Tag Archives: medicine

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 …

Promising news: A new treatment for prostate cancer can rid the disease from nine in ten men without debilitating side effects, a study has found, leading to new hope for tens of thousands of men. It is hoped the new treatment, which involves heating only the tumours with a highly focused ultrasound, will mean men can be treated without an …

The Supreme Court today began hearing the case to repeal the Affordable Care Act on the basis of its constitutionality. The public sessions started Monday with 90 minutes of lively debate on a legally dense, but nonetheless important, question. It boils down to whether the health care law’s key provision is a “tax” that could prevent the court from considering …

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 …

The HIV medication tenofovir has been linked to kidney damage. Sold under the brand name Viread, tenofovir is one of the three drugs in the daily combo pill Atripla, one of the most-prescribed in the anti-HIV arsenal. Patients who take one of the most widely prescribed drugs to treat HIV infection increase their risk of kidney damage by up to …

Via press release: Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: SGMO) announced today the initiation of two new Phase 2 clinical studies (SB-728-1101 and SB-728-902, Cohort 5) in its program to develop a “functional cure” for HIV/AIDS. Sangamo’s ZFP Therapeutic® approach (SB-728-T) generates T-cells that are resistant to HIV infection using its zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) technology to permanently disrupt the DNA sequence …

Scientists are growing human skin out of harvested foreskins in order to reduce the need to use animals to test drugs and cosmetics. The foreskin used for the process is only taken from boys up to the age of four. “The older skin is, the worse the cells function,” explained Andreas Traube, an engineer at the institute’s department of production …

From the National Minority AIDS Council: The National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) has released a new video highlighting the crisis facing our nation’s AIDS Drug Assistance Programs. Currently, more than 7,400 individuals in 10 states who have been placed on ADAP wait lists, while another 17 states and Puerto Rico have instituted various cost containment measures, including reduced formularies and …

As I’ve said here before, almost every item for sale in so-called health food stores is complete hooey that at best merely gives you rather expensive urine. And according to a massive study just published, even taking multivitamins has no apparent benefit to your lifespan. Women taking multivitamins live no longer than those who don’t take the pills, and might …

The British government is telling doctors that the usual course of treatment for gonorrhea is now largely useless. The Health Protection Agency says we may be heading to a point when the disease is incurable unless new treatments can be found. For now, doctors must stop using the usual treatment cefixime and instead use two more powerful antibiotics. One is …

According to a just-released study, an insulin nasal spray may help Alzheimer’s patients with memory problems. “The results of our pilot trial demonstrate that the administration of intranasal insulin stabilized or improved cognition, function and cerebral glucose metabolism for adults with aMCI or AD (Alzheimer’s disease),” Suzanne Craft, of the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System and the University …

The FDA today approved a first-of-its-kind medication to treat melanoma. The drug targets a gene mutation that’s present in about half of melanomas, the deadliest form of skin cancer. “Zelboraf is a huge step forward in the fight against metastatic melanoma and the advancement of treatment for the deadliest form of skin cancer,” Dr. Anna Pavlick, director of the NYU …

In response to the vote in the New York legislature, the American Medical Association has issued a call for the marriage equality across the United States. Via press release from Freedom To Marry: With the New York State now the sixth – and largest – state to end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, the American Medical Association (AMA) …

From the city of New York.

The FDA has approved the first in a new class of drugs that may increase the cure rate for Hepatitis C. The new drug, Victrelis from Merck, effectively cured more than 60 percent of patients in clinical trials when used along with existing drugs. That compared with 20 to 40 percent of patients cured by the existing drugs alone. “This …

Male fertility probably isn’t a major concern for most of you, but scientists say they’ve found a new predictor for low sperm count. It’s the length of your taint. SRSLY. That distance, measured from the anus to the underside of the scrotum, is linked to male fertility, including semen volume and sperm count, the study found. The shorter the AGD, …

According to a story posted on AIDSmap.com, San Francisco is seeing a decrease in new HIV infections because HIV+ people are going on medication sooner and therefore have a reduced period of infectiousness. Dr Das presented more evidence from San Francisco to show a strong correlation between reductions in community viral load and the falling number of HIV diagnoses. The …

“Pharmacies like Walgreens, Rite-Aid, CVS and a lot of other major retailers are silent accomplices in this scam.” Randi is offering a $1M reward to any homoepathic manufacturer that can prove that their product is the slightest bit effective.

More than half of the nation’s AIDS patients who are on waiting lists to get medications are in Florida. Last week Sen. Bill Nelson wrote both the president and Florida Gov. Rick “Medicare Fraud” Scott, warning of a catastrophic public health crisis over the lack of ADAP funding. In the below clip, South Florida AIDS activist Mark S. King lays …

Scientists are testing a vaccine that causes the body to treat cocaine like an attacking virus and thereby keep it away from the brain. So far, the vaccine has only been tested on mice, but the results are extraordinary. Mice given the vaccine no longer exhibited any of the hyperactive signs of a cocaine high when they were next given …