Tag Archives: HIV

Even though the odds of transmitting HIV via saliva are considered to be infinitesimal, a Denver gay man has been been charged with assault with a deadly weapon for spitting on someone. “We are at the point in the case where it has gone to the deputy district attorney who will handle it and he is currently reviewing it,” [DA …

Christian Newswire, which normally flogs the bleatings of the Family Research Council, has just sent out the below press release from some outfit called America’s Survival titled Disease-tainted Gay Blood Threatens Our Troops! “A vote to repeal the homosexual exclusion policy would inevitably mean more disease and death for members of our Armed Forces,” stated Cliff Kincaid, the veteran journalist …

The FDA is beginning the review process to lift the ban on donations from gay men. Chris Johnson at the Washington Blade reports: A notice published Thursday states the Department of Health & Human Services has scheduled a meeting next month of the Advisory Committee on Blood Safety & Availability to discuss the issue. The committee is charged with providing …

Former barebacking porn star Brent Corrigan has amended his unsafe ways and is apologizing to the to the gay male community by participating in a safer sex campaign conducted by the Washington-based DC FUK!T. Via press release: DC FUK!T, a Washington D.C. based safer sex advocacy group, released its latest “How to Put on a Condom” video, staring adult performer, …

Gawker tips us to this new study by the NYC Department of Health. Unprotected anal sex poses well known health hazards for men, but new research suggests that the practice is a significant health issue for women as well. More than 100,000 New York City women engage in anal intercourse each year, according to a new report from the Health …

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that the inexpensive acne drug minocycline works well to help suppress HIV replication, making it a potentially highly valuable addition to the HAART arsenal. “The powerful advantage to using minocycline is that the virus appears less able to develop drug resistance because minocycline targets cellular pathways not viral proteins,” says Janice Clements, Ph.D., Mary …

Last year the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld a ruling that Assurant Health must pay their customer Jerome Mitchell a settlement of $10M for wrongly canceling his coverage because he’d become HIV-positive. An investigation into Assurant’s inner workings has revealed an extensive campaign to find any reason to cancel the insurance of others with HIV. Previously undisclosed records from Mitchell’s …

The head of the United Nations agency on AIDS says that rates of new infections are higher in countries that have repressive laws against homosexuality. New HIV infections are increasing among homosexuals, drug users and prostitutes who don’t seek help because of laws that criminalize these practices, the head of the U.N. AIDS agency said Monday. Michel Sidibe, the head …

Researchers have learned that HIV can lie dormant for years in bone marrow, evading drug therapy and later activating to cause disease. The issue of “hidden” HIV has been one of the biggest obstacles to attempts to completely clear the virus from the body. Dr. Kathleen Collins of the University of Michigan and her colleagues report in this week’s edition …

Sen. John Kerry and numerous fellow Senators today called for lifting the ban on gay men donating blood. “Not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban,” Kerry said. “A law that was once considered medically justified is today simply outdated and needs to end.” Kerry was one of 18 U.S. Senators — 17 Democrats and one independent — …

According to a just-released pair of studies out of the Netherlands, newly diagnosed HIV+ people will live a near-normal lifespan provided they begin treatment fairly soon after infection. With that proviso, a typical person diagnosed at age 25 is expected to live another 52.2 years, yielding an average lifespan scarcely different from the uninfected. It should be noted that patients …

Via Pep411.com, here’s a short instructive film about Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP). This latest project is targeted to help young men of color, but of course applies to everybody. This clip may be slightly NSFW due to male-on-male making out. PEP stands for Post Exposure Prophylaxis. It is HIV medications, usually 3 or 4 pills, that you take after you think …

Here’s Project Runway’s Jack Mackenroth with his PSA for HIV treatment, made in partnership with Logo and Merck. More on the campaign here.

Scientists warn that new drug-resistant strains of HIV may develop this decade, causing “mini-epidemics” of their own. New research based on a novel mathematical model predicts that a wave of drug-resistant HIV strains will emerge in San Francisco within the next five years. These strains could prove disastrous by hindering control of the HIV pandemic. The model showed that surprisingly …

When a gay man got attacked by three thugs yelling anti-gay slurs on the Chicago subway yesterday, he pretended to be HIV-positive to escape. Daniel Hauff, 33, said he tried to quell a dispute between two men on the train when one of them, joined by two other riders, began yelling gay slurs and other taunts at him. Hauff said …

Experts from the World Health Organization and UNAIDS said yesterday that the global number of people with AIDS has been unchanged for two years and that the HIV outbreak period probably peaked in 1996. Daniel Halperin, an AIDS expert at Harvard University, said it was good news the rate of new infections was dropping and that access to AIDS drugs …

“If I hear one more HIV+ man tell me he’s “grateful” for the disease because it made him a more peaceful, loving, open, honest person I’m going to scream. Those afflicted by disease –whether it’s cancer or HIV– have taken a pernicious slide toward rationalizing their conditions as something “necessary” for them to achieve some kind of enlightenment. And we …

David France has published a sobering and heartbreaking feature at NY Magazine that looks into the accelerated aging and mental problems that longtime HIV patients can suffer. An excerpt: Some fifteen years into the era of protease inhibitors and drug cocktails, doctors are realizing that the miracles the drugs promised are not necessarily a lasting solution to the disease. Most …

Hmm. I see some product called Orizon has popped up in my far right ad column* this morning, claiming it “inhibits HIV-virus activity.” Anybody know anything about that? I don’t want any quack treatments promoted on this here website thingy. I’m not saying Orizon is such a product, yet, but maybe somebody out there knows the deal. *Normally I have …

Scientists in Thailand are reportedly “surprised” by their finding that an AIDS vaccine actually appears to work, reducing the risk of infection by 31%. For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might …