The San Francisco Examiner - Saturday, December 27, 1997
George Raine of the Examiner Staff
Eight months after Vice President Al Gore asked for a policy change allowing poor people with HIV to get effective new drugs for free, the government has concluded the plan is too costly. Gore and officials at the Department of Health and Human Services were told earlier this month that the additional cost of the drugs
The San Francisco Examiner - Saturday, December 27, 1997
George Raine of the Examiner Staff
Eight months after Vice President Al Gore asked for a policy change allowing poor people with HIV to get effective new drugs for free, the government has concluded the plan is too costly. Gore and officials at the Department of Health and Human Services were told earlier this month that the additional cost of the drugs
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, December 24, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, the debate continues over the wisdom of the doctors who have volunteered to be injected with a controversial AIDS vaccine. Don t Die Of Recklessness, warns the headline of an editorial in the British journal New Scientist. Such trials may seem noble and courageous but in practice they are a thoroughly bad id
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Dec. 17, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, officials of the controversial United Nations AIDS Drug Access Initiative have promised that anti-viral drugs will arrive in Africa next month - but the program is blasted by critics, who say the large sums of money involved could be better spent on the hunt for a vaccine or treatment of nations other woes.
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, Dec. 14, 1997
Erin McCormick of the Examiner Staff
With the help of marijuana, Thomas Buskirk has survived chemotherapy and colon cancer. He has survived five years of HIV-related illness. Now, he says, he s willing to survive jail, if he has to, in order to save what he sees as The City s greatest haven for the ill and dying. After years of serving patients seeking pa
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Dec. 3, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, a study by researchers at the San Francisco Department of Public Health predicts the number of new AIDS cases in The City will drop to about 1,200 in 1998 from a high of more than 3,300 in 1992. The prediction reflects decreases in HIV infections among gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users that occur
The San Francisco Examiner - Tuesday, Dec. 2, 1997
Venise Wagner of the Examiner Staff
HIV-positive women and their children truly had something to celebrate on World AIDS Day, with the announcement of promising results from a treatment that has reduced transmission of the virus from mother to infant. While 26 to 30 percent of HIV-positive mothers are likely to transmit the disease to their infants, givi
THE NUMBER of people around the world infected with the human immunodeficiency virus is much greater than previously believed, new research suggests. And the disease is spreading almost twice as fast as before, according to United Nations experts. So, instead of 23 million people infected with HIV - the estimate in 199
The San Francisco Examiner; Wednesday, Nov. 26, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, Boston researchers said they may have one explanation for why some patients infected with HIV survive for years - without treatment and without getting sick. In a study published in the journal Science, researchers reported that an analysis of blood from a healthy Boston man infected with HIV for 18 to 20 ye
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Nov. 19, 1997
Lisa Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
THIS WEEK, are you thinking about volunteering for a HIV vaccine trial? Learn about the legal issues you may inadvertently confront - and how the law protects you - in a new educational brochure produced by lawyers at San Francisco s AIDS Legal Referral Panel. People injected with experimental vaccines are expected to
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, November 12, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, in an address at Project Inform s annual Evening of Hope benefit dinner last Friday night, HIV discoverer Dr. Robert Gallo of the Institute of Human Virology in Baltimore worried that we are pushing too vigorously for a major change in direction of (AIDS) research. Some major researchers have called for putt
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Sept. 5, 1997 - Page A 4
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, people with HIV can get a new test at Stanford University Medical Center to determine whether the strain of virus in their blood is resistant to one or more anti-viral drugs. The test, called HIV antiviral resistance testing by genotyping, involves a genetic analysis of the AIDS virus to detect mutations tha
The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, Oct. 30, 1997
Venise Wagner of the Examiner Staff
A local AIDS support agency and San Francisco black clergy are launching a historic collaboration to educate churchgoers about the disease. The San Francisco-based Black Coalition on AIDS already has signed on with six religious organizations to develop ways to increase awareness among African Americans about AIDS and
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, October 29, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, Mayor Brown s office is accepting ideas for discussion at the upcoming summit meeting on AIDS and HIV, to be Jan. 27 at the Masonic Auditorium on Nob Hill. The AIDS summit is being called to examine the challenges and opportunities from recent advances in AIDS / HIV treatment and to recommend policy changes
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, October 22, 1997
Zachary Coile of the Examiner Staff
The decision by a leading condom maker to recall batches of three popular brands because of possible breaks has some safe-sex experts and area residents worried. Ansell Personal Products ordered 57 million condoms from its Prime, Contempo and best-selling Lifestyles line off the shelves, the Food and Drug Administratio
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, October 22, 1997
Lisa Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
THIS WEEK, the federal government is preparing to launch a six-year, $30million international study to determine conclusively whether the controversial immune-based therapy called Interleukin-2 actually helps HIV patients live longer. IL-2 , an immune regulatory protein called a cytokine, has been shown in preliminary
The San Francisco Examiner - Monday, Oct. 20, 1997 - Page A 14
Examiner Editorial Writer
IN A PUZZLINGLY shortsighted action, Gov. Wilson last week vetoed a Medi-Cal change designed to help AIDS patients who want to continue benefiting from costly new drugs while returning to the taxpaying work force. Wilson couldn t see past a couple of relatively trivial problems: a difference from federal policy that mi
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Sept. 15, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, the nation s first residential care facility for homeless youth disabled by AIDS officially opens its doors. The Assisted Care and Aftercare Facility, at 129 Hyde St., will be dedicated in a public ceremony Wednesday, presided over by Mayor Brown. It is the result of two years of planning by the Larkin Stree
The San Francisco Examiner - Tuesday, Oct. 14, 1997
Robert Salladay, Examiner Capitol Bureau
SACRAMENTO - Gov. Wilson has vetoed a popular measure - supported by right-wing conservatives and liberal Democrats alike - that would have allowed low-income AIDS patients to return to work without losing their Medi-Cal benefits. The veto angered AIDS activists and lawmakers, who viewed the bill as a good-government m
The San Francisco Examiner - Tuesday, Oct. 14, 1997
Vicki Haddock of the Examiner Staff
This week, San Francisco becomes the first city in the nation offering controversial morning-after cocktails to people trying to avoid HIV infection, but the study won t attempt to conclude if the treatment actually works. Instead researchers want to learn about the risks of providing such therapy after exposure to the
The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, Oct. 9, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Wrtier
The federal government has finally given the go-ahead to a comprehensive study on the safety and effectiveness of pot smoking on HIV-infected patients. The research project, run by Dr. Donald Abrams and his team of scientists at UC-San Francisco, will pay volunteers $1,000 to be hospitalized for 25 days and either smok
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Sept. 8, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, the federal Centers for Disease Control released an updated map of geographic regions of the United States with the highest AIDS incidence. The map reflects the number of cases per 100,000 residents between July 1996 and June 1997. It illustrates AIDS cases, not HIV infections. The AIDS capital of the U.
WALNUT CREEK - Melissa Milne would move to Los Angeles this second if she had the chance. The Walnut Creek girl would become an actress, hang out with her celebrity friends and visit her pal Bill Clinton at the White House at Christmas, as she has done the last couple of years. Melissa likes talking about actresses and
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Oct. 1, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, researchers from New York University reported that a triple combination of anti-AIDS drugs was still keeping the virus in check in some patients after two years, twice as long as previously reported. The study, released at a scientific meeting in Toronto, suggests that at least in some people the new AIDS dr
The San Francisco Examiner - Monday, Sept. 29, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger Examiner Medical Writer
There is disappointing new evidence that the highly acclaimed potent AIDS medicines are failing those who need them most. Slightly more than half of the patients in a San Francisco General Hospital-based study developed evidence of drug failure after six months of treatment, and saw their AIDS virus levels rise, accord
The San Francisco Examiner - Friday, Sept. 26, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
On the eve of two gay events in San Francisco, activists have launched a campaign to give away 1 million condoms in an effort to reverse climbing gonorrhea rates - and avert a rebound in AIDS cases. When the men begin hitting the bars this week, they ll discover that there s plenty of rubber to go around, said Steve Gi
The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, 25 September 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
Foreboding a possible return of unsafe sex practices, the number of gay men diagnosed with gonorrhea has increased in San Francisco and several other U.S. cities, raising concerns that HIV may also be on the rise. Between 1994 to 1995, the number of gay men with gonorrhea in a sampled San Francisco clinic increased 24
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Sept. 24, 1997
Jim Herron Zamora of the Examiner Staff
The arrest of an AIDS patient whose marijuana plants were seized has put the district attorney s office in the difficult position of trying to interpret the intent of Proposition 215, the voter-approved initiative that legalizes marijuana for medical use. This case may determine the parameters of Prop. 215, said John S
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Sept. 24, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, a multistate survey reaches a bleak conclusion: Fewer than one in five people with HIV are covered by private health insurance. The rest depend either on public assistance - or have no insurance at all. The populations affected by HIV are increasingly poor, heterosexual minorities, intravenous drug users, an
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Sept. 17, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, a new study suggests that anti-HIV drugs that lower the virus to undetectable levels leave a silent infection in patients immune systems that can rebound dangerously if the expensive treatment is ever stopped. The study looked at nine of 13 patients who had been taking drugs for a year, all of whom had undet
The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, Sept. 11, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
Two studies offer definitive evidence that an AIDS-fighting triple-drug cocktail suppresses the deadly virus for at least a year, delaying illness and prolonging life. The three-drug regimen is far superior to a two- or one-drug regimen and should be the standard of care for the estimated 650,000 to 900,000 Americans l
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Sept. 10, 1997
Lisa Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
THIS WEEK, health officials reported that about 500 American babies a year were born with the AIDS virus - but in developing countries the rate had soared to 1,000 a day, with no end in sight. Experts gathered at an international conference in Washington said the AIDS epidemic was raging among newborns from HIV-infecte
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Sept. 10, 1997
Venise Wagner of the Examiner Staff
OAKLAND - Three community agencies in Alameda County that target African Americans have lost $900,000 in federal funding for AIDS education - a cut that public health officials and advocates say leaves a vacuum in services for a group whose numbers in the epidemic are surging. Although only 17 percent of Alameda County
The San Francisco Examiner - Friday, Sept. 5, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
Fighting fire with fire, scientists are enlisting the help of other infectious viruses to seek and destroy cells harboring the AIDS virus. A team from Yale University Medical School announced in Friday s issue of the journal Cell that they have built a strain of virus with the uncanny ability to kill cells infected wit
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Sept. 3, 1997
Lisa Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
THIS WEEK, an important national group was formed to reach out to people often forgotten in this epidemic: victims of transfusion-acquired AIDS. Its founder -- as well as president, vice president, secretary, janitor and chairman of the board -- is 47-year-old Steve Grissom of Cary, N.C., a former airplane pilot and ad
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, Aug. 31, 1997
Lisa Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
In a move that other medical centers challenge on medical and moral grounds, UC-San Francisco Medical Center is offering organ transplants to people whose infection with the AIDS virus is under control but who are dying from other disease. Every other transplant center in the nation, with the exception of the Universit
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Aug. 27, 1997
Lisa Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
THIS WEEK, the nation s largest study of heterosexual transmission of HIV concluded that the risk of women s contracting the virus from a male partner is nine per 10,000 acts of sexual intercourse -- or 0.0009 per act. But study authors Nancy Padian and Stephen C. Shiboski of UC-San Francisco warn that this low number
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, Aug. 24, 1997
Jim Herron Zamora of the Examiner Staff; Examiner correspondents Donna Horowitz and Eve Mitchell contributed to this report.
In San Jose, cops prodded a group of residents to grow their own marijuana. In Fort Bragg, authorities nixed a proposal to establish a medicinal marijuana dispensary in the local police precinct. Up the coast in Arcata, officials are considering licensing individual pot smokers who claim they have a medical need for th
The San Francisco Examiner - Saturday, Aug. 23, 1997
Julie Chao of the Examiner Staff
Misha Cohen, a licensed acupuncturist and doctor of Oriental medicine, remembers when traditional Chinese medicine was barely recognized by mainstream medicine for treating AIDS patients. When I first started doing this (about 14 years ago), the only time I ever got a referral from a Western doctor was two weeks before
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, Aug. 17, 1997
Venise Wagner of the Examiner Staff
Roosevelt Mosby stood before a panel of experts on AIDS in the black community and stuttered with frustration. The problem? Mosby believed the panel, in its attempt to cut through a decade of denial that has made African Americans one of the fastest-growing HIV populations in the country, wasn t going deep enough.
The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, Aug. 14, 1997
Larry D. Hatfield of the Examiner Staff
A range of new drugs in the fight against the AIDS virus has encouraged some gay men to return to their old habits of promiscuous and unsafe sex, a new survey suggests. They re looking for ways to convince themselves it s OK, says UCSF psychiatrist Dr. James Dilley of gays slipping back into dangerous sex habits. But
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, August 3, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
Firms market medications with ads aimed directly at patients The handsome man on the bicycle smiles out from billboards around The City, the image of good health. Is this an ad for toothpaste? Mouthwash? Shampoo? No, it is a controversial new marketing campaign to sell a potent medicine for the complex treatment of a d
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, July 30, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, the San Francisco Giants announced that proceeds from this year s Until There s a Cure Day, a benefit baseball game supporting the fight against AIDS, will be dedicated solely to renovation of Ward 86 at S.F. General Hospital. The outpatient ward is in dire need of repair. The painted walls and carpeting are
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, July 23, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, a settlement between about 6,000 AIDS-infected hemophiliacs and the makers of tainted blood-clotting products is progressing after resolution of two appeals, a plaintiffs lawyer says. Attorney David Schrager says payments of $100,000 to each hemophiliac or surviving family members finally may go out later th
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, July 16, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, Congress is debating how much money to give a national program that provides free medication for poor AIDS patients. The funding debate in the House Appropriations Subcommittee comes on the heels of federal statistics that show the sharpest decrease in AIDS deaths is among white men, while the number of deat
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, July 9, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, the journal Science reported evidence that even severely compromised immune systems could make significant recovery after anti-viral drug treatment had kept HIV levels suppressed for a year. But as Science reporter Jon Cohen notes, the work also makes it clear that full rebuilding of an HIV-ravaged immune sy
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, July 2, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, a team of San Francisco AIDS experts is urging communities to develop programs such as housing, mental-health care and drug-abuse treatment to make it possible for homeless people to adhere to the complicated regimen of anti-viral drugs. There is a growing debate about whether these drugs should be prescribe
The San Francisco Examiner - Friday, June 27, 1997
Stories by Carol Ness of the Examiner Staff
Seven big smiles beam out from under party hats and balloons in the aging snapshot on Paul O Malley s bulletin board. Seven white men in their prime. Four are dead - O Malley s lover and three other stalwarts in San Francisco s war on AIDS. This is the familiar, painful face of AIDS - the face of loss. More than 15,000
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, June 25, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger; Examiner Staff Writer
THIS WEEK, draft federal HIV and AIDS treatment guidelines were issued in the Federal Register, recommending three-drug combination therapy for management of the disease. Similar guidelines were published Tuesday by an international panel of experts in the Journal of the American Medi
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, June 18, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger; Examiner Staff Writer
THIS WEEK, AIDS activist Mark Harrington of the New York-based Treatment Action Group was awarded a $240,000 MacArthur Fellowship, which recognizes accomplishments that demonstrate originality, creativity, self-direction and contributions to society. Mark has provided the intellectual force behind most of the major pol
The San Francisco Examiner - Tuesday, June 17, 1997
The question isn t whether private rooms should be permitted; it s whether, with an AIDS epidemic, sex clubs should be allowed A PUSH is on in San Francisco to allow sex clubs to contain private rooms where patrons can participate in sexual activities free from prying eyes. This, of course, begs a more basic question:
The San Francisco Examiner - Friday, June 13, 1997
Ray Delgado of the Examiner Staff
The San Francisco Human Rights Commission has turned down a request to urge the Department of Public Health to allow gay sex clubs to have private rooms, fearing such action would result in increased HIV transmission. The commission voted 5-1 to reject a motion from one of its advisory committees Thursday evening that
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, June 11, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, the University of California and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced separately that they would study morning-after HIV treatment to decide whether to recommend the approach to doctors. Some doctors already are prescribing such morning-after anti-viral treatments for people who f
Preston Phillips aspired to a career in music. Ernie Charter was a successful electronics salesman. Phil LeCocq, a businessman, had saved for retirement and his son s college education. Their lives, distinct in almost every other way, converged along one tragic line: Each was a hemophiliac, and each contracted the AIDS
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, June 4, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, the good news is that so far this year about 38 panels per week memorializing AIDS deaths were contributed to the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a project of the Names Project. This is down from a weekly average of 68 panels in previous years - a 43 percent reduction in names and further proof of progress against the
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, May 28, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, locked inside the Level 3 biohazard lab at Harvard s New England Regional Primate Center in Southboro, Mass., are a pair of 20-pound macaque monkeys code-named 71-88 and 255-88. They should be dead by now. In November 1991, scientists gave each a big injection of simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, the mo
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, May 21, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, as President Clinton called for development of an HIV vaccine within the next decade, researchers in the San Francisco Department of Health prepare to launch a local trial of a combination of two experimental preventive vaccines. Thirty high-risk gay men in San Francisco have been recruited for the trial; th
Those closest to the AIDS crisis, both in the Bay Area and around the nation, greeted President Clinton s call for a space-race like drive to produce an HIV vaccine with a mix of elation and caution. It s tremendous news, said Jeff Sheehy, president of the Harvey Milk Club in San Francisco. It would have been better if
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, May 14, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, San Franciscans are still in the dark about why French scientist Dr. Luc Montagnier has chosen to create an AIDS research institute in Queens College, N.Y., despite promises to come here. Last November, Montagnier and Mayor Brown announced that The City would be the site of a combined research and treatment
The San Francisco Examiner - Saturday, May 10, 1997
Marsha Ginsburg of the Examiner Staff
To the delight of San Francisco lawmakers, Gov. Wilson is expected to announce next week that he is restoring $12.9 million in AIDS-related state funding that counties had been asked to provide. Of the total restored to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, $2 million to $3 million will come to San Francisco. With breakthr
The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, May 8, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
A study predicts that as little as two or three years of treatment could eradicate HIV from the body, an estimate unthinkable before recent improvements in therapy. There is no evidence that HIV has been cleared from any patient. For patients with drug resistance or long-term complications of therapy, that goal may be
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, May 7, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
A new study predicts that as little as two or three years of treatment could eradicate HIV from the body, an estimate unthinkable before recent improvements in therapy. There is no evidence that HIV has been cleared from any patient. For patients with drug resistance or long-term complications of therapy, that goal may
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, May 7, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, U.S. District Judge John Grady approved a settlement in which four companies will pay 6,000 HIV-infected hemophiliacs $100,000 each, or more than $600 million. On Friday, Grady will issue an order of payment to the patients, the overwhelming majority of whom are men and many of whom are in dire financial str
The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, May 1, 1997
Emelyn Cruz Lat of the Examiner Staff
Supporters of Proposition 215 declared a tremendous victory after a federal judge barred the government from prosecuting doctors who recommend marijuana to certain seriously ill patients. U.S. District Court Judge Fern Smith ruled Wednesday that doctors could recommend marijuana to patients as long as they do not help
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, April 30, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, researchers at the National Institutes of Health reported that the immune system s army of CD4 cells not only declines in overall size during the course of HIV disease, but also becomes progressively less diverse as cells programmed to fight different invaders are lost. This discovery is critical to progress
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, April 27, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
Momentum is growing to require nationwide reporting of test results for the virus that causes AIDS, triggering fierce debate over how to balance the civil rights of infected individuals against the goal of protecting public health. A bill sponsored by two Republicans in the House of Representatives and supported by the
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, April 23, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, California s MediCal program accepted a $540,000 settlement offer from the four drug companies that produced HIV-tainted blood products for hemophiliacs. The action, if followed by other states, would pave the way to an economic resolution of the tragedy. But hemophiliacs in California say that the sum doesn
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, April 20, 1997
Julian Guthrie of the Examiner Staff
After years of legal wrangling, dashed hopes and impassioned letters written on her behalf, terminally ill Patricia Contreras spent her first day of freedom in nearly 11 years alternating between joy and bitterness. The HIV-positive woman, released from prison early because of her terminal condition, savored the simple
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, April 16, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, as a court-imposed deadline draws near, hemophiliacs, the federal government and drug companies are at an angry standoff over how to split a giant legal settlement negotiated last summer. And until it gets resolved, no one gets paid. As part of the settlement, drug companies who sold HIV-tainted blood produc
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, April 16, 1997
Michael Dougan of the Examiner Staff
An Illinois insurance company s plan to offer life insurance to some customers with HIV is being hailed as further proof that the nature of the illness has taken a turn for the better. Guarantee Trust Life Insurance, based in Glenview, Ill., announced this week that it will insure HIV-positive applicants who are younge
The San Francisco Examiner Wednesday, April 9, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, Gov. Wilson s $66.6 billion budget plan for next year proposes a major increase in funding for a state program that helps provide expensive drugs to AIDS patients. But activists are sharply critical of a key component of the proposed increase - the assumption that 15 counties in nine large metropolitan areas
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, March 26, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, the cumulative number of diagnosed AIDS cases in California is expected to hit 100,000. The estimate is based on the current rate of diagnoses kept by the California Department of Health Services Office of AIDS. The exact total won t be known until the end of the week, when counties send their figures to the
The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, March 20, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
Mayor Brown and health experts have pledged to extend new, near-miracle AIDS therapies to the forgotten populations - youth, women, minorities and the poor. This is a time to be extraordinarily optimistic, Brown said Wednesday at the opening ceremony of the Ninth National AIDS Update Conference in San Francisco. You c
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, March 19, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation released a study that says The City still faces an estimated 1,000 new HIV infections a year. Gay and bisexual men in San Francisco are highly educated about HIV and have adopted condom use into their sexual activity, the study found. But while some men use them every time,
The San Francisco Examiner - Friday, March 14, 1997
Michael Dougan of the Examiner Staff
Possibly the most comprehensive World Wide Web site dealing with all aspects of HIV infection has been launched by UC-San Francisco AIDS specialists - and they ve already received fan mail from Milan. We just got a kudo from Italy , Nicole Mandel, managing editor of the site (hivinsite.ucsf.edu) said Thursday. She
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, March 12, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, the activist group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, celebrates its 10th birthday. On Monday night, about 400 San Francisco ACT UP members - past and present - gathered for an informal dinner and party, featuring photographs, memorabilia and tales from a decade of activism. It was great, said Micha
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, March 5, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, UC-San Francisco researchers reported that widespread needle-exchange programs could have prevented nearly 10,000 HIV infections nationally among drug users, their sex partners and their children since 1987. Moreover, say Dr. Peter Lurie and his team at the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, legal need
The San Francisco Examiner - Friday, Feb. 28, 1997
Eric Brazil of the Examiner Staff
The Clinton administration has apparently backed away from its hard-line policy that threatened to punish doctors for discussing medical marijuana with their patients. In a Feb. 27 letter to California medical leaders, the Department of Health and Human Services said the policy perceived by physicians as an abridgment
The San Francisco Examiner - Friday, Feb. 28, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
The news that the number of AIDS deaths has turned downward is mirrored by a counter-trend with major consequences: The number of people living with the disease is climbing dramatically. On Thursday, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that deaths from AIDS fell 12 percent nationwide during
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Feb. 26, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, a federal health agency reported that AIDS patients lived longer and had fewer infections with a three-drug combination that included a new protease inhibitor drug. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that in a drug trial of AIDS patients with advanced disease, those taking a combi
The San Francisco Examiner - Monday, Feb. 24, 1997
Carol Ness of the Examiner Staff
San Francisco s plan to end cattle grazing on its watershed lands could threaten the Ohlone trail through Alameda County s only remaining wilderness, says the East Bay Regional Park District. The plan, on the agenda at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission s meeting Tuesday, would both strip the East Bay region
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, Feb. 23, 1997
Ann Layne of the Examiner Staff
Balancing first on one leg and then the other, Hubert hikes up a pair of faded blue sweat pants, laces his tattered tennis shoes and hustles to the gym for an afternoon showdown with the treadmill. This Stairmaster endurance test marks a turning point in Hubert s life - a life he prayed and wished for, but worried he w
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, Feb. 23, 1997
Eric Brazil of the Examiner Staff
Prompted by an acceleration of federal threats, four mainstream medical groups have joined a lawsuit aimed at preventing the government from punishing physicians who recommend marijuana to patients. We believe that physicians have a right and a duty to discuss anything regarding a patient s medical health, said Dr. Ton
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Feb. 19, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, former San Franciscan Dr. Eric P. Goosby is becoming acting AIDS czar - director of the Office of National AIDS Policy. Goosby, named to the post on Friday by President Clinton, replaces Patricia S. Fleming, a protege of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, who focused mostly on Republican Medi
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, Feb. 16, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
In what appears to be the first major strike in the federal government s war on California s new medicinal marijuana law, narcotics agents have grilled a doctor for recommending the drug and launched an investigation into his practice. Family doctor Robert Mastroianni, who has recommended marijuana to three seriously i
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, Feb. 16, 1997
Carol Ness of the Examiner Staff
San Francisco is poised to end the centuries-old tradition of cattle grazing in the lush, green hills of its southern Alameda County watershed. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission s vote, expected as soon as Feb. 25, takes aim at an illness-causing parasite called cryptosporidium
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Feb. 12, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, at the upcoming meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle, leading researchers will explore new evidence of genetic resistance to HIV and discuss the implications of these HIV-free individuals in research. Nature has proved it is possible to protect against HIV infection.
The San Francisco Examiner - Saturday, Feb. 8, 1997
Edvins Beitiks of the Examiner Staff
Jim Howley remembers the date: Aug. 22, 1989. The doctor walked in, told him he had AIDS, and gave him about a year and a half to live. Later that day, fighting off waves of self-pity, Howley found himself talking to a woman in training for a triathlon. She told me she ran 10 miles a day and I thought, Why would you wa
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Feb. 5, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, experts at a Stockton-based conference on HIV in rural California warned that HIV is spreading from big cities to small towns and sparsely populated areas. The raw numbers of AIDS cases in rural California are still relatively small, but are climbing, the Sacramento Bee reported. For example, six cases of AI
The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, Jan. 30, 1997
Susan Ferriss of the Examiner Staff
A major party to celebrate a new Catholic Charities home for AIDS patients has been postponed because of fear of protests over Archbishop William Levada s request for an exemption from San Francisco s domestic partners ordinance. In a move that highlights divisions among Catholics and agency employees, Catholic Chariti
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, scientists emerged from the Fourth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections with a sober and cautious view of the future. After Vancouver, there was a quota of undue optimism, said Dr. Julio Montaner, who follows hundreds of patients through the Canadian HIV Trials Network. But very major prog
The San Francisco Examiner - Monday, Jan. 27, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
WASHINGTON - A logjam has broken in AIDS vaccine research, with the results of a new trial showing that a new two-in-one product is safe and able to elicit two important types of immune response in human volunteers. One of the biggest challenges to AIDS vaccine work is that everything designed so far has triggered one
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, Jan. 26, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
WASHINGTON - If the much-vaunted new AIDS drugs are so great, why are people still getting sick? Here at the Fourth Annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, there are plenty of troubling reminders that, despite a string of major therapeutic successes, a cure for AIDS is still well out of reach.
The San Francisco Examiner - Friday, Jan. 24, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
WASHINGTON - A move is under way to shift hundreds of thousands of HIV-infected patients to the latest combination drug therapies, minimizing the possibility that outdated, inadequate treatment could beget a resistant strain of the AIDS virus. Only a small minority of the nation s HIV patients are undergoing the potent
The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, Jan. 23, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
WASHINGTON - Next year, in a major development in the 15-year battle against AIDS, a leading researcher will remove his patients from treatment to see whether they have been cured of the disease. The experiment, outlined by Dr. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond Research Center in New York at the opening of the Fourth Annua
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Jan. 22, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, at the Fourth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Washington, D.C., researchers will present studies that will further fuel the debate of how best to treat the 1 million Americans and 25 million people worldwide who are infected with HIV. AIDS researchers who made a breakthrough by com
The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, Jan. 19, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
On the fourth floor of San Francisco General Hospital, a new battle plan has been launched in the war against AIDS. Here, doctors are making a first-strike attack on the AIDS virus, hitting it hard and early with powerful drugs before it has established a firm toehold in the body. It is definitely an aggressive approac
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Jan. 15, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, Clinton administration sources told the New York Times that the new federal budget proposal calls for increased spending on AIDS prevention. The AIDS prevention programs of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are slated to get another $20 million, raising the annual budget to $637 million.
The San Francisco Examiner - Saturday, Jan. 11, 1997
Julie Chao of the Examiner Staff
For decades, being gay in China meant getting married, having children and living a lie every single day of your life. If you ventured an encounter, it was quick, furtive and anonymous. If you were discovered, you risked job loss, ostracism and perhaps even arrest. But with economic reforms and Westernization in recent
The San Francisco Examiner - Saturday, Jan. 25, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger, Examiner Medical Writer
WASHINGTON - AIDS is being diagnosed in more Americans than ever but is claiming fewer lives, government researchers say. The greatest jump in new cases is showing up among certain groups of young people, most notably heterosexuals, women and blacks, according to new statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Cont
The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, Jan. 8, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
THIS WEEK, San Francisco AIDS researchers have published the nation s first major review and commentary on the use of the new anti-viral drugs called protease inhibitors . The review, published in the latest Journal of the American Medical Association , pulls together information from many sources, including other j
SACRAMENTO - Gov. Wilson will propose a dramatic increase in AIDS spending in his new state budget, according to senior administration officials. The governor will ask for $178.8 million for various AIDS programs, an increase of more than 40 percent over current spending, in the budget he will present to the Legislatur
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