Tag Archives: HIV

Man “Cured” Of HIV May Not Be Cured

The famed Berlin man who was said to be cured of HIV after undergoing blood transplants for leukemia may still have the virus in his body. [N]ew research presented on 8 June at the International Workshop on HIV & Hepatitis Virus “challenge[s] these results,” asserts Alain Lafeuillade of the General Hospital in Toulon, France, a well known HIV/AIDS cure researcher. …

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NEW YORK: Appeals Court Rules That HIV+ Saliva Is Not A “Deadly Weapon”

A panel of judges on the New York Court of Appeals has unanimously overturned a lower court and ruled that if an HIV+ person spits on or bites somebody, his saliva cannot be considered a “deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.” David Plunkett was serving a 10-year sentence for punching and biting a police officer. The incident occurred in 2006 when …

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FDA Poised To Approve Home HIV Test

An FDA committee today gave preliminary approval to what would be the nation’s first-ever in-home HIV test. The OraQuick rapid HIV test is already in use at many health clinics. Previous over-the-counter home HIV testing kits required sending a blood sample to a laboratory. The National Minority AIDS Council responds via press release: “Approximately 50,000 individuals in the U.S. are …

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Testing For HIV Without Consent

It passed without a blip on the radar, but last month Indiana Gov. Mitchell Daniels signed a bill that permits testing people for HIV without their consent. Indiana Senate Bill 52 states: Allows a physician or physician’s authorized representative to test an individual for HIV if certain conditions are met unless the individual to be tested refuses to consent to …

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Stem Cells Vs. HIV

Interesting news out of UCLA: Expanding on previous research providing proof-of-principle that human stem cells can be genetically engineered into HIV-fighting cells, a team of UCLA researchers has now demonstrated that these cells can actually attack HIV-infected cells in a living organism. [snip] In a series of tests on the mice’s peripheral blood, plasma and organs conducted two weeks and …

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At The Condom Factory

An extended commercial for Trojan, but still interesting.(Via JMG reader Alan)

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A Monthly HIV Preventive?

More news from the conference in Seattle. The first trial in humans of an injectable, once-a-month formulation of an HIV drug has found that drug levels were maintained at a level that should in theory be high enough to protect recipients against infection, and that the drug has so far produced very few side effects. The research was presented at …

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Four-In-One HIV Med News

Gilead has announced the results of Stage 3 clinical trials of “the Quad,” which would be the world’s first four-in-one daily HIV pill. The Quad contains two new (and not yet FDA approved) drugs: the integrase inhibitor, Elvitegravir, and Cobicistat, which is meant to mitigate the side-effects of Elvitegravir. Via press release: “These data show that the Quad is as …

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On The Origins Of HIV

The Washington Post has published a fascinating history of the origins of HIV, based on the fairly widely-accepted theory that the virus sprang from chimp to human during the tumultuous colonial days of western Africa, possibly beginning in the 1880s. Most of this colonial world didn’t have enough potential victims for such a fragile virus to start a major epidemic. …

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Saliva HIV Test Found Accurate

A mouth swab for HIV has been found just as effective as a traditional blood screening. Researchers from McGill University in Montreal said that their saliva HIV test OraQuick HIV 1/2 was 99 percent accurate for HIV in high-risk populations and about 97 percent in low-risk populations. The oral test works by detecting whether HIV antibodies are present in a …

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HomoQuotable – Michael Stipe

“Most of the time that I was a pop star I loved it. But in this period leading up to 1985 I had this complete nervous breakdown, and nobody recognized it. The guys just thought I was being impossible. Depression wasn’t something that people really talked about back then. Until I was finally able to get an anonymous H.I.V. test …

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HIV Is Not A Crime

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PA School Bans HIV+ Student

Unbelievable. A central Pennsylvania boarding school is standing by its decision to deny admission to a Delaware County middle school student because he has HIV. The 13-year-old boy is suing the Milton Hershey School, claiming the free residential school for low-income students broke anti-discrimination laws. The boy’s lawyer, Ronda Goldfein of the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, said legal precedent …

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It Gets Betterish – AIDS Test

NFSW (language).

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CDC Launches New HIV Testing Program Aimed At Black Gay & Bisexual Men

Timed to coincide with tomorrow’s World AIDS Day, the Centers for Disease Control has launched a new national campaign urging gay and bisexual black men to get tested. You may already know that gay and bisexual men are the population most affected by HIV in the U.S. Black gay and bisexual men are getting hit particularly hard by the epidemic. …

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LOS ANGELES: Some Healthcare Providers Deny Treatment To HIV+ Patients

Think Progress notes a Williams Institute study which gave the above results. Women and minorities were the most frequently refused. The linked article also notes that three out of four HIV patients do not receive enough medication to “stay healthy and prevent the transmittal of the virus to others.”

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DC DMV Offers HIV Tests

Washington DC’s Department of Motor Vehicles recently launched a test program offering free in-house HIV tests. The response has been so good, the city has expanded the program to other agencies. In a city with one of the highest percentages of residents living with HIV or AIDS, health officials have now test-driven the in-DMV testing and are finding that it …

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Global HIV Rate Stabilizes

As the number of AIDS-related deaths in the United States continues its decade-long decline, the pandemic appears to be stabilizing in the rest of the world. There were 2.7 million new HIV infections last year, approximately the same figure as in the three previous years, said the report from UNAIDS, the joint United Nations program on HIV and AIDS. The …

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Life Expectancies Soar For HIV+

According to a study by Britain’s University of Bristol, life expectancies for people with HIV have increased by 15 years. The average person who begins anti-HIV therapy at age 20 can now expect to live at least another 46 years. A team led by Dr Margaret May looked at the average 20-year-old starting treatment with anti-retroviral drugs between 1996-1999 and …

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Rep. Barbara Lee Introduces Bill To Decriminalize Exposure To HIV

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) has introduced a bill that could eventually force the repeal of laws that criminalize exposing others to HIV. Jilted lovers and angry spouses have often been thought to falsely tell authorities that they were never informed of their partner’s HIV status. The bill, called the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act, calls for a review of all federal …

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