LAGOS, Nigeria Today, as we mark World AIDS Day, we should take stock of the suffering this disease continues to inflict, particularly in developing countries. Twenty-five years after the disease was first discovered, AIDS continues to claim around two million lives each year. As an African, I ve witnessed the sufferin
With a viable AIDS vaccine still years away at best, researchers are looking to existing drugs in the fight to slow the spread of the epidemic. The drugs appear to make transmission less likely by lowering the amount of HIV in the body, raising the possibility that the main weapon for treating the disease could be turn
BEIJING -- AIDS, which has long thrived quietly on the fringes of Chinese society among drug addicts and recipients of tainted blood donations, is on the verge of going mainstream here. One major cause is prostitution, a booming industry in China that has helped make sex the most common form of AIDS transmission in Chi
The Health Blog hopped a water taxi yesterday to the old Army Terminal in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. It was a business trip: Some luminaries in HIV-vaccine research were gathered there to open a new lab. The center, a research hub for the International Aids Vaccine Initiative, is something of a big deal for New York City,
The startling case of an AIDS patient who underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia is stirring new hope that gene-therapy strategies on the far edges of AIDS research might someday cure the disease. The patient, a 42-year-old American living in Berlin, is still recovering from his leukemia therapy, but he a
Shirley S. Wang at shirley.wang@wsj.com and Jeanne Whalen at jeanne.whalen@wsj.com
As prescription-drug sales slow in the U.S. and other developed markets, pharmaceutical makers are increasingly targeting countries like Brazil , Russia , India and China , where rising prosperity has produced new customers willing to pay near U.
The European Parliament s awarding last week of its annual Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Chinese dissident Hu Jia is a positive step in more ways than one. The award honors particular achievement in . . . defense of human rights and fundamental freedoms, particularly the right to free expression. Mr. Hu is s
HONG KONG -- A prominent jailed Chinese dissident won a human-rights award given by European lawmakers, just as the continent s leaders get ready to meet with their Chinese counterparts and other Asian officials in Beijing this weekend. The move could lead to tense meetings between the leaders, who are expected to disc
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will give $100 million in small doses to researchers doing novel medical-research experiments -- part of a new way to use the Web to reach medical researchers who might be missed in a traditional grant-selection process. The Gates foundation, the world s largest private philanthr
In September 1983, data accumulated in my laboratory at the Pasteur Institute showed that a virus isolated in January of the same year was the best candidate to be the cause of AIDS. The discovery of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was the collective effort of a team of virologists, immunologists, molecular biologis
Insured Americans are starting to see some unusual options in their health-provider networks: doctors and hospitals in Singapore , Costa Rica and other foreign destinations. In an effort to control rising costs, a small but growing number of insurers and employers are giving people the choice to seek treatment in other
The fight against malaria, which kills one million of the 300 million people it infects every year, has been marked by high-profile battles that lapsed after surges of success. In the past five years, a new effort to stem the long-neglected mosquito-borne disease has begun to muster the essential elements for ending it
Alicia Mundy, alicia.mundy@wsj.com; Jared A. Favole, jared.favole@dowjones.com; and Shirley S. Wang, shirley.wang@wsj.com
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned imports of more than 30 generic drugs made by India s Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., citing concerns about the safety of the company s production practices. The ban affects low-cost versions of popular medicines such as the anticholesterol drug Zocor;
After peeling the electronic probes off Sharon Spain s foot and hand, Courtney Jones delivered the good news. You ve lost four pounds of body fat, said Ms. Jones, a clinical dietitian at Vital Bridges, a local nonprofit serving low-income people with HIV and AIDS. Call the police! said Ms. Spain, between puffs of oxyge
GlaxoSmithKline PLC, one of the biggest sellers of drugs to fight the AIDS virus, is drawing criticism over magazine ads in the U.S. that patient-support groups say attempt to scare patients away from trying newer drug regimens. Bob Huff, antiretroviral project director at Treatment Action Group, an advocacy group in
While Roche Holding AG s recent bid for Genentech Inc. cheered investors, it had a more chilling effect on the patient advocates who have developed unusually close ties to the pioneering biotechnology company. Despite contentious battles over the price of the cancer drugs it has developed over the past three decades, G
At every International AIDS Conference, set apart from the meeting halls where science and politics battle, there s a place called the Global Village. It s a fleeting community where HIV-positive people and their advocates create a week-long DMZ free of stigma. The vibe is equal parts cultural exhibition and carnival s
Right now we re seeing a backlash against AIDS, longtime AIDS activist Gregg Gonsalves declared in a plenary address today at the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. Some health and development specialists are arguing over the attention paid to the disease. AIDS, some say, is exaggerated as a threat, AID
The NIH s Anthony Fauci, who once cautioned that there might never be a traditional vaccine to prevent HIV infection and recently pulled the plug on a troubled vaccine trial, sounded a cautiously optimistic note at the 17th International AIDS Conference yesterday. The future for AIDS research looks bright and promising
The deadliest form of tuberculosis is still curable if properly treated, according to a new study that lifts hopes in the battle against bacterial infections impervious to common antibiotics. Drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis have caused alarm in public-health circles by raising the prospect of a deadly disease th
Some drug experts at the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City say countries should vastly expand drug treatment to all in need. Not only because relief from suffering is a human right, but because using drugs to lower the amount of HIV in infected people s blood on a massive, population-wide scale may lowe
It s time to get over the flaws that felled the early crops of experimental AIDS vaccines and move to more fertile scientific ground, according to Seth Berkley, head of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. Berkley told the Health Blog it s time to abandon the majority of vaccines now under development, which copy
Bill Clinton, who has made fighting AIDS in the developing world a central theme of his post-presidency, called for more effort to fight the disease in the U.S. He spoke yesterday at the big international AIDS conference on now in Mexico City. Earlier at the conference, the CDC said it had been radically undercounting
MEXICO CITY -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, fresh from a tour of his foundation s projects in Africa, took the stage of the International AIDS Conference here to tell thousands that we must do more. AIDS is a big dragon, Mr. Clinton said Monday, but unlike the mythical dragon slain by St. George, this dragon mus
The titled and powerful who opened the 17th International AIDS Conference Sunday night amid mariachis and folkloric dance were all but upstaged by a girl in braces. Keren Dunaway-Gonzalez, a 12-year-old Honduran who earlier fought a case of nerves amid a press room scrum, took a breath and steadied her voice to tell se
MEXICO CITY -- Activists voiced anger over delays in the release of a report that the number of people infected with AIDS in the U.S. each year is likely 40% higher than previously estimated. [Chart] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at a conference here that 56,300 people in the U.S. are likely infec
American scientists gathering for the 17th International AIDS Conference say vaccines remain an important area of study in attacking the disease, despite recent setbacks, and they are also excited by other potential preventive steps such as a daily dose of antiviral drugs. The past two years have featured frustrations
WASHINGTON -- Companies that make generic drugs, many based in India , now dominate President George W. Bush s program to provide AIDS treatment in poor countries. Generic drugs, copies or combinations of brand-name products, accounted for 57% of the $131 million the U.S. spent on the program in fiscal 2007, according
The AIDS pandemic has peaked or stabilized in some of the worst-hit countries, but is rising in others and remains volatile, a United Nations agency said. The report issued Tuesday, the most comprehensive to date by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, included data from 147 countries. It estimated that 2.7
GlaxoSmithKline PLC reported weak second-quarter earnings as it laid out additional changes to its drug-research team and announced an alliance with a company that sells low-cost medicines in emerging markets. The world s second-largest drug company by sales, after Pfizer Inc., will also
A federally appointed receiver assigned to fix the prison health-care system in California says he will force the state to come up with $2.5 billion to begin improvements -- just as legislators are confronting a budget shortfall of over $15 billion this fiscal year. State legislators have failed to approve funds to com
The U.S. National Institutes of Health scrubbed plans to test its AIDS vaccine due to concerns about its safety and effectiveness, 10 months after the collapse of a clinical trial for a similar vaccine from Merck & Co. Thursday s move, the latest setback in a field pummeled by recent failures, is a sober recognitio
Gilead Sciences Inc. s second-quarter net income rose 8.6% on strong sales of the company s antiviral drugs. The biotechnology company reported net income of $442.8 million, or 46 a share, compared with $407.9 million, or 42 a share, a year earlier. Excluding stock-based compensation and certain research and developm
In that oldest and deadliest of wars, between man and microbe, scientists are starting to unearth clues about a key battleground: the human genome. In an intriguing piece of research, scientists have found that an ancient genetic variation that once protected people of African descent against a certain type of malaria
Shirley S. Wang and Avery Johnson, avery.johnson@WSJ.com
In an ominous sign for drug makers, the number of prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies in the U.S. is growing at its worst rate in at least a decade as consumers are squeezed by both a troubled economy and the growing burden of out-of-pocket health-care costs. The pharmaceutical industry by conventional wisdom is resi
WASHINGTON -- Ranbaxy Inc., India s largest pharmaceutical company and among the world s biggest generic-drug makers, faces a U.S. investigation into whether it manufactured substandard generic drugs, including allegations that it made weak or adulterated HIV drugs that were given to thousands of AIDS patients in Afric
If you ve ever been through a G-8 Summit, right about now you re probably feeling like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. That s the one where he plays a man forced to live the same day over and over. In much the same way, G-8 meetings follow a familiar script year after year. They begin with leaders issuing lofty statement
The World Health Organization and its funding partners said they plan to roll out a $26 million program to distribute a new gene-based test that detects multidrug-resistant tuberculosis after just two days rather than the weeks or months typical of existing tests. The WHO and UNITAID, a multinational funding partnershi
Avery Johnson, avery.johnson@WSJ.com and Ron Winslow, ron.winslow@wsj.com
Nearly four years after Merck & Co. yanked the painkiller Vioxx off the market, beleaguered pharmaceutical-industry executives say they are facing a tough new regulatory climate that is altering the landscape of drug development. Over the past 16 months, Schering-Plough Corp. Chief Executive Fred Ha
In fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa, the United States has an unparalleled success in Pepfar, aka the President s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Since President Bush announced it in 2003, Pepfar has provided antiretroviral drugs to nearly 1.4 million infected patients in its target countries, turning the wasted shells of c
Melinda French Gates is co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as the wife of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. Together, they head the world s largest charitable foundation, tackling such problems as public-health issues in Africa, India and elsewhere and the U.S. public-school system. She talked
HIV-AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, high-school dropouts and global poverty. Those are among the problems that Melinda Gates is battling with the huge fortune her husband Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates made in technology. At an appearance at the D: All Things Digital conference last week in California, Ms. Gates explained
Slowly, the war on drug patents in Thailand seems to be turning. Last week the government removed one of the most vocal opponents of intellectual property rights from the board of the state-owned Government Pharmaceutical Organization. It s a small step, but an important one for restoring Thailand s international reput
The news did not make it to the front pages, but on Feb. 28 a powerful member of the U.S. Senate launched an attack on the Food and Drug Administration, the drug companies and the desperate cancer patients they treat. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, requested that the Govern
With time running out on the Bush administration, conservative activists are renewing a drive for regulations that would deny federal subsidies to clinics that provide abortions or counsel women about the option. In a final push, the activists are preparing a public campaign to pressure President Bush to use his execut
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa Thabo Mbeki often seems happier when he s away from home, putting out fires in other African countries. An increasing number of his compatriots wish the South African president would just go away, never to come back. Mr. Mbeki has become so unpopular that even members of his own party want hi
London s hedge-fund elite are awaiting one of the biggest social events of the year: the ARK charity dinner. Given the difficult start to the year for the markets, organizers aren t expecting to match the (pounds)26.6 million ($51.9 million) they raised in 2007. Arpad Busson, founder of both children s charity ARK, whi
BEIJING - Dissent is usually associated with hot-blooded youth. But protest is not just for the young. Nowhere is this more true than China , where the country s most effective political activists are a generation of septa- and octogenarians. As Confucius said, At 70, I could follow what my heart desired, without overs
TAMPA, Fla. -- Sen. John McCain laid out his vision for the U.S. health-care system Tuesday, rejecting universal health insurance and embracing a system with fewer regulations in which consumers shop for coverage on their own rather than get it from an employer. His plan, parts of which are similar to a failed effort b
The Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative and the international drug-purchasing consortium Unitaid have struck deals that offer deeper discounts on more than 40 generic AIDS drugs and create child-friendly formulas for neediest victims of the pandemic. The new prices offered by three generic drug makers run 19% lower
Scientists from all over the world recently have engaged in a searching conversation about where we stand on the development of an AIDS vaccine. If you ve heard about these discussions from media reports, chances are you think they judged it a mission impossible. Actually, there are sound scientific reasons to believe
If you ve thought of spending some time doing volunteer work or teaching overseas, your twenties may be the time to pursue it. For many, the age offers a unique period of financial and personal independence -- free of children and entrenched professional careers. For some, time overseas can provide a respite from profe
Cape Town, South Africa - That s part of the problem in Europe – to think an African is just like another African. Jacob Zuma is talking about comparisons drawn between him and Robert Mugabe, the man who turned Zimbabwe s post-colonial dream into a nightmare. Then he laughs deeply, throwing his head back. In spite
Sky Canaves, sky.canaves@wsj.com and Geoffrey A. Fowler, geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com
HONG KONG -- Hu Jia, an AIDS activist and blogger who used the coming Olympics to criticize China s record on human rights, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on Thursday, after a Beijing court found him guilty of subversion and libel. The high-profile verdict heightens concerns among human-rights activi
LONDON -- A drug from U.K.-based GlaxoSmithKline PLC commonly used to fight AIDS appears to nearly double the risk of a heart attack, researchers said. In a study published online in The Lancet medical journal, European researchers said that the antiretroviral abacavir , which is
New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the number of people in the U.S. diagnosed with HIV in 2006 to be sharply higher than in previous years, reflecting the agency s improved surveillance system rather than a rise in the epidemic. The figures give a more accurate picture of the disease acro
New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the number of people in the U.S. diagnosed with HIV in 2006 to be sharply higher than in previous years, reflecting the agency s improved surveillance system rather than a rise in the epidemic. But the figures also give a more accurate picture of the dis
The top AIDS scientist at the National Institutes of Health called for a shift back to basic vaccine research to address unanswered questions in the wake of the failure of a major AIDS vaccine trial last year. Addressing an AIDS Vaccine Summit in Bethesda, Md., Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Al
Walgreen Co. thrived for decades by opening stores faster than its competitors -- a new location pops up every 16 hours -- and by pushing out more prescriptions per year than any other chain. But facing pressure from rivals, a weak economy and cracks in the health system, Walgreen is changing its time-tested formula. I
In a bid to save costs and stem a rising tide of medical waste, hospitals are recycling a growing number of medical devices labeled as single-use, from scissors and scrubs to the sharp blades surgeons use to saw through bones. Recycling medical devices labeled for single use is legal as long as certain Food and Drug Ad
As the National People s Congress draws to a close today, China s leaders probably won t be giving much thought to what s taking place in another corner of Beijing, at the No. 1 People s Intermediate Court. Events there may actually reveal more about the state of the nation s progress. Today, one of China s most outspo
Suzanne Sataline, suzanne.sataline@wsj.com and Douglas Belkin, doug.belkin@wsj.com
CHICAGO -- Yesterday morning, 6,000 people streamed into Trinity United Church of Christ here for Palm Sunday services, where blunt, funny and often fiery sermons have made the church popular among African Americans and plunged it and Sen. Barack Obama into controversy in recent days. The Rev. Otis Moss III, the church
Thailand s new health minister announced that he would urge the Thai government to continue to ignore patents on several cancer drugs, disappointing big pharmaceutical companies that had hoped Bangkok might roll back a policy of overriding patents in the name of public health. The drugs makers include Roche Holding AG
A four-year study of homeless people with chronic medical problems in Chicago offers fresh evidence that efforts to move the homeless into permanent housing quickly can improve their lives and save taxpayer money. The study was put together by a coalition of hospitals and housing groups seeking hard evidence supporting
Kenya s two month political crisis may finally be coming to a close with the announcement last week of a power-sharing deal between President Mwai Kibaki and challenger Raila Odinga. With some 1,000 dead and an estimated 600,000 people displaced since the disputed December 27 election, we can only hope the deal holds.
Thailand s military government may be gone, but its war on drug patents is still very much alive. Just ask the new Health Minister, Chaiya Sasomsup, who is thinking about restoring intellectual property rights to their rightful owners -- the pharmaceutical companies. Mr. Chaiya, who took office this month, is trying to
The snow fell in large, fluffy flakes for hours, enveloping everything in town in a thick silencing blanket of white. Our small town shut down for the evening. I was thankful because I don t get many calls after hours when it snows heavily. People stay put and the whole prairie landscape seems serene and beautiful.
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania -- President Bush s current tour of Africa is widely viewed as a celebration of his historic efforts in battling poverty and disease here. But listen closely to Mr. Bush and his aides, and you might conclude that a higher power is at work -- and it s achieving near-miraculous results. This w
President Bush starts a victory lap across Africa next week, celebrating his little-noticed but successful fights there against AIDS and malaria. But he also will be running hard to avoid the shadow of a growing number of political crises and controversies in the region. As Mr. Bush enters his final 12 months in office
Hospitals are increasingly deploying a new breed of diagnostic tests -- ones that promise results in hours not days and are particularly effective in detecting deadly antibiotic-resistant superbugs. This new generation of tests identifies organisms using genetic information rather than growing them in a dish and examin
MOSCOW -- Imprisoned former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced a hunger strike yesterday to protest authorities refusal to give AIDS treatment to a onetime colleague who is awaiting trial in a Moscow jail. Mr. Khodorkovsky s move ups the ante in an effort to draw attention to the plight of the colleague, who say
A new Pfizer Inc. HIV drug will soon be reformulated in an effort to prevent the transmission of the virus, offering a faint ray of hope in an arena littered with disappointments. The New York drug maker is expected to announce today that it will license its new medicine, Selzentry, to a nonprofit that investigates way
MOSCOW -- A Russian court upheld a ruling that PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLC was effectively a participant in massive tax evasion by now-bankrupt oil giant OAO Yukos. The ruling ratchets up pressure on the auditor as the Kremlin gears up for more charges in the politically tinged Yukos case. Prosecutors have filed new all
Anna Wilde Mathews, anna.mathews@wsj.com and Ron Winslow, ron.winslow@wsj.com
Controversies about cholesterol drug Vytorin and diabetes drug Avandia are reigniting debate over what evidence the Food and Drug Administration requires to approve drugs -- and may generate pressure on the agency to raise its bar. The FDA s system for approving drugs has been criticized as scrutiny grows about Vytorin
A highly drug-resistant superbug is gaining resistance to more drugs and burrowing deeply into the gay communities of San Francisco and Boston, researchers said. Sexually active gay men are 13 times as likely to have this strain of the highly resistant bacterium, known as MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus a
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.