As the Earth undergoes the largest mass extinction since the elimination of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, one of the biggest unsettled questions is the phenomenon s effect on the intricate biological network upon which all life depends. Some have argued, for instance, that the disappearance of even a few species
(This feature story on Sen. Bill Frist s work in Africa originally was published Jan. 13, 2002.) Letter from Kenya : Nashville to Nairobi NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Charity said less than 20 words in the half-hour the American priest, the senator from Tennessee and the Kenyan social worker spent in her 10-foot-by
Steve Mitchell, UPI Medical Correspondent, in Washington)
SAN DIEGO, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- Three new studies released Thursday concluded that President Bush s recently announced smallpox plan, which calls for eventually making the vaccine available to the general public, might do more harm than good unless there is a strong possibility of a smallpox attack. In one of the most comp
WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- President Bush s plan for making the smallpox vaccine available to the military and health-care workers, announced Friday, raises concerns about the side effects and hazards associated with the vaccine for those individuals and their families, experts told United Press International. This i
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- The United States will participate in an international coalition launched Thursday that aims to ensure people affected with HIV/AIDS will receive access to treatments that are readily available in richer, industrialized nations. The International HIV Treatment Access Coalition, which includ
U.S. government researchers said Wednesday they have uncovered an ingenious ploy by the shifty AIDS virus that for two decades has thwarted intense international efforts to develop an effective vaccine against the deadly scourge. The human immunodeficiency virus, which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome, appare
WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Schools and libraries using government-mandated software designed to shield children from sexually explicit Internet content run the very real risk of denying teens access to vital health information, according to a study released Tuesday. The Kaiser Family Foundation, a health philanthropy
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The most notable science news item of 2002 could be regarded as either a sign of extreme confidence in the ability of scientists to overcome great challenges or an infamous decision that will be condemned by our descendants for millennia to come. The Bush administration -- over the objections of Nev
SKOPJE, Macedonia , Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Very little is done to confront the looming plague of AIDS in Eastern Europe. One-third of young women in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan never heard of AIDS. Over-crowded prisons provide no clean needles or condoms to their inmates.
SKOPJE, Macedonia , Dec. 2 (UPI) -- The region that brought you the Black Death, communism and all-pervasive kleptocracy now presents: AIDS. The process of enlargement to the east may, unwittingly, open the European Union s doors to the two scourges of inordinately brutal organized crime and exceptionally lethal diseas
GENEVA, Switzerland , Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Global talks on access to cheap drugs for the world s poorest nations to fight epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, were suspended Friday after rich countries spearheaded by the United States , and poor nations led by the African group, failed to narrow their differences.
GENEVA, Switzerland , Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Global talks on access to cheap drugs for the world s poorest nations to fight epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, were suspended Friday after rich countries spearheaded by the United States , and poor nations led by the African group, failed to narrow their differences.
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- The HIV/AIDS epidemic is worsening the famine in southern Africa through the toll it takes on agricultural workers, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday in advance of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. The 36-page report, AIDS Epidemic Update 2002, said nearly one-fifth of the 26 million
NEW YORK, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- For the first time since the global HIV/AIDS epidemic began three decades ago, women now account for half of all cases worldwide, according to a joint report released Tuesday by the United Nations and the World Health Organization . The face of the epidemic continues to change and for the fir
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Two U.N. agencies said Wednesday the populations who most need highly successful vaccination and immunization programs have been missing out on them and they warn that, also because of funding gaps, old diseases will reemerge if urgent action is not taken. The Rome-based
NEW DELHI, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates announced Tuesday an investment of $400 million over the next three years, saying it was the largest single sum invested outside the United States . India is of strategic importance as its developer and skill base continue to grow, Gates said.
NEW DELHI, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Microsoft chief Bill Gates Monday pledged $100 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fight AIDS in India . There is no doubt that India faces a serious (AIDS) challenge, Gates said on the first day of his four-day visit to India. We do not really know the number of HIV/A
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- The federal government announced Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration has approved a new HIV test kit that can let a patient know in 20 minutes whether he or she carries the virus that causes AIDS. Each year, 8,000 HIV-infected people who come to public clinics for HIV testing do n
BOSTON, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- One reason AIDS may progress as a disease is the human immunodeficiency virus mutates so rapidly within the human body that it confounds the already-weakened immune system s ability to defend against it, researchers reported Monday. In addition, conventional tests used to determine how well a pe
LONDON, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Eighteen months ago, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria announced a deal with Indian drug company Cipla to provide reduced price anti-AIDS drugs to 15,000 Nigerians. To improve drug delivery and health infrastructure, the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Gate
NAIROBI, Kenya , Nov. 2 (UPI) -- A 3-year-old named Samuel weighs only about 20 pounds, and he s very sick. He s one of 85 HIV-positive orphans at Nyumbani, an orphanage set up 10 years ago by American priest Angelo D Agostino. Since Samuel receives anti-retroviral drugs, new drugs that keep his HIV in remission, docto
TORONTO, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- Using part of the virus that causes AIDS, Canadian researchers said Thursday they have created a new drug they think can prevent brain damage due to stroke. In laboratory animal tests, the drug, called tat-NR2Bc, prevented up to 90 percent of the brain damage normally caused by stroke, neurosu
DURHAM, N.C., Oct. 23 (UPI) -- A review of more than 100 contracts between academic research institutions and corporate sponsors found they repeatedly failed to adhere to international guidelines designed to protect the integrity of the research, a new study released Wednesday reveals. Such a failure to follow these gu
TORONTO, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Canadian researchers are beginning a study using American-grown marijuana to see if the drug helps HIV patients maintain their appetite and avoid the sometimes-drastic weight losses associated with the virus that causes AIDS. The U.S. marijuana, supplied by the National Institute on Drug Abuse
The quest to develop a vaccine against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, might receive help from the common house cat. A vaccine that prevents the cat version of HIV/AIDS was developed recently and could provide insights into developing a human HIV vaccine, the feline vaccine creator Janet Yamamoto, of the University of
Martin Walker, UPI Chief International Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Former President Bill Clinton called Wednesday for a new round of debt relief for poor countries, but one that is linked directly to the HIV-AIDS epidemic, so that any country with an infection rate higher than 15 percent of the population would qualify for relief on its debts if it spent th
STOCKHOLM, Sweden , Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Sydney Brenner and John E. Sulston from the United Kingdom and H. Robert Horvitz from the United States have been selected to receive the 2002 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, the Nobel Assembly announced Monday. The committee cited the scientists for their work in the
AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Scientists have employed techniques normally used to classify organisms on the tree of life to help convict a Louisiana doctor who used HIV as his murder weapon against his mistress, researchers said Monday. This is the first time such phylogenetic analysis was used as evidence in a U.S.
TORONTO, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Canadian researchers said Saturday they are seeking government approval to study the use of high-quality heroin, rather than the drug substitute methadone, in addiction-treatment programs. A proposal should go the Canadian health ministry within a week, Vancouver physician Martin Schechter, of
SYDNEY, Australia , Oct. 4 (UPI) -- It s not often a boiler-maker from the wrong side of the tracks ends up an inventor of high-tech medical equipment presiding over a company worth more than $50 million, but for Queenslander Bruce Kiehne, that s exactly what has happened. Kiehne, a born-again Christian, is founder and
BARCELONA, Spain , Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Three medical organizations on Wednesday called for greater funding and global attention to reduce rates of sepsis, a severe reaction to infection that kills 1,400 people every day worldwide -- more than from breast or colon cancer. As part of their Surviving Sepsis campaign, the Eu
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- A non-directive abstinence based sex education program developed at the University of Arkansas has been shown to work with high school students, a new study shows. It s developers attribute its success to the respect it shows to adolescents natural drive toward autonomy. It does not include
NEW YORK, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- The nation s first museum devoted to the history and psychology of sex will open next weekend on Fifth Avenue in a building that may once have housed a discreet bordello. The Museum of Sex -- known to New Yorkers as MoSex -- is the dream-come-true of Daniel Gluck, a 34-year-old Computer Age
NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Syphilis is on the increase in gay and bisexual men in cities around the world, suggesting these men are having unsafe sex and raising concerns about the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, health officials said Thursday. New York City officials reported cases of syphilis more than do
ATLANTA, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- The rate of teens engaging in risky sexual behavior has declined over the past decade, federal health officials reported Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a 16 percent decrease in adolescents who reported ever having engaged in sex and a 24 percent decrease in tho
NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Medical scientists for the first time have identified human proteins that may stifle AIDS by keeping HIV from breeding in the body. Not only might this help explain why some people infected with HIV can remain healthy for decades, but synthetic versions of this protein also could lead someda
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- Researchers said Wednesday they can use specific bits of the deadly human immunodeficiency virus -- the organism that causes AIDS -- as an assisting device in fighting cancers that occur in the eyes. The virus bit -- a protein called Tat -- from HIV helps to slide a key receptor blocker in
SHANGHAI, China , Sept. 24 (UPI) -- A Chinese pharmaceutical firm said Tuesday it has been given permission to market low-cost generic versions of two powerful AIDS drugs patented in China by a U.S.-based company. Shanghai Desano Bio-pharmaceutical Co. said it received approval from China s top regulatory body to manuf
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- The recent announcement by South Africa s Anglo American Company that it would pay the cost of providing free anti-AIDS drugs to its 134,000 employees gives a clear insight into just how pervasive and debilitating the disease has become for that nation. Anglo -- South Africa s largest comp
SHANGHAI, China , Sept. 15 (UPI) -- China has curbed press freedoms, detained and sentenced activists to jail and disrupted access to the Internet as part of a coordinated effort to crush dissent ahead of the 16th Communist Party Congress, the first national party gathering in five years, political observers and human
WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may have renewed the sense of urgency among industrialized nations to raise living standards and spread wealth more equally around the globe, but African nations don t expect any radical changes soon, a top Botswanan official said. The slow progress is not du
BEIJING, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- The official number of HIV/AIDS cases in China has passed 1 million, leading the country s major official in the fight against the infection to say Friday that the illness is on the verge of becoming a real epidemic in the world s most populous nation. Qi Xiaoqiu, director-general of Departme
SHANGHAI, China , Sept. 6 (UPI) -- China s most prominent AIDS activist, who had disappeared several weeks ago while being followed by authorities in Beijing, has been arrested and charged with the serious crime of revealing state secrets, a New York-based rights group said Friday. Wan Yanhai was last seen at a gay a
HURON, S.D., Aug. 30 (UPI) -- A 19-year-old Chicago man apologized for knowingly exposing his girlfriend to HIV and was sentenced to 120 days in jail. Nikko Briteramos, a basketball player at Si Tanka-Huron University, was the first person charged under South Dakota s 2-year-old law making it a felony to deliberately e
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa , Aug. 30 (UPI) -- The head of UNAIDS , Peter Piot, is angry the discussion of the AIDS pandemic is so low on the agenda of the World Summit for Sustainable Development and that African ministers are so lukewarm to the issue. He was expected to tell WSSD delegates Friday night he is annoy
ALEXANDRA, South Africa , Aug. 30 (UPI) -- This village is less than 5 miles from the center of the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development, but it might as well be on the other side of the planet. Some 65,000 delegates, observers, activists and journalists have descended on the modern and vibrant community of San
SYDNEY, Australia , Aug. 28 (UPI) -- In a world full of economic basket cases, surely the sorry plight of Papua New Guinea must rank with the best of them. Just to the north of Australia, this spectacular land, with its 600 tiny islands, has a wealth of natural resources like copper, gold, gas, oil, timber and plenty o
UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- The U.N. Population Fund said Thursday two independent grassroots campaigns have emerged, both trying to close a budget gap caused by the U.S. decision to withhold $34 million in funds. The two are seeking $1 from 34 million friends. Abubakar Dungus, a spokesman for the fund, still know
A new vaccine has shown success in tests with mice and may emerge as a front-line defense against the most hazardous effects of malaria, a lethal scourge that kills nearly 3 million humans worldwide each year. Incorporating a novel approach to target the main toxin produced by parasites that spread the world s deadlies
SINGAPORE, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- In the coming years, several Asian countries, among them China , South Korea and Singapore , are expected to experience declining populations, and their governments must start planning for the economic impact of such decline, according to a repo
WASHINGTON, July 31 (UPI) -- The U.S. Agency for International Development announced Wednesday it is awarding up to $100 million over five years to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation to help combat HIV transmission from mothers to children worldwide. USAID, an independent organization of the federal governm
Nicholas M. Horrock, UPI Chief White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON, July 31 (UPI) -- At 16, Rodney Hulin was small, five foot two inches tall, weighed 125 pounds and had a boyish face but that didn t prevent a Texas judge from making an example of him, his mother said, and sentencing him to eight years in an adult prison for setting a dumpster on fire. We were frightened fo
LOS ANGELES, July 29 (UPI) -- A disturbing healthcare divide between white Americans and minority groups should be addressed with a new emphasis on teaching impressionable adolescents to avoid the pitfalls of substance abuse, unsafe sex and sedentary lifestyles, two former surgeons general said Monday. Speaking at a pa
A potentially fatal disease spread by ticks may be on the increase and government and public health officials are concerned it could be infiltrating the blood supply. Babesiosis, a mild malaria-like illness, is transmitted by Ixodes scapularis, the black-legged tick, the same creature that carries Lyme disease. So far,
WASHINGTON, July 26 (UPI) -- Prison rape has become such a common occurrence in federal and state prisons across the United States that it could have deadly consequences for the inmate population as well as the public at large, experts in the field told United Press International. Congress plans to take a closer look a
PARIS, July 23 (UPI) -- For the moment at least, Monica runs her business from an unsavory corner of the Rue St. Denis, a few blocks north of the sex shops and strip joints, and uncomfortably close to her younger, foreign competition. Here, clad in long black boots and a micro white dress, the 43-year-old Paris prostit
WASHINGTON, July 23 (UPI) -- By a vote of 98-0, the full Senate Tuesday confirmed Richard H. Carmona as President Bush s nominee to be the next U.S. surgeon general. Although Carmona had a controversial past while working as a trauma surgeon in Arizona and was opposed by a consumer advocacy group, he met little resista
WASHINGTON, July 22 (UPI) -- The Bush administration Monday announced it would withhold $34 million in funding set aside for the United Nations Population Fund, an overseas family planning initiative accused of supporting coercive abortions and involuntary sterilizations in China . Conservatives have accused the grou
CHICAGO, July 22 (UPI) -- Speakers at the annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition conference called for African-Americans, other minorities and whites to defend half a century of hard-won civil rights they say are under attack from the White House and legal system. The five-day meeting opened Saturday with sessions to set a legi
TAMPA, Fla., July 19 (UPI) -- Officials in Tampa were assuring residents Friday that the area s blood supply for transfusions is safe despite two cases of infection earlier this year of HIV, the virus which causes AIDS. The blood supply infections earlier this year were the second cases in the nation since the current
WASHINGTON, July 16 (UPI) -- The president of the Family Research Council and a professor of sexuality education had widely divergent reactions to the news that South African Sesame Street will introduce an HIV-positive Muppet character this fall. HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus, the pathogen that causes th
LOS ANGELES, July 15 (UPI) -- News that the South African version of Sesame Street will introduce an HIV-infected Muppet this fall has touched off a new shiver of concern among many American conservatives about what the long-running public television show is teaching our children. Sesame Workshop vice president Joel Sc
Two years ago, during the hugely successful International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa , the congress was abuzz with the sense that the worst was apparently over for Africa as far as the AIDS pandemic was concerned. Models of how many patients the virus could infect -- as high as 35 percent of adults in the
BARCELONA, Spain , July 12 (UPI) -- Extra lubrication with spermicide reduces condom breakage and the risk of infection with sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, a British researcher said Friday at the 14th International AIDS Conference. Furthermore, said Mark Gabbay of the University of Liverpool, the extra w
United Press International - Thursday, July 11, 2002
Ed Susman, UPI Science News
BARCELONA, Spain (UPI) -- Former President Bill Clinton Thursday urged the United States and Canada to pay the tab for anti-AIDS drugs for the poorer nations of the Caribbean. In a talk at the 14th International AIDS Conference, Clinton said developing nations of the world should enter into agreements with
United Press International - Thursday, July 11, 2002
Ed Susman, UPI Science News
BARCELONA, Spain (UPI) -- A concerted effort to extend state-of-the-art anti-HIV medications into poor nations of the world will deliver dramatic and effective results -- without creating a globe-threatening resistant virus -- doctors reported Thursday at the 14th International AIDS Conference. Such a strategy woul
United Press International - Thursday, July 11, 2002
Michael Smith, UPI Science News
BARCELONA, Spain (UPI) -- As many as one in four African-American pre-teens is already thinking about having sex, a researcher said Thursday at the 14th International AIDS Conference. We don t think of 10-year-olds as thinking about sex, said sociologist Kim Miller of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, but 25
United Press International - Thursday, July 11, 2002
Michael Smith, UPI Science News
BARCELONA, Spain (UPI) -- A rub-on vaccine may slow the progress of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, a researcher announced Thursday at the 14th International AIDS Conference. This vaccine is really different, said Julianna Lisziewicz of the Research Institute for Genetic and Human Therapy in Washington, D.C. The compo
United Press International - Thursday, July 11, 2002
Ed Susman, UPI Science News
BARCELONA, Spain (UPI) -- The long-awaited, first drugs in a new class of anti-HIV agents caused no adverse reactions in its initial treatment in tests on people, researcher said Thursday. We saw no adverse experiences at all in the first few healthy volunteers who were given the drug, said Stephen Young, senior direc
United Press International - Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Michael Smith, UPI Science News
BARCELONA, Spain , July 10 (UPI) -- The number of children orphaned by AIDS in Asia, Africa and Latin America will be a shocking 25 million by the year 2010, researchers said Wednesday at the 14th International AIDS Conference, although other experts predicted as many as 100 million AIDS orphans worldwide in the same t
United Press International - Tuesday, July 9, 2002
Michael Smith, UPI Science News
BARCELONA, Spain (UPI) -- In the age of AIDS, an age-old practice -- young women serving older sugar daddies -- is becoming deadly to the women, a U.N. public health expert warned Tuesday at the 14th International AIDS Conference. Sex between people of different generations is one of the main factors fueling the AIDS e
United Press International - Tuesday, July 9, 2002
Ed Susman, UPI Science News
BARCELONA, Spain , July 9 (UPI) -- Deeply religious brothel workers in Nigeria believe their faith in God will protect them from contracting the virus that causes AIDS, researchers said Tuesday. Researchers from the Society for Family Health in Abuja, Nigeria, suggested that these religious beliefs may be contributing
United Press International - Tuesday, July 9, 2002
Ed Susman, UPI Science News
BARCELONA, Spain (UPI) -- Whistling, shouting and clapping activists Tuesday drowned out Tuesday s speech of U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson at the 14th International AIDS Conference. About 50 to 100 demonstrators carrying signs denouncing U.S. AIDS policy demonstrated for nearly 30 minutes,
BARCELONA, Spain (UPI) -- Explosive epidemics of infection with the virus that causes AIDS are sweeping across the major cities of Asia, fueled by striking increases in injecting drug users who have contracted the incurable disease, researchers announced Monday at the 14th International AIDS Conference. Troubling i
BRASILIA, Brazil , July 8 (UPI) -- Brazil pledged Monday to share its wealth of experience in fighting and preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS with the international community by helping to finance pilot projects in some of the world s poorest countries, according to the country s minister of health. Paulo Robert
BARCELONA, Spain , July 8 (UPI) -- Most young gay men in the United States are unaware they are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, government researchers said Monday. Clearly, unrecognized infection with human immunodeficiency virus is a problem in men who have sex with men, said Duncan MacKeller, an epide
BARCELONA, Spain (UPI) -- A new drug used to treat AIDS patients in the most severe stages of the disease brings them back from the edge of death, a San Francisco physician announced Monday at the 14th International AIDS Conference. I hesitate to use the world miraculous, said Jacob Lalezari of Quest Clinical Research,
BARCELONA, Spain (UPI) -- A new clinical study of an HIV vaccine involving 16,000 healthy volunteers will begin in Thailand this year with support from the U.S. government and private industry, officials announced Monday at the 14th International AIDS Conference. The $36 million study will take five years, said Val
BARCELONA, Spain (UPI) -- In 51 countries, life expectancy -- the average number of years a person can expect to live -- has decreased as much as 30 years due to the impact of AIDS, researchers reported Sunday. At the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain, U.S. Census Bureau researchers said their analyses
BARCELONA, Spain , July 7 (UPI) -- Every three months about 10,000 people in the United States are newly infected with the virus which causes AIDS -- a level that has remained roughly constant since 1998, a government official said Sunday at the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain. However, doctors fr
BARCELONA, Spain , July 6 (UPI) -- About one in seven people who have recently been infected with the virus that causes AIDS have contracted a strain of the organism that is already resistant to drugs used to treat the disease, doctors said Saturday. This research has to put into question widely-held assumptions that i
NEW YORK, July 2 (UPI) -- United Nations officials predicted Tuesday that by the year 2020, as many as 68 million people will die from AIDS in the 45 most affected nations -- five times the number of people already killed by the worldwide epidemic. Twenty years since it was first identified as a health threat, doctors
VIENNA, July 1 (UPI) -- Although more young adults are living longer with HIV, making it possible for them to consider starting a family, many fertility clinics remain reluctant to treat them, researchers reported Monday at a conference on reproductive medicine. Janice Copeland, of the Genesis Fertility Center in Vanco
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan , June 28 (UPI) -- Increased drug use in Central Asia is directly linked to the spread of HIV/AIDS in the region, a three-day regional conference said Friday. The (drug) problem affects the society as a whole, particularly young men and women, and results in an increase of deaths, human immunodefic
CALGARY, Alberta, June 27 (UPI) -- Leaders of the industrialized world gathered for the Group of Eight summit endorsed on Thursday a proposal from African heads of state to build a trade and development partnership aimed at lifting the impoverished, disease-ravaged continent out of economic hardship. The New Partnershi
SHANGHAI, China , June 27 (UPI) -- Chinese health officials estimate 850,000 people in the country are now infected with human immunodeficiency virus, an increase of more than a quarter of a million over last year s figure, but health workers and experts say many more people who may have contracted the infection that c
WASHINGTON, June 24 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush is set to depart Washington Tuesday to attend the Group of Eight Summit in Canada , where he is expected to ask European leaders to support his proposed economic and political reforms for the Palestinian Authority. Bush is expected in his meetings with world leaders
MELBOURNE, Australia , June 21 (UPI) -- Researchers have grown a functioning thymus from tissue-specific stem cells in the body of a mouse, opening the way for the treatment of AIDS and cancer. The thymus is a small organ crucial to the human immune system. Located above the heart, it creates, programs and distributes
WASHINGTON, June 19 (UPI) -- A new bipartisan think tank task force has recommended increasing U.S. efforts to fight HIV/AIDS overseas, including doubling U.S. funding for the cause. The proposal, though broader and more ambitious, is in line with a new initiative by President George W. Bush that will allot $500 millio
WASHINGTON, June 19 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush on Wednesday proposed $500 million for anti-viral drugs, medical staff training and preventive care aimed at preventing pregnant women in African and Caribbean nations from spreading the HIV virus to their children. Medical science gives us the power to save these y
WASHINGTON, June 13 (UPI) -- The global fight against HIV and AIDS requires strong leadership and financial support from the United States , group convened by a Washington think tank and headed by two senators urged Thursday. The United States has both the capacity and responsibility to be at the forefront of the inter
SKOPJE, Macedonia , June 6 (UPI) -- Last April, the World Health Organization , the World Trade Organization, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, and the U.S.-based Global Health Council held a three-day workshop about Pricing and Financing of Essential Drugs in poor countries.
Marijuana appears to be very effective for treating pain and a variety of other conditions, particularly in patients who have not been helped by prescription drugs, its advocates claim, despite the debate about the legality of using the drug as a medication. It s a very effective medication for many people who have fai
WASHINGTON, June 5 (UPI) -- Touring Africa with a rock star may not have altered the U.S. Treasury secretary s basic view on development assistance, but Paul O Neill admitted Wednesday that it was the most intense twelve days of my life, which shifted his perception of Africa and its economic potential. O Neill has bee
LOS ANGELES, June 5 (UPI) -- A legal clash over states rights and the use of medical marijuana has led to the launching of a hunger strike by activists trying to head off the forfeiture of their small office building to the federal government. The Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Cooperative was closed by the Drug Enforce
The drug methamphetamine dramatically increases the ability of feline immunodeficiency virus, or FIV, to reproduce itself in a type of brain cell in cats, new research reveals. If the finding holds true in humans, it could help explain why AIDS progresses more rapidly in drug abusers. FIV is a close relative to HIV, th
New cellular research suggests performing circumcision might help protect men -- and possibly their partners -- from contracting AIDS, researchers told United Press International. The research examined laboratory specimens of healthy human foreskin -- the covering of the penis often removed in an operation, usually soo
SAN FRANCISCO, May 23 (UPI) -- Programs to prevent the spread of AIDS in Africa by helping people avoid infection should take priority over treating those who have the disease, according to research reported Thursday in the British medical journal The Lancet. Elliot Marseille, lead author, said: Since the (United Natio
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil , May 23 (UPI) -- Health care in this nation, in at least one respect, is very much the story of David taking on the Goliath of international drug companies, flaunting patent laws and saving or prolonging the lives of its citizens at risk of contracting human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, and A
GRAHAMSTOWN, South Africa , May 22 (UPI) -- How does a nation account for its healthcare financing when it refuses to believe why 14 percent of its population, or 30 percent of its workforce, might die by the year 2010? This is a question that South Africa came closer to answering on April 17, when the cabinet released
WASHINGTON, May 22 (UPI) -- The Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved $100 million in additional funding for programs to treat and prevent AIDS in developing countries as part of the supplemental appropriations bill, but this fell far short of the $700 million being sought by AIDS activists. Sens. Arlen
ATLANTA, May 21 (UPI) -- Sepsis, a severe reaction to infection, has increased by 329 percent in the United States over the past 25 years and is now costing the nation billions in medical expenses, a new study presented Tuesday reveals. Researchers at Emory University and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preven
URBINO, Italy , May 17 (UPI) -- An Italian team is working on a system to use a patient s own red blood cells to deliver drugs and other treatments directly to targeted areas of the body, researchers reported Friday. The technique, undergoing a second round of tests on cystic fibrosis sufferers in Italy, holds promise
Steve Mitchell, UPI Medical and Health Correspondent, in Washington
CHICAGO, May 13 (UPI) -- Dozens of medical centers across the United States are gearing up to begin human studies of a new vaccine to fight the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV, researchers announced Monday. Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke s Medical Center, as well as Emory University in Atlanta and Ohio State Universit
TORONTO, May 13 (UPI) -- Early this year, a secretive farm in Flin Flon, Manitoba, harvested its first officially-approved crop of marijuana, fulfilling a contract with the federal government. That, however, was as far as it got. The company that runs the farm, Prairie Plant Systems Inc., did not process or package the
United Press InternationalPublished - May 11, 2002
William M. Reilly
UNITED NATIONS, May 10 (UPI) -- An agreement in principle was reached Friday night on a final document bringing to a conclusion the three-day U.N. children s summit as youngsters posed for pictures, hugged and packed their souvenirs. Negotiators had been stymied mainly by abortion and sex education issues, with the
SKOPJE, Macedonia , May 9 (UPI) -- Transition has trimmed Russian life expectancy by well over a decade. People lead brutish and nasty lives only to expire in their prime, often inebriated. In the republics of the former Yugoslavia, respiratory and digestive tract diseases run amok. Stress and pollution conspire to rea
UNITED NATIONS, May 8 (UPI) -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the U.N. Special Session of the General Assembly on Children Wednesday telling adults among the 6,000 delegates not to make children pay for the failure of adults. The 3-day meeting at U.N. headquarters to hammer out a global agreement on children to in
HURON, S.D.,(UPI) -- An 18-year-old college basketball player charged with intentionally exposing a woman to HIV was released on bail after pleading not guilty to three counts of recklessly spreading the virus linked to AIDS. Nikko Briteramos was released from the Beadle County Jail Thursday afternoon after posting $10
BALTIMORE, April 25 (UPI) -- Scientists working with yeast have made the unexpected discovery the metal manganese can block the replication of HIV inside cells, a finding that could lead to a whole new class of treatments for the virus that causes AIDS, according to research released Thursday. Human immunodeficiency vi
BALTIMORE, April 25 (UPI) -- People who have recovered from the hepatitis C virus may have developed some immunity to future infections, according to a study released Thursday from the medical journal, The Lancet. The results are important because they may pave the way for development of a vaccine to prevent hepatitis
WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) -- Programs that promote sexual abstinence reduce sexually transmitted diseases, out-of-wedlock childbearing and other consequences of sex among teenagers, according to a study published the conservative Heritage Foundation. Analysts at other think tanks, however, question the study s claims.
WASHINGTON, April 21 (UPI) -- One hundred and twenty-five million children around the world never attend school. On Sunday, British, Dutch and Canadian ministers expressed their support for getting all children into school by 2015 but one panelist Phil Twyford, of the non-governmental organization Oxfam, criticized the
WASHINGTON, April 19 (UPI) -- The cross-border movement of women who are trafficked from country to country for prostitution is furthering the dispersion of the HIV/AIDS virus, an expert in sexually transmitted diseases said Friday. Mutations of the disease may travel to unforeseen locations, giving rise to versions of
Hugh B. Price, Special to United Press International
WASHINGTON, April 13 (UPI) -- For all of our understandable focus on the devastating conflict in the Middle East and the campaign to break the capacity of outlaw groups and states to engage in terrorism, we cannot afford to forget another worldwide struggle that deserves our utmost efforts. That is the war against AIDS
Marina Kozlova, UPI Correspondent From the Science & Technology Desk
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan , April 15 (UPI) -- Uzbekistan health authorities are attempting to sound the alarm that the country is facing the first stage of an HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Uzbek Health Ministry said 549 people officially were registered in 2001 as infected with human immunodeficiency virus -- 2.3 times higher than
SAN FRANCISCO, April 1 (UPI) -- A new drug discount service offered by an HIV advocacy group is offering cut rate -- up to 50 percent off -- pharmaceutical prices to its members. The novel program is helping to bridge the gap between the prohibitive price of new drugs to treat the human immunodeficiency virus and the a
AIDS PREVENTION Topical treatments that prevent the transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus -- HIV -- may be ready for market far sooner than a vaccine, AIDS researchers say. An expert panel at the American Foundation for AIDS Research meeting in San Francisco Thursday discussed the progress being made develop
SAN FRANCISCO, March 21 (UPI) -- Topical treatments that prevent the transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus -- HIV -- may be ready for market far sooner than a vaccine, AIDS researchers said Thursday. An expert panel at the American Foundation for AIDS Research meeting discussed the progress being made develo
SAN FRANCISCO, March 20 (UPI) -- The wide distribution of new anti-retroviral drugs over the past five years has resulted in a significant decline in AIDS-related opportunistic infections in Los Angeles County, researchers said Wednesday. The benefits of the combo drug therapy, however, have not reached all populations
SAN FRANCISCO -- The elderly living with HIV often face a double stigma -- the fact the disease is associated with sexual activity and drug abuse and simply that they are old, experts said Tuesday at an AIDS research meeting. Presentations at the American Foundation for AIDS Research meeting shed new light on the uniqu
UPI Science News - LOS ANGELES, N.Y., March 14 (UPI) -- A rapidly mutating gene in a virus that preys on bacteria may help lead to a new way to create artificial antibodies, scientists in California reported Thursday. This surprising mechanism may even be found in humans and other life, suggesting a new way of generati
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia , March 5 (UPI) -- Some 350 cases of AIDS were registered in Saudi Arabia last year, many of them young men who were treated by local healthcare providers, news reports said Tuesday. The al Watan newspaper quoted the president of the contagious diseases department at King Saud University in Riyadh,
SEATTLE, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Genetic differences in people infected with HIV might help predict who gets allergic reactions to a commonly used antiviral drug called abacavir, Australian researchers at an AIDS conference said Wednesday. Abacavir has relatively few side effects compared to similar drugs, however about 5 p
SEATTLE, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A 31-year-old man suffering from an AIDS-related brain seizure accidentally bit his mother on the hand, transmitting the disease to her in one of only a few cases that definitively show HIV can be transmitted by human bites, researchers said Wednesday. The Brazilian scientists confirmed the tr
SEATTLE, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- AIDS patients who stop taking their medications dramatically increase their risk of developing some of the serious complications associated with the disease, researchers reported Tuesday. The risk of an AIDS-defining illness or dying increases fivefold for patients who stop taking highly activ
SEATTLE, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Developing an AIDS vaccine is like putting together a puzzle, and researchers said Tuesday that they are working piece by piece, making slow progress, toward developing a safe and effective treatment that involves boosting a person s immune system. Early attempts at vaccines often were ineffec
SEATTLE, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Two novel and promising approaches to stopping the progress of AIDS by preventing the AIDS-causing HIV virus from replicating were presented Monday at the 9th annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. Richard J. Colonno of Bristol-Myers Squibb in Wallingford, Conn., s
SEATTLE, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Scientists Monday described new drugs that promise AIDS patients more potent, more tolerable and more convenient treatments -- medications that could be available within a couple of years. After a lull for two of three years, said Dr. Brian Gazzard, consultant at Chelsea and Westminster Hospit
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- A seemingly mirror image of the church has emerged during the Rev. Franklin Graham s impressive International Christian Conference on HIV/AIDS in Washington. On one hand, self-righteousness seems to have contributed to American evangelicals slow response to the global catastrophe, although
WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- An elderly clergyman s simple plan to battle the African AIDS pandemic will become a reality, United Press International learned Tuesday. The Rev. Angelo D Agostino, a Jesuit priest and psychiatrist, proposed building a City of Light where children orphaned by the disease and the elderly wi
WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- Billy Graham s son, Franklin, chided the Christian Church Monday for its slow response to the global AIDS/HIV pandemic. At the opening of a five-day International Christian Conference on HIV/AIDS in Washington, Graham said, Shamefully, the Church of Jesus Christ has been somewhat asleep.
BOSTON (UPI) -- Drugs that prevent the transmission of the AIDS virus from infected mothers to their newborns appear to cause mutations in the babies DNA at twice the rate seen in normal children, researchers said Friday. We really don t know what this means as far as future problems, such as the risk of cancer, said
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan , Feb. 14 (UPI) -- There have only been a handful of AIDS cases reported in Afghanistan but the World Health Organization on Thursday said it wanted to gather more information on sexually transmitted diseases to begin educational programs aimed at preventing their spread.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- African countries will get an additional $500 million to fight AIDS under a World Bank loan approved Thursday. The decision by the lending institution s board of directors brings lending to Africa under the Multi-County HIV/AIDS Program for Africa to $1 billion in the current fiscal year.
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The AIDS epidemic surpasses the bubonic plague of the 14th century, yet some experts predict an HIV vaccine will be available within the decade, according to two reports released Thursday. In his report, Peter Lamptey, president of the Family Health International AIDS Institute in Arlington, Va., co
WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Those who oppose the use of marijuana as a medicine invariably counter efforts to legalize the drug -- such as those recently proposed by Reps. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and Barney Frank, D-Mass., co-sponsors of H.R. 2592: the States Rights to Medical Marijuana Act -- with the excuse that more res
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Jan. 17 (UPI) -- University of Alabama scientists say the Simian immunodeficiency virus, the primate version of HIV, which causes AIDS, is rare among wild chimpanzees in East Africa, leaving them to suspect acquired immune deficiency syndrome originated from chimps in West Central Africa. For roughly
In a step along the long, hard-fought road toward an effective AIDS vaccine, researchers have developed a strategy that in their experiments controlled infection in monkeys, although another study has sounded a note of caution, indicating the virus might escape the immunization effects by mutating. The scientists view
Letter from Kenya : Nashville to Nairobi NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Charity said less than 20 words in the half-hour the American priest, the senator from Tennessee and the Kenyan social worker spent in her 10-foot-by-10-foot metal-roofed shack. She didn t need to, her deep sunken olive eyes -- moist from what co
PASADENA, Calif. (UPI) -- A new gene delivery technique using a modified HIV virus will soon make it easier to create transgenic animals -- which contain genes of other species -- for research and industrial applications. Scientists say this advance, reported for the first time in the journal Science, promises to make
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