Tag Archives: HIV

Anti-Viral Injections Show Promise Against HIV

Seeking to make HIV treatment less dependent on adhering to a daily dosing regimen, researchers have found that an injection of anti-viral medications every two months is just as effective. Pink News reports: The trial backed by Johnson & Johnson as well as GlaxoSmithKlein, tested whether an injected drug taken once every eight weeks could effectively suppress HIV. The head …

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Feds Fund Implantable PrEP Study

Poz.com reports: A group of 15 researchers and clinical investigators at Northwestern University received a $17.5 million grant to develop an implant capable of delivering meds that protect against HIV, according to a press release from the McCormick School of Engineering. The hope is that the implants would last for up to a year. The five-year project is underwritten by …

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STUDY: HIV Transmission Is Virtually Zero For Patients “Reliably” Taking Their Meds

Via the Charlotte News & Observer: Groundbreaking research conducted at UNC-Chapel Hill has demonstrated that potent drug cocktails can disable HIV to the point that the deadly virus can’t be transmitted to other people through sexual activity. The findings were announced Monday by AIDS researcher Myron Cohen at the eigth International AIDS Society Conference in Vancouver, Canada. Cohen, UNC’s chief …

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Former College Wrestler Sentenced To 30 Years For “Reckless” HIV Transmission

Via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A former Lindenwood University wrestler was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison for recklessly infecting one sex partner with HIV and risking the infection of four others. Jurors in May had found Michael L. Johnson, 23, guilty of five felony charges after testimony that included experts in infectious diseases and the men who had …

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FINLAND: What Happens When An HIV+ Man Asks Strangers To Touch Him

Buzzfeed reports: An HIV-positive man named Janne recently stood on the street next to a sign that read, “I’m HIV-positive, touch me,” to see if the negative stigma attached with HIV/AIDS still exists. The video isn’t in English, but actions speak louder than words. Finnish Broadcasting Company, Yle Kioski, and Janne collaborated to make a video that truly reflected HIV …

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NEW YORK: Couple Sues Chili’s For HIV Exposure After Waiter Spits In Drink

After the police used a DNA test to confirm that a waiter had spit into their drink, an upstate New York couple is suing a Chili’s restaurant and the waiter for potential exposure to HIV and hepatitis. The Yerdons plan to sue Lamica and the owners of Chili’s this week. They want compensation for the psychological trauma they endured not …

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VICE: The Truvada Revolution

VICE has launched a three-part series titled The Truvada Revolution.  A drug called Truvada is the first the FDA-approved means of preventing HIV infection. If an HIV-negative person takes the pill every day, they’re nearly 99 percent protected from contracting the virus. Controversy continues to surround the broad uptake of Truvada, but the landscape of safer sex and HIV-prevention changes …

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SPONSORED POST FROM THE CDC
Live Well With HIV By Seeking Treatment

An important message from the CDC:  More than 1.2 million Americans are living with HIV. Approximately 168,000 of those people have never been diagnosed. Additionally, more than 50% of those infected with HIV are not being treated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) knows that the key way to help people living with HIV to achieve longer, healthier …

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FEDS: Start HIV Treatment Immediately

The federal government has halted a large clinical trial on early HIV treatment because results already in conclusively show that newly diagnosed patients do best if they start on anti-retroviral therapy immediately. Via the New York Times: The study was stopped more than a year early because preliminary data already showed that those who got treatment immediately were 53 percent …

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MISSOURI: Former College Wrestler Found Guilty Of Reckless HIV Transmission

Steven Thrasher reports at Buzzfeed: Michael Johnson, the HIV positive former college wrestler better known as “Tiger Mandingo,” faces life in prison after being found guilty today of one count of recklessly infecting a partner with HIV, one count of attempting to recklessly infect a partner with HIV, and three counts of recklessly exposing partners to HIV. “They’ve paid their …

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SPONSORED POST FROM THE CDC
HIV Treatment Will Add Years To Your Life

An important message from the CDC:  More than 1.2 million Americans are living with HIV. Approximately 168,000 of those people have never been diagnosed. Additionally, more than 50% of those infected with HIV are not being treated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) knows that the key way to help people living with HIV to achieve longer, healthier …

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FDA To Ease Gay Blood Ban

The FDA today followed up on its December hearings and announced that the lifetime ban on blood donations by gay men will soon end. But under the new rules, gay men will only be allowed to donate if they have been abstinent for the previous year. The new policy is currently only in draft form and the public will have …

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Researchers Claim Success With Implant Which Delivers HIV Meds For 40 Days

Via Science Daily: Scientists from the Oak Crest Institute of Science, in Pasadena, CA, report that they have developed a matchstick size implant, similar to a contraceptive implant, that successfully delivers a controlled, sustained release of ARV drugs for up to 40 days in dogs with no adverse side effects. “To our knowledge this is the first implant to be …

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Insurance Company Ends PrEP Coverage UPDATE: Company Reverses Decision

Poz.com reports: Assurant Health, a national company specializing in health insurance coverage for individuals and small businesses, will no longer cover the med Truvada as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent contracting HIV. Several Assurant customers who had been taking Truvada (comprising the antiretrovirals tenofovir and emtricitabine) as PrEP were recently notified that the insurer would end coverage of the med …

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FDA Approves “Functional HIV Cure” Trials

Via Medical Daily: A possible “functional cure” for HIV has recently been granted FDA approval for further human testing. The method uses genetic modification to cause a specific mutation in the white blood cells of HIV patients which mirrors those found in the naturally immune. It has so far shown to be both receptive and long-lasting. The novel therapy involves …

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Short Film on PrEP: Unwrapping Truvada

Featuring Dan Savage, Cleve Jones, San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener, and AIDS Healthcare Foundation head Michael Weinstein. (Tipped by JMG reader Eric)

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A Live Look At Simian HIV

Via Science Magazine: Show me the monkey. Seeing is believing, and a study in rhesus macaques with a new imaging technique reveals for the first time a real-time map of an AIDS virus replicating in the entire body of a living animal. The results point to some unexpected hideouts of the simian AIDS virus, or SIV. And the experiments also …

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New PrEP Study Shows 86% Effectiveness For Before/After Sex Dosing Schedule

Via the Associated Press: For the first time, a study shows that a drug used to treat HIV infection also can help prevent it when taken before and after risky sex by gay men. The results offer hope of a more appealing way to help prevent the disease beyond taking daily pills and using condoms, although those methods are still …

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CDC: Over 90% Of New US HIV Infections Come From Those Not Getting Treatment

Via press release from the CDC: More than 90 percent of new HIV infections in the United States could be averted by diagnosing people living with HIV and ensuring they receive prompt, ongoing care and treatment. This finding was published today in JAMA Internal Medicine by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Using statistical modeling, the authors …

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AIDS Group Announces $100M Intiative To Find Cure For HIV Within Five Years

From the American Foundation for AIDS Research: amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, today announced that it has created a $100 million investment strategy in support of its Countdown to a Cure for AIDS initiative, launched last year with the aim of developing the scientific basis of a cure by 2020. The establishment of the amfAR Institute for HIV Cure …

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