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 December 28, 2007
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The Passing of a Veteran HIV-Positive Journalist
Former POZ contributor Thomas Morgan, a highly regarded, openly HIV-positive writer and editor who worked for many years at the New York Times and became president of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), died December 24 at the age of 56.
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Nigerian Governor Wants Officials Tested for HIV
Nigerian state governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu has called on the state’s commissioners, special advisers and top government officials to publicly commit to taking an HIV/AIDS test, reports the Nigerian newspaper The Daily Trust and AllAfrica.com.
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December 27, 2007
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$100 Million to Fight AIDS in India
The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced Thursday that it will provide India with a $100 million grant to combat HIV/AIDS, the country’s The Mangalorean website reports (mangalorean.com, 12/21).
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Domestic Violence and Poverty Block Treatment for Zambian Women
Some HIV-positive women in Zambia have a difficult time accessing AIDS drugs because of domestic violence and poverty, according to a new report by the Human Rights Watch (HRW). The Associated Press/International Herald Tribune reports that the New York-based organization released the report based on interviews with 83 Zambian women (iht.com, 12/18).
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December 26, 2007
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Uniting Positive Job Hunters in Lesotho
In the nation of Lesotho—a country, enclosed entirely within South Africa, that has one of the world’s highest HIV rates—a support group called Positive Professionals is helping steer people living with the virus toward employment, BBC News reports (newsvote.bbc.co.uk).
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Navy to Pay HIV-Positive Woman's Medical Bills
An HIV-positive woman in Florida has won a two-year legal case against the U.S. Navy, which will now cover her medical expenses, reports Local 6, an Orlando news station (local6.com, 12/20).
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December 21, 2007
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Remembering Mel Cheren, AIDS Trailblazer
Record executive and disco impresario Mel Cheren—who gave the New York City-based AIDS service organization Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) its first home—died on December 7 from AIDS-related pneumonia, the New York Times reports. He was 73.
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2008 HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting Call for Abstracts
The steering committee of the 2008 HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting is calling for abstract submissions on lessons and best practices that will support the conference’s goal to scale up HIV prevention, treatment and care around the world, reports Medical News Today.
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December 20, 2007
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H&M Launches HIV/AIDS Clothing Collection
Retail chain H&M announced today that it will launch a new clothing line called Fashion Against AIDS, aimed at spreading global HIV/AIDS awareness among young people, the Associated Press reports.
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Sex Ed Found to Delay Kids' First Experience
Contrary to prior research, teenagers who receive formal sex education in school are far less likely to have sexual intercourse at an earlier age than those in an abstinence-only program, Reuters reports.
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Congress Budget Bill Moves to President Bush
The House of Representatives on Wednesday, December 19, passed a $555 billion spending bill for fiscal year 2008, which will fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Department of State, USAID and other global health and aid programs, reports Kaisernetwork.org.
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December 19, 2007
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Nonoxynol 9 Does Not Prevent HIV, FDA Warns
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a mandate today requiring makers of over-the-counter spermicidal products and vaginal contraceptives containing nonoxynol 9 (N9) to warn consumers that the products do not prevent transmission of HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases.
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Ryan White’s Attorneys on Huckabee Controversy
In response to Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s recent refusal to retract his statement 15 years ago that people living with AIDS should be isolated, the attorneys for Ryan White, a teenager who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion and died of AIDS-related illness in 1990, have written a letter to the editor of the Journal and Courier, an Indiana newspaper.
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Continuing the Abstinence-Only Debate
Though there has been an increasing amount of evidence showing that abstinence-only education does not work, the United States government still spends $176 million on such education, according to a Palm Beach Post editorial.
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December 18, 2007
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Some HIV Meds Absent From Medicare’s Website
Although some HIV/AIDS medications aren’t listed on the Medicare Part D drug plan website, AIDS advocates quoted in a story published in San Francisco’s Bay Area Reporter claim that they are still covered by individual prescription plans.
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Protection at the Pub
A recent study published in the International Journal of STD and AIDS and summarized by Great Britain’s Press Association found that nine out of 10 visitors to a sexual health clinic in southern England were also binge drinkers.
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AIDS Activists Skeptical of South African Presidential Candidates
Activists are unhappy with the AIDS records of the two front-runner candidates as the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s governing party, plans to elect a new president at a conference that begins on December 23, reports the Mail & Guardian Online.
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December 17, 2007
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Donations Keep AIDS Organization Alive
A bout of donations supporting Thursday’s Child, a nonprofit New York City organization that serves people living with HIV/AIDS, is helping the organization remain open into the New Year, the New York Daily News reports.
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Population Control Better Than Meds vs. Pediatric AIDS?
Despite numerous studies that show that taking antiretrovirals during pregnancy can significantly reduce vertical transmission, only an estimated one in 10 African mothers-to-be has access to AIDS meds, reports the Washington Post. A proposed alternative? Birth control pills.
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Hospitalizations Down for Positive U.S. Babies
According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the number of hospitalizations for HIV-positive infants age 2 and under dropped by 64 percent between the years 1998 and 2005, reports Newswise.
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December 14, 2007
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Why HIV Vaccines Don’t Work
A new study from researchers at the University of Missouri and Imperial College London have found evidence of why some cancer and HIV vaccines don’t work, according to a University of Missouri press release.
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Is Global HIV Care Expanding?
Global health care may be widening in response to the HIV epidemic, says a World Health Organization (WHO) report published in the December 13 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Bush Arms Nigeria’s AIDS Fight
In an Oval Office meeting with Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua, President George W. Bush offered to double the United States’ commitment to help Nigeria fight HIV/AIDS and malaria, AFP News reports.
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December 13, 2007
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New York HIV/AIDS Program to Close in January
An adult health care program at a clinic in Freeport, NY, which provided medical and nonmedical services to people living with HIV/AIDS, will close at the end of January, reports Newsday.
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Florida County Approves New Sex-Ed Curriculum
After months of community debate, Florida’s St. Lucie County School Board approved on Tuesday, December 11, a new sex-education curriculum that will teach students about condoms, reports the Palm Beach Post.
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ONE Voice to fight Global Poverty
In a December 11 interview with the Associated Press, members of the ONE campaign discussed ONE Vote ’08, an effort to encourage the next president of the United States to commit to the global fight against poverty, hunger and diseases such as HIV/AIDS.
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A Woman’s True Story of a False Positive
A woman who has been on a strict HIV regimen for nine years was not actually living with the virus, and was awarded $2.5 million by a Worcester Massachusetts jury December 12 after two days of deliberation, the Associated Press reports.
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December 12, 2007
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Experts Criticize PEPFAR's Abstinence Funding
While Congress is currently renewing a proposed $30 billion five-year extension of George W. Bush’s President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, global health specialists expressed concern at a December 11 Senate committee meeting regarding the percentage of those funds that will be used for abstinence-only HIV/AIDS programming.
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Huckabee Willing to Meet Ryan White's Mom
In response to AIDS activists’ urging yesterday, December 10, that Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee meet with Jeanne White-Ginder, the mother of Ryan White—a teenager who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion and died of AIDS-related illness in 1990—Huckabee said he would be “very willing” to meet with White-Ginder, reports the Los Angeles Times.
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DC Public Schools Lacking in HIV Education
A new report released today by the DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice—a privately operated advocacy group—shows that DC schools are lagging behind in city efforts to combat the District’s HIV infection rate, which is currently the highest in the country.
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UN Manual Teaches Farming Skills to African AIDS Orphans
A new manual launched by the United Nations hopes to equip AIDS orphans in Africa with farming skills to help them learn how to create sustainable livelihoods and ensure food security, reports South African news service BuaNews.
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December 11, 2007
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Ryan White’s Mother Wants a Word With Huckabee
The mother of Ryan White—a teenager who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion and died of AIDS-related illness in 1990—would like to meet with Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee to discuss his statements that people living with HIV/AIDS should be quarantined from the rest of society, the Associated Press reports.
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Explaining the Low Rate of HIV in Jamaica’s Prisons
In a recent speech to 100 new correctional officers in Jamaica, the country’s national security minister, Derrick Smith, said that its prison system has one of the lowest HIV rates in the world, at about 3.3 percent, the Jamaica Gleaner, a daily national newspaper reports.
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Free Circumcision in Uganda
The Ugandan Ministry of Health is planning to offer free circumcision across the country to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, reports the New Vision Online, a Ugandan news site.
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Electronic Record Sharing May Impact HIV Testing
In a new Scottish study of people visiting sexual health clinics, one out of every four people surveyed said they would be less likely to get an HIV test there if their general practitioner (GP) were informed of their visit through the sharing of electronic patient records (EPR).
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December 10, 2007
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GOP Candidate Mike Huckabee's AIDS Controversy
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said that he won’t “run from” his statement 15 years ago that people living with AIDS should be isolated, reports the Associated Press.
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Poor Care for Detained Positive Immigrants
A new 71-page report by civil rights group Human Rights Watch says that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security provides inadequate care and treatment for HIV-positive people in immigrant detainee facilities, reports The Los Angeles Times.
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Egypt Combats Stigma Through HIV Hotline
According to a recent BBC News report, a national HIV hotline in Egypt has been providing prevention information for over 10 years—emphasizing caller anonymity in a nation where HIV/AIDS is viewed as a foreign concern that remains highly stigmatized.
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U.S. Foreign Aid Agency Flunks HIV Test
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)—set up nearly four years ago by the federal government to create new foreign aid strategies in fighting HIV/AIDS—has yielded disappointing results, The New York Times reports.
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December 07, 2007
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Debating Giuliani’s AIDS Record
Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani vowed to continue America’s commitment to fighting global AIDS this past World AIDS Day, December 1. But in an article published in The Boston Globe, Charles King, head of the New York AIDS service organization Housing Works, says that Giuliani did little to assist those living with the virus during his eight years as New York City’s mayor.
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U.S. Helps Vietnam Fight HIV From IV-Drug Use
AFP News reports that on December 6, the United States announced that it will support Vietnamese health groups in launching a methadone program to fight HIV infection among that country’s injection-drug users.
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Top Artists’ Valentine to Awareness
A Valentine’s Day 2008 auction of works by such prominent artists as Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns and Cecily Brown will benefit HIV/AIDS relief programs in Africa, the Associated Press reports.
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HIV Infection and Childhood Vaccines
A new study conducted in the nations of Cameroon and nearby Central African Republic has found that HIV-negative and HIV-positive infants born to mothers infected with the virus had lower-than-normal levels of antibodies from childhood vaccines, Science Daily reports.
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December 06, 2007
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Poor Testing and Care in South Carolina
A new study conducted by South Carolina’s health department—and reported by The Charlotte Observer—reveals inconsistent HIV testing and treatment patterns in the state.
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Activists Slam Bush HIV Travel Plan
In 2006, President George W. Bush proposed relaxing his administration’s travel restrictions on HIV-positive foreigners wishing to enter the United States. But now, as today’s December 6 deadline for public comment on the proposal arrives, advocates are criticizing the revisions as being even more restrictive.
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Forced Testing for Returning Chinese Citizens
This month, China began enforcing a law that forces Chinese citizens who have been out of the country for more than a year to be tested for HIV, reports the Beijing News/Reuters India.
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December 05, 2007
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Battling HIV and Stigma in Iran
Some 16,000 Iranians are HIV positive, with 66 percent of the infections stemming from injection-drug use. Yet as Reuters reports, despite the considerable stigma surrounding both the disease and prevention efforts in the country, health officials report progress in lowering infection rates.
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Indonesian Muslims Protest Condom Giveaways
According to the United Nations, Indonesia has the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in Asia. AFP News reports that as the country launched its first national condom campaign on World AIDS Day, this past December 1, hundreds of Muslims gathered to protest the free latex distribution.
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December 04, 2007
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Unprotected Sex and HIV Among Gay and Bisexual Men
In two new U.S. studies, more than one third of surveyed men who identified as gay or bisexual and are aware that they are HIV positive said they had recently engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse.
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December 03, 2007
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Activists Want CDC’s Figures Now
AIDS activists are pressuring federal officials to release a government study of annual HIV infection rates, which published reports have suggested may show that figures are up to 50 percent higher than current estimates.
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Bush Seeks $30 Billion to Fight AIDS
In remarks at Calvary United Methodist Church in Mount Airy, Maryland, on Friday, November 30, President Bush urged Congress to approve an additional $30 billion over the next five years to fight HIV/AIDS around the world.
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