TEHRAN, Iran : Iran s judiciary spokesman has confirmed that two internationally renowned Iranian AIDS physicians are in jail on charges of acting against national security. Spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi says the two will stand trial at Tehran s Revolutionary Court in the next few days. Arash and Kamyar Alaei have b
WASHINGTON: Federal regulators said Tuesday they have approved a new HIV test that screens for two, less common forms of the virus. The Food and Drug Administration said the TaqScreen MPX Test is the first to simultaneously detect HIV-2 and HIV-1 Group O strains. Both types of HIV are mainly found among patients in Afr
MOSCOW: An ailing former executive of the dismantled oil giant Yukos who was jailed in 2006 was freed Tuesday after posting a $1.8 million bail, his lawyer said. Vasily Aleksanian, currently in a Moscow clinic being treated for AIDS and cancer, faces money laundering and embezzlement charges in a host of criminal cases
Los Angeles, CA (AP) -- Christine Maggiore, an activist who vehemently denied that HIV causes AIDS, declined to take anti-AIDS drugs and sued Los Angeles County for stating that her 3-year-old daughter succumbed to AIDS-related pneumonia, has died. She was 52. Maggiore died at her Van Nuys home on Saturday. She had bee
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Mylan Inc. said Tuesday it has started selling a generic version of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. s HIV drug Zerit after receiving approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Mylan said the FDA approved its generic version in 15 milligram, 20 milligram, 30 milligram
WASHINGTON: The two most influential women in President George W. Bush s White House - first lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - are strongly defending the president s legacy against critics who are calling his administration one of the worst in history. I know it s not, and so I don t really feel
BASEL, Switzerland - Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG said Monday it has licensed a potential vaccine for a type of herpes virus from U.S.-based company AlphaVax Inc. Novartis said it is paying $20 million upfront to the North Carolina company to secure the right to a developmental vaccine for the
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) - The University of Virginia s Infectious Disease Clinic is piloting a text-messaging program in hopes of improving contact with HIV patients in rural areas. The program was launched this summer when a social worker doing outreach work found that patients in rural areas missed appointments and
ST. LOUIS - A St. Louis company is recalling 750 pounds of sausage products that may be contaminated with a bacteria that can cause a potentially fatal illness. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the sausage products were produced on Dec. 18 and sold at the T. Piekutowski European Style Sausage retail counter in S
DETROIT - On the fifth floor of the Herman Kiefer Health Complex, former prisoners have a place that knows who they are. For the mostly male clients, staff members interview clients about their prison terms and ask hard questions about their medical and sexual histories and any drug use. Next, the clients are tested fo
STRASBOURG, France : The chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled that an ill former executive of dismantled oil giant Yukos should be freed from detention to await the end of his court case. Vasily Aleksanian suffers from full-blown AIDS, tuberculosis and near total blindness and his lawyers last week denou
MIAMI: An explosion in government health care fraud in the state of Florida has prosecutors debating whether they should go after the patients who get the phony treatments in addition to the clinics that provide them. By 2005, Florida providers submitted $2.5 billion in AIDS treatment claims to Medicare, a government h
MIAMI: Three days a week, Philip Audette sat in a cushy white chair at the St. Jude Rehab Center, a needle pumping HIV drugs into his arm. He talked and laughed with a dozen other patients, all in good health, all receiving drugs they didn t need. All for the money. Audette says he made $100 to $200 every visit, nearly
Rick Warren is in a place he never expected to be: at the center of a culture war. The pastor chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to give the inaugural invocation backed Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in his home state of California. But he did so belatedly, with none of the enthusiasm he brings to fightin
BEIJING - An Australian medical group working to stop the spread of HIV in Tibet said Monday it had not heard from one of its staffers there since deadly riots broke out in March. A recent Chinese media report said Wangdu, a project officer for the Burnet Institute s Center for International Health, had been sentenced
NEW YORK: Spiraling violence in Somalia , forced civilian displacements in eastern Congo, and neglected medical emergencies in Myanmar and Zimbabwe were among the Top 10 humanitarian crises of 2008, according to an annual list released Sunday by Doctors Without Borders.
LONG BEACH, Calif. (Map, News) - Under fire for opposing gay marriage, influential evangelical pastor Rick Warren said Saturday that he loves Muslims, people of other religions, Republicans and Democrats, and he also loves gays and straights. The 54-year-old pastor and founder of Saddleback Church in Southern Californi
Johannesburg - Zimbabwe has collapsed, and the world must act now to keep it from deteriorating into Somalia-scale chaos, the top U.S. envoy for Africa said Thursday. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said questions about how much longer Zimbabwe can withstand hunger, disease and poli
The clergy chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to pray at his inauguration fill separate symbolic roles: One is a nod to the civil rights activists who made Obama s election possible. The other is an overture to conservative Christians who rankles some Obama supporters. The Rev. Rick Warren, who will give the invoca
WASHINGTON - The world opened its wallet for Bill Clinton. Governments, corporations and billionaires with their own interests in U.S. foreign policy gave the former president s charity millions of dollars, according to records he released Thursday to lay bare any financial entanglements that could affect his wife Hill
MIAMI - A Miami physician s assistant has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for his role in an HIV infusion scheme that bilked $119 million from Medicare. Thomas McKenzie, 53, was sentenced Thursday after he pleaded guilty in September to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and submitting false claim
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Many of the state s frail, disabled, dying and homebound residents will lose major services in a $61 million round of budget cuts announced Wednesday by the state Medicaid agency. Health care advocates and providers said some people would be left without care and get sicker, which could lead to more e
Fresno, CA (AP) -- Fresno County supervisors are supporting a needle exchange program aimed at reducing disease among drug addicts who might be tempted to use contaminated needles. The board voted 3-2 on Tuesday to approve a pilot, one-year program that will include substance abuse counseling and free medical care.
WASHINGTON - The largest provider of HIV-related services in the Washington area is cutting staff and client programs. The Whitman-Walker Clinic has announced it plans to close its northern Virginia office, which serves 1,100 clients, and shut an eight-bed residential addiction-treatment program in Washington. The nonp
JAKARTA, Indonesia - An Indonesian province beleaguered by a spiraling HIV infection rate scrapped plans to implant microchips in those with full-blown AIDS on Tuesday, following strong opposition from government officials, health workers and rights activists. Papua s parliament agreed to drop a section of the health d
New York - A rash of attacks against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people across the country - including the severe beating of a New York man whose attackers believed he was gay - suggests the number of reported assaults could rise in 2008, an advocacy group said. The number of reported attacks against people
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department has reached a settlement with the D.C. government that requires the city to make homeless shelters more accessible to people with disabilities. Under the agreement reached Friday, D.C. must improve oversight of contractors who manage shelters and develop a plan to ensure that homeles
LONDON - Dozens of developing countries exaggerated figures on how many children were vaccinated against deadly diseases, which allowed them to get more money from U.N.-sponsored programs, a new study said Friday. Research in the medical journal, The Lancet, said only half as many children were vaccinated than was clai
STOCKHOLM, Sweden : Researchers who discovered the AIDS virus and glowing proteins, an outspoken U.S. economist and a globe-trotting French writer received their Nobel Prizes on Wednesday. Amid traditional pomp and circumstance, Sweden s King Carl XVI Gustaf handed out the prestigious 10 million kronor ($1.2 million) a
WHITEHOUSE STATION, New Jersey: Drugmaker Merck & Co. said Tuesday it is taking steps to become a leader in generic biotechnology drugs and sales in emerging markets, diversifying its research through partnerships and new technologies, and working to maximize long-term sales of key products. During its annual b
MOSCOW - A jailed former executive of dismantled oil giant Yukos who suffers from AIDS and tuberculosis and has almost completely lost his sight was ordered freed on bail Monday, a Moscow court official said. The ruling regarding Vasily Aleksanian, who faces embezzlement and money-laundering charges, was a rare victory
MOSCOW: A jailed former executive of dismantled oil giant Yukos who suffers from AIDS and tuberculosis and has almost completely lost his sight was ordered freed on bail Monday, a Moscow court official said. The ruling regarding Vasily Aleksanian, who faces embezzlement and money-laundering charges, was a rare victory
BALTIMORE - Prosecutors say a Baltimore man has pleaded guilty to the fatal shooting of a woman he had unprotected sex with and he wrongly accused of having HIV. Twenty-five-year-old Brandon Chambers pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree murder in the slaying of 26-year-old Shanika Pretlow in October 2005. Charging doc
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Thousands of Zimbabweans are dying, uncounted and out of sight in a silent emergency as hospitals shut, clinics run out of drugs and most cannot afford private medical care, health groups say. Even as deaths from a cholera epidemic climbed into the hundreds, international and local organiza
MARSHFIELD, Wis. - Lenita Kluge used to store her extra breast milk in the freezer, but as it piled up she reluctantly began throwing it out. Then the 29-year-old Greenwood mother found out she could donate her stock to the Mothers Milk Bank of Ohio, which passes it on to hospitals and families in need. I helped out ou
NEW YORK (AP) - A Manhattan drop-in center for homeless gay youths - a high-risk group for contracting HIV - has been spared the possibility of closing its doors after officials restored HIV-related funding. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, looking for ways to spend money more efficiently as t
STOCKHOLM, Sweden : One of the scientists sharing the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering HIV said Saturday he believes there will be a therapeutic vaccine to treat the virus within five years. Luc Montagnier told reporters in Sweden that he believed it was a matter of 4 to 5 years before a therapeutic vaccine to
HANOI, Vietnam - Last fall, when police clashed with Catholic protesters over confiscated church land, the Vietnamese public didn t need to rely on the sanitized accounts in the government-controlled media. They could read all about it on the blogs. The photos and translated Western news reports about last September s
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad : The U.N. agency leading the fight against AIDS says preventive health programs in the Caribbean must be strengthened. Karen Sealey is the chief of UNAIDS Caribbean. She says prevention needs to improve to achieve an increase in knowledge about HIV, the virus that
STANTON, Mich. - A man accused of molesting two underaged girls and having unprotected sex with two women who did not know he carries the AIDS virus has pleaded no contest to four felony sex charges. Thirty-two-year-old Gerald Campbell Jr. of Crystal entered the pleas Thursday in a Stanton courtroom. Crystal is about 4
MOSCOW - Moscow’s mayor, who has banned gay rights parades in the past, vowed Thursday to continue his ban on what he called sexual minority propaganda , according to Russian news agencies. Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who has called homosexuality satanic, said City Hall has banned, and will continue to ban, the propaganda of t
ST. LOUIS - Six weeks after the first round of HIV testing at Normandy High School, health authorities say it s too early to know whether there was an outbreak at all. The Missouri Department of Health said Thursday that preliminary test results for October in St. Louis County show two new cases of HIV among people 24
DETROIT - Medical marijuana became legal in Michigan on Thursday, but smoking a joint could still get patients arrested because the regulations needed to protect them won t be ready for months. The law approved by voters in November allows patients with cancer, HIV, AIDS, glaucoma and other diseases to use marijuana to
LAS VEGAS - Medical documents seized by authorities investigating a hepatitis scare at a Las Vegas medical center will soon be returned. Las Vegas police say work will begin Saturday to package all impounded patient files so they may be released back to the Gastroenterology Center of Nevada and its various locations.
LOS ANGELES - The state has violated a 6-year-old law intended to provide medical care to impoverished people with HIV, according to a Superior Court judge s ruling announced Thursday. The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed last year by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation that alleged the Department of Health Care Services h
SOUTH MILWAUKEE - Prosecutors have dropped charges against a Milwaukee man accused of having sex with a teen without telling her that he was HIV-positive. Prosecutors decided Wednesday there wasn t enough evidence to convict 19-year-old Rick Allen Brown and the case was dismissed. Brown had pleaded not guilty to a char
MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee County jail inmates can knock an hour off their sentence for each hour they spend on some dirty work - cleaning up blood, feces, saliva and other bodily fluids at the House of Correction and Criminal Justice Facility. Sheriff David Clarke said it s a common-sense approach to clean-up chores no one
BEIJING - Local Chinese officials on Wednesday denied allegations by a Belgian television crew that they had been attacked while trying to report on the HIV epidemic in a hard-hit rural village, state media said. The alleged Nov. 27 attack in China s central Henan province came just a month after the government announc
LAS VEGAS - The Nevada Board of Medical Examiners has filed a malpractice complaint against a third physician affiliated with a Las Vegas outpatient clinic at the center of a hepatitis C outbreak. Dr. Clifford Carrol is accused in the complaint filed Nov. 24 of failing to exercise proper skill and diligence during his
TUCSON, Ariz. - It s not a lot of money, but a fund that helps support Tucson community projects like the Southern Arizona AIDS Walk and ladies auxiliaries may be headed to the deficit-laden general fund. Faced with a deficit estimated at $67 million, Tucson council members seem to agree the $5,000 a year they each get
BEIJING - A Chinese AIDS activist said Wednesday that she was forcibly taken back to her rural home after participating in World AIDS Day in Beijing. Li Xige, who is HIV positive, said she had managed to escape house arrest in her rural town, but that local police tracked her to Beijing. Li, who campaigns for compensat
BEIJING - Chinese authorities are investigating an attack in which assailants allegedly pulled members of a Belgian television crew from their vehicle, beat them and took their notes and money, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. The Nov. 27 attack came just over a month after China announced that relaxed reporting r
STOCKHOLM, Sweden : The rate of HIV infection in Europe almost doubled between 2000 and 2007, reaching the highest level ever recorded in Europe, the European Union s disease center and the United Nations health agency said Monday. The annual rate of newly diagnosed cases of HIV infection rose to 75 per million people
VIENNA, Austria : AIDS remains one of the world s key killers and more must be done to alert young people of the risk of the deadly disease, senior U.N. officials said Monday. U.N. anti-drug czar Antonio Maria Costa, in marking World AIDS Day at a special ceremony in Vienna, also warned against complacency in battling
TEHRAN, Iran : Iran said Monday that the country has registered more than 18,000 HIV-positive citizens and is worried that number could rise in a rare government disclosure about the AIDS causing virus. Health Minister Kamran Bagheri Lankarani said increasingly Iranians were transmitting HIV through illegal sexual rel
UNITED NATIONS - Early treatment for babies born with the virus that causes AIDS can significantly increase their chances of survival, according to a report Monday by four U.N. agencies. Far too few pregnant women know their HIV status and in 2007 less than 10 percent of infants born to HIV-positive mothers were tested
PARIS - France s glamorous first lady threw her considerable star power behind the global fight against AIDS on Monday, as the world tallied the victims of the HIV virus that infects a new person every 15 seconds. As ceremonies marked World AIDS Day, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy signed on to become a goodwill ambassador for the
CHICAGO - President-elect Barack Obama praised the Bush administration s effort to combat AIDS and pledged Monday to continue to fight the deadly disease when he takes office in January. Obama discussed AIDS in videotaped remarks to the Saddleback Civil Forum on Global Health held in Washington. The remarks were releas
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) _ The United Nations AIDS program says Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed a new chief for the group. The U.N. said Monday that Michel Sidibe will be the next executive director of UNAIDS , based in Geneva, Switzerland. He is its deputy executive director and was recommended by a U.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa : In a sign of hope on a continent ravaged by AIDS, a South African fertility clinic has started a service allowing couples infected with the virus to have a healthy baby. The Cape Fertility Clinic is the first in Africa to open a laboratory for HIV-positive patients, enabling them to conceive a
PARIS -- Carla Bruni-Sarkozy says she wants to divert media attention surrounding her marriage to French President Nicolas Sarkozy to a worthy cause - by becoming a goodwill ambassador for the fight against AIDS. France s first lady says she will travel to meet people with AIDS and organize fundraising events in suppor
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Marking World AIDS Day, President George W. Bush said Monday that his presidential initiative on the deadly disease has already met its goal of treating 2 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. When the administration launched the President s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief in 2003, the goal was to sup
One hundred bicyclists ride on the Golden Gate Bridge, above, on Sunday en route from Golden Gate Park to Mill Valley and back - 28 miles - to mark the onset of the AIDS epidemic 28 years ago. Many of the riders are members of Positive Pedalers, an organization of HIV-positive activist riders working to improve the liv
WASHINGTON - President Bush says his presidential initiative has already met its goal of treating two million people with the deadly AIDS disease in sub-Saharan Africa. The White House said on World Aids Day that when the administration launched the President s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief in 2003, the goal was to su
ATLANTA - Emory University is hosting one of the largest collegiate displays of The AIDS Memorial Quilt in the country. The quilt will be on campus Monday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to commemorate World AIDS Day. The display includes 800 panels memorializing people who died with AIDS. The opening ceremony will feature a ta
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Church bells tolled, workers put down their tools and court proceedings stopped Monday as South Africa marked a minute of silence for AIDS victims and ended a decade of denial about the epidemic. Peter Piot, the top U.N. official dealing with the disease, joined political leaders and hundreds
BEIJING - AIDS activists were skeptical of a pledge by China s government to fight discrimination against people with the disease, saying Monday the move would mean little without improvements in education to increase awareness and alter mindsets. Health authorities and the U.N. AIDS agency pledged Sunday to combat the
CHICAGO - Lights in the Illinois State Capitol rotunda in Springfield and at the Thompson Center in Chicago will be dimmed for 15 minutes on Monday to observe World AIDS Day. The remembrance will be from 6:45 p.m. to 7 p.m. State statistics from October show that just more than 34,500 people living in Illinois have HIV
ST. MARC, Haiti - A dozen men in T-shirts declaring I am gay and I am living with HIV/AIDS marched with hundreds of other demonstrators through a Haitian city on Sunday in what organizers called the Caribbean nation s first openly gay march. The march, held a day ahead of World AIDS Day in the western city of St. Marc,
BOSTON - Gay and bisexual men in Massachusetts continue to be the hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic according to a new report by the state Department of Public Health, which recommends the state step up its fight against the disease including a greater availability free condoms. The report, released just ahead of World
LONDON - As World AIDS Day is marked on Monday, some experts are growing more outspoken in complaining that AIDS is eating up funding at the expense of more pressing health needs. They argue that the world has entered a post-AIDS era in which the disease s spread has largely been curbed in much of the world, Africa exc
BEIJING - Chinese health authorities and the U.N. AIDS agency pledged to fight discrimination against people with the disease in China with the unveiling Sunday of a massive red ribbon, the symbol of AIDS awareness, at the Olympic Bird s Nest stadium in Beijing. Organizers said the fear of being stigmatized at work or
NEW YORK - Madonna s awakening to the crisis in Malawi - an impoverished African nation where one million children are orphaned by AIDS - had many consequences. She adopted one of those orphans, her 3-year-old son David. She is building a school there. And she has told Malawi s harrowing story in her documentary, I Am
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A Brown University student is leading efforts to help thousands HIV victims in the tiny central African nation of Rwanda get access to healthy food and boost income. Emma Clippinger of Cambridge, Mass., and a Yale University colleague founded a nonprofit organization after realizing that many HIV vic
LONDON - The virus that causes AIDS could theoretically be eliminated in a decade if all people living in countries with high infection rates are regularly tested and treated, according to a new mathematical model. It is an intriguing solution to end the AIDS epidemic. But it is based on assumptions rather than data, a
ST. CHARLES, Mo. - A 44-year-old St. Charles man with the virus that causes AIDS is sentenced to eight years in prison for having unprotected sex with his girlfriend. Michael Bergman pleaded guilty in September and was sentenced Monday on one count of recklessly risking another person with HIV infection. Bergman was ar
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Lawmakers in Indonesia s remote province of Papua have thrown their support behind a controversial bill requiring some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with microchips - part of extreme efforts to monitor the disease. Local health workers and AIDS activists called the plan abhorrent. People
Los Angeles, CA (AP) -- A judge has ordered a man to pay $12.5 million for infecting his ex-wife with HIV. Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu issued the tentative ruling Friday, finding the man acted with fraud and malice. The ruling followed a non-jury trial in October in which the woman claimed her ex-husband gave her
KENILWORTH, N.J. (AP) - Schering-Plough Corp. has many promising drugs in late testing, three awaiting approval, plus years of patent protection for its key products, unlike most of its competitors, Chief Executive Fred Hassan told analysts Monday. The drugmaker has three drugs awaiting U.S. approval and nine more in f
WASHINGTON - More than three-fourths of young women, those ages 18-29 and known as Generation Y, want incoming President Barack Obama to make civil rights and racial justice top priorities of his administration, a survey says. While Obama s election as the nation s first black president was interpreted by many as a sig
MOSCOW (AP) - A top Russian anti-AIDS coordinator on Friday lambasted the government s approach to fighting HIV, saying the number of registered cases was growing 10 percent a year despite increased federal funding. A misguided focus on treatment instead of prevention has undermined efforts to combat AIDS, said Vadim P
SARTELL, Minn. - Radiant joy came from a simple source for orphans in Peru . In 2007, Jan Hanson of Sartell helped build a wall around a school to protect a donated playground set from vandals. That experience, along with helping out with two of the country s orphanages, spurred her to start the nonprofit organization
INDIANAPOLIS - A lawsuit claims that the staff at a Marion County middle school did not do enough to stop an HIV-positive girl from being bullied so badly by other students that she was forced to leave school. The federal lawsuit filed by the girl s mother against the Washington Township Schools argues that the distric
MOSCOW - Russia s anti-AIDS coordinator says the number of registered HIV cases is growing 10 percent a year despite increased government funding. Vadim Pokrovsky says Russia must spend the funds more wisely by focusing on prevention as well as treatment in order to slow the spread of HIV. He says he fears the global e
WASHINGTON- Two years after the government urged making HIV tests as common as cholesterol checks, there are small gains but still one in five people infected with the AIDS virus doesn t know it, scientists said Thursday. Eleven states that once required special consent for HIV testing have changed their laws, a key st
CHICAGO - Former President Bill Clinton has agreed to publicly disclose the names of most donors to his presidential foundation and library, a significant concession aimed at helping smooth the path for his wife to become the next secretary of state. Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile, was expected to decide soon whethe
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - A group of doctors said Wednesday that President Robert Mugabe s government is to blame for a cholera epidemic sweeping Zimbabwe and that the disease s spread there is being dramatically underreported. About 160 people have died of cholera in Zimbabwe in recent weeks, independent aid organi
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Two weeks after Africans danced for joy to see a black man elected president of the United States , a Kenyan newspaper columnist delivered a crisp warning to this complex and troubled continent: Obama is not the Great Black Hope. Africans will have to look for solutions within themselv
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -- Don t worry, Nelson Mandela can laugh at himself. At least that s the opinion of Jonathan Shapiro, South Africa s leading political cartoonist for 20 years, whose work has not shied away from ridiculing the foibles of the anti-apartheid icon. In Shapiro s latest exhibit, the South
Little Rock, Ark. (AP) -- Former President Bill Clinton s nonprofit foundation raised more than $124 million last year as his wife sought the Democratic presidential nomination, according to tax forms recently filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Donations to the William J. Clinton Foundation face increased scrutin
PARIS: Interpol says police in China and five countries in Southeast Asia have seized $6.6 million worth of counterfeit antibiotics, anti-HIV drugs and other medicines. The international police agency says 16 million fake pills were uncovered in the operation, including drugs for fighting malaria and tuberculosis.
CHICAGO - A 33-year-old woman who claims she contracted HIV and hepatitis C from a kidney transplant sued the University of Chicago Medical Center and one of its doctors Monday, saying they should have told her the organ donor was gay. Attorney Thomas Demetrio, who represents the woman, said there was no way to estimat
UNITED NATIONS: Charlize Theron is the newest U.N. Messenger of Peace, turning her Academy Award-winning fame to ending violence against women and girls around the globe. Theron, 33, told reporters Monday after being inducted into the U.N. role that she was taking on her new responsibilities very humbly, with a very ex
DELAWARE, Ohio - A jury in central Ohio found a man guilty of felonious assault Friday for not telling a girlfriend he has the virus that causes AIDS. Peter Ayala, 45, was charged in June under a state law making it a felony for a person who has tested positive for HIV to conceal it from a sexual partner. Following the
NEW DELHI: Go ahead. Buy one. Don t be embarrassed. Playful television advertisements in India featuring a talking parrot and a puppy named Condom are helping increase condom sales in the country, where AIDS is a growing problem, health experts said Friday. The ads are intended to change the way people see condoms in t
DELAWARE, Ohio - A trial has opened for a central Ohio man accused of not telling a girlfriend he has the virus that causes AIDS. Forty-five-year-old Peter Ayala was charged in June with one count of felonious assault under a state law making it a felony for a person who tested positive for HIV to conceal it from a sex
SANTIAGO, Chile - Chile is scrambling to reach people who could be unknowingly spreading AIDS. Public health services failed to tell 512 people that they tested positive for HIV, and private-sector services failed to inform an estimated 1,700, Health Minister Alvaro Erazo told lawmakers Thursday. Chile s public hea
LONDON - An increasing number of countries worldwide are making spreading HIV a crime, according to a new report from the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Health officials fear the trend could undermine gains made in fighting the AIDS pandemic and provoke a surge in cases. Globally, about 33 million people
LOS ANGELES - American Idol has allocated more than $64 million in grants to six U.S. and international charities from contributions to its Idol Gives Back fundraising event. The popular Fox singing competition s star-studded gala, held at the Kodak Theatre in April, featured musical performances by Miley Cyrus, Fergie
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A Dutch court convicted two men Wednesday for attempting to infect 14 victims with HIV in a bizarre sex case. The Groningen District Court found the two guilty of severe assault for injecting semiconscious men with HIV-infected blood at sex parties between January 2006 and May 2007. Peter M
BERLIN - An American man who suffered from AIDS appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia, his doctors said Wednesday. While researchers -- and the doctors themselves -- caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, other
WASHINGTON - President Bush, reflecting on his time in office, said Wednesday that one of the most uplifting experiences of his nearly eight-year tenure has been witnessing the gains Africa has made in education and fighting hunger and disease. Speaking at a charity dinner, Bush called the work done for Africa by his a
INDIANAPOLIS - Transplanted organs from a single donor spread skin cancer to two recipients who then died, claim two medical malpractice complaints against the Indiana Organ Procurement Organization. Anthony Taylor, 45, of South Bend received the liver and one kidney from the donor in October 2006 and died nine months
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Taking his message of economic emergency to upstate New York, Gov. David Paterson minced no words at a town hall meeting on Tuesday, again warning that impending budget cuts would affect everyone. We are in uncharted territory right now. We need to address this economic crisis as soon as possible, Pat
BALTIMORE - Baltimore s oldest nonprofit organization assisting those infected with the AIDS virus is closing its doors. The Health Education Resources Organization on Maryland Avenue, also known as HERO, has helped people with HIV/AIDS since 1983. A notice in its windows says it is closing Nov. 26. No reason for the c
NEW DELHI: An international aid agency will spend $2.75 billion over the next two years to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in 140 countries, an official said. The Global Fund aims to cut the number of deaths from tuberculosis and malaria by half by 2015, Rajat Gupta, a top fund official, said in a statement issued
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - A medical trial involving 16,000 children across Africa will be a challenge to human, scientific and communications resources on the world s poorest continent, three researchers hoping to develop the first malaria vaccine said Monday. Joe Cohen and Drs. Christian Loucq and Eusebio Macete sa
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - An HIV-positive Cambodian man was arrested after allegedly paying an underage orphan to have unprotected sex with him at a rural treatment center for the disease, police said Friday. Phat Sarath, 37, was arrested Thursday after his wife informed police she had walked in on her husband having sex
NEW DELHI -- Zimbabwe s central bank has returned $7.3 million to an international aid agency that it confiscated last year, an official said Friday. The agency, the Global Fund, had announced a day earlier that it would not give any new funds to Zimbabwe to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria until the money was retu
NEW DELHI - An international aid agency will not give new health care funds to Zimbabwe to fight AIDS and other diseases until the country s central bank returns roughly $7 million of the group s donation, an agency official said Thursday. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria says $7.3 million of the
MIAMI - A 58-year-old Miami doctor was sentenced to seven years in prison for attempting to defraud the Medicare system out of $26.2 million. Ronald Harris pleaded guilty in August to two counts of conspiracy to defraud and three counts of submitting false Medicare claims in an HIV scheme. Using two clinics, Harris all
DETROIT - Supporters and opponents of a medical marijuana law were watching to see if the state would join the dozen others that allow severely ill patients to use the illegal drug. Voters were deciding Tuesday on Proposal 1, which would allow those patients to register with the state and legally buy, grow and use smal
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -- An international organization that fights AIDS and other communicable diseases is demanding that Zimbabwe return millions of dollars in donations it says were misused. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria says it wants $7.3 million back from the $12.
MBABANE, Swaziland (AP) -- Nelson Mdlovu strides out of the small clinic with a spring in his step and a smile on his lips just minutes after being circumcised. Mdlovu swallowed his fears to line up with nine other equally nervous men for the 30-minute operation. They joined the ranks of hundreds of Swazi men who have
BOSTON - The former medical director of a Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company has been sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to promoting off-label use of computer devices in an effort to boost sales of an AIDS drug. Dr. Norma Muurahainen, who worked at Serono Laboratories Inc. on Norwell, was sentenced o
NEW ORLEANS: Starbucks Corp. is trying to refocus in a tough economy as a company with a conscience, announcing a partnership with Bono s (RED) label on Wednesday as it attempts to recover from a slowdown in consumer spending. The partnership with (RED), co-founded by the U2 frontman, will donate a portion of the proce
New Orleans (AP) -- U2 frontman and activist Bono said Wednesday that next week s presidential election provides a great opportunity to relaunch Brand USA amid worldwide scrutiny. The whole world has a stake in how things turn out, the Ireland native told thousands of Starbucks Corp.
MIAMI -- Florida health officials are promoting a Web site aimed at getting women better informed about HIV and AIDS. The Web site is to be officially launched on Thursday. Called the Southern AIDS Living Quilt, it s part of a campaign to get women in the South tested. It also hopes to spark dialogue to end the social
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - Chile s Health Minister is resigning amid an uproar over the government s failure to notify people who had tested positive for AIDS. Presidential spokesman Francisco Vidal said Tuesday President Michelle Bachelet accepted the resignation of Soledad Barria. A television station reported this m
NAIROBI, Kenya : A Kenyan official says the government will investigate allegations of corruption in programs funded by a U.N.-backed agency to treat patients with AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis. Medical Services Minister Anyang Nyongo says the agency rejected Kenya s application for $208 million to finance future progr
ST. LOUIS - Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region is offering free HIV testing for area high school students after concerns that as many as 50 Normandy High School district students may have been exposed to HIV. Students at Normandy are being tested voluntarily at the school by the St. Louis County Health Departme
WASHINGTON, (AP) -- People who have the AIDS virus should start drug treatments sooner than current guidelines recommend, suggests a large new study that could change the care of hundreds of thousands of Americans. The study found that delaying treatment until a patient s immune system is badly damaged nearly doubles t
TRENTON, New Jersey: Two HIV drugs approved last year for patients who have developed resistance to older drugs also work well in new patients, and with fewer troubling side effects than a widely used regimen, according to the drugs makers. Late-stage, company-funded studies on the drugs, aimed at winning approval to a
NORMANDY, Mo.: Students at a suburban St. Louis high school headed to the gymnasium for HIV testing this week after an infected person told health officials as many as 50 teenagers might have been exposed to the virus that causes AIDS. Officials refused to give details on who the person was or how the students at Norma
LAS VEGAS, CA (AP) -- Investigators think they ve identified almost all the people who may have contracted the potentially deadly hepatitis C virus at two Las Vegas outpatient medical clinics, a top public health official said Thursday. In putting everything together, we ve identified 114 cases in total linked to the t
LONDON -- It s a controversial idea in a land known for prudishness about sex - teaching kids as young as 5 about the birds and bees. But with one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe, the British government is bringing sex education to all schools in England - including kindergartens. While countries like
Officials plan to start H.I.V. testing at a suburban St. Louis high school where as many as 50 students may have been exposed to the virus that causes AIDS. A St. Louis County spokesman said the mode of transmission in the scare at Normandy High School could include sexual activity, drug use, piercings or tattoos. The
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Swedish health agency revealed in an article published Wednesday that it had refused to help police track down people who knowingly infect others with HIV. The revelation triggered harsh criticism and the government agency, the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, agreed later in the
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Amid global economic turmoil, President Bush said Tuesday that it s more important than ever for the United States and other prosperous nations to help the less fortunate. During times of economic crisis, some may be tempted to turn inward -- focusing on our problems here at home while ignoring our i
HAMILTON, Ontario: A Canadian court started proceedings Monday in the country s first-ever first-degree murder trial involving the alleged sexual transmission of the HIV virus. Lawyers told the court that Johnson Aziga, 52, first learned he was HIV positive in 1997, but continued to have unprotected sex without disclos
LONDON -- He took an AIDS test publicly despite a deep stigma in Africa against the disease. He pressed to cut the prevalence of mothers passing the HIV virus onto their babies. He fought to make more anti-retroviral drugs available. Festus Gontebanye Mogae, the former president of Botswana , was honored Monday with
New York -- Frank Carter was once a globe-trotting professional dancer; his world is smaller now. He battles multiple health problems, walks with a cane and rarely leaves his compact Manhattan apartment. As an 86-year-old gay man, with no family nearby and many acquaintances long since dead, he d seem a likely prospect
BALTIMORE - A spokeswoman for AIDS researcher Robert Gallo says he suffered a severe bout of typhoid in South Africa that forced him to miss an appearance at a recent AIDS vaccine conference. Nora Grannell, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore-based Institute of Human Virology headed by Gallo, said the researcher was hospit
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A Web-based living quilt is set to be launched to focus attention on the issue of HIV and AIDS in the South. Organizers say the Southern AIDS Living Quilt project is meant to illustrate the impact of HIV/AIDS in the South, featuring video stories of women affected and describing what they call the di
JAKARTA, Indonesia - The United Nations urged Indonesia on Thursday to treat drug abusers like patients, not criminals, saying the shift could help prevent an explosion in HIV infections. The roughly 28,000 drug users jailed by Indonesia should be in clinics, not detention facilities, said Christian Kroll, the U.N. glo
-- Gilead Sciences posts 27 percent jump in 3rd-quarter profit as sales of HIV drugs jump FOSTER CITY, Calif. (AP) -- Biotechnology company Gilead Sciences Inc. on Thursday said its third-quarter profit shot up 27 percent, as sales of its drugs to treat HIV soared. The results topped Wall Street s expectations, and sha
MAPUTO, Mozambique : Brazilian officials are ready with US$4 million to get started on an AIDS drug factory promised for Mozambique five years ago. Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said at a news conference in Mozambique s capital that the money was for the first building phase of the factory outside Maputo. He
CARLSBAD, Calif. - A San Diego County-based biotech company co-founded by the late Jonas Salk to develop an AIDS vaccine has filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The North County Times reported Wednesday that Orchestra Therapeutics, formerly known as The Immune Response Corp., filed court papers Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Co
ST. LOUIS - The St. Louis County Health Department on Wednesday raised concerns that some students at Normandy High School may have been exposed to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Health department director Dr. Dolores Gunn said the concern was raised after someone tested positive for HIV and that may have led to the
DETROIT - A ballot proposal that would legalize medical marijuana is bad medicine for Michigan, according to the nation s top anti-drug official. John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said in an interview Wednesday that proponents rely on sympathy, not hard facts, to gain sup
San Francisco General Hospital serves many vital roles. It is the only top-level, 24/7 trauma center in the city. It houses the nation s premier AIDS ward. It is the only alternative for the uninsured or Medi-Cal patients who can t find a doctor to treat them for the program s paltry reimbursement rates. It is also the
Opening statements began Tuesday in a lawsuit that claims a man gave his ex-wife AIDS on their honeymoon. The couple were identified in court papers only as Bridget B. and John B. He engaged in reckless, risky, unprotected sexual conduct with numerous men while he was dating Bridget and through their marriage, argued
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - The global economic turmoil is likely to take its toll on AIDS research funding and add to the problems plaguing the search for a vaccine against the virus, scientists warned Tuesday. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it was i
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The world s poorest people will be hungrier, sicker and have fewer jobs as a result of the global financial crisis, and cash-strapped aid agencies will be less able to help, aid groups are warning. The charities that provide food, medicine and other relief on the ground say cutbacks have alr
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA -- South Africa s new health minister broke dramatically on Monday from a decade of discredited government policies on AIDS, declaring that the disease was unquestionably caused by HIV and must be treated with conventional medicine. Health Minister Barbara Hogan s pronouncement marked the offici
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Scientists attending an international AIDS conference in South Africa say the global economic turmoil is likely to take its toll on research funding and add to the problems plaguing the elusive search for a vaccine. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Allergy and Infect
OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday, but this year the news was as much about who didn t Critics say the secretive, five-member panel missed a golden opportunity to reward Chinese dissidents and highlight human rights abuses in
MINNEAPOLIS - Magic Johnson criticized a pair of talk show hosts Friday for accusing him of faking AIDS but said he didn t want them to be fired. Chris Baker and Langdon Perry of KTLK in Minneapolis made the remarks during Baker s conservative radio show on Wednesday. After Johnson condemned the statements, the station
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Magic Johnson says he s outraged that a pair of Minneapolis talk radio hosts accused him of faking AIDS. KTLK s Chris Baker and Langdon Perry made the remarks during Baker s conservative talk show on Wednesday. The context for the remarks wasn t clear. According to a partial transcript and audio clip
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A Minneapolis radio station said Friday it would air public service announcements on HIV/AIDS after a pair of talk hosts accused former NBA star Magic Johnson of faking AIDS. KTLK s Chris Baker and Langdon Perry made the remarks during Baker s conservative talk show on Wednesday. After Johnson condem
PHOENIX - A review by state health officials of a nonprofit Hispanic group s clinic revealed several problems including issues with licensing and record keeping. The report, released by the Arizona Department of Health Services, said the Chicanos Por La Causa Inc. outpatient facility in south-central Phoenix was not li
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Some rural Zimbabweans facing one of the hungriest years they could remember have been forced to live on a meal a day and in some cases only on wild fruits, the U.N. food aid agency said Thursday. The World Food Program appealed for donations to help fight hunger in Zimbabwe, straining as a
BEIJING - China said Thursday that a prominent Chinese human rights activist should not be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, saying such an honor would go against the spirit of the award. Jailed dissident Hu Jia is considered among the front-runners for the prize to be announced Friday. No short list of potential Nobel la
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - It s time for Americans to look and pray beyond their borders, Bishop T.D. Jakes said Thursday as he prepared to take a major step in that direction with a revival meeting in South Africa. The superstar preacher, pastor of the Dallas megachurch The Potter s House and best-selling author was
PARIS - Two French researchers who shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering the AIDS virus are voicing fears that the world financial crisis will hurt funding to fight the disease. Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi say they told President Nicolas Sarkozy of their concerns that both research and inte
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - U.S. and Japanese researchers are among the favorites to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry, but don t expect any recent discoveries to get the nod. The prize committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences typically awards decades-old research that has withstood the test of time. Possible fiel
BEIJING - China s foreign ministry suggested Tuesday that it hopes Chinese human rights activists will not win this year s Nobel Peace Prize, saying the award should go to the right people. Dissidents Gao Zhisheng and Hu Jia, both arrested and jailed through the Beijing Olympics to keep them out of the public eye, are
BUFFALO, N.Y. - The University at Buffalo has been awarded a $7.6 million contract to help AIDS researchers in developing countries conduct proper clinical trials. The seven-year award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is one of the largest UB has ever received. The university s School of P
TRENTON, N.J. - Pfizer Inc. (PFE, News), continuing its drive to create more focused business units, told employees worldwide Tuesday it is replacing its current geographic divisions with new ones focused on primary care, specialty care and operations in emerging markets. The shift is aimed at enabling the company t
MARYSVILLE, Mich. - Patients may visit Rod McLane at his office, Spine and Sport Chiropractic Center in Marysville, for back problems. But they will come to his center in Malawi , Africa, with considerably more dire circumstances. McLane s foundation, Hope Endeavors, recently opened the HIV/AIDS Rehabilitation, Feeding
Two French scientists who discovered the AIDS virus and a German who defied convention in showing a viral cause for cervical cancer shared the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for breakthroughs that have led to lifesaving drugs and a vaccine. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier of France were cited for t
The awarding of the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday writes a postscript to a bitter scientific dispute in the 1980s over who deserved credit for discovering HIV and the resulting test to screen blood for it. The Nobel committee honored French scientist Dr. Luc Montagnier and a collaborator for discovering the virus.
STOCKHOLM -- Germany s Harald zur Hausen and French researchers Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for discovering the AIDS virus and the role of viruses in cervical cancer. Ms. Barre-Sinoussi and Mr. Montagnier were cited for their discovery of human immunodefici
NEW YORK - Frank Carter was once a globe-trotting professional dancer; his world is smaller now. He battles multiple health problems, walks with a cane and rarely leaves his compact Manhattan apartment. As an 86-year-old gay man, with no family nearby and many acquaintances long since dead, he d seem a likely prospect
SEATTLE - The state Health Department on Thursday defined a two-month supply of medical marijuana as 24 ounces of usable pot and up to 15 plants, a limit designed to end a decade of confusion over how much patients are allowed to have. But patient advocates criticized the limit as arbitrary and insufficient, saying it
NEW YORK - Protesters seeking more aid for people suffering from HIV/AIDS have briefly interrupted Gov. David Paterson s meeting with legislative leaders unveiling dire economic news. The protesters disrupted the meeting early with chants of We want a meeting! Paterson smiled from the panel, unable to see what the prot
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. - If Michigan voters approve a medical-marijuana ballot initiative next month, the state will enter a minefield of unintended consequences, according to a newly formed group opposing the measure. Citizens Protecting Michigan s Kids made its debut Thursday with a morning press conference at a hospital
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa - A Plainfield man has been charged with allegedly exposing another person to the virus that causes AIDS. Thirty-four-year-old Nick Rhoades is charged with criminal transmission of HIV. He was arrested on Monday at University Hospitals in Iowa City. Police say Rhoades met a Cedar Falls man online and
NEW YORK - Four NYPD police officers who contracted the HIV virus while on duty have been granted disability pensions. The cases were disclosed as part of a lawsuit filed by a retired female officer who says she too was infected on the job and wants a tax-free pension. Called Jane Doe in Brooklyn Federal Court, she all
MEXICO CITY - Missing in Mexico: One truck carrying 5,000 condoms, 800 HIV tests and a 23-foot (7 meter) inflatable prophylactic. The coordinator of an HIV/AIDS awareness tour, Polo Gomez, said Wednesday that the Condomovil was parked in front of a friend s house in Mexico City when it disappeared Sunday evening. He be
NEW YORK: The AIDS virus has been circulating among people for about 100 years, decades longer than scientists had thought, a new study suggests. Genetic analysis pushes the estimated origin of HIV back to between 1884 and 1924, with a more focused estimate at 1908. Previously, scientists had estimated the origin at ar
LOS ANGELES (AP) - On a massive sound stage at Hollywood s Raleigh Studios, a woman is dying of ovarian cancer. One doctor wants to treat her traditionally, by removing her uterus and ovaries. Another wants the patient to participate in a clinical trail that might preserve her ability to have children, but could have s
DYERSVILLE, Iowa - A man who filed a lawsuit claiming he was fired from his job at a Dyersville McDonald s because he was gay and has HIV has dropped the case. Daniel Carver of Epworth dropped the lawsuit last week. Court records did not indicate whether a settlement was reached in the case. All I can tell you is that
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA -- Solomon Henderson inherited just three things from his birth parents, who left him at an Ethiopian orphanage when he was a year old: a picture of Jesus, a plastic crucifix and HIV. As one of about 14,000 Ethiopian children born with the virus every year, Solomon s prospects for survival, much l
HARTFORD, Conn. - Paul Newman broached the subject of his philanthropic legacy several years ago while fishing with friends Robert Forrester and David Horvitz off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Even though he was a Hollywood icon - a 10-time Academy Award nominee known for his performances in such classic films as
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa s new president went on television Sunday seeking to calm the nation after a week of political drama, saying the government is pressing ahead to combat poverty, unemployment and crime. Kgalema Motlanthe, 59, a mild-mannered former freedom fighter, was installed Thursday after f
CALIFORNIA, Md. - Christina Dawson s time in Peru and Malaysia , coupled with a desire to work abroad after college, filled her heart with the knowledge and her pen with the words to win an essay to become a youth ambassador. After winning a contest along with 19 other teenagers, the sout
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- AIDS activists on Friday celebrated the removal of South Africa s health minister, accused of causing countless unnecessary deaths by promoting nutritional supplements instead of conventional medicine for people with HIV. New President Kgalema Motlanthe, within hours of taking office Thursday
UNITED NATIONS - Bill Gates said Thursday the U.N. s goals to fight poverty have grabbed the world s attention - and the U.N. chief said the world has responded with more than $16 billion despite the current financial crisis. This has exceeded all our expectations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the end of a day
UNITED NATIONS - Malaria as a mass child killer would be virtually eliminated globally by 2015 under a plan backed by nearly $3 billion in pledges, officials said Thursday. With the number of malaria deaths approaching 1 million a year, most of them infants and toddlers, the infectious disease has become a scourge in r
NEW YORK - Bono battles the AIDS epidemic. Leonardo tries to make the world a greener place, and Martha has a soft spot for animals. For today s celebs, charity work is almost as much a part of the job as walking the red carpet. Famous names have become affiliated with preventing domestic violence, curing breast cancer
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - A mild-mannered anti-apartheid activist on Thursday became the third president of South Africa since the end of white rule, vowing to foster unity in a country shaken by a power feud between its past and future leaders. Kgalema Motlanthe is widely seen as a caretaker president until next year
BOSTON - The president of a medical device company was sentenced Wednesday to three years probation and fined $10,000 for plotting with Swiss-based Serono Laboratories to increase sales of an AIDS drug by manipulating a test for AIDS patients. Rudolph Liedtke, president of Michigan-based RJL Sciences, pleaded guilty to
BOSTON - The president of a medical device company has been sentenced to three years probation and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine for conspiring to promote sales of an AIDS drug by manipulating a test for AIDS patients. Rudolph Liedtke (LIT -kee), president of Michigan-based RJL Sciences, was sentenced Wednesday in Bost
TRENTON, N.J. - Drugmaker Pfizer Inc. is working with the founder of Nobel Peace Prize-winning Bangladeshi microlender Grameen Bank to improve health care delivery - and eventually boost sales of its drugs - in poor countries. The project will work with the bank s affiliated health care system, Grameen Health, which ru
WASHINGTON - An advocacy group is praising the District of Columbia for supporting needle exchanges in an effort to reduce the spread of AIDS. The D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice on Wednesday released its fourth report card since 2005 on efforts to slow Washington s AIDS epidemic. The city was graded in eleve
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the most overdue state budget in California history Tuesday, skipping the usual fanfare because he said the Legislature s efforts on the $144.5 billion spending plan were nothing to celebrate. Nearly a quarter of the way through its fiscal year, the state finally h
TRENTON, N.J. - Some residents of a northwestern New Jersey town received fliers last weekend that criticized the prospect of Democrat Barack Obama becoming the first black president. One national watchdog group said it may be the first distribution of racist fliers during the campaign. Roxbury Mayor Tim Smith said the
BEIJING: Agents who collect or supply blood that causes death or serious illness face stricter punishments starting Tuesday in an attempt by Chinese authorities to crack down on the illegal sale of blood. Those found guilty of collecting or supplying blood that causes at least five people to contract AIDS, hepatitis B,
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - South Africa s finance minister resigned along with most leading Cabinet members Tuesday but tried to reassure a shaken business community and stock market by saying he was willing to serve the country s new administration. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel was finance minister for 11 years and i
The following 25 fellows each will receive $500,000 over the next five years from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation: -Chimamanda Adichie, 31, fiction writer, Columbia, Md. Using events inspired by her native Nigeria , Adichie explores ethnic conflict in novels and stories. -Will Allen, 59, urban far
SAN FRANCISCO - A mentally ill parishioner has reached a settlement in his lawsuit against a San Francisco Eastern Orthodox church and an HIV-positive priest he accused of sexual abuse. The unnamed plaintiff s 2006 suit claims the Greek Orthodox Metropolis church turned a blind eye to the alleged misconduct of the Rev.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Under the cloud of a global financial crisis, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged the world s rich nations to spend $72 billion a year to help Africa achieve U.N. goals to fight poverty, improve health and ensure universal primary education. He told the opening of a high-level meeting on
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - South African President Thabo Mbeki told the nation Sunday that he had resigned, having lost a power struggle to a rival tainted by allegations of corruption but poised now to lead the country. In a somber but dignified speech focusing on the successes and shortcomings of his nine-year preside
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - President Thabo Mbeki bowed to heavy pressure from his own party to resign Saturday, tossed to the sidelines of the economic powerhouse he built up as punishment for allegedly abusing his power in trying to quash a popular rival. The swiftness of the ouster likely will stoke fears about the
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Affable populist Jacob Zuma could teach other politicians a thing or two about resiliency. The man in line to be South Africa s next president has a resume typical of the black activists who helped end apartheid - impoverished childhood, political awakening, guerrilla training, Robben Islan
WASHINGTON - Experts at an early August international AIDS conference in Mexico City were full of praise for the United States for having reversed a 15-year-old law banning HIV-positive people from entering the country. But nearly two months after President Bush signed that act into law, his administration has yet to t
WASHINGTON: A wave of consolidation that has reshaped the generic drug industry in recent years will continue, experts say, as companies like Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Mylan Inc. compete for new business in emerging global markets. This year already has seen a record level of buyouts with acquisitions valued a
GENEVA - The World Health Organization halved its estimate of the number of people who get malaria each year, saying Thursday that better measurement techniques had cut the number from 500 million people to 247 million. The U.N. agency, which issued the revised figure in its World Malaria Report 2008, said the new esti
GOSHEN, Ind. (Map, News) - Sixteen northern Indiana students who were pricked by blood-testing lancets by three eighth-grade classmates were tested Thursday for contagious diseases. The three Goshen Middle School students accused of jabbing their classmates face preliminary charges of battery and could face additional
BRASILIA, Brazil : Brazil s health minister says Latin America s biggest country will produce an inexpensive generic version of an AIDS drug made by Merck & Co. Jose Gomes Temporao said Wednesday the decision to produce efavirenz , a generic version of Stocrin, was taken because
LOS ANGELES - In the years leading up to his death in the locomotive of a commuter train, engineer Robert Sanchez s life was marked by personal tragedy, jail time, and concerns about his health and job security. His HIV-positive companion had committed suicide, he was concerned about his diabetes and he feared a brush
LOS ANGELES - Brad Pitt has donated $100,000 to fight California s November ballot initiative that would overturn the state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. It s the first time voters will be asked to ban same-sex marriage in a state where gay couples already have won the right to wed. Same-sex marr
TRENTON, N.J. - A blockbuster anemia drug made by a Johnson & Johnson company has been linked to the deaths of some patients in an experiment testing whether it could help stroke patients. J&J s Ortho Biotech unit said late Wednesday that it had learned of preliminary data from a study in which participants wer
UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concern Tuesday that the U.S. financial crisis will have a serious global impact, especially on rich donor nations that play key roles in fighting poverty. He urged a resumption of stalled world trade talks, which the U.N. sees as crucial to opening world ma
WASHINGTON - The government closed U.S. borders Tuesday to more than 30 generic drugs - including popular antibiotics and cholesterol medicines - made by India s biggest pharmaceutical company, citing poor quality in two of its factories. The Food and Drug Administration s move doesn t end U.S. sales by
GENEVA - Aid agencies on Monday welcomed the new power-sharing government in Zimbabwe as giving hope that they will be able to step up food deliveries to millions of people facing hunger and worse. The food situation in Zimbabwe has reached crisis point, said Matthew Cochrane of the international Red Cross. There are
NEW YORK -- Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are giving back to the country where their 3-year-old daughter Zahara was born. The couple have donated $2 million to help fight HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in Ethiopia , said the Global Health Committee, which announced the donation by the Jolie-Pitt Foundation. The organizat
WASHINGTON: World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned Friday that the international community must work harder in aiding so-called fragile states, home to about 20 percent of the world s population, or risk them becoming the safe havens for terrorists. Zoellick said such nations, which range from
UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Children s Fund said Friday the number of children who die before the age of five has declined by 27 percent over the last two decades, and the rate is expected to continue falling. According to new UNICEF figures, there were 68 deaths per 1,000 live births around the world in 2007 compared wi
KHARKIV, Ukraine - Queen sang to tens of thousands of Ukrainians in a charity concert meant to raise money and AIDS awareness in this ex-Soviet republic. Cheering fans packed the central square Friday in Ukraine s second-largest city, to listen to the legendary British rock band, whose lead vocalist Freddie Mercury die
Laboratory standards are based on a biosafety level assigned to specific infectious biological agents. Some agents are handled at different levels depending on the type of work being done and the concentration of the specimen. - Biosafety Level 1 (BSL-1): Well-characterized agents not known to consistently cause diseas
PIETERMARITZBURG, South Africa (AP) - A South African judge threw out fraud and corruption charges against ANC President Jacob Zuma on Friday, effectively clearing the way for the 66-year-old former freedom fighter to become the country s next president. Judge Chris Nicholson s ruling included biting criticism of prose
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - Since 1998, families in the U.S. have adopted an average of 2,576 children per year from Guatemala . In Cape Girardeau, eight families have adopted nine children - seven girls and two boys - from the Latin American country. Most of the families said they adopted from outside the U.S. for spiritual
WASHINGTON - Reggie Jackson spends much of his day inside a Winnebago, riding through the city s hard-scrabble neighborhoods to hand out clean syringes in exchange for dirty ones. We re saving lives, man, Jackson says. He s on a mission to protect drug addicts from HIV, which Jackson learned he had in 1990 after years
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa : The head of South Africa s governing party defended his right to criticize judges Tuesday, speaking to a friendly audience three days before a hearing in his corruption case. African National Congress President Jacob Zuma has been accused of undermining the judiciary in South Africa s fledg
SEATTLE - The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is looking for unorthodox, unproven ideas for fighting diseases like AIDS, malaria and pneumonia. The second round of the foundation s Grand Challenges Explorations grants will give $100,000 each to projects with potential. The ideas are welcomed from all kinds of scien
EASTON, Pa. - A 29-year-old eastern Pennsylvania woman who pretended to have AIDS to collect medical and welfare benefits has worked out a plea bargain. Cassey Jo Weierbach faces up to 17 years in prison when sentenced Nov. 3 in Northampton County Court. The Bethlehem woman pleaded no contest Monday to one count of fel
NORFOLK, Va. - Eastern Virginia Medical School is receiving a $100 million grant to develop a product to prevent the transmission of the virus that causes AIDS. The federal grant awarded by the U.S. Agency for International Development is the largest in the Norfolk school s history. Officials say the grant will further
An AIDS support group is set to march from Jackson to Oxford on Sept. 13 in a demonstration it hopes will lead to a national strategy to combat the spread of the disease. The Campaign to End AIDS group will begin the march in Jackson and end it in Oxford on Sept 23. The group says it wants to urge the federal governmen
CARACAS, Venezuela : Venezuelans have welcomed home newly crowned Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza, the fifth beauty queen from the country to win the title. The 22-year-old Mendoza said after arriving Saturday that her triumph is dedicated to the Venezuelans, who have always supported me, who have believed in me. She
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois Lottery had a record fiscal year 2008 with more than $2 billion in sales. The lottery reported in a statement last week that its $2.078 billion in sales is the most it has earned in its 34-year history. The figure is 2.8 percent more than fiscal year 2007 sales. Lottery officials say of
NEW YORK - They cheered, they cried and gave the show a standing ovation even before the first note was sung. Broadway said goodbye Sunday to Rent, 12 years and 5,124 performances after it first became a rock musical with a message for theatergoers of all ages. Like we did when we opened, we dedicate this performance t
EUGENE, Ore. - The medical marijuana group Compassion Center is trying to regroup after an internal power struggle that peaked when one board member removed patients medical files, sued to dissolve the organization and tried to start her own rival group. The center, founded in 2001, closed in July, leaving about 2,000
DYERSVILLE, Iowa - A former McDonald s employee filed a complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission alleging he was unlawfully fired because he s a gay man with HIV. Daniel Carver, 46, alleges that what began as a lack of promotions and fewer hours escalated to derogatory names, violence and death threats. Carver a
MBABANE, Swaziland - The Swazi king, bare-chested and wearing a traditional leopard skin loin cloth, celebrated his 40th birthday and his nation s 40th independence day in lavish style Saturday - hosting an extravaganza that contrasted sharply with the biting poverty of his subjects. King Mswati III toured the nati
Washington - The government on Friday began posting a list of prescription drugs under investigation for potential safety problems in an effort to better inform doctors and patients. The first list is a bare-bones compilation naming 20 medications and the potential issue for each. It provides no indication of how wides
STANTON, Mich. - A Crystal man is accused of having unprotected sex with two women without telling them he carries the virus that causes AIDS. Thirty-two-year-old Gerald Campbell Jr. is to be arraigned Thursday in Montcalm County Circuit Court. Campbell is being held in the county jail following a preliminary hearing t
ATLANTA - While Grady is the region s only Level 1 trauma center, it can no longer afford to be the only safety net hospital in metro Atlanta, the health system s new chief executive officer said on Friday. After a week on the job, Michael Young said the public hospital must attract more paying patients while continuin
UNITED NATIONS - In criticism aimed primarily at the United States , Japan and the European Union, a U.N. report said Thursday that rich nations haven t delivered on promises to help the world s poorest nations and must increase aid by $18 billion a year. The report also criticized the failure of rich and poor coun
MBABANE, Swaziland (AP) - Swaziland and its king are throwing a joint 40th birthday bash this weekend, but the mood is far from celebratory in this small southern African land of paupers and princes, mud huts and palaces. The government calls them the 40-40 festivities, marking King Mswati III s birthday and the annive
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Former Kansas City-area pharmacist Doug Albers has received five years probation for selling fake or misbranded medication. The sentence Wednesday came nearly one year after Albers admitted his involvement in an alleged conspiracy to sell $42 million in stolen, misbranded and bogus pharmaceutical dru
NEWARK, N.J. - One of New Jersey s best-known rock n rollers has teamed up with the state to provide affordable housing in the state s largest city. Jon Bon Jovi s Philadelphia Soul Charitable Foundation is providing $1 million toward construction of a 51-unit building that will cater to homeless people with special ne
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican John McCain, whose running mate disclosed that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, has opposed proposals to spend federal money on teen-pregnancy prevention programs and voted to require poor teen mothers to stay in school or lose their benefits. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin s announ
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Solomon Henderson inherited just three things from his birth parents, who left him at an Ethiopian orphanage when he was 1 year old: a picture of Jesus, a plastic crucifix and HIV. As one of some 14,000 Ethiopian children born with the virus every year, Solomon s prospects for survival - much le
HARARE, Zimbabwe - The advice of doctors to Zimbabweans is, don t get sick. If you do, don t count on hospitals - they re short of drugs and functioning equipment. As the economy collapses, the laboratory at a main 1,000-bed hospital has virtually shut down. X-ray materials, injectable antibiotics and anticonvulsants h
DETROIT - Dr. Herbert Smitherman nervously monitors the city s fluctuating unemployment rate and sinking economy. As one of about 750 Wayne State University Medical School physicians, he looks at the deluge of job cuts in Detroit s auto, manufacturing and other industries and sees even more people lining up for health
Fresno, CA (AP) -- Fourteen surgical patients at a Clovis hospital are being called back for tests because doctors may have used on them instruments that were not fully sterilized. Officials at Clovis Community Medical Center say the chance of infection or exposure to HIV or hepatitis is remote. The instruments were us
NEW YORK (AP) - New data show New York City residents are contracting the virus that causes AIDS at three times the national rate. The city health department said Wednesday that almost 4,800 New Yorkers were infected with HIV in 2006. That number represents 72 of every 100,000 residents, compared to a national rate of
BEIJING, China (AP) -- A Chinese human rights activist detained by police during the Olympic Games said Tuesday that she had returned to Beijing and that her dissident husband was being mistreated in prison. Zeng Jinyan was one of several activists taken away during the games as part of Beijing s efforts to clear the c
ATLANTA - Police in Atlanta say a man who bit an officer s arm and said he has HIV has tested positive for the disease. Police spokesman Ron Campbell says 41-year-old Ross Deadwyler told the officer he was HIV positive after biting him early Saturday. Campbell would not give the officer s name but says he s at home tak
HELSINKI, Finland : A Finnish court has sentenced a man to 10 years in prison for infecting five women with the AIDS virus and having unprotected sex with 14 others although he knew he was infected. The court says it found Aki Hakkarainen guilty of five counts of aggravated assault and 14 counts of attempted aggravated
ALBANY, N.Y. -- The New York state Medicaid director is recommending that New York City residents with HIV/AIDS and receiving Medicaid benefits should be required to use health maintenance organizations. The New York Department of Health is expected to issue a final decision in the next few weeks on Medicaid Director D
Reggie Jackson spends much of his day inside a Winnebago, riding through the District s hardscrabble neighborhoods to hand out clean syringes in exchange for dirty ones. Mr. Jackson is on a mission to protect drug addicts from HIV, for which he tested positive in 1990 after sharing needles to shoot heroin and crack coc
Peebles, Scotland -- Robert Mackie trembles with rage when he describes how he and his wife were kept in the dark about his HIV infection - and how doctors published his medical data in journals years before they gave him the devastating news. Mackie is one of about 5,700 British hemophiliacs who received tainted blood
BEIJING, China (AP) - The United States is concerned about two prominent Chinese human rights activists who went missing just before and during the Beijing Olympics, an embassy spokeswoman said Friday. In a meeting this week with Foreign Ministry officials, U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt brought up the cases of Hua Hui
SOUTH BEND, Ind. - At least 10 people have received automated calls purportedly from the St. Joseph County Health Department telling them they might have contracted a sexually transmitted disease. The health agency says the messages are a hoax and that it would never leave personal medical information on an answering m
LANSING, Mich. - State election officials late Tuesday released their proposed 100-word statements of purpose for three ballot proposals targeting the November election. The Board of State Canvassers could vote on the ballot wording Thursday, while deciding whether the issues qualify for the ballot. The proposed wordin
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- A cell phone ring tone that sings Condom, condom! has been launched to promote safe sex in India, where condoms carry a strong social stigma and HIV and AIDS are growing problems, health experts said Tuesday. The a cappella ring tone features a professional singer chanting the word condom more
RABUOR, Kenya - Loyce Mbewa-Ong udi was late. Family and friends milled around her parents house in the green hills overlooking Lake Victoria, waiting for the daughter from America to return home. At last the taxi bounced over the ruts and made a sharp turn into the compound of small brick and stucco houses. Loyce spra
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Two intensive-care patients contracted HIV after receiving blood transfusions at public hospitals in the Argentine province of Cordoba, a newspaper reported Friday. An unidentified donor gave blood at a Cordoba city hospital in December, testing negative for HIV, Health Minister Oscar Go
FORT WORTH, Texas - A former priest who was HIV positive and accused of sexually abusing minors in Texas and Rhode Island has died, the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth announced Wednesday. Philip Anthony Magaldi died Tuesday in a North Texas health care facility. Earlier this year, the 72-year-old Magaldi told officials
Some of the countries that will receive aid under a $214 million campaign by the World Food Program to ease the effects of high food and oil prices in 16 trouble spots: - ETHIOPIA: Increased feeding programs for malnourished children and other assistance for nation where more than 10 million people affected by severe d
BELLE GLADE, Fla. - Surrounded by a sea of sugarcane, this poverty-ravaged town on the southeastern edge of Lake Okeechobee has long been one of the country s most fertile football areas. It s a place where running backs of the future are said to gain speed chasing rabbits, where college coaches begin recruiting trips
SAN FRANCISCO - Gilead Sciences Inc. prepared to expand its reach further beyond AIDS drugs Monday after federal regulators approved the biotech drug maker s signature anti-HIV therapy as a hepatitis B treatment. Gilead announced that the Food and Drug Administration is joining regulators in Europe,
SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit against Gilead Sciences Inc. claiming the biotech drug maker cost investors money by improperly marketing a top-selling AIDS drug. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday reversed a lower court s decision dismissing the suit filed by disgruntled s
MEXICO CITY - The 17th International AIDS Conference ended here Friday with a call to reverse laws that criminalize and stigmatize groups at risk for HIV. Criminalization is a poor tool for regulating HIV infection and transmission, Edwin Cameron, a justice of the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa
KHARTOUM, Sudan : Poverty and the movement of war-displaced populations have driven the number of HIV/AIDS infections higher in Sudan, though a lack of data is preventing health officials from getting a full picture of the virus spread, experts said Sunday. Sudanese and United Nations AIDS experts told reporters in the
MUMBAI, India (AP) -- An Indian couple poisoned their three young children, then hung themselves from a ceiling fan because they were depressed about being HIV-positive, police said Saturday. A relative found the bodies of Ishwar Thevar, 39, a film distributor, and his wife as well as their two sons and a daughter in a
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Jorge Saavedra s moment of truth came in the middle of an impassioned speech to 5,000 people about the paltry amount of money being spent to stop the spread of AIDS among gay men. The Mexican federal official paused, then said publicly for the first time that he was gay. As he held up a
ATLANTA (AP) -- Could the AIDS virus be stopped with gift cards? Desperate for a way to stop the escalating spread of HIV among young gay men, public health officials are looking to novel strategies, such as enlisting local gay opinion leaders to urge their peers to practice safe sex. Promising signs from such a projec
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly hiking the prices of specialty medications by 100 percent or more -- sometimes much more -- attracting scrutiny from lawmakers who have pledged to lower health care costs. Drug prices have historically outpaced those of other consumer goods, with the average
CARSON CITY, CA (AP) -- Louis Ling has been selected as executive director of the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners, replacing Tony Clark who s retiring later this year from the panel which has been under scrutiny for its handling of a hepatitis C crisis. Ling, 46, currently legal counsel for the state Board of Pharmac
MEXICO CITY: Former President Bill Clinton said Monday that his foundation is going to focus its efforts on fighting AIDS in the United States , especially among blacks. Speaking at an AIDS conference in Mexico City, Clinton said he was spurred to action after the U.S. Center for Disease Control reported that 40 percen
A Mexican soldier has won his job back six years after he was kicked out of the military for testing HIV positive. The soldier from western Mexican state of Jalisco was removed from his job after 20 years of service. But a federal court has ruled in his favor. The Center for Justice, Peace and Development helped fight
MEXICO CITY (AP) - AIDS experts praised the United States on Tuesday for ending its two-decade ban on HIV-positive people entering the country, and said travel restrictions by dozens of other countries are hurting efforts to control the epidemic. U.S. President George W. Bush signed legislation last week repealing a ru
MEXICO CITY: Keren Dunaway was 5 when her parents used drawings to explain to her that they both had the HIV virus ? and so did she. Now the 12-year-old is one of the most prominent AIDS activists in Latin America and a rarity in a region where few children are willing to break the silence and tell their classmates the
DAKAR, Senegal : Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said Sunday that keeping HIV-infected children in the developing world well-fed amid the pressures of skyrocketing global food and fuel prices will be crucial to fending off the deadly virus. Speaking on the final day of a brief, four-nation Africa tour that began las
SAN FRANCISCO - When Abbott Laboratories Inc. hiked up the price of a popular AIDS drug by 400 percent in 2003, executives prepared for the inevitable public relations hit, but assured themselves the backlash would be brief. Nearly five years later, the accusations against Abbott are still flying. The North Chicago
MEXICO CITY - Olga Arellano sobs as she recalls how her HIV-positive daughter spent two months succumbing to infections in a U.S. migrant detention center, complaining that she didn t see a doctor or get the right medicine. Fellow inmates also begged for help after Victoria Arellano started vomiting blood in their hold
DAKAR, Senegal - Former President Clinton said Sunday that keeping HIV-infected children in the developing world well-fed amid the pressures of skyrocketing global food and fuel prices will be crucial to fending off the deadly virus. Speaking on the final day of a four-nation Africa tour that began last week, Clinton s
CHICAGO - Presidential Democratic hopeful Barack Obama says he supports the development of a national AIDS strategy to combat the spread of HIV. His comments come on the heels of new national data indicating the number of HIV infections may be 40 percent higher than previously reported. Obama says in a statement releas
CHICAGO - A hormone better known for illicit use among athletes can help treat troublesome complications from the AIDS virus, but with potentially risky side effects, a small study found. Low-dose injections of human growth hormone, HGH, reduced fat deposits around internal abdominal organs by about 10 percent. In add
ATLANTA, (AP) -- The number of Americans infected by the AIDS virus each year is much higher than the government has been estimating, U.S. health officials reported, acknowledging that their numbers have understated the level of the epidemic. The country had roughly 56,300 new HIV infections in 2006 - about a 40 percen
Keren Dunaway was 5 when her parents used drawings to explain to her that they both had the HIV virus - and so did she. Now the 12-year-old is one of the most prominent AIDS activists in Latin America and a rarity in a region where few children are willing to break the silence and tell their classmates they have HIV fo
MEXICO CITY - Annie Lennox says complacency threatens to slow the fight against AIDS. The singer-songwriter is participating in the international AIDS conference in Mexico City this week as an ambassador for Oxfam. On Saturday, she urged artists, musicians, filmmakers and women to keep the issue at the forefront. She s
NEW YORK (AP) -- Biotechnology company Gilead Sciences Inc. said Friday it plans to begin selling its HIV drug Atripla in 12 countries including Russia , Mexico and Australia . Atripla is a daily HIV treatment that combines two Gilead drugs,
NEW DELHI (AP) -- Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., India s largest pharmaceutical company, said Friday that the World Health Organization had included another of its HIV-fighting drugs on its prequalification list. That brought to 18 the number of Ranbaxy antiretrovirals the WHO has approved as safe, effective and high quali
WASHINGTON - The global AIDS bill signed by President Bush on Wednesday sets a goal of treating more than the 2 million-patient target set in 2003, but how much more isn t clear. In signing the bill, President Bush said, With this funding, we will support treatment for at least 3 million people. However, the bill itsel
ELDORET, Kenya (AP) -- This time last year, Janet Kimani spent her days at school and her nights fighting with her little brothers over what to watch on the family s flickering TV set. Now, she sleeps all day and sells her skinny, 14-year-old body at night for $3 an hour. There are so many of us girls on the streets th
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - A novice rider has bicycled 350 miles from Jones Beach on Long Island to upstate Lake Placid to honor his late brother and raise money for AIDS research. Tom Monks wheeled into Lake Placid at noon Wednesday. The self-described average guy from Long Island told the Plattsburgh Press-Republican that t
SAN FRANCISCO - Drug company Abbott Laboratories Inc. agreed Wednesday to pay between $10 million and $27.5 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit filed by AIDS patients over the company s 400 percent price hike of a popular HIV drug. The ultimate payout depends on the resolution in an appeals court of three technical
WASHINGTON - President Bush signed legislation Wednesday that triples U.S. funding to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world. The five-year, $48 billion plan renews a program credited with saving millions of lives in Africa alone and is widely seen as one of the major achievements of the Bush presidency.
LAS VEGAS - A top Nevada health official told lawmakers Tuesday that new laws could streamline oversight and responses to a public health threat such as the hepatitis C outbreak that prompted a massive patient notification effort earlier this year. The only way to effect change is through standards and sanctions, said
PORTLAND, Ore. - Portland Mayor Tom Potter is having second thoughts about a trip to Zimbabwe , torn by political unrest. The mayor wants to go along on a trip planned by Portland residents and the nonprofit Portland-Mutare Sister City Association. Mayoral spokesman John Doussard says Potter wants to make sure everybod
LONDON: Fewer people are dying of AIDS, more patients are on HIV medication and the global AIDS epidemic is stable after peaking in the late 1990s. But the United Nations AIDS agency warned in its yearly report Tuesday that governments will need to continue setting aside millions of dollars for AIDS in the coming decad
BEIJING (AP) - Lu Jun, a campaigner for the rights of millions of Chinese with hepatitis B, seems an unlikely threat to the Beijing Olympics. But the popular Web site he runs was blocked in May. This month, police detained him for four hours when he returned to China from a hepatitis conference in Los Angeles. They wan
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran s president on Tuesday blamed the U.S. and other big powers for global ills such as nuclear proliferation and AIDS, and accused them of exploiting the U.N. for their own gain and the developing world s loss. But, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, time was on the poor countries side. The big
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Saturday he s eager to sign legislation that triples money to fight AIDS and other diseases around the world - an initiative that has won him praise from some of his harshest critics. In a rare case of cooperation between the White House and the Democratic-controlled Congress, lawmakers
VATICAN CITY (Map, News) - More than 50 dissident Catholic groups from around the world have written an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to lift the church s ban on birth control. Taking a half-page ad in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the groups said Friday that the Church s ban on artificial birth control
The Pennsylvania vote in the 303-115 roll call Thursday by which the House passed a bill that would triple the money to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world. A yes vote is a vote to pass the bill. Voting yes were 228 Democrats and 75 Republicans. Voting no were 1 Democrat and 114 Republicans. X den
The global AIDS bill Congress is preparing to send President Bush would: -Approve $48 billion over the next five years for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs in Africa and other afflicted areas of the world. It also would approve $2 billion for American Indian health, water and law enforcement programs. -Sti
WASHINGTON - The House voted Thursday to triple money to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world, giving new life and new punch to a program credited with saving or prolonging millions of lives in Africa alone. The 303-115 vote sends the global AIDS bill to President Bush for his signature. Bush, who firs
WASHINGTON - Congress is sending President Bush legislation that triples funds for a global AIDS relief program credited with saving millions of lives in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The House vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, which approves spending $48 billion over the next five years to fight AIDS,
TRENTON, N.J. - Like other major drugmakers, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY, News) and Eli Lilly & Co. saw benefits from the weak dollar in the second quarter, as sales grew at a faster rate overseas, but both also posted improvements in their U.S. businesses. The two, already are in the middle of restructuring
WASHINGTON - Scientists will have to take enormous intellectual leaps to develop an AIDS vaccine in the coming years, say researchers clearly frustrated by the failure of a once-promising shot. The researchers, including a top National Institutes of Health official, want new people with new ideas to step up and join th
BOSTON - A medical director for Serono Laboratories Inc. has pleaded guilty to promoting off-label use of computer devices in an effort to boost sales of an AIDS drug. U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan says Norma Muurahainen of Hull pleaded guilty Wednesday to three misdemeanor counts of causing the introduction into inte
WASHINGTON - Opponents of the don t ask, don t tell policy on gays in the military denounced it as cruel and unpatriotic Wednesday. Supporters insisted it was needed to maintain military morale, and raised the prospect of a rise of HIV infection among service members if gays are allowed to serve openly. The heated exch
BEIJING - The poet Woeser has long been a rarity - a Tibetan living in China who doesn t flinch from publicly criticizing the Chinese government. Now the activist is taking another unusual step. After being repeatedly denied a passport for three years, the Beijing resident has sued the government demanding to be given
SEATTLE - Across the street from the Space Needle and Paul Allen s tribute to Jimi Hendrix and rock music, Allen s old friend Bill Gates is building his headquarters for charitable giving, something sure to become another Seattle tourist attraction. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation broke ground Tuesday on its ne
COLUMBUS, Ga. - A woman diagnosed with HIV has been sentenced to three years in prison for spitting in another woman s face and proclaiming I hope you get AIDS. The woman, 43-year-old Audrey D. Lewis, pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated assault. Police said a 24-year-old went to lock the apartment door of a friend who
NEW YORK - Dayana Mendoza put a promising modeling career on hold to go for - and win - the Miss Universe crown. Being a model is just great. You show a brand, a beautiful dress, said the 22-year-old Venezuelan. But being Miss Venezuela and Miss Universe, you have the opportunity to go all over the world and have conta
SAN ANTONIO - Bill Day is a familiar face out under the San Antonio viaducts, where skinny addicts shoot drugs into their bruised arms. Day, 73, is the source of something many of them desperately need: clean syringes, which Day sees as his calling from God to prevent the spread of disease. Authorities see it different
LAKE FOREST - Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Barrack Obama of Illinois will make their first joint appearance of the presidential campaign next month at an Orange County mega church, its pastor said today. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and his Democratic counterpar
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Deep South s poor residents are plagued by HIV and the region isn t receiving its fair share of federal money for prevention and support, according to a report to be released Monday. The report by the Southern AIDS Coalition says federal funding for treatment, education and support services is co
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The photographs of the tortured body of an opposition official are blurry but chilling. Posted on the This is Zimbabwe blog, they show charred, lacerated limbs and blank eyes staring out from the face of the official, Gift Mutsvungunu, frozen in a death grimace.
QUNU, South Africa - Songs, laughter, teasing and tender words marked Nelson Mandela s 90th birthday celebration Saturday as presidents, village elders and African royalty joined him for a festive luncheon on his rural homestead. The Nobel Peace Prize winner celebrated privately with his family in this rural southeaste
SAN ANTONIO - Bill Day, 73 and neatly dressed, doesn t look like he belongs out under the viaducts where skinny addicts shoot drugs into their bruised arms. But they know him, giving him a look here, a head nod there, as he drives by in his familiar van. Day is the source of something many of them desperately need: cle
WASHINGTON - Plans for a large-scale trial of a potential AIDS vaccine are being dropped in favor of a smaller, more focused study, the National Institutes of Health said Thursday. The trial of the vaccine, developed by the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, had been pl
SEATTLE - The Seattle police department agreed Thursday to return files on more than 500 medical marijuana patients to the headquarters of a patient support group, two days after seizing them during a search. Prosecutors said no charges will be filed. Douglas Hiatt, an attorney representing activist Martin Martinez, wh
PEORIA, Ill. - Golf and beaches are nice, but Dr. Bill Edwards has discovered a new type of vacation. After previously never doing medical missions, the pediatric specialist at Children s Hospital of Illinois recently completed his sixth mission trip to Haiti in two years. I m hooked, he said. As a physician, Edwa
NEW YORK - Former President Clinton s foundation has signed pricing agreements with several suppliers involved in making a malaria-fighting drug in an effort to stabilize the medication s fluctuating costs and ensure more dependable availability. The foundation described the agreements to The Associated Press ahead of
WASHINGTON - A nonprofit organization that provides meals to homebound HIV-AIDS and cancer patients in the Washington region has come under fire for the generous compensation paid to its longtime executive director. Craig Shniderman was paid $357,000 in salary and benefits last year as head of Food & Friends, and h
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Wednesday to triple spending for a much-acclaimed program that has treated and protected millions in Africa and elsewhere from the scourges of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. The 80-16 vote committed the United States to spending up to $48 billion over the next five years for the most ambi
The 80-16 roll call by which the Senate on Wednesday approved spending $48 billion over the next five years to treat and prevent the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa and elsewhere around the world. On this vote, a yes vote was a vote in favor of the bill and a no vote was a vote against it. Voting
The Senate on Wednesday diverted $2 billion from a $50 billion global AIDS bill to improve the lives of American Indians. Senators mainly from the West successfully argued on the need to carve out a small portion of the five-year AIDS spending bill for Indian programs, saying Congress shouldn t forget a humanitarian cr
LANSING, Mich. - Michigan Technological University researchers are teaming with a Marquette company to help make an upgraded compact and wireless wearable video system that could be used by the military. Saginaw Valley State University researchers are working to make biodegradable plastics out of corncobs, sugar beet p
MONTPELIER, Vt.: Ben & Jerry s has done it again: Hoping to honor rocker Elton John before his first-ever Vermont performance, Vermont s crazy-cool confectioner has whipped up a flavor just for him - Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road. The limited-batch ice cream, made from an outrageous symphony of decadent chocolate ice
WASHINGTON - A two-decade ban on people with HIV visiting or immigrating to the United States may end soon through a Senate bill aimed at fighting AIDS and other diseases in Africa and other poor areas of the world. The U.S. is one of a dozen countries - including Sudan ,
MEXICO CITY: Human rights activists say police abuses and official policies are aggravating the AIDS epidemic. About 400 organizations say police in several nations use anti-prostitution laws to routinely extort sexual favors from sex workers. They also say officers confiscate condoms from AIDS outreach workers and the
WASHINGTON - A bill designed to combat AIDS globally is expected to include $2 billion for American Indians, according to South Dakota Sen. John Thune. Thune, a Republican, and other senators pushing for the Indian money as part of the $50 billion AIDS bill made a deal with Democratic leaders late Tuesday. The agreemen
AUSTIN - School officials in Austin aren t gonna pay for this year s Rent. Concerned by the content in the smash pop-rock musical, the Austin Independent School District halted $10,000 in planned assistance for what is expected to be the first licensed high school production of Rent in Texas. The school version of the
WASHINGTON: The Senate voted Friday with a strong show of bipartisanship to take up a stalled global AIDS bill that would vastly expand a President Bush-backed program that has had marked success in combating AIDS in Africa and other affected areas of the world. The vote was 65-3 to begin debate next week on the legisl
MASERU, Lesotho - Prince Harry would like to spend more time helping children in Africa. Britain s royal soldier-humanitarian is in the impoverished African kingdom of Lesotho this week to work with Sentebale - the charity he and Lesotho s Prince Seeiso founded in the memory of Harry s late mother, Princess Diana.
WASHINGTON - Some fights of the 110th Congress have lost their oomph in the waning months before the November elections, with both parties content to run out the clock on messy matters like the war in Iraq , spending bills and various disputes with the White House. Democrats dropped any pretense of trying to addres
BEIJING - Lu Jun, a campaigner for the rights of millions of Chinese with hepatitis B, seems an unlikely threat to the Beijing Olympics. But the popular Web site he runs was blocked in May. This month, police detained him for four hours when he returned to China from a hepatitis conference in Los Angeles. They wanted t
WASHINGTON - The Washington region s largest provider of HIV-AIDS services is selling its administrative offices. The Whitman-Walker Clinic has agreed to sell the property at 14th and S streets in northwest Washington to developer JBG for $8 million. Officials say the deal will allow the organization to eliminate debt
CLEVELAND - The rate of syphilis is surging in Ohio s most populous county. The Cleveland and Cuyahoga (keye-uh-HOH -guh) County health agencies said Tuesday that 52 people were diagnosed with the sexually transmitted disease in the nine-month period that ended in March. That s double the 26 cases that were reported fr
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A longtime North Carolina state employee has chosen to retire instead of lowering flags to honor former Sen. Jesse Helms, saying in an e-mail that the late conservative had a doctrine of negativity, hate and prejudice. U.S. and state flags flew at half-staff on Monday and Tuesday following an order
BUTHA-BUTHE, Lesotho : Prince Harry worked up a sweat Tuesday as he carted wheelbarrows of wet cement, filled a ditch and hammered nails. The young royal was helping refurbish a school for mentally and physically disabled children under the auspices of a charity he founded in the impoverished African kingdom of Lesotho
Tattoo artists want safer practices to limit spread of hepatitis and other diseases in Hawaii HONOLULU (AP) -- Hawaii tattoo artists and body piercers are seeking stronger laws to reduce the risk of spreading hepatitis or HIV through dirty needles. They met with lawmakers Monday to discuss updating the 27-year-old lice
RUSUTSU, Japan : An aid group founded by U2 frontman Bono calculates that the Group of Eight top industrialized nations has delivered only $3 billion of the additional $25 billion promised for Africa for everything from AIDS drugs to training peacekeepers. Now the Africans and their allies want a new system to make sur
RUSUTSU, Japan : Top industrialized countries have been in a generous mood when hosting African countries at recent annual summits, pledging billions of dollars for everything from AIDS drugs and tuberculosis treatment to training peacekeepers. But the Africans and their allies say they haven t been keeping their promi
TOYAKO, Japan - President Bush and new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stood united Monday on issues like Iran and North Korea . But for all their handshakes and smiles, it is clear that thorny issues like missile defense are in a holding pattern until a new
RUSUTSU, Japan - Aid for Africa - and whether enough was coming from the world s major economic powers - was in the spotlight Monday as the Group of Eight nations met with seven African leaders at its annual summit. Activists have accused some G-8 countries, particularly France ,
BARCELONA, Spain - Doctors are getting ready to introduce a cheap in vitro fertilization procedure across Africa, where women are sometimes ostracized as witches or social outcasts if they cannot have children. Millions of dollars go into family planning projects and condom distribution to prevent pregnancies in Africa
WASHINGTON - Democrats bent on showing they can govern and Republicans anxious about a sour re-election climate are pushing a pared-down summer agenda in Congress. Lawmakers want to try to save homeowners from foreclosure, avert Medicare cuts and give the government power to spy on suspected terrorists. Gasoline prices
LOS ANGELES - Magic Johnson s normally camera-shy wife Cookie is emerging as a spokeswoman to urge black women to get tested for HIV. Cookie Johnson, who was two months pregnant when her husband tested positive for HIV in 1991, is appearing with the former LA Lakers star in a five-year, $60 million public service campa
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Taking an HIV test in the pulpit Sunday morning was itself simple. At Spruce Street Baptist Church, one of Nashville s oldest and most established predominantly African-American congregations, a public health worker opened the test kit and handed the swab it contained to the Rev. Raymond Bowman.
WILMINGTON, N.C.: At Fourth of July parades and barbecues around the Tar Heel state, Jesse Helms supporters recalled this father of the conservative movement as the man who stood up for traditional values and the defeat of communism but still had time to help his constituents. I just remember him not taking junk from a
ASPEN, Colo. - Former President Bill Clinton avoided partisan politics during an appearance Saturday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, focusing instead on world issues ranging from climate change to food security and AIDS. In an hour-long conversation with his former White House aide Jane Wales, now a vice president at the
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - When residents of a tiny Kenyan village sold their chickens and cattle to buy Milton Ochieng s $900 plane ticket to Dartmouth College, they told him they wanted something in return. Eight years later, he s a Vanderbilt University Medical School graduate preparing for his residency. In his home villag
RALEIGH, N.C.: When telling stories about Jesse Helms after his death on the Fourth of July, the politician who took his place in Congress recalled how the iconic North Carolina senator liked to invite pages to sit down and chat over ice cream. Can you imagine how excited these young people would be, sitting and having
WASHINGTON: Compromise, hell! Jesse Helms screamed in a 1959 editorial that captured what would become the legacy of his Senate career and his place in the conservative movement. Jesse Helms mostly was a polarizer, not a compromiser. He would rather win elections by a razor s edge than change his conservative positions
Some quotes of Jesse Helms, who died on the Fourth of July at age 86: I m so old-fashioned I believe in horse whipping. - During a debate in 1991 on an AIDS-related amendment. Well, there is no joy in Mudville tonight. The mighty ultraliberal establishment, and the liberal politicians and editors and commentators and c
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. - A Huntington Beach police officer received a settlement from the city that could top $2 million to drop a lawsuit that alleged his peers repeatedly harassed him because he is gay. Adam Bereki received a $150,000 lump payment and will get a $4,000 monthly disability payment for life, according
CHICAGO - Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans that would expand President Bush s program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and - in a move sure to cause controversy - support their ability to hire and fire based on faith. Obama
GENEVA - A new test to quickly diagnose drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis will be rolled out in four African countries this year, the World Health Organization said Monday. The DNA-based test will cut the time it takes to detect multi-drug resistant TB from 2-4 months to a matter of hours, the director of WHO s tube
NEW DELHI: Men wore sparkling saris, women wore rainbow boas and hundreds of people chanted for gay rights in three Indian cities Sunday in the largest display of gay pride in the deeply conservative country where homosexual acts are illegal. Gay rights supporters took to the streets of Calcutta, Bangalore and New Delh
LA CROSSE, Wis. - An Iowa man who drove his minivan into Franciscan Skemp Clinic two years ago and barricaded himself in the building has been sentenced to three years on probation. Court records say 52-year-old Geoffrey Fitzgerald of Dubuque, Iowa, was in a rage at the time because of his claim that a doctor at the cl
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Saturday that religious charities, partly financed with federal money, have helped reduce homelessness, found jobs for former inmates and helped combat malaria and HIV/AIDS overseas. Bush used his weekly radio address to trumpet the remarkable difference these groups have made over the
NEW YORK: It was not actress Teri Hatcher who made a big impression on schoolchildren in Nairobi, Kenya . It was her 10-year-old daughter, Emerson Rose. Hatcher and Emerson visited a boarding school where the students hit it off with the California girl. They loved my daughter, Hatcher, one of the stars of ABC s Desp
NEW YORK (AP) -- Increasing efforts by U.S. cities such as New York to expand HIV testing will boost Gilead Sciences bottomline, since more than 80 percent of the nation s newly diagnosed HIV patients begin treatment with either the company s Truvada or Atripla combination pills. Foster City, Calif.-based Gilead ge
LONDON - watch this video Queen, Leona Lewis and Amy Winehouse were among the performers due to serenade Nelson Mandela at a concert Friday honoring the South African statesman s 90th birthday. Winehouse, whose participation was in doubt when she was hospitalized last week after fainting, is reported to have rehearsed
GENEVA: The Red Cross federation said Thursday that the problem of HIV is often ignored in disaster relief work, exposing patients and other disaster victims to unnecessary risks. Relief workers should do more to prevent unsafe blood donations, protect women and children from rape, and minimize the disruption to HIV tr
NEW YORK - Health officials are trying to persuade doctors to offer HIV tests to nearly every patient in a New York City community hit harder than most by AIDS. Under a new program announced Thursday, officials have set an ambitious goal of testing a quarter million adults in the Bronx, one of five boroughs that make u
ST. LOUIS - Pediatrician Ericka Hayes rarely sees new cases of young people infected with HIV at birth. But hardly a month passes when her clinic at St. Louis Children s Hospital doesn t take on a patient that has acquired the disease through unprotected sex. Children s next month will become by its account the nation
LONDON - Nelson Mandela said Wednesday there had been a tragic failure of leadership in Zimbabwe in his first public comments about the country s political crisis. In carefully worded comments at London dinner, Mandela said: We watch with sadness the continuing tragedy in Darfur. Nearer to home we had seen the outbreak
WASHINGTON - Senate negotiators said Wednesday they had reached a tentative agreement on a key obstacle to one of the most ambitious federal health initiatives ever, a $50 billion act to combat AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa and other countries hard-hit by those diseases. The agreement sets the stage for the
NEW YORK - watch this video Jerry Springer and Melanie Brown will co-host the 2008 Miss Universe pageant, which will air live from Nha Trang, Vietnam , on July 13. Springer, 64, is host of NBC s America s Got Talent, and Brown, 33, is a special events correspondent for Access Hollywood. (Brown is also known as Mel B o
RICHMOND, Va. - Facilities throughout Virginia are offering free or discounted HIV testing on Friday in observance of National HIV Testing Day. The Virginia Department of Health says the state ranked tenth in 2005 for the most annually reported cases of human immunodeficiency virus in the U.S. HIV is the virus that att
TAMPA, Fla. -- A mentally ill homeless man will serve 57 months in federal prison for threats he made against President Bush. Timothy Wade Pinkston threatened in August to go to Washington and shoot Bush. At the time, the 48-year-old was committed to a hospital psychiatric unit. Court records say he repeated the threat
BEIJING - China plans to crack down on illegal drugs in Beijing and other cities that will host Olympic events, a top police official said Wednesday. Authorities will target drug use at nightclubs and other entertainment venues, as well as smugglers supplying major cities, said Yang Fengrui, director of the Bureau of N
JAKARTA, Indonesia - About 1,000 Indonesian protesters angered by a student demonstrator s death after his arrest burned tires and hurled stones at police guarding the Parliament on Tuesday, witnesses said. Participants in the demonstration in Jakarta also demanded that the government revoke a 30 percent fuel price inc
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia : Cindy McCain, wife of U.S. Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting Sen. John McCain, visited the Cambodian capital s garbage dump Monday and met with impoverished children who scavenge there. McCain visited the sprawling Stung Meanchey dump, a depository for the refuse of Phnom Penh s 1.5 mill
LONDON - Nelson Mandela is in London for a week of events to celebrate his 90th birthday. The former South African president s plane landed at Heathrow Airport Monday morning. He is due to attend an outdoor concert in his honor in Hyde Park on Friday. Performers include Queen, Annie Lennox, Leona Lewis and the Soweto G
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia : A new AIDS threat is rising in India s numerous call centers, where young staff are increasingly having unprotected sex with multiple partners in affairs developed during night shifts, a top AIDS expert has warned. While India has made great strides in bringing down its HIV infection rate, the
Doctors have long suspected that people with herpes are more likely to catch HIV. So they thought that by treating herpes, they could also cut a person s HIV risk. But a new study that tested this strategy found the assumption may have been wrong. It s a significant, disappointing finding, Francis Ndowa, coordinator of
DOVER - The Delaware House of Representatives has passed legislation that would help rape victims get health information about their assailants. Advertisement The bill sponsored by Rep. Debbie Hudson, would require that the defendant in a rape case take an HIV test if the victim requests it. The Greenville Republican s
WASHINGTON (AP) - At the White House on Thursday, President Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two people behind a triumph of his administration, a program to fight the global AIDS pandemic. Down the street on Capitol Hill, a few Republican senators continued to block what would be a major expansion of t
SAN DIEGO - The Kansas Bioscience Authority is providing $3.7 million for research on cancer, HIV and osteoporosis as well as increased development of new medicines. The state-created agency announced the investments at a convention in San Diego on Wednesday, saying it hopes to highlight the existing capacity for biosc
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa s President Thabo Mbeki was making a previously unannounced trip to Zimbabwe on Wednesday as concern mounts about political violence there. Also Wednesday, the U.N. human rights chief said Zimbabwe had expelled one of her staff members. Mbeki s foreign affairs ministry issu
PARIS - Bono, Bob Geldof and other celebrities pressed the world s wealthiest countries Wednesday to come through with more pledged financial aid for Africa. The Irish rock stars-turned-activists presented a new report that found the Group of Eight countries have collectively donated a fraction of the $22 billion in ex
FAIRBANKS - Alaska continues to rank high nationally in the rate of chlamydia cases but relatively low in the most serious sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, according to reports by the state Division of Public Health. The 2006 figures were compiled by the Centers for Disease Control. Alaska ranked first or second in
EDITOR S NOTE - The prostitutes in this story are not named to protect them. Girls and women in Afghanistan accused of prostitution or adultery can be killed by their families or imprisoned. KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The girl was 11 when she was molested by a man with no legs. The man paid her US$5. And that was ho
WASHINGTON -- Nguyen Quoc Khanh fell ill last year with tuberculosis at his home in Vietnam and soon discovered he had HIV. By then he was too weak to work and support his family. Khanh had been a longtime heroin user and likely contracted the virus that causes AIDS through shared needles. The illness put Khanh, his wi
WASHINGTON - City officials say hundreds of AIDS-related deaths from 2000 to 2005 went unreported because of an inadequate tracking system. Of the 2,460 deaths from AIDS-related illnesses during that period, 1,337 had not been reported. That s according to a study from the D.C. Department of Health and the federal Cent
BONN, Germany - A U.N. conference on a new climate change agreement adjourned Friday claiming modest progress, but with delegates concerned that the slow pace posed the risk of failing to complete an accord on time. The end of the meeting coincided with a new report by a Dutch environmental monitor that China s emissio
LEROME, South Africa : The woman with the microphone and brightly colored knit tam is speaking in Nelson Mandela s name - it s emblazoned across her T-shirt - as she presses villagers in northwestern South Africa to be honest about AIDS. A length of cloth more commonly seen wrapped around rural women s hips is spread o
Here is a text of President Bush s speech Friday to a meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, as provided by the White House: PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you very much. Mr. Secretary General, thank you for your hospitality. It s good to see you again. I remember our days together in the
ROME - Pope Benedict XVI took President Bush on a rare stroll through the lush grounds of the Vatican Gardens on Friday, stopping at a grotto where the pontiff prays daily. Your eminence, you re looking good, Bush told the pope shortly after arriving at the Vatican, launching the leaders third visit together. Normall
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - The state insurance department has ordered two southwest Missouri men and the companies to which they re connected to pay a total of $1.2 million for a health insurance scheme. The state accuses Kevin W. Louderback of Springfield and his employee, Justin R. Barnes of Battlefield, of fraudulently e
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - As the political situation worsened in Zimbabwe , South Africa s president rejected criticism he has mishandled the crisis and said Thursday his government would not be a pawn for the West. In a speech at the end of a two-day parliamentary debate on his presidency, Thabo Mbeki - lead negotiato
WASHINGTON - A leading AIDS expert, a groundbreaking pediatric neurosurgeon and a lawmaker who was the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress are among this year s recipients of the nation s highest civilian award. President Bush on Wednesday announced the recipients of this year s Presidential Medal of Freedom;
GENEVA (AP) - The heads of key organizations involved in public health called on leading industrialized countries Monday to invest more in fighting disease. The G-8 leaders should step up long-term efforts to combat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, polio and other health threats to build on progress they have made from pre
LOS ANGELES - In one photograph, a group of boys in possession of a much-used soccer ball mug comically for the camera, arms and legs going every which way. Another shot, another charmer, depicts a child turning an exuberant handspring for a circle of young admirers. But the picture titled Children Raising Children de
LOS ANGELES - A high-profile case in which a woman accuses her ex-husband of infecting her with the AIDS virus will go to trial in October, a judge has ordered. The one-year statute of limitations does not apply in the case, a Superior Court judge ruled Monday, because the woman trusted her spouse, who did not tell her
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Despite a stepped up global battle against AIDS, the numbers of people newly infected with HIV are far and away outpacing the numbers beginning antiretroviral drug treatments, U.N. officials said Monday. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, opening several days of U.N. debate on AIDS prevention, told wo
NEW YORK - A city Health Department study finds that more than a fourth of adult New Yorkers are infected with the virus that causes genital herpes . The study, released Monday, says about 26 percent of New York City adults have genital herpes, compared to about 19 percent nationwide. The department says genital he
WORCESTER, Mass. - State public health officials are launching a new campaign to encourage blacks to get tested for AIDS. The state Department of Public Health program is the first new AIDS testing campaign in four years and includes billboards and newspaper ads. Blacks in Massachusetts account for 6 percent of the pop
GENEVA - Aid agencies in Zimbabwe said Friday the government order for humanitarian groups to suspend work would cut off care and medicine to those living with AIDS. Aid groups and Western officials also said many in the impoverished African country will starve without food aid, amid allegations that President Robert M
HARARE, Zimbabwe - The opposition said Friday that its rallies had been banned indefinitely three weeks before the presidential runoff, while the U.S. ambassador accused President Robert Mugabe s regime of using food as a weapon to stay in power. U.S. Ambassador James McGee said the regime is distributing food mostly t
LUXEMBOURG: European Union nations said Thursday they had continued misgivings at U.S. plans that demand travelers personal health details before they are allowed into the country - but acknowledged they could do little to prevent it. EU nations were concerned at the information Europeans could be forced to reveal incl
DOVER, Del. - A bill strengthening HIV testing requirements for accused sex offenders could be headed for a vote in the state House after clearing a committee on Thursday. The bill, which amends an existing law, requires an accused sex offender to submit to HIV testing within 48 hours of arrest in response to a request
LANSING, Mich. - Michigan is continuing to see an increase in HIV cases among teens and young adults. The Department of Community Health said Thursday that a report including statistics for 2006 continued a recent trend of increased rates for those age groups. The department said rates tend to be up nationally as well.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - South Africa s health minister said Thursday that HIV infection rates among pregnant women declined for the second straight year and claimed it was proof of the success of government policies. South Africa has an estimated 5.4 million people infected with the virus, the highest total in the wo
UNITED NATIONS - Ashley Judd says she decided to lend her voice against human trafficking after she stumbled upon the issue while visiting brothels, slums, hospices and other clinics in 12 nations to promote public health. I know that the unheard are helped when they are heard. I know that compassionate listening helps
-- Vertex sells royalty stream from GlaxoSmithKline HIV drugs for $160 million CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Tuesday that it sold the rights to its royalty stream from two HIV drugs sold by GlaxoSmithKline PLC for $160 million. Vertex said it sold the royalty stream from Lexiva and
LONDON: In 2003, the World Health Organization began its ambitious 3 by 5 initiative to treat AIDS, promising to put 3 million infected people worldwide on antiretroviral drugs within two years. According to a report issued on Monday, they finally succeeded last year. Despite missing their deadline, officials were upbe
LONDON: The World Health Organization reached its goal of getting 3 million AIDS patients worldwide on drugs - but two years later than promised. Despite missing their deadline, officials were upbeat. If every U.N. health target was met just two years late, the world would be a much better place, said Dr. Kevin De Coc
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysia s deputy health minister urged every woman in the country to carry a condom to protect against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, a news report said Sunday. This is not to debase them but to protect them. Women are the first ones to get exploited by their (HIV-positive) partners, Abdul
MARTINEZ, Calif. (AP) -- For 18 years, Stephen Weir has been in charge of the office that hands out marriage licenses in California s ninth-largest county. And for just as long, Weir has been unable to get a license himself because the love of his life is a man. The irony did not escape him. Always the bridesmaid, neve
LONDON - watch this video Amy Winehouse says she will perform next month at a concert honoring Nelson Mandela. The concert will be held June 27 in London s Hyde Park to celebrate the former South African president s birthday. Mandela turns 90 on July 18. The lineup for the concert - which will benefit Mandela s AIDS ch
NEW YORK - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday that leaders in an interdependent world must work to end religious conflict or face catastrophe as he introduced a new foundation dedicated to interfaith understanding. Religion is as important in this century as political ideology was in the last, Blair s
Santa Rosa, CA (AP) -- Sonoma State University s president says blood drives on campus will continue, despite efforts to stop them because they discriminate against gay men. President Rubin Arminana (ahr-min-YAH-na) wrote in a letter to faculty and students that there s no legal ruling that the federal ban on blood don
YOKOHAMA, Japan : Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda of Japan pledged Wednesday to double Tokyo s aid to Africa by 2012 to inspire growth and attract private investment - a model that helped propel postwar Japan into economic prosperity. In particular, Japan will provide up to $4 billion in flexible, low-interest soft loans
LONDON: Britain s Prince Harry is traveling with his Blues and Royals regiment to Lesotho to help an AIDS charity he founded in memory of his mother, Princess Diana, a British news agency reported Wednesday. Press Association did not cite a source. The 23-year-old lieutenant in the Household Cavalry s Blues and Royals,
MADISON, Wis. - A well-known AIDS activist vacationing in Mexico was murdered by a man angry that she refused to pay for sex, Mexican authorities said Tuesday. The murder devastated Madison s gay community, where Felicia Melton-Smyth was a fundraiser for the AIDS Network and a fixture at the gay-friendly Shamrock Bar.
CANNES, France (AP) -- Indy made his comeback at Cannes, and Woody came back as usual. Angelina showed off her baby bump on the red carpet, and Madonna sold off everything in her handbag at a charity auction. This year s Cannes Film Festival, which ended Sunday, had plenty of celebrities to please the star-watchers --
Kisumu, Kenya -- Sitting underneath the bright murals at a clinic, 22-year-old Elijah Ochanda gestures at his shorts and explains: When they remove this thing, it makes you safer. He is talking about the circumcision he is about to undergo at the urging of his older brother. He has watched several friends die of AIDS,
Cape Town, South Africa -- The abused and orphaned children in Pastor Julius Bonani s church are the face of an AIDS epidemic that is killing nearly 1,000 South Africans a day and infecting even more. And yet, the 18 children who live in Bonani s heartbreak home, in a shantytown filled with dust and despair, also perso
KISUMU, Kenya : Sitting underneath the bright murals at a clinic, 22-year-old Elijah Ochanda gestures at his shorts and explains: When they remove this thing, it makes you safer. He is talking about the circumcision he is about to undergo at the urging of his older brother. He has watched several friends die of AIDS, a
CAPE TOWN, South Africa : The abused and orphaned children in Pastor Julius Bonani s church are the face of an AIDS epidemic that is killing nearly 1,000 South Africans a day and infecting even more. And yet, the 18 children who live in Bonani s heartbreak home, in a shanty town filled with dust and despair, also perso
MOUGINS, France (AP) -- The Material Girl parted with a few personal possessions - a custom-made white guitar and the contents of her handbag - at a benefit to raise money for AIDS research. Madonna emptied her purse and came up with a magnifying mirror, hair clips, skin blotting tissues and lip gloss. She put it on th
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - Madonna s new film on the impoverished nation of Malawi has wowed another maker of documentaries: Michael Moore. Moore announced Thursday that Madonna, like himself a Michigan native, will appear for a screening of I Am Because We Are during the Traverse City Film Festival on Aug. 2. She s s
VIENNA, Austria : Organizers of Austria s annual Life Ball say this year s AIDS charity gala raised a record (euro)1.4 million (US$2.2 million) to fight the deadly disease. Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall and fashion icon Linda Evangelista were among those who traveled to the Austrian capital for the party Saturday,
CANNES, France - Madonna says criticism of her adoption of a Malawian boy hurt so much, she compared it to giving birth. It was painful, and it was a big struggle, and I didn t understand it, the 49-year-old singer told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday, where her documentary, I Am Because We Are, whi
Some of the legislative achievements of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.: --Championed lowering the voting age to 18. --Chief sponsor of the Voting Rights Act amendments, which led to increased minority representation in Congress and state legislatures nationwide. --Co-sponsored the State Children s Health Insurance Progra
CANNES, France (AP) -- You don t need to be a member of the Cannes Film Festival jury to have a say in what movies deserve awards. All it takes is an Internet connection and an opinion. Director Spike Lee was in Cannes to hand out awards of $31,360 each to seven emerging directors whose work was championed by Internet
GENEVA: Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Tuesday appealed to governments to do more to save Africa from disease. We cannot lose Africa, Tutu told the 193-nation World Health Assembly. The cradle of humankind is threatened by disease, conflict and destruction. Much disease is preventable if governments had the political will
ST. CLOUD, Minn. - The Stearns County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to outlaw shows in bars and restaurants that feature extreme body piercing. The board, after little debate, approved regulations prohibiting the type of show that has been staged at the Rox Nightclub, a popular bar in downtown St. Cloud. The sho
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Legislative floor actions in the House of Representatives and Senate from Monday, May 19. HOUSE INTRODUCED HB 563 RADIO/ANTENNA ZONING (Stebelton) - To codify federal restrictions on local zoning of the antenna structures of amateur radio stations and place the burden of proof for compliance on the zon
The Justice Department has asked to take testimony under oath from a man whose son was barred from the swimming pool at a Silverhill RV resort last year, laying the groundwork for a possible discrimination lawsuit. Dick Glover, 70, has terminal non-Hodgkin s Lymphoma and is the adoptive father of Caleb, the HIV-positiv
LONDON: When AIDS erupted more than two decades ago, health experts quickly devised a strategy for stopping the disease s spread in the developing world: Distribute free condoms and test for HIV. Millions of dollars were poured into the campaign led by U.N. health agencies and backed by governments around the world. Bu
WASHINGTON - Rep. Howard Berman keeps a big Thermos behind his desk. That way, he never has to ask anyone to fetch coffee for him. The new House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman also picks up his own dry cleaning and drives his own car. It is a self-sufficiency that Berman has carefully nurtured over his 13 terms in
RENO, Nev.: A hepatitis C outbreak affecting more than 80 people and exposing tens of thousands more was caused by workers reusing syringes at a Las Vegas clinic, federal health officials said Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report bolsters earlier conclusions by state and county officials, which
VIENNA, Austria : Sex and The City star Kim Cattrall, fashion icon Linda Evangelista and actress Sharon Stone on Saturday were among the celebrities attending Vienna s Life Ball, a splashy gala that raises money to fight AIDS. The gala, held in Vienna s historic city hall, is billed as Europe s largest and most spectac
TWANTE, Myanmar - Saw Htin s cheeks were wet with tears after waiting in line with hundreds of sick, desperate cyclone survivors. The 18-year-old mother clutched her wheezing baby boy. He coughed and cried all night, she explained hysterically to a volunteer doctor. Is he going to die? Myanmar s ragged health syst
DALLAS - A gay-rights group is protesting a 35-year prison sentence given to an HIV-positive man who was convicted of spitting on a police officer, and public health officials say the risk of contracting the AIDS virus from saliva is extremely low. Prosecutors convinced a jury this week that the man s spit constituted
MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday proposed forming a belt of security around Afghanistan with India and China to choke off drug supplies. Tightening security at Afghan borders would dilute the drugs and terrorist threat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a
CARSON CITY, Nev. - Better surveillance, education and oversight is needed to prevent another hepatitis C outbreak in Nevada, according to a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Thursday. The report follows recent word from public health administrators that more than 80 people treated at t
An HIV-positive man convicted of spitting into the eye and mouth of a Dallas police officer has been sentenced to 35 years in prison. Because a jury found that Willie Campbell used his saliva as a deadly weapon, the 42-year-old will have to serve half his sentence before becoming eligible for parole. He was sentenced W
WASHINGTON: For the foreseeable future HIV/AIDS will remain an unprecedented economic, social and human challenge for sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank said Wednesday, calling the 50-nation region the epicenter of the disease and announcing a new strategy to fight the epidemic. The bank said in a report that it was sh
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Larry McKeon, Illinois first openly gay legislator and an advocate for expanding state discrimination laws to cover gay people, has died at age 63, friends and colleagues said Wednesday. The biggest achievement of his 10 years in the Illinois House was adding the words sexual orientation to the stat
CARSON CITY, Nev. - Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons says he won t name a special counsel to investigate doctors linked to a hepatitis C outbreak, saying the responsibility rests with the state Board of Medical Examiners. In turn, two lawmakers who sought the independent investigation are now seeking assurances from the medical
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysia s government is worried that high school graduates may not know enough about sex. Authorities in the conservative, Muslim-majority nation are considering teaching sex education to teenagers when they undergo national service after leaving school, Abdul Hadi Awang Kechil, director gener
TRENTON, N.J. - For the first time, it appears that more than half of all insured Americans are taking prescription medicines regularly for chronic health problems, a study shows. The most widely used drugs are those to lower high blood pressure and cholesterol - problems often linked to heart disease, obesity and diab
LA CROSSE, Wis. - An Iowa man who drove his minivan into Franciscan Skemp Clinic and barricaded himself in the building two years ago has pleaded no contest to felony criminal damage to property. Records show 52-year-old Geoffrey Fitzgerald was in a rage at the time because of his claim that a doctor at the clinic refu
ALBANY, N.Y. - New Yorkers would be let in on the secret when their doctor is charged with misconduct under a proposal by New York Gov. David Paterson expected to be announced Wednesday. The measure would end the protection for doctors against disclosure of the charges until a final determination is made. Paterson is i
WORCESTER, Mass. - The city of Worcester has installed the first of four drop-off boxes for used hypodermic needles and syringes. The yellow, mailbox-sized item was placed Monday in the reception area of AIDS Project Worcester, which has agreed to pay for collecting and disposing of the needles. The city council approv
BOSTON - State health officials say one patient died and another became critically ill after receiving kidneys at Boston hospitals from a donor who carried an undetected virus. The Boston Globe reports the donor was a 49-year-old homeless man. Doctors were unaware that the man was a carrier of a virus known as LCMV, wh
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan : The Kyrgyz president has provided aid to scores of children who contracted HIV due to apparent negligence at local hospitals in the impoverished ex-Soviet nation. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev s office said Monday he ordered a one-time payment of US$14,600 (euro9,460) to each of the children affecte
NEW YORK: Timbaland and the Neptunes are so dominant as producers, they can sometimes upstage the artist they re working with ... unless that artist is Madonna. On her new album, Hard Candy, Madonna made sure that she wasn t a guest star on her own album. I thought of it as a true and equal collaboration. ... I like to
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. will focus on growing its own advertising and Internet search business after it withdrew its takeover offer for Yahoo Inc., Chairman Bill Gates said Friday. Microsoft has not presented an alternative strategy to compete with its dominant rival in the Internet business, Google
LAS VEGAS, CA (AP) -- Seventy-seven more people have been diagnosed with hepatitis C that they may have contracted during treatment at a Las Vegas outpatient clinic, public health administrators said Thursday. The 77 people are among about 400 former patients of the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada who tested positi
NEW YORK: The NBA will stage an event in India for the first time this summer, conducting one of its Basketball without Borders camps in New Delhi. The league also announced Wednesday it will return to Turkey and South Africa to run camps, which the league began in 2001.
DECATUR, Ga. - DeKalb County police say a man accused of sexually assaulting two women by using the popular Web site Craigslist to lure them to a vacant apartment is HIV-positive. Eighteen-year-old Allen Jamar McDowell is accused in two separate assaults at an apartment near his home in March and April. Police spokeswo
WASHINGTON (AP) -- When President Bush spoke Tuesday about the U.S. response to the killer cyclone in Myanmar , first lady Laura Bush was standing right behind him in the Oval Office. But really, she was the one out front. Mrs. Bush presided in the White House briefing room one day before the president spoke on the dev
NEW YORK - A hospital s plan to build Greenwich Village s biggest development in decades was dealt a major setback Tuesday as preservation officials blasted the contentious project. The city Landmarks Preservation Commission did not vote, but members said sternly that they couldn t support razing all of St. Vincent s H
BUFFALO, N.Y. - Health officials are urging clients of a Niagara Falls tattoo artist to be tested for HIV and hepatitis. Authorities say an investigation found that eight people developed skin infections after receiving tattoos from John Portik. While no one is known to have contracted HIV or hepatitis from the tattooi
NEW YORK - Timbaland and the Neptunes are so dominant as producers, they can sometimes upstage the artist they re working with ... unless that artist is Madonna. On her new album, Hard Candy, Madonna made sure that she wasn t a guest star on her own album. I thought of it as a true and equal collaboration. ... I like t
INDIANAPOLIS: Roche Diagnostics is transferring about 300 jobs from Indianapolis to Germany over the next three years to consolidate part of its operations. Spokeswoman Doyia Turner said Monday that the transfers will start in October and most will be completed by 2011. A limited number of employees will be offered tra
HAVANA (AP) -- Robert Vesco, the American fugitive who cooked up moneymaking schemes that allegedly involved everyone from Colombian drug lords to the families of U.S. presidents, died in Cuba and was buried almost six months ago, according to an official document. A burial record at Havana s Colon Cemetery shows that
SAN ANTONIO, Texas - Those in possession of drug paraphernalia as part of a needle-exchange program can be prosecuted, the Texas Attorney General s Office said Monday, clearing the way for a case against three activists who passed out clean syringes. Participants in the program may, in the discretion of the prosecutor,
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Saddam Hussein feared catching AIDS or other diseases during his U.S.-supervised captivity, a leading Arab newspaper said Monday in publishing excerpts of his prison writings. The London-based Al-Hayat said the comments came in portions of Saddam s prison diaries that it obtained from U.S. authoriti
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia is not ready to adopt measures that could prevent thousands of people from getting infected with the virus that causes AIDS, the country s chief public health officer said Monday. Gennady Onishchenko said regulations are not strong enough to allow measures such as methadone replacement therapy for
WASHINGTON - Celebrated basketball star Earvin Magic Johnson is seeking to raise awareness about AIDS. The former Los Angeles Lakers point guard spoke at Howard University on Wednesday as part of a campaign to help minority communities become more educated about the disease. Washington s AIDS rate is higher than any ot
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Advocates for clergy sex abuse victims are calling on Roman Catholics to stop donating to the Providence Diocese until it does more for potential victims of two priests accused of abusing children. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests is holding a news conference Wednesday outside the dio
CHICAGO - When the Rev. Otis Moss III takes to the pulpit before a congregation that includes Barack Obama, he s as likely to preach about Tupac Shakur or one of his favorite authors as he is the Apostle Paul. The 37-year-old hip-hop pastor, as he s called by congregants, will become the head of Trinity United Church o
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Barack Obama angrily denounced his former pastor for divisive and destructive remarks on race, seeking to divorce himself from the incendiary speaker and a fury that threatens to engulf his front-running Democratic presidential campaign. Obama is trying to tamp down the uproar over the Rev. Jeremi
MILWAUKEE - An 18-year-old man is pleading not guilty after being accused of having unprotected sex with a woman without telling her he was HIV-positive. Rick Allen Brown of Milwaukee faces a charge of second-degree reckless endangerment. According to the criminal complaint, the woman says they had sex three times last
CARSON CITY, Nev. - A judge on Tuesday blocked a Las Vegas doctor linked to a hepatitis C outbreak from practicing medicine pending resolution of a 10-count state Board of Medical Examiners complaint against him. Clark County District Judge David Wall issued the temporary restraining order against Dr. Dipak Desai, who
SINGAPORE - Singapore recorded 422 new HIV infections last year, the highest number in a single year since records started in 1985, the city-state of 4.5 million people said Tuesday. More than half of the new cases already had late-stage HIV infections when they were diagnosed, as happened in previous years, the Health
PORTLAND, Ore. - The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon has joined booksellers to challenge a state law restricting the sale or provision of sexually explicit material to children, saying it could affect constitutionally protected material. The ACLU says the law approved by the 2007 Legislature is vague and coul
CARSON CITY, Nev. - The state Board of Medical Examiners filed 10-count complaints Monday against two doctors linked to a hepatitis C outbreak in southern Nevada, and the state attorney general filed motions in court to keep the doctors from practicing until the complaints are resolved. The medical examiners panel file
GENEVA (AP) -- A U.N.-backed fund says it is on target to provide treatment to 250,000 children with HIV/AIDS by the end of the year. Geneva-based UNITAID says this is an increase of about 100,000 compared to 2007. The organization supplies low-cost drugs to the developing world. The fund said in a statement Monday tha
CHICAGO (AP) -- Experimental blood substitutes raised the risk of heart attack and death, yet U.S. regulators allowed human testing to continue despite warning signs, says a scathing new report. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration fell short, the report contends, even as red flags popped up during studies by five bio
NEW HAVEN, Conn.- Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, imprisoned for killing a teenage neighbor, is spending some of his time in prison creating art that depicts beauty, danger and the loss of innocence. Skakel, convicted in 2002 of killing Martha Moxley in 1975, participates in a program that lets inmates show another side
LANSING, Mich. - Emily Sterk spent two years in the Peace Corps teaching people in the southern African nation of Zambia about health. The Lansing resident rode a bicycle to different villages to highlight such issues as HIV and AIDS, nutrition and tuberculosis. Sterk, 24, moved to Zambia in January 2006 and lived in t
WASHINGTON: The Bush administration is accusing China , Russia and seven other nations of failing to protect American producers of movies, computer software and other copyrighted material from widespread piracy. The administration on Friday placed the nine countries on a priority watch list that will subject them to
NEW YORK - Madonna s harrowing new documentary on Malawi is clearly designed to draw attention to the poverty-stricken nation s plight and help to its people. But the superstar doesn t think much about enlisting aid from the U.S. government. I don t know what our government does period, instead of getting us in more de
CARSON CITY, Nev. - Two lawmakers called Friday for the suspension of 14 southern Nevada doctors at a clinic linked to a hepatitis C outbreak as a medical oversight panel and the state attorney general prepared to move against several of the physicians. Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, and Sen. Steven Horsford, D-N
LONDON: Patients with HIV who aren t monitored with the expensive laboratory tests commonly used in rich countries may survive just as long as those who do get the tests, a new study says. In a paper published in The Lancet medical journal Friday, experts found only a slight difference between the survival rates of HIV
FORT WAYNE, Ind. - The creator of an AIDS memorial in a Fort Wayne cemetery says he will repair damage caused by vandals. Otis Vincent says someone pushed over a large pedestal that held an angel statue as part of the Northeast Indiana AIDS Memorial at Lindenwood Cemetery. Vincent says he will replace the statue and ho
WASHINGTON - Needle exchange programs in the nation s capital will get a boost by summer. Officials say more than $490,000 in city funding will soon begin flowing to four organizations that are working to reduce soaring rates of HIV and AIDS infections in Washington. Last year, Congress lifted a ban prohibiting the cit
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Iowa had its highest number of HIV diagnoses last year since reporting began a decade ago. There were 127 people diagnosed with HIV in Iowa last year, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health. That s up from the 113 diagnoses in 2006 and the earlier record high of 117 in 2005. The state st
CLEVELAND - An Ohio Supreme Court panel is frowning on having guilty defendants donate nutritional drinks for AIDS patients instead of paying fines. The sentencing idea was proposed by two board members of the AIDS Task Force of Greater Cleveland. They said people with AIDS need high-calorie drinks such as Boost and En
VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI presided at a funeral Mass in St. Peter s Basilica Wednesday for Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, praising him for the courage with which he defended the nonnegotiable values of human life. The Colombian-born cardinal, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family since 1990, was best kn
MILWAUKEE - Prosecutors have charged an 18-year-old man who is accused of having unprotected sex with a woman without telling her he was HIV-positive. Rick Allen Brown of Milwaukee faces a charge of second-degree reckless endangerment. The felony count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
ACCRA, Ghana - The U.N. chief said Monday the world must do more to eradicate poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, where not a single country is on track to meet the goals of a global anti-poverty campaign launched in 2000. The U.N.-sponsored Millennium Development Goals aim to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015 by ensuring
NEW CASTLE, Del. - Delaware State Police are investigating the alleged rape of a female patient inside what is regarded as the most secure building at the Delaware Psychiatric Center. The investigation began after the woman tried to hang herself with a bed sheet. The woman told a counselor she attempted suicide because
VATICAN CITY - Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, a Colombian prelate who helped lead the Vatican s campaign against abortion and insisted condoms do not prevent HIV transmission, has died, one of his assistants said Sunday. He was 72. Lopez Trujillo died Saturday night at the Pius XI private clinic in Rome, where he had
PARIS - Secret police tails. Reprimands or perhaps even expulsion for writing about topics sensitive for the Chinese Communist Party. Propaganda apparatchiks working overtime to stifle negative news. These were some of the grim scenarios painted Friday at a Paris conference sponsored by press freedom groups about condi
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist are trying to find a way to get coverage for more of the nearly 4 million Floridians without health insurance, but how successful they are depends on how much leeway they re willing to give insurance companies to craft low-cost plans. The House on Thursday debated a
WASHINGTON - The House voted Wednesday to expand by some 25 countries the list of those poorest states eligible for debt relief, allowing them to divert scarce resources from loan repayment to health and education programs. The legislation instructs the administration to begin talks with international financial institu
ST. PAUL - The Minnesota Department of Health says there were 325 new cases of HIV infection in the state in 2007. That s up from the 318 new cases in 2006 and the 304 new cases in 2005. The numbers are in a report released Tuesday. Health officials estimate nearly 6,000 people in Minnesota know they are living with HI
NEW YORK - Pope Benedict XVI may not see them or hear them, but aggrieved Roman Catholic activists hope his U.S. visit this week will help them draw attention to issues ranging from the ordination of women and gay rights to sex abuse by priests and the Vatican ban on contraception. The groups have planned vigils, demon
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. - A state program set up to pay the costs of collecting evidence in rape cases has quickly exhausted its budget, forcing officials to look elsewhere for money. Missouri lawmakers in August passed legislation making the state responsible for paying for the so-called rape kit of evidence collected at hosp
WASHINGTON - For years, the nation s largest drug and medical device manufacturers have courted doctors with consulting fees, free trips to exotic locales and sponsoring the educational conferences that physicians attend. Those financial ties in most cases need not be disclosed and can lead to arrangements that some sa
BEIJING: Police beat, shocked and detained 11 people suffering from HIV-AIDS who were trying to protest in front of China s premier, a Beijing-based activist said Thursday. The Aizhixing Institute s Wan Yanhai said the protesters, who all contracted HIV through blood transfusions, were attacked Saturday in front of the
The Florida House passed it s $65 billion spending plan for the coming year on Thursday. The bill would spend about $5 billion less then last year s budget. As a result, the budget includes many cuts but also some increases. The Senate passed it s plan Wednesday. The two versions now have to be reconciled. Among the it
ST. PAUL - A proposal allowing patients with cancer and other debilitating illnesses to use marijuana has cleared its final legislative committee. The 13-4 vote by the House Ways and Means Committee means the bill s next stop is the House floor. The Senate approved the medical marijuana bill last year. But Governor Tim
OSH, Kyrgyzstan - Not long ago, she was a wife, mother and teacher. Now Dilfuza Mustafakulova is HIV-positive and has lost her husband and her job. Mustafakulova s baby son was among 72 children infected with the virus at two Kyrgyz hospitals. Sixteen mothers also have contracted it - in some cases by breast-feeding th
WACO, Texas - Kristin Elizabeth Elliott, 18, who hopes to enter Baylor University this fall, goes to church each week in a movie theater. Her own melodramatic life story could make the screenplay someday for an inspirational film to be shown there. Kristin, a senior at Faith West Academy in Katy, Texas, has been battli
CAIRO, Egypt - An Egyptian court convicted five men Wednesday on charges of homosexual behavior and sentenced them to three years in prison, officials said. Defense lawyer, Adel Ramadan, said the judge found the men guilty of the habitual practice of debauchery - a term used in the Egyptian legal system to denote conse
NEW YORK - The Vans Warped Tour is auctioning VIP tickets - complete with onstage seats - to benefit leukemia, cancer and AIDS research. The 14th annual music and extreme sports festival will partner with the T.J. Martell Foundation to auction off a pair of tickets to each concert on the 46-city tour, it was announced
SAO PAULO, Brazil : Brazil on Monday inaugurated a condom factory that officials say will help hundreds of poor Brazilian rubber tappers make a living while helping to preserve the Amazon rain forest. The plant in the northwestern town of Xapuri will produce 100 million condoms a year, which the government will distrib
MINNEAPOLIS - An anti-AIDS drug has generated $290 million in royalties since 1999 for the University of Minnesota - 95 percent of the school s annual licensing income. But Ziagen , which is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline , won t bring in that kind of money when its patents expire overseas next year and in the
WINDSOR, Ontario - A man convicted of aggravated sexual assault for exposing women to the virus that causes AIDS was sentenced Friday to 18 years in prison. Carl Leone, 32, pleaded guilty to 15 counts last April after failing to inform his sexual partners of his HIV status. Leone discovered he was HIV positive in 1997,
MIAMI - Latin America can serve as a training ground for solving massive health crises in Africa, but to spur development in the region, countries must invest more in education, Bill Gates said Friday at the annual meeting of the hemisphere s largest development bank. The Microsoft Corp. chairman told Inter-American De
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - A Cook County family doesn t have to pay damages to a son s former fiancee for not telling her he was infected with HIV that she ultimately contracted, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Kirk and Betty Dilling did not fraudulently misrepresent their son Albert s health to the woman, identifi
GORAKHPUR, India - When Durga Prasad heard of the mysterious job with the hefty paycheck, he jumped at it, no questions asked. The work could be risky - Prasad figured he d be asked to smuggle drugs into Nepal - but for the itinerant laborer from Uttar Pradesh, one of the poorest states in
Washington -- It took some shocking statistics - 33 million around the world suffering from HIV and AIDS and 6,000 new infections every day - for lawmakers to put aside policy disputes and come together behind a significant act of generosity. The House voted 308-116 Wednesday to more than triple, to $50 billion a year
CHICAGO - A young Barack Obama was searching for answers, and perhaps a place to belong, when he decided to visit a fast-growing church recommended by friends. What he heard left him in tears. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preached that day about suffering - about the seemingly endless problems of the world and of individua
BEIJING - An outspoken Chinese civil rights activist was sentenced Thursday to 3 1/2 years in prison on subversion charges, a ruling that drew international criticism ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Hu Jia, 34, is the most prominent activist to be tried and sentenced in a recent ongoing clampdown on dissent. He has been
WASHINGTON -- The House voted to increase U.S. humanitarian spending on fighting AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa and other stricken areas of the world. About $41 billion of the $50 billion over five years would be devoted to AIDS, significantly expanding a program credited with saving more than one million liv
How the Missouri delegation voted in the 308-116 roll call Wednesday by which the House passed a global AIDS bill authorizing $50 billion in spending over five years. A yes vote is a vote to pass the bill. Voting yes were 230 Democrats and 78 Republicans. Voting no were 0 Democrats and 116 Republicans. X denotes thos
CARSON CITY, Nev. - Three southern Nevada doctors were named Wednesday as temporary members of the state Board of Medical Examiners, replacing three other doctors with ties to the owner of a Las Vegas clinic where flawed procedures set off a regional health scare. Drs. Ronald Kline, Beverly Neyland and Robert Wiencek g
NEW YORK - Ted Turner, who once called Christianity a religion for losers, launched a $200 million partnership Tuesday with Lutherans and Methodists to fight malaria in Africa, apologizing for his past criticism of religion and calling faith a bright spot in the world. Turner, 69, said he had only made a few disparagin
LONDON - A commonly used AIDS drug appears to nearly double the risk of a heart attack, researchers said Tuesday. In a study published online by the medical journal Lancet, the researchers also said another less frequently used AIDS drug increased the chances of a heart attack by 50 percent. Experts said doctors should
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Some Florida teens believe drinking Mountain Dew or smoking marijuana will prevent pregnancy and that swallowing a capful of bleach will prevent HIV/AIDS. One reason those dangerous myths have spread is the state s reliance on abstinence-only sex education, say advocates of a bill to require a more
Today is Tuesday, April 1, the 92nd day of 2008. There are 274 days left in the year. This is April Fool s Day. Today s Highlight in History: On April 1, 1945, American forces launched the amphibious invasion of Okinawa during World War II. On this date: In 1853, Cincinnati established a fire department of paid city em
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Biotech drug maker Gilead Sciences Inc. spent $660,000 lobbying the federal government last year. The company lobbied for public health spending on HIV, hepatitis and hypertension. Lobbyists also advocated Gilead s position on protecting intellectual property rights in third world countries. Gilead s
GABORONE, Botswana - Botswana s president steps down Tuesday, handing over power in the kind of smooth transition for which the country is known - one that contrasts sharply with the political turmoil in neighboring Zimbabwe . On a continent where leaders are all too often accused of holding on long past their mandate,
SIEM REAP, Cambodia - Ricky Martin met with victims of sexual exploitation Saturday during a visit to Cambodia to promote the fight against human trafficking. Martin held infants and listened to a 14-year-old rape victim s song during his visit to a shelter in the northwestern city of Siem Reap, home of the famed Angko
MIAMI - Several groups are looking for a green light for their specialty license plates, but some lawmakers want to put on the brakes on new designs. Florida already has more than 100 different license plates celebrating everything from the oceans to organ donation and the Olympics. This legislative session, however, m
Florida has more than 100 different license plate designs. The legislature is considering approving more during this legislative session. The following are some of the new license plates suggested and the organizations their proceeds will fund: Confederate Heritage: Sons of Confederate Veterans, Florida, to fund educat
CARSON CITY, Nev. - Reversing course, Gov. Jim Gibbons on Friday ended efforts to oust three doctors from the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners because of their ties to the owner of a Las Vegas clinic where flawed procedures set off a regional health scare. Gibbons also is no longer pressing for the resignation of Tony
MILWAUKEE - Wisconsin is no longer No. 1 in the U.S. in the quality of its health care, according to a federal analysis that now ranks the Badger State second to Minnesota. The analysis was performed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. It
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrat Barack Obama seemed to suggest in an interview aired Friday that his former pastor has acknowledged that his controversial remarks were inappropriate and hurtful, although there are no public accounts of the minister having done so. Obama discussed his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wri
AMARILLO, Texas - A man charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession needed to use the drug to treat symptoms of his HIV infection, a jury has found. Jurors deliberated less than 15 minutes Tuesday before reaching a not guilty verdict for Tim Stevens, 53, whose attorney used the defense that marijuana use was a necess
EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - A paroled sex offender with a history of having sex with women who don t know he is HIV positive is off to prison again for the same offense. Twenty-four-year-old Casey Yonts was sentenced to a decade behind bars after he pleaded guilty to two felony Madison County counts of criminal transmission o
Oroville, CA (AP) -- A man who molested two boys and exposed them to the virus that causes AIDS has been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison. Butte County Superior Court Judge Robert Glusman said 42-year-old Edward Hosmun exposed innocent and unwilling boys to HIV. The Paradise man pleaded guilty to engaging in s
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday recent data show patients taking HIV drugs from GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol-Myers Squibb may have increased risk of heart attack. FDA said data pooled from a 33,000-patient study of HIV patients showed those taking Glaxo s
MIDLAND, Texas - Jenna Bush will speak here next month about her work with children as part of a fundraiser for the George W. Bush Childhood Home. At the April 16 fundraiser, she ll talk about her passion for helping children and her experience with UNICEF, said Janabeth Cook, who is on the event s committee. Rick Davi
UNITED NATIONS: Seven years ago as the economy boomed, the United Nations agreed to a set of ambitious goals for cutting poverty and disease and improving health care and education for the world s poor by 2015. Now, those millennium efforts are lagging. Midway to the deadline, progress is too slow to succeed in some ke
GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- Caribbean countries fighting drug-trafficking gangs should get more help from the United States , which is one of the world s largest consumers of illegal drugs, the top U.S. diplomat for the region said Wednesday. The U.S. government will more closely review requests from Caribbean governments to
DALLAS - The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, presidential candidate Barack Obama s controversial former pastor, canceled plans Wednesday to receive an award at a summit on black churches. The Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth announced on its Web site that Wright will not attend the State of the Black Church Summit and awards
ALBANY, N.Y. - As tax time nears, Nancy Calhoun is fighting a mostly losing skirmish to stop her state s forms from lengthening - however slightly. The New York Assemblywoman hopes her fellow lawmakers rethink the use of those tiny boxes on state income tax forms that allow residents to donate to charities. The problem
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Ivan Toms, a South African doctor who played a key role in the campaign to end conscription of young white men to bolster the racist apartheid security forces has died. He was 55. Toms, director of health for Cape Town, was found dead in his home on Tuesday, police said. Police spokesma
UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged stepped-up international action on World TB Day to stop the global tuberculosis epidemic that is killing 4,000 people every day. In a message on Monday to mark the day, Ban said the man-made multi-drug resistant strain and its even more lethal form, extensively drug-r
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Prison inmate Kathryn Canty seems like a prime candidate for work release: good behavior, less than three years left to serve, and an accounting degree along with vocational training. But she also has HIV. And inmate advocates say Alabama is the only state that bars prisoners with the AIDS virus
NEW YORK (AP) -- Shares of Gen-Probe Inc., which makes tests to detect HIV, other sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis, rose Monday, as a Cowen & Co. analyst said the company is her favorite recommendation in the molecular diagnostics space. Shares of the San Diego-based company climbed $2.25, or 4.8 perc
HARARE, Zimbabwe : President Robert Mugabe has vowed that his main political rival would never rule Zimbabwe, as the opposition raised concerns that the governing party would rig the March 29 ballot. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai drew the biggest crowd so far in the election cam
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Eight years ago Kelvin Haywood needed surgery for a dislocated spine after being choked unconscious by an inmate at the state hospital where he works. He s still being tested for HIV and hepatitis after being bitten on his upper arm by another inmate a year ago. His pay for dealing with dangerous in
LOS ANGELES - It s been 45 years since General Hospital began dispensing heavy doses of drama to TV viewers. Since 1963, ABC s longest-running daytime series has documented the trials and tribulations of Port Charles citizens, carving an unprecedented television niche with intrigue and illness - long before ER, House
WORCESTER, South Africa : Janine September extends her slender arm toward a nurse s syringe, hoping that the hundreds of vials of blood extracted in the past six months will help conquer a 4,000-year-old curse: tuberculosis, which kills an estimated 2 million every year. Worcester, a small town among the fruit farms an
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan : Fourteen health professionals in Kyrgyzstan will face trial for allegedly infecting children with HIV, prosecutors said Thursday. Health workers in the southern Osh region were charged with negligence while administering injections and blood transfusions after 41 toddlers and eight adults were inf
CARSON CITY, Nev. - State health officials on Thursday completed inspections of all but two of 50 Nevada clinics checked following an outbreak of hepatitis C in six patients who went to a Las Vegas endoscopy center. Seven of the inspected clinics had major infection control problems, such as the reuse of single-dose vi
MINNEAPOLIS - The Guthrie Theater is getting a lot more Kushner into its lineup. The Guthrie said Wednesday it will produce Tony Kushner s Caroline, or Change as well as a collection of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright s short plays as part of its upcoming season. The theater announced last fall it had commissione
ATLANTA - Heart surgery patients were more likely to die or suffer problems if they received transfusions of blood more than two weeks old rather than fresher blood, according to a study led by Cleveland Clinic researcher that adds to the debate about the shelf life of blood. Although not the final word, the study unde
GABORONE, Botswana -- The world s largest producer of diamonds wants more bang for its bling. A company launched Tuesday will market and sell about 15% of Botswana s diamonds to manufacturers who have set up cutting and polishing factories in the southern African country. Very little diamond polishing and cutting, whic
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- There was celebration at Alabama s Limestone and Tutwiler prisons last November when corrections officials said many activities that had been off-limits to inmates with HIV were being desegregated. But more than 200 men in Limestone s HIV unit are still being kept apart in some areas, prison of
LONDON - The fight against the global tuberculosis epidemic has slowed to a crawl, the World Health Organization said in a report Monday. The worldwide rate of TB infection has been declining for several years. But between 2005 and 2006, the rate of new cases fell by less than 1 percent, far less than the annual decrea
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Ardea Biosciences Inc. said Monday its developing HIV treatment is meeting goals in a midstage clinical trial and the program is on track to move to a new stage in the second quarter. The drug candidate, RDEA806, showed positive results in a Phase 2a study comparing the drug candidate with placebo, ac
MONTGOMERY, Alabama: The infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study, a government experiment that charted the effects of the untreated disease on mostly poor and uneducated black men, was conducted for 40 years before it was exposed and ended in 1972 amid widespread condemnation. A number of participants in the study died of the
NEW DELHI (AP) -- Richard Gere is free to go back to India -- and he may have a new reason to book a trip. India s top court suspended an arrest warrant Friday against Gere, wanted for allegedly breaking public obscenity laws by kissing Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at a public AIDS awareness event last year. Ge
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- First lady Laura Bush joined her Mexican counterpart on Friday to inaugurate a two-country alliance to promote breast cancer awareness and research. At the launch of the U.S.- Mexico Partnership for Breast Cancer Awareness and Research, Bush and Margarita Zavala spoke of improving education and doin
NEW YORK (AP) -- Analysts reduced profit estimates for biopharmaceutical company Trimeris Inc. Friday, pointing to decreasing sales of its HIV treatment Fuzeon. Trimeris late Thursday reported its fourth-quarter profit fell short of Wall Street estimates due to weaker sales of Fuzeon in North America. Goldman Sachs ana
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - U.S. first lady Laura Bush toured Haiti s capital on Thursday to promote funding for AIDS patients and support education in the impoverished Caribbean country. Bush spoke with three HIV-positive young adults during a morning visit to GHESKIO, a prominent AIDS clinic in the run-down center of Por
NEW DELHI - India s top court suspended an arrest warrant Friday against Hollywood star Richard Gere, wanted for allegedly breaking public obscenity laws by kissing Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at a public AIDS awareness event last year, an attorney said. Gere is allowed to come and leave. He can t be arrested, sai
PIERRE -- A new South Dakota law that goes on the books July 1 will require people to register as sex offenders if found guilty of purposely infecting sex partners with the AIDS virus. Two people in the state have been convicted in recent years of intentionally infecting others with HIV. The maximum prison term for the
WASHINGTON - The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday approved the spending of $50 billion over the next five years to combat the health crises posed by AIDS and other diseases in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The 18-3 committee vote comes two weeks after the House Foreign Affairs Committee endorsed a si
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- U.S. first lady Laura Bush came to Haiti on Thursday to promote increased funding for AIDS patients and support education in the impoverished nation. Bush met with three young HIV-positive adults during her morning visit to GHESKIO, an AIDS clinic in a rundown section of Port-au-Prince, wh
CHICAGO - U.S. syphilis cases climbed for the seventh straight year in 2007, and increases in the disease among gay men and blacks largely contributed, government researchers reported Wednesday. The trend can be partly blamed on too few gay men getting recommended annual screenings for syphilis and other sexually trans
BERLIN: Bono s got some kind words for Germany . This new Germany is not shy about showing the world what values are worth fight for, the activist and U2 co-founder said Tuesday. Bono made the remarks after meeting with lawmakers to tell them about efforts to fight poverty and stem the spread of malaria, AIDS and tuber
WASHINGTON: Groups representing most of the nation s hospitals announced Tuesday they were suing federal health officials to block the enactment of regulations that some hospitals claim threaten their survival. The regulations would restrict federal Medicaid payments so they don t exceed the cost of providing care. But
WASHINGTON: Gay-rights activists are hoping to use a global AIDS relief bill supported by the Bush administration to repeal a 15-year-old law restricting travel to the U.S. by HIV-positive people. Activists oppose the near-ban as discriminatory since HIV is the only medical condition singled out in the Immigration and
UNITED NATIONS - Pricey food, high oil costs and grim projections of damage from global warming are the biggest challenges to meeting the United Nations 2015 deadline for reducing poverty around the globe, officials said Monday. After a meeting on the world body s eight Millennium Development Goals, Secretary-General B
CARSON CITY, Nev. - Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons, who fought a plan for additional medical surveyors in 2007, said Monday that more inspections by more state staffers may not have stopped clinic practices that led to a recent hepatitis outbreak in Las Vegas. Gibbons also said the state is working closely with federal and lo
Beijing -- The no-tell motels in Beijing s university districts pulsate with sex. Every weekend, lusty college couples make a beeline past greasy spoon restaurants and bootleg video game shops for the dim hotel lobbies to book three-hour blocks of privacy. Students fill half the simple but tidy rooms at the Cheng Lin M
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Drawing attention to violence against women, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged nations to invest more spending on job opportunities, health care, nutrition and other pressing needs of women worldwide. Investing in women helps us fight all the challenges of our time _ from poverty, hu
BEIJING - An activist lawyer with close ties to a jailed Chinese dissident is missing, a rights group said Friday. Teng Biao did not return home from his Beijing office on Thursday, despite telling his wife he would be back around 8:30 p.m., the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group said on its Web s
LAS VEGAS (Map, News) - A statewide inspection of outpatient surgery centers like the one believed to have spread hepatitis C to its patients has uncovered dangerous practices at four other clinics, a health official said Friday. The state swore to quickly inspect all 50 Nevada outpatient surgery centers after it was d
LAS VEGAS - The unsafe medical procedures that spread hepatitis C among patients at a large Las Vegas surgical clinic may be more widespread and may have resulted in more infections than first believed, health officials said Thursday. Health inspections at 13 other outpatient surgical centers in the Las Vegas area foun
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice led a group of powerful women, including presidents and prime ministers, in calling Thursday for a world where women s talents are used as much as men s to make peace and fight poverty. Rice, speaking at a conference on women s rights, joined an international appe
SEATTLE - If you have an unorthodox, unproven idea that can prevent HIV infection or help protect against infectious diseases, one of the richest men in the world wants to hear from you. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has set aside $100 million to encourage innovation in global health research, offering grants
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A group for victims of clergy sex abuse want Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin to push people to talk to police in the case of a priest accused of sexually abusing children. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests made the request Wednesday, weeks after it was revealed that the Rev. Philip A. M
MILWAUKEE - Barbers have dipped their combs and scissors in it for six decades. Now the makers of Barbicide want masseurs, waiters and jail wardens to try a new form of the ubiquitous blue disinfectant. The launch of wipes marks the first remake of Barbicide since its creation in 1947 by a high school science teacher i
LAS VEGAS - Health officials used an incomplete patient list to notify people exposed to hepatitis and HIV at a Las Vegas clinic, an epidemiologist testified Thursday. We know of patients who had been there whose names were not on the list, Southern Nevada Health District epidemiologist Brian Labus told a state legisla
KAMPALA, Uganda - Every week, Charity Kiconco drives hundreds of miles down some of the world s worst roads on a motorbike, bringing drugs and counseling to hundreds of AIDS patients. What the 26-year-old Kiconco lacks in medical training, she makes up for in commitment. It s a hard job. It s exhausting both physically
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - A state Senate committee took a step toward legalizing the use of medical marijuana Wednesday, voting to let people with debilitating illnesses like AIDS or cancer use marijuana to ease their symptoms. Sen. John Cullerton, D-Chicago, said the committee s 6-4 vote provides a glimmer of hope that the
LAS VEGAS - Nearly 40,000 people learned this week that a trip to the doctor may have made them sick. In a type of scandal more often associated with Third World countries, a Las Vegas clinic was found to be reusing syringes and vials of medication for nearly four years. The shoddy practices may have led to an outbreak
NEW YORK (AP) -- Shares of Panacos Pharmaceuticals Inc. surged Wednesday after the company said it may have identified a group of patients who will respond to its HIV drug candidate bevirimat. Panacos shares plunged in December due to disappointing trial results, which appeared to show that the drug did not lead to sig
Washington -- The government s watchdog agency is investigating whether the Food and Drug Administration s drug-review process cleared two blockbuster medications without sufficient proof of their safety or effectiveness. Sen. Charles Grassley said Tuesday that the Government Accountability Office has agreed to study a
BLANTYRE, Malawi : Malawi plans new laws to clamp down on charlatans who claim they can cure AIDS. Mary Shaba, a senior government aide, said Tuesday that the new legislation, to be introduced later this year, will also target religious leaders who persuade people to stop taking anti-AIDS medicines and instead to pray.
LANSING, Mich. - A proposal to legalize marijuana for medical purposes does not have the support of Governor Jennifer Granholm. Granholm says she is not in favor of opening the door to legalization of marijuana. A citizen-led measure that would legalize marijuana for some medical purposes is pending in the state Legisl
NEW YORK (AP) -- A Friedman, Billings, Ramsey analyst on Tuesday raised his price target on HIV drug maker Gilead Sciences Inc., saying changes to regulatory guidelines could leave the company s Truvada drug as the only preferred treatment in the category. FBR analyst Jim Reddoch lifted his price target to $57 from
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An outbreak of hepatitis C at a Nevada clinic may represent the tip of an iceberg of safety problems at clinics around the country, according to the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The city of Las Vegas shut down the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada last Friday after state
BANGKOK, Thailand : The recently appointed head of Thailand s Food and Drug Administration resigned Monday amid controversy over the new government s plan to review a policy of overriding patents on several expensive cancer-fighting drugs. Chatree Banchuen was named secretary general of the
SEATTLE - The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said Monday that it will accept grant proposals for a new $100 million initiative to support research to fight infectious diseases. Grand Challenges Explorations is an expansion of the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative started in 2003 to fund new technologies
LAS VEGAS (AP) - The City of Las Vegas has shut down a clinic believed to have spread hepatitis C through shoddy practices. City officials revoked the business license for the clinic, the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, on Friday afternoon. Health officials said six reported cases of hepatitis could be traced to t
LANSING, Mich. - Michigan voters are a step closer to considering whether marijuana should be legalized for medical purposes. The Board of State Canvassers OK d petitions Monday to put the issue before state lawmakers. If lawmakers don t approve the measure within 40 days, the proposal will be placed on the November ba
HOUSTON - Barack Obama barely knew the Kenyan-born father whose name he carries. He has visited the small rural village of Kogelo, where his grandmother and other relatives still live, just a handful of times. He speaks but a few words of Luo, his inherited tribal language. But for many Kenyans living in the U.S., the
BEIJING - The no-tell motels in Beijing s university districts pulsate with sex. Every weekend, lusty college couples make a beeline past greasy spoon restaurants and bootleg video game shops for the dim hotel lobbies to book three-hour blocks of privacy. Students fill half the simple but tidy rooms at the Cheng Lin Mi
WASHINGTON - D.C. s troubled Department of Health has a new director. Mayor Adrian Fenty on Friday appointed Pierre Vigilance, who has led the Baltimore County Department of Health since 2005. The announcement comes four months after Fenty fired Gregg Pane, citing a desire for a new direction. Pane had served as direct
LAS VEGAS - A former patient sued a surgical center believed to have spread hepatitis C by reusing syringes and vials of medication, saying Thursday he fears for his health. The suit comes a day after the Southern Nevada Health District announced that unsafe practices at the clinic may have led to six reported cases of
ORLANDO, Fla. - Google Inc. won t sell ads to support a new Internet service that stores personal medical information, CEO Eric Schmidt said Thursday in the search giant s first detailed comments about a venture that has raised privacy concerns. Schmidt described Google Health as a platform for users to manage their ow
WASHINGTON - President Bush is going to hold a news conference to press Congress to pass an intelligence bill making it easier for the government to conduct domestic eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails in connection with terrorism investigations. Bush will meet with reporters in the White House press briefing room
UNITED NATIONS, (AP) -- Ten U.N. agencies have launched a campaign to significantly reduce female circumcision by 2015 and eradicate the damaging practice within a generation. In a statement released Wednesday, the agencies said female circumcision violates the rights of women and girls to health, protection and even l
LAS VEGAS, (AP) -- A clinic may have infected a handful of patients with hepatitis C - but about 40,000 more should be tested for that virus, as well as for HIV, health officials said Wednesday. Six people who underwent procedures at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada now have the blood-borne hepatitis C virus, th
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Child rape has increased 42 percent in Zimbabwe, the U.N. children s agency said Wednesday, linking worsening child abuse to family tensions caused by the nation s economic meltdown. The U.N. Children s Fund launched a new campaign calling on children, relatives, and church and other groups to fight
WASHINGTON (AP) - A House committee on Wednesday voted to more than triple spending for a global AIDS program that has proven to be one of the Bush administration s most successful and popular foreign policy initiatives. The Foreign Affairs Committee s voice vote on the plan to approve spending of an average $10 billio
WASHINGTON - Lawmakers say they have reached agreement with the White House to spend $50 billion over the next five years to fight the AIDs epidemic in Africa and other regions. That s more than triple the current spending level. The compromise set the stage for a vote by the House Foreign Affairs Committee later Wedne
LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) -- Drug-resistant tuberculosis is spreading even faster than medical experts had feared, the World Health Organization warned in report issued Tuesday. The rate of TB patients infected with the drug-resistant strain topped 20 percent in some countries, the highest ever recorded, the U.
WASHINGTON -- Almost any proud traveler has said it upon returning home: Hey, want to see the pictures from my trip? Sure, President Bush. Fire up the slideshow. In a rare presidential show-and-tell, Bush spent almost 30 minutes Tuesday narrating images from his five-country journey across Africa. They technically were
CAMDEN, N.J. - New Jersey has become the last state where intravenous drug users can legally get clean needles, but two of the state s three needle exchanges are struggling to get clients. A lack of funding, winter weather, remote locations and a mistrust by drug users are all making it tough for the exchanges to reach
NEW YORK (AP) - From the tiny East Village theater where Rent was born, you can still catch a glimpse of the funky neighborhood where the hit musical was set - a scruffy courtyard, old brownstones, rusty pipes and fire escapes. Even when Rent opened in 1996, the East Village was gentrifying. Well-heeled newcomers were
LOS ANGELES - With Vanity Fair sitting out this year s celebrations, the belle of the Oscars parties was a piano playing Elton John. The 60-year-old singer s 16th annual viewing dinner and after-party benefiting the Elton John AIDS Foundation topped other bashes Sunday, with 750 guests and a bevy of A-list stars who si
LOS ANGELES - A lawsuit has been filed against the city of Los Angeles that seeks to stop the foreclosure of an AIDS hospice that is being used by a nonprofit agency for office space. The lawsuit filed in Superior Court earlier this month claims the Linn House, operated by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, was built with
SEATTLE - The estate of Ric Weiland, a high school classmate of Bill Gates and Paul Allen and one of the first five people to work at Microsoft Corp., has left $65 million to several gay rights and HIV/AIDS organizations. The Pride Foundation of Seattle, where Weiland served as a board member for several years, announc
CAMDEN, N.J. - New Jersey has become the last state where intravenous drug users can legally get clean needles, but two of the state s three needle exchanges are struggling to get clients. An underlying problem is funding. While state authorized exchanges in 2006, it has not helped pay for them. One program in Camden d
SANTA FE-The state Department of Health has added three medications to the list of those it provides to New Mexicans with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Department officials said each of the medicines represents an advance in treating HIV. Counting the new drugs, the agency now provides 77 medications to 426 patients
UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed former French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Tuesday to look for innovative ways to finance U.N. goals to fight poverty. The goals include cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring an elementary school education for all children, and halting and reversi
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - South Africa s finance minister said Wednesday the government will spend more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the next three years to double the number of people receiving AIDS medication. Trevor Manuel, presenting his ministry s budget, said South Africa would spend an additional $27
NEW YORK - New infectious diseases have been appearing more often, says a study that suggests hot spots where the next new germs are most likely to appear. We need to be out there in the hot spot regions looking for the next HIV, said study co-author Peter Daszak. Daszak, the executive director of the New York-based Co
ACCRA, Ghana (AP) - President Bush is pushing trade and aid in this tropical land of gold and diamonds, the latest stop on what he s dubbed his mission of mercy to Africa. Bush got a ceremonial welcome Wednesday in Ghana, a stable democracy that gets U.S. assistance to fight disease, build roads, train teachers and exp
PIERRE -- South Dakota lawmakers have decided that people convicted of intentionally exposing their sex partners to the AIDS virus should have to register as sex offenders after release from prison. The House voted unanimously to pass the measure, which will become law if signed by Gov. Mike Rounds. Rep. Richard Engels
LOS ANGELES - Two longtime AIDS activists are seeking to make beautiful music together on Oscar night: Mary J. Blige will join Elton John on stage for a duet at John s AIDS Foundation Academy Awards viewing party Sunday. Elton John is one of the most inspirational musicians and philanthropists in this industry for me,
BOSTON - The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled Tuesday that state health officials erred when they denied a claim from a teenage girl who had HIV-related surgery, saying payment can t be denied simply because she did not have permission from her insurer before the procedure. Ashley Shaw, 18, had appealed a lower court
Takeaways Illinois ranks sixth among states reporting AIDS. Starting Friday, February 15, Red Ribbon Cash instant lottery tickets will be sold across the state. Each $2 ticket wins a chance for a $20,000 top prize. Illinois is launching the first instant lottery in which 100% of net proceeds will be used to fund HIV/AI
The first anti-AIDS vaginal gel to make it through late-stage testing failed to stop HIV infection in a study of 6,000 South African women, disappointed researchers announced Monday. The study was marred by low use of the gel, which could have undermined results, they said. Women used it less than half the number of ti
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania -- President Bush said Sunday that Congress should renew his global AIDS program and preserve a requirement that steers money into abstinence efforts. We don t want people guessing on the continent of Africa whether the generosity of the American people will continue, Mr. Bush said in Tanzania,
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AP) -- To hear President Bush tell it, his program to combat AIDS across Africa faces an uncertain future in Congress. His wife is not so worried. I don t think there will be a problem, first lady Laura Bush told reporters Sunday. Her comments came on a day when George W. Bush cast doubt about
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania—President Bush rejected proposed Democratic changes to his prized AIDS relief program, issuing a challenge Sunday to Congress to stop the squabbling and renew it as is. Tanzanian leader Jakaya Kikwete made an impassioned appeal for the same thing, saying thousands in his country would orphan the
Brazil plans to set up diagnostic centers in remote areas and increase advertising campaigns to get people with HIV/AIDS to seek treatment sooner, health authorities said Thursday. Mariangela Simao, the head of the Health Ministry s National Program of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS, said many Brazilians with
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Under pressure from a lawsuit, the State Department is changing rules that had disqualified HIV-positive people from becoming U.S. diplomats. Effective Friday, the department removed HIV from a list of medical conditions that automatically prevent foreign service candidates from meeting an employment
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Egyptian police have stepped up arrests of persons suspected of having HIV, detaining four men this month in a crackdown that violates basic human rights, two international rights groups said Friday. New York-based Human Rights Watch and London-based Amnesty International warned in a joint statemen
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Sexual Health Awareness Week at the University of Virginia will conclude with Vulvapalooza and an auction of a cake baked in the likeness of a certain part of the female anatomy. The weeklong event of sexual whimsy and serious advice has included the distribution of condoms, a photo show with por
FORT WORTH, Texas - A former priest accused of sexually abusing children in two states is HIV positive, Catholic diocese officials said Thursday. Last week, a leader in the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth heard someone mention that the Rev. Philip A. Magaldi has the virus that causes AIDS, said diocese spokesman Pat Sva
NEW YORK - A celebrity-studded Valentine s Day charity auction of contemporary artworks - all inspired by the color red and the concept of love - raised more than $42.5 million to benefit HIV/AIDS relief programs in Africa, Sotheby s auction house said. Organized by Sotheby s, U2 lead singer Bono, artist Damien Hirst a
Part II of the text of President Bush at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art on Thursday, as provided by the White House. But in the long run, the best way to lift lives in Africa is to tear down barriers to investment and trade around the world. And we have an opportunity to do that through the Doha Round o
Text of President Bush at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art on Thursday, as provided by the White House. I ve been looking forward to coming to the museum, and there s an added benefit, and that is, I get to be introduced by my wife on Valentine s Day. Happy Valentine s. This morning Laura and I join all A
COLUMBIA, SC (AP) - School officials wouldn t be notified that a student has HIV under a proposal that one legislator hopes will increase AIDS testing. The legislation approved Wednesday by the Senate Medical Affairs Committee would remove the requirement that a school superintendent and school nurse be notified if a s
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush will find violent conflicts threatening nearly every corner of Africa when he begins a six-day visit on Saturday. But the continent s turmoil and trouble are not expected to be Topic A for the president. Fighting disease and poverty and promoting growth, development and security will be
NEW YORK - The official New York City condom has a different look and a sexy new slogan: New Yorkers are being encouraged to get some on Valentine s Day. Street teams will be handing out the free condoms at busy hubs around the city on Thursday, including Times Square, Wall Street and near City Hall. And an ad campaign
NAIROBI, Kenya - Looting, arson and murder have become hallmarks of Kenya s conflict over a disputed presidential election. Another, less talked about tactic in the violence that has degenerated into ethnic clashes: rape. Dr. Joseph Osoo, who runs a tin-roofed, two-room clinic in Nairobi s Mathare slum, said he was ove
BALTIMORE - Maryland, which has one of the country s highest AIDS rates, is facing a 40 percent cut in federal funds to track infections this year. The reduction, from $1.8 million last year to about $1 million in calendar year 2008, could have an effect on funds to treat the poor, officials said. The reduction elimina
ST. CHARLES, Mo. - A St. Charles man is accused of exposing a woman to the virus that causes AIDS. Prosecutors say 43-year-old Michael Brian Bergman had unprotected sex with the woman without telling her he had tested positive for HIV. Authorities say Bergman may have exposed at least five men and women to HIV over the
MOSCOW (AP) -- Lawyers for a former executive of the dismantled oil giant Yukos said Monday they have found him in a Moscow clinic where he was moved by prison authorities for treatment of AIDS-related cancer. Authorities had suspended Vasily Aleksanian s trial on embezzlement and money-laundering charges and on Friday
GREEN BAY, Wis. - Becoming the U.S. ambassador to an African nation might not be high on the list of ways to ease the sting of a failed gubernatorial run. But it worked for Republican Mark Green, and he says he couldn t be happier. I m just blessed to have had this exciting chapter open up, the former congressman told
WASHINGTON - House Republican leader John Boehner and other Republicans warned on Thursday that a successful program to combat AIDS in Africa would be in jeopardy if Democrats move ahead with plans to make changes that he said would support abortions. Boehner, R-Ohio, said the Democratic proposal to renew the five-year
MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- A gravely ill former executive of the dismantled oil giant Yukos will be transferred from jail to a civilian clinic for treatment for AIDS-related cancer and tuberculosis, Russian prison officials said Thursday. The move reverses previous refusals to allow Vasily Aleksanian to be treated at a hos
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) -- South Africa s health minister took another controversial foray into the AIDS debate Thursday by questioning international medical studies that say circumcision helps reduce HIV infections in men. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who frequently clashes with foreign experts on how to deal with t
UNITED NATIONS - Madonna, Chris Rock and dozens of other celebrities raised $3.7 million at a star-studded benefit at the United Nations to help poor and sick children around the world. The $2,500-a-plate dinner and live auction hosted by Rock on Wednesday night was an unusual blend of charity and commercial promotion
CHICAGO - Thursday is national Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, and the city of Chicago is getting into the spirit of the day with events designed to focus attention on the epidemic. The eighth annual event promotes HIV testing and education in the African-American community, where the infection rate remains high. Severa
Seeking bold action to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic among black Americans, the NAACP, the National Urban League and other groups Thursday urged Congress to repeal a 20-year-old ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs. More than 200 such programs have been established locally and regionally across the country,
LOS ANGELES - Vanity Fair s post-Oscar party is off, but Elton John s is on. The singer and AIDS activist is moving forward with plans for his 16th annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards viewing party, the foundation announced Wednesday. This event is our most important fundraiser of the year, it said in a st
MOSCOW - A Russian court suspended the trial of an ailing former executive of the dismantled oil giant Yukos on Wednesday but refused to release him from jail to be treated for AIDS-related cancer and tuberculosis. Lawyers for Vasily Aleksanian, a former lawyer for jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and a former vi
ATLANTA - For the first time, health officials report that the AIDS virus can be spread by a mother pre-chewing her infant s food, a practice mainly seen in poor, developing countries. Three such cases were reported in the United States from 1993-2004, government scientists said Wednesday in a presentation in Boston at
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Recent arrests and trials in Egypt of HIV-positive men endanger human rights, an international watchdog said Wednesday and called on authorities here to release those in custody and stop criminalizing AIDS. The New York-based Human Rights Watch also urged Egypt to overturn the convictions of four me
At 8:30 a.m. Sept. 11, 2001, Robert Klitzman s sister, Karen, called her best friend from her office on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center. No one ever heard from her again. Grief-stricken, Klitzman became depressed, but he didn t realize it for a while. He is a psychiatrist. He couldn t become mentally ill, cou
WASHINGTON (AP) - The record $3.1 trillion budget proposed by President Bush on Monday would produce eyepopping federal deficits, despite his attempts to impose politically wrenching curbs on Medicare and eliminate scores of popular domestic programs. The Pentagon would receive a $36 billion, 8 percent boost for the 20
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - When you see the photographs of the school with the kids lined up for a meal in a commercial district in Meru, Kenya , you don t think, What this place needs is a band. But, says Brighton resident Beth Miller, in Africa, you have to listen to what they tell you they want. In Meru, what the retir
RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia health officials say there are disparities between blacks and whites in reported cases of HIV/AIDS. The Virginia Department of Health reports that in 2005, black males in Virginia were 9 times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV/AIDS than white males, and black females were 4 times more likely
BALTIMORE - A group of Maryland lawyers hopes to start a legal clinic that would serve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people - underserved groups that advocates say have special legal problems. When the proposed FreeState Law Project opens this fall, it would be the first of its kind in the state and one of a f
SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. - In secluded corners of upstate New York and impoverished neighborhoods around New York City, the sick are less likely to see a doctor. Hours from a big city, and a helicopter ride away from certain specialized medical treatments, Adirondack Medical Center is one of New York s medical outposts, stru
KINGSTON, Jamaica : A prominent human rights group urged Jamaica to do more to protect gays and lesbians after a mob attacked two men this week, leaving one severely injured and the other missing. A group of about 20 people threw bottles at the men s home, broke down the door and attacked them in the central mountain t
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A five-year, $15 billion effort to combat AIDS in Africa and other areas -- arguably the most important and popular international program of the Bush presidency -- may become a political battleground as it comes up for renewal. President Bush wants to double and House Democrats want to triple spendin
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- (AP) -- No Guantanamo Bay captives have AIDS or the AIDS virus, the military said Friday, denying a claim made by a detainee through his lawyer. No detainee has HIV or AIDS, nor have any had HIV or AIDS here at Guantanamo, said Navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt, the prison camps spokesman. Libyan deta
San Jose, Calif. (AP) -- San Jose State University has suspended all campus blood drives because of a long-standing government policy that bars gay men from donating blood. San Jose State President Don Kassing says the policy by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration violates the school s nondiscrimination policy. Th
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - A British man was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison for infecting two young women with HIV and putting 13 more at risk of infection, reports said. Christer Merrill Aggett, 32, also convicted of six counts of having sex with minors, was ordered to pay more than $428,000 in damages, the news
NEW YORK-The Foundation for AIDS Research is honoring Julian Schnabel, Bobby Shriver and Carine Roitfeld for their work raising money for AIDS research. The trio were to receive amfAR s Award of Courage at a star-studded, black-tie dinner Thursday featuring a performance by Barry Manilow and presentations by Kenneth Co
GENEVA - Swiss AIDS experts said Thursday that some people with HIV who meet strict conditions and are under treatment can safely have unprotected sex with non-infected partners. The proposal astonished AIDS researchers in Europe and North America who have long argued that safe sex with a condom is the single most effe
CHICAGO - A new study says about 97 percent of Illinois sex education teachers say they discuss HIV/AIDS in class, but just 34 percent teach how to use condoms. The study published in the February 2008 issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology surveyed 209 teachers, representing a sample of about 62 percent of the
WASHINGTON- The AIDS virus has hideouts deep in the immune system that today s drugs can t reach. Now scientists finally have discovered how HIV builds one of those fortresses - and they re exploring whether a drug already used to fight a parasite in developing countries just might hold a key to break in. Researchers h
PHILADELPHIA - A nurse admitted Wednesday he cut body parts from 244 corpses and helped forge paperwork so the parts, some of them diseased, could be used in unsuspecting patients. Authorities say nurse Lee Cruceta was the lead cutter in a group that trafficked in more than 1,000 stolen body parts for the lucrative tra
BEIJING - Nearly two dozen plainclothes police swarmed the apartment on a December afternoon, confiscating laptops, cell phones, bank cards and books. The wife, who was bathing her 6-week-old daughter, heard nothing. The husband, China s brashest dissident, was quietly whisked away. In a matter of minutes, Hu Jia had v
MOSCOW - Imprisoned Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky launched a hunger strike Wednesday to protest authorities refusal to give his jailed ex-lawyer AIDS medication. Khodorkovsky accused officials of trying to extract incriminating, false confessions from the former lawyer, Vasily Aleksanian, and denying him AIDS
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - The top U.S. envoy to Africa called the violence in Kenya ethnic cleansing and said Wednesday Washington was reviewing its hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the country. Jendayi Frazer said neither President Mwai Kibaki nor his chief rival, opposition leader Raila Odinga, is doing enough
ATLANTA - Four of the country s largest black Baptist conventions are meeting in Atlanta Monday through Wednesday, with some 10,000 delegates expected to gather. The groups involved are: the National Baptist Convention of America, the National Baptist convention USA, the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Health officials on Sunday began distributing millions of condoms to fight the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases during Brazil s five-day Carnival. The government expects to hand out some 19.5 million condoms by Carnival s end on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 6, state news servi
DAVOS, Switzerland - Rock star Bono bowed deeply and gave Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda an iPod at the start of a meeting Saturday to try to get more Japanese support for the fight against poverty in Africa. The gift broke the ice as Fukuda sat down with Bono, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, former British Prime
Some issues raised in President Bush s State of the Union addresses over the years and what became of them: AXIS OF EVIL In 2002, Bush branded Iraq , North Korea and Iran as members of an axis of evi
LOS ANGELES - A judge has ruled a man accused of infecting his ex-wife with the AIDS virus will have to disclose his sexual orientation in an upcoming civil trial. Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu ruled Thursday that attorneys representing the man s ex-wife can use his e-mails as evidence of his rampant, high-risk sec
DAVOS, Switzerland - Halfway to a 2015 deadline to implement sweeping U.N. goals to reduce poverty, fight AIDS and put more children in school, the world needs to do much more, billionaire Bill Gates and others said Friday. Nearly 1 billion people live on less than $1 a day, half of the developing world lacks basic san
GENEVA - Kenya has seen a rise in child rapes since last month s disputed presidential election sparked violence and forced thousands into makeshift camps, the United Nations children s fund said Friday. Overcrowding and lack of security in the camps is making women and girls vulnerable to opportunistic sexual assault,
WASHINGTON -- A month after returning from the Middle East, President Bush will travel to Africa in February on a five-country tour. The president, accompanied by his wife, Laura, will visit Benin , Tanzania , Rwanda , Ghana and Liberi
PIERRE -- The South Dakota Senate decided Thursday that people who are convicted of intentionally infecting sex partners with the AIDS virus should have to register as sex offenders after release from prison. Sen. Sandy Jerstad, D-Sioux Falls, said that would warn the public about the danger those people present. T
YANGON, Myanmar -- A Myanmar poet known for his odes to love was arrested after penning a Valentine s Day poem that carried a hidden message criticizing the leader of the country s military junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, colleagues said Thursday. The poet, Saw Wai, was arrested Tuesday, a day after his poem February 14
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) -- Fears of world recession briefly took a back seat Thursday at the World Economic Forum, where leaders from Afghanistan , Pakistan and Iraq focused on how to establish security in the
NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office on Wednesday rejected four patents for Gilead Sciences Inc. s (NASDAQ:GILD) HIV drug Viread as part of a challenge by the nonprofit Public Patent Foundation. The drug is part of Gilead s once-daily, three-in-one combination treatment Atripla, which combines Viread
SAN ANTONIO - Police said they will seek drug paraphernalia charges punishable by up to a year in jail for three activists who were caught handing out clean syringes in exchange for dirty ones. The members of the nonprofit group Bexar Area Harm Reduction Coalition were cited Jan. 5 when a police officer saw them parked
NEW YORK (AP) -- Gilead Sciences Inc. reports earnings for the fourth quarter on Wednesday. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst opinion related to the period. OVERVIEW: In December, Gilead expanded sales of its once-daily HIV treatment Atripla to Europe, boosting its position in the international
HOUSTON - A Houston woman and her husband want a state lawmaker tested for sexually transmitted diseases after they claim he forcibly kissed the woman at a holiday party. Nathaniel and Krysynthia Rido made the accusations against state Rep. Borris Miles in a lawsuit filed in state district court on Friday. Miles spoke
EASTON, Pa. - A woman who prosecutors say lied about having AIDS to defraud the state of nearly $67,000 in medical assistance and other benefits must provide blood samples to determine if she has the disease, a Northampton County judge ruled. Cassey Weierbach, 28, of Bethlehem, is in the county prison awaiting trial on
NEW YORK - The alleged mastermind behind a scheme to plunder bodies and sell their parts for millions plans to plead guilty next week. In an effort to escape lengthy jail sentences stemming from cases in Philadelphia and New York, Michael Mastromarino has agreed to talk to investigators about the companies that bought
TORONTO - Prosecutors dropped criminal charges against the former head of the Canadian Red Cross on Friday, clearing him of responsibility in a tainted-blood scandal that infected thousands with HIV or hepatitis and left more than 3,000 dead. Prosecutors from the Ontario Supreme Court withdrew all six charges against D
WASHINGTON - Tablets of the drug etravirine were approved Friday by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of HIV infection in adults who have failed treatment with other antiretrovirals. Sold under the trade name Intelence, etravirine is a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, or NNRTI, that help
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said Friday it will close a plant in the city of Barceloneta, adding to pharmaceutical industry cutbacks in the U.S. island territory. Bristol-Myers said it would gradually close the plant in the northern city over the next 12 months, eliminating about 2
LONDON: In the two decades since AIDS began sweeping the globe, it has often been labeled as the biggest threat to international health. But with revised numbers downsizing the pandemic published last year - along with an admission that AIDS peaked in the late 1990s - some AIDS experts are now wondering if it might be
SEATTLE - A little more than a year after the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made its first grants to help farmers in Africa, the foundation has already invested more than $350 million toward answering the question: Why are Africans getting hungrier while the rest of the world has made tremendous progress in this
MOSCOW (AP)--A lawyer for a former Yukos (YUKO.RS) executive who lies gravely ill with AIDS in a prison hospital pleaded with Russian authorities Thursday to move her client to a clinic where he can get the treatment he needs. Lawyer Yelena Lvova told reporters Vasily Alexanian was diagnosed several months after his ar
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Conditions are harsh for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, a hunger-striking prisoner said in a letter released Wednesday, although he did not provide details. Each of us suffers new physical pain, and our injured hearts suffer from a psychological pain that cannot be described, Sami al-Haj, a Sudan
GABORONE, Botswana (AP)--Health authorities on Wednesday reported the first known cases of virtually untreatable tuberculosis in Botswana, following fears that the highly contagious strain has spread beyond South Africa . The health ministry said there were two cases of so-called extremely drug resistant tuberculosis,
NEW YORK - Rent, the acclaimed musical chronicle of counterculture life and death in Manhattan s East Village, will close in June after more than a dozen years on Broadway. The rock-inflected reinterpretation of the Puccini opera La Boheme will be the seventh-longest-running Broadway show in history when it closes afte
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Dan Robinson rattled off jarring statistics about global poverty almost as quickly as he flies the U.S. Air Force s F-22A Raptor supersonic stealth fighter. More than 1 billion people live in extreme poverty, subsisting on less than $1 a day, said the British Royal Air Force pilot, who works at Lang
Washington - Community groups in the District are sponsoring a town hall-style meeting that will focus on ways to combat the city s high rates of AIDS and HIV infections. Tuesday s meeting inside Luther Place Memorial Church on Vermont Avenue in Northwest begins at 7 p.m. and will include political, religious and socia
(AP) -- When Doctors Become Patients (Oxford University Press, 333 pages, $35), by Robert Klitzman: At 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Robert Klitzman s sister, Karen, called her best friend from her office on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center. No one ever heard from her again. Grief-stricken, Klitzman became depr
ALBANY, N.Y. - Instead of waiting for hours in an emergency room or landing in a nursing home, New Yorkers with government health coverage will soon have opportunity to avoid those costly treatment venues by going to their own family doctor. In his State of the State address Wednesday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer proposed chang
PHOENIX - An Hispanic nonprofit organization has reversed its decision to pull out of a program that helps people with HIV and AIDS. Chicanos Por La Causa, Inc. will continue to offer the Ryan White CARE program through February 2009 to its clients, who are mostly Latino and among the fastest-growing groups that are co
A survey by the City Health Department has found that 18 percent of the city s adults are at increased risk for H.I.V. infection because of multiple sex partners or drug injection, but that 92 percent of that group believe they are safe. The survey also found that among the group with multiple sex partners, 60 percent
LONDON: Eighteen British soldiers wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq have been warned that they received transfusions of blood from American military sources that might not have been adequately tested, the Ministry of Defense said Thursday. Defense Minister Derek Twigg said the risk of i
WASHINGTON -- The AIDS virus has to hijack human proteins to do its damage, but scientists until now have known only a few dozen of its targets. On Thursday, Harvard researchers unveiled a surprisingly longer list, an important first step in the hunt for new drugs. HIV is on its face a simple virus, consisting of just
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (Map, News) - Kenya s postelection turmoil is reverberating through an outreach program run by Indiana University for two decades that provides HIV/AIDS screening and other medical and humanitarian assistance to the African nation. The IU-Kenya Partnership has dispatched hundreds of physicians, studen
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A Palestinian doctor jailed for eight years in Libya along with five Bulgarian nurses for purportedly infecting children with the AIDS virus has filed a complaint with the U.N. charging he was tortured in captivity, his Dutch lawyer said Wednesday. Ashraf al-Hazouz and the Bulgarians, who w
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Oregon Health & Science University plans to open a satellite vaccine research campus in Florida, adding to the growing biotech cluster forming in the area, officials announced Tuesday. The Oregon Health & Science University s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute was enticed by $117.8 millio
NEW YORK - The city s overall death rate dropped to an all-time low in 2006 due in part to declines in mortality from HIV and smoking-related illness, the health commissioner said Tuesday. The number of deaths fell to 55,391 in 2006 from 57,068 a year earlier, according to the city s Health Department of Health and Men
NEW YORK (AP) -- A Credit Suisse analyst upgraded shares of Gilead Sciences Inc. on Monday, saying the stock will rise because sales of Gilead s HIV drug Atripla have been better than expected and will continue to grow after the drug is launched in Europe. Atripla combines two Gilead drugs,
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Hepatitis C and HIV drug developer Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc. on Monday reaffirmed it expects to report ending fiscal 2007 with between $100 million and $110 million of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. The company s 2007 financial results have not yet been finalized or audited.
RIVA, Md. - Bernadette Zorio had no idea that the jewelry she bought last summer would help impoverished African villagers. But when the Riva resident learned about BeadforLife, an organization that sells beaded jewelry made by Ugandan villagers to help create sustainable life, she wanted to help out. Zorio has sold th
The matter-of-fact display on prostitution was startling enough. Then, a large remote-controlled condom floated above the conference hall. Kay Warren, wife of pastor Rick Warren, wondered, What had I gotten myself into? It was her first International AIDS Conference, in 2004 in Thailand . Just two years earlier,
MONTPELIER -- The Vermont Health Department on Wednesday warned about a resurgence of the sexually transmitted disease syphilis, which is being spread mostly among men. Vermont had nine reported cases last year, up from three in 2006, and one in 2005. The main reason is a rise in the disease among men who have sex with
LONDON - Children with severe pneumonia can be treated just as effectively at home as in a hospital, according to new research. Doctors in Pakistan found that children taking antibiotics at home were as likely to survive serious pneumonia as those treated in hospitals. The study was published Friday in the British medi
NEW YORK -- Cameron Mathison is putting himself up for auction. It s to raise money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, an industry-based HIV/AIDS fundraising organization. The 38-year-old star of the ABC daytime soap opera All My Children will host a March 2 show at Town Hall to benefit the charity. He is offering
WASHINGTON - The District of Columbia government will spend $650,000 to fund needle exchange programs to reduce soaring rates of HIV and AIDS infections in the nation s capital, city officials announced Wednesday. A nearly decade-long congressionally imposed ban on using city money for such programs was lifted last wee
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