AIDS Treatment News, the world's first treatment newsletter for people with HIV, reports on mainstream and alternative treatment, access to care, Web resources, public policy, and political action.
Now you can follow treatment news as it happens at AIDSNEW, a free service of AIDS Treatment News. We select quality reports in medical journals, AIDS treatment sites, and the general press, and publish Web links to them at www.connotea.org/group/aidsnew -- all in one place, often on the first day the news is available anywhere. No need to subscribe, register, or log in. Just visit www.connotea.org/group/aidsnew, scroll down, and click any of the titles for more information. You can use almost any computer and Web browser.
Large doses of resveratrol (found in small amounts in red wine) made headlines recently for extending the lifespan of mice on an unhealthy diet. This and other substances found in some wines and foods may protect against cardiovascular disease or diabetes, and improve the functioning of mitochondria in cells (which could reduce certain adverse effects of HIV or the drugs used to treat it).
Lung cancer has a high death rate, especially with HIV in one group of patients studied recently. Researchers are finding that most of the fatalities are due to late diagnosis; as many as 80% of the deaths from lung cancer in the general population might be prevented by screening to find the tumors early. The patients with HIV were often relatively healthy, so doctors did not suspect that they had cancer.
New software called Connotea, free and available to everyone, could connect people immediately with the most important work and resources in a wide variety of medical, scientific, service, and activist fields.
Patients resistant to at least one drug in all three oral classes may qualify for this new kind of antiretroviral -- which still must be combined with other active drugs.
Community Educator application deadline October 12; abstract deadline (for doctors and scientists) October 3; Community Press application deadline December 8; others deadlines.
An experimental genetic test may almost eliminate the hypersensitivity reaction, which occurs in about 5% of patients starting abacavir, by identifying those at risk in advance.
The August 2006 Toronto conference of about 25,000 people had no major controversies -- but serious concerns about problems and inadequacies in the response to the global epidemic.
A major new antiretroviral has been approved, for patients resistant to more than one protease inhibitor. There is no information yet on risk/benefit compared to standard treatments for first-line use. Tibotec, which developed the drug and is now part of Johnson & Johnson, showed price restraint and avoided setting a new record high price, which other companies have done.
A research study published 25 years after the first report of AIDS found that at least 3,000,000 years of life have been saved in the U.S. by AIDS treatment. The study and accompanying editorial are free online from the Journal of Infections Diseases.
A vaccine tested at the U.S. NIAID clearly improved the survival of monkeys, a benefit not predicted by T-cell and viral load tests. It was predicted by measurements of memory T cells in the first few months of infection -- giving important insights into how HIV disease develops, and how to test HIV vaccines early so that only the best candidates will go into large human trials.
India had the 2nd most abstracts accepted at the International AIDS Conference; Nigeria was 4th, Uganda 7th, and France 12th. We list the top 21 countries and number of accepted abstracts.
A newly available online service allows anyone to locate private historical collections at more than 3,000 institutions, mostly in the U.S. A search for "ACT UP" found 61 collections of papers, videos, and other materials.
Medicine has not made full use of online information -- and doing so might save thousands of lives. Part I looks at what has been most successful online in other fields, for background on how medical information could be improved.
Thousands of desperately needed doctors and other medical professionals leave poor countries because no one there can pay them, or provide safe and effective working conditions. Many go to English-speaking countries that do not train enough medical professionals themselves -- such as the U.S., where a quarter of the doctors are foreign trained.
A U.S. activist campaign, centered in the San Francisco area near Gilead's headquarters, helped get this major price reduction for Brazil's model HIV treatment program.
At the United Nations a four-day series of meetings will evaluate successes and failures so far in implementing the historic Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, adopted five years ago by 189 countries, and will plan for the future. For the first time, a person known to have HIV will address the United Nations General Assembly. Major controversies exist, mainly because the starting draft document of this meeting lists lofty goals in a way that will not lead to action; "what gets measured gets done," but here the measures are absent. On the first day of the meeting, a demonstration sponsored by 12 organizations and endorsed by over 70 more will call for better access to treatment and prevention.
As we went to press, the Congressional Budget Office released a report with detailed estimates of the impacts on Medicaid of the budget bill. For example, 80% of the savings will come from denial of medical care. In 2010, 65,000 people will lose Medicaid coverage due to the premiums alone, and about 60% of them will be children. And each year, 120,000 new people will be denied nursing home coverage under Medicaid by one provision alone.
Hundreds of thousands of patients at least are having trouble getting their Medicare Part D prescriptions filled. Some states have provided emergency relief. This article -- which applied only to persons eligible for MediCARE -- explains some of the major problems and what is being done to relieve them, and suggest online and telephone resources for information and answers to questions.
The U.S. has an apparently growing problem with fake, counterfeit drugs entering the mainstream drug supply, and being fraudulently sold at full price in regular pharmacies and hospitals; some have no active ingredient, or too little, or substitute a cheap drug for an expensive one. The FDA has asked the manufacturers to develop technology to track all shipments electronically as they move through the distribution chain; currently, RFID (radio frequency identification) is the preferred method for doing so. This article explains what is happening, and why we do not believe that this use of RFID is a privacy threat -- though other privacy issues are among the most important questions we face today.
AIDS Treatment News publishes a buyers' club list each December. For a short overview and introduction to the meaning, history, and services of these organizations, see AIDS Treatment News #309, December 18, 1998.
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.