In the past few weeks, Gail Werner-Robertson has been contacted for donations by about 80 charities, from the Salvation Army to a local family-services group and a Ronald McDonald House -- and that was before groups started seeking relief funds for last Sunday s devastating tsunami. Though Ms. Werner-Robertson thought
Sara Schaefer-Munoz, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Federal regulators approved the first in a new class of drugs for treating patients suffering from severe, chronic pain who don t get relief from other painkillers. Prialt, generically called ziconotide, is a synthetic version of sea snail venom manufactured by the Irish drug-maker Elan Corp. Approved for sale in the U
Aid workers tending to the ravaged islands and coastlines of southern Asia say a big concern is an outbreak of malaria and other waterborne diseases in the aftermath of Sunday s tsunami. Which reminds us of a just-out World Health Organization report anticipating a shortage in a key antimalarial drug for next year.
LONDON - The World Health Organization warned that a vital antimalarial drug will be in short supply next year, potentially making it harder to treat patients who would otherwise have received treatment. The drug, known as Coartem and made only by Novartis AG of Switzerland , is the only effective
LONDON - While big pharmaceutical companies on both sides of the Atlantic suffer product failures and a dearth of innovation, a clutch of midsize drug makers has quietly been seeing better fortune. Thanks to cost-cutting programs and a narrow focus on a few therapeutic areas, companies such as Ireland s Elan Corp., Sch
GENEVA - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS , Tuberculosis and Malaria said a just-released donation of $32 million from the U.S. and $66 million from other donors will bring estimated 2004 income to $1.56 billion, up from $936 million in 2003. The fund is an international partnership of 45 governments and private donors, i
SAN FRANCISCO - The Institute for OneWorld Health, a nonprofit drug company, announced today that it has received a five-year, $42.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a more affordable and accessible version of the world s leading drug for treating malaria. Malaria ranks as the world s
The World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders, both headquartered in Geneva, have saved many lives. But they have endangered almost as many with their strategy of using unproven and outmoded drugs in developing nations to combat AIDS and malaria. These AIDS drugs are cheaper and, like European generic drugs
There is some important good news for which Republicans and Democrats alike can share credit: The teen birth and pregnancy rate in America has plummeted over the past decade. Last year there were 41.7 births per 1,000 kids between the ages of 15 and 19, down dramatically from 61.8 in 1991, the U.S. Centers for Disease
The ranks of people with HIV/AIDS around the world rose to a record 39.4 million in 2004, according to a new estimate, up 7.7% from an adjusted 36.6 million two years ago. About 3.1 million died of AIDS and 4.9 million adults and children became infected with HIV , the human immunodeficiency virus, world-wide in 2004.
SHANGHAI -- Long known as a place to produce clothes and toys cheaply, China now is providing the West with another opportunity: developing drugs at lower cost. Opening a new frontier in outsourcing, pharmaceutical companies overwhelmed by the rising cost of creating drugs are turning to China to conduct research and d
Amid U.S. pressure to slow its pace of doling out money, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS , Tuberculosis and Malaria voted to delay offering new grants until March. The Global Fund wanted to launch its 2005 grant cycle this month, but faced U.S. lobbying of its board, donors and recipients to improve finances and manageme
Anna Wilde Mathews at anna.mathews@wsj.com and Heather Won Tesoriero at heather.tesoriero@wsj.com
WASHINGTON - A debate over how the Food and Drug Administration responds to newly discovered risks in drugs escalated yesterday, as an FDA official criticized his agency s approach and raised concerns about a handful of medications already on the market. David Graham, associate director for science and medicine in the
SHANGHAI, China - Known for producing low-cost clothes and well-priced toys, China is getting into making inexpensive drugs. Opening a new frontier of outsourcing, global pharmaceutical companies overwhelmed by the rising costs of producing new drugs increasingly are turning to China to conduct low-cost research and de
Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com and Ann Carrns at ann.carrns@wsj.com
It looked like an uphill battle when the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy set a goal in 1996 of cutting the teen-pregnancy rate by one-third by 2005. Teens accounted for about one million pregnancies a year, most of them unplanned. And taxpayers were paying as much as $20 billion a year to financially suppor
-- Mr. Burke Once Fought Mines; Now He Pushes Big Dig Near Madagascar Town -- Birdwatching for Executives FORT DAUPHIN, Madagascar -- Thirty years ago, Tom Burke helped organize demonstrations against Rio Tinto PLC s plans to mine copper in a national park in Wales. Within months, Rio Tinto scrapped its plans. Sinc
The U.S. is lobbying to block the proposed launch this week of a new round of grants by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a United Nations-backed international health group that has funded $8 billion of projects in 130 countries through pledges from wealthy countries and foundations. Exerting its
BRASILIA - Brazil s foreign minister said the future of a hemispherewide free-trade zone is in peril, largely because the U.S. is pushing a reluctant Brazil to overhaul our entire economic framework. Large gaps remain between the U.S. and Brazil, the two main protagonists in the effort to create the Free Trade Area of
-- Avoiding AIDS Activists WARREN, N.J. - When Celgene Corp. got its first drug approved, it priced a 50-milligram capsule at $6. Today, it sells the same white capsule for nearly five times the original price, or $29. Little has changed to affect the cost of making the drug since it was first sold in 1998 as a treatme
Jeanne Whalen at jeanne.whalen@wsj.com and Leila Abboud at leila.abboud@wsj.com
In a setback for efforts to combat HIV in the developing world, India s largest pharmaceutical maker has withdrawn all its generic HIV treatments from a list recommended by the World Health Organization , saying it can t be sure the drugs are exact replicas of patented treatments they seek to copy, according to the WHO
The good news for seniors suffering vision loss caused by macular degeneration is that several new drug treatments are on the horizon. The bad news is that prospects remain dim for a cure anytime soon. Macular degeneration affects roughly a third of people over age 75 and is the leading cause of blindness in the elderl
-- 1. Patty Stonesifer President and Co-Chairman, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation What a difference a decade makes. Back in the heady 1990s, Patty Stonesifer was leading Microsoft Corp. s interactive-media group, launching new software, and demonstrating for a reporter a new videogame with her trademark brio, saying,
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Infectious-disease experts are calling for global surveillance and greater investment to fight what they called a shadow epidemic of drug-resistant diseases. Researchers, at a conference in Washington, said resistant versions of germs such as klebsiella and pseudomonas are making hospital infections harder and costlier
The U.S. government is paying twice as much for many of the drugs in its global AIDS program as other international aid organizations are, because the Bush administration won t buy cheaper versions made in India , congressional investigators found. A draft report by the Government Accountability Office -- the first
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development plans to team up with a unit of Novartis AG to speed development of much-needed new drugs to treat tuberculosis . Tuberculosis, the world s second-biggest killer, after AIDS, infects one-third of the world s population. It causes nine million new cases of active disease and k
MONTREAL - Growing political pressure in the U.S. for freer imports of low-price drugs from Canada is increasing concern among Canadians that the cross-border trade will lead to drug shortages or higher prices up north. A group of Canadian health-lobby organizations representing patients, senior citizens and pharmacist
Researchers took a big step toward a malaria vaccine by showing they can reduce cases of life-threatening malaria in children by more than half and milder attacks by almost a third. Doctors from Africa, Spain and GlaxoSmithKline PLC s biologicals unit in Belgium said a Glaxo vaccin
JOHANNESBERG, South Africa - Backed by a mandate from nearly 70% of voters, South African President Thabo Mbeki is shifting his country from the sweeping politics of revolution and racial reconciliation to the nuts-and-bolts politics of economics and government delivery. Mr. Mbeki s second-term agenda -- expanding publ
It isn t a man s world when it comes to health care. Men make only half as many visits to doctors as women do for preventive care, die almost six years younger than women, and are more likely to become victims of cancer, stroke, heart disease, depression and suicide. They also go online for health information less ofte
Katherine Rosman, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
On a recent trip to Mexico , Kaki Hopkins flew on a private plane, stayed in an 18th-century inn and met her friends each evening for martinis and Chardonnay. But the real highlight of her stay was a luncheon with local women -- held in a cardboard-walled hut with a dirt floor and goats outside the door. Mrs. Hopk
A nonprofit AIDS agency is set to announce a new corporate partnership to beef up its portfolio of antiviral AIDS gels aimed at protecting vulnerable women in the developing world. The International Partnership for Microbicides said it reached agreement with GlaxoSmithKline PLC to test several of Glaxo s proprietary AI
BASEL, Switzerland - In December 2001, Roche AG drug scout Hari Kumar packed his warmest parka and flew to Edmonton, Alberta, to chase down an experimental medicine called ISA247. Dr. Kumar had heard about it early that year at a medical conference, and every month he called the Canadians who were developing it to prop
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a massive labor, health and education bill that adds more than $3 billion to President Bush s 2005 budget request while seeking to block the administration from implementing new overtime-wage rules opposed by organized labor. The action came as the Republican-controlled pane
An experimental AIDS vaccine being tested in Africa and in the United Kingdom failed to produce a robust immune response, disappointing researchers and public-health officials who had been working on it for six years. At an AIDS-vaccine conference in Lausanne, Switzerland , a research team from the U
In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, when effective drug treatment was just a dream, many of us in the field of infectious diseases found that our work revolved to a large degree around the care of the dying. It was not something we had anticipated. In asking how I could best care for my patients who were dying (an
There are 5,500 writers and photographers covering the Olympics. The U.S. has 499. Britain has 230. From Botswana : one. She is Lucretia Chima, a 27-year-old sportswriter for the Botswana Daily News. You want her job? When writing broad stories about the Games, she must paint the broad picture herself. When writing spe
Bad enough that the summer re-make of The Manchurian Candidate recast a corporation in the villain s role played by Communism in the original. Now the World Alliance of Reformed Churches is signing on. Meeting in Ghana this month, the alliance, which represents 75 million Christians in 100 countries, claims that U.S.-s
U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias said Washington will hold back $120 million of this year s promised donations to the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria because other donors have failed to give their share. The U.S., the world s largest contributor to the Global Fund, earlier appropriated $5
Marilyn Chase, at marilyn.chase@wsj.com and Gautam Naik at gautam.naik@wsj.com
A key human trial of a potentially pioneering drug for preventing HIV is in jeopardy in Cambodia after prostitutes targeted for the study there protested its proposed terms and government officials raised concerns. Although the government initially supported the trials, Cambodian Health Minister Nuth Sokjom said he has
Leila Abboud, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Psychiatrists are increasingly crafting drug cocktails of multiple medicines to treat depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The approach, called polypharmacy, aims to help people who don t respond to a single drug by putting them on several drugs that target different brain chemicals. The approach -- driven i
BALTIMORE - The segregated wards and waiting rooms at prestigious Johns Hopkins University hospital weren t fully integrated until the 1970s. The university s medical school didn t admit blacks until the 1960s. Now Johns Hopkins needs the help of blacks in its surrounding East Baltimore neighborhood to meet federal rul
Leila Abboud , Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
The federal government decided against forcing drug maker Abbott Laboratories to roll back a fivefold price increase on an AIDS drug developed in part with taxpayer money. (See Corrections & Amplifications item below.) Abbott, based in North Chicago, Ill., raised the price of a daily dosage of
Jennifer Saranow and Amir Efrati, Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
Some plastic surgeons may soon be adding an unofficial new weapon to their arsenal against aging. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved a new facial filler from Aventis SA. While the product, called Sculptra, has been approved only for the very narrow use of treating facial wasting associated with AI
Sarah Lueck and David P. Hamilton, Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
Indian drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. said it will apply for speedy approval from the Food and Drug Administration for its generic combination AIDS drug, raising the possibility that a U.S. global AIDS-treatment program might be able to distribute the product by next year. Meanwhile, the
Most Americans believe the HIV/AIDS epidemic is worsening and that far more can be done to provide patients with access to affordable medicines to treat the disease, according to a recent WSJ Online/Harris Interactive Health poll. At the 15th International AIDS Conference in Thailand last month, the United Nations
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
A biotech company said it launched a human safety study of a new AIDS vaccine that seeks to spark immunity against different strains of the virus found in different parts of world. GenVec Inc. of Gaithersburg, Md., said it is manufacturing the AIDS vaccine for human studies under a $30 million contract with the Nationa
Bernard Wysocki Jr., Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Democrats, seizing on calls to expand federally funded stem-cell research, will put the issue in the spotlight of this year s presidential campaign tonight at the party s national convention. A high point will be a speech by Ron Reagan, son of the late President Reagan. The younger Mr. Reagan s presence at a Democratic
Robert Frank and Ann Grimes, Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
Only Bill Gates could call $3 billion a drop in the bucket. Mr. Gates announced yesterday that he is giving a projected $3.35 billion windfall from MicrosoftCorp. s one-time $3-a-share dividend to his private foundation. But not right away. Indeed, a spokesman for the Microsoft chairman indicated that the large dividen
BANGKOK -- Addressing a major funding gap, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said it will give a $50 million grant to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Separately, doctors at the XV International AIDS Conference in Thailand urged pharmaceutical companies to provide at least two years of care
BANGKOK, Thailand - Public-health workers around the world are closely watching the promising results of an innovative program in China and Vietnam that suggests the spread of the AIDS virus can be contained among intravenous-drug users -- a high-risk, hard-to-reach group that threatens to hasten the dis
BANGKOK, Thailand - More than one third of the planet s population carries tuberculosis , an often latent bacterial infection that haunts the developing world. While TB is an epidemic in its own right, its troubling relationship with AIDS is increasingly drawing the attention of public health researchers.
Abstain from sex or delay having sex if you are young and not married, Be faithful to your sexual partner (zero-grazing), after testing, or use a Condom properly and consistently if you are going to move around. This has now been globally popularized as the ABC strategy . ---- Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, in an
Some things in life you can count on, alas. One is that when world leaders gather to talk about AIDS, Public Enemy Number One is the U.S. So it goes in Bangkok this week at the International AIDS Conference. Jacques Chirac demonstrated how little one Frenchman knows about sex when he effectively blamed the AIDS epidemi
Differences over U.S. global AIDS policies risked provoking a new diplomatic feud today, as French President Jacques Chirac accused the Bush administration of unduly pressuring developing countries to give up the right to make generic HIV drugs. Joining a debate with echoes from the quarrels over
Marilyn Chase, marilyn.chase@wsj.com and Amir Efrati, amir.efrati@dowjones.com
WANTED: Health-care workers who treat AIDS patients. Must like travel, long hours and scant pay. Your work may be halted because of a coup d etat. You will bury friends. You might save lives. These days, there is greater access than ever to cheap, generic AIDS drugs in the developing world. But a serious shortage of tr
Gautam Naik, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
LONDON - The World Health Organization said it missed its initial target to supply AIDS drugs to half a million patients in the first six months of 2004, a sign of the difficulties of distributing medicines in poorer countries. In December, the Geneva agency launched an ambitious program known as three-by-five to sup
KOTTIYUR, India -- One rainy day in June 2003, Rema T. Krishnan returned to this small town high in the lush green hills of southern India and began lying to her neighbors: Her husband, Shaji Kumar, she said, had succumbed to tuberculosis in a nearby hospital. The reality was more frightening.
BANGKOK - The late takeoff and slow growth of the AIDS epidemics in Asia offer no immunity against the virus but may lull leaders into a tepid response, scientists said yesterday at the opening of the XV International AIDS Conference. The slowly evolving epidemics of Asia are very dangerous, said Tim Brown, senior fell
When Pfizer invented Viagra it thought it had a right to be richly rewarded for coming up with a product that would improve the lives of millions. And, more or less, that s the way it s worked out. But this week China decided to ignore market principles, its own World Trade Organization commitments and the long-term in
KOTTIYUR, India -- One rainy day in June 2003, Rema T. Krishnan returned to this small town high in the lush green hills of southern India and began lying to her neighbors: Her husband, Shaji Kumar, she said, had succumbed to tuberculosis in a nearby hospital. The reality was more frightening.
Amir Efrati, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
A long-sought way to attack the AIDS virus -- by blocking an enzyme called integrase that the virus uses to make copies of itself -- is finally gaining traction, and could provide a wave of AIDS therapies. In a study published today in Science, a Merck & Co. compound that blocks integrase was successful in rhesus m
LONDON - Five million people last year were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS -- the largest number in any single year since the epidemic began two decades ago, according to new data published by UNAIDS , an AIDS program sponsored by the United Nations and other groups. Despite a huge global push to figh
Terrorism has made it trickier for international charities to be sure their money is winding up in the right hands. Now, they re offering donors some new reassurances. As the government heightens its scrutiny of charities that donate abroad, many are adopting tougher procedures to track the groups that receive their do
Assistant Secretary of State William Burns announced from Tripoli last week that the U.S. had formally restored diplomatic relations with Libya after 24 years. With this gesture, the U.S. added the finishing touch to Moammar Gadhafi s journey from pariah to international acceptance. But while this new, peaceable Gadhaf
Marilyn Chase, marilyn.chase@wsj.com and Sarah Lueck, sarah.lueck@wsj.com
As public-health groups urge wider use of generic drugs to lower the cost of treating AIDS and other diseases in developing countries, U.S. trade negotiators -- prodded by the drug industry -- are taking the opposite stance in new trade pacts, seeking to strengthen protections for costlier brand-name drugs. In a series
By Robert J. Davis, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
or decades, conventional wisdom has held that nearly every woman needed a Pap test every year to prevent cervical cancer. Recent studies suggest many women and their doctors continue to believe the claim and act on it, even though leading medical organizations now say such frequent testing often isn t necessary and tha
As an expected 15,000 people begin arriving this week in Bangkok for the XV International AIDS Conference, Thailand plans an unusually frank display of its approach to AIDS and, in the process, hopes to draw world attention to the burgeoning epidemic sweeping through Asia. While stamping visitors passports, Thai offic
LONDON - Despite a huge global push in recent years to fight HIV in developing countries, the virus continues to infect a growing number of people and claim millions of lives each year, according to new data published Tuesday by UNAIDS , an AIDS program sponsored by the United Nations and other groups. In its repor
An AIDS study has validated the safety and efficacy of a popular generic-drug regimen made in India , raising the stakes in the effort to provide affordable treatments to epidemic-ravaged Africa. In the first such study of a generic AIDS drug, published this week in the British journal the Lancet, researchers from Afri
Gautam Naik, Mark Schoofs And Sarah Lueck, Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
Millions of Ill in Poor Nations Fail to Get Drugs as Funds, Medical Systems Fall Short: Attention Shifts to Terror Four years ago, the United Nations, governments of wealthy countries and major foundations committed for the first time to bring drugs to the millions of AIDS sufferers in poor countries. No longer, it was
LONDON - GlaxoSmithKline PLC, under political pressure, said it will remain a participant in a major HIV trial in the developing world. Earlier, Glaxo, the world s second-biggest drug maker, had told researchers it was withdrawing, delaying the trial s start and throwing its future into doubt. That decision drew heat f
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe - On a recent morning at the Mpilo Chest Hospital here, four orphans, ages 10 to 13, held their medical folders and fidgeted. A nurse came by, bent down and told them they would get drugs for AIDS the following week. The program, operated by the Zimbabwean health ministry with help from the French gr
Bernard Wysocki Jr., Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON - The National Institutes of Health, long a sacred cow in Washington, is coming under fire from the very Congress that once showered it with funds. After doubling its annual budget to $28 billion in the past five years, Congress has given NIH tiny increases this year, as large fiscal deficits force budget ti
Jane Spencer, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
A wave of recent studies is sparking concern about the dangers of taking herbal supplements -- including St. John s Wort, echinacea and ginkgo biloba -- in combination with mainstream prescription drugs. For years, doctors have recognized that many herbal remedies have powerful pharmacological effects, and patients hav
The Bush administration has tightened the reins on program content and condom discussions by AIDS prevention programs seeking federal grants. Regulations published in the Federal Register last week require review and approval of Web-site content of groups seeking grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Preventi
A new technology to test for the AIDS virus may enable doctors to monitor patient treatment better and screen blood with greater speed and sensitivity. The new test detects tiny amounts of a protein called p24 inside the human immune-deficiency virus, said Niel Constantine of the Institute of Human Virology at the Univ
Bono, lead singer for rock band U2 and antipoverty activist, is starting a new gig: media and entertainment investing. The 44-year-old rock star is joining Elevation Partners, a new Silicon Valley fund set up earlier this year by veteran technology investor Roger McNamee and John Riccitiello, who in April left his post
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
A group spearheaded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is warning that the drive to expand access to AIDS drugs could backfire, fueling growth of HIV infections, if treatment isn t paired with efforts to prevent the spread of infections. Amid the push to expand lifesaving drugs world-wide, prevention has gotten s
What do you get when you put eight of the world s most prominent economists in a room together for a week with a list of 10 global problems? In the case of the Copenhagen Consensus, a surprising amount of good sense. In a day when so many illuminati are fretting over global warming, it s easy to forget that most of the
A group spearheaded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is warning that the push to expand access to AIDS treatment could backfire badly, fueling growth of HIV infections, if treatment isn t paired with efforts to prevent the spread of new infections. Amid the push to expand lifesaving drugs around the world, prev
NEW YORK - Since the first biotechnology company went public a quarter-century ago, stock-market investors have put somewhere close to $100 billion into the industry. The results so far: More than a hundred new drugs and vaccines, several hundred million people helped by biotech medicines -- and cumulative net losses o
As investors wait for more news on Google Inc. s planned IPO, nonprofit groups are anxious for word about the tight-lipped company s Google Grants advertising program. Under the program, Google has donated advertising space to hundreds of nonprofit groups tackling issues ranging from endangered species to multiple scle
The giant Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, facing a shortfall in its world-wide fund raising, is turning to Washington insider Jack Valenti for help. The film industry s prominent lobbyist since the mid-1960s, Mr. Valenti expects to announce today that he is taking a new job as president of a ventur
Add this to the list of things to save for a rainy day: your own blood stem cells. Capitalizing on the emergence of stem-cell therapy as standard treatment for many kinds of leukemia and lymphoma , a company called NeoStem Inc. wants healthy consumers to pay $5,000 to bank their own stem cells for the future, to be use
Aetna Inc. abruptly withdrew a federal antitrust lawsuit it filed on Tuesday against Abbott Laboratories over the pharmaceutical company s fivefold price increase on an HIV drug. Aetna declined to say why it withdrew the suit, saying it intends to discuss with Abbott the basis for its repricing action. The health
For the first time, the U.S. government will weigh whether it can require drug companies to lower prices on drugs developed with the help of taxpayer dollars. The question, which will be debated tomorrow at a U.S. National Institutes of Health meeting, was sparked by Abbott Laboratories 400% price increase on one of it
Panacos Pharmaceuticals Inc., Gaithersburg, Md., gained $18.3 million in series C funding. The round was led by Ampersand Ventures and A.M. Pappas & Associates and included Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners Inc., Novo A/S, New England Partners Capital LP, William Harris Investors, Lakeview Capital Management and th
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said 3-in-1 AIDS drugs must win Food and Drug Administration approval before the U.S. buys them for developing countries, prompting criticism from advocacy groups who called the process an unnecessary barrier. FDA officials said the process would be simple and speedy, perhaps taking
Antonio Regalado, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Leading U.S. scientific societies called on the Bush administration to solve what they termed a visa crisis that is keeping foreign students out of the country and may cause enrollments to drop. Twenty-five associations, including the Association of American Universities and the American Association for the Advancement
Leila Abboud, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Abbott Laboratories is facing mounting pressure from activists, members of Congress and the federal government over its nearly fivefold price increase on its AIDS drug Norvir . The National Institutes of Health will hold a public meeting in Washington May 25 to consider whether the federal government
Gautam Naik, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
LONDON -- In the fight against AIDS, donor groups and public-health agencies need to coordinate their efforts in order to quickly provide drugs to desperately sick patients, concludes a report by the World Health Organization . Although countries, donors and other funding groups have pledged about $20 billion to stop t
Francesco Fiondella, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention temporarily suspended adoption processing from an orphanage in China s Hunan Province, after determining that it was the source of nine measles cases in recently adopted children. This was the second time since 1997 that the agency suspended adoptions from abro
Michael Schroeder, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration selected 16 developing countries, half of them in Africa, that qualify for U.S. aid under a new program that links contributions to the countries record of political and economic reforms. The Millennium Challenge Corp., announced by President Bush two years ago in Monterrey,
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
NEW DELHI - The beat of a dhola, a Punjabi drum, drew a crowd to a white tent set up on the G.B. Road, this city s red-light district. A theater troupe belted out a Hindi movie theme song. A magician in red hair and blue eyeliner opened his bag of tricks. AIDS prevention programs often put the focus on prostitutes. On
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
$200 Million Program Uses Franchised Health Clinics To Reach Groups at Risk Controversy Over Projections MYSORE, India -- At sundown one recent evening, a team of health workers piled into a sport-utility vehicle and roamed the streets of this city once ruled by a maharaja. Their marching orders came from software mogu
Yaroslav Trofimov, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Media Played a Major Role In Nation s 1994 Genocide; A Paper s Struggle Today Things We Cannot Say KIGALI, Rwanda - Charles Kabonero, a skinny 23-year-old in a Voice of America T-shirt, is the fourth managing editor in the three-year history of Rwanda s only independent newspaper. His predecessors all fled into exi
Jeanne Whalen, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
LONDON - When Ken Williams s HIV count began to soar last summer, he went online looking for help. Suffering from a chronic cough and incapacitating fatigue, he stumbled upon a Web site advertising a new AIDS medicine called Fuzeon. After he took the drug for two weeks, his viral count plummeted, and he rejuvenated.
Sarah Lueck, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is working to develop a speedy approval process for combination AIDS treatments that could be used in developing countries, senior officials say. The administration hopes to calm a controversy over whether it will allow its multibillion-dollar global AIDS fund to be spent on cheape
Christopher Windham, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Federal and state officials are intensifying their investigations into Serono SA s marketing practices of an AIDS drug, several people familiar with the matter said. Serono s growth hormone Serostim is approved to treat AIDS-associated wasting. The government Medicaid program pays for most of the cost of the drug used
Sarah Lueck, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON -- Large contributors to AIDS-treatment programs in developing countries agreed to buy cheaper generic drugs, stepping into a simmering debate over whether the U.S. s multibillion-dollar AIDS fund also will buy them. The Global Fund, the World Bank and Unicef joined the Clinton Foundation in making arrangeme
At first glance, the idea of xenotransplantation sounds appealing. You can genetically modify another animal such as a pig so that its kidneys or other organs may be transplanted into humans who need them. But some experts worry that transferring genetic material from other animals to humans could introduce new disease
Back in the late 1990s, Brazil s monetary plan pegging the real to the dollar was hanging by a thread. A liberal Brazilian economist painted me a grim picture about his country s future. The dark clouds foretold not a looming catastrophe, he maintained, but rather perpetual mediocrity. So far, my soothsayer hasn t been
AIDS now afflicts a broader range of Americans, from teenagers who account for a disturbing portion of new HIV infections to poor Latino- and African-Americans, who make up the bulk of AIDS victims -- and even seniors, many of whom contract the virus late in life. The face of AIDS used to be a gay white male. Today it
Christopher Windham, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
In a move to get an experimental medicine to impoverished developing-world markets, Johnson & Johnson will give away a promising AIDS drug to a nonprofit organization. Today, the International Partnership for Microbicides plans to announce it has reached a royalty-free agreement with Tibotec Pharmaceuticals Ltd., a
Sarah Lueck, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON -- Caught between its allies in the drug industry and its promises to battle AIDS in Africa, the Bush administration is facing mounting pressure to allow its multibillion-dollar AIDS fund to spend money on generic combination drugs in Africa. The generic drugs cost just a fourth as much as their name-brand
Scott Hensley, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
William Haseltine, a founder of Human Genome Sciences Inc., said he will retire as chairman and chief executive later this year, as the once-highflying biotechnology concern retrenches. Also, the Rockville, Md., company announced Thursday that it will focus on only five experimental medicines that are its strongest con
Cris Prystay And Timothy Mapes, Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
Actress s Provocative New Role JAKARTA -- When Indonesian movie star Nurul Arifin speaks to community groups about HIV and AIDS, she aims to shock: She slips a condom over a prosthetic penis and explains in slang-laced language why people need to protect themselves against an incurable disease. But when leaders of some
Christopher Oster, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Separate HIV Treatments Brought Success to Gilead, But Trimeris Faces Hurdles For Kris Jenner, finding the right drug at the right company can mean the difference between healthy returns and a pox on the portfolio. Mr. Jenner, manager of T. Rowe Price Health Sciences Fund, tries to get a leg up on its rivals by finding
In 1869, a group of women from St. John s Episcopal Church in Yonkers, N.Y., founded a hospital for their parish s deserving poor. That hospital still exists. Today, it s a multimillion-dollar business. When St. John s Invalid Home, as it was known then, began filling its 30 beds, only the poor would risk their lives g
Rachel Zimmerman, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
More than a year after Merck & Co. drew praise from AIDS activists for offering a reduced-price version of an important new HIV drug for poor countries, the medicine hasn t been approved for sale in many of the nations hard hit by the epidemic. Only 100,000 of the 4.4 million people in need of antiretroviral therap
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Scientists said they identified a protein that shields rhesus monkeys from the AIDS virus, a finding that opens new avenues for drug and vaccine research. The protein, called TRIM5-alpha, is believed to be part of the innate immune system that patrols the body looking for invaders and blocks their ability to infect.
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Backed by $5 million in grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, California researchers are testing a new AIDS prevention tool in Zimbabwe -- a financial prophylactic aimed at shielding young girls from sexual liaisons that transmit the virus. The program, Shaping the Health of Adolescents in Zimbabwe, or SH
Peter Landers, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
A decade ago, pharmaceutical companies announced a revolutionary new way of finding drugs. Instead of relying on scientists hunches about what chemicals to experiment with, they brought in machines to create thousands of chemical combinations at once and tested them out with robots. The new technology was supposed to b
Sarah Lueck and Michael M. Phillips, Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration announced the first $350 million in grants for an initiative to fight AIDS around the world, doling out funds to reduce mother-to-child transmission of the disease, treat those who are ill and promote sexual abstinence. Administration officials said Monday s announcement demonstrate
Jeanne Whalen, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
RZHEV, Russia -- Alexei Serov knew it was time to evacuate the pregnant mothers from his maternity hospital in central Russia when pipes began bursting and plaster started falling off walls. Health regulators closed the clinic, which hadn t been renovated in 40 years, and Dr. Serov moved his patients to a makeshift war
Gautam Naik, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
LONDON -- Roche Holding AG said a trial of a two-drug combination to treat patients infected with both HIV and hepatitis C showed marked and sustained reductions in viral levels. The Swiss pharmaceutical company said a combination of its drugs Pegasys and Copegus had yielded a 40% sustained virological response in a tr
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
SAN FRANCISCO -- Hopeful findings on a new oral AIDS drug called Schering D from Schering-Plough Corp. put the spotlight on a newly identified Achilles heel of the virus. Researchers from the Kenilworth, N.J., drug company presented new data from a study at Berlin s Charite Hospital testing Schering D pills in a placeb
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
SAN FRANCISCO -- In the wake of setbacks in AIDS-vaccine trials, scientists made a plea for vaccine researchers to go back to their labs and settle basic science questions about the complex interplay between the AIDS virus and the human immune system. There s ample evidence to indicate that development of an effective
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
SAN FRANCISCO -- Nearly 4% of New York City men aged 40 to 49, and almost 3% of all adult men residing in Manhattan, are infected with HIV or have full-blown AIDS, according to new data released by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Harold Jaffe, who heads HIV prevention programs at the U.S. Cen
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
SAN FRANCISCO -- The drive to find simpler and cheaper AIDS drug regimens has a high price tag -- the development of viral resistance in many users. Nowhere has this arisen more starkly than with an antiviral drug used to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the immunodeficiency virus. Giving a mother a single dose
Geeta Anand, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
If you re thinking of joining a clinical trial for experimental drugs, make sure to get the answers to these questions Tens of thousands of patients each year enroll in clinical trials of experimental drugs and devices. Some join these studies to advance medicine for future generations, others because they hope to pers
Five years ago, Elisa Albert visited a Los Angeles tea garden where the menu associated the beverage with benefits such as improved memory and curing colds. She has been drinking tea ever since. I started thinking about tea as a health thing, says the 25-year-old graduate student in New York. She currently has 18 boxes
Ten major medical advances you re likely to see in the coming year Another day, another medical breakthrough. So it seems, as each week brings fresh reports of miracle drugs, groundbreaking studies, revolutionary surgical procedures. But with so much hype around so many medical discoveries, how do we know which ones we
Scientists are discovering crucial differences between men and women in a variety of health areas. For doctors and patients, it s about time. Aggie Landry was lucky. The 38-year old mother of three from Dallas was only a couple of blocks from a hospital when she had her heart attack last April, and was quickly rushed i
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Forget about that highly touted clue to the most enduring mystery of the AIDS epidemic -- why some people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus never develop the disease. In a rare published retraction in the journal Science, researcher David Ho, the AIDS world s nearest thing to a rock star, says he erred in
For a cautionary tale on using politicized international aid organizations to combat Third World disease, we encourage someone in the Bush Administration to grab a copy of this week s Lancet, the British medical journal. The magazine reports that United Nations-led efforts to treat malaria victims in Africa have actual
Gautam Naik, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
LONDON -- The World Health Organization intends to announce Wednesday a plan for reducing the runaway increases in HIV and tuberculosis co-infections, one of the leading causes of death in Africa. HIV weakens the immune system and makes a person more susceptible to TB. If untreated for TB, a co-infected patient usually
Christopher Windham, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Law-enforcement crackdowns across the country are starting to stem the tide of an unusual type of contraband: an AIDS medication that has found an underground recreational use as a bodybuilding drug. The drug is Serostim , a growth hormone prescribed to fight the wasting syndrome that can affect AIDS patients.
David P. Hamilton And Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
In the latest controversy over devoting research funds to hunt for an AIDS vaccine, a group of 22 leading researchers have criticized a major test under way in Thailand . The critique, published Friday in the journal Science, takes aim at the $119 million test involving 16,000 Thai volunteers. The research group conten
Mark Schoofs, Staff Reporter Of The Wall Street Journal
Former President Bill Clinton s Foundation plans to announce Wednesday a deal with five of the world s leading medical companies to slash the price of two critical HIV diagnostic tests in developing nations. The agreement comes on the heels of a landmark deal the Clinton Foundation and several generic-drugs companies s
Vanessa Fuhrmans, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina doctors and health officials met last year to tackle a wrenching dilemma. Roche Holding AG s new AIDS drug, called Fuzeon, was beating the toughest strains of the virus, giving patients who didn t respond to other medicines a new chance to live. But at roughly $20,000 a year, it costs th
Marilyn Chase, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
In a major loss to Merck & Co. s AIDS program, one of the company s top AIDS researchers will leave at the end of this month to join a nonprofit group funding the drive to develop a vaccine to halt the epidemic. Emilio Emini, 50 years old, Merck s senior vice president of vaccine research and the father of its anti
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- By the late 1990s, scientists Karen Slobod and Julia Hurwitz of St. Jude Children s Research Hospital here had an experimental AIDS vaccine on the drawing board unlike any other. It showed great promise in the test tube and in animals such as mice, rabbits and chimpanzees. But not one of the drug comp
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.