Congress and President Bush have done the right thing, lifting a disastrous nine-year ban that prevented Washington from using locally raised tax dollars on needle-exchange programs that help fight the spread of AIDS. Unfortunately, that still leaves in force an even broader and more damaging law that prohibits the use
WASHINGTON - President Bush signed legislation on Wednesday lifting a ban that for nearly a decade has prevented city officials here from using local tax money for needle exchange programs. Officials of the District of Columbia Health Department said that with the ban lifted, they would allocate $1 million for such pro
MBARARA, Uganda - At the AIDS clinic here, the stories are brutal. A young cattle herder, infected with H.I.V. along with his wife, tells me that all four of their children died before turning 3. H.I.V. and AIDS patients awaiting help at a center in Gulu, Uganda. Many families are on the edge of starvation. A mothe
Mel Cheren, an innovative record executive who helped start the Paradise Garage, a cavernous focal point of the downtown Manhattan gay disco scene in the 1970s and 80s, died on Dec. 7 in Manhattan. He was 74. The cause was pneumonia as a complication of AIDS, said Sherri Eisenpress, the executor of his estate. As the
Over the last decade, former President Bill Clinton has raised more than $500 million for his foundation, allowing him to build a glass-and-steel presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., and burnish his image as an impresario of global philanthropy. The foundation has closely guarded the identities of its donors - in
NAIROBI, Kenya - The Ethiopian government, one of America s top allies in Africa, is forcing untrained civilians - including doctors, teachers, office clerks and employees of development programs financed by the World Bank and United Nations - to fight rebels in the desolate Ogaden region, according to Western official
A Dubai court sentenced two men on Wednesday to 15 years in prison for the rape of a French-Swiss teenager whose case became a rallying point for critics of the way the United Arab Emirates treats victims of sexual assault. When the teenager, Alexandre Robert, 15, first reported that he had been gang-raped by three men
Among the growing numbers of researchers and public health officials advocating a daring new strategy to put an injectable antidote for heroin overdoses directly into the hands of addicts, few have the credibility of Mark Kinzly. After 11 years as an addict, Mr. Kinzly cleaned up, began working with needle exchange pro
As new polls highlight Mike Huckabee s ascent in the Republican presidential field, he is drawing new scrutiny of his record in Arkansas, particularly his actions in the release of a convicted rapist who went on to murder a woman and his response to a questionnaire in which he said people with AIDS should be quarantine
As new polls in Iowa highlight Mike Huckabee s ascent in the Republican presidential race, he is drawing new scrutiny about his possible role as governor of Arkansas in the release of a convicted rapist who went on to murder a woman and his past support for quarantining people with AIDS. A former parole board member in
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - The birth rate among teenagers 15 to 19 in the United States rose 3 percent in 2006, according to a report issued Wednesday, the first such increase since 1991. The finding surprised scholars and fueled a debate about whether the Bush administration s abstinence-only sexual education efforts are wo
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 - More people in the United States are infected each year with the AIDS virus than previously thought, according to federal health officials, in a finding that could affect the debate over how much money should be spent on prevention efforts. No one is yet sure whether more people have actually been
NEWARK, Nov. 30 - To live in Newark often means grappling with unrelenting poverty, the anesthetizing lure of drugs, murderous gangs, a lack of decent jobs. But for gay men, lesbians and transgender people, there are additional obstacles that are seldom acknowledged: gay bashings, H.I.V., open hostility from many relig
AIDS cases are increasing in the nation s capital and Congress may be partly to blame. Congress fanned the flames of a public health disaster when it used its powers over the District of Columbia s budget to bar the city from spending even locally raised tax dollars on clean needle programs. These programs have been sh
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will propose steps today to strengthen the government s strategy to battle H.I.V. and AIDS in the United States and the rest of the world, becoming the latest Democratic presidential candidate to commit to a significant expansion of federal efforts to combat the epidemic. Mrs. Clinton
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 - The District of Columbia has the highest rate of AIDS infection of any city in the country and the disease is being transmitted to infants, older adults, women and heterosexual men at an epidemic pace, according to a report released Monday by city health officials. H.I.V./AIDS in the district has
IGNORE the fuss over the news last week - the United Nations AIDS-fighting agency admits to overestimating the global epidemic by six million people. That was a sampling error, an epidemiologist s Dewey Defeats Truman. Look instead at the fact that glares out from the Orwellian but necessary revision of the figures for
The Nassau County district attorney, Kathleen Rice, said yesterday that she would investigate the entirety of the circumstances that led a patient to be infected with hepatitis C and hundreds more to be placed at risk by the improper infection-control practices of an anesthesiologist on Long Island. Through a spokesman
After releasing new figures showing that the global AIDS epidemic is smaller than it previously reported, the United Nations AIDS-fighting agency denied yesterday that it had inflated estimates for years in an alarmist effort to raise funds. Skip to next paragraph Officials at the agency, Unaids, were asked about the a
The United Nations AIDS-fighting agency plans to issue a report today acknowledging that it overestimated the size of the epidemic and that new infections with the deadly virus have been dropping each year since they peaked in the late 1990s. The agency, Unaids, will lower the number of people it believes are infected
Mount Vernon - IT was two Thursdays before Thanksgiving, but Karen O Brien was already preparing a turkey to roast. It would be the first of many she would cook in the coming days, what with City Hall, a nearby synagogue and various individuals expected to donate as many as four dozen. We ll have turkeys coming out our
The discovery of a Long Island doctor s astonishingly lax approach to infection control has raised troubling questions about the adequacy of medical oversight in New York State - and the packaging of medicines in vials that are easy to contaminate. According to state health officials, when giving a patient several diff
Tucked inside the tale of a Long Island pain management doctor who used unsafe infection control practices is a growing public health concern: the risks of transmitting blood-borne diseases through medicine vials that hold more than one dose and can be used for injections for multiple patients. Reused needles and syrin
State health officials notified 628 patients this week that they should be tested for hepatitis and H.I.V. infection because they were treated years ago by an anesthesiologist in Nassau County who used improper procedures for preventing the spread of blood-borne diseases. The anesthesiologist, Dr. Harvey Finkelstein, o
LAST Saturday morning, in a warehouse tucked behind a strip mall and a beauty salon in North Bergen, N.J., it was difficult to say what made for a more jarring picture. Was it the sight of 3,000 boxes full of marked-down Oscar de la Renta gowns, Proenza Schouler bomber jackets and Ralph Lauren cable-knit sweaters? Or w
Four transplant recipients in Chicago have contracted H.I.V. from an organ donor, the first known cases in more than a decade in which the virus was spread by organ transplants. The organs also gave all four patients hepatitis C, in what health officials said was the first reported instance in which the two viruses wer
The female condom has never caught on in the United States . But in the third world, where it was introduced in the late 1990s, public health workers hoped it would overthrow the politics of the bedroom, empower women and stop the AIDS epidemic in its tracks. It did not. Female condoms never really caught on there, eit
In a puzzling and potentially troubling development, an AIDS vaccine tested in a closely watched trial might have increased the risk among vaccine recipients of becoming infected with H.I.V., researchers reported yesterday at a scientific meeting in Seattle. But the researchers said not enough data existed to determine
Taken as a young child from her drug-abusing mother, the girl had lived in one foster home after another. Now, at 16, she saw the day approaching when she would become an adult and be sent off to make a life on her own. She desperately wanted to be ready, and one last bit of help seemed to be at hand. New York City had
An experimental drug from Vertex Pharmaceuticals helped cure more than 60 percent of patients with a tough-to-treat form of hepatitis C, according to data to be presented at a medical meeting that starts today. The results, eagerly awaited by Wall Street as well as by doctors, represent the highest cure rate yet report
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates , Oct. 31 - Alexandre Robert, a French 15-year-old, was having a fine summer in this tourist paradise on the Persian Gulf. It was Bastille Day and he and a classmate had escaped the July heat at the beach for an air-conditioned arcade. Just after sunset, Alex says he was rushing to meet
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton just signed a pledge that commits the next president to investing $50 billion by 2013 to combat AIDS around the world. She is also planning to deliver a formal policy on AIDS. Gay and lesbian activists have been asking the presidential candidates to sign the pledge, which is being circula
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 24 - This Halloween, the Glindas, gladiators and harem boys of the Castro - along with untold numbers who plan to dress up as Senator Larry E. Craig, this year s camp celebrity - will be celebrating behind closed doors. The city s most popular Halloween party, in America s largest gay neighborhood,
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger s political courage clearly failed him when he vetoed a bill that would have permitted the distribution of condoms in California s AIDS-ravaged prisons. At the same time, the governor ordered up a pilot distribution program for one as-yet unnamed prison. A small, exploratory program falls
ONE of the most recent times I got tested for H.I.V., two Octobers ago, I was given the choice of having my saliva screened or giving a sample of blood from a pinprick. This wasn t the old test, said the young, nose-pierced counselor at the Chelsea clinic where I had gone. No more tapping a forearm to find a vein. No m
Most Americans surveyed for a poll released yesterday think either AIDS or malaria is the top killer of young children around the world. They are wrong. Childbirth complications, pneumonia and diarrhea — age-old causes of death that can be prevented with cheap, proven methods — are actually the biggest culprits, accord
It s coming up roses on the Chelsea real estate front, but at certain addresses death hangs in the air. Or, more accurately, on the walls. Two galleries, by coincidence, are presenting group shows about the only fate as certain as taxes. Their message is that all art, basically, is an attempt to explain, fend off or ac
Washington -- Tens of thousands of Medicare recipients have been victims of deceptive sales tactics and had claims improperly denied by private insurers that run the system s huge new drug benefit program and offer other private insurance options encouraged by the Bush administration, a review of federal audits has fou
Saying that everyone has the right to be treated, and die, with dignity, the World Health Organization yesterday issued its first guide to planning end-of-life care. The 51-page document was aimed not at individual doctors, but at national health ministers, said one of its authors, Dr. Cecilia Sepúlveda, palliative car
An American pharmaceutical company and four doctors, including the former medical director of the Canadian Red Cross and two government officials, were acquitted after an 18-month trial of criminal negligence charges stemming from tainted blood. Thousands of Canadians were infected by H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS
ANNIE LENNOX is a worrier. She worries about victims of war, about African children with AIDS, about the poor and the homeless. She worries about the state of popular music, about every detail of her album packages and Web site, about her stamina as she gears up for an American tour after her fourth solo album, Songs o
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - Just a few short years ago, she was a party-loving college girl, sticking her tongue out in view of photographers and giving her parents heartburn. Now Jenna Bush, 25, is sporting a diamond-and-sapphire ring, engaged to be married - though probably not at the White House, her mother says - and he
Donors pledged $9.7 billion yesterday to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at a fund-raising conference in Berlin - an increase over previous donations, but well short of the $15 billion to $18 billion the fund had hoped to raise. Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, who led th
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 - Girls schools in Bangladesh , clean water systems in Ghana , courthouses in Armenia , roads in Nicaragua . For decades, the World Bank has financed more than $10 billion a year for projects like these, the biggest source of aid for the poorest
Washington TWENTY-FIVE years after the outbreak of H.I.V. in the United States , there are about 40,000 new cases of infection a year, and an estimated quarter-million people who have H.I.V. but do not know they are infected. That s why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that every emergency
A much-heralded H.I.V. vaccine has failed to work in a large clinical trial, dealing another serious setback to efforts to stop the AIDS epidemic. The vaccine s developer, Merck, said yesterday that it had halted test vaccinations after the vaccine failed to prevent infection or reduce the severity of infection among v
A drug widely used to treat H.I.V. infection may also be effective in fighting cancer, a new study suggests, and a human trial of the medicine is already under way. In laboratory and animal tests of six protease inhibitors , three were found to slow growth in a variety of cancer cell types, in dosages that have been to
FOR two decades after being infected with the virus that causes AIDS, Barbara Cassis was able to remain active and move into a career in social work. But two years ago, her health declined sharply, and her doctor told her that her infection had developed into full-blown AIDS. Ms. Cassis, 45, a Bronx resident, said she
Two surgeons who developed prosthetic heart valves that have prolonged the lives of millions of people are among the winners of this year’s Lasker awards, widely considered the nation’s most prestigious medical prizes. Drs. Alain Carpentier, 74, of the Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris, and Albert Starr, 81, of the Pr
In her eye-opening 2003 documentary, The Gift, Louise Hogarth familiarized viewers with bug chasers, H.I.V.-negative gay men who actively pursue positive status. In her follow-up, Angels in the Dust, she reveals another, more heart-wrenching facet of the H.I.V./AIDS pandemic by turning the camera on a group of innocent
For the first time since record keeping began in 1960, the number of deaths of young children around the world has fallen below 10 million a year, according to figures from the United Nations Children s Fund being released today. This public health triumph has arisen, Unicef officials said, partly from campaigns agains
Rates of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus have risen substantially among New York men younger than 30, indicating a shift in the age of the population most vulnerable now to contracting H.I.V. and AIDS, city health officials said yesterday. Over six years starting in 2001, new diagnoses in men who have s
TRIVANDRUM, India - It was a neighbor screaming in pain 35 years ago that set Dr. M. R. Rajagopal on the path to his nickname: India s father of palliative care. He was dying of cancer, with lots of tumors on his face and scalp, Dr. Rajagopal recalled. His family asked if I could help, and I couldn t - I was just a med
H.I.V. infection rates have risen substantially among young New York City men who have sex with men, indicating a shift in the population most vulnerable now to contracting AIDS, city health officials announced today. Over a five-year period, the number of new H.I.V. diagnoses in men under the age of 30 who have sex wi
WATERLOO, Sierra Leone - Although the rainy season was coming on fast, Zainabu Sesay was in no shape to help her husband. Ditches had to be dug to protect their cassava and peanuts, and their mud hut s palm roof was sliding off. But Mrs. Sesay was sick. She had breast cancer in a form that Western doctors rarely see an
When a portion of a celebrity s paycheck or time - say, that of Angelina Jolie or Bono - goes to a pet cause, the effort is inevitably lauded by celebrity news blogs and tabloids worldwide. But to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the sober voice of the philanthropy industry, the yardstick is much higher. As celebrity inv
CAPE TOWN - NOZIZWE MADLALA-ROUTLEDGE, one of the most talked-about figures in South Africa these days, wanted to be a scientist. She says she sacrificed her ambition on the altar of principle. Ms. Madlala, as she was then known, was pursuing a science degree at the University of Fort Hare, an apartheid-era haven for b
Bill Frist, the Tennessee Republican who retired this year as Senate majority leader, announced yesterday that he would lead a drive by the charity Save the Children to make the preventable deaths of millions of children in the developing world an issue for Americans. Mr. Frist, a surgeon, helped push through large inc
Dr. Edward N. Brandt Jr., who oversaw the nation s initial response to AIDS as the top-ranking doctor in the government in the early 1980s, died Aug. 25 at his home in Oklahoma City. He was 74. The cause was lung cancer, his son, Edward III, said. Dr. Brandt, who also eventually led several medical schools and a univer
IT S like this. Dr. Susan Blank, a senior health department official for the city, is naturally wide-eyed in a bobbing your head, waving your hands kind of way. Her latest challenge is syphilis, which in the 1990s seemed headed for extinction but now, for unknown reasons, is surging back in New York City. When asked if
To the Editor: Difficulties like decreased libido are not the only problems stemming from adults remaining sexually active later in life ( Many Found Sexually Active Into the 70s, news article, Aug. 23). As we reported in last year s landmark Research on Older Adults With H.I.V. study, the fastest-growing segment of th
ROME, Aug. 25 - New infectious diseases are emerging at an unprecedented rate, and far greater human mobility - by planes, trains and ships - means that diseases have the potential to spread rapidly across the globe, a World Health Organization report warned this week. Because of this risk, greater international cooper
In an implicit rebuke to the Health Ministry, the Academy of Sciences of South Africa said its studies had found no scientific basis for the use of nutritional supplements as a first-line defense against H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The country s health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has been widely critici
To the Editor: Re Firing an AIDS Fighter (editorial, Aug. 14): The fight against AIDS in South Africa has countless champions, starting with President Thabo Mbeki. Under his leadership, South Africa is implementing what has been acknowledged by the United Nations and others to be among the largest and most comprehensiv
Abstinence programs for HIV prevention do not work, according to a review of randomized, controlled trials. The analysis, published in the August issue of The British Medical Journal, covered 13 studies involving more than 15,000 young Americans. Most of the programs were based in schools and directed at children in gr
A study in Uganda has come up with a surprising finding about sex and H.I.V. Washing the penis minutes after sex increased the risk of acquiring H.I.V. in uncircumcised men. The sooner the washing, the greater the risk of becoming infected, the study found. Delaying washing for at least 10 minutes after sex significant
JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 20 - South Africa s minister of health has for years been the target of attacks for her defiant and unconventional stance on AIDS, and her boss, President Thabo Mbeki, has stood by her through thick and thin. But never, certainly, as thin as this. The minister, Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has for t
Bethesda, Md. DDT, the miracle insecticide turned environmental bogeyman, is once again playing an important role in public health. In the malaria-plagued regions of Africa, where mosquitoes are becoming resistant to other chemicals, DDT is now being used as an indoor repellent. Research that I and my colleagues recent
OUTSIDE New York City, Westchester had the second-highest number of people living with AIDS of any county in the state - 2,088, excluding inmates - in 2005, the latest year for which statistics are available. Only Sullivan County had more. And Westchester was fourth in the number of reported cases of H.I.V. infection,
JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 18 - South African democracy is so adolescent, barely 13 years old and still largely unformed, that almost every significant political development is a precedent. Now some wonder whether president Thabo Mbeki is about to create a new one: the lame duck. Mr. Mbeki, the nation s dominant political figu
What is it about South Africa s devastating AIDS epidemic that President Thabo Mbeki just doesn t want to understand? Mr. Mbeki has catastrophically failed to face up to his country s greatest challenge. For years, he associated himself with crackpot theories that disputed the demonstrable fact that AIDS was transmitte
Abstinence-only programs for H.I.V. prevention do not work, according to a review of randomized, controlled trials. The analysis, published in the August 4 issue of The British Medical Journal, covered 13 studies involving more than 15,000 young Americans. Most of the programs were based in schools and directed at chil
WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 - In his speeches, Dr. Richard H. Carmona, the former surgeon general, often tells audiences about receiving the advice that if he wanted a friend in Washington, he should get a dog. Dr. Carmona then offers his own bit of wisdom: get two dogs. During your tenure, one of those dogs will turn on you,
It was a scourge of centuries past, a disease that ravaged the body and brain, drove geniuses to madness and slowly brought its victims to a terrible death. But syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease that was so rare by 1998 that federal health officials had planned to declare it eliminated by 2005, has made a troubl
South Africa s former deputy health minister, fired this week by President Thabo Mbeki, said her ouster was unjustified. I was just doing my job, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, said at a press conference. She said the health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, once told her, I ll fix you, and might have engineered her firi
JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 9 - The South African president, Thabo Mbeki, has fired his deputy health minister, who was widely credited with waging an aggressive assault on the nation s devastating AIDS epidemic this year. South African anti-AIDS advocates called the firing of the deputy, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, a setback to
NEW DELHI, Aug. 6 -- Indian companies will be free to continue making less expensive generic drugs, much of which flow to the developing world, after a court rejected a challenge to the patent law on Monday. Aid organizations declared the ruling a victory for the rights of patients over patents, but the Swiss drug comp
SOFIA, Bulgaria , Aug. 1 - In the yard of the Bulgarian presidential residence, on the foothills of Vitosha Mountain, Ashraf al-Hazouz on Tuesday recounted his years of imprisonment and torture in Libya and aired his grievances: the beatings, the electrical charges all over his body, the injection that he was told carr
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - In the golden hills of Marin County, it is hard to imagine that free food or emergency cab fares could matter much to anyone. But for hundreds of people who were thrown into poverty by AIDS, like Wade Flores, 45, a former distributor for a chocolate company who lives alone and is getting sicker and
Adding another bleak dimension to the sordid world of sex slavery, young girls who have been trafficked abroad into prostitution are emerging as an AIDS risk factor in their home countries, according to a study being released today. Girls who were forced into prostitution before age 15 and girls traded between brothels
TO Westerners, the repatriation of five nurses and a doctor to Bulgaria last week after more than eight years imprisonment meant the end of an unsettling ordeal. The medical workers, who in May 2004 were sentenced to death on charges of intentionally infecting hundreds of Libyan children with H.I.V., have been freed, a
One boxer fought for $800 to fly home for his mother s funeral. Another sought a $3,500 payday, nearly half of what he made in a year as a firefighter in Mexico City. Still another hoped his $500 check would allow him to pay bills and do more than buy a can of soup. They were among the neediest professional fighters, a
ROME: THE safe landing of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor in Sofia last week, freed of a death sentence after eight years in Libyan prisons, was an apparent victory of diplomacy at long last. But the drawn-out drama over Libyan accusations that the medical workers had infected children with H.I.V. also r
SOFIA, Bulgaria , July 28 -- Calling the action a betrayal, Libya on Saturday denounced a decision by Bulgaria s president to pardon six medical workers who had been given life sentences in Libya before they were released from the country this week. Libya s foreign minister, Abdelrahman Shalgham, said at a news con
When Rufus Dantzler was released from a New York State prison in 2004 after serving 14 years for murder, he was ordered by the state s parole office to get treatment for alcoholism and marijuana abuse. But when he arrived at the program, which was run by Greenwich House, a nonprofit group in Manhattan, he was told that
SOFIA, Bulgaria , July 26 -- Two Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor said Wednesday that they wanted to move on with their lives but were still too shaken after more than eight years in a Libyan prison. We are shocked both by freedom and all of the other things that have happened, one of the nurses, Kristiana Va
SOFIA, Bulgaria , July 24 -- After more than eight years in a Libyan prison, convicted of deliberately infecting children with the virus that causes AIDS, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor stepped off a French presidential plane to freedom here on Tuesday. The charge had been widely dismissed abroad as abs
SOFIA, Bulgaria , July 24 - After more than eight years in jail in Libya , five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor stepped off the French presidential plane here in Bulgaria s capital early this morning where they were greeted by crying relatives and Bulgaria s top officials. They were accompanied by the Eur
DAKAR, Senegal July 24 - Despite a thicket of troubles, from deadly illnesses like AIDS and malaria to corrupt politicians and deep-seated poverty, a plurality of Africans say they are better off today than they were five years ago and are optimistic about their future and that of the next generation, according to a po
Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World, a new comedy on Logo, is like an old salt whose filthy mouth belies a gentle spirit. It speaks raunchily, but it behaves judiciously. The publicity surrounding it billed the show as a gay South Park, but the comparison obtains superficially, and even there yo
Tommy Morrison had a seemingly boundless future in 1996. A former heavyweight boxing champion, he had had a starring role in Rocky V and was in line for his biggest payday, a showdown against Mike Tyson. All that came to an abrupt end, though, when he tested positive for H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. These days,
LOS ANGELES - IN the annals of takeovers, it was among the mellowest. A group calling itself Guerrilla Gay Bar, gay men looking to crash straight hangouts with the intent of turning them predominantly gay for a moment in time, set its sights on Venice Beach one recent Saturday. Both the weather and the water temperatur
ROME, July 21 -- A total recall of an important AIDS drug widely used in developing countries has disrupted treatment for tens of thousands of the world s poorest patients, with no clear word from the manufacturer on when shipments will resume. The recall of the drug, Viracept , by Roche Pharmaceuti
Prison inmates have unprotected sex, despite laws forbidding it and denial by prison officials, which makes prisons prime settings for the spread of deadly blood-borne viruses like hepatitis C and H.I.V. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention underscored this point last year when it urged states without condom-
Libya on Tuesday commuted the death sentences of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of having intentionally infected hundreds of Libyan children with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Libya changed the medical workers sentences to life in prison after the families of the infected children each
PUEBLA, Mexico - Cres has spent almost half his 32 years working in the United States , in the fields of California and Texas and the factories of Chicago and New York. His wife and three children were with him some of the time. But he was alone for long spells, and it was during one of those periods that he figures he
BANNED in Pittsburgh? Controversy over a new advertising campaign by Trojan, the condom maker, has trickled down to the local level, with television stations in Pittsburgh roundly refusing to show it, and stations in Seattle giving it the green light. When Trojan introduced the condom commercial last month, it was reje
We find it hard to imagine that anyone on the Libyan Supreme Court really believes that five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor chose to infect more than 400 Libyan children with the virus that causes AIDS. Instead of sense and justice, from the outset this case has reeked of scapegoating, showboating and blackm
Cecilia Sarkozy, the wife of France s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, visited five Bulgarian nurses in Tripoli, Libya , who have been sentenced to death for infecting more than 400 children with H.I.V. Mr. Sarkozy told reporters in Epinal, France, that she would meet with the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, Thu
The Libyan Supreme Court today once again upheld the death sentences imposed on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who were accused of intentionally infecting more than 400 Libyan children with the AIDS virus in 1998. The court rejected the results of a 2003 investigation by two of the world s leading AIDS
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan - Late at night the prostitutes appeared, streaming into nightclubs here in the capital of this Central Asian police state as the heat on the steppe cooled. By midnight they had packed the dance floors and were working their pickup lines. Many were glassy-eyed and a few were gaunt, showing signs
India has only about 2.5 million people infected with H.I.V., less than half of previous estimates, the Indian health minister and United Nations health officials said yesterday. As a result, instead of having an estimated 5.7 million cases, the most in the world, India is now in third place, behind
A few years ago, two Long Islanders with hepatitis C met in a support group and soon discovered they had something in common: both had become infected with the virus after open-heart surgery - by the same surgeon. Public health investigators, who were looking into one of the two cases, had not asked members of the pati
It is hard to remember when AIDS was just a simple epidemic disease. Long ago it exploded into a global rallying cry for ideologues of every stripe, politicizing the science and the social science alike. A small army of academics and consultants now stake careers - and millions of international aid dollars - on specifi
WASHINGTON, June 28 - For 90 minutes Thursday night, eight Democratic candidates debated before an audience made up largely of one of their party s most reliable and liberal constituencies, African-American voters, and used the stage to urge a revitalization of domestic programs they said had faltered under President B
Nearly all surgeons accidentally stick themselves with needles and sharp instruments while in training. But most fail to report the injuries, risking their health and that of their families and patients to the threat of diseases including AIDS, hepatitis and many other blood-borne illnesses, according to a survey being
With time running out on the legislative clock, the State of New York is close to enacting three new laws that would set welcome national examples for criminal justice reform. Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the Assembly and the Senate need to work quickly to iron out any differences and ensure these vital reforms are signed into
Welcome to Lifetime Land, a quiet suburban street where the star quarterback is an H.I.V.-positive heroin addict, the girl next door has sex with him because of her slutty-divorced-mom issues, and the cute substitute teacher dresses badly and wears minimal makeup because - you guessed it! - she has H.I.V. too. That s t
The World Health Organization yesterday released a plan intended to prevent hundreds of thousands of cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis and save up to 134,000 lives by 2008. The plan, which will cost $2.15 billion over the next two years, calls for the creation and improvement of laboratories to detect and monitor dr
ROME, June 20 - The European Union and hundreds of Libyan families whose children are infected with the virus that causes AIDS are expected to announce an agreement on Friday in Brussels to remove an important obstacle in the case of six foreign medical workers whom Libya accuses of intentionally infecting the children
Late last year, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, a global nonprofit company that hopes to speed the development of an H.I.V. vaccine, seemed on the verge of abandoning its plan to open a new laboratory in Brooklyn. The potential defection would have dealt a serious blow to the city s long-running efforts to a
STAMFORD, Conn., June 19 - After struggling with what was described as one of the most difficult decisions in her three-year tenure, Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed a measure today that would have legalized the use of marijuana for certain medical conditions. In a statement, Mrs. Rell, a breast cancer survivor, said, I comple
Now that the Group of 8 industrialized nations has pledged to commit $60 billion to combat AIDS and other diseases around the world in coming years - a substantial sum by any reckoning - Congress and other national legislatures ought to look hard for additional funds to close a looming gap between the funds committed a
IN a commercial for Trojan condoms that has its premiere tonight, women in a bar are surrounded by anthropomorphized, cellphone-toting pigs. One shuffles to the men s room, where, after procuring a condom from a vending machine, he is transformed into a head-turner in his 20s. When he returns to the bar, a fetching blo
It was Malaria in Africa Week here in New York. Not officially, of course. But by coincidence, two big malaria-related events took place that were by turns moving, inspiring and invigorating. To attend one or both was to come away thinking that maybe the business community was finally getting serious about eradicating
Two members of Congress have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate what they called the H.I.V./AIDS crisis in Puerto Rico and the federal oversight of money provided for care of indigent AIDS patients there. In a letter to Comptroller General David M. Walker, the two lawmakers, Representative Nydia
WASHINGTON, June 11 - Two former Senate leaders who were once fierce adversaries, Bill Frist and Tom Daschle, joined together Monday to promote a bipartisan effort to make global poverty a central issue of the 2008 presidential race. The antipoverty drive, called the One Campaign, which was founded by the rock star Bon
Safety and speed are the yin and yang of drug regulation. Patients want immediate access to breakthrough medicines but also want to believe the drugs are safe. These goals can be incompatible. Race a drug to market and much is likely to remain unknown when patients take it. Test a drug thoroughly to assess all possible
HARTFORD, June 10 - Seventeen years ago, Mark Braunstein dived 60 feet off a footbridge into a river, landed wrong and became a paraplegic. A librarian at Connecticut College, Mr. Braunstein, 55, walks with the aid of crutches and leg braces. He smokes marijuana every three days or so to control the pain and spasms in
GREG WINTER. Welcome to the New York Times World View podcast, a weekly conversation with Times correspondents from across the globe. I m Greg Winter, a foreign editor at The Times. This week I speak with Sharon LaFraniere, a Times South Africa correspondent, about the very mixed picture of Africa s battle with AIDS.
KUHLUNGSBORN, Germany , June 8 - Adjourning a meeting featuring some surprises and a less contentious tone than many expected, the leaders of the world s richest industrial nations pledged Friday to commit $60 billion for treatment of AIDS and other diseases in the developing world. The pledge, which is to extend o
HEILIGENDAMM, Germany , June 8 - As the Group of 8 summit meeting moved toward a conclusion, leaders reaffirmed a 2005 pledge of $60 billion to counter HIV and other illnesses in Africa, but did not set any new deadlines for delivering the aid. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany hailed the announcement as another succ
NEW DELHI, June 7 - India , which has been repeatedly accused of denying the size of its AIDS epidemic, probably has millions fewer victims than has been widely believed, according to a new but still unreleased household survey. The survey was carried out under international supervision with American financing. If it i
NEW DELHI, June 7 - India , which has repeatedly been accused of denying the size of its AIDS epidemic, probably has millions fewer victims than has been widely believed, according to a new household survey that has not yet been released. If the results of the survey - conducted under international supervision with Ame
If there is a point to gathering the leaders of eight of the world s richest and most powerful nations each year, it is to thrash out policies for tackling the most pressing and contentious problems. Three such issues confront the presidents and prime ministers assembled in Heiligendamm, Germany , this week.
At the premiere of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane s dance piece Secret Pastures in 1985, Mr. Zane s parents noticed Madonna and Andy Warhol two rows behind them. Still skeptical about their son s involvement with Mr. Jones on and off stage and the couple s confrontational, self-revealing dances, they were nonetheless imp
Tuberculosis may reach the point where most new cases in some countries are resistant to many drugs unless far greater efforts are made now to stop the spread of the infection, World Health Organization officials said yesterday. That chilling forecast is based in part on the organization s analyses showing that on aver
The health minister, long known for questioning the scientific tenets of the AIDS epidemic, has turned down an invitation to address the nation s third annual conference on the disease because she was not given a conspicuous spot on the conference agenda, Vice President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said. The minister, Manto
BEIRA, Mozambique -- Four years ago, the region surrounding this somnolent seaport, Mozambique s second largest city, offered hardly any AIDS-prevention advice to pregnant women. Today, two dozen health clinics give mothers-to-be H.I.V. counseling, tests and medicine to protect their newborns from catching the virus.
The federal government announced the award of a $500 million contract to a European pharmaceutical company to deliver 20 million doses of an advanced smallpox vaccine. The government already has a stockpile of vaccine that could be used to immunize every American in the event of a smallpox attack by terrorists. But bec
SAN JUAN, P.R. -- His emaciated body advertises the damage wreaked by the AIDS virus. But over the last year, Rolando Warren Gonzalez, 41, a former steel band member, has faced an extra challenge to his survival. From the shelter where he lives in Loiza in Puerto Rico s impoverished northeast, Mr. Gonzalez travels an h
Washington, D.C., is one of America s AIDS hot spots. A significant proportion of infections can be traced back to intravenous drug users who shared contaminated needles and then passed on the infection to spouses, lovers or unborn children. This public health disaster is partly the fault of Congress. It has wrongly an
An expected less-than-warm welcome at the Group of 8 meeting was also clearly on President Bush s mind this week when he announced an expanded plan to combat AIDS in foreign lands. Even so, that should not obscure the real good that can be done - both in preventing and treating AIDS and in spurring a wider global fight
Andrew Speaker s extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR TB, is a rare form of the disease caused by bacteria that are resistant to nearly all the antibiotics normally used for TB. Researchers do not theorize XDR is more virulent or contagious than more common forms of TB, but it is considered extremely serious
JOHANNESBURG, May 30 - The World Health Organization on Wednesday advised health workers in countries hard hit by AIDS to urge every patient to be tested for H.I.V. rather than to simply offer tests in limited circumstances. That is a more aggressive approach than what is commonly taken now or has previously been appro
ALBANY, May 30 - Gov. Eliot Spitzer and state lawmakers are close to reaching agreement on dismantling laws that limit the resale of tickets to musicals, plays, concerts and sports events, but concerns raised recently by the Yankees and Mets appear to have held up a final deal. The Democratic-led Assembly passed a bill
WASHINGTON, May 30 - President Bush called Wednesday for Congress to spend $30 billion to fight global AIDS over the next five years, a near doubling of financing that is part of a White House effort to burnish Mr. Bush s humanitarian credentials before he meets leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations next wee
WASHINGTON, May 29 - Public health officials today urged the passengers and crew of two recent trans-Atlantic flights to get checked for tuberculosis, after learning that a man with an exceptionally deadly and drug-resistant form of the disease had flown on the planes. The man, an American who was not identified, flew
WASHINGTON -- The nation s capital is the only city in the country barred by federal law from using local tax money to finance needle exchange programs. It is also the city with the fastest-growing number of new AIDS cases. These two facts keep Ron Daniels on the move, tirelessly driving his rickety Winnebago from drug
SOFIA, Bulgaria , May 27 - A Libyan court on Sunday acquitted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor on charges of slander. The six were accused of making false accusations that Libyan officials had tortured them to extract confessions in an investigation into H.I.V. infections at a children s hospital in Bengh
ALBANY, May 24 - Gov. Eliot Spitzer and a majority of state lawmakers are backing a bill requiring H.I.V. testing of suspects indicted on rape charges. Nevertheless, its chances of passage are unclear, as the legislation is the subject of contentious debate in the Assembly. The bill has more than enough votes to pass t
The evangelical Christian movement, which has been pivotal in reshaping the country s political landscape since the 1980s, has shifted in potentially momentous ways in recent years, broadening its agenda and exposing new fissures. The death of the Rev. Jerry Falwell last week highlighted the fact that many of the movem
ASK Wanja Michuki how she came to found the Highland Tea Company, which sells high-end tea from her native Kenya , and she mentions her childhood. As a girl, Ms. Michuki said, she spent school holidays with her father, a politician, as he campaigned in the countryside among tea farmers who produced some of the finest t
BEIJING, May 18 - A young Chinese couple who have promoted a variety of delicate social and political causes were barred from leaving the country on Friday and placed under house arrest, the couple said. The police barred Hu Jia, 33, and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, 23, from departing from Beijing on a trip to
It s one of those questions no one tells you about when you enter medical practice. What do you do when patients come who can t pay? Some doctors decline to see them. I have expenses to pay and a family to feed, they ll argue. But I grew up in a rural part of Ohio where an inordinate number of poor people live. My moth
As Paul Wolfowitz is to the World Bank, the U.S. is becoming to the world. We should look at the battle unfolding at the World Bank not as the story of one man falling to earth, but as a moral tale of the risks the U.S. faces unless the Bush administration spends more time rebuilding bridges it has burned all over the
DARREN E. HIGGINS wants to help your immune system in a hurry and on the cheap. Dr. Higgins is a co-founder of Genocea, a biotechnology start-up company working on a novel method of vaccine development. His goal is to find the quickest way to make inexpensive vaccines that fight numerous complex and aggressive viruses
With less than a month to go before the leaders of the Group of 8 nations gather at a Baltic Sea resort in Germany for their annual summit meeting, Bono, the rock star and antipoverty campaigner who helped sweet-talk, cajole and otherwise persuade them to make commitments to double aid to Africa, says most of them have
Former President Bill Clinton announced yesterday that his foundation had negotiated deep price reductions for generic versions of costly, second-line AIDS drugs needed when the original medicines fail, as well as for less toxic, easier-to-use first-line medicines combined in a pill that can be taken once a day. Standi
BOSTON, May 8 - Gov. Deval Patrick on Tuesday unveiled a $1.25 billion proposal intended to help the state maintain its status as a pre-eminent place for stem cell research and other life sciences. The money would provide grants for university and hospital scientists, establish special research centers to make their wo
RICHARD GERE, while not the first person you d think most likely to invoke the wrath of a conservative religious mob by kissing somebody in public, was at least a passably recognizable symbolic target for Hindu demonstrators last week, when they burned his figure in effigy in cities across India . If not a wa
The government, whose spending on AIDS drugs has skyrocketed as more patients have needed costly, patented medicines, overrode the patent held by the pharmaceutical company Merck on the antiretroviral drug efavirenz . The cost of Merck s drugs has been $580 annually per patient. Brazil
In March, Sheila C. Johnson, a founder of Black Entertainment Television and one of the country s wealthiest women, held a weekend retreat to benefit CARE at her 200-acre horse farm in Virginia. Some 35 women - including Donna E. Shalala, a former cabinet member, and Gloria Allred, a high-profile lawyer - attended, as
WHILE the annual number of new H.I.V. infections is sharply lower than in the peak years of the 1980s, the effort to reduce the infection rate further has stalled in the last decade. So the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends screening for H.I.V. as a routine part of health care, and not j
WASHINGTON, April 28 - Deborah Jeane Palfrey has not been at all shy about it: for more than a decade she ran an escort service that catered to upscale clients in the nation s capital, sending college-educated women to men s homes or hotel rooms. For about $300, she promised 90 minutes of what she has described as a di
About two million people in the world are receiving drugs for AIDS, an increase of 700,000 in the last year, the United Nations said in a report issued yesterday. But the two million total is a million less than the three million people that the World Health Organization had hoped would be receiving treatment by the en
James Lyons, a film editor whose most notable collaborations were with the director Todd Haynes on several feature films, including Safe, Velvet Goldmine and Far From Heaven, died Thursday in Manhattan. He was 46 and lived in Brooklyn Heights. The cause was squamous cell cancer, which followed more than a decade of tre
READ the next sentence aloud, and watch all the men around you involuntarily cross their legs: How do you persuade a grown man to get circumcised? Answer: it s not easy, even in America, where most men are circumcised at birth. Now that three clinical trials in Africa have shown that circumcision helps protect men agai
Women with AIDS delivered 139,000 babies infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, in the last six months, Unicef reported. The agency also said that 146,000 women carrying the virus had been given drugs to prevent its transmission to their babies. Nearly one in six Mozambican adults carries the virus. The Heal
MULONDO, Zambia - Traveling to school in wobbly dugout canoes, Munalula Muhau and her three cousins, 7- and 8-year-olds whose parents had died from AIDS, held onto just one possession: battered tin bowls to receive their daily ration of gruel. Within weeks, those rations, provided by the United Nations World Food Progr
WASHINGTON, April 7 - Senior members of Congress from both parties are working feverishly on legislation that could give consumers access to lower-cost copies of biotechnology drugs that now cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Prospects for the legislation have increased since Democrats took control o
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg raised questions yesterday about an approach under consideration at the Health Department to promote circumcision as a way to reduce the risk of contracting AIDS. The approach was reported yesterday in The New York Times, but Bloomberg officials cautioned that it was still in its infancy and
Seductive forces abound in New York City: music, bars, food, money, power. And the No. 1 train, of course, though some people think the D train is really hot. Subways and sex? Apparently so. In just a month, the city gave away five million of its new subway-themed condoms, officials said yesterday. Lest you read past t
New York City s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is planning a campaign to encourage men at high risk of AIDS to get circumcised in light of the World Health Organization s endorsement of the procedure as an effective way to prevent the disease. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is
An expert committee has found that the Bush administration s ambitious program to combat AIDS abroad is off to a good start but warns that restrictions imposed by Congress or by the administration are hampering efforts to slow the spread of the epidemic. These inflexible barriers are often imposed for ideological, not
President Bush s $15 billion plan to fight AIDS globally is seriously hampered by restrictions imposed by Congress and the administration, a panel of medical experts said yesterday. The country s most prestigious medical advisory panel, the Institute of Medicine, was asked by Congress to assess the five-year plan at mi
The World Health Organization officially recommended circumcision as a way to prevent heterosexual transmission of the AIDS virus yesterday, setting the stage for donor agencies to begin paying for the operation. The group acted after three clinical trials in Kenya , Uganda
If this were a perfect world, everybody would see the photographer James Nachtwey s astonishing shows at the United Nations and at 401 Projects in the West Village. Sadly, as Mr. Nachtwey knows, this isn t a perfect world, a point he brings home in the work shown here. Inferno, the title of a 1999 book of the photograp
ATLANTA - When the Rev. Dennis Meredith of Tabernacle Baptist Church here began preaching acceptance of gay men and lesbians a few years ago, he attracted some gay people who were on the brink of suicide and some who had left the Baptist faith of their childhoods but wanted badly to return. At the same time, Tabernacle
If it can be sold, traded or swiped, you can find it at the intersection of Mother Gaston Boulevard and Belmont Avenue in Brownsville. In this crazy corner of Brooklyn, bleary-eyed men and women with faces worn from hustling a buck - or more - stand outside all-night delis, their eyes shifting about as quickly as their
SHYMKENT, Kazakhstan - For weeks now, Kanat Alseidov has been sitting only a few feet from the doctor on trial for prescribing a blood transfusion for Mr. Alseidov s 2-year-old son, who had pneumonia. Two months after receiving the transfusion, the boy, a ruddy, playful toddler named Baurzhan, who tangles constantly wi
LOS ANGELES - The spread of a particularly virulent form of tuberculosis in South Africa illustrates a breakdown in the global program that is supposed to keep the disease, one of the world s deadliest, under control. The program was intended to detect tuberculosis cases, make sure patients were taking their antibiotic
KABUL, Afghanistan , March 13 - Sitting and eating quietly on his father s lap, the 18-month-old was oblivious to the infection in his veins. But his father, a burly farmer, knew only too well. It was the same one that killed his wife four months ago, leaving him alone with four children. The man started to cry. W
While circumcision may help protect a man from catching the AIDS virus, men who are already infected and are then circumcised should refrain from sex until they have fully healed, researchers said last week. Women who had sex with recently circumcised men who had not waited about four weeks to heal seemed to have a sli
Television executives were expected to be fearful this season (of declining ad revenues, of the Web), but instead they ve been resourceful, introducing strong new shows and online partnerships, and recently even displaying the kind of noblesse oblige that you usually find in flush, confident industries. Skip to next pa
Bob Hattoy, who drew wide attention with a nationally televised speech about AIDS at the 1992 Democratic National Convention and then became a forceful advocate for gay and lesbian issues in the Clinton White House, died on Sunday in Sacramento. He was 56. The cause was complications of AIDS, said Adrianna Shea, specia
If you are a rock star with a touch of the messiah complex, saving the world one song at a time has its limits. Even John Lennon didn t make much progress on world peace before he died. So Bono, the rare rock star with an ability to make a dent in something besides the pop charts, has met with everyone from Pope John P
To Rwanda s top H.I.V./AIDS official, communication within the national health care system can be slow enough to present a threat to health. Information from clinics is written on a piece of paper that a porter carries by hand to the district before the information can be brought to Kigali, the country s capital, said
VINKO KARL, a laundry room worker, had brought his daughter, Tiffany, 7, to the 42-foot recreational vehicle parked behind the Hagedorn Family Center, a community center here. I feeled sick, said Tiffany, who was sitting on an examining room table at the back of the R.V. The problem, said Dr. Alec Thundercloud, peering
LOS ANGELES - A simple, inexpensive and surprisingly powerful combination of treatments all but wiped out malaria in a group of H.I.V.-positive children in a study in Uganda , scientists are reporting. The combination - taking one inexpensive antibiotic pill each day and sleeping under an insecticide-treated mosquito n
David A. Hansell, the new state commissioner of temporary and disability assistance, yesterday reversed a decision by the Pataki administration that required about 2,200 poor adults in New York City who live in government- subsidized housing and have H.I.V. or AIDS to pay more of their income toward rent. The tenants,
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 27 - Two new AIDS drugs, each of which works in a novel way, have proved safe and highly successful in large studies, a development that doctors said here on Tuesday would significantly expand treatment options for patients. The two drugs, which could be approved for marketing later this year, would a
LOS ANGELES - Sometimes experience shows that seemingly logical solutions to a health problem are not as simple as they first appear. A case in point is the effort to encourage formula-feeding instead of breast-feeding to prevent transmission of the virus that causes AIDS from mother to infant. At the 14th Conference o
Circumcision may provide even more protection against AIDS than was realized when two clinical trials in Africa were stopped two months ago because the results were so clear, according to studies being published today. The trials, in Kenya and Uganda , were stopped early by the National Institutes of Health, which w
JOHANNESBURG - Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the South African minister of health whose promotion of garlic and beetroot as protection against AIDS came to symbolize her nation s slow response to the H.I.V. epidemic, is in a Johannesburg hospital with severe anemia and a lung infection, the government said Thursday.
SAN FRANCISCO - Frustrated by government policy and inaction, a group of advocates for medical marijuana sued two federal health agencies on Wednesday over the assertion that smoking it has no medical benefit. The group, Americans for Safe Access, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland, filed the lawsuit in Federal
BEIJING - China gave in to international pressure on Friday and agreed to release a prominent AIDS doctor from house arrest so she can attend an awards ceremony in Washington next month. We re just really excited about it, said Wenchi Yu Perkins, an officer with Vital Voices Global Partnership, a nonprofit women s advo
BEIJING, Feb. 15 - The photograph and article in Tuesday s Henan Daily could have been headlined Happy Holidays. Three highranking Henan Province officials, beaming and clapping as if presenting a lottery check, were making an early Lunar New Year visit to the apartment of a renowned AIDS doctor, Gao Yaojie. They gave
With the government s imprimatur and a wrapper inspired by the subways, New York City s first municipally sanctioned condom arrived yesterday, and it was hard to miss, given that city workers and volunteers handed out more than 150,000 of them across the five boroughs. In June 2005, the city started an Internet-based F
The sex educators had come to a Queens housing complex to discuss condoms and foreplay and sexually transmitted diseases. Those assembled were told that their demographic was showing increases in sexual activity and an accompanying rise in promiscuity, homosexuality and H.I.V. infection. As the teacher, Monique Binford
Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, the top official in France ’s battle against AIDS, was chosen as the new chief of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the organization announced in Geneva. He succeeds Dr. Richard G. A. Feachem. The fund has disbursed $3.4 billion since 2001, provided AIDS treatment to more
BEIJING - A retired Chinese doctor acclaimed for helping AIDS sufferers has been placed under house arrest, to stop her from traveling to an awards ceremony in the United States held by a nonprofit group connected to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a friend of the doctor said today. Dr. Gao Yaojie has been confined to her
At a time of intensifying conflict between President Bush and Democrats in Congress over the Iraq war, the Democratic-led House acted this week to rescue another of Mr. Bush s international priorities: the global fight against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, diseases that kill millions of Africans each year.
Efforts to develop a topical microbicide to prevent H.I.V. infection during sex suffered a surprising setback yesterday when researchers announced that they had stopped two full-scale trials for safety reasons. The trials, in Africa and India , involved a chemical, cellulose sulfate or Ushercell, and were the second fa
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 30 - It has been 20 years since Cleve Jones started the AIDS Memorial Quilt here, painting the name of a friend who had died from the disease on a simple piece of fabric. During the next two decades the quilt became the largest piece of community folk art in the world, a 54-ton collage affixed with
NEW DELHI - The supply of low-cost generic versions of cancer and AIDS treatments for the developing world could be blocked if Novartis wins a legal challenge to India s patent law, patients rights groups have contended. But Western drug companies say that if Novartis loses its challenge, their ability to invest in the
The new vaccine against human papillomavirus, which became available last summer, could potentially prevent thousands of cases of cervical cancer. But doctors hope the vaccine will be able to prevent a less well-known, but potentially fatal, disease in gay men, anal cancer. The same strains of HPV cause both cancers.
JOHANNESBURG - More than a year after a virulent strain of tuberculosis killed 52 of 53 infected patients in a rural South African hospital, experts here and abroad say the disease has most likely spread to neighboring countries, and some say urgent action is essential to halt its advance. Several expressed concern at
DAVOS, Switzerland , Jan. 25 - Snow was not the only thing in short supply as moguls and world leaders rolled into this ski resort town this week. In 2005, Sharon Stone challenged leaders to fight malaria in Africa. She kicked off her request with a $10,000 donation of her own. Complete coverage of the people, the
There s a simple moment in the Off Broadway hit In the Continuum that speaks far more eloquently than any government statistics could about the AIDS crisis in Africa. Abigail Murambe, an announcer on Zimbabwe s state-run television channel, is trying to flag down a jitney after learning that she is HIV-positive. Shooin
Some countries are making progress in treating children with AIDS and preventing others from becoming infected, but the overall global response is tragically insufficient, Unicef said yesterday. Children affected by AIDS are now more visible and are taken more seriously in global, regional and national forums where the
A provocative public service campaign intended to help halt the spread of HIV is drawing attention because of who is delivering the message as well as for the frank nature of what they have to say. The video, radio and online campaign enlists four celebrities to deliver candid, no-nonsense remarks that link unsafe sex
Last month, scientists invented the AIDS vaccine. Missed it? Perhaps that s because you were still seeking the vaccine fantasy: the magic bullet, the impenetrable shield that finally pitches this disease into the trash bin, the shot that will end not only the AIDS epidemic but our anxiety about the AIDS epidemic as wel
Women can take the anti-AIDS drug nevirapine to protect their unborn children without endangering their ability to undergo life-saving antiretroviral treatment later on, a new study has found. The results are good news for poor women in Africa, Asia and Latin America who must take nevirapine, an inexpensive first-line
Chicago - On a summer day a few years ago, a recent college graduate named Emily Oster was talking to her boyfriend about the research that was, and wasn t, being done on the spread of AIDS. She was an aspiring economist at the time, getting ready to go to graduate school, and she was struck by the fact that her field
In her research on AIDS, Emily Oster has come up with three main conclusions: One, as I described in this week s column, is that better-off, healthy Africans practice safer sex more than they once did - much as Americans do. But poorer Africans, who have much shorter average lifespans even if they don t contract HIV, h
ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer struck an early blow at the policies of his predecessor on Monday, sharply reducing steep Pataki-era charges that relatives and friends of inmates in New York State s prisons have had to pay on collect telephone calls from them. The governor s move, effective April 1, came one day before sta
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