Sir John Crofton, a pioneering clinician who demonstrated that antibiotics could be safely combined to cure tuberculosis, a dread disease that once killed half the people who contracted it, died on Nov. 3 at his home in Edinburgh. He was 97. The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh announced his death. Sir John sta
Two of the world s biggest drug makers last week spun off their divisions that manufacture AIDS drugs and combined them into one company focusing on the disease. The new company, ViiV Healthcare, will initially be 85 percent controlled by GlaxoSmithKline and 15 percent controlled by
To the Editor: Re As Donors Focus on AIDS, Child Illnesses Languish [http://www.aegis.org/news/nyt/2009/NYT091011.html] (news article, Oct. 30): Doctors Without Borders knows from experience the immense burden that pneumonia, diarrhea and other underfunded diseases have on children every day. We have treated hundreds o
ALBANY -- Every Sunday morning, the deep, melodious voice of State Senator Rubén Diaz Sr. rumbles across the congregation at his Bronx church. On weekdays, it echoes across the Senate chamber as he rails against Medicaid cuts or abortion. Earlier this year, it enthralled thousands at a boisterous rally against same-sex
BANGOR, Me. -- For years, the location of this city s needle exchange program, in a nondescript strip mall close to highways and bus lines, was seen as a major asset. But now, AIDS activists say, that very location could undermine what happens inside the exchange. A bill working its way through Congress would lift a ba
The map of San Francisco in the city s health department is bathed in shades of blue. The color, usually associated with the city s liberal politics, has a different import on the map. A light shade covers most neighborhoods. A slightly darker one covers the Castro, the center of the city s gay culture. And, like an el
MY clams are not in place, the pregnant mermaid in the ladies room at the New York Design Center Masquerade Ball was saying, adjusting the homemade shell-and-string brassiere she was wearing over her clingy gown. Her long red hair was a magnificent Venus-rising mane, intertwined with seashells, and a blue-green fish t
Unless there is a drastic change in approach, the AIDS epidemic will still be out of control on its 50th anniversary in 2031, a panel of AIDS experts predicted in an analysis being published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs[http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/6/1591]. The lead author, Robert H
JOHANNESBURG -- In a culmination of his party s major shift on AIDS, a disease that has led to plunging life expectancies here, President Jacob Zuma last week definitively rejected his predecessor s denial of the viral cause of AIDS and of the critical role of antiretroviral drugs in treating it. Almost 10 years to the
President Obama on Friday announced the end of a 22-year ban on travel to the United States by people who had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, fulfilling a promise he made to gay advocates and acting to eliminate a restriction he said was rooted in fear rather than fact. At a White House ceremony, M
JOHANNESBURG -- Diarrhea kills 1.5 million young children a year in developing countries -- more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined -- but only 4 in 10 of those who need the oral rehydration solution that can prevent death for pennies get it. All the attention has gone to more glamorous diseases, but this basic th
LOS ANGELES -- In a tacit acknowledgment that the promise of human embryonic stem cells is still far in the future, California s stem cell research program on Wednesday awarded grants intended to develop therapies using mainly other, less controversial cells. The $230 million in grants awarded Wednesday to California u
WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials are preparing a plan to study a bold new strategy to stop the spread of the AIDS virus: routinely testing virtually every adult in a community, and promptly treating those found to be infected. The strategy is called test and treat, and officials say the two sites for the three-ye
The full results from an AIDS vaccine trial in Thailand , released Tuesday, showed that the vaccine s protective effect might be even weaker than researchers first admitted. However, the complicated six-shot, two-vaccine regimen may have briefly worked better in the first year after it was given, and also may have work
VACCINE researchers don t often find themselves at the center of public controversies. But a storm has erupted over the announcement last month that an experimental AIDS vaccine tested in Thailand proved modestly effective. It was billed as a major scientific advance -- the long-awaited hard evidence that it is possibl
ALBANY -- Gov. David A. Paterson proposed billions of dollars in spending cuts on Thursday and raised alarms about New York s financial health as the state faces a deficit of nearly $50 billion over the next three and a half years. The governor s plan, which seeks to close a deficit for this fiscal year projected to be
AN NHON TAY, Vietnam -- The first day of school was a special one last month for the 15 children from the Mai Hoa orphanage here. They are infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, and for the first time they would be allowed to attend the local primary school. The children were so excited, said Sister Nguyen
BY the fall of 1995, Sean Strub was near death from AIDS. He d already lived longer than he was supposed to. He was sure he d experienced the first symptoms while a student at Columbia in 1979, though by the time he was tested and his disease formally diagnosed it was 1985. The doctor held my hand, looked into my eyes
When AIDS researchers released results last month from a six-year trial in Thailand of a new AIDS vaccine, they said it showed some promise for new avenues of research, though they freely admitted their data was weak. Now two published accounts citing anonymous AIDS researchers who were given confidential briefings abo
It was meant to be a unifying show of strength at a critical juncture in the gay rights movement. But a march planned for Sunday on the Mall in Washington is exposing deep divisions among gay rights advocates around the country as they grapple with whether to continue pushing for gains state by state, or embrace a more
JOHANNESBURG -- The number of people being tested for H.I.V. more than doubled in dozens of countries last year, improving detection of AIDS and contributing to a major surge in those being treated. The ranks of people taking antiretroviral drugs in the developing world rose by more than a million to surpass four milli
What would an AIDS vaccine mean to the world? In some ways, it would outshine a cure for the common cold. After all, even if the cold and its stealth wingman, pneumonia, kill more people, they don t do it quite so grimly. People with AIDS tend to die after years of suffering, often screaming from the agony of cryptococ
Scientists said Thursday that a new AIDS vaccine, the first ever declared to protect a significant minority of humans against the disease, would be studied to answer two fundamental questions: why it worked in some people but not in others, and why those infected despite vaccination got no benefit at all. The vaccine -
AS leaders of the world s largest economies gather today in Pittsburgh for the Group of 20 meeting, people in the world s poorest countries will likely look on with a mix of hope and trepidation, wondering whether their needs will figure in the deliberations at all. The G-20 nations could help both the poor and the glo
A United Nations program that has raised $1.2 billion over the past three years for the treatment of H.I.V./AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis through a small fee added to airline tickets sold in 15 countries is going global. Starting in January, travelers in the United States and other countries buying airline tickets thr
Prison inmates are the sickest people in society, with infection rates for blood-borne viruses like H.I.V. and hepatitis C far higher than the general population. Failing to test, counsel and treat these inmates makes it more likely that they will spread infection once they are released and suffer catastrophic illnesse
BEIJING -- Three people were sentenced to up to 15 years in prison on Saturday after being convicted of attacking people with syringes in Urumqi, the capital of the western region of Xinjiang, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. It was the first sentencing of suspects accused of being involved in what the gover
Dan l Linehan A January performance of Rent: School Edition at Fairmont State University in West Virginia, featuring students of nearby Bridgeport High School. While the prospect of student performances of the gritty musical Rent has provoked objections at some high schools around the country, in Orange County, Calif.,
Merck won the highest grade and Abbott Laboratories flunked in a report card being issued Thursday by a prominent group of AIDS treatment activists after a yearlong study of the actions of nine major pharmaceutical companies to address the contagion in the United States . Although advances in drug regimens s
Time is of the essence in treating someone who may have been exposed to the AIDS virus. Starting Wednesday, emergency room doctors throughout New York State will be just a computer click away from concise guidelines for starting prompt drug treatment that can reduce the risk of becoming infected. The guidelines come in
BEIJING -- Thousands of Han Chinese protesters swarmed around government buildings in the capital of the restive Xinjiang region on Thursday to demand a crackdown on Uighurs after rumors spread that they were sticking hundreds of Hans with H.I.V.-tainted hypodermic needles. The fresh conflict in the capital, Urumqi, sh
Couched as a personal journey through the history of H.I.V. and AIDS, House of Numbers is actually a weaselly support pamphlet for AIDS denialists. Trafficking in irresponsible inferences and unsupported conclusions, the filmmaker Brent Leung offers himself as suave docent through a globe-trotting pseudo-investigation
PARIS -- A set of proposed international sex education guidelines aimed at reducing H.I.V. infections among young people has provoked criticism from conservative groups that say the program would be too explicit for young children and promote access to legal abortion as a right. The guidelines, scheduled to be released
Arts Beat - The Culture at Large - As part of its 2010-11 season dedicated to the work of the playwright Tony Kushner, the Signature Theater Company will mount the first New York revival of his Angels in America since the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning work closed on Broadway in 1994, the troupe s artistic dire
For years, South Africa was an international laughing stock for its tragically absurd approach to the deadly AIDS epidemic. Now, that national nightmare may be ending. The new government of President Jacob Zuma seems to have a clearer-eyed view of the problem, its remedies and the need to improve the overall health car
In the late 19th century, Victorian-era doctors described the male foreskin as a source of serious mischief. Convinced that masturbation led to insanity, and that it was the sensitive, responsive foreskin that stimulated masturbation, surgeons started promoting therapeutic circumcision to cure young men of the sin of
For over a decade, Eric Schadt has been one of a handful of scientists blending mathematics, biology and supercomputers to pursue a new understanding of human biology, one that suggests the mechanisms of human disease are far more complex than anticipated. The chief scientific officer for Pacific Biosciences in Menlo P
The Obama administration is considering new rules to make it easier for government Web sites to use cookies and other technology to track visitors. There are valid reasons for using such tools, but the government has to build in robust privacy protections. The Clinton administration adopted a rule severely limiting tra
JOHANNESBURG -- Leading South African scientists challenged the governing party on Monday to break with its deeply flawed record on AIDS and public health, spurring the country s new health minister to say that he and his party shared their diagnosis of systemic problems and were determined to repair them. The decision
Public health officials are considering promoting routine circumcision for all baby boys born in the United States to reduce the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The topic is a delicate one that has already generated controversy, even though a formal draft of the proposed recommendations, due out from the
Robert Hilferty, a writer and an AIDS activist who made a documentary film in 1989 that roiled the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and the Public Broadcasting Service, died on July 24 at his home in Manhattan. He was 49. Mr. Hilferty committed suicide while suffering from complications of a head injury he receiv
Romania , which has been lauded as a poor country that successfully tackled its AIDS epidemic, is facing shortages of antiretroviral drugs because of the global recession, according to local media reports and people working there. AIDS patients have appealed to President Traian Basescu to restore their medications, t
Nearly 600,000 Americans with AIDS have died since the beginning of the epidemic. Nearly a third of those cases can be traced to intravenous drug users who became infected with the virus that causes AIDS by sharing contaminated needles and who sometimes infect wives, lovers and unborn children. Many of the dead would n
European scientists have discovered a new strain of the virus that causes AIDS and linked it to gorillas, creating a mystery about when and how the first patient found to have the strain became infected. It is thought to be likely that this is the first time scientists have documented the jump of a simian immunodeficie
LOS ANGELES -- The day a governor signs a budget bill into law usually marks the end of acrimony, threats and political dodge ball. But this is broke, embattled, politically crippled California, and so with the sweep of his pen, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opened the door Tuesday for more fights. Seeking to close a fina
KHAYELITSHA, South Africa -- Busisiwe Beko, a gregarious community health worker for Doctors Without Borders, set out on foot into this vast township of 500,000 people to hunt for one particular ailing young woman. Ms. Beko strode along thin dirt paths among densely packed shacks, frequently pausing to ask for directio
For the first time, scientists have shown that chimpanzees in the wild become sick and die from the simian version of AIDS. The finding upsets a widely held scientific belief that chimpanzees, the closest relatives to humans, can get the virus that causes simian AIDS but without harm. It also suggests that an outbreak
The role of gay sex in the transmission of the virus that causes AIDS in Africa has been long ignored, say the authors of a new study in the medical journal Lancet. While most transmission of the virus in Africa is heterosexual, 19 recent studies of African men who have sex with men show that they have considerably hig
ORANGE FARM, South Africa -- Young men have flocked by the thousands to this clinic for circumcisions, the only one of its kind in South Africa. Each of them lies down on one of seven closely spaced surgical tables, his privacy shielded only by a green curtain. I ve done 53 in a seven-hour day, me, myself, personally,
Music Review | Mandela Day Happy 91st, Mr. Mandela, Aretha Franklin announced at Radio City Music Hall on Saturday night, celebrating Nelson Mandela s birthday. She was among the dozens of musicians at Mandela Day, a benefit concert for 46664, Mr. Mandela s organization for AIDS and H.I.V. prevention. It is named for h
President Obama s nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, is a woman of astonishing grit, selflessness and competence. If confirmed by the Senate, she would bring a perspective solidly rooted in the difficult reality so many Americans confront as they search for adequate, affordable health care. Dr. Benjam
The vaccine against tuberculosis that is routinely given to 75 percent of the world s infants is too risky to give to those born infected with the AIDS virus, says a new study published by the World Health Organization . It recommended that vaccination be delayed until babies can be tested. The Bacille Calmette-Gue
NEW DELHI --In a landmark ruling Thursday that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gay men and lesbians in India , New Delhi s highest court decriminalized homosexuality. The inclusiveness that Indian society traditionally displayed, literally in every aspect of life, is manifest in recognizing a role in socie
It is not quite the Tribeca Film Festival and it is certainly not Cannes, but the first film festival in the United States dedicated to soccer movies, the Kicking and Screening International Soccer Film Festival, will unspool at five locations July 14-18 across New York City. Soccer and film are passions -- they crysta
Anything goes in the war on drugs, or so it seems. Governments around the world have used it as an excuse for unchecked human rights abuse and irrational policies based on knee-jerk reactions rather than scientific evidence. This has caused tremendous human suffering. It also undermines drug control efforts. That human
BEREGA, Tanzania -- The Berega Orphanage, a cluster of neat stucco cottages in this village of red dirt roads and maize plots, is a far cry from what the name suggests. The 20 infants and toddlers here are not put up for adoption, nor kept on indefinitely without hope of ever living with a family. Most of their mot
International migrant workers, foreign students and political refugees are often endangered by laws that discriminate against people with AIDS, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch reported last week. About a third of the world s countries limit the right of people with H.I.V. to enter or stay, even if their disease i
Every so often, the American social order is reshuffled. And that upheaval is typically accompanied by a prominent face. Frederick Douglass became the face of the black abolitionist movement. A century later, Martin Luther King Jr. played that role in the civil rights movement. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem became t
SHANGHAI -- It was shortly after the hot body contest and just before a painted procession of Chinese opera singers took the stage that the police threatened to shut down China s first gay pride festival. The authorities had already forced the cancellation of a play, a film screening and a social mixer, so when an irri
Physician, fugitive, federal prisoner, clinician to the homeless, advocate for AIDS patients. epidemiologist: That was the arc of Alan Berkman s career. Dr. Berkman, a Vietnam-era radical who spent eight years in prison for armed robbery and possession of explosives and who later founded Health GAP -- a leader in the c
Health officials in Los Angeles said Friday that 22 actors in adult sex movies had contracted H.I.V. since 2004, when a previous outbreak led to efforts to protect pornography industry employees. The officials accused an industry-supported health clinic of failing to cooperate with state investigations and of failing t
It is only at the end of Daryl Wein s documentary portrait of the onetime AIDS activist Richard Berkowitz that its agenda as a polemic against societal amnesia becomes apparent. Noting that in recent years H.I.V. infection rates among gay men have begun to climb, this sad, useful film sounds an alarm about the return o
Giving an inexpensive deworming drug to millions of girls in rural Africa could substantially reduce transmission of the virus that causes AIDS, researchers say. The drug praziquantel, which costs only 32 cents per child, would prevent schistosomiasis, a worm disease that starts as a urinary tract infection but, untrea
PARIS -- Former President Bill Clinton, newly appointed as the United Nations special envoy for Haiti , said he was joining a new international initiative to raise money for third world medical aid through a unique financing campaign that harnesses the power of unlikely philanthropists: air travelers who buy electronic
JAMBUR, Gambia -- This tiny West African nation s citizens have grown familiar with the unpredictable exploits of its absolute ruler, who insists on being called His Excellency President Professor Dr. Al-Haji Yahya Jammeh: his herbs-and-banana cure for AIDS, his threat to behead gays, his mandate that only he can drive
In Africa, AIDS patients rarely get viral load testing to see whether they are developing dangerous resistance to their first-line drugs. The testing, routine in wealthy countries, is just too expensive and complex. Scientists from Makerere University s hospital in Kampala, Uganda , along with American and Belgian sc
Rodger McFarlane, a leader in the gay rights movement during the early days of the AIDS epidemic and the first executive director of the Gay Men s Health Crisis, died Friday in Truth or Consequences, N.M. He was 54 and lived in Denver. He committed suicide, Mr. McFarlane s brother John confirmed. In a letter that he le
To the Editor: Re Obama Seeks a Global Health Plan Broader Than Bush s AIDS Effort (news article, May 6): The details of President Obama s new global health initiative have left many concerned that the financing described does not reflect the commitment required to lead the United States efforts in the global fight aga
An infectious-disease specialist and a longtime advocate of using government to promote healthier behavior is expected to be named New York s health commissioner by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Monday, according to people who have been briefed on the matter. Dr. Thomas A. Farley of the Tulane School of Public Health a
WASHINGTON -- President Obama will announce on Friday that he has chosen Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the New York City health commissioner, as the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administration officials said Thursday. Dr. Frieden, a 48-year-old infectious disease specialist, has cut a high
MOSCOW -- They knew they had no chance. But there they were anyway at a marriage registration office in Moscow on Tuesday. Two young women, wearing tuxedos and clutching bouquets, trying to become the first same-sex couple in Russia to legally wed. We have love, we have happiness, we want to be together for our whole l
By now, the concept of consumer-generated content, also known as user-generated content, has become familiar to the denizens of Madison Avenue. Asking the people who are meant to buy a product to produce ads for that product makes sense on many levels, even if opening the creative process to outsiders may bruise a frag
WASHINGTON -- President Obama asked Congress on Tuesday to spend $63 billion over the next six years on a new, broader global health strategy that would reshape one of the signature foreign policy efforts of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Mr. Bush made combating global AIDS a centerpiece of his foreign agenda. The pr
JOHANNESBURG - A vast majority of the World Bank s projects to combat AIDS failed to perform satisfactorily over the past decade, with the ones in Africa, the region at the epicenter of the pandemic, registering the worst record, according to a new internal evaluation. Seven of 10 AIDS projects that the bank financed a
In December 2008, after a weekend of sex fueled by methamphetamine, Chris, a San Francisco man in his early 30s, sought out testing for sexually transmitted diseases at Magnet, a clinic serving homosexual men in the city s Castro neighborhood. Staff members tested him for H.I.V. twice: first with a standard rapid test,
In 1984, a young medical student named Tom Frieden wrote a letter to the editor complaining that as long as specialty training was more prestigious than primary medicine, and as long as medical school exams -- like one he had encountered -- referred to Appalachians as filthy hillbillies, the country s medical system wo
Powerful drugs are available to treat H.I.V., but doctors have long argued about when to start therapy. Is it better to treat patients early, exposing them to risky side effects, or to wait until the disease is more advanced? A new analysis suggests that sooner is better than later. The study, which is not the final wo
Dr. Eric Goosby, a pioneer in the fight against AIDS, is President Obama s choice to run the American effort to combat the disease globally, the White House announced Monday. The President s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, known as Pepfar, was championed by President George W. Bush. It is expected to spend $48 billion
The AIDS epidemic is spreading faster than previously thought, even as the American public s concern about it declines. That dangerous disconnect underscores the urgency of a new campaign announced by the Obama administration to combat complacency about the disease and its potential to strike the unwary. The Centers fo
Hoping to challenge Gilead Sciences , the leader in H.I.V. drugs, the pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer said Thursday that they would form a specialty company(see: http://www.hivfutures.com/) to research, develop and market treatments for H.I.V.
Researchers have identified a new benchmark for starting drug treatment for AIDS, according to a report published online last week in the journal Lancet. The question of when to start therapy has been a swinging pendulum, notes an editorial accompanying the study. The marker in question is the CD4 count, which represen
The United States must do more to curb the spread of diseases like AIDS and hepatitis C in prison, where infection rates are high and inmates can easily spread disease through unprotected sex or by sharing needles. Drug treatment in prison is clearly part of the solution. But by some estimates, fewer than one in five i
WASHINGTON -- Condoleezza Rice will be there. So will Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett and Michael Gerson. And George W. Bush himself. The old gang is getting back together next week in Dallas for a reunion of sorts, the Bush team s first since leaving the White House. On tap is a dinner with the former president and a da
The President s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the $15 billion program begun by the Bush administration in 2003, cut the AIDS death toll in its African target countries by more than 10 percent, but did not prevent new cases, according to a new study. The assessment of the plan, by two Stanford University School of Med
As common as it is, scratching to relieve an itch has long been considered a biological mystery: Are cells at the surface of the skin somehow fatigued, in need of outside stimulation? Or is the impulse, and its relief, centered in the brain? Perhaps neither one, a new study suggests. Neuroscientists at the University o
BEIJING -- At least 64 people have been infected with hepatitis C after receiving transfusions of tainted blood at a county hospital in southern China , a hospital official said Wednesday. The authorities at the Guizhou Province hospital traced the infections to contaminated blood from a single donor who had sold blood
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently spent $2 million to expand Internet access in Latvian libraries, $90 million to help African cocoa and cashew farmers and $11 million for further research in the Philippines to help produce higher-yielding rice crops. And foundation money was used for another cause: it hel
The most heartbreaking moment for doctors and nurses treating people with H.I.V./AIDS in Myanmar is the arrival of a new patient. Running short of funds and medications, clinics have started turning dying people away. They continue to knock on our doors, even though we can t take in most of them, said Joe Belliveau, o
One-quarter of all deaths from tuberculosis are in patients also infected with the AIDS virus, twice as many as previously thought, the World Health Organization said last week. In its annual Global TB Control report, the organization said that being infected with the virus can increase the risk of developing tuberculo
MIAMI -- Hundreds of veterans, some in fatigues, others in wheelchairs, streamed into the Miami Veterans Hospital on Wednesday to be tested for H.I.V. and hepatitis after officials there announced that improperly cleaned colonoscopy equipment might have exposed them to infection. More than 3,200 veterans who had the pr
Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that the federal government will no longer prosecute dispensers of medical marijuana if they comply with state law. That should bring relief to people who need marijuana for health reasons and free up law enforcement resources for more important work. There is considerab
The United Nations AIDS agency has joined the chorus of politicians and activists critical of Pope Benedict XVI for saying as he embarked on a tour of Africa this week that condoms increase the problem of the disease. With more than 7,400 new infections of H.I.V., which causes AIDS, reported daily, condoms are an essen
Pope Benedict XVI has every right to express his opposition to the use of condoms on moral grounds, in accordance with the official stance of the Roman Catholic Church. But he deserves no credence when he distorts scientific findings about the value of condoms in slowing the spread of the AIDS virus. As reported on Tue
VATICAN CITY -- When Pope Benedict XVI embarks on his first trip to Africa as pontiff on Tuesday, traveling to Cameroon and Angola , he will be visiting the future of the Roman Catholic Church, if not its present. With one of the world s largest Catholic populations, estimated at 158 million, Africa is the continent wh
The New York Times - City Room, Blogging From the Five Boroughs - March 11, 2009
Posted by Jennifer 8. Lee
Krishna Stone Organizers struggled to assemble a diverse collection of dolls for a demonstration on women and H.I.V. at City Hall on Tuesday. More than 150 dolls were placed on the steps of City Hall on Tuesday, each with a little tag bearing some depressing statistic about women s health, such as the AIDS rate. The do
LATE last month, the United Arab Emirates denied a visa to the Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer to play in the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships. Then, just days later and after harsh criticism by the tennis world, the Emirates turned around and issued a visa for another Israeli tennis player, Andy Ram, to play the
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene gave itself a checkup and the prognosis was relentlessly upbeat. There are fewer smokers now than in 2002, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his health commissioner took office, and during their tenure there have been fewer deaths from H.I.V., alcohol and drug
Two years ago, after three African studies showed that being circumcised could give men a 60 percent lower risk of getting the AIDS virus, the World Health Organization recommended male circumcision to prevent AIDS. Since then, as different poor countries struggled to create national circumcision policies, much misinfo
A long-awaited report on Monday described the use of contaminated blood products in Britain s National Health Service in the 1970s and 80s, infecting thousands of hemophiliacs with H.I.V., hepatitis and other conditions, as a horrific human tragedy and the worst treatment disaster in the 60-year history of the publicly
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- Theater directors and students at more than 40 high schools across the country have selected a new show for their big springtime musical this year: Rent: School Edition, a modified version of the hit Broadway musical that, while toned down a bit, remains provocative by traditional drama club st
Finding a microbicide is one of the thorniest problems in AIDS research. Women in poor countries need a vaginal gel that blocks the AIDS virus but not sperm because many still want children. They also need one that can be inserted secretly: for too many women, any action that implies that a partner is infected is likel
A lawyer for the former major leaguer Roberto Alomar on Wednesday dismissed the merits of a lawsuit by Alomar s former girlfriend, who said that Alomar continued to have unprotected sex with her despite being infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Ilya Dall, 31, of Queens is demanding $15 million in punitive damages
In a world filled with e-mail, e-cards and e-commerce, perhaps it was no surprise that the e-condom was next. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which introduced the city s official condom on Valentine s Day two years ago, has introduced a Facebook page and Facebook application to promote the us
A small survey of young black men from the South who tested positive for H.I.V. in their teens and early 20s found that most had engaged in risky sexual behaviors but thought it unlikely they would be infected, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than half of the 29 gay or bisexual
Researchers have long wondered how pregnant women might shape their fetuses development -- by protecting them against later disease, perhaps, or instilling an appreciation of Mozart. Now a group in California has discovered a surprising new mechanism by which women train their fetuses budding immune systems: the mother
The abrupt departure of the State Department s global AIDS coordinator has led to debate over who should run what may be President Bush s most important achievement: his commitment of billions of dollars to fighting AIDS overseas. The position - global AIDS coordinator and director of the President s Emergency Plan for
Programs that give drug addicts access to clean needles have been shown the world over to slow the spread of deadly diseases including H.I.V./AIDS and hepatitis. Public health experts were relieved when President Obama announced his support for ending a ban on federal funding for such programs. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama
Responding to a report in The Wall Street Journal that Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York City s health commissioner, is being considered for a possible appointment as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Housing Works, a leading organization for people with H.I.V. and AIDS, on Wednesday urged the O
An investigation into the participation of New York City foster children in clinical drug trials for H.I.V. and AIDS over a nearly 20-year period has found no evidence that any children died as a result of the trials or that the foster children were selected because of their race. In the late 1980s, as the AIDS epidemi
Martin Delaney, a prominent advocate for AIDS patients who challenged the government and drug companies to expedite access to experimental treatments in the early days of the epidemic, died Friday at his home in San Rafael, Calif. He was 63. Martin Delaney in 1997 at the organization he helped to create. The cause was
SEATTLE: Here s a paradox: In these brutal economic times, one of the leading advocates for the world s poorest people is one of the richest. Bill Gates will publish his first annual letter on Monday outlining his work on his twin passions - health and development in the poorest nations and education in America - and c
JOHANNESBURG: Edwin Cameron, appointed a High Court judge by Nelson Mandela soon after apartheid ended in 1994, pulled to the side of the road, leaned his head on the steering wheel and was overcome by deep, shattering sobs, he recently recalled. It was 1999 and he had just decided to publicly disclose he was HIV-posit
President Obama on Friday began dismantling his predecessor s broad and damaging assault on women s reproductive health and freedom. He lifted the odious gag rule that President George W. Bush imposed on international family planning groups and began trying to restore financing to the United Nations Population Fund.
JERSEY CITY THE scene was set and the film crew was rolling. The actress playing Valerie was calling around, trying to find friends to go bar-hopping. She would end up in the arms of another woman s man, become pregnant and become infected with a sexually transmitted disease. But the soap-opera style film shot this mon
SAN FRANCISCO - Steve, a health care worker in his 30s, had been told more than once that he had been exposed to a sexually transmitted infection. So when it happened again, he was not upset - even though this time he learned about it through an anonymous online postcard, e-mailed by a man with whom he had had sex. W
Human rights organizations, health groups and some foreign governments have united in condemning Senegal for imprisoning nine local AIDS activists. The men were arrested Dec. 19, tried in two weeks and sentenced to eight years in prison for unnatural acts and belonging to a criminal association. Their group, AIDES Sen
TEHRAN - An Iranian intelligence official said Monday that two prominent doctors jailed since June were among four men sent to prison on charges of plotting against the Iranian government with the suspected backing of the United States , the semiofficial Fars news agency reported. Fars quoted the unidentified official
The scattered pop of flashbulbs was the clearest sign that the concert presented at Carnegie Hall on Monday night was no everyday occurrence. The event, Mahler for the Children of AIDS, was a fund-raiser for pediatric AIDS relief work done by the Catholic Medical Mission Board in Africa. On the program was a single pie
THE world premiere of a new work by the South African playwright Athol Fugard is a standout event for any theater. For a regional theater - even a much-heralded one like Long Wharf in New Haven, where Mr. Fugard s new play, Coming Home, opened last week - it is huge. As if that were not event enough, the play - about a
DR. JOSHUA LIPSMAN, Westchester County s health commissioner, has taken the H.I.V. test. He tells his friends and family to take the test, and he wants you to take it too. He is on a mission because Westchester has the highest number of H.I.V. infections in the state outside New York City. We think that about 3,000 to
Virtually all the flu in the United States this season is resistant to the leading antiviral drug Tamiflu, and scientists and health officials are trying to figure out why. The problem is not yet a public health crisis because this is a below-average flu season so far and the chief strain circulating is still susceptib
Like millions of other people around the world, the citizens of Washington are eagerly awaiting President-elect Barack Obama s inauguration ceremony later this month. The ceremony carries extra meaning in the nation s capital, where voters are counting on Mr. Obama to end the humiliating second-class citizenship that C
Nearly one-quarter of men who have sex with men in New York City said they engaged in binge drinking, compared to a citywide rate of 15 percent for all adults, according to a study released on Monday by the city s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The study [pdf] also found that binge drinking may be responsible
It didn t surprise Dr. Joseph U. Becker, chief resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital s emergency department, when the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that some 1.1 million people nationwide are living with H.I.V. What did surprise Dr. Becker is that the report also said one-quarter of them did
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