The FDA OK d swine flu vaccines on Sept. 15 after receiving preliminary results from five clinical trials on more than 3,000 volunteers at sites including Baylor University College of Medicine, Cincinnati Children s Hospital, the Hope Clinic of Emory University, St. Louis University and others. Testing is run by th
At the intersection of science and politics lie the dead bodies and broken souls in America s war on drugs. From Liberty City to Little Havana to posh Coral Gables, the results of decades of tough-on-drugs policies have produced a patchwork of laws that are more likely to send the poor crack user to prison and benefit
A Miami-Dade doctor was sentenced Thursday to 6 and a half years in prison for participating in a Medicare racket that submitted bogus bills for obsolete infusion drugs to treat HIV patients. Dr. Manuel Barbeite, 70, was also ordered to repay about $3.5 million to the federal healthcare program. He was convicted in Aug
-- Magic Johnson says in a new book he conspired to keep Isiah Thomas off the 1992 Olympic Dream Team and that Thomas spread rumors about Johnson s sexuality. Just when it seemed Isiah Thomas had disappeared from the national headlines and settled into a low-profile life as FIU s basketball coach, along comes a book by
Charles Emerson Charlie LeClair Jr., an HIV/AIDS activist who fought for others suffering from the disease he contracted in the early 1990s, died Sept. 9. He was 56. LeClair was named chairman of the Miami-Dade HIV/AIDS Partnership in 2005 and 2006, more than a decade after the New England transplant became an advocate
When Travis McCoy, lead singer of hip-hop/rock band Gym Class Heroes, lost someone he loved to AIDS more than 15 years ago, he wasn t only saddened by his loss -- he was afraid that he could have been infected, too. You think Oh no, we ve shared kitchen utensils, says McCoy, who was 11 or 12 at the time. You think, Wi
-- More than 1,800 patients at Broward General may have been exposed to hepatitis and HIV viruses because of a nurse s misuse of tubing for five years. Broward General Medical Center administrators announced Monday they are taking immediate action to investigate whether a nurse s misuse of saline bags and tubing expose
Two Miami business people convicted in a Medicare racket of submitting almost $52 million in phony claims for HIV services will face lengthy sentences after their convictions Friday. A jury found Scarlet Duarte and Rechart Garcia guilty of various charges of conspiracy, healthcare fraud and money laundering. They opera
Former President Bill Clinton welcomed a trade mission in Haiti on Thursday, committing his and the Inter-American Development Bank staff to personally follow up with each investor interested in creating jobs but who may need help finalizing a real deal. This is really important. You came here to see what was going on
As an HIV vaccine breakthrough in Thailand stirs interest and hope, a pioneering AIDS researcher at the University of Miami Medical School says she is preparing to start human trials for a new vaccine that would fight the deadly virus. While the Thai experiment is the first to prevent infection by the HIV virus that cr
HIV/AIDS among Florida s men has reached critical levels, according to a new state report, and the highest rate in any racial/ethnic groups was in Miami-Dade County. Overall, one in every 123 adult men in Florida was living with HIV/AIDS through 2008, said the report called Man Up: The Crisis of HIV/AIDS Among Florida
A man who police say abducted and shot his ex-girlfriend late Wednesday night has been charged with murder after the woman died on the way to the hospital. Arrested: Anton Jamar Josey, 34. He allegedly told police he shot the victim, identified Thursday as Dominique Duval, 23. He is also being charged with possession o
On Wednesday, South Floridians from the University of Miami president to elected officials weighed in on the passing of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, praising him for his lifetime commitment to public service. He was indefatigable, UM President Donna Shalala said, recalling a 40-year friendship with Kennedy. We spent a lot of
For threatening to kill with his illness then biting a Miami cop, HIV-positive drifter Johnson Jamerson will serve 15 years in prison, a judge ruled Wednesday. Jamerson, 35, was convicted in June of attacking Miami Officer Matthew Hall while trying to escape a police bus bound for jail. He bit through Hall s pants, dre
A retired obstetrician was jailed over the weekend after the FBI arrested him on charges of submitting almost $1 million in false claims to Medicare for obsolete HIV therapy that patients didn t need or receive. Jerry A. Spiegel, 77, of Boynton Beach was released Monday on a $100,000 bond after he was charged with defr
A 55-year-old North Miami man who claims he was infected with HIV during a colonoscopy at the Miami Veterans Administration hospital has filed notice he will sue the federal government. Juan Rivera charges that he was infected by improperly cleaned equipment in a colonoscopy around May 19, 2008, at the Miami VA facilit
A doctor and a physician s assistant are going to prison for eight years for their roles in a Miami-Dade racket that billed Medicare $11 million in false claims for obsolete HIV services that were not provided to patients. Dr. Keith Russell, 65, and Jorge Luis Pacheco, 50, were also ordered Friday by U.S. District Judg
Diego Del Rio thought he had finally found his Fountain of Youth. Tucked between advertisements for Gay Days and pictures of scantily clad men, the 28-year-old from Hialeah says he saw an ad that brought him back nine years to the last time he could run his hand through a full head of hair. The ad, Del Rio says, was fo
A Miami physician was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison after admitting he fraudulently prescribed HIV therapy for Medicare patients who didn t need or get the treatment, costing the government program millions of dollars. Dr. Roberto Rodriguez, 54, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Paul Huck to pay more than
A new sense of urgency is shaping the U.S. government s fight against Medicare fraud as the Obama administration strives to sell the public on expanding healthcare to cover uninsured Americans. Cabinet officials commenting on this week s trio of Medicare fraud crackdowns in Miami and other cities pushed an emerging two
With nearly one in five of the 125,000 infected with HIV in Florida unaware of their condition, the Miami-Dade County Department of Health launched a broad-based campaign Thursday to make HIV testing a routine practice. The campaign, called Test Miami, is designed to educate physicians, at-risk communities and pregnant
Lesley Clark and Fred Tasker, lclark@MiamiHerald.com
-- Senators suggest that the problem at veterans hospitals like Miami s will require a fix at the top. WASHINGTON -- The director of the Miami Veterans Affairs Health Care System told a Senate panel Wednesday the facility has taken steps to improve patient safety, but senators suggested the agency needs tightening at t
Federal agents Wednesday launched arrests of 53 Medicare fraud suspects in Miami, Detroit and other cities in a major roundup of doctors, clinic owners, assistants and patients on charges of conspiring to defraud the government program of $56 million. The series of indictments, returned by a federal grand jury in easte
Several employees at the Miami Veterans Affairs hospital are likely to be disciplined for failing to detect problems with improperly sterilized medical equipment in a case that has enraged members of Congress. The disclosure of the potential punishments came as federal lawmakers chided the Department of Veterans Affair
He is the global AIDS czar, leading efforts to push countries to provide universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. Michael Sidibé was appointed in December by the United Nations secretary general. On Tuesday of last week, Sidibé -- actual title: executive director of UNAIDS -- made hi
Lesley Clark And Jay Weaver, jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
The Obama administration Wednesday announced a mission to combat chronic Medicare scams operating from Miami to Los Angeles that are costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year. A new joint effort by the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services will bolster Medicare fraud strike forces in those coastal cit
In February, Garcia went to a shipping company in the Canary Islands to have his personal belongings sent from Miami to the Spanish island off the northwestern coast of Africa. The business owner became suspicious because he kept saying he was Mexican but the owner detected he had a heavy Cuban accent, said FBI special
Former President Bill Clinton, who has committed his philanthropic efforts to helping hurricane ravaged Haiti , has been named a special envoy to the Caribbean nation on behalf of the United Nations. The honor comes two months after Clinton visited Haiti along with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in an effort to rai
A small, radical Midwestern church that has made headlines for picketing Iraq War veterans funerals plans to protest an America it believes has gone pro-gay and anti-God with demonstrations in South Florida beginning this weekend. Its targets are Calvary Chapel in Fort Lauderdale; St.
FBI agents have arrested three Miami-Dade men on healthcare and money laundering charges in an alleged five-state conspiracy to defraud $22.7 million from Medicare for HIV and cancer services that were never provided. Two of the men -- Michel De Jesus Huarte and Ramon Fonseca -- operated 19 medical clinics in Florida,
Seven weeks after the U.S. Veterans Administration notified more than 3,000 veterans they might have been exposed to hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV by improperly cleaned colonoscopy equipment at the VA hospital in Miami, more than a quarter of them -- nearly 1,100 in all -- have not responded for testing, according to
Saul Ron Brenesky -- a well-known South Florida gay activist, businessman and political operative -- has been charged with grand theft for allegedly taking $58,000 in payment for a home healthcare agency that he didn t own and that wasn t for sale. The agency, New Vision Home Health Services Corp., is owned by Alexis D
The national Democratic Party chairman asked gay activists gathered in Fort Lauderdale on Friday to keep working for President Barack Obama. But the crowd wanted something in return. When is the president going to do away with don t ask – don t tell military ban on gay soldiers? asked one lesbian during the event at th
It took a tragedy for founder Barbara Gaynor to start Mothers Voices, an organization that has reached out to thousands of families throughout the years. Her son died at 31 from AIDS, yet with the support from a group of women who wanted to educate and save others from losing family members, Gaynor was inspired to star
The national Democratic Party chairman asked gay activists gathered in Fort Lauderdale on Friday to keep working for President Barack Obama. But the crowd wanted something in return. When is the president going to do away with don t ask -- don t tell military ban on gay soldiers? asked one lesbian during the event at t
Bob Cole, a prominent South Florida gay activist and nationally recognized philanthropist, died May 2 at Doctor s Hospital in Coral Gables. He was 66 and had suffered for years from HIV, skin cancer and a broken hip. Through the years, Cole donated thousands of dollars to YES Institute, which works to prevent gay-teen
Ann Delores Johnson Carter, retired director and CEO of the Comprehensive AIDS Center at the University of Miami School of Medicine, died April 29 while being treated for leukemia. She was 61. She helped bring winds of change to our community, said former U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, who met Carter decades ago at Mount Tabor
One patient who had a colonoscopy at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Miami using equipment that was not properly sterilized has tested positive for HIV. Seven patients have confirmed cases of hepatitis C. No local patients were positive for hepatitis B. The VA confirmed the number in a press release Friday but caution
When is the best time for a gay man who is dating to reveal his HIV/AIDS status? Tom Edwards prefers to get it over with on the first date. If he is immediately rejected, it won t hurt as much as if he had been emotionally involved. Ernesto Carvalho prefers not to tell until some time has passed. He wants his partner t
Next to a table filled with expired pain medicine, cough syrup and baby formula, a small group of South Florida residents decried practices by the CVS drugstore chain as negligent and racist. The protesters, gathered together by a consumer group organized by a union alliance called Change to Win, were also upset about
Using good sterile technique is the first and most important thing that all healthcare professionals learn -- and with good reason. Failure to do so can kill patients. This is why it is so stunning and so competely unacceptable that equipment at several Veterans Administration hospitals, including in Miami, may have be
Trying to buy health insurance on your own and have gallstones? You ll automatically be denied coverage. Rheumatoid arthritis? Automatic denial. Severe acne? Probably denied. Do you take metformin, a popular drug for diabetes? Denied. Use the anti-clotting drug Plavix or Seroquel, prescribed for anti-psychotic or sleep
Fifteen years after Miami s Pedro Zamora became a national symbol for living with HIV -- and dying of AIDS -- a new drama about his life will soon debut on the network that made him a reality TV star. Pedro, a film written by Dustin Lance Black, who won an original-screenplay Oscar for Milk, will be simulcast April 1 o
They manipulated blood samples. Falsified medical records. Wrote prescriptions for HIV patients who didn t need their obsolete drugs. They even tossed out the infusion medication but kept the empty bottles in case Medicare investigators ever checked out their fraudulent clinics. On Tuesday, a federal jury convicted two
A federal jury on Tuesday convicted two Miami-Dade doctors and two medical assistants of plotting to submit millions of dollars in bogus bills to Medicare -- a fraud case that stands out because one defendant tried to flee near the end of the trial. The 12-person jury found Dr. David Rothman, Dr. Keith Russell, Eda Mar
Federal agents have arrested another Medicare fraud defendant returning from Cuba -- the third such fugitive to be apprehended in Miami since December after having fled to the island. Rolando Sanchez Valle, 35, of Hialeah Gardens, was arrested at Miami International Airport Thursday on charges of defrauding the nation
Finally, some good news in the fight against HIV in the Americas, and most surprisingly, it s coming from Haiti , one of the countries hardest hit by the epidemic. According to U.N. figures, about 120,000 Haitians, or 2.2 percent of the population, are suffering from HIV/AIDS. Statistics also show that deaths due to AI
In January 2007, Medicare shut down the businesses of 18 medical equipment suppliers in Miami-Dade County after investigators told the federal agency that the companies were shams. But when Medicare heard their appeals, the operators were quickly reinstated -- only to be indicted later that year for submitting more tha
Former President Bill Clinton established the Clinton Global Initiative in 2005 to help make changes in the lives of the world s poor and destitute by partnering governments and nonprofit humanitarian organizations with those who can help. In Haiti , CGI has teamed up with Partners In Health, which works with AIDS pati
When Kate MacMillin, who teaches a journalism class at Florida International University, asked students to create a multimedia presentation on HIV/AIDS in South Florida, neither she nor they were prepared for what they found. They were shocked, she says. They didn t realize South Florida had such high infection rates.
Damaries Dee Cruz remembers the exact date -- Nov. 23, 1991 -- when she learned she was HIV-positive. She got the virus from unprotected sex with her boyfriend. She was 20. It hurt when some of her friends abandoned her, she says. But she fought back, visiting schools, churches, TV and radio stations with a message of
Hispanics of all nationalities respond less well to the current standard drug treatment for hepatitis C than do non-Hispanic whites, according to a new study led by University of Miami Medical School experts. Doctors don t know why. The study echoes the results of a 2006 study that said blacks also respond less well.
A Miami man who co-owned two clinics has pleaded guilty to defrauding Medicare of $5.3 million by billing the national health insurance program for bogus services. Orlando Pascual Jr., 43, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Miami federal court, admitting he participated in a conspiracy to pay kickbacks to patients to use thei
Alcides Garcia, former president of a Hialeah medical equipment company, escaped to Cuba in September just before he was to face trial in a $10.7 million Medicare fraud case, according to the FBI. Jorge Ramirez, the one-time owner of a Miami clinic that treated blood disorders, was arrested in December and charged with
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