Washington -- Rep. Barbara Lee was named chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus on Wednesday, giving the Oakland Democrat a high-profile platform to push her priorities, from increasing funding for HIV/AIDS to pushing for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq . At a ne
Hank Wilson, an activist s activist who for three decades made his mark at the forefront of the gay liberation movement in San Francisco, died Sunday of cancer at age 61. He was a veteran of the health care battles over AIDS and a tireless advocate for the down and out, friends and colleagues recalled. He was such an i
From the New York Times comes a story about the sad situation at Normandy High School in St. Louis. On Oct. 13, a letter went out from the superintendent of the Normandy School District, Stanton Lawrence, to the parents or guardians of Normandy s 1,300 students, grades nine to 12, that the county health department had
One by one, the clients at the 28-day rehab facility introduced themselves and their addictions, the way participants in another group venue might identify their alma maters or employers. I m Joe, I m an alcoholic. I m Sarah, I m an addict, methamphetamine. The counselor turned to the friends and family members of the
San Francisco Chronicle - Sunday, November 2, 2008
Shelah Moody, Chronicle Staff Writer
As the director of YouthAware, part of the New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco, Sara Staley helps students deal with violence, racism, homophobia, body image and HIV prevention. YouthAware, which receives funding from the San Francisco Unified School District and private donors, produces seven plays that a
The Oakland Housing Authority has received a $2.7 million loan from the state to build a supportive housing project for people disabled by AIDS, officials said. The 20 apartments will be built on the site of the former Alita Brand Macaroni factory on 83rd Avenue in East Oakland. The state s Department of Housing and Co
Now, how to create a ball gown using condoms? Not so easily, as it turns out, but it s all for a good cause and tenacity pays off. Jane s blue and silver brocade gown, with seven godets (extra panels of fabric) made out of painted condoms that from afar resemble feathers, will float down the runway Wednesday night at P
San Franciscans have voted for free citywide wireless, banning handguns and impeaching President Bush. Now the question is whether residents, no strangers to groundbreaking ideas, think the world s oldest profession should be considered a crime. Proposition K would effectively decriminalize prostitution in the city by
Federal officials made it easier this week for HIV-positive visitors to enter the United States , the latest in a series of steps to overturn a 15-year-old law that prohibited foreigners infected with HIV from entering the country. In 1993, amid a nationwide hysteria about transmission, Congress approved adding HIV to
Every time my friend Reba Khan spoke of Murad, her voice, darkly nostalgic, was like a jazz tune on the run, at once spirited and melancholic. Murad was the original flamboyante. He was more than life. He was a filmmaker, raconteur, vintage poster collector, an outrageous flirt. He never just went to a party - he alway
The Greek Orthodox Diocese and the Rev. Michael Rymer deny a mentally ill parishioner s claims that Rymer sexually abused him during a long-running relationship that continued while church officials failed to take appropriate action. But court records describe a series of events leading to the church s and Rymer s agre
Thirty-two years old, struggling with severe mental illness, the man turned in desperation to his church, the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco. But soon after the man implored the Rev. Michael Rymer to be his spiritual father and guide him through his troubles, the priest allegedly seduced him without reveali
With the addition of numerous dance numbers - there were as many dancers as models on the runway - quick-paced catwalk segments and a new, manly (with a wink) way to present the men s underwear segment, Wednesday night s energetic Passport fashion show and fundraiser flew by. (Gala night - which also included a lengthy
Juliet Starrett is a seasoned athlete, a mother of two young children and a youth mentor who has parlayed her passion for outdoor adventure into improving the lives of young people. Starrett was a paddler on the U.S. Women s Whitewater Rafting Team and has worked as a professional river guide, taking people on adventur
Macy s 26th annual Passport fashion show and HIV/AIDS fundraiser took place Wednesday and Thursday at Fort Mason, featuring looks from many labels in the store, including DKNY, Michael by Michael Kors, Charter Club, Calvin Klein, INC International Concepts and Tommy Hilfiger, who attended Thursday night s gala. Look fo
ALERT VIEWER Documentary. Directed by Christina Clausen. (Not rated. 90 minutes At the Roxie Film Center.) The Universe of Keith Haring reminded me of the occasional thrill of coming upon Haring s puzzling, unsigned chalk drawings in the New York subway at the turn of the 1980s, before he made a name for himself above
A new, detailed picture released Thursday of the swath of HIV infections nationally illustrates the severe impact the virus is taking on young black gay and bisexual men, black women, and white gay and bisexual men in their 30s and 40s. The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for the first time br
St. Paul, Minn. -- It is a showdown made in cable talk heaven, and it will be a staple of The Rachel Maddow Show, which premiered on MSNBC this week. Maddow, a 35-year-old lesbian and former San Francisco ACT-UP activist, squares off against 69-year-old Pat Buchanan, who in 1992 called for a Republican cultural war ag
Dr. Selma Dritz, a San Francisco public health physician who tracked the city s earliest AIDS cases at the onset of the long battle against the epidemic, has died at the age of 91. She died Wednesday after 10 days of hospice care at the Claremont House Retirement Center in Oakland where she had been living. Dr. Dritz w
East Bay AIDS Walk Come walk for a good cause at the fourth annual East Bay AIDS Walk in Oakland this weekend. Walkers last years raised more than $50,000, and proceeds benefit local AIDS organizations in the East Bay. Joining the walk is free, but walkers are encouraged to seek donations from colleagues, friends and f
Three of the Bay area s earliest biotechnology companies proved they could start from the ground floor and build thriving enterprises that would steal markets from old-line pharmaceutical firms. Soon, Gilead Sciences of Foster City may be the last one still standing as an independent big-cap biotech company that has no
Federal agencies violated the rights of a small-plane pilot from San Francisco by disclosing that he was HIV-positive but he can t sue the government because he wasn t harmed financially, a federal judge has ruled. The Federal Aviation Administration and the Social Security Administration had no legal justification for
First it was a mystery, then a peril and a political football, and now it s a research marathon. Nearly three decades on, AIDS has collected all these labels. It may be a long wait for the next name change. Will there be a breakthrough cure or vaccine? A treatment drug that will prove cheap and easy to dispense, or a p
Paul, a retired school administrator from Indiana, was tired of his wife s complaints. She kept saying, You ve got no butt, Paul says. So I thought, I ll show you. I ll buy me a butt. Paul searched online for butt enhancement and found a panoply of options. Bottoms Up of Toronto not only sells customized briefs with co
Lake Forest - -- After months of mudslinging, sniping and presidential campaign ad attacks, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain talked up civility, values and character Saturday, while outlining their stark differences on issues like abortion and stem cell research with one of America s most influential ev
On the same day that the FDA approved Gilead Sciences Inc. s anti-HIV drug Viread for use in fighting hepatitis B, a federal appeals court on Monday reinstated a securities-fraud suit filed by investors who claim the biotech company inflated its stock price in 2003 by illegally marketi
A new method of tracking HIV infections has revealed that about 40 percent more people each year are infected by the virus that causes AIDS than previously believed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Saturday. The new estimate does not mean the disease is spreading faster than before - in fact, t
Today President Bush signs bipartisan legislation reauthorizing and expanding the President s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). It is a landmark achievement that will save millions of people from certain death and prevent millions of new HIV infections in the developing world. Sadly, our commitment to fighting A
SAN FRANCISCO -- The United States is at the forefront of a global response to HIV and AIDS but lacks a sense of urgency when it comes to the crisis facing African Americans, according to a report released today by the Black AIDS Institute. The report, titled Left Behind! Black America: A Neglected Priority in the Glob
Every child fears the moment at the doctor s office. There s a whiff of alcohol and then a stinging jab in the arm for a shot. But it s worth it. Painful as it may be, the injection is part of a group of vaccines that prevent diphtheria, typhoid and polio, diseases that are virtually eradicated in this country. Why no
After work one Thursday, a group of women friends gathered for Chardonnay and goat cheese at a posh home in Los Altos. A veritable pirate s booty of colorful beaded jewelry was piled on the dining room table, where the women spent most of the evening trying on bracelets and necklaces. Welcome to the Tupperware party of
People marched through Golden Gate Park Sunday in the 22nd annual AIDS Walk San Francisco and helped raise $4.5 million, a tad shy of the organization s largest single-day fundraising record that came last year. We re blessed to live in a very enlightened city in the Bay Area where people continue to recognize the urge
What we said: At issue is one of Washington s unrivaled foreign policy successes: a bipartisan plan to expand global AIDS care and treatment... An important battle against AIDS still needs fighting, and this country should continue to lead the charge. - Editorial, July 2, 2008 What happened: The Senate approved $48 bil
When: Today, 9 a.m. Where: Sharon Meadow, at the east end of Golden Gate Park, near the intersection of John F. Kennedy and Kezar drives. Purpose: To raise funds benefiting the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and more than four dozen other AIDS groups. For more information, including transportation information: www.aidsw
New Delhi -- Despite a sign proclaiming the office of a qualified physician, most residents of the Indra Camp slum are well aware that Nasib Lal is not a qualified physician. But when sick, they readily seek him out. In a closet-size room on the outskirts of this capital city adorned with faded medical posters and pict
Frameline, the San Francisco nonprofit that puts on America s oldest gay film festival and runs other film and video programs in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, has hired Kenneth C. Price, an arts administrator who once served as the group s development director, as its new executive director. Pr
Federal researchers on Thursday dropped plans for a large-scale test of an experimental AIDS vaccine developed by the National Institutes of Health - the latest fallout from the failure last September of a similar candidate from drugmaker Merck & Co. that may have left some volunteers more vulnerable to HIV infecti
SAN FRANCISCO -- An international team of AIDS scientists has discovered a gene variant common in blacks that protects against certain types of malaria but increases susceptibility to HIV infection by 40 percent. Researchers, keen to find some biological clues to explain why people of African descent are bearing a disp
A group of Kenyan orphans is tasting milk for the first time. On a train platform in India , teachers are giving lessons to children whose families force them to beg from passengers. And in Thailand , health workers are showing Burmese refugees how reduce their chances of contracting HIV. All three projects are lar
Avatar Carolina Keats (Carol Perryman in real life) has been a medical librarian for many years. She s now finishing her doctorate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the Second Life Consumer Health Library, she provides customized health information, including new research, therapies, drug informati
Fund an unending war in Iraq ? Dump more money into farm subsidies? A small band of Senate Republicans have no problem with these costly favorites. But when it comes to a global AIDS program, the brakes go on. At issue is one of Washington s unrivalled foreign policy successes: a bipartisan plan to expand global AIDS c
New Delhi - Aggrieved Indians have long taken their causes to the streets. From Mohandas Gandhi s nationalist campaigns to contemporary marches against racy movies, protests are as Indian as spicy curry. But one group, despite its large size, has long kept silent. That silence broke Sunday, when gays and lesbians found
AIDS drugs have so improved the survival prospects of people with HIV that death rates among the recently diagnosed in industrialized countries have become comparable to those never exposed to the virus, according to a newly published European study. Medical records show that, before 1996 - when combinations of antivir
Sometimes naivete is a good thing, says Ruby Yang about her decision in 2003 to sell her Bernal Heights home and move to Beijing to make documentaries about the AIDS epidemic in China . The Hong Kong-born San Francisco Art Institute graduate had just finished editing Becoming American: The Chinese Experience, Bill Mo
Bill Myers, bmyers@dcexaminer.com and Michael Neibauer, mneibauer@dcexaminer.com
WASHINGTON - The District of Columbia opened a two-front war against a health care charity Tuesday that city officials say is raking in the cash while Washingtonians are languishing without insurance. CareFirst is a congressionally chartered charity that is supposed to help the poor and uninsured. D.C. officials and he
Two years ago, Meg Styles quit commercial real estate to enter the nonprofit sector as a fundraiser. Now Styles, who is 40 and lives in Danville, is raising funds for her own nonprofit organization to increase the worldwide supply of nurses. My mom, Dr. Margretta Styles, known as Gretta, was a global leader in nursing.
For a decade as public affairs director of Kaiser Permanente, Jeffery Sterman was the voice of the medical system, helping to craft policies and practices for patients with HIV. Now the San Francisco man is suing the Oakland-based Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, charging that Kaiser discriminated against him as a gay ma
Healthy San Francisco, the city s first-of-its kind attempt to provide universal health care to its residents, would get increased financial support - from a state grant and employer contributions, not from city funding. While Newsom rejected a proposal to wipe out funding for nonmedical care for AIDS patients, he did
More than 3 million people infected with the AIDS virus and living in low- and middle-income countries are now receiving effective antiviral drugs - a milestone that global health experts had hoped to reach two years earlier. Achieving the goal two years late is still quite remarkable, said Dr. Kevin De Cock, director
Liz Wright of Hollywood, at center above, is one of 3,000 bicyclists who embarked Sunday morning on the weeklong, 545-mile AIDS/LifeCycle fundraising ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Wright, who is riding in honor of an uncle who died of AIDS, has raised almost $5,000 for AIDS prevention. She gets a high-five fr
During the years when he was an actor, Liam O Brien was torn. He adored the process of acting, the charge of adrenaline and the unity he felt with the audience. But he had little patience for the life of the actor: the instability, dependence on a director s approval, the constant hustle. One day in 1996, while he was
When entries started streaming in for the San Francisco Black Film Festival, its director, Ave Montague, immediately noticed something different. Lots more of them were documentaries. There were strong submissions on political subjects such as reaching young Africans who are susceptible to AIDS and fanciful fare such a
As his staff puts the finishing touches on Mayor Gavin Newsom s proposed budget for next year before releasing the tome Monday, one area has already been spared serious cuts: AIDS programs. Newsom has flatly rejected a proposal by his public health chief to slice $3 million out of the $10 million the department pays to
WITH each passing year the British artist and iconoclast Derek Jarman seems at once more important and more marginal. His place in history as a pioneering gay filmmaker is secure, but his work remains little seen, and the spirit in which it was made seems further away than ever. Mr. Jarman died of complications from AI
Clad in high heels and minidresses, or heels and tight jeans and halter tops, revelers on the dance floor at Slide on a recent weeknight were the cosmopolitan equivalent of Star Trek conventioneers in full regalia. The club was hosting a pre-premiere party themed to the Sex and the City film opening in theaters on Frid
A second wave of disease and suffering is hitting Burma on the heels of Cyclone Nargis, according to Eric Stover, director of UC Berkeley s Human Rights Center, who returned Thursday from a trip to observe Burma s May 10 constitutional referendum, arriving there just as the cyclone struck. Stover is a co-author of
When David Mixner met Bill Clinton in 1969, they were both anti-war idealists who wanted to change America. They both came from small towns; both grew up lower middle class or poor but managed to transcend the expectations of their economic class. They were born three days apart. Clinton was smooth, Mixner remembered i
Anton Qiu plans to roll up his sleeve this morning and have a blood test technician slip a needle into his arm. Within two weeks he will learn whether he is a carrier of hepatitis B, the leading cause of liver cancer in the world. A quarter century after the first hepatitis B vaccine became commercially available, rate
Hayden Hamilton never planned to go into the business of selling pharmaceuticals. But when his brother and aunt lost their jobs and health insurance, and a close friend was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig s disease, he began a quest for affordable drugs. While traveling with his friend to Asia to search for treatments, Hamil
PROPOSAL: The budget would cut $1.04 billion from health and human services that were proposed in January s budget for a total reduction of $3.4 billion. Under a $1.1 billion cut to Medi-Cal - which serves 6.6 million people in the state - tens of thousands of poor residents would receive fewer medical services. WHAT I
Oakland -- Half a million condoms are here in Oakland for the taking. The Flowers Heritage Foundation acquired one million latex prophylactics for a vast giveaway program in April - distributing them to local agencies such as the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Haight Ashbury Free Clinics and the Black Coalition on AIDS
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said Friday that more money is needed for HIV prevention efforts in the African American community, particularly for gay black men, who are disproportionately affected by the AIDS epidemic. You have to scale the money to the scope of the problem,
Some people just disappoint you. The musician Feliciano dos Santos had flown in from Africa. Like many stars, he s taken an interest in lending a hand there. More cynical journalists might accuse him of pushing the Africa thing a bit too far - Santos went so far as to be born there, indeed to be African himself. But
A long, steady rise in life expectancy in the United States apparently isn t being shared by everyone, and hasn t been for years, according to a new study. While the overall life expectancy of Americans increased by about seven years between 1960 and 2000, the report by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Healt
Imagine you are diagnosed with a disabling illness such as HIV/AIDS or cancer. You live alone in San Francisco on a fixed income of $900 a month, and struggle each day to pay for food, housing and medicine. Imagine you have no companionship, save your beloved dog or cat. And imagine, on some days, you face a grueling d
Monkey Room: Drama. By Kevin Fisher. Directed by Mark Routhier. (Through May 4. Magic Theatre, S.F. 70 minutes. $20-$45. (415) 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org). Of all the reasons that no one s discovered an HIV vaccine yet, incompetent researchers is probably the last one you d choose. Well, perhaps not, but that would
Run for a good cause at the ninth annual Zimbabwe Orphans Run and Fair. Hosted by the Sustainable Living Foundation and St. Joseph Parish of Mountain View, the event will include a mile race for first-graders to adults, a 220-yard race for preschoolers, half mile for kindergartners and a 100-yard dash for Lion-Hearted
Patients who take the widely prescribed AIDS drug abacavir run nearly double the risk of heart attack compared with those who take other antiviral medications, according to a major study conducted in the United States , Europe and Australia . The unexpected finding, which was released at a scientific meeting in Februar
On a recent Thursday morning, Joseph Rosenthal, 77, drove from his barn-red, four-story house on Buena Vista Terrace to a lawyer s office in the Castro, where he quietly transferred a substantial part of his estate to the endowment fund of the Horizon Foundation, a grant-giving organization for the gay, lesbian, bisexu
A worldwide campaign against tuberculosis that began with money, ambition and plans is falling short. Leaders of the United Nations-directed drive must find a way to revive efforts before the disease spreads and hard-to-treat strains slip out of control. TB, easily spread by a cough or sneeze, is a scourge in poor coun
Soothing a sobbing 3-year-old, Veronica Vega surveyed a playroom where preschoolers painted one recent morning while their parents joined in a workshop on child development down the hall. Vega had organized the class in Oakland s Fruitvale district, lined up guest speakers and recruited child care helpers. I saw that t
A memorial will be held March 30 in San Francisco for Debra Kent, a former Bay Area resident and pioneer fundraiser in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Ms. Kent died Dec. 21 at her home in Durham, N.C., at age 55. The service, to be held at the Meadow in the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park, will be
Ziggy Marley, the eldest son of the late reggae musician Bob Marley, is using his musical success and influence to increase awareness about HIV/AIDS, and he is also working to alleviate poverty and political strife in Africa. Recently, H&M asked Marley to design a T-shirt for its Fashion Against AIDS campaign (www.
Eric Gupton 1960-2003 Performer Eric Gupton was a flamboyant warrior. As a founding member of Pomo Afro Homos, the audacious black theater troupe that blazed a broad-spectrum view of homosexuality in the 1990s, he stood in a singular bright light with his stage cohorts. Gupton did it as a performer who was by turns fun
San Francisco Chronicle - Monday, February 18, 2008
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer, srussell@sfchronicle.com
An experimental gel meant to protect women against HIV failed to do so in a large-scale trial in Africa, the latest in a string of setbacks in testing new ways to stem the spread of AIDS. Results of the trial were released Monday afternoon in South Africa , where the study was carried out among 6,200 volunteers living
San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, February 15, 2008
Betty T. Yee,Carole Migden*
This will be a make-or-break year for medical marijuana dispensaries - if they can survive the tactics employed by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which recently added busting dispensaries landlords to its repertoire of raids and fear. As urged by Senate Joint Resolution 20 by state Sen. Carole Migde
President Bush is off on a five-nation jaunt to Africa. It s a no-worries road trip to friendly allies, including Liberia where one popular song is Thank God for George Bush. But the trip has a more serious side - a reminder to the world that Africa can prosper and overcome its dismal image of war, misrule, disease and
This month opponents of scientific research set off an incendiary device at the home of Edythe London to protest her medical research at UCLA. In October, the research opponents flooded London s home. In the preceding two years, activists left bombs, which failed to ignite, outside of the home and under the car of UCLA
Growing up, Bethtina Woodridge heard all kinds of advice about dating, finding a husband and getting married. You don t have those tips about meeting women, said Woodridge, 31. How do I approach her, how do I know she is gay? For Woodridge, finding that special someone turned out to be easier online. Several months aft
That St. Francis Memorial Hospital has an HIV newsletter is not remarkable unless you factor in that St. Francis makes no HIV news. There is no HIV department or clinic. The newsletter is there because Diane Cenko is there to write it, print it, fold it and mail it. Cenko, 62, lives in Oakland. When the hospital decide
San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, February 8, 2008
Edward Guthmann, Chronicle Staff Writer
Jonny Dorsey is a junior at Stanford and already a philanthropist. In the summer of 2005, Dorsey traveled with a student group to Zambia , where his life changed. At a Congolese refugee camp, he met Mama Katele, a woman who was dying of AIDS. Devastated by the lack of medical care they saw, Dorsey and fellow Stanford s
San Francisco Chronicle - Thursday, February 7, 2008
James E. Loyce Jr., Adrian Tyler, Malik Russell*
Today, the African American community will gather under the banner of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day to bring attention to this modern plague and its disparate impact on the black community. While HIV/AIDS decimates our community, our nation has failed to implement a national health policy that addresses how thi
San Francisco Chronicle - Thursday, February 7, 2008
President Bush will likely showcase one of his best policy initiatives - a $15 billion AIDS relief effort - on a five-nation trip to Africa that starts next week. Well he should, along with mention that he favors spending another $30 billion in future years. But even this effort could go much further as the disease dee
Boston -- AIDS won t be stopped by a vaccine in the foreseeable future, but researchers at a major scientific conference here could take heart in a series of studies that suggest that creative uses of drugs to treat HIV infection may also work to prevent it. A three-year study in Uganda by the federal Centers for D
Boston -- It s back to the drawing board for AIDS vaccines. Last fall s spectacular failure of a three-shot regimen by Merck, which may have left some volunteers more susceptible to HIV infection, is prompting soul-searching at a major AIDS conference here, as well as calls for a pause in new trials until basic researc
Boston -- A once-promising experiment to see whether treating genital herpes with a common drug could dramatically reduce susceptibility to HIV infection has found no protection whatsoever - a shocking setback for researchers hoping to find a pill that would slow the spread of the AIDS epidemic. Results of the long
BOSTON -- A once-promising experiment to see if treating genital herpes with a common drug could dramatically reduce susceptibility to HIV infection has found no protection whatsoever - a shocking setback for researchers hoping to find a pill that would slow the spread of the AIDS epidemic. Results of the long-awai
Boston -- Researchers at a major scientific conference here warned Sunday that adult male circumcision, which may dramatically reduce the risk of HIV transmission in Africa, could raise the risk for women there whose male partners seek the procedure after they are already infected. Studies to be presented this week at
Take a pin, stick it in a map of the world and chances are Simin Marefat has been there. A San Francisco nurse and health care volunteer, she s been to 62 countries - mostly in the Third World. She s fed children and changed diapers in Rwandan orphanages. Delivered babies in Zambia and
Dr. Ian Friedland was sitting at his Mountain View office on a rainy October afternoon when the telephone rang with some long-awaited news: The Food and Drug Administration had just approved doripenem, the powerful antibiotic he had labored over since 2004. Shortly after the drug was approved, the 50-year-old
A video podcast that talks frankly about sex. A 3-D computer game that sends teens on missions and, in the process, teaches them about safe sex and the consequences of sex. Text messages that answer frequently asked questions about condoms, pregnancy, sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases and abuse. These are among
World Family does not have a city office. Nor an executive assistant to help with fundraising. And it desperately needs warehouse space. But last year, in the village called Nadda in Ethiopia , the first newborn delivered in a new clinic was named Hospital in thanks to the tiny nonprofit, which collects outdated U.S. h
San Francisco General Hospital researchers have been chasing the rogue strain of drug-resistant staph called USA300 since they first isolated it from a patient specimen seven years ago. With every turn, the aggressive and persistent bug keeps getting worse. Now, a new variant of that strain, resistant to six major kind
San Francisco Chronicle - Monday, January 14, 2008
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer
SAN FRANCISCO -- A new variety of staph bacteria, highly resistant to antibiotics and possibly transmitted by sexual contact, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, researchers reported Monday. The study released online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine found the highest
For 10 years, Sylvia Martir has lived with HIV. A few years ago she learned she had cancer. Then diabetes. Now she s wondering how she ll pay for critical medical care if the governor s proposed budget cuts are implemented. Every week Martir, an Oakland resident who lives on $736 a month in government assistance, sees
PROPOSAL: The proposed budget calls for cutting the Medi-Cal budget by $1.1 billion, affecting an estimated 6.6 million low-income people - 1 in 6 Californians. Doctors and hospitals that provide Medi-Cal would see their reimbursement rates cut by 10 percent. Patients with AIDS/HIV would face cuts in drug assistance an
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.