Tag Archives: HIV

The United States’ ban on immigration for HIV+ persons is finally about to be history. The Customs and Immigration Service has advised workers to stand by for the ruling. Currently HIV qualifies as an exclusionary communicable disease, and applications may be turned down by the US authorities if a person wishing to travel to the country, or settle there permanently, …

Stung by international criticism of their denial of Elton John’s request to adopt a baby he met in an orphanage, Ukraine officials are offering Elton a guardianship deal. And, it turns out, the baby does have a mother. After being branded unsuitable to adopt by Ukrainian officials because of his age and sexuality, Elton John was given new hope yesterday …

A 17 year-old South Carolina boy has been awarded $10M after his insurance company dropped him because he tested HIV positive. South Carolina’s supreme court has ordered Fortis Insurance to cough up $10 million for wrongly revoking coverage of a 17-year-old college student after he tested positive for HIV. It is the most an insurance company has ever been ordered …

The Ukraine government says that Elton John is too old and too unopposite-married to adopt one of their HIV+ babies. Adoption and gay rights advocates expressed regret about the determination by Family, Youth and Sports Minister Yuriy Pavlenko, while a children’s charity had reservations about John’s weekend announcement that he and his male partner, David Furnish, wanted to adopt the …

The San Francisco Department of Public Health is advising that HIV-positive folks get the swine flu vaccine when it becomes widely available later this fall. San Francisco health officials stress there is no evidence to suggest that people living with HIV are any more susceptible to the swine flu than they would be for the seasonal flu. “They should think …

More encouraging news on the HIV/AIDS front. After 15 years of futile searching for a vaccine against the AIDS virus, researchers are reporting the tantalizing discovery of antibodies that can prevent the virus from multiplying in the body and producing severe disease. They do not have a vaccine yet, but they may well have a road map toward the production …

Researchers at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill report that they have successfully decoded the entire HIV genome, a breakthrough that may lead to new antiviral therapy. “We are beginning to understand tricks the genome uses to help the virus escape detection by the human host,” said Kevin Weeks, a professor at the University of North Carolina at …

Researchers have identified a new strain of HIV in a woman from Cameroon. Previously only three strains of HIV had been thought to exist. A new strain of the virus that causes AIDS has been discovered in a woman from the African nation of Cameroon. It differs from the three known strains of human immunodeficiency virus and appears to be …

Researchers believe they have found an important missing link in the study of simian AIDS, a discovery with implications for human research. Up until now, scientists had believed that the 40+ known strains of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) did not make the animals ill. But two colonies of chimpanzees infected with a particular strain of SIV have been found to …

Horrified by bizarre myths about HIV and pregnancy that are apparently believed by some Florida teenagers, lawmakers are moving to ditch their “abstinence only” program and overhaul sex education in the state’s public schools. Florida teens who believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy have prompted lawmakers to push …

In Maine, an HIV+ woman charged with falsifying immigration documents has been sentenced to remain in jail until the birth of her baby because the judge is concerned that she won’t receive proper prenatal HIV medication if deported. But even the woman’s prosecutors object. Both the federal prosecutor and the defense attorney urged the judge to sentence Tuleh to 114 …

An Emory University study has linked same-sex marriage bans to a rise in new HIV infections. The study used data from the General Social Survey (GSS), which has tracked the attitudes of Americans during the past four decades. The economists calculated that a rise in tolerance from the 1970s to the 1990s reduced HIV cases by one per 100,000 people, …

The Terrance Higgins Trust, England’s largest HIV charity, is claiming that HIV-positive Brits are still being turned away at United States border control checkpoints even though they have filled out a special online waiver form. People living with HIV are still being refused entry to the US, despite government plans to change legislation, it has been claimed. According to the …

The NYT City Room blog reports that RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Ongina has hand-delivered a $25,000 donation from the MAC Cosmetics AIDS Fund to NYC’s Hetrick-Martin High school, which serves LGBT students who’ve had difficulty in regular public schools. The school is noted for being a space where students do not have to conform, where girls can declare their orientation …

Judging by buzz around the blogosphere, LOGO seems to have its first bona fide hit in RuPaul’s Drag Race. This clip, which is also an elimination spoiler, shows Ongina’s tearful revelation of her two years living with HIV, something her family did not previously know about.

An international study on a temporary HIV prevention pill is underway. The concept is known as pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP. In a massive medical trial on three continents, doctors are testing a controversial pill that could temporarily boost immunity against HIV before a person is even exposed to the virus. If the pill works safely, doctors must then address whether …

Here’s the latest safer sex PSA from filmmaker/activist Eric Leven. Possibly NSFW, the clip is short and to the point. Leven: “Amongst the hundreds, if not thousands of bareback videos out there, there might as well be one or two of these.”

In a discouraging report that notes the seventh straight year of an increase in the rate of syphilis, Centers For Disease Control head of STD prevention Dr. John Douglas notes that most of the increase can be attributed to gay/bisexual men. Douglas goes on to blame the practice of serosorting among HIV-positive gay men for much of the rise in …

Christine Maggiore, the notorious AIDS denialist who barely escaped felony charges in 2006 after her baby died untreated for HIV, has herself succumbed to the disease she claimed did not exist. Maggiore, 52, was founder of Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, a nonprofit that challenges “common assumptions” about AIDS. Her group’s website and toll-free hotline cater to expectant HIV-positive mothers …

Last week the FDA approved a new version of the female condom, which is promised to be less expensive and more comfortable than the original, two factors which may have inclined few gay men to try the product. In 1993 the FDA approved Female Health’s original female condom. The product’s domestic appeal was limited, with just 10% of 34.7 million …