, prepared to head into court to face charges that she bilked the state of Pennsylvania of nearly $67,000 by falsely claiming to have AIDS. Weierbach, 27, who once traveled the lecture circuit with her account of be
WASHINGTON - A leading medical firm has quietly recalled hundreds of human tissue products destined for transplants around the nation that were supplied by a North Carolina body parts broker believed to have a tainted history. The broker used an unsterile embalming room to carve up dozens of corpses to procure tissue,
CHICAGO - Nearly 25 years after a news magazine declared that an epidemic of genital herpes threatened to undo the sexual revolution, a new study finds an encouraging decline in the percentage of people infected with the herpes virus. Back in 1982, a Time cover story headlined The New Scarlet Letter sounded an alarm
CHICAGO - An AIDS activist and former city of Chicago health department employee was convicted Monday in the 2005 death of a cabdriver who was repeatedly struck by his own vehicle. A Cook County jury found Michael Jackson, 38, guilty of second-degree murder but acquitted him of first-degree murder and aggravated crimin
CHICAGO - As the twin scourges of AIDS and unemployment ravaged their rural district, the women of the South African fishing village of Hamburg fought back with the weapons they were given: embroidery needles. What began as a simple plan to earn money for medicine through handicrafts has led to the creation of several
DHAKA, Bangladesh - Health ministers from 11 member states of the World Health Organization in Southeast Asia were meeting in Bangladesh s capital Sunday to discuss ways to improve efforts in combating diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria or bird flu, officials said. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia opened the mee
NEW YORK - In the late 1960s, a group of black militants paid a visit to a Brooklyn clinic to discuss the new treatment it was offering heroin addicts, a drug called methadone. They came armed with bayonets. They were going to kill me, recalled Dr. Beny Primm, director of the Addiction Research and Treatment Corp. The
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- The only black member of the U.S. Senate started a two-week tour of Africa on Sunday with a visit to Nelson Mandela s former prison island, paying tribute to the incredible courage, resilience and hopefulness of the anti-apartheid movement. Sen. Barack Obama, one of the Democratic party s ris
WASHINGTON - Health officials ordered a North Carolina company that collected human body parts for transplant to shut down Friday after inspectors found violations that posed a threat to human health. The Food and Drug Administration said it ordered Donor Referral Services to cease all manufacturing and to retain all c
TORONTO - South Africa came under withering attacks at the closing of the weeklong global AIDS conference on Friday, with some of the world s leading AIDS experts accusing the government of ignoring the epidemic and promoting inadequate prevention methods. As the 16th International AIDS Conference concluded, Stephen Le
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - AIDS activists occupied several government offices Friday and took to the streets demanding the resignation and arrest of South Africa s health minister, accusing her of allowing unnecessary and preventable deaths because of her policies on AIDS. The Treatment Action Campaign staged the protes
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama hopes the combination of his fame and his family will make his tour of Africa more than just another visit by an American politician. With his face on magazine covers and people speculating about a run for higher office in 2008, Obama gets more media attention than almost any
BERWYN, Ill. -- One of two men killed when an Amtrak train struck the car they were riding in had been charged earlier this year with criminal transmission of HIV for allegedly biting a sheriff s deputy in southern Illinois, authorities said Thursday. Thomas Buckingham, 37, of Royalton in Franklin County, was driving t
TORONTO, Canada - Behind the glamor and glare of the spotlight on the big names attending the International AIDS Conference, there are thousands of little-known stars who are out in the trenches everyday, fighting the battle against AIDS. Though they do not have the media draw of Bill and Melinda Gates, former Presiden
New York - A year after he died, Peter Jennings will be seen on camera next week as part of an ABC News documentary about AIDS that he was working on when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The program, Out of Control: AIDS in Black America, was completed with Terry Moran as anchor and is scheduled for next Thursday at
TORONTO - Only one-fourth of the people who need drugs to fight the AIDS virus have access to these lifesaving medicines, scientists told a global AIDS summit Wednesday, but the news wasn t all bad. In sub-Saharan Africa, where two-thirds of the nearly 39 million people with HIV live, the number on drug therapy passed
TORONTO, Canada - The excitement at the world s largest AIDS conference was over microbicides that could help women in poor countries protect themselves from HIV in several years. Yet AIDS experts warned Tuesday that the world is woefully unprepared to ensure widespread access to such treatments. Promising tests fo
BAY MINETTE, Ala. - Baldwin County school officials plan to monitor campus visitors more closely after an HIV awareness group passed out condoms at a high school in Bay Minette. Two representatives of the Youth Advisory Council distributed a few dozen condoms Friday to students at Baldwin County High School, county sch
TORONTO - Richard Gere has told an AIDS conference that the media - from the chief executives of TV networks to the cultural icons of Hollywood and Bollywood - must fight the disease by using their enormous reach into people s hearts and homes. Gere, a longtime AIDS activist and founder and director of Healing the Divi
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - A safe injection site for drug addicts to shoot up under medical supervision has not brought more crime or attracted drug dealers or users from other jurisdictions, according to a police-commissioned study. The report by Irwin M. Cohen, a criminologist commissioned to examine the site for
TORONTO, Ontario - The big buzz at the world s largest AIDS conference is that a microbicide to help women protect themselves from HIV might be available in several years. But AIDS experts warned Tuesday the world is woefully unprepared to ensure widespread access to such treatments. Promising tests for new HIV prevent
TORONTO - It is time for the African-American community to face the fact that AIDS has become a black disease and find ways to defeat it, said the chairman of the NAACP at the international AIDS summit Monday. Julian Bond, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other powerful African-American leaders called on their own community
TRENTON, N.J. - A former high school student who says he got HIV from a sexual relationship with his band teacher can sue the school district even though he missed a legal deadline, an appeals court panel ruled Monday. The former student, identified only as R.L. in court documents, learned early last year that he was i
TAYLOR, Pa. - A DUI suspect accused of telling a police officer that he had just infected the officer with AIDS has tested negative for HIV, the officer said. Taylor Borough patrolman Rob Zuby had arrested the man last month on suspicion of DUI. Police allege in court papers that the man had open sores and rubbed his f
CINCINNATI - Call it the School for Prostitutes. It s not where women learn how to sell themselves. It s where women who already do learn how to break free of the life. Prostitution is the No. 2 complaint of Cincinnati neighborhood leaders, second only to drugs, said Cincinnati police Capt. Howard Rahtz, who heads the
TORONTO - African grandmothers charged late in life with the care of AIDS orphans, Hollywood actors, altruistic youth and seasoned veterans in the battle against the disease that has killed 25 million people gathered Sunday to kick off a weeklong conference to share research, tell stories and renew their commitment to
TORONTO - Bill and Melinda Gates, whose foundation has contributed $1.9 billion to fight AIDS, said Sunday that the search for HIV prevention drugs that would empower women could be the next big breakthrough in combating the disease. The couple joined more than 24,000 scientists, activists, celebrities, HIV-positive pe
CHICAGO - A four-drug cocktail isn t any better for treating newly diagnosed HIV infection than the standard three-drug regimen, according to a study that followed 765 patients for three years. The finding is welcome news to patient advocates, despite the lack of a step forward in treatment. Adding a fourth drug would
HANOI, Vietnam- Men who have sex with men in Asia are highly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, but remain largely ignored despite increasing infections in the region with the world s second-highest number of people living with the virus, according to a report released Friday. Many Asian countries have been forced to address HIV/
The first test of a daily pill to prevent HIV infection gave a tantalizing hint of success, but a real answer must await a larger study due out next year. The experiment, done in Africa, mainly showed that the drug Viread is safe when used for prevention. Fewer people given the drug caught the AIDS virus than those giv
TORONTO - Thousands of AIDS experts, activists and politicians streamed into Toronto on Saturday for the world s largest conference devoted to combating the disease - many of them determined to speak for the world s 2.3 million infected children who are often forgotten. Experts say that drugs exist to prevent infected
TORONTO - Canada and most other members of the G8 are failing to meet their fair share of the cost of financing the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Global AIDS Alliance said Thursday. Only France is among the exclusive club of the world s wealthiest nations providing its fair share of the Globa
TORONTO - The U.N. special envoy trying to help combat AIDS in Africa urged Canada on Wednesday to take a leadership role in the fight against HIV and AIDS just days before it hosts the International AIDS Conference. Stephen Lewis, a Canadian national, presented a four-step plan for his country to stop the disease from
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Thousands of women marked the 50th anniversary of a famed anti-apartheid demonstration with celebrations Wednesday soured by the reality that poverty, AIDS and crime have replaced political oppression as the scourge of South Africa. Commemorations across the country honored the 20,000 women wh
SEATTLE - The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Wednesday it s awarding $287 million in grants over five years to create an international network of scientists to speed up the development of an AIDS vaccine. The collaboration is critical to making HIV vaccine development more efficient, said Dr. Nicholas He
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation took its support of AIDS-related research and care to a new level Wednesday, announcing a half-billion-dollar grant to a global fund that provides AIDS assistance in poor countries. The Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will receive the grant over fiv
PHILADELPHIA - Health officials yanked public service advertisements urging HIV testing after a gay advocacy group expressed concerns about images depicting young black men in a gun s cross hairs. Putting the face of a black man in the cross hairs of a gun paints a damaging message about violence and black men, Lee Car
MPHANDULA, Malawi - The village headman here has never heard of Madonna, the pop star. But he knows Madonna the philanthropist. Madonna has announced plans to raise at least $3 million for programs to support the nearly 1 million children in Malawi who have lost parents to AIDS. Mphandula s headman, who bears the same
A man convicted of having unprotected sex with four people while knowing he carried the virus that causes AIDS was denied appeals Friday by the Iowa Supreme Court. The court said Adam Donald Musser, who is serving 50 years in prison for criminal transmission of HIV, deserved a long sentence because intentionally exposi
Pat Shelton has had the AIDS virus for at least 15 years, and also struggles with hepatitis C and high blood pressure. But what is bothering her most on this sultry summer day are hot flashes. I ve gone through hell with my menopause, said Shelton, an elegant woman who recently swapped her dreadlocks for a close-croppe
Many of the 7,000 Romanian youngsters with the HIV virus do not attend school, do not have access to dentists or the right medicine and their privacy is violated, according to a Human Rights Watch report on discrimination released Wednesday. Forty percent of the HIV youngsters are not in school. The discrimination agai
NEW YORK -- Attention, rock n rollers. Elton John is sick of your tattoos and piercings. John, who will perform at the third Fashion Rocks concert Sept. 7 at Radio City Music Hall, says he d like American bands to adopt the cutting-edge, glam-rock style made popular by his peers. It s been a thing the British have alwa
CHICAGO - State Representative Larry McKeon, the first openly gay member of the General Assembly, said Monday that he will retire when his term ends in January in part because of his health. The 62-year-old Chicago Democrat, who has AIDS and has had cancer, has recommended that committeemen choose Illinois Commission o
Trenton, N.J. - For eight months during his infancy, Sean Van Duyn gagged, retched and vomited daily. Now 6, the Winter Haven, Fla., boy still can t eat or drink by mouth, instead being fed by a permanent tube in his belly. Beset by multiple medical problems in his first months, the boy had to have a breathing tube ins
DUBLIN, Ireland - Ireland on Wednesday ruled out the possibility of suing U.S. manufacturers of blood products that were tainted with hepatitis C and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, chiefly in the 1980s. A U.S. law firm representing Irish hemophiliacs in 2003 asked the government to hire it to sue the companies, but H
RALEIGH, N.C. - One of the country s top AIDS researchers and an expert in international health will lead Duke University s new Global Health Institute, one of several recent moves that puts the school at the forefront of HIV research. Dr. Michael H. Merson, former director of the World Health Organization s AIDS progr
NEW DELHI - Health authorities are calling for a repeal of a 145-year-old law that makes gay sex a crime, fearing it is causing HIV and AIDS to spread quickly in India s homosexual community, officials said Wednesday. The government s main AIDS prevention agency has filed an affidavit in the Delhi High Court, supportin
BOSTON - The state s death rate is plunging and life expectancy has reached a new high as aggressive outreach to patients has led to a decrease in the rates of the state s top killers, heart disease and cancer, according to figures released Tuesday. The faster you re in and the faster you re treated, the better the out
TORONTO - Canada s government Tuesday announced an expanded $875 million compensation package for thousands of people infected with hepatitis C by tainted blood in the 1980s and 1990s. Canada has paid about $1 billion in compensation to people infected with the disease between 1986 and 1990, outraging the estimated 5,5
HARARE, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe opened a new legislative year Tuesday with a low key speech to Parliament, blaming economic problems on the U.K. and other western critics of his human rights record. My tribute goes to the gallant people of Zimbabwe for continuing to exhibit great fortitude despite the prevai
UNITED NATIONS - Nine pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies have pledged to try to help meet the goal of providing universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment by 2010, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Monday. Annan issued a statement after a private meeting between senior U.N. officials and top executives
TORONTO, Canada - A star-studded lineup that includes Richard Gere, Alicia Keys and the Barenaked Ladies will kick off the opening ceremonies for next month s International AIDS Conference in Toronto. Other performers who will take to the Rogers Centre stage on Aug. 13 to help open the conference will include Blue Man
LONDON - More than 600 children die every day in war-ravaged Congo and even more are displaced, sexually abused or swept into the camps of combatant groups, a UNICEF report said Monday. The report comes less than a week before the country s first democratic elections in more than 40 years, which UNICEF ambassador Marti
LOS ANGELES -- An 18-year-old from Puerto Rico who hopes to someday star in U.S. and Latin American films was crowned Sunday night as Miss Universe 2006. Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza shared a nervous emotional hug with first runner-up, Kurara Chibana of Japan , moments before the winner was announced, then clasped her ha
WASHINGTON -- When Sen. Barack Obama travels to Africa next month for a five-nation, 15-day tour, he will have one credential no other U.S. senator can claim: He is the son of an African. Twice before, that connection has led Obama to visit Africa and learn more about his late father, a Kenyan goat herder who became a
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) -- Just over 30 percent of pregnant women in South Africa are infected with the AIDS virus, according to a government report released Friday which estimated that 5.5 million South Africans are living with HIV. The survey, conducted in October 2005 and released Friday by the Department of He
LA CROSSE, Wis. - A man who crashed his minivan into a medical clinic and then went on a damage rampage inside was trying to find a doctor he blames for endangering his life by refusing to run an HIV test on him in 1988, a criminal complaint says. Geoffrey Fitzgerald, diagnosed with AIDS eight years later, was charged
NEW DELHI - If the spread of HIV and AIDS goes unchecked in India it could clip the country s economic growth over the next 10 to 15 years, according to a government-sponsored report released Thursday. However, the government s main HIV/AIDS prevention agency and UNAIDS said India s aggressive camp
CLEVELAND - The owner of one of the nation s largest chains of bathhouses catering to gay men has agreed to a set of health guidelines at six of his clubs, including one in Cleveland. Ray Wolf, owner of Club Cleveland, said his bathhouses already offer services covering many of the recommendations made by the AIDS Task
SEATTLE - The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Wednesday it s awarding $287 million in grants over five years to create an international network of scientists to speed up the development of an AIDS vaccine. The collaboration is critical to making HIV vaccine development more efficient, said Dr. Nicholas He
ABUJA, Nigeria - World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz told a forum of African and black American leaders Tuesday that Africa needs to build infrastructure and curb corruption to become truly attractive for private investment. Still, Wolfowitz commended the continent for moving toward peace and said the stability is help
ABUJA, Nigeria - Former President Bill Clinton told African leaders they need to strengthen their governments so that they can address long-standing problems of hunger and disease. Clinton spoke Monday at a summit bringing African political and business leaders together with their U.S. counterparts in search of partner
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton called on Sunday for pressure to be exerted on Sudan s government to accept a larger and stronger peacekeeping force to restore peace in the country s western Darfur region. The conflict, which began in early 2003, has killed 200,000 people, forced another 2 mi
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Africa appeared in the Group of Eight spotlight again on Sunday - albeit briefly - as anti-poverty groups lambasted G8 leaders for overstating achievements made since last year s summit and leaders looked to the next summit in Germany for a second chance. Leaders said they were worki
ST. PETERSBURG - Group of Eight leaders called Sunday for more AIDS funding to improve monitoring and to give more people access to treatment. G-8 leaders said member nations would work to secure funds needed for 2006-07 to replenish the Global Fund earmarked for AIDS. They also called for the development of a four-yea
NEW DELHI - Asia-Pacific countries on Saturday launched a new U.N.-supported agency to study spread of HIV and AIDS in the region, and its impact on economic development. The Commission on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific - which consists of 10 leading economists, scientists and policy-makers from across the region - will
BOSTON --Over-the-counter sales of hypodermic needles will be allowed in Massachusetts after the Legislature on Thursday approved an override of Gov. Mitt Romney s veto of the measure. Supporters of the bill say it will save lives by slowing the spread of AIDS and hepatitis C through the reuse of dirty needles. House
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Laura Bush danced and played with HIV-infected orphans on Friday and said it is her wish to see a generation of children free of AIDS. Mrs. Bush visited the orphanage on the outskirts of the city after arriving with President Bush for the Group of Eight summit. She held the children s hands and
NEW YORK - Citing concerns about potential violence, an organizer on Wednesday canceled a reggae concert meant to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS after protesters complained two of the scheduled performers were anti-gay. The organizer, LIFEbeat, came under fire by black gay activists and bloggers after it was announced tha
Microsoft chairperson Bill Gates flew to Pretoria on Tuesday to discuss the Aids pandemic with President Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki, who has drawn criticism for his sluggish response to the virus that has infected up to six million South Africans, told journalists that health is one of the principle challenges facing Africa an
NEW YORK - A reggae concert meant to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS is coming under fire from some black gay bloggers and activists who are incensed that the lineup includes two artists they consider to be anti-gay. Among those scheduled to perform at the July 18 show at Webster Hall are Jamaican dancehall artists Been
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A once-daily pill that combines three drugs used to treat HIV received federal approval Wednesday, giving U.S. patients the first triple cocktail therapy that can be swallowed as a single dose. The pill, called Atripla, combines three Food and Drug Administration-approved AIDS drugs that already form
MOSCOW, Russia - Russia s chief epidemiologist said Tuesday that the country was suffering a shortage in HIV medicines and acknowledged that bureaucratic bungles had contributed to the problem. Gennady Onishchenko s comments reinforced complaints that AIDS activists made last month of interrupted deliveries of antiretr
DAKAR, Senegal - More than 600 million of the world s poorest people live in Africa - often in crowded cities, or in small villages lacking health clinics or schools. Unlike every other region in the world, the poverty here worsens each year. So when some of the world s most powerful leaders stood before the television
Newly affluent and increasingly exposed to Western habits, well-off Indians are developing a taste for cocaine. NEW DELHI - What may have begun with a couple of snorts has fast become a media-driven blizzard over whether, along with German cars and French handbags, another Western import is sweeping India -- cocaine.
BALTIMORE - A man who engaged in unprotected sex without telling his partner he was infected with HIV has been convicted of misdemeanor second-degree assault, frustrating prosecutors who say he should have faced felony charges. Under Maryland law, people convicted of knowingly transferring or attempting to transfer HIV
Los Angeles - A woman misdiagnosed by a county hospital as having HIV and treated for two years has settled her lawsuit against the county. Lynn Howard, now living in Idaho, claimed in her lawsuit that she was rendered sick, sore, lame and disabled from the treatment and fear of dying. The terms of the settlement, reac
NEW YORK - Elton John will perform at the third Fashion Rocks concert, which will kick off New York Fashion Week in September. Proceeds will benefit the singer s AIDS foundation. The concert will be held Sept. 7 at Radio City Music Hall. A two-hour special will air the following evening on CBS (9 p.m. EDT). Performers
DEERFIELD, Ill. - Drugstore chain Walgreen Co. said Wednesday it has acquired C&M Pharmacy LLC, a 10-year-old Chicago-based specialty pharmacy. Walgreen said the move extends its ability to serve patients with specialized pharmacy needs in the Chicago area. C&M Pharmacy, which will continue to operate under its
ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- A woman who traveled the lecture circuit with her account of being raped and infected with AIDS as a child has been charged with defrauding the state of Pennsylvania of $66,000 by falsely claiming to have the disease. Cassey Weierbach, 27, was arraigned Friday on charges of theft by deception, forgery
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - At field offices in the African bush and at medical schools and research labs worldwide, doctors and scientists funded by Bill Gates are starting to make a difference on a continent all too familiar with poverty, disease and early death. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is considered
TRIPOLI - Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who are being re-tried on charges of intentionally causing an AIDS epidemic in Libya pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, the court said. The six medics, who have been held in Libya since 1999, were convicted on the same charge and sentenced to death in 2004, but an in
KUALA LUMPUR - Asia-Pacific countries risk a full-blown HIV epidemic among drug users unless governments do more to keep youths off drugs and make clean needles available, a U.N. official said Tuesday. Injecting drug use, or IDU, fuels at least 70% of HIV transmission in places such as China ,
SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Supreme Court has ruled that people who lead high-risk sexual lives have good reason to know they may be infected with the virus that causes AIDS and are responsible for informing partners about possible exposure. Monday s 4-3 ruling in the case of a woman who accused her ex-husband of g
The numbers in India are frightening: In a country of more than 1 billion people, some 5.7 million are infected with HIV/AIDS. That makes India home to more victims of the disease than any other country in the world. Set against those statistics is an army of people trying to fight the virus. Backing some of them are h
-- Abbott Laboratories Gets European Approval for the Tablet Form of Kaletra ABBOTT PARK, Ill. (AP) -- Drug maker Abbott Laboratories said Monday that it received marketing approval from the European Commission for the tablet form of Kaletra, a drug used to treat HIV. The Kaletra tablet, which does not requir
NAIROBI, Kenya - On almost any day, at almost any time, children dressed in rags with glue-filled bottles pressed to their faces stake out the major intersections of Kenya s capital. No one is sure how many children live on the streets of this city of 3 million people, but they certainly number in the tens of thousands
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The hand goes in the air. The student is called upon. The question is posed: Suppose I m going to have sex tonight. How should I protect myself? Questions like those, while hypothetical, can often leave Alabama teachers walking a tightrope between educating their students and not straying beyond any
The first three-drug combination pill to treat HIV as part of foreign AIDS relief efforts won federal approval Friday. The twice-daily pills combine three drugs already widely used to treat human immunodeficiency virus: lamivudine, zidovudine and nevirapine . The generic pill is made by India s Aurobindo Pharma Ltd.
WASHINGTON - The strict black-box warning on the label of an HIV drug approved just last year is being updated to warn of sometimes fatal bleeding within the brain or skull tissue, health officials said Friday. The Food and Drug Administration said it has received 14 reports of intracranial hemorrhaging in patients tre
MADISON, Wis. -- Wisconsin teachers must tell kids sex before marriage is a bad idea under a new state law that takes effect Saturday. The Republican-authored measure requires sex education teachers to stress celibacy as the best behavior for unmarried students and the best means of avoiding pregnancy and diseases such
NEW DELHI - India plans to provide free anti-retroviral drugs to combat HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - to around 100,000 people by early next year, a top health official said, as this nation struggles with the largest number of AIDS infections in the world. With 5.7 million people already infected, India is steppin
NAIROBI, Kenya - Nurse Carolyne Mujibi went to work in Kenya s largest hospital after her father died there - from nursing neglect, she believes. Too much work, too little pay and an assault by a frustrated patient chipped away at her desire to try to make a difference in Kenya. She is preparing to leave to go work in
LONDON - Bob Geldof unveiled an anti-poverty report card Thursday, sounding off on broken promises made at last year s G-8 summit and looking ahead to next month s meeting of the world s richest countries. World leaders who met in Scotland last year promised $50 billion more aid every year by 2010, with half going to A
WASHINGTON - The House on Wednesday voted to continue to allow federal prosecution of those who smoke marijuana for medical purposes in states with laws that permit it. A year ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government can prosecute medical marijuana users, even when state laws allow doctor-prescribed use
MOSCOW - Russian prosecutors on Wednesday asked media officials to close three popular teenage magazines, arguing the publications propagate sexual activity. Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said in a letter to education officials that the magazines Molotok (Hammer), Cool and Cool Girl exploit underage reader
SAN JOSE, Calif. - A San Jose man was sentenced to 30 months in prison for biting one U.S. Secret Service agent and kicking another in the forehead. Jay David Hemm, 43, was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to two counts of assault, said Luke Macaulay, a spokesman for federal prosecutors. Hemm tried using a forge
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian prosecutors on Wednesday asked media officials to close three popular teenage magazines, arguing the publications propagate sexual activity. Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said in a letter to education officials that the magazines Molotok (Hammer), Cool and Cool Girl exploit underage
UNDATED, Ala. - Today marks National H-I-V Testing Day, and health officials in Alabama are urging residents who don t know their H-I-V status to get tested for the disease. The national H-I-V testing campaign is in its 11th year. Today various health organizations are offering free testing at clinics and other facilit
NEW YORK - Warren Buffett s contribution of about $1.5 billion a year to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be used to seek cures for the world s worst diseases and improve American education, Bill Gates said Monday. There is no reason we can t cure the top 20 diseases, Gates said while appearing with Buffett
CHICAGO - Kenneth Early, a 46-year-old carpenter who lives in this city s North Lawndale neighborhood, learned his HIV status recently when his doctor, drawing blood to check his cholesterol level, asked if he wanted an HIV test, too. Early was relieved to learn he tested negative for the virus that causes AIDS. I d al
NEW YORK - Drag queens in knee-high boots, kids with two dads and New York City s first openly gay city council speaker were among hundreds of thousands attending gay pride parades across the nation, weeks after a vicious attack on a popular gay singer and the 25th anniversary of the start of the AIDS epidemic. Tens of
OMAHA, Neb. - The world s second-richest man, Warren Buffett, became one of the world s biggest philanthropists Sunday with the announcement that he would bequeath the bulk of his roughly $44 billion fortune to the foundation established by billionaire Bill Gates and his wife. The decision to start giving next month th
MANILA - The Philippines is rife with the ingredients for an AIDS disaster: an active sex industry that draws foreign tourists, with the dominant Roman Catholic church s stance against contraceptives contributing to relatively low condom use. But it hasn t happened - at least not yet. No one is calling it a success sto
NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of raucous parade-goers braved a steady downpour and lined Fifth Avenue on Sunday for the annual gay pride parade, an event that comes just weeks after an attack on a popular gay singer and the 25th anniversary of the start of the AIDS epidemic. Outrageous costumes were abundant all along t
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - An investigation into sex education presentations at Tuscaloosa Middle School is being closed because the two teachers who were involved are leaving their positions at the school, officials said. Eddie Mae Webb, a 33-year veteran of the city school system, will work at an elementary school until her
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Friday signed legislation that requires HIV testing for every newborn baby in the state when the status of the mother is unknown. Opponents argue testing newborns could divulge women s HIV status against their will. But some doctors contend immediate drug treatment for a newb
NEW YORK - In poor, rural Malawi , a broad-shouldered, well-dressed man rushes into 17-year-old Olivia s tin-roofed, dirt-floored shack, overpowers the teenager and rapes her. Two years later, the same man attacks her again. After one of the two children conceived from the rapes becomes very sick, Olivia gets some bad
WASHINGTON - A new drug to treat HIV won federal approval Friday. The Food and Drug Administration said it approved Prezista for the treatment of the human immunodeficiency virus. The drug is the first approved HIV medication for its maker, Johnson & Johnson . It s also the first new HIV drug approved since June 22
Many HIV-infected Russians are suffering from a dangerous shortage of medicine, experts said, warning that the interruptions in treatment could spawn drug-resistant forms of the virus. Shortages of antiretroviral drugs used to combat HIV have occurred in parts of Russia, gravely impacting patients lives, the Moscow bra
BOSTON --Robert Myers, whose son stumbled across two discarded syringes on a recent school trip, and Larry Day, who came down with the virus that causes AIDS by sharing dirty needles, couldn t be farther apart on the issue of legalizing over-the-counter sales of hypodermic needles. The two spoke at competing news confe
ATLANTA - Jane Goodall, the famous primate researcher, has signed a letter opposing an Atlanta research center s proposal to do AIDS-related research on sooty mangabey monkeys. Goodall was one of 19 researchers to urge the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to reject a request by the Yerkes National Primate Research Cent
NEW YORK - Drug developer Bayer AG said Wednesday its healthcare diagnostics division received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for a new automated HIV test that can detect all known types of the infection. The test, called the EHIV, or Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Enhanced, was approved for use on Bayer s AD
For the first time, scientists have proof that condoms offer women impressive protection against the virus that causes cervical cancer. A three-year study of female college students - all virgins at the start - found that women whose partners always wore a condom during sex were 70 percent less likely to become infecte
NEW YORK (AP) -- Angelina Jolie says the U.S. government has strange priorities when it comes to spending money on war rather than on AIDS or refugees. Our priorities are quite strange, the 31-year-old actress said in an interview that aired Tuesday night on CNN. Jolie said spending money on war rather than dealing wit
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - City leaders adopted a resolution Monday night calling on sheriff s deputies not to target certain adult marijuana users. The City Council backed the resolution 4-0, said city spokeswoman Tamara White. Councilman Jeffrey Prang, who also serves as an assistant to Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee B
WASHINGTON - The excitement over a novel class of drugs being developed to fight HIV has been dampened by fears they could pose serious safety risks, including the possibility they might actually speed the progression of AIDS. The new class of drugs, called CCR5 receptor antagonists, blocks a secondary but crucial door
ANGOLA, Ind. -- An HIV-positive man was sentenced to eight years in prison after the parents of two young boys he molested told a judge their children face years of medical tests. Bobby E. Lehner Jr., of Orland was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty to child molesting and vicarious sexual gratification in January.
SOWETO, South Africa - President Thabo Mbeki led hundreds of South Africans through the streets of this black township on Friday, retracing the steps of student protesters who galvanized the anti-apartheid struggle 30 years ago. The marchers paused at 9 a.m. for a moment of silence to remember Hector Pieterson, a 13-ye
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Young people in the new South Africa are struggling to confront AIDS, sexual violence and poverty. Thirty years ago, their predecessors fought to bring down a racist regime whose legacy still haunts the nation. The young people who marched June 16, 1976 - in what came to be known as the Sow
LAS VEGAS - Drug developer Samaritan Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Thursday that it will begin a late-stage clinical trial for its HIV treatment sooner than planned. The company said it is accelerating SP01A, its lead HIV drug candidate, into a Phase III study in Europe before a mid-stage study of the drug ends. In the Pha
TRIPOLI, Libya - A judge Tuesday sped up the retrial of Bulgarian nurses charged with infecting children with the AIDS virus, ruling that the court would convene every week until a verdict was reached. Presiding judge Mahmoud Hawisa said that from now on, there would be a session every Tuesday. He also rejected an appl
DURBAN, South Africa - South Africa on Monday demanded a greater say over the way millions in U.S. AIDS funding to the country is spent, arguing that giving the money directly to local programs creates a coordination problem. Our view is that external funding must be coordinated through government structures to achieve
CHICAGO - Suppose you need a new knee. Spinal surgery for an aching slipped disc. Maybe a replacement valve for a leaky heart. These procedures often involve parts taken from someone who died. About 1 million such operations are done in the United States every year. Most are safe and successful. But sometimes those
Many viruses, bacteria and other germs have spread to people through transplants of tissue from cadavers or organs from live donors. It s not known whether cancer can be spread through this process. Here is a look at cases reported over the years: Fungus -- More than 500 heart valve transplants each year are believed t
San Rafael, Calif. - The calls often come in the middle of the night, and technicians from Tissue Banks International are sent scrambling to hospitals, coroners offices and funeral parlors to recover medically useful body parts from the dead. Ghoulish as the work sounds, it has become an indispensable part of modern me
LONDON - The world s richest nations have failed to adequately increase aid to the poorest, the aid agency Oxfam said Friday. But debt cancellation has brought real progress to poor countries since Bono and other celebrities led pressure for the write-offs at last year s G-8 summit. Oxfam criticized the Group of Eight
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - About 400 veterans who received prostate biopsies at the Birmingham VA Medical Center have been warned that improperly sterilized equipment may have exposed them to a small risk of HIV or hepatitis infection, officials said. Jeff Hester, a spokesman for the Birmingham VA, said more than 200 veterans
INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana University s School of Medicine has received an $8.9 million federal grant to triple the number of patients receiving anti-retroviral drugs through its HIV/AIDS programs in Kenya . The grant from the President s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is in addition to $15 million IU received in 2004 for
FORT WAYNE, Ind. -- A businessman whose son died of AIDS has donated $275,000 to a coalition of groups supporting gay rights. Otis Vincent, semiretired marketing director at Trinity Mortgage in Fort Wayne, had pledged $200,000 to Indiana Equality s fundraising campaign, but increased his gift by $75,000 Wednesday.
Trenton, N.J. (AP) -- Television personality Montel Williams plans to tell a New Jersey senate panel on Thursday how marijuana relieves his chronic pain caused by multiple sclerosis, and urge New Jersey lawmakers to enact medical marijuana laws, as 11 other states already have. Williams, 49, who was diagnosed with MS s
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican issued a sweeping condemnation Tuesday of contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilization and same-sex marriage, declaring that the traditional family has never been so threatened as in today s world. The document was issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family, whose head, Cardinal Alfon
BANGKOK, Thailand - When HIV first escalated in Africa and the Caribbean, Asia remained virtually untouched and unaware. But the world s most populous continent is catching up. Today, 25 years into an epidemic that has claimed 40 million lives worldwide, the Asia-Pacific region has the highest number of infections afte
Foster City, Calif. - The 25-year fight against AIDS has been good to Gilead Sciences Inc., a Bay Area biotechnology company that makes the world s hottest-selling HIV treatment. The popularity of the treatment, Truvada , is soaring because it has almost no side effects and requires patients to take only a single pi
More than 100,000 New York City residents have HIV, and 20 percent don t know it. Many sicken and die without learning their status. New York City health officials want to reverse the trend by making it easier for doctors to administer HIV tests and to monitor the care of people who have the virus. But the issue has dr
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Adrian Calea found out he was HIV positive when he accidentally saw a doctor s note in his mother s purse when he was 10. Two years later, he learned on the Internet exactly what that meant. I thought about slitting my wrist, he said. But then, I thought if I am going to die of this disease, a
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - It began quietly, when a statistical anomaly pointed to a mysterious syndrome that attacked the immune systems of gay men in California. No one imagined 25 years ago that AIDS would become the deadliest epidemic in history. Since June 5, 1981, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has kille
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - First lady Laura Bush told a major AIDS conference Friday that more people must understand how the deadly virus is transmitted, and she called on countries to improve literacy so their citizens can make better choices. In a short speech to the U.N. General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS, Bush
UNITED NATIONS, (AP) - World leaders resisted setting exact financial targets Friday for the fight against AIDS, drawing criticism from activists who said rich nations are too worried about having to pay the bill. Rights groups and some delegations were also dismayed that a declaration capping the U.N. conference on AI
In those days, a diagnosis was a death sentence. No one knew how you got it, this mysterious ailment that savaged the human body with almost medieval cruelty. Baffled doctors threw everything they had at skin cancers, brain infections, intestinal parasites and other horrific symptoms. Nothing worked. Twenty-five years
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Standing beneath a towering crucifix, the Rev. Andre Pierre thundered at the faithful crowded elbow-to-elbow in the Sacred Heart Church to show mercy for the poor and the elderly. Then he did something that until recently would have been close to heresy: He urged his flock to pray for peopl
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - It began innocuously, when a statistical anomaly pointed to a mysterious syndrome that attacked the immune systems of gay men in California. No one imagined 25 years ago that AIDS would become the deadliest epidemic in history. Since June 5, 1981, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has k
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) - The World Health Organization said Friday that female genital cutting is a form of torture that must be stamped out, even if it is done by trained medical personnel. The medicalization of ritual genital cutting fails to prevent girls from being permanently scarred, threatening their lives whe
The 25-year fight against AIDS has been good to Gilead Sciences Inc., a Bay Area biotechnology company that makes the world s hottest-selling HIV treatment. The popularity of the treatment, Truvada , is soaring because it has almost no side effects and requires patients to take only a single pill once a day.
When HIV first escalated in Africa and the Caribbean, Asia remained virtually untouched and unaware. But the world s most populous continent is catching up. Today, 25 years into an epidemic that has claimed 25 million lives worldwide, the Asia-Pacific region has the highest number of infections after sub-Saharan Africa
MILWAUKEE - More than 2,000 veterans were advised they might have been exposed to deadly viruses such as HIV when they underwent prostate biopsies at a medical center for veterans, a newspaper reported Friday. The Department of Veterans Affairs sent letters dated May 8 to 2,075 men who had the biopsies between 1989 and
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Warning that the battle against AIDS was at risk, the United Nations asked delegations at a major conference Thursday to stop opposing the mention of condoms, safe drug use and funding goals in a document that will help guide efforts to fight the virus over the next 10 years. Yet governments still
San Francisco - Clasping purple irises, calling out names and clapping to a gospel beat, San Francisco paid tribute Thursday to the thousands of residents who died from AIDS in the last 25 years and honored the thousands more still living with the HIV virus. About 200 people gathered in a performing arts center to hear
KUALA LUMPUR - Three people die from AIDS every day in Malaysia and 18 people are infected with HIV, according to new statistics that show the country has recorded more than 70,000 HIV cases since 1986, a news report said Friday. The statistics, released by the Health Ministry s Parliamentary Secretary Lee Kah Choon Th
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union is offering drug makers extended patents as an incentive to produce children s versions of drugs for diseases such as cancer, AIDS or psychiatric disorders. New regulations approved by the EU Parliament Thursday encourage pharmaceutical companies to develop pediatric drugs that do
NEW YORK - Police used bolt cutters to separate AIDS activists who had chained themselves to each other Wednesday in the lobby of the building that houses the U.S. Mission of the United Nations. The protesters were trying to call attention to what they said was the United States failure to do enough to fight the deadly
UNITED NATIONS - The world has fallen far short of fulfilling the promises made five years ago to fight HIV/AIDS, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned at a high-level meeting where leaders from around the world gathered to consider new ways to tackle the deadly virus. A day after a major U.N. report found that the
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations hopes that a high-level meeting on AIDS starting Wednesday will bring a surge of new funding to fight the disease, after a report warned that the epidemic continues to spread and $20 billion will be needed each year to fight it by 2008. Yet HIV/AIDS activists and civil society groups
WASHINGTON - The federal guidebook for reducing the spread of AIDS highlights initiatives that are at least seven years old, which some say hinders the nation s battle against the disease. In 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, published summaries of 24 initiatives shown to reduce transmission
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- India now has the largest number of AIDS infections as the spread of the disease shows no sign of letting up a quarter-century into an epidemic that has claimed 25 million lives, the U.N. reported Tuesday. I think we will see a further globalization of the epidemic spreading to every single corner
Los Angeles - California could lose millions of dollars for HIV and AIDS treatment under a federal proposal to shift more funding to rural and Southern states, local health officials say. We will not even be able to cover our basic medical care needs. That s how devastating it is, said Donna Fleming, a disease control
MOUGINS, France - A glitzy benefit dinner on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival brought in more than $4 million for the American Foundation for AIDS Research, or amfAR, organizers said Friday. Host Sharon Stone opened the bidding Thursday and sold off two Louis Vuitton vanity cases that she designed herself, bri
UNITED NATIONS - More than two million children under the age of 15 are living with HIV, almost all in sub-Saharan Africa where there is no access to treatment and death is virtually guaranteed, seven leading child advocacy organizations said in a report Friday. We are failing children, said Dean Hirsch, chairman of th
WASHINGTON - A new vaccine that could put the pox on shingles for many adult sufferers of the often painful infection caused by the chickenpox virus has received federal approval, health officials said Friday. The Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine, Zostavax, late Thursday, Merck & Co. Inc.
WASHINGTON - It will take a huge infusion of development aid - as much as $70 billion annually - to improve the health of the world s poor by 2015, the World Bank says. Countries need the money to meet such health goals as fighting the spread of HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases, lowering child death rates and cutti
WASHINGTON - Solving the mystery of HIV s ancestry was dirty work. But researchers now have confirmed that the human AIDS virus really did originate in wild chimpanzees -- in a corner of Cameroon . Scientists have long known that captive chimps carry their own version of the AIDS virus, called SIV or simian immunodefic
WASHINGTON - President Bush will meet with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda at the White House on May 31 to discuss AIDS and economic issues as well as efforts to stabilize parts of east Africa. The White House also announced on Thursday that first lady Laura Bush will lead the official U.S. presidential mission to the
UNITED NATIONS - Denial, food shortages and squandered resources were among the problems preventing thousands of AIDS patients from getting treatment in countries hardest hit by the disease, according to a report by treatment activists. The findings were in an update released Wednesday by the International Treatment Pr
San Francisco - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world s largest philanthropy organization, announced Wednesday that it would give $104 million to a nonprofit organization that fights tuberculosis, a scourge in the developing world. The money will be doled out over five years to the Global Alliance for TB Dru
UNITED NATIONS - Myanmar s military junta appears ready to turn a new page and engage the international community after years of hostility, a top U.N. official said Wednesday. Pressure from Myanmar s neighbors and members of the U.N. Security Council, as well as offers of new aid, have spurred a shift from the regime,
CAPE TOWN - South African health activists and trade unions Wednesday stepped up their criticism of the government s failure to tackle the AIDS epidemic in one of the world s hardest hit countries, days before the U.N. General Assembly conference on the disease. The Treatment Action Campaign said that South Africa face
WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush praised World Health Organization leader Dr. Lee Jong-Wook, who died after emergency brain surgery, for his tremendous leadership of the sprawling U.N. agency. Dr. Lee worked tirelessly to improve the health of millions of people, from combating tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS to hi
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- Prayers and Advil weren t enough to save Samkon Gado s cousin from what he can only assume was AIDS. Now the Green Bay Packers running back wants to do something about it. He spent part of his offseason doing grunt work at a local hospital, a step toward his goal of becoming a doctor and returni
GENEVA -- U.N. health chief Lee Jong Wook, who had been building up the World Health Organization s defenses against a possible influenza pandemic caused by bird flu, died Monday after undergoing emergency surgery for a blood clot in his brain, officials said. He was 61. Dr. Lee, who spearheaded the U.N. health agency
WOODBURY, Minn. -- Shoppers come to this upscale brick strip mall to pick up bouquets of cookies decorated like soccer players, or $39.99 bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape. Soon, they ll be able to get emergency contraception, too. Planned Parenthood wants to expand its services to more areas, and the organization s leade
New York -- After writing an autobiography that sold millions of copies and earned him a hefty advance, former President Clinton has struck a deal to write another book. Alfred A. Knopf will publish the new work, in which Clinton will focus on public service and individual citizen activism, telling a story that he hope
WASHINGTON -- A U.S. House subcommittee on Friday unanimously approved $21.3 billion for foreign-assistance programs for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, $2.4 billion less than the amount President George W. Bush s administration had sought. Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., and the House Appropriations Committee s foreign ope
MOSCOW -- Although it faces an escalating epidemic, Russia stands to lose tens of millions of dollars in international AIDS funding because the World Bank has reclassified it as an upper middle-income country, officials said Friday. Non-governmental groups that rely largely on funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS
WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Thursday barred the Bush administration from requiring nonprofit AIDS groups to sign a pledge opposing prostitution and sex trafficking in exchange for federal dollars. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said a law passed by Congress in 2003 violates the free-speech rights of groups s
DETROIT - A United Nations agency is naming Mary Fisher, the HIV-positive daughter of the late Michigan philanthropist and political donor Max Fisher, as a special representative on the issue of HIV and AIDS. Fisher, a 58-year-old artist, contracted HIV from her then-husband in 1991. She spoke about AIDS at the 1992 Re
A Ukrainian health official said Wednesday that prices for AIDS and tuberculosis drugs have decreased by 20 times, crediting what he called effective measure to fight corruption. Deputy Health Minister Valentyn Snisar claimed that corruption among top health officials under former President Leonid Kuchma, whose term en
WASHINGTON - More federal AIDS care money would go to Southern and rural states under legislation approved by a Senate committee Wednesday. The revisions affect the 1990 Ryan White CARE Act, which sends about $2 billion a year to state and local programs for AIDS drugs and care for the neediest patients. The largest fe
SAN FRANCISCO - City-run medical clinics will no longer require written consent and counseling sessions before testing people for HIV in a bid to increase the number of people screened for the virus, officials said Wednesday. The city, at the forefront of the AIDS fight, becomes the first known entity in the U.S. to fo
CAPE TOWN - Over 210,000 South Africans are now receiving anti-AIDS treatment, the highest number in the world, the government announced Wednesday. Nearly 135,000 people are being given anti-retroviral medicines, or ARVs, in the public health sector, and an additional 80,000 in the private sector, government spokesman
MOSCOW - Russian scientists and business analysts Wednesday urged the government to push forward with a proposal to set up an international center for developing a vaccine against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. President Vladimir Putin s envoy to the Group of Eight major industrialized nations told reporters a day ea
Transgender men and women sometimes let medical conditions linger because of fear of an awkward doctor s office visit. For all the primping, powdering and pumping up many transgender men and women will do to pass as the opposite sex, there s one thing health care experts say too many of them can t stomach: a visit to t
ROCHESTER, N.Y. - A man convicted of killing a community activist 10 years ago was freed Tuesday after DNA tests tied the slaying to another man. All I can say is God is good, said Douglas Warney, 44, bent over in a wheelchair with advanced AIDS. Warney, who has an eighth-grade education and an IQ of 68, had confessed
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (AP) -- Drug makers GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Tuesday that early results of a clinical study show their HIV treatment Lexiva is comparable to the Kaletra anti-HIV drug combination sold by Abbott Laboratories Inc.
LONDON - Bono was a guest editor of Tuesday s edition of The Independent newspaper, filling its pages with stories on HIV/AIDS in Africa, poverty and global warming. The 46-year-old Irish rocker, who has long complained that Africa s problems get little attention in the news, was invited to sit in the editor s chair to
UNITED NATIONS - Naomi Watts has been named a special representative to the U.N. program for HIV/AIDS. The King Kong actress just returned from a trip to Zambia , where she saw hospitals, homes and schools where lives have been destroyed by AIDS. Given these stark realities, I can no longer stand on the sidelines, Wat
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Former Deputy President Jacob Zuma will resume his duties as the deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress following his acquittal on rape charges, the party said Monday. Zuma was acquitted last week of raping a 31-year-old, HIV-positive AIDS activist and family friend. He had
SARATOV, Russia (AP) -- Vitaly is the face of Russia s AIDS epidemic, epitomizing many of its most troubling characteristics. The 23-year-old furniture maker, a former intravenous drug user, tells few people that he carries the virus that causes AIDS, fearing harassment and discrimination. Should his immune system fail
MOSCOW - A top Russian AIDS official criticized his nation s response to its escalating epidemic, warning Monday that pouring extra money into combatting the disease would not succeed without a new approach. The criticism by Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the Federal AIDS Center, came as hundreds of activists, government off
GARY, Ind. -- The Indiana University School of Medicine Northwest plans to use a $250,000 donation for local research scientists help fight HIV and AIDS. The school plans Wednesday to formally announce the inauguration of the Northwest Indiana Health Research Institute. The HIV research lab will be named after the Jose
TRIPOLI, Libya - A new trial for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV began Thursday with a judge refusing bail. The nurses and doctor have been in jail since 1999 on charges that they spread the virus that causes AIDS to children at a hospital in Be
WASHINGTON - Who should get the first flu vaccine during a worldwide outbreak - the 60-year-old grandmother with a weak heart and lungs or the healthy 4-year-old with decades ahead of her? Government guidelines put the ill grandmother at the head of that line, for now. Younger, healthier people should be moved ahead, a
CAPE TOWN - South Africa s health minister Thursday refused to criticize the country s former deputy president and former head of its National AIDS Council for having unprotected sex with a woman he knew was HIV-positive, instead accusing the media of sowing confusion. Jacob Zuma was acquitted earlier this week of rapi
TRIPOLI, Libya - A new trial for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting more than 400 Libyan children with the HIV virus began Thursday with a judge refusing bail. Bulgaria pressed for a quick resolution of the case. The U.S. and European Union have hinged future relations with Libyan leade
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - First lady Laura Bush challenged the graduating class at Vanderbilt University to participate in Gulf Coast rebuilding efforts, saying helping others can bring happiness. It doesn t matter what career you re pursuing, before you start a new job or go to grad school, dedicate a vacation to recovery,
Oklahoma City - Oklahoma became the last state to make tattoos legal when the governor signed legislation Wednesday to license and regulate tattoo artists and parlors. The measure ends a ban on tattooing that had been in effect since 1963. The new law takes effect Nov. 1. Regardless of one s personal views about tattoo
WASHINGTON - Actor Matt Damon is back from a trip to Africa with a passion for fighting AIDS and praise for President Bush s relief program. The work that s being done and the people that I met who are on the front lines there, I just came away feeling like we re going to beat this, he said in a telephone interview Wed
NEW DELHI - Nearly 150 people, some AIDS sufferers, demonstrated Wednesday against a U.S. biotech company that is seeking to patent its anti-HIV drug in India - a move that could halt local production of the generic equivalent. The company, Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD), has applied for an Indian patent on the drug
NEW YORK - A U.S. policy that forces groups fighting AIDS overseas to denounce prostitution in order to receive federal funding violates free speech rights, a judge ruled Tuesday. The Supreme Court has repeatedly found that speech, or an agreement not to speak, cannot be compelled or coerced as a condition of participa
CHICAGO - Since taking office in January, Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has been to the White House and addressed a joint session of Congress to secure aid for her west African nation. Tuesday, the first democratically elected female head of state in Africa s history was looking ahead to power politics of an
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - A day after he was acquitted of rape, former Deputy President Jacob Zuma apologized Tuesday for having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman but denied he had harmed South Africa s AIDS prevention efforts. Zuma s testimony that he thought he faced little risk from unprotected consensua
Ithaca, N.Y. -- Can we trust you? the girls asked. Samite Mulondo told them they could. Shyly, the three girls, who d been sexual slaves for rebel soldiers in northern Uganda , asked if he could help them be tested secretly for HIV. And not just them, but 130 others. Their request surprised Samite. He d come to Uganda
TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey would become the 12th state to legalize marijuana for people with debilitating medical conditions under a bill slated to be discussed next month by state lawmakers. Sen. Joseph Vitale, chairman of a Senate health panel, said he s scheduled a June 8 discussion to hear from experts on the bill
WASHINGTON - Pharmasset Inc. has registered for an initial public offering of up to $75 million in common stock. The clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, based in Princeton, N.J., makes drugs to treat viral infections. The company is focused on creating oral therapeutics to treat human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV,
Testing for the AIDS virus could become part of routine physical exams for adults and teens if doctors follow new U.S. guidelines expected to be issued by this summer. Federal health officials say they d like HIV testing to be as common as a cholesterol check. The guidelines for voluntary testing would apply to every A
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Former Deputy President Jacob Zuma faced a judge s ruling today in a rape case that has sent mixed messages on AIDS and sexual violence and tested South Africans political loyalties. With the public focused on the trial since it began in March, Judge Willem van der Merwe was allowing live b
OKLAHOMA CITY - The stain is finally leaving tattoo artist Brandon Mull s profession. Tattooing has been banned in Oklahoma for more than four decades, but artists like Mull have applied their body art in commercial shops that defied state law and operated without health rules to protect their customers and themselves
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - A man who once seemed in line to be South Africa s next president was acquitted of rape Monday in the country s most politically charged trial since the end of apartheid. Supporters erupted into boisterous celebrations, but former Deputy President Jacob Zuma still faces trial in July on sep
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- A judge Monday acquitted former Deputy President Jacob Zuma of rape in a politically charged trial that left in tatters his aspirations to lead South Africa. The verdict set off celebrations among Zuma s supporters in the courtroom and across the street from the courthouse where about 5,00
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Southerners living with HIV or AIDS are not being shortchanged in the distribution of federal funds, as many in the region claim, and in some cases even get more money than those in large cities hit hardest by the initial outbreak, a new analysis says. Southern AIDS advocates, however, strongly disag
DAKAR, Senegal -- A New Yorker s attempt to become the first black American to row solo across the Atlantic ended when his homemade boat sprung a leak hours after he left the coast of Africa Sunday. Victor Mooney radioed for help after his boat started taking on water, according to a press release on his Web site. He w
YANGON, Myanmar - Germany has donated $870,000 to the U.N. Children s Fund toward AIDS prevention programs for non-schooling youngsters in Myanmar, a UNICEF statement said Saturday. The funds will help three local nongovernment organizations implement plans to teach various skills and HIV/AIDS prevention to youngsters
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Bono asked an audience of business and civic leaders in Michigan s second-largest city to encourage the federal government to do more to help fight AIDS and poverty in Africa. The rock star and activist also expressed hope Thursday night about a proposed peace agreement for the violence-plagued S
TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine will permanently freeze millions of dollars remaining in a state grant program over concerns that money from the fund was doled out unfairly. The move means that about 350 organizations and municipalities will go without $26 million left in the program, which an Associated
WASHINGTON - Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions joined two Republican colleagues in calling for major changes in HIV/AIDS funding from the federal government. At a news conference yesterday, Sessions along with Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn and North Carolina s Richard Burr, said they want more money allocated to the South, especia
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - American Indians and Alaska natives need more research on how HIV and AIDS affect their communities, and culturally sensitive treatment needs to be created to combat the diseases, officials said at a health conference Wednesday. More than 1,000 people gathered for the five-day conference on HIV and
SAN DIEGO - A hospital nurse who failed to clean surgical instruments may have exposed nearly 300 patients to hepatitis or HIV, officials said Wednesday. Officials at Scripps Memorial Hospital said the patients, who all underwent stomach-reduction surgery, had a very low risk of infection because the tools had undergon
A Vatican study on whether it could permit condoms to battle AIDS has a very narrow scope: married Roman Catholic couples in which one partner has the virus. But its theological underpinnings are centuries old, and could lay the groundwork for an end to the church s blanket ban on contraception. The principle of double
VIENNA, Austria - French film star Catherine Deneuve will attend a gay charity ball in Vienna later this month, the event s organizers said Wednesday. Deneuve will join actress Sharon Stone, model Naomi Campbell and singer Anastacia as high-profile guests at the 14th annual Life Ball, which raises funds in support of d
UNITED NATIONS - Poor nutrition contributes to the deaths of some 5.6 million children every year and the world has fallen far short in efforts to reduce hunger by half before 2015, the U.N. Children s Fund said Tuesday. The finding, announced in a UNICEF report, was the latest evidence the United Nations is not on pac
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -- The most sensational trial since the end of apartheid closed Tuesday with defense demands for former Deputy President Jacob Zuma to be acquitted of charges he raped an HIV-positive family friend. Judge Willem van der Merwe said he would deliver his verdict Monday. It will be broadcast
RICHMOND, Va. - For all the primping, powdering and pumping up many transgender men and women will do to pass as the opposite sex, there s one thing health care experts say too many of them can t stomach: a visit to the doctor. A health study by the Virginia Health Department and Virginia Commonwealth University is int
WASHINGTON - Reversing course, the government has concluded that thousands of federal doctors and medical researchers who receive higher-than-normal salaries deserve the same protection to blow the whistle on wrongdoing as other civil servants. The decision by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board supersedes an earli
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- HIV/AIDS is a silent killer moving through Native communities around the world, says Rick Haverkate. It is not being talked about until it is too late, said Haverkate, an American Indian who hopes to change that with a conference on HIV/AIDS among Natives in the United States and
NEW YORK -- At least a dozen people who had routine operations claim they caught deadly viruses and other germs from body parts stolen from corpses in a ghoulish scandal that has sent hundreds of people for tests. The patients tested positive for germs that cause AIDS, hepatitis or syphilis after receiving tissue trans
SOFIA, Bulgaria - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that Libya must release five Bulgarian nurses imprisoned on charges they intentionally infected children with HIV while doing AIDS research. The Bulgarian nurses have been too long in captivity, Rice said following a ceremony to open Bulgarian military
SOFIA, Bulgaria - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday called on Libya to free five Bulgarian nurses held since 1999 on charges of intentionally infecting Libyan children with HIV. The Bulgarian nurses have been too long in captivity, Rice told reporters after signing an agreement with the Bulgarian governm
WASHINGTON - Lawmakers from California, New York and New Jersey on Thursday denounced proposed HIV/AIDS funding changes they say could shift tens of millions of dollars from the West and Northeast to the South. Bush administration officials and Southern lawmakers countered that changes are needed to bring fairness to t
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa s most politically explosive trial since the end of apartheid neared a conclusion Wednesday, with the prosecution describing as fanciful an assertion by former Deputy President Jacob Zuma that he had consensual sex with the woman who has accused him of rape. Prosecutor Char
CAPE TOWN - An international AIDS conference ended Wednesday with impassioned appeals to political and pharmaceutical industry leaders to fund development of a virus-killing gel to protect women from the disease and so save millions of lives. Peter Piot, head of UNAIDS , said he was deeply disappointed that research in
SHANGHAI - A Chinese pharmaceutical company s spokesman refused to comment Wednesday on accusations the company s hemophilia drugs spread HIV to scores of users. Li Wanhua, spokesman for The Shanghai Institute of Biological Products, refused to address the claims in a brief telephone interview. I have no comment on thi
MOSCOW - Russia s chief epidemiologist called Wednesday for increased efforts to stem the spread of infectious diseases and urged governments to start preparing for an expected pandemic of bird flu. Gennady Onishchenko urged the international community to pool resources to combat diseases such as tuberculosis, measles,
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Victims of sexual assaults in Alabama will no longer have to wait for months to find out if their attackers had AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases. At a crime conference Tuesday, Gov. Bob Riley signed legislation that requires suspects arrested for rape or sexual assault to undergo tests for
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican is studying whether condoms can be condoned to help stem the tide of AIDS, but it has given no indication that a pronouncement is expected, officials said Tuesday. Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, who heads the Vatican office for health care, was quoted over the weekend in La Repubblica daily
VATICAN CITY - At Pope Benedict XVI s request, the Vatican is preparing a document about condom use by those with AIDS, a top cardinal said in a published interview. Soon the Vatican will issue a document about the use of condoms by persons who have grave diseases, starting with AIDS, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, w
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) -- AIDS is increasingly regarded as a disease of the poor, blunting efforts to develop tools, such as a virus-killing gel, that could save millions of lives, delegates at an international conference said Monday. Speakers at the conference said development of a microbicide gel that could be
NEW DELHI - The next five years would be crucial for India s battle against HIV infection with nearly 5.21 million people living with the virus, the second highest after South Africa , a top government official warned Sunday. The infected people accounted for less than 1% of India s more than 1 billion population as co
WASHINGTON - AIDS started as a big-city epidemic infecting mostly gay white men, and now it s prevalent in the South and among minorities. Yet the federal law that helps the neediest patients has not kept up with that evolution. By some measures, AIDS patients in California and the Northeast get more money per capita t
A safe and effective gel allowing women to protect themselves from the AIDS virus may be available by 2010 if current trials involving thousands of women are successful, researchers said Sunday. Gita Ramjee, director of the HIV prevention research unit at South Africa s Medical Research Council, said microbe-killing va
VATICAN CITY -- Despite the Vatican s opposition to condoms, a senior cardinal said in comments published yesterday that condoms were the lesser evil when considering the scourge of AIDS. We must do everything to fight AIDS, said Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the retired archbishop of Milan, in Italy s L Espresso news
MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin Friday called on the government and society to work harder to fight the spread of HIV, saying AIDS is affecting young Russians at a pace that threatens the nation s well being. Putin told top federal and regional officials experts believe the true number of people with HIV may be signi
ATLANTA - About 9 percent of HIV-infected Georgia prison inmates got the virus in prison, according to a new study. That information will help state officials decide how to prevent HIV s spread and whether to place HIV patients in separate facilities, said Brian Owens, assistant commissioner for the Georgia Department
WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that it does not support the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The FDA said in a statement that it and other agencies with the Health and Human Services Department had concluded that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treat
MOSCOW - The head of the Russian Orthodox Church on Thursday criticized Western-funded programs aimed at combatting HIV and AIDS, calling them immoral and inconsistent with Russian culture. In a letter to President Vladimir Putin, Patriarch Alexy II also wrote that Western non-governmental organizations were running th
CAPE TOWN - A leading South African anti-AIDS campaigner Thursday rejected an invitation to join an official delegation to a U.N. conference, highlighting tension between activists and the government in one of the world s hardest hit countries. Sipho Mthathi, general secretary of the Treatment Action Campaign, said the
SHANGHAI - Police in the Chinese city of Shanghai broke up a news conference Thursday by parents of hemophiliacs who say their children were infected with the AIDS virus due to a drug company s negligence. The families had come from various parts of China to negotiate compensation with a Shanghai pharmaceutical company
BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Health care contracting services company Novation, a unit of VHA Inc., on Wednesday signed a deal with Abbott Laboratories to make OraSure Technologies Inc. s rapid HIV antibody test available throughout its healthcare network. The Oraquick Advance Rapid HIV 1/2 antibody test can quickly test for antib
NORTH CHICAGO, Ill. - Abbott Laboratories Inc. said Wednesday that its first-quarter profit rose 3 percent despite lower sales for the diversified health care products maker. Net income grew to $864.9 million, or 56 cents per share, for the January-March period from $837.9 million, or 53 cents per share, a year ago. Re
CARLSBAD, Calif. - Drug developer Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. on Tuesday granted ImQuest Pharmaceuticals Inc. an exclusive license to develop and market Isis treatment for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. ImQuest plans to develop the treatment, ISIS 5320, as a therapy to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV, particular
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabweans mark 26 years of independence today with little to celebrate amid deepening economic hardships, personal tragedies and a rapidly widening gap between the rich elite and the poor majority. President Robert Mugabe s ruling party said Monday it was disturbed that young Zimbabweans showed n
ATLANTA - Human volunteers this week began signing up for an experimental HIV vaccine developed at Atlanta s Emory University. Twelve people are expected to take part in the trial at four participating research centers - St. Louis University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Maryland and the University of Alaba
NEW YORK -- A U.S. government ultimatum making federally funded health groups providing HIV prevention services pledge opposition to prostitution has spawned a First Amendment nightmare, a judge was told Thursday. Lawyer Rebekah Diller, asking the judge to reject the measure, said three U.S. public health organizations
KIEV - The World Bank has suspended a $60 million project on combating HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in Ukraine because of the government s failure to implement the program and distribute the money, the bank said Wednesday. Ukrainian officials have so far spent only 2% of $60 million earmarked in January 2004 to be distrib
RACINE, Wis. - An HIV-positive man was facing criminal charges after being accused of having unprotected sex with a woman. Jason A. Burnett, 30, South Milwaukee, was charged with recklessly endangering safety. A conviction carries a maximum 37 years in prison and up to $20,000 in fines. A woman who was having a sexual
NEW YORK - Elton John is selling thousands of pieces of his personal wardrobe to raise money for his AIDS charity. The sale, which runs Tuesday through Saturday, included 10,000 coats, sweaters, suits and other garments worn by John and his partner, David Furnish. A temporary shop, Elton s Closet, was set up in the con
ATLANTA - As monkeys go, sooty mangabeys aren t cute. Big-fanged, gray and hairy, they simply stare when threatened. Few zoos stock them. Some animal rights advocates can t even spell the species name. Nevertheless, the sooties are at the center of a precedent-setting debate over whether researchers should be allowed t
NORTH CHICAGO, Ill. - Abbott Laboratories Inc. (ABT) has signed on a celebrity - Magic Johnson - as part of its efforts in HIV/AIDS research. The health-care products maker announced Friday that it is teaming with the retired basketball superstar to address health disparities in minority communities through a multiyear
-- Allion Healthcare Buys Western Drug Customer List From H&H for $4.6 Million Cash MELVILLE, N.Y. (AP) -- Allion Healthcare Inc., a specialty drug and medical services provider for people with HIV and AIDS, said Friday it bought the customer list of selected HIV patients from H&H Drug Stores Inc., a Los Angele
Los Angeles - The vast homelessness problem in Los Angeles County can be solved in a decade by spending up to $15 billion on 50,000 new units of affordable housing and services to prevent indigence or quickly get people off the streets, officials said Thursday after a three-year study by a public-private panel. The blu
GENEVA - A global shortage of doctors and nurses is hampering the fight against AIDS and other fatal diseases and could leave the world vulnerable to a flu outbreak or major disaster, the U.N. health agency said Friday. Doctors and nurses are urgently needed in the 57 worst-affected countries to immunize children again
MOMBASA, Kenya - American Grammy award winning singer Alicia Keys followed up Thursday on projects that she has been funding in Kenya with other celebrities through Keep a Child Alive, a charitable organization committed to supporting HIV patients in Africa. Keys, who is supporting the project along with Oprah Winfrey,
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Former South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma testified Tuesday at his rape trial that his accuser led him to believe she wanted sex by lamenting she had no boyfriend and wearing a skirt when she visited his house. Zuma, who used to head South Africa s National AIDS Council, claims he ha
JOHANNESBURG - Former Deputy President Jacob Zuma told a South African court Wednesday that he showered after he had unprotected sex with an HIV positive woman to reduce the risk of becoming infected with the AIDS virus. Zuma, a former freedom fighter, is accused of raping the family friend at his home last November.
MAPUTO, Mozambique - The Mozambique government and key donors have agreed on a common fund and new code of conduct intended to streamline and improve efforts to combat HIV/AIDS. Mozambique s National AIDS Council, which in the past had to deal individually with each donor, will manage the new account. Under the new
The Bush administration s $15 billion global AIDS initiative is emphasizing sexual abstinence and fidelity more than Congress intended, and that focus is undermining prevention efforts in poor countries, congressional investigators said Tuesday. U.S. teams on the ground in Africa and other poor areas told Congress Gov
The emphasis on sexual abstinence in President Bush s $15-billion global AIDS plan is creating confusion and impeding efforts to tailor prevention programs to specific Third World countries needs, the investigative arm of Congress reported Tuesday. U.S. teams in most of the key countries report they are having a hard t
Austin, Texas - Talk radio and blogs are taking aim at a University of Texas biology professor because of a published report suggesting he advocates death for most of the human population as a means of saving the Earth. However, Eric Pianka says his remarks about his beliefs were taken out of context, that he was just
JOHANNESBURG - Former Deputy President Jacob Zuma told a South African court Tuesday that he was HIV negative, putting an end to speculation that he was infected with the AIDS virus. Under cross examination from the prosecution in his rape trial, Zuma said that he did not use a condom when he had sex with his HIV-posit
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Quincy Jones visited former South African President Nelson Mandela, but a meeting between Mandela and Naomi Campbell wasn t publicized. Campbell was charged with assault in New York City last week for allegedly throwing her cell phone at a housekeeper. The 35-year-old supermodel was release
BEIJING, China - Can good health come cheap? That s the question some of the world s leading health experts are answering with new research aimed at helping poor countries get the most bang for their buck by using inexpensive, simple interventions like taking aspirin to cut down on heart disease and stroke - the bigges
WILMINGTON, Del. - Drug developer Incyte Corp. said on Monday it will discontinue development of DFC (formerly Reverset) as an HIV treatment, and as a result, cut its guidance on projected cash use for the year. The company said it will discontinue development of DFC as an HIV treatment due to an observed increase in h
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The man once groomed to be South Africa s next president defended himself Monday against charges that he raped an HIV-positive family friend, arguing that they had consensual sex. Jacob Zuma, who was sacked as deputy president under a cloud of corruption in June, told a packed courtroom tha
BEIJING - A prominent AIDS activist who accuses Chinese security forces of abducting and holding him for 41 days said Friday he would sue the government for improperly detaining him. Hu Jia, who was released Tuesday, said it appeared he was taken because he helped spearhead a hunger strike to protest violence against d
SAN FRANCISCO - New HIV cases have fallen by almost 10 percent over the past five years, the city s first decline in infections since the late 1980s, health officials said. The number of new infections reported fell from 1,084 new infections in 2001 to 976 in 2006, according to preliminary estimates by San Francisco s
WASHINGTON - Johnson & Johnson said Friday it was recalling a special chemical distributed to U.S. and foreign laboratories that may produce false negatives when used in hepatitis, HIV, pregnancy and other diagnostic tests. Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics Inc., a J&J company, has not received any reports of injuries
NEW DELHI - The number of HIV infections has fallen by more than a third among young people in southern India , the worst-hit region of the South Asian nation, according to a study published Thursday in a leading medical journal. The 35 percent drop in HIV cases among people aged 15-24 was the result of better preventi
WASHINGTON - Thousands of elderly patients are learning the hard way that it isn t enough to check whether their medicines are covered under a new Medicare drug plan they have chosen. Insurers are using a broad range of tools to get customers to take the cheaper drugs they want them to take, and failure to follow their
CHICAGO - Richard Weisman is drinking deeply from what he considers the Fountain of Youth. The 44-year-old Las Vegas car dealer injects himself with human growth hormone six times a week, in addition to swallowing a handful of dietary supplements every day. I have young children. I do it for them, he said. I want to be
SAN FRANCISCO - You d think Gilead Sciences Inc. would be celebrating. Enthusiastic scientists are hopeful its drugs now used to treat people with the AIDS virus might actually protect healthy people from catching it. In recent days, researchers heartened by a study in monkeys said they would expand tests of the pill
BEIJING - A prominent Chinese AIDS activist who disappeared after staging a hunger strike to protest violence against dissidents has returned home from what he claimed was a six-week ordeal in police custody, his wife said Wednesday. Hu Jia was held at an unspecified location by police from his local Tongzhou Police St
JOHANNESBURG - The Johannesburg High Court Wednesday refused to withdraw a rape charge against South Africa s dismissed deputy president. Judge Willem van der Merwe rejected defense arguments that the evidence brought against Jacob Zuma was too poor to justify continuing with the country s most politically explosive tr
PHILADELPHIA - A girl who contracted HIV when she was sexually assaulted by a city-approved caregiver will get up to $5.35 million in damages. The city and several agencies placed the girl, then 8, with a convicted bank robber who had previously been charged with sexually assaulting a stepson. The man, John Lyles, was
TUCSON, Ariz. - The president of the nation s tissue bank association condemned a New Jersey company Monday for its unconscionable role in a macabre scandal involving cadaver body parts and said he expects more criminal charges will follow. His voice cracking with emotion, James Forsell told those gathered at a tissue
Key dates in the AIDS epidemic: -June 5, 1981: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports five gay men in Los Angeles are suffering from a rare pneumonia found in patients with failing immune systems. -May 1983: The virus that causes AIDS is identified. -December 1984: Ryan White, a 13-year-old Indiana
GENEVA - The United Nations attempt to put 3 million HIV-infected people around the world on antiretroviral drugs by last year fell far short of its goal, but it saved hundreds of thousands of lives nonetheless, the U.N. health agency said Tuesday. The so-called 3 by 5 program - 3 million people on antiretroviral drugs
DURBAN, South Africa - More than 500 HIV-positive inmates began a hunger strike at a prison in Durban, South Africa, to protest the shortage of anti-retroviral treatment. The Treatment Action Campaign said more than 20 inmates have already died in the prison because of HIV or AIDS-related infections in the past three m
ATLANTA - Twenty-five years after the first AIDS cases jolted the world, scientists think they soon may have a pill that people could take to keep from getting the virus that causes the global killer. Two drugs already used to treat HIV infection have shown such promise at preventing it in monkeys that officials last w
San Francisco - The Rev. River Sims rent-controlled efficiency apartment is lined with handmade crucifixes and photos of young male hustlers who sold sex for cash. Many are now dead. There s Zach, who died of a drug overdose at 19. Larry died of AIDS at 27. They are just two of the young men Sims has known during his y
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe s political and economic crisis had passed the point of no return for recovery without basic internal reforms and substantial international help, the U.S. ambassador said in an interview published Sunday. Calls by President Robert Mugabe for improved relations and bridge building with fore
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - The day the trial opened, the woman who accuses a former South African deputy president of rape was hustled in under heavy guard, her face hidden under a cloth. The politician s supporters have burned photographs of her outside the courtroom - even though her identity was meant to be a secret
HANOI, Vietnam - The number of children orphaned by AIDS in the East Asia-Pacific region could grow from 450,000 to 1.7 million in less than a decade if resources aren t increased for prevention and treatment, a UNICEF official said Friday. Neff Walker, a UNICEF epidemiologist based in New York, also said the number of
GENEVA - Many African countries are failing to make adequate investments to control the spread of tuberculosis in an area where the problem is made worse by the prevalence of HIV, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. Elsewhere in the world, even in low-income countries with enormous financial constraints, prog
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - GlaxoSmithKline PLC will fight counterfeiting of an HIV medication by tagging each medicine bottle with a tiny radio beacon, the pharmaceutical company said Wednesday. The tracking system, about the size of a postage stamp, is attached to each bottle to authenticate that the drug
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - The number of women infected with HIV in Malaysia is on the rise, and housewives outnumber female sex workers four to one, the Malaysian AIDS Council said Wednesday. In 1986, when the first AIDS cases were discovered in Malaysia, there were no female victims, but by 2004 women accounted for 7 p
HANOI - AIDS has orphaned an estimated 1.5 million children in the Asia-Pacific region, but they are often overlooked in the mix of other issues surrounding a disease that has historically focused on adults, officials told a regional conference Wednesday. While we have made impressive efforts at achieving results to ta
BANGKOK - The Babylon, a swank bathhouse in the heart of Bangkok, is where Thailand s gay middle class come to flex their muscles, sip a cappuccino and, most of all, seek out anonymous sex. But for AIDS activists, the dark hallways and tiny rooms where men gather also are a cause for concern that increasing unprotected
BEIJING - The wife of a Chinese AIDS activist who disappeared while under police guard publicly appealed for help in finding him on Tuesday, expressing fears for his health. Zeng Jinyan spoke at a news conference at a Beijing hotel - an unusual step in a society where police often break up such privately organized gath
SAN FRANCISCO -- Dr. David Smith founded the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic during the summer of love. It was 1967, he was 28 and he practiced his own brand of rock n roll medicine -- treating drug overdoses, sexually transmitted diseases and the common cold. In the early years, it stayed afloat with money from musicians s
CHICAGO - Injecting himself with human growth hormone six times a week and swallowing a handful of dietary supplements each day doesn t seem weird or excessive to 44-year-old Richard Weisman of Las Vegas. I have young children. I do it for them, said Weisman, the owner of a luxury and sports car dealership at Caesar s
CHICAGO - Human growth hormone is being studied by researchers but remains unproven as a youth elixir. TIME TO GROW: The pituitary gland produces HGH, which helps children grow and is important for maintenance of tissues and organs. HORMONE SHOTS: Pharmaceutical HGH has legitimate purposes such as treating wasting synd
KAMPALA, Uganda - Beatrice Were says she did just what her government recommended - shunned sex until her marriage and stayed faithful to her husband. What she didn t realize is that he was unfaithful. Soon after their first child was born, he caught the AIDS virus and unwittingly infected her. The question of why
BEIJING, China (AP) -- The U.N. human rights agency has expressed concern to Beijing about a Chinese AIDS activist who disappeared last month after going on a hunger strike to protest violence against dissidents, his wife said Friday. Zeng Jinyan gave The Associated Press a copy of a document from the U.N. Human Rights
LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) -- The World Health Organization announced a new strategy on Friday to fight the global tuberculosis epidemic and urged governments to donate more money to help WHO meet its goal of reducing TB s prevalence and its daily death toll of 5,000. WHO said its greatest challenges remain the sp
Doctors Without Borders on Wednesday called on Abbott Laboratories to make its promising new anti-AIDS drug available in Africa. The group said Abbott s lopinavir / ritonavir seems well-suited for use in the developing world because it does not require refrigeration.
NEW YORK - A macabre scandal in which corpses were plundered for body parts could be even bigger than previously disclosed, with one company alone saying it has distributed thousands of pieces of human tissue that authorities fear could be tainted with disease. In addition, three other companies have reported quarantin
SAO PAULO - The top U.S. envoy for public diplomacy on Monday described Brazil as a hemispheric leader and praised Latin America s largest country for its efforts to combat AIDSs, poverty and drug trafficking. Karen Hughes, Undersecretary of State of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, made her remarks while addressin
WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Laura Bush got another honorary title to add to first lady on Monday, when a group of HIV-positive mothers visiting from South Africa said they consider her their grandmother. Mrs. Bush invited the women to the White House after meeting them during a trip to their country last year. She said she was
NEW YORK - Shares of Allion Healthcare Inc. fell sharply Friday after the provider of pharmacy and disease-management services to HIV-positive and AIDS patients lowered its 2006 first-quarter and full-year estimates. Shares of Allion lost $3.06, or 19 percent, to close at $12.74 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The Melville
ATHENS, Ga. - A woman who was pricked by a hypodermic needle that was taped to a movie theater seat has not shown any signs of illness since the incident. But lab technicians have not been able to identify what was in the syringe because there was not enough of it to test, police said. As far as we know, she s doing we
FOSTER CITY, Calif. - Drug maker Gilead Sciences Inc. said Wednesday that the Food and Drug Administration granted traditional approval to two of its HIV treatments, allowing the drugs labels to include long-term trial data. The traditional approvals apply to the company s once-a-day antiretroviral
WELLINGTON - New Zealand s rate of HIV infection rose 17% last year with a record 183 people diagnosed with the sickness, an AIDS research group said Tuesday. The figure, the highest total since records began in 1985, was up 26 on 2004 when 157 cases were diagnosed, the AIDS Epidemiology Group at Otago University said.
GENEVA - The lethal strain of bird flu poses a greater challenge to the world than any infectious disease, including AIDS, and has cost 300 million farmers more than $10 billion in its spread through poultry around the world, the World Health Organization said Monday. Scientists also are increasingly worried that the H
NEW DELHI, India - At first glance, the movie seems like just another Bollywood film: It has the disco-beat songs, the hip-swiveling dance number and the hero and heroine cavorting in the rain in drenched revealing clothes. But Aisa Kyon Hota Hai? or Why Does This Happen? is a unique first. The newly released feature f
BEIJING - China s government is detaining political and health activists and warning others not to protest as its ceremonial parliament prepares to open its annual session, activists and human rights groups said Friday. Thousands of people from around China visit Beijing each year during the parliament session, hoping
A small-town police chief was accused in a federal lawsuit Thursday of stopping a would-be rescuer from performing CPR on a gay heart attack victim because he assumed the ailing man had HIV and posed a health risk. Claude Green, 43, died June 21 after being stricken yards from City Hall in Welch, a community of about 2
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - About this time each year, Karen Morris faces losing her HIV medications during the legislative tug-of-war over the state budget. Morris is one of 1,100 Alabamians infected with HIV or AIDS who is enrolled in the Alabama Drug Assistance Program. This year, the program needs $5 million in legislative
WASHINGTON - A New Jersey biomedical supply house that illegally removed body parts for sale failed to test the blood of some donors, federal regulators said Thursday. The Food and Drug Administration reiterated its recommendation that patients who received transplanted tissues collected by the company should be tested
KIEV - Human Rights Watch Thursday criticized Ukraine for its failure to end police abuse and medical discrimination against HIV/AIDS victims and others at high risk of infection. The New York City-based rights group said the abuse was undermining efforts in Ukraine to combat what has become the worst HIV/AIDS epidemic
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Although an Illinois law has allowed the use of marijuana as medicine since 1978, the statute has sat on the books unused. Now a Chicago lawmaker has won the chance to take a practical medical marijuana bill to the Senate for a floor vote for the first time in three decades. Under Sen. John Cullerto
Little Rock, Ark. - Former President Clinton said Wednesday the United States and Africa have turned a corner in their relationship, but challenges remain on battling AIDS and other health issues. Clinton spoke to students from seven African and American classrooms in an event sponsored by Boston University s African P
BEIJING, China - A United Nations agency said Tuesday it has expressed concern to the Chinese government about a Beijing-based AIDS activist who dropped from sight after staging a hunger strike to protest violence against dissidents. Hu Jia, 31, was under house arrest and in the company of police when he was last seen,
New York - As President Bush prepares to travel to India this week, Richard Gere is applauding the leader s focus on the AIDS crisis there. Gere may not agree with Bush on everything, but he certainly can praise him for mentioning HIV/AIDS in the same breath as terrorism, the actor and activist said on ABC News This W
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Brazil s government has given a packet of condoms and anti-AIDS information to U2 rock star Bono, who praised the country s anti-AIDS campaign. Bono received the kit at a dinner Wednesday with Culture Minister and pop star Gilberto Gil in Salvador, a coastal city some 750 miles northeast of Rio
LOS ANGELES - Elizabeth Taylor will ring in her 74th birthday Monday with a gift worth several hundred thousand dollars. Only it isn t for her. The two-time Oscar winner will commemorate her birthday by donating a mobile medical unit to the New Orleans AIDS Task Force, her publicist, Dick Guttman, announced Thursday.
NEW YORK - Columbia University has ordered new training for faculty members whose research involves children after a federal investigation faulted a program that tested AIDS drugs on foster children. The training will be specifically geared to participation of children in research, university spokeswoman Marilyn Castal
NEW YORK - When investigators exhumed the body of an 82-year-old woman late last year, they made a shocking discovery: Many of the bones had been removed from the lower half of her body and crudely replaced with plastic plumbing pipe. Prosecutors allege the woman and her family were victims of a New Jersey biomedical f
Fargo, N.D. - Sunflower farmers say a German study looking into possible links between the plant and AIDS medicine may grab headlines, but they believe it s too early to increase production of the crop. Scientists at the University of Bonn say a substance used by sunflowers to fight off a plant disease could be used in
NEW YORK - The head of a biomedical firm has been charged with plotting to steal bone and other tissue from cadavers at New York City funeral homes and sell it nationwide for transplants, a law enforcement official said Wednesday. It is the latest development in a burgeoning scandal involving scores of funeral homes an
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. - Biopharmaceutical company Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Wednesday the Food and Drug Administration designated its PRO 140 therapeutic a fast-track product for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. The designation streamlines the regulatory review process. Progenics said PRO 140,
TORONTO, Canada - Three Canadian health officials, a U.S. pharmaceutical company and one of its senior American executives pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that their neglect allowed thousands of Canadians to contract HIV through tainted blood. After weeks of delay and initial fears that some charges would be thro
SYDNEY - Australia on Wednesday pledged A$25 million (US$18.5 million) to former U.S. President Bill Clinton s foundation to help in the fight against AIDS in Asia. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the money will be disbursed to the William J. Clinton Foundation over a four-year period to increase the availabilit
TORONTO - Hemophiliacs who received blood contaminated with the HIV virus and relatives of those too ill to come to court - or who have already died - were relieved Tuesday when the trial over Canada s worst public health scandal finally got under way. After weeks of delay, and initial fears that some charges could be
BEIJING - Chinese activists on Tuesday announced the creation of a group to lobby the government to assist people with AIDS, accusing officials of failing to help those infected through tainted blood. On the issue of the rights of AIDS victims infected by blood transfusions or blood products, the health authorities of
ST. LOUIS - Mutating diseases that originate in the animal world and then infect humans pose a growing health threat to people around the globe, according to scientists. Researchers have documented 38 illnesses that have made that jump over the past 25 years. There are 1,407 pathogens - viruses, bacteria, parasites, pr
PANAJI, India - Former President Clinton urged governments and public foundations Saturday to buy anti-AIDS drugs from low-cost manufacturers so more children can receive treatment for the disease. Clinton, who is on a private visit to India, said last month that Cipla and three other Indian pharmac
CHICAGO - Every year more than 1 million Americans have medical procedures that use bone or other tissue from a cadaver - like disk replacements or dental implants. But what if the donated tissue came from someone who died of cancer? Or AIDS? Or hepatitis? That worry caused by a ghoulish scandal in the body parts busin
SAN FRANCISCO - An unlicensed doctor bilked hundreds of immigrants by performing fake medical exams and injecting them with a saline solution he claimed was a vaccine, prosecutors said Thursday. Stephen Brian Turner took $247,000 from 1,417 victims, most of whom thought they were receiving legitimate immigration medica
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but occasionally there s a cheap feast for the eyes. Several topless bars, peep shows and sex show clubs in Amsterdam s famed Red Light prostitution district have declared an open house on Feb. 18, hoping to shore up their reputation with local politi
NEW YORK - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. is set to announce on Wednesday that it has granted two generic drug makers royalty-free licenses to make and sell its latest AIDS drug in sub-Saharan Africa and India . The company granted South African company Aspen PharmaCare the rights to manufacture and sell
BANGKOK - Nearly 200 delegates from the Asia Pacific region were Tuesday meeting to discuss how to improve access to AIDS drugs and treatment as well as countering the discrimination that many patients with the disease face, the U.N. said. Academics and government and civil sector representatives will analyze the major
KIGALI, Rwanda - The U.K. has agreed to provide the Rwandan government with nearly $800 million over the next 10 years because it has a proven track record in fighting poverty, a British official said Tuesday. The U.K. s permanent secretary for the Department for International Development, Luxembourg s minister of fore
HONG KONG - Hong Kong recorded a record-high 313 new cases of HIV in 2005, a 17% increase from the 268 new cases in the previous year, the government said Tuesday. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. The reasons behind the increase weren t immediately clear. The government said in a statement that sexual transmissio
SEOUL - South Korea posted its highest-ever annual increase in the number of carriers of the virus that causes AIDS, with 680 new infections reported last year, health officials said Monday. The rise brought the total number of South Koreans known to have been infected with the HIV virus so far to 3,829, 721 of whom ha
Fargo, N.D. - Local agriculture officials are upbeat about a German study showing that a sunflower plant could be used in new drugs to fight the disease that causes AIDS. Scientists at the University of Bonn discovered the link while they were looking at antifungal properties the sunflower uses to fight off sclerotinia
TORONTO, Canada - The case against four physicians and a U.S. pharmaceutical company accused of failing to properly screen blood that infected thousands of Canadians with HIV and hepatitis was in jeopardy Monday after a key witness cast doubt on some evidence. After years of investigation, opening arguments were set to
ST. CHARLES, Mo. - A St. Charles woman is jailed and accused of exposing her boyfriend, and perhaps other men, to the virus that causes AIDS. Angela Dawn Harris, 26, has had the HIV virus for a dozen years. She was arrested Saturday, a day after she was charged with three counts of recklessly risking infection of anoth
TORONTO - Federal prosecutors trying to convict four physicians and a U.S. pharmaceutical company for failing to properly screen blood that infected thousands of Canadians with HIV and hepatitis were forced to concede Monday their case was in jeopardy. After years of investigation and delay, opening arguments were set
BEIJING, China - AIDS surpassed hepatitis B to become China s third-deadliest infectious disease last year, the government said Monday. Tuberculosis was the country s No. 1 infectious killer in 2005, followed by rabies, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing a Health Ministry report. Hepatitis B followed by tetan
New York - A scraggy Philip Esposito steps on an uptown train and begins telling his story: He s HIV positive, homeless and hungry. He needs a few bucks to get something to eat. Commuters lining the subway car have heard it all before. They ignore him, many assuming he s full of it. But Esposito, 27, isn t lying. A
BEIJING - China issued its first official regulations on how to prevent and control the spread of the AIDS virus Sunday, mandating free testing and medication for the country s poor. The statute issued by the State Council, China s cabinet, protects HIV carriers and AIDS patients from discrimination and criminalizes in
NEW YORK - Former Giants lineman Roy Simmons and celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred want an investigation into whether Simmons was denied access to the Super Bowl media center because he is gay and HIV positive. Simmons and Allred held a news conference outside NFL headquarters Thursday before delivering a letter to the le
Actress Denise Richards reportedly rushed to a medical clinic for testing after finding out husband Charlie Sheen cheated on her during their marriage. A representative for the actress has confirmed to Us Weekly magazine that the actress was tested for sexually transmitted diseases at a Thousand Oaks, Calif., clinic on
ATLANTA - The drug nevirapine prevents the spread of the AIDS virus from mother to child time after time, a new study suggests, challenging earlier findings. The new research presented Wednesday at a scientific meeting in Denver found that in Ugandan women who received the drug during a first pregnancy, HIV transmissio
WASHINGTON - The State Department said Wednesday the U.S. worldwide AIDS relief program is helping more than 42 million people prevent sexual transmission of the disease. However, a key member of Congress said the program falls short. People are alive today because the United States has turned its words into action,
WASHINGTON - The State Department told Congress on Wednesday the U.S. worldwide AIDS relief program is helping more than 42 million people prevent the transmission of the disease. People are alive today because the United States has turned its words into action, the second annual report to Congress said. Funding fo
SAN FRANCISCO - An international humanitarian group on Tuesday accused the biotechnology company Gilead Sciences Inc. of breaking its promise to make its effective AIDS drug widely available throughout the Third World. Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, said the Foster City-based company s vow to mak
CHICAGO - College students Gia Davenport and Katherine Jenkins went to Roosevelt University s Auditorium Theatre in downtown Chicago on Tuesday to hear some music, gather some information and get tested for HIV. You always want to know, Davenport said. If you have the opportunity to protect yourself and be more knowled
ATLANTA - Patients with the AIDS virus are better off if they start taking powerful medicines early, rather than waiting for symptoms of their disease to appear, new research suggests. A new study calls into question guidelines that say patients should delay taking the toxic drugs to stave off treatment-related complic
WASHINGTON - A particularly bad strain of chlamydia not usually seen in this country appears to be slowly spreading among gay and bisexual men, an infection that can increase their chances of getting or spreading the AIDS virus. Called LGV chlamydia, this sexually transmitted disease has caused a worrisome outbreak in
TORONTO - A criminal trial opened Monday for Dr. Roger Perrault, the physician at the center of a tainted blood scandal that led to the worst public health disaster in Canadian history. Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto agreed during preliminary hearings to allow a publication ban on the names of the victims. She
Chicago - Pediatricians should speak out in support of needle exchange programs to reduce the spread of HIV among injection drug users, the American Academy of Pediatrics says in a toughened policy statement. Doctors also should discuss HIV risk with their teenage patients with a nonjudgmental approach and offer confid
New York - Calling it a danger to public heath, the Food and Drug Administration shut down a biomedical firm on Friday amid allegations the company covertly harvested human tissue for profit at funeral homes in the New York city area and elsewhere. The FDA sanction against Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J.,
MENLO PARK, Calif. - Geron Corp. said Friday that research on two of its compounds shows that they help the body s own immune cells to fight the production of viruses in HIV-infected cells. The company said that it research shows that two types of compounds called small molecule telomerase activators, named TAT0001 and
WASHINGTON - Quoting from Islamic, Jewish and Christian texts, rock star Bono called Thursday for the U.S. government to give an additional 1 percent of the federal budget to the world s poor. Speaking to President Bush and members of Congress at the National Prayer Breakfast, the U2 front man said it s unjust to keep
RICHMOND, Va. -- State HIV planners will reach out to minorities, targeting language barriers and other culturally based gaps in access to care, according to a three-year service plan released Wednesday. They ll build relationships with ethnic and faith-based groups to guarantee treatment to underserved communities, an
MAPUTO, South Africa - Natural disasters, food shortages and high AIDS rates are threatening Mozambique s chances of throwing off the shackles of its long civil war, a top U.N. envoy said Wednesday. James T. Morris, the U.N. secretary-general s special envoy for humanitarian needs in southern Africa and the head of the
Text of President Bush s State of the Union address on Tuesday, prepared for delivery, as released by the White House: Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, members of the Supreme Court and diplomatic corps, distinguished guests and fellow citizens: Today our nation lost a beloved, graceful, courageo
CHICAGO - A controversial policy in AIDS-ravaged South Africa that barred many blacks and even the country s president from donating blood led to a substantial drop in HIV-tainted blood supplies, a study found. Hundreds or more would have gotten infected from blood transfusions without the race-based policy, said seni
JACKSON, Miss. - A federal judge heard testimony this weekend from attorneys fighting to increase the number of medications offered by Medicaid. Armen H. Merjian, of New York, argued before U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate that the state cannot legally limit Medicaid recipients to five prescription drugs a month.
NEW YORK - New groups are springing up to win a piece of President Bush s $15 billion AIDS program, with traditional players and religious groups joining forces to improve their chances in a competition that already has targeted nearly a quarter of its grants for faith-based organizations. The administration is putting
GABORONE, Botswana -- When Botswana first offered free AIDS treatment, health authorities in one of the world s most infected countries braced for a rush of patients. It did not happen. It turned out that most people were so afraid of the deadly disease, and the frequent social ostracism, that they did not want to know
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - AIDS is no longer an epidemic limited to major cities like San Francisco and New York, with Southern states now accounting for about 45 percent of new cases, but federal funding for treatment and prevention has not shifted to meet the needs of the region, members of the Southern AIDS Coalition said F
Trenton, N.J. -- Gov. Jon S. Corzine will urge the Legislature to pass a law giving intravenous drug users access to clean needles and would consider using his executive power to force the issue if lawmakers fail to act. In his first major interview since taking office, Corzine on Thursday told The Associated Press tha
DAVOS, Switzerland - U2 front man and activist Bono Thursday unveiled his latest effort to combat the spread of AIDS in Africa, while Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf talked about the role of strategy in dealing with the aftermath of last year s devastating earthquake. The second day of the World Economic Forum
BEIJING - China on Wednesday revised down an estimate of the number of people living in the country with HIV/AIDS, but international health agencies warned that with 70,000 new infections last year, there was no room for complacency. They also warned that the virus was no longer restricted to drug users and those who s
Park City, Utah - In Egypt , a local variation of the Sesame Street gang encourages literacy and empowerment for girls in a sharply male-dominated culture. In an Israeli-Palestinian edition, the show sought to build mutual understanding. In South Africa , an HIV-positive Muppet helps teach children about AIDS.
NEW YORK - Patricia Battista had thought her back surgery in early 2005 was routine. A letter from her hospital nearly a year later made it clear she was wrong. Battista was informed that donated human tissue used in her operation could have been infected with a variety of viruses - fallout from an alleged scheme to st
JOHANNESBURG - Sexual abuse of children is rampant in Zimbabwe , where the AIDS pandemic has orphaned more than a million, the U.N. children s fund said Monday. Most of the victims are primary school children, according to reports from clinics, aid groups and the media. One local group recorded 4,146 cases of sexual ab
CAIRO, Egypt - The families of hundreds of HIV-infected Libyan children asked for $12 million in compensation for each child Saturday as part of efforts to resolve the case of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor charged with intentionally infecting the children. Idris Lagha, head of the Association for the F
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - State lawmakers are considering legislation that would require HIV testing for every newborn baby regardless of the mother s consent. The bill approved Thursday by the House Human Services Committee is supported by the Illinois Department of Public Health, which came out against mandatory testing in
LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. - Shares of Calypte Biomedical Corp. shot up Thursday after the diagnostic test maker said it expects to sell an oral HIV test in over-the-counter markets in the United Arab Emirates , with the hope of eventually distributing the test throughout the Middle East as approval is attained from various cou
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Three patients of Knoxville area hospitals have filed a lawsuit against a New Jersey tissue bank, a tissue processor and a distributor they say gave them tissue stolen from corpses. The Knox County lawsuit against Fort Lee, N.J., tissue bank Biomedical Tissue Services Ltd. is just one of a growing nu
TRENTON, N.J. - Four Republican lawmakers on Thursday said they were withdrawing their lawsuit to prevent needle exchanges from starting in three cities because the order authorizing the program had expired. Declaring a public health emergency, former Gov. James E. McGreevey used his executive power just before leaving
WASHINGTON - A major international study of a drug-conserving AIDS therapy has been halted because patients trying the on-again, off-again strategy got sicker than those who never took a break from the high-powered drugs, U.S. researchers announced Wednesday. The study had enrolled more than 5,000 HIV patients in 33 co
BANGKOK - The chief Thai negotiator in talks with the U.S. for a free trade agreement has resigned because criticism of the planned pact has demoralized him, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Thursday. Thai newspapers had reported the resignation of negotiator Nitya Pibunsongkram earlier this week, but there had b
BEIJING - A Chinese court on Thursday was deliberating a claim for 30 million yuan ($3.7 million) in a lawsuit by 16 people who contracted the AIDS virus through tainted blood transfusions, a court official and media reports said. The lawsuit against Bei an Construction Farm and its hospital is reportedly the first cla
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Ten HIV-infected demonstrators and a tuberculosis sufferer were refused food and medicine while in police cells, human rights groups said Thursday in a report that accuses Zimbabwe of failing to meet minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners. The detainees were among 50 trade unionists and civ
WASHINGTON - HIV patients shouldn t be taking breaks in their drug treatment. That s the message from U.S. researchers who halted a major international study that found on-again, off-again medication was far riskier than using high-powered AIDS drugs all of the time. Patients who took their medicine only when their imm
ABUJA, Nigeria - Laura Bush criticized Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday for suggesting that the Republican-controlled House is run like a plantation where dissenting voices are ignored. It think it s ridiculous - it s a ridiculous comment, Mrs. Bush told reporters when asked about the remark during a return fli
New York - In the Continuum is an enormously moving little show that deals with big ideas: a two-actress tour de force that draws an audience into two different worlds linked by the scourge of AIDS and living with HIV. What makes the evening even more astonishing is the fact that the play was written by its two co-star
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government has halted enrollment in a major international study of drug-conserving AIDS therapy, after patients trying the on-again, off-again medication strategy got sicker than those who never took a break from their HIV drugs. The study had enrolled more than 5,000 HIV patients in 33 countries,
ABUJA, Nigeria - First Lady Laura Bush on Wednesday reaffirmed U.S. commitment to help Nigeria treat AIDS patients and stem the spread of HIV, saying she hoped that one day an entire generation will be free of the disease that has ravaged Africa. The first lady, winding up her four-day swing through Western Africa, hig
ACCRA, Ghana - In a muggy college auditorium, first lady Laura Bush on Tuesday announced a U.S.-backed program to provide 15 million textbooks for students in sub-Saharan Africa where more than one-third of primary school aged children are not enrolled in school. It s not uncommon in rural areas to see just one textboo
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Representatives from 19 Latin American and Caribbean nations said Saturday the countries will act as a bloc to try to reduce the price of AIDS medication, Brazil s official news agency said. The countries also said they would invest together and exchange information to begin producing the drug
Providence, R.I. (AP) -- When Debra Nievera went before lawmakers to ask them to legalize medical marijuana, she envisioned a program that would let her safely acquire the drug to alleviate the painful symptoms of the intestinal disorder Crohn s disease and other ailments. She will probably be disappointed. Rhode Islan
LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. - Calypte Biomedical Corp. shares jumped Thursday after the tiny medical test maker said that regulators in China have formally accepted for review a marketing application for an oral-based HIV test. Shares of Calypte surged 7 cents, or 35 percent, to 27 cents in early morning trading on the American
BOGOTA, Columbia - A western Colombian city councilman wants to require everyone in town 14 or older to carry a condom to prevent pregnancy and disease, outraging local priests. William Pena, a councilman in Tulua, said Wednesday he will present a formal proposal to force all men and women - even those just visiting -
CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Protesters pushed through a police barricade outside a hotel where negotiators were trying to hammer out a U.S.-Thai free trade pact Tuesday, as demonstrations against the deal gained momentum but failed to disrupt the talks. Thousands of activists, many from AIDS groups fearing the prospect of u
SEOUL, South Korea - An academic panel investigating the work of South Korean researcher Hwang Woo-suk said Tuesday he fabricated data to support his claim that he cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells from them- capping the spectacular fall of a man once lauded as a pioneer. The latest revelation by the Se
BEIJING - Chinese police blocked a private observance Monday of the anniversary of deposed Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang s death, detaining the organizer and putting activists under house arrest. The move underscored the government s ongoing sensitivity over Zhao, purged from his position in 1989 after sympathizin
CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Thousands of activists, many from AIDS groups fearing unaffordable drugs, began a weeklong protest Monday against a free trade pact between the United States and Thailand. The sixth round of talks, which began Monday, are regarded as crucial in finalizing the free trade agreement, or FTA, which t
Most people were still too afraid to get tested for the deadly scourge. The startling reluctance to seek help in one of the few African nations able to provide it prompted a radical rethink of how testing is done here. An HIV test is now offered as a routine part of any medical visit. In most countries, patients are le
BOSTON - Accused rapists could be forced to undergo tests for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases if the alleged victim requests it under a bill filed on Thursday by Gov. Mitt Romney. Romney said the tests would help bring peace of mind to alleged victims while providing some safeguards to the accused. Under the bill
TRIPOLI - Libya s foreign minister met with his French counterpart Thursday, but said the release of five jailed Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor was not part of the discussions. Releasing the Bulgarian nurses was not included in our discussions, Libya s Foreign Minister Abdurrahman Shalgham said after meeting
SACRAMENTO - Three-quarters of Californians believe it is very important to teach sex education in public schools, including giving students information about getting and using contraceptives, according to a survey to be released Thursday. The report by the Public Policy Institute of California also found that 36 perce
RICHMOND, Va. - The Family Foundation announced a legislative agenda Wednesday to strip Planned Parenthood of state funding and stop schools from asking students about their sexual activities and beliefs without parental permission. One week before the General Assembly session convenes, the state s oldest and largest c
PHILADELPHIA - Organizers of the Martin Luther King Day of Service in the Philadelphia area plan to expand this year s celebration to include projects in other parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. The service day, created through federal legislation in 1994, drew about 45,000 volunteers participating in near
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Rhode Island on Tuesday became the 11th state to legalize medical marijuana and the first since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that patients who use the drug can still be prosecuted under federal law. The House overrode a veto by Gov. Don Carcieri, 59-13, allowing people with illnesses such as
NEW YORK, Tory Dent, a poet and critic whose searing poems about living with AIDS won several awards, has died. She was 47. Dent died Friday at her Manhattan home of an opportunistic infection associated with AIDS, said her husband, Sean Harvey. Since she was diagnosed as HIV positive at age 30, Dent published three bo
GABORONE, Botswana - Catherine had already buried two sisters because of AIDS when she was diagnosed with the dreaded disease. After doctors broke the news, she stopped eating. I thought that was the end of my life, she said. Three years later, the bubbly young woman in a floppy sun hat is sharing her marriage plans wi
(AP) What do you do if you re a former president, besides making millions writing your memoirs? If you re Jimmy Carter, you help cure river blindness in Africa and build habitats for humanity. And if you re George Bush and Bill Clinton, you raise money for hurricane and tsunami victims. Or you try to accomplish somethi
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