WASHINGTON - Although the federal government gets high marks for bankrolling AIDS research and treatment programs, it scores an F in funding U.S. prevention programs and only a C in helping other countries battle the deadly disease, an advocacy coalition said. At a time of increasing HIV infection rates and evidence of
Almost 23 million sub-Saharans are HIV-positive Such is the stigma of AIDS in South Africa that an HIV-positive woman was beaten to death by fearful neighbors, that panels lovingly stitched for a memorial quilt still rarely bear the names of the dead. An estimated 9 percent of South Africa s people are infected with HI
IT S COMFORTING - and absolutely wrong - to believe that the AIDS epidemic has passed its peak and is diminishing as a threat. Every day, more than 5,500 people die of complications of the HIV virus. This year, the toll around the world will reach 2.6 million AIDS deaths. That s the highest annual total in the two-deca
WASHINGTON - The Senate has given its stamp of approval to a measure that would help guarantee access to cheap generic AIDS drugs for African countries that have been devastated by the epidemic. The measure s passage on Wednesday was a major defeat for the American pharmaceutical industry, which had pressed Congress to
WASHINGTON - The House voted to cut spending for AIDS prevention aimed at minority groups, drawing a rebuke from critics who say the reduction is ill-timed because of the high rates of HIV infection among the targeted populations. The provision for cutting the minority-outreach program by $25 million - to $139 million,
The San Francisco Examiner - Tuesday, September 14, 1999
Peter Hartlaub and Emily Gurnon of the Examiner Staff
Seriously ill patients may have the right to use medical marijuana despite federal narcotics laws, a federal appeals court has ruled. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told a federal judge on Monday to review his 1998 order that closed the Cannabis Cultivators Club in San Francisco, the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Coo
The look on the oncologist s face after he read the CAT scan was enough to tell Larry Williamson his prognosis wasn t good. I never saw that kind of gloom on his face before, said Williamson, 52. I looked at his face and said, I m a dead man, aren t I? His physician, Dr. David Reese of UC-San Francisco Cancer Center, c
SACRAMENTO - Gov. Davis appears ready to veto a measure legalizing needle exchange programs in California, despite a new poll showing strong public support for giving clean needles to intravenous drug addicts. Although Davis hasn t made a public statement about the measure, the politically cautious governor is signalin
An Internet chat room for gay men was bombarded with hate mail following media reports that health officials traced a syphilis outbreak to people who met there. Users of the America Online chat room SFM4M - San Francisco Men 4 Men - who logged on Wednesday said they received anti-gay messages filled with profanity and
SACRAMENTO - Every two weeks the San Francisco Board of Supervisors declares a state of emergency over the AIDS epidemic, and every two weeks health officials again are given permission to distribute clean needles to drug addicts. That convoluted system would be swept away under a measure narrowly approved Tuesday by t
A cluster of syphilis cases traced to an Internet chat room is posing new challenges for city health officials, who are tracking a disease through cyberspace for the first time. In the virtual world of chat rooms, participants are known only by their screen personas, leaving the San Francisco Department of Health with
Richard Dutton is a regular at Action Point, where he picks up a week s worth of his HIV medications, lies down for a comforting acupuncture session, chats with the staff about his problems, and maybe grabs a few condoms on the way out. The new agency, located on a rough patch of Sixth Street, also pays him $10 a week
THREE OF four babies born HIV-positive convert to negative by their first birthday. That s in our hands, explains Father Angelo D Agostino, S.J., who runs the Nyumbani Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya . We get the children because they are abandoned at birth. That abandonment is really a fortunate state of affairs for the c
The City s Health Commission will not even consider a request to reopen San Francisco s bathhouses - a move that in effect ends official debate over the controversial proposal that s been trumpeted by a small but vocal group of gay activists. Without debating the issue itself, the commission decided Tuesday to place th
A year after San Francisco s most flamboyant pot club was shut down by a judge, medical marijuana distribution here is alive and well, with dispensaries ranging from on-call delivery services to clean, well-lit retail spaces and funky activist-run storefronts. With local politicians on their side and plenty of patients
The return of San Francisco s gay bathhouses moved one step closer when a key advisory panel voted in favor of reopening them. In a 9-1 vote Thursday night, the HIV Prevention Planning Council passed a motion to recommend to The City s Health Commission that it remove its prohibition against bathhouses and private room
The simple Pap smear that has led to a dramatic drop in cervical cancer could also prove to be a cost-effective way to catch the early signs of anal cancer in HIV-positive gay and bisexual men. Like cervical cancer, anal cancer is linked to human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease that can prompt pre-cancer
Complaints that The City s largest independent physicians group won t admit some AIDS and HIV doctors took on added urgency when it was learned that one of its competitors is going out of business. Davies Medical Group, which represents about 100 doctors, will close at the end of the month, its director Kathleen Wayman
WASHINGTON - Lawmakers and researchers warn that the rapid spread of the AIDS virus threatens to destabilize Africa and Asia unless the United States and other wealthy nations pump more resources into halting the spread of the disease in the developing world. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., the chairman of a congressional
Gregory Lewis and Ulysses Torassa of the Examiner Staff
A city HIV / AIDS program that will focus on education, prevention and awareness, especially for minorities, women and young gay men, was launched by Mayor Willie Brown. DuPont Pharmaceuticals is donating $1 million to the effort over the next five years. The mayor hopes the program, which he announced Tuesday as anoth
Only in San Francisco would safe sodomy make the ballot WHO WANTS to take a chance on reenergizing the AIDS epidemic? The campaign to put a pro-bathhouse initiative on the San Francisco ballot is both unwise and futile. Prospects for a positive vote tally are almost nil on the proposal to allow safe sodomy nightly in l
S.F. groups plan for pinch as epidemic becomes old news for corporate givers While stock-rich philanthropies are giving away more money than ever, foundation support for AIDS causes has dropped sharply in the past three years, according to a new nationwide survey of charitable foundations. The decline in foundation giv
Officials at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation are puzzled and offended by a letter sent to news organizations on their letterhead claiming the group has slashed executive salaries and made other policy changes. The letter, purportedly signed by Executive Director Pat Christen, was mailed Saturday from San Francisco in
Panels will cover policy, research, prevention, as well as latest advances Nearly 2,000 people with AIDS and HIV and those who serve and advocate for them once again will converge on Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Tuesday through Friday for the 11th national HIV / AIDS Update Conference. As in past years, the conferen
San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, March 17, 1999
Ulysses Torassa, Examiner Medical Writer
In what amounts to a consensus of scientific opinion, a prestigious panel has found that marijuana probably helps a number of ailments, but because smoking it is also hazardous, it should be used sparingly. At the same time, research on marijuana should get under way to isolate compounds that could eventually be given
WASHINGTON - Soon after the AIDS epidemic exploded in the 1980s, Dr. Donald Burke, a senior researcher at Baltimore s Johns Hopkins University, began work on a vaccine against HIV, the virus that causes the deadly disease. Burke made progress but knew he needed the financial backing and laboratory firepower of a pharma
An HIV-positive man who sued UCSF after being denied surgery for a debilitating shoulder condition was awarded $166,000. In a 10-2 decision, the San Francisco Superior Court jury this week found that Dr. Franklin Hoaglund, a now retired orthopedic surgeon, committed malpractice when he declined to perform shoulder-repl
Charges bias when doctor wouldn t replace ailing shoulder The day Steve Iacovino sought the help of a UCSF surgeon, the pain in his shoulders was so unbearable he couldn t dress, couldn t lift his cat, couldn t perform most routine functions. That day, after the surgeon declined to operate, Iacovino says he was so deva
Since the beginning of the AIDS crisis, San Francisco General Hospital has been singled out as the best in the nation, a model of what AIDS care could, and should, be. A key piece of that has been Ward 5A, where AIDS patients were treated to donated baked goods, unlimited Double Rainbow ice cream, teddy bears, campy vo
WASHINGTON - As more effective AIDS treatments develop, Americans must change the way they think about people infected with HIV and the role they have in society, health officials and legal specialists said. This is no longer about how to treat the dying; it s about how to treat the living, said John Kane, senior judge
Although HIV destroys crucial disease-fighting cells in the body, it does most of its damage by preventing the body from making enough new ones, according to San Francisco AIDS researchers. That seemingly basic aspect of the disease remained unknown for years and has only been shown definitively by the work of investig
San Francisco Examiner - Saturday, January 2, 1999
Ulysses Torassa, Examiner Medical Writer
Some fear loss of safeguards, funds if private entity takes over The dean of UC-San Francisco s School of Medicine is considering a proposal some fear could skim money from lucrative drug trials and send it to an arm of the private UCSF-Stanford Health Care organization. Administrators say the plan to handle contracts
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