Tag Archives: HIV/AIDS

Today is National HIV Testing Day. The above video is Part One from a web series called HIV Big Deal, which follows the lives of young gay men in Manhattan dealing with life, love, health, and HIV. Watch the clip. The acting is quite good, but be aware that the language is very frank and NSFW. And consider today’s news …

Noted psychotherapist and writer Michael Shernoff, who authored numerous books on gay culture and HIV/AIDS, has died of pancreatic cancer at 57. In his practice and in his writing, Mr. Shernoff confronted the realities of homosexual life with bluntness and compassion. In essays and books and as a mental health columnist for the Web site TheBody.com, he cast a sympathetic …

New York Magazine has posted an excellent dissection of “who still dies of AIDS, and why.” By the time [Mel] Cheren learned he had AIDS [in 2007], he was already suffering from a rare, drug-resistant pneumonia, what infectious-disease specialists refer to as an opportunistic infection, and he had lymphoma, an AIDS-related cancer that had spread to his bones. Within a …

Via the Independent (UK): A quarter of a century after the outbreak of Aids, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has accepted that the threat of a global heterosexual pandemic has disappeared. In the first official admission that the universal prevention strategy promoted by the major Aids organisations may have been misdirected, Kevin de Cock, the head of the WHO’s department …

In a similar vein to HotOrNot.com, it’s actually spelled Pos Or Not, and it’s from MTV and Kaiser. Pos or Not, has a serious purpose (tasteful or not). The site, www.posornot.com, introduced in late April, is an H.I.V. education effort disguised as a game. It shows photographs and brief biographies of men and women ages 21 to 30, and asks …

According to the just-released diary of Saddam Hussein, the late Iraqi dictator feared that his American captors would give him AIDS by using his prison clothesline to dry their clothes. Saddam Hussein feared catching AIDS or other diseases during his U.S.-supervised captivity, a leading Arab newspaper said in publishing excerpts of his prison writings. The London-based Al-Hayat said the comments …

Here’s the audio of Eric Leven’s appearance on Michelangelo Signorile’s show on Sirius OutQ yesterday in which Eric talks about his HIV/gay youth activism. He’s got some great ideas. Eric has a wonderful radio voice, maybe Sirius should offer him a show too. Eric gives me a kind shout-out at the 9:30 mark.

And interesting new study reveals that HIV+ people may not need the regular monitoring of their virus now insisted upon by most doctors. A paper published by The Lancet medical journal has revealed that patients who suffer from HIV may no longer need to have regular testing. The research showed that there was little difference between the survival rates of …

Horrible survey from England’s Independent: A shocking new survey has uncovered that the international community of Aids scientists are giving up hope of finding a vaccine for the virus. The growing pessimism of scientists comes after the disastrous failure of a trial vaccine. The trial drug, manufactured by pharmaceutical company Merck, has been found not to work and in some …

I was talking to a pharma insider the other day who told me that Orasure is getting ready to roll-out an over-the-counter version of their rapid oral swab HIV test kit, possibly as soon as this summer. Home Access currently sells a $35 home kit which requires a blood sample; Johnson & Johnson sold a similar product at one time, …

Health insurance companies are adopting a new pricing model which forces people taking expensive medications to pay up to 33% of the cost, rather than the typically low co-pay. With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or $30 for a prescription, no matter what the drug’s actual …

As Congress considers repealing the ban on foreign travelers with HIV from entering the United States, a Canadian man reports an encounter with border agents last November. The U.S. Senate is expected to vote next month on a bill proposed by Massachusetts Senator John Kerry that would lift what he calls a Draconian travel ban that has caused thousands of …

Despite that the 2006 data includes cases from seven states that previously had not reported new HIV infections to the CDC, AIDS activists and government researchers are “stunned” by a 48% increase in new infections over 2005. Reported new HIV infections in the United States increased by 48 percent in 2006 according to new data from the Centers for Disease …

After a spate of failures in AIDS vaccine trials, the U.S. government is calling for “new and novel ideas”. The U.S. government began a major overhaul of its effort to produce an AIDS vaccine on Tuesday, stressing a return to basic scientific research after the failure of a key clinical trial last year. Government officials at a summit with AIDS …

Beloved South Florida gay bar owner and AIDS activist Michael Brown, 50, was found murdered in his West Palm Beach home on Friday. Brown’s presumed killer, Brant Hines, 27, stayed in Brown’s home for two days after the murder before hanging himself on a bedroom door. Brown and Hines had had a turbulent off and on relationship for several years. …

Slate discusses Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s charge that the U.S. government invented AIDS to kill blacks. Barack Obama rebuked his former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Tuesday for giving sermons in which he blamed the government for creating a racist state and “inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color.” Wright isn’t the first to …

One step closer: The Senate Foreign Relations committee on Thursday approved legislation that would repeal a travel and immigration ban on people with HIV. The measure now moves to a full vote on the Senate floor. The ban was originally enacted in 1987, and explicitly restated in 1993, despite efforts in the public health community to remove the ban when …

Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) have authored a provision to an upcoming AIDS funding bill that will end the United States’ ban on tourists and immigrants with HIV. Using the global AIDS reauthorization bill as a vehicle for repealing the HIV immigrant and visitors ban dramatically improves chances for passing the repeal because the global AIDS …

Via Canada’s Globe And Mail: Researchers in Canada and the United States have made a breakthrough discovery in the fight against HIV infection: a protein that can limit the viral attack. The study, published in the online edition of Nature Medicine, found that the protein FOX03a not only can limit the deterioration of certain disease-fighting immune cells, but could help …

Yesterday the NY Times published a piece about a film called Please Talk To Kids About AIDS, which explores when to teach children about safe sex. From the story: In it, two incredibly sweet and precocious sisters — Vineeta and Sevilla Hennessey, ages 6 and 4 — accompany their parents, the filmmakers, to the 2006 International AIDS Conference in Toronto. …