AS IF ANYONE needed reminding, a drug can have unintended and dangerous side-effects. But used carefully, the same drug can save lives. This warning label fits nevirapine , an anti-AIDS drug in wide use in the United States and Africa. There is evidence it cuts mother-to-baby transmission of the AIDS viru
Carol Queen wants your old porn. Not right now, not if you re using it. But later, when you want to purge it, replace it or, you know, when you re gone you could leave it to her in your will. Queen will add it to the growing collection of erotica in the library of the Center for Sex and Culture. The center already has
NAMIBIA HAS BEGUN expropriating white-owned farms, the New York Times reported this weekend. The story brought me back to a 2003 flight from Johannesburg to Atlanta, at the end of a trip in South Africa . A white passenger was acting as the worst bigots do: It wasn t enough that he didn t like black people -- those pe
Pathologist Dr. Robert E. Smith, a noted academic and the founder of two East Bay medical supply companies that helped develop protease inhibiting drugs to fight HIV and other infectious diseases, has died at the age of 75. Deeply devoted to science, Dr. Smith labored on research even during his final weeks in a Pleasa
Revelations in the steroid scandal engulfing Major League Baseball have raised new questions about the medical effects of performance-enhancing drugs. Despite the well-documented risks of side effects from high doses of muscle-building hormones, doctors insist the drugs have legitimate uses -- and genuine benefits for
San Francisco public health officials issued a warning Monday that a rare and potentially debilitating sexually transmitted disease reported recently in the Netherlands has turned up among a small number of patients in the city. Known as lymphogranuloma venereum, or LGV, the disease is a form of the common sexually tra
Alex Barnum, Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Staff Writers
The 10 patient advocates who took a seat Friday on the board directing California s high-profile venture in stem-cell research are a largely unknown collection of doctors, fund-raisers and active members of disease lobby groups -- seasoned with a bit of Hollywood glamour. The new crop of policy makers was sworn in at t
State officials abruptly scrapped most of the agenda on the eve of the inaugural meeting of California s stem cell policymaking board because of apparent violations of open-government rules. The gaffe marks a shaky start for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine as it prepares to navigate the political and
San Francisco officials continued to work their budget-balancing magic Tuesday by uncovering $6 million to help restore a handful of popular city services that were targeted for cuts. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had proposed eliminating or reducing dozens of city services to close a projected $97 million deficit t
San Francisco officials continued to work their budget-balancing magic Tuesday by uncovering $6 million to help restore a handful of popular city services that were targeted for cuts. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had proposed eliminating or reducing dozens of city services to close a projected $97 million deficit t
California s top elected officeholders have settled on a single choice -- Palo Alto real estate developer Robert N. Klein -- to direct California s new stem cell enterprise, but nominated three candidates to serve as his top deputy. State Treasurer Phil Angelides completed the complex nomination process Tuesday for the
Contra Costa supervisors, hoping to curb the spread of HIV, hepatitis C and other blood-borne diseases, approved on Tuesday legislation allowing pharmacists to sell hypodermic needles without requiring a prescription. Under the ordinance, any pharmacy that registers with the county Health Department may sell as many as
Some of the architects assembling California s $3 billion stem cell project are pushing for a competitive process to select a chairman to lead the experiment, rather than automatically backing the man considered to be the likely candidate for the job. Robert Klein, the Palo Alto real estate developer, is regarded as th
A plan to eliminate funding for the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau will be presented to the full Board of Supervisors next week, but another cost-saving idea to strip public funding from the Opera, Symphony and Ballet to help plug a projected $97 million hole in the municipal budget has been put on hold
Jaxon Van Derbeken at jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com.
A 36-year-old San Francisco man accused of raping a 9-year-old girl in her home denied the charges Thursday, and his attorney objected to a judge s order allowing blood to be taken from the defendant to test for sexually transmitted diseases. Roberto Gamero, through his attorney, pleaded not guilty to any and all alleg
Bear Cub: Drama. Starring Jose Luis Garcia-Perez, David Castillo, Elvira Lindo and Empar Ferrer. Directed by Miguel Albaladejo. (In Spanish with English subtitles. Not rated. 93 minutes. At the Lumiere.) Some children have an innate resilience that shields them from an unstable home life. Their ability to bounce back i
Rachel Gordon and Kevin Fagan at rgordon@sfcronicle.com and kfagan@sfchronicle.com.
Esperanza Leon, an uninsured 78-year-old widow beset with diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis and failing eyesight, is a face San Francisco voters did not see last month when they rejected two tax measures on the city ballot, punching a $97 million hole in the budget over the next 18 months. But Leon, who is visit
The year 2004 has yielded a cornucopia of feats in physics, including a San Jose breakthrough in scientists ability to map the subatomic world. The American Institute of Physics -- along the lines of book and film critics who announce end-of-the-year Top Ten lists -- has named the biggest scientific achievements of 200
-- LISA O CONNOR, 42, AIDS ACTIVIST, DANCES WITH HER FATHER AGAIN On November 18, Lisa, a long-time Bay Area resident and passionate advocate for women, children and those with HIV and substance abuse issues, passed away peacefully at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. With her family by her side, she was awai
The Rev. Wilma Reichard glided into Room 3241 at Lucile Packard Children s Hospital at Stanford and made eye contact with Nabil Alqam, a 9- year-old kidney transplant patient. Hello, Nabil, she said in her cheery, Southern accent. She had a photographer with her. Nabil looked away and continued playing a video game.
Fifteen years ago, I was a closeted journalist. Then I met Leroy Aarons, the founding father of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, who died Sunday. That was 1989, when fag and dyke were not uncommon monikers for gay journalists in newsrooms, and many reporters feared losing their jobs for coming ou
San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly on Thursday blamed the city s latest fiscal mess on the stupid politics of Gavin Newsom, saying the mayor put together a bad revenue package on last month s ballot that proved to be a difficult sell to voters. Daly made his comments during the first public hearing on Newsom s proposa
The sun shone brightly Wednesday on a midday crowd of several hundred who gathered in Golden Gate Park s National AIDS Memorial Grove to remember those lost to the epidemic and to call for action in the global fight against AIDS. This is truly a holy place, actress and activist Judith Light told the people who filled a
A theory that an antiviral drug used to treat AIDS may also be used to prevent it will be put to the test in San Francisco and Atlanta this month, when enrollment of 400 gay men will begin for the U.S. arm of an international HIV prevention study. The drug in question is tenofovir ,
They re little grants fighting a big problem: $500 for AIDS peer education at a Shanghai university; $2,000 to raise awareness of HIV infection among drug users and prostitutes in Xichang; $2,000 to teach rural women in Hebei about reproductive health. Just in time for today s World AIDS Day, the organization making th
The World Health Organization has recently announced that its ambitious three by five plan to provide anti-HIV treatments to 3 million of the 6 million people at risk of dying from AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2005 will fall short. Randall Tobias, the U.S. Global AIDS coordinator, stated a few weeks ago tha
The United Nations was dealt another blow last month: The hasty approval of cheap, untested AIDS drugs by one of its agencies has likely caused new strains of HIV to emerge in the developing world, according to the American Foundation for AIDS Research. American taxpayers give nearly $1 billion per year to the United N
AIDS has taught the world a deadly but valuable lesson. The worldwide plague can be managed, but it can t be ignored. Tomorrow is World AIDS Day, a benchmark in progress against the incurable disease. In wealthy countries, AIDS death rates have fallen sharply, thanks to widely distributed life-prolonging drugs. In many
French researchers reported Sunday that an AIDS vaccine designed to treat the disease, rather than prevent it, has scored an initial success by suppressing the virus for up to a year among a small group of patients who tried it. Although the technique is cumbersome and costly, the experiment published in an online vers
San Francisco is awash in AIDS groups, so why add one more? There are 20,000 good reasons for one more, say the organizers of Hope s Voice, the city s newest advocacy group for AIDS and HIV education. Hope s Voice reaches out to young adults -- 20,000 of whom were diagnosed with HIV last year in the Unite
Despite a spurt in international spending against AIDS, the epidemic will claim more than 3 million lives this year and is threatening the world s most populous nations, global health authorities warned Tuesday. Spending on prevention and treatment in low and middle income countries grew 30 percent to $6.1 billion in 2
Washington -- The $388 billion spending bill soon to be sent to President Bush was a particularly rich one for Rep. Nancy Pelosi s San Francisco constituency, including several new cultural, educational and governmental institutions that are either under construction, want to expand or are a gleam in their planners eye
There s plenty of flesh in Kinsey, much of it shot in attentive and revealing close-up. But wait, it s not what you think. The body part that fascinates the film s director Bill Condon most, in his new Hollywood biopic about the famed 1940s and 50s sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, is the face. One after another they fill
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, started three years ago with hopes of raising $10 billion a year to combat disease in the developing world, today finds itself short of its goals and on the defensive with its largest patron, the Bush administration. At a meeting Thursday in Tan
IN THE war against AIDS, this should be good news: A consortium of wealthy countries meets in hard-hit Africa to launch programs to fight the epidemic. But it s not working as smoothly as that. Foot-dragging by Washington, by far the biggest check-writer to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, nearl
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, started three years ago with hopes of raising $10 billion a year to combat disease in the developing world, today finds itself short of its goals and on the defensive with its largest patron, the Bush administration. At a meeting Thursday in Tan
Invitation of the week San Francisco Opera Music Director Donald Runnicles celebrates his 50th birthday with a gala fund-raising concert. Featured guest artists include sopranos Christine Brewer and Carol Vaness, mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, tenor Christopher Ventris, and bass-baritones Juha Uusitalo and Willard
The San Francisco Department of Public Health will cut services to the mentally ill, reduce support for people with HIV and lay off public health nurses who visit the chronically ill under a budget-cutting plan approved by the city Health Commission Tuesday. It s all very grim, said Dr. Mitch Katz, director of the Depa
-- Dozens of programs, 200 workers to be axed after voters reject tax hikes to close deficit Dozens of city programs in San Francisco - including mass transit, health clinics, recreation services and street sweeping -- will be eliminated or reduced, and an estimated 200 city workers will lose their jobs, under new budg
-- Vaccine dearth prompts S.F. doctor to import his own supply When San Francisco internist Dr. Philip O Keefe could find no flu shots for his elderly and immune-compromised patients, he did what the federal government is now trying to do: He turned to Canada . Soon enough, a Winnipeg pharmacy that sells all kinds of p
ChevronTexaco s history is marked by guts, glory and conflict. The company celebrates its 125th anniversary today. In the fall of 1879, a clutch of wealthy San Franciscans pooled their cash to tap into the West Coast s growing appetite for oil. One was a financier linked to some of the biggest businesses in town. Anoth
Very interesting full-page ad in the New York Times last week. It was placed by the United Nations Foundation on behalf of the International Conference on Population and Development, an NGO that is committed to an action plan to ensure universal access to reproductive health information. The ad calls for governments, f
In this dog-eat-dog world, Frank Jackson finally found solace in a sweet-faced cocker spaniel named Topper. Jackson, 55 and HIV-positive, had trouble with depression and was feeling isolated, not really wanting to leave home. But two months ago, he adopted Topper from a rescue agency. It s the best thing I ve done in 2
In a boost for a field badly in need of encouraging news, Swiss and American researchers have designed a topical drug that protected laboratory monkeys from a sexually transmitted microbe similar to HIV, the cause of AIDS. With prospects for an AIDS vaccine dimming, there is renewed -- and some would argue, overdue --
Carolyn Lochhead, Zachary Coile - clochhead@sfchronicle.com and zcoile@sfchronicle.com.
Washington - The small band of 11 gay men and one lesbian, Republicans all, who set out more than four years ago on a highly personal crusade to reconcile homosexuals and the Republican Party, today concedes utter failure. One is leaving the party. Another resigned his Bush administration post. Their leader refuses to
New Delhi - When Raju Sharma s father discovered his son was gay three months ago, he got a rope. He hanged Sharma, 23, by the ankles from the first floor balcony of their New Delhi flat and threatened to kill any neighbor who tried to rescue him. Sharma says he dangled for an hour before his dad pulled him up, strippe
These e-cards appear funny, sexy and hip, but if you re lucky, you won t be seeing one in your inbox anytime soon. They re the newest way for gay men diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease to tell their sex partners about their condition. The program is called InSPOT -- an acronym for Internet Notification Servi
One day a collector s item?: For this year s Key to the Cure breast cancer awareness T-shirt for Saks Fifth Avenue, Marc Jacobs channeled psychedelic artist Peter Max, coming up with a swirling cloud sketch on a white long-sleeved cotton shirt. It s $35 and will be available next week in stores. Some other charitable f
Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, rejecting Democratic proposals targeting the high cost of prescription drugs, vetoed measures to help California consumers and state agencies shop for cheaper prescription drugs in Canada . Siding with the drug industry in a political debate occurring across the country, Schwa
UC Berkeley researchers will use the bark of an indigenous Samoan tree to try to clone the gene for a promising anti-AIDS drug in hopes of protecting rain forests and making the drug widely available, according to a deal announced Thursday. The unusual agreement between UC Berkeley and Samoa -- struck after scientists
San Francisco AIDS researcher Dr. Joseph Mike McCune was named Wednesday as one of nine winners of $2.5 million grants from the National Institutes of Health to carry out innovative medical research. A clinician who has been caring for AIDS patients at San Francisco General Hospital since 1982, McCune is also director
Mike Churcher flew all the way from Portsmouth, England, for his first Folsom Street Fair. Dressed in a chain harness and a minuscule studded leather undergarment, he surveyed the crowd, relishing the view of the men in chaps freely parading the fair s seven blocks. It was just what he imagined, although one thing did
Thousands of hyper high schoolers filled the bleachers at Fort Mason s Festival pavilion on Tuesday night for the kickoff of Macy s annual Passport fashion show and AIDS fund-raiser. They whooped it up, football-game style, for four hours. There were hot dogs, popcorn, burritos, chips and sandwiches -- good thing there
Mark Martin, markmartin@sfchronicle.com or Lynda Gledhill, lgledhill@sfchronicle.com
Sacramento - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger approved a bill Monday that could allow California pharmacies to sell hypodermic syringes without a prescription, signing clean-needle legislation that former Gov. Gray Davis twice vetoed. Schwarzenegger cited a growing body of research that has shown access to sterile needles re
Gay men and lesbians throughout California are poised to celebrate when the state s muscular new domestic partners law takes effect Jan. 1 -- but a funny thing is happening on the way to the ribbon cutting. Some committed couples are saying thanks, but no thanks. They are dissolving their current legal partnerships or
Hepatitis B has been referred to as the silent killer within the Asian/Pacific Islander community. It s an asymptomatic disease that often leads to liver cancer. By then, it is usually fatal. With its large Asian/Pacific Islander population, San Francisco is trying to help people before they re beyond help. The Departm
The California Legislature has offered Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger an opportunity to save thousands of lives and millions of health-care dollars at almost no cost to state government. SB1159, passed last month and now on the governor s desk, will allow local governments to authorize pharmacies to sell up to 10 syringes
When Betty Buckley takes a stage, she seems so at home, so married to the job of entertaining, that it s hard to picture her in another context. A major name in Broadway musical theater, she has a powerhouse voice, a dazzling gift for expressing ranges of emotion through song and a list of credits that include Cats, S
AIDS is the Black Death of today. It has killed 20 million and another 38 million are infected with the virus that leads to slow death. It has devastated Africa and now has a foothold in Asia, sickening both men and women around the globe. Given this worldwide threat, why can t scientists produce a magic-bullet vaccine
Gulu, Uganda -- Radio host Lacambel Oryema passed out Cokes to his young guests before handing the microphone to a former sergeant of the Lord s Resistance Army, a fanatical organization that has been battling the government of Uganda for 18 years, Africa s longest-running civil war. Richard Onera said he was kidna
Mission Bay supporters have said for years that a biotech commercial district would eventually grow up around the UCSF campus. But five years after UCSF broke ground at the highly touted development site, that hasn t happened. There are no biotech companies at Mission Bay or anywhere else in San Francisco. The opening
It s no secret that the Bay Area has had a decadeslong fetish for documentaries, so it s no surprise that the honchos at HBO have brought back the Frame by Frame -- HBO Documentary Film Series to San Francisco for a third straight year. The Bay Area is ground zero for documentaries, said Gail Silva, president of the Fi
A woman with a heart-shaped face and soulful eyes is found by police standing alone and naked in an empty, feces-smeared San Francisco apartment, windows sealed, oven and gas burners on, holding her baby named Cosmic. She is brought to the psychiatric emergency ward at San Francisco General Hospital. Wave a hand in fro
Oscar Villalon, ovillalon@sfchronicle.com and Heidi Benson, hbenson@sfchronicle.com.
New novels from Philip Roth and Roddy Doyle. New story collections by Alice Munro and Annie Proulx. And we re not even talking yet of Jon Lee Anderson s highly anticipated book on Iraq or Gary Snyder s first collection of poetry in decades. You might as well go out now and get that TiVo. As the following selective list
For eight years, Hayward resident Jim Malone attended biweekly counseling sessions for men living with HIV. His rent was paid in part by a county health program. Project Open Hand delivered free meals. A nurse visited him at home every two weeks. He lost weight, grew depressed and thought the end was near each time he
A San Francisco public health official has petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to reclassify Viagra as a controlled substance, which would place the popular impotence pill in a category reserved for prescribed steroids and other legal drugs prone to abuse. San Francisco s director of Sexually Transmitted D
We cannot just chip away at the edges of our state s problems. Sometimes a surgeon has to cut in order to save the patient. -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Aug. 4, 2004). A bold and visionary statement, no doubt, and one that many on both sides of the aisle in Sacramento may clamor to support. But as the governor moves
San Francisco Chronicle - Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer
A San Francisco public health official has petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to reclassify Viagra as a controlled substance, which would place the popular impotence pill in a category reserved for prescribed steroids and other legal drugs prone to abuse. San Francisco s director of Sexually Transmitted D
California s highest court unanimously struck down San Francisco s attempt to legalize same-sex marriages Thursday, saying Mayor Gavin Newsom had illegally defied the state law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Ruling exactly six months after the first weddings were performed, the state Suprem
Our dear Ms. Gonick, having just finished promoting Mostly True Confessions: Looking for Love in the Eighties, the book she never meant to write about dating, explains how frightening Hollywood can be to the desperately nuts but un-medicated. Flashdance is rumored to be a very short script, 80 pages instead of the usua
Last month, at the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, we faced how much there is to despair as a result of the global AIDS epidemic. The death toll is 20 million and climbing. Of the more than 35 million persons living with HIV, only a tiny proportion are receiving therapy. Asia is home to a fifth of those
When a former U.S. president s son, Ron Reagan, contended at the Democratic National Convention in Boston last month that the theology of a few is harming the health of the many, he could have been speaking about global AIDS rather than stem-cell research. At the 15th International AIDS Congress in Bangkok, it was evid
Sacramento - Half of the doctors working at one California prison have a criminal record or mental health problems or have lost the right to practice in a hospital. At another lockup, a neurosurgeon with no expertise in internal medicine misdiagnosed an inmate suffering from pneumonia in both lungs, prescribing anti-de
A national group trying to stop the use of animals in medical research has found UC San Francisco to be the nation s worst violator of federal animal welfare laws, listing 51 federal citations over three years. A report released Thursday by the nonprofit group Stop Animal Exploitation Now (SAEN) said the 51 violations
San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, August 4, 2004
IN A MUDDY SLUM in Cambodia , a mother of two shuffles through a handful of pill bottles several times a day for relief from symptoms of the AIDS virus. If she misses a few doses or mistakenly takes too many pills, her health may waver. In the world of AIDS treatment, this woman represents a dilemma. Powerful drugs ca
San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, August 4, 2004
Victoria Colliver
One of the most sweeping changes in the governor s proposal to restructure health services is a plan to eliminate counties role in enrolling people in Medi-Cal, CalWORKs and food stamps and turn that over to private contractors. The contractors would administer many of those applications online. That would involve movi
San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, July 28, 2004
THE NUMBERS are startling. More than 26,000 Californians have AIDS - - and every year another 1,000 people are added to that list when they become infected from sharing dirty syringes. Septic needles cause 20 percent of the state s AIDS cases: That s 37 percent of the cases in women and 24 percent in African Americans.
New Delhi -- AIDS COULD be a good thing for India . That s one message sent by health planners and clinic workers watching the epidemic s impact on this country s politics, economy and social customs. As revolutionary as Mohandas K. Gandhi s insurrection against British rule, AIDS has the potential to rework India eve
Elim, South Africa -- The white pickup truck rattles to a halt at a round mud-and-thatch hut cemented with cow dung. Princess Cele, a stout woman wearing sunglasses, a dark blue beret and a mint green epaulet-adorned nurse s uniform, motions her head to a mound of dirt outside the hut. She s dead, says Cele, who
More than 21,000 fund-raisers strolled through Golden Gate Park on Sunday and received pledges for more than $3 million in donations for the annual AIDS Walk San Francisco, organizers said. The 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) walkathon started and ended at Sharon Meadow. Participants included individual walkers as well as memb
Bangkok -- After six days of rousing speeches, angry demonstrations and sober scientific analyses, the 15th International AIDS Conference closed here Friday with a stepped-up global commitment to turn back the epidemic -- but without a strong consensus on how to do so. It was a conference marked by little progress on t
Bangkok -- AIDS is swerving wildly in new directions, running like a breakaway train as it moves from Africa to Asia. Despite cheaper drugs and a worldwide disease-fighting budget nearing $12 billion, the plague has jumped oceans and continents. AIDS experts chose this humid, traffic-clogged city to bring home the dead
Bangkok -- Sixteen years ago, while imprisoned by the South African government, Nelson Mandela became seriously ill with tuberculosis . Four months of simple medical treatment saved his life. It was with that experience in mind that the iconic South African leader, now 85 years old, slowly walked into a crowded news co
Bangkok -- With the quest for an AIDS vaccine coming up short, researchers in the desperate effort to find a way to slow the global pandemic are mining an array of low-tech solutions that hold surprising promise. At the 15th International AIDS Conference, now drawing to a close, these simpler technologies are being exp
Bangkok - President Bush s global AIDS czar delivered a vigorous defense Wednesday of the administration s $15 billion program to battle the epidemic in poor countries, a plan that critics say undermines a multinational effort to address the epidemic. Randall Tobias, global AIDS coordinator and director the President s
Bangkok - On the podium in the Grand Ballroom at the 15th International AIDS Conference, Johns Hopkins University infectious-disease researcher Dr. Joel Gallant suddenly found himself surrounded Tuesday by angry, chanting Cambodian prostitutes. Gallant was presiding over a seminar on antiviral drugs, and the protesters
South Africa - Sfiso Luthuli was only 20 years old when he hanged himself from a tree in his family s yard last weekend. He had returned from school and written a short note to say he was HIV positive and wanted to die. As the Luthuli clan gathered around the freshly dug grave over the weekend to bury Sfiso, they lea
Bangkok - The ability to deliver cheap but effective drugs to millions of AIDS patients in poor countries is tantalizingly close, but experts warned Monday that the costs to do so were soaring -- and that it was uncertain whether wealthier nations would come up with the billions to pay for such programs. There s an inc
AIDS is one of the most dangerous diseases ever encountered. It is found in every corner of the globe, it preys on the powerless and the mutating virus can infect in a variety of ways. No cure exists. For more than 20 years, health experts and world leaders have understood this peril, but a U.N. study shows the problem
Bangkok - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the 15th International AIDS Conference here on Sunday evening with a warning that the epidemic is now spreading alarmingly in Asia, where 60 percent of the world population resides. He addressed a packed convention hall that could not accommodate the record 1
Bangkok -- At least 12,000 delegates from around the globe are converging on this Southeast Asian capital city for today s opening of the 15th International AIDS Conference, a six-day event that organizers hope will strengthen world resolve to combat a disease that has already claimed at least 20 million lives. A blend
Gilead Sciences Inc. dropped the price of its HIV-fighting drug Viread by nearly 37 percent for patients in 68 developing nations where the Foster City firm started offering the drug at no profit last year. Gilead said it was able to reduce the cost of a one-day supply of Viread, its best-selling
New Delhi - At his office in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here, Dr. Pradeep Seth unrolled a large multicolored map of his native country. The chief of microbiology at India s most prestigious medical school, Seth traced with his finger the paths of the AIDS epidemic, as it moved east from Bombay, west fr
Risky sexual behavior that leads to AIDS is increasing once again among Californians, new surveys by state and University of California researchers reveal. We are now concerned that our progress has stalled, and in some areas we may even be losing ground, Dr. George Lemp, director of the university s AIDS Research Prog
It takes just 15 ingredients to make Triomune, the orange and white pill that could treat most of the world s AIDS cases for about 60 cents per day. A combination of three antiviral drugs that would sell in the United States for about $12,000 a year, Triomune is vastly cheaper because its maker,
Bangalore, India -- Ramachandhar Elango was more than happy to help when a local hospital called him in January about a new patient diagnosed with AIDS. A founder of the Indian Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS, Elango is accustomed to requests for counseling. Having miraculously survived the virus for 17 years,
Despite an increase in global spending to fight it, the AIDS virus continues to spread throughout the developing world, infecting nearly 5 million people a year and exacting a terrible cost in human lives and suffering, global health authorities said Tuesday. In advance of a world summit on the epidemic convening in Ba
Tambaram, India -- Under the banyan tree at Tambaram Sanatorium, they begin lining up at the AIDS clinic as early as 3 in the morning. Drawing from the countryside of Tamil Nadu and the neighboring state to the north, Andhra Pradesh, the sanatorium built to fight the ancient scourge of
Madras, India -- It s 9 in the evening at R.P. Star s, a truck stop on Highway 45 south of this seacoast city, and the drivers are pulling over their rigs for a bite to eat, a cup of tea and perhaps a little sex for money with the women in the bushes. Thirty-five-year-old Thennarasu is waiting for them as well, sta
After weeks of cutting, trimming and reallocating, a San Francisco Board of Supervisors committee approved a revised budget Saturday that restored $17 million in programs and services to Mayor Gavin Newsom s proposed budget. Flush with an additional $4 million in extra property transfer taxes and an additional $2 milli
Bombay -- Sakkubai is a crafty old prostitute, with a mischievous smile, a good heart and hidden depths of pain. For most of her 50-or-so years, she has sold sex for money on Falkland Road, one of the most notorious red-light districts in Bombay. She has seen life s rough edges since she was shipped here at the age of
Thirty-seven days after his wedding in 1999, Shashi Shetye found out he was HIV-positive. It took another nine months before he could bring himself to tell his wife, who had no inkling that Shetye was infected, or that he was gay. It was an arranged marriage, but it was a mistake to go through with it. I still feel gui
Udaipur, India - (First of a Five-Part Series) On a mat on the hard stone floor of her tiny home in rural Rajasthan, a 34-year-old widow lay unconscious, gasping for breath, dying of AIDS. Her name was Mohini Bai, and until recently, she worked in a women s health clinic in her village of Kuncholi, 30 miles from the ne
A key San Francisco supervisors committee cut more than $7 million from Mayor Gavin Newsom s budget proposal and plans to use the money to restore public health services that were set for elimination and to create jobs for young people. The announcement came Friday by Supervisors Gerardo Sandoval, Chris Daly and Jake M
Having been together for nine years, San Jose couple Rich and Michael Butler married on Feb. 13 at San Francisco s City Hall (both now use the same last name), and are the proud papas of a 4-month-old adopted girl named Emily. Parenthood, Rich Butler said by telephone last week, is just awesome. The couple s happy-dads
The homeless will have fewer places to sleep, patients at the county hospital will wait weeks longer for elective surgery and 415 county jobs will be eliminated under a budget that Contra Costa County supervisors are expected to approve today as they rein in a $53 million deficit. The proposed $330 million budget makes
San Francisco supervisors, considering Mayor Gavin Newsom s budget proposal, have voiced skepticism over a plan to put the city s jail health services out to competitive bid. The proposal has emerged as among the most controversial in the mayor s blueprint to balance the $5 billion municipal budget, which started out w
ENDING the AIDS scourge will take cooperation, innovation and billions of dollars. But how committed is President Bush to these realities since he announced a five-year plan with a $15 billion budget last year? The record so far shows a religious conservative slowly bending to science and political pressure. But with 4
President Bush has added Vietnam to a list of 14 other nations that will receive direct U.S. assistance under his emergency AIDS relief program, and he cleared the release of a second round of grants totally $500 million for such overseas assistance. The announcement at a Philadelphia church nevertheless was brushed as
San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, June 23, 2004
The underground Muni station at Castro Street has been plastered with images of gay men seeking sex partners online as part of a public health advertising campaign. The Be-Clear campaign is intended help gay men communicate more effectively in hopes of reducing transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted disease
By the opening bell of budget hearings at the Board of Supervisors this week it was clear that the proposed cuts to public health in Mayor Gavin Newsom s budget are the most controversial items in his $5 billion plan. Scores of the system s patients and health care providers lined up at a City Hall hearing Tuesday to t
Oaksterdam is on its deathbed. Oakland s once-bustling downtown enclave of medical marijuana clubs is about to disappear -- less than a year after it earned its nickname -- after city officials refused last week to issue permits to several popular establishments. All that you see around us will be gone, Jeff Jones, exe
Visitors to last week s huge biotech conference were nearly universal in their praise of San Francisco s police force, remarking on the officers restraint and resourcefulness in dealing with hundreds of rabid protesters. Too bad the same couldn t be said for many of the city s leaders, who showed the world just how ext
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom s budget for the new fiscal year includes more than $3 million in cuts to the city s neighborhood public health centers, an amount he and his health director contend will have limited impact on patient care. But ask the doctors and nurses who provide the care, and some of the patients w
Mayor Gavin Newsom has named Jeff Sheehy as his volunteer HIV/AIDS adviser to help his administration craft policy. Sheehy s appointment Thursday did not come without controversy. Some AIDS activists raised concerns that Sheehy s paid position as deputy director of communications at UCSF s AIDS Research Institute could
As the motorcade carrying the body of President Ronald Reagan made its way to his final resting place in Simi Valley on Friday night, candles flickered in the windows of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center in San Francisco. The candles burned in mourning -- not to honor Reagan but to shed light on the former pr
Ronald Reagan may have been a good and decent man. As president, though, Reagan pursued policies that were short-sighted, reckless and, for many, hurtful. His economic legacy is one of deplorable disregard for the consequences of his actions, and the ramifications of Reagan s decisions remain with us to this day. I ll
Nine years ago the biotechnology industry was represented by just 2,700 people who huddled in a single San Francisco hotel for the annual conclave of the industry s fledgling trade association. Now the conference is back in the city for the first time since 1995, and more than 17,000 participants are gathering for a fo
Like the plot line of a cheesy Cold War spy novel, the lives of five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor -- accused and convicted in a diabolically farcical five-year trial of intentionally infecting over 400 children with HIV as part of a CIA and Israeli intelligence plot -- now depend on the whims of Moammar
Mayor Gavin Newsom included a $30 million reserve in his $5 billion budget proposal as a backup in case voters reject his November ballot measures to raise sales and business taxes. But the reserves also may be tapped to restore some service cuts and layoffs that the mayor proposed in his plan. The mayor is looking at
San Francisco spends nearly $15,000 on medical care per inmate in county jail -- an average that is more than three times the amount spent in Alameda County and double the tab in Los Angeles. With those figures in hand, Mayor Gavin Newsom is set to wage a political fight this summer to put San Francisco s jail medical
One night in 1997, while driving through the Croatian countryside, Gary Selnow caught glimpses of an orange glow on the horizon. As he got closer, he could hear crackling noises that sounded like gunfire. Soon, he realized it was the sound of land mines burning. That night, Selnow imagined what it would be like to be a
In a shift of its domestic AIDS priorities, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded $49 million Friday to private community organizations fighting the epidemic, but denied money to 2 out of 3 such groups that had sought to renew their grants from previous years. The policy overhaul is designed to
Pat Christen, the strong-willed executive director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, who built the organization into one of the largest and most powerful AIDS charities, said Friday she would step down from the post she has held for 15 years. Christen said that after a long tenure as executive director, she wanted
WASHINGTON (AP) - Donors of sperm, cartilage and other commonly transplanted tissues and cells must be closely checked for infectious diseases, the government said Thursday in rules that aim to tighten safety in the burgeoning but loosely regulated industry. Donated blood and organs have long been strictly regulated. B
Filmmaker Hector Babenco sees the parallels, and so do his friends, who have peppered him with questions about the similarities between Iraq s Abu Ghraib prison and the Brazil penitentiary that Babenco depicts in his new drama, Carandiru. Based on actual events, Carandiru shows a prison environment where guards eventua
As it fights an outbreak of HIV among its actors and leading ladies, the porn film industry should study how San Francisco dealt with the disease two decades ago. The epidemic in the 1980s was an explosion, and no one knew where the pieces would land. Awareness grew quickly in some communities and slowly in others. I r
Armed with new data showing that Alameda County s homeless suffer high rates of health problems, officials said Thursday that they will begin putting together a 10-year-plan for housing the county s poorest residents with special needs, such as mental illness, substance abuse and AIDS. The unusually comprehensive plann
The prestigious Institute of Medicine on Thursday called for an overhaul of taxpayer-funded programs that care for people with AIDS, saying that nearly 60,000 Americans are failing to get the drugs they need. Despite a climate of tight spending in Washington, the institute -- part of the National Academies, an independ
Wayagyaung, Burma -- In late afternoon, the Love Boat docked at this small delta village, bringing the promise of adventure and romance. Yet the bright green, 90-foot ship was not on a frivolous voyage. Instead, the Love Boat sought to educate villagers about the lethal disease that is sweeping their country of 42 mill
Aung Bang, Burma -- What Moe Moe fears most is orphaning her three small children. They have already lost their father, Win Naing Aye, who died in 2002, three months after being diagnosed with the AIDS virus. Moe Moe also expects to die. She contracted the virus from her husband and cannot afford the antiretroviral med
It s 2 p.m. on a Wednesday. Mel s Drive-in on Van Ness is nearly empty. Joe Gallant, porn director, is late. Finally, he comes through the front door. I know it s him because he s brought a porn star with him. Angel Baby. She looks like Angelina Jolie s prettier sister, but with dreadlocks halfway down her back. Gall
Alan Selby, a leader in San Francisco s leather community who was a relentless fund-raiser and an incorrigible flirt, died at his home in San Francisco last week, surrounded by friends. He was 75 years old and succumbed to complications from emphysema. Mr. Selby, known to fellow leather aficionados as Daddy Alan, comb
The Trouble Boy By Tom Dolby Kensington Books ; 262 PAGES; $23 The Trouble Boy, by former San Francisco resident Tom Dolby, is a kind of gay Bright Lights, Big City for Generation Y. A fast, easy read, Trouble Boy trades the New Yorker for City- Style, an online guide to what s in and out in New York. Toby Griffin, who
The faces of the restored wooden clocks on Diane Carleson s living room mantle look broken. The hands appear stuck in different time zones, but Carleson, a chipper gray-haired woman who putters about her five-bedroom San Mateo home, says that they work just fine. Broken or not, it doesn t make much difference to the tw
Without Dr. Josh Bamberger, there would be no support in the supportive part of San Francisco s Direct Access to Housing program. And without that support, Direct Access would simply not work. Its residential buildings would just be another set of low-rent hotels on skid row, with the inevitable boozers and junkies and
Hong Kong - It might have sounded like Homosexuality 101 to American ears, but when Rager Shen told his story, his listeners were stunned. I came out to my mother recently, the 21-year-old from Shanghai said plaintively to an audience of about 40 other Chinese tongzhi, or homosexuals. I always wanted to tell her tha
The Secret Epidemic The Story of AIDS and Black America By Jacob Levenson PANTHEON; 307 Pages; $25 A few little problems, and one big problem, arise in Jacob Levenson s The Secret Epidemic, one of the first book-length attempts to chronicle the impact of AIDS among African Americans. It s an important story too long ne
Small, sad, his pint-sized, silver-rimmed glasses hanging askew, Moses sat on the ground. He hadn t said a word since arriving at the orphanage in Cape Town nearly two months earlier. He was 6 years old, but he had to be picked up and carried to dinner. Picked up and carried to his bath. He wouldn t look at anyone.
Thom Gunn, the British-born poet who made San Francisco his home for 40 years, and wrote poems that combined mastery of form with a contemporary frankness and subject matter, died Sunday night in San Francisco. He was 74. Mr. Gunn died in his sleep at home and was discovered at 9 p.m., said his partner of 52 years, Mik
On Friday, Alameda County Meals on Wheels will host its 17th annual Five Star Night. The evening will begin at 6:30 p.m. with a silent auction and cocktail reception, followed by a special four-course dinner and dessert buffet prepared by chefs from Bay Area restaurants such as Bay Wolf, Chez Panisse, Lalime s, La Fari
AIDS activism in South Africa is radically different from AIDS activism in the United States , for a variety of reasons -- not the least of which is that the views about HIV of both South African President Thabo Mbeki and his health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, until recently veered dangerously close to AIDS den
A state appellate court has upheld the three-strikes sentence of 27 years to life in prison for a Sacramento man who had AIDS and had lived on the streets for most of the year before he was arrested for failing to register with police as a sex offender, prompting a blistering dissent from one of the justices. Delbert M
Rebecca Mammo didn t receive the best career counseling as a teenager in East Oakland. A refugee from revolution-torn Ethiopia , she lived in a series of foster homes among kids whose lives seemed hopeless. It s going to be very difficult to make it in the world, people told her. I heard that from people my own color.
Cirque du Soleil has agreed to pay $600,000 to Matthew Cusick, a gymnast who was fired from the Montreal-based circus company last year because he is HIV-positive. The agreement represents one of the largest public settlements for an HIV- discrimination complaint mediated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Unitarians from Boston to Berkeley have opened another front in the liberal crusade to expand the definition of marriage and family in America. It s the new polygamy, and according to the Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness, their relationships are at least as ethical as other marriages -- gay or straight.
A LARGE PART of the multibillion-dollar pornographic film industry centered in the San Fernando Valley has halted production for two months in response to the discovery of two performers with HIV. A young actress new to the business apparently was infected by a male partner just back from a risky film-making stint in
The blond mistress of ceremonies, a former Miss South Africa , wearing a daring gold dress with criss-crossing straps that barely cover her back and a shimmering semi-transparent skirt, urges the dinner guests to stand and applaud President Thabo Mbeki when he enters the luxuriantly decorated banquet hall. Her exho
IT IS A SIGN of their country s maturing democracy that South Africans -- black, white, colored and Indian -- will line up today to cast their votes for the party to represent them in parliament. It will thankfully be a mostly peaceful turnout. On April 27, 1994, South Africans voted overwhelmingly for the once-exiled
It s hard to gauge the hormonal habits of young people, especially if you read the contradictory messages about their sex lives. Teens are having sex as early as 12 or 13, one recent report says, while another asserts that young people are increasingly practicing abstinence. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit o
New Delhi -- Down a dark corridor on the ground floor of this city s Lok Nyak public hospital, Room 32 beckons with a glow of bright lights, fresh paint and the promise of free antiviral drugs for a handful of India s poorest AIDS patients. Here and at six similar sites in this nation of 1 billion citizens, the Indian
About 3 out of 4 HIV-positive homeless or marginally housed people in San Francisco also harbor the virus that causes chronic hepatitis C disease, and nearly none of them is being treated for it, a new study has found. The study, by doctors at UCSF and San Francisco General Hospital, is among the first to document how
Medical experts and officials from the United States , Africa and the United Nations are meeting in Botswana today to make decisions that could affect the future of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. At the summit, leaders will discuss the safety and effectiveness of so-called all-in-one dose or fixed- dose
DOES IT really matter that the Bush administration has tried to manipulate science in the service of its conservative political agenda? Yes, and here s why. The federal government s agencies are charged with providing expert, impartial scientific advice to Congress and the American people. When this information is supp
questions about sex. Many have never been told how to use a condom, or taught how to talk openly with a boyfriend about sexually transmitted diseases, says Rose Thomas. But if Thomas -- an 18-year-old high school student from Berkeley -- had her way, they would get that chance a lot more often. A lot of other girls do
Rep. Nancy Pelosi said the federal government s decision to slash San Francisco AIDS funding by more than $4 million will have a devastating impact on HIV/AIDS services in the Bay Area. Pelosi, the House Democratic leader representing San Francisco, wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson asking for
David Pasquarelli, an AIDS activist who challenged medical findings that HIV causes AIDS and opposed increased funding to fight the disease, died March 8 from complications of HIV at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek. He was 36. Born in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1967, Mr. Pasquarelli found himself on the defensive early. Hi
Women in poor countries are bearing a disproportionate share of the global AIDS epidemic and need political empowerment as much as medicine to fight it, a key United Nations envoy told a gathering in San Francisco this week. Dr. Nafis Sadik, who led the United Nations family planning agency for 13 years and is now the
As the Bush administration readies its plan to bring AIDS drugs to the world s poor, a combination of rising drug prices and shrinking budgets at home has stirred long-dormant activists in California and the rest of the nation. On Monday, protesters plan demonstrations in Sacramento against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger s
The Bush administration slashed San Francisco s federal AIDS budget by more than $4 million, a 12 percent cut and one of the biggest in the nation, which local health officials fear could land more people in the emergency room. Oakland was hit with a 5.9 percent reduction in federal funding, and San Jose saw a 5.1 perc
In a bid to understand why monkeys appear immune to HIV, a team of Harvard researchers has found a protein in monkey cells that naturally blocks the AIDS virus. Human cells contain a similar protein, but the human version has proved unable to prevent infection. Researchers hope to use the new discovery to better unders
More than a year after President Bush announced plans to triple overseas AIDS spending to $15 billion, the administration on Monday released a first installment of grants that would start 50,000 patients on life-saving antiviral drugs in 14 countries hard hit by the epidemic. That would double the number of people with
San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, February 20, 2004
Dave Ford, Chronicle Staff Writer
Conventional wisdom suggests that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities have made notable social and legislative gains in the past decade. But the black gay community remains haunted by the twin specters of homophobia and racism, according to Perry Lang, executive director of San Francisco s Black Coalitio
At her most worried, Melissa Woyechowsky sometimes spent four hours a day on the Internet looking up her symptoms. There was the tingling, the numbness in her limbs, insomnia, fatigue. She fretted over them all. Multiple sclerosis was a big one, she said. And HIV and cancer. I was doing these searches, and it had almos
A steep rise in syphilis cases among gay men in San Francisco has not produced a related increase in HIV infections, researchers reported Tuesday, stirring hope that the city may avoid a new wave of AIDS cases abetted by other sexually transmitted diseases. The findings, together with other data pointing to decreases i
In a setback for efforts to bring the cheapest possible drugs to AIDS patients in poor countries, South African researchers have found that HIV- infected expectant mothers who ve taken a single pill to protect their babies at birth may not be able to use the same inexpensive drug to treat their own disease later on.
With pointed jabs at the United States , a U.N. special envoy told a gathering of leading AIDS scientists that wealthy nations must make up for a decade of financial abstinence to battle the global epidemic. Stephen Lewis, a Canadian diplomat who has been the United Nations special representative for AIDS in Africa, ma
Brian Basinger experienced housing discrimination firsthand last year when he helped his boyfriend look for a landlord with an available unit and a willingness to accept a disabled tenant with AIDS, a limited income and a Section 8 housing voucher. Basinger quickly learned that many landlords are loath to accept subsid
San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, January 23, 2004
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer
A renowned AIDS researcher and his colleagues Thursday retracted the key finding of a study published 16 months ago in the journal Science, where they claimed to have found an elusive factor in the blood of long-term survivors that keeps their HIV infections at bay. It is now apparent that the once-promising results we
The gay rights activist who created the AIDS Memorial Quilt in a Castro district storefront and the Atlanta nonprofit foundation that owns the famed memorial to the victims of the AIDS epidemic are locked in a bitter dispute over how best to use the 50-ton, 40,000-panel quilt in the fight against AIDS. In a lawsuit fil
San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Marc Sandalow, Washington Bureau Chief
Manchester, N.H. -- As he took the oath of office after the most divisive election in a century, President Bush outlined his vision of a compassionate nation, free of prejudice, poverty and partisanship. Exactly three years later, as Bush delivered a State of the Union address that Democrats hope will be his last, the
It s possible that the best Super Bowl commercial you ll ever see is one of the 60-plus queued up at CBS for the Feb. 1 game -- or not. No other advertising is as costly because the audience is so vast. The bar of excellence is very high, as are expectations. All the blue-chip regulars are back for the advertising bona
In a rare public display of scientific discord, a group of 22 prominent researchers has called into question a multimillion-dollar federal program to test a new AIDS vaccine in Thailand . The $119 million study, which began injecting volunteers in September, will test a theory that two different types of AIDS vaccine m
Washington -- Nonprofit groups active in fighting the AIDS epidemic in Africa, including some from the evangelical Christian community that is a key part of President Bush s base, are pressing him to propose a sharp increase in funding for the effort in his State of the Union address next Tuesday. The president made he
San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Elizabeth Bryant, Chronicle Foreign Service
Lagos, Nigeria -- Obarou Adjarhu carries a Bible under one arm, and he knows his scripture. It says, according to Adjarhu s reading, that homosexuality is a sin. Today, tomorrow and, as far as the 32-year-old Nigerian businessman is concerned, forever. Those are the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, he declared on the steps
A San Francisco man infected with HIV pleaded not guilty Wednesday to having sex with a minor -- and exposing the youth to his disease. Marty Tagle, 36, pleaded innocent to eight counts of having sex with a 15- year-old boy and faces more than 10 years in prison -- including three years for the disease enhancement --
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