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Holmes Norton: Republicans to blame for high D.C. AIDS rate By Silla Brush - 11/04/09 06:00 PM ET Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) is blaming Republican lawmakers for the District of Columbia’s high HIV/AIDS rate. In a letter posted on her website, Norton lashed out at Republican efforts in recent years to attach riders to annual congressional spending bills that limited the District from using locally raised revenues to support needle exchange programs. She said this explains “in large part” why the District has a higher HIV/AIDS rate than do similar cities. “The District has a higher HIV/AIDS rate than...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama will lift a 1987 ban on foreigners with AIDS entering the country. "We talk about reducing the stigma of this disease, yet we've treated a visitor living with it as a threat," Obama said Friday. Obama said an order lifting the restriction will be issued Monday and take effect after 60 days. Poll on page!

The US is to end its 22-year ban on people with HIV entering the country, President Barack Obama has confirmed. Mr Obama made the announcement as he extended funding for an act that provides HIV/Aids related health care. "If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/Aids, we need to act like it," Mr Obama said. The US is one of only about a dozen countries barring entry on HIV status. The ban is expected to be lifted at the beginning of 2010. 'End the stigma' Mr Obama confirmed the move as he signed the Ryan White HIV/Aids...

President Obama overturned a decades-old policy Friday that he said was "rooted in fear rather than fact," when he announced the lifting of a rule barring HIV-positive people from entering the US. "Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this disease -- yet we've treated a visitor living with it as a threat," the President said. "[W]e are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people [with] HIV from entering our own country. If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it."

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Does HIV mean certain death? In the quarter century since the world was introduced to the idea that a new sexually transmitted virus was the cause of Aids, HIV has been generally regarded as one of the biggest killers of our time. HIV/Aids has not been the mass disease in Britain that people were led to believe in the 1980s, but the death toll from immune deficiency diseases ascribed to HIV in Africa has been staggering. The scale of death there is an ongoing tragedy that tests the moral resolve of the rich world. How much do we care? Enough...

A Toronto man who contracted HIV from his former stripper wife is hoping he's alive to see her get deported to Thailand. Whiteman and his lawyer appeared before a Federal Court of Canada last Thursday in an ongoing battle with immigration officials to get Iamkhong deported due to her criminal record. He has launched a $30-million lawsuit against the Canada Border Services Agency and Zanzibar Strip Club in Toronto in connection with the case. He claims Iamkhong, 40, a former stripper at the Zanzibar, was allowed into the country with HIV and that led to his life being placed in...

The sponsors of the largest ever HIV vaccine trial yesterday hailed a "historic" moment as they formally announced the trial's results at an international AIDS vaccine meeting in Paris. The results received rapturous applause from an audience of more than 1,000 HIV researchers. But some scientists are much more sceptical of the findings, arguing that the response of the HIV research community, long deprived of any good news from vaccine trials, is based more on hope than on rigorous science.The US$119-million phase III trial, sponsored by the health ministry of Thailand and the US Army, started in Thailand in 2003....

A deeper analysis of the results of an HIV vaccine tested in Thailand suggests that the vaccine may not have been as effective as originally indicated. When first publicly disclosing the outcome of the Thai trial in September, researchers said the vaccine had lowered the risk of infection by about 31%. That result was modest but statistically significant, meaning it wasn't the result of a fluke. That announcement, coming after two decades of failed HIV vaccine trials, garnered headlines around the world. Now, two other analyses of the trial data suggests that the results could have been due to pure...

In a city ravaged by the highest rate of AIDS cases in the nation, the D.C. Health Department paid millions to nonprofit groups that delivered substandard services or failed to account for any work at all, even as sick people searched for care or died waiting. More than $1 million in AIDS money went to a housing group whose ailing boarders sometimes struggled without electricity, gas or food. A supervisor said she was ordered to create records for ghost employees. More than $500,000 was earmarked for a housing program whose executive director had a string of convictions for theft, drugs...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Human-Rights-Campaign-Dinner/ THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary __________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 10, 2009 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN DINNER Walter E. Convention Center Washington, D.C. 8:10 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. Please, you're making me blush. (Laughter.) AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you, Barack! THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Applause.) To Joe Solmonese, who's doing an outstanding job on behalf of HRC. (Applause.) To my great friend and supporter, Terry Bean, co-founder of HRC. (Applause.) Representative Patrick Kennedy. (Applause.) David Huebner, the...

Can the scientist who denied the cause of AIDS be trusted to cure cancer? --snip-- ...In the past three decades, Duesberg has been described as a genius, a martyr, and a genocidal lunatic—often by the same person, usually amid the fierce debates and international headlines that come with major scientific breakthroughs. In 1971, at the age of 33, he became the first scientist to identify a cancer-causing gene—a biological holy grail that secured his place among an elite group of the country's top researchers. Tenure at Berkeley and a coveted spot in the National Academy of Sciences followed. So did...

New York City Kidnaps and Force-Drugs Kids...

October 7, 2009 Evidence Offered with Respect to Historical Events Concerning Consensus and Dissent on the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis Darin Brown Ph.D. Introduction For many people, doubt of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis is associated with one individual, a German-American biochemist, Peter Duesberg, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. However, Duesberg is not alone in his dissent from AIDS orthodoxy. Many prominent and distinguished scientists and academics either agree with his position on HIV or support dissent from the HIV-AIDS hypothesis in some fashion. Several of these have either conducted research on retroviruses (the class of...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2ND, 2009 AT 8:51 AM A Call to Action from the Office of National AIDS Policy Posted by Jeffrey S. Crowley Every nine-and-a-half minutes, someone in the United States becomes infected with HIV, which results in more than 56,000 new infections each year. In addition, there are 1.2 million people in this country living with HIV/AIDS, many of whom require services and support. President Obama is committed to developing a coordinated, measurable and successful National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) to address the HIV epidemic in the...

A gay man who repeatedly gave blood after lying about having sex with other men is suing Canadian Blood Services, alleging the questionnaire used by the agency to screen out unsuitable donors is a violation of his charter rights. Kyle Freeman alleges the blood collection agency violates his charter rights and those of other gay men by asking male donors on the questionnaire whether they had ever had sex with a man, even once, since 1977.

CNN) – The seats Barack and Michelle Obama sat in while watching a Broadway play during a "date" in New York City are now on the auction block for charity. The money will go to Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS. According to their Web site, Broadway Cares is "the nation's leading industry-based, not-for-profit AIDS fundraising and grant making organization." The seats – K101 and K102 – belonged to the Belasco Theater, the second oldest house on Broadway that is currently being renovated. The Obamas saw the show "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" in late May as part of a...

BANGKOK - For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible. The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 percent in the world's largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, researchers announced Thursday in Bangkok.

BANGKOK — For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible. The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 percent in the world's largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, researchers announced Thursday in Bangkok. Even though the benefit is modest, "it's the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine," Col. Jerome Kim said in...

Click to watch excerpts of Obama's UN speech. David Horowitz commented on The One’s sellout speech to the UN this morning. Sometimes one stray fact is enough to tell a whole story: The biggest applause line by far was his pledge to end the Israeli “occupation that began in 1967.� The chamber erupted at the words, and the applause lasted longer than any other interruption. The following section of his speech — describing U.S. actions to combat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, H1N1, and global economic squalor — received no applause whatsoever:

"A 20 year-old man with HIV from Linköping has been remanded in custody for having unprotected sex with a 15-year-old girl. The man has previously been imprisoned for having intercourse with seven woman who were not aware he was infected. The pair had sex with mutual consent on September 11 but the man did not inform the girl he had the HIV virus, nor did they use a condom. He told the girl of his condition sometime after they had been intimate."

It seems that Andrew Sullivan’s application for US citizenship hangs in the balance — but not really, and that is the issue. Gawker and other sites report that this past summer, blogger and columnist Sullivan was arrested on national seashore in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for illegal possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor that would incur a $125 for Sullivan, if he was found guilty. No big deal — it happens a lot in that area of our country. The only stumbling block is Sullivan’s pending U.S. citizenship, which might have been adversely affected should he have been brought to court. Enter...

Panic over syringe stabbings spreads to Beijing Jane Macartney, China Correspondent The Chinese authorities are anxious that mysterious syringe stabbings that have caused panic in the restive far west have now reached the capital. The threat of such needle attacks comes as an enormous security blanket has been thrown across Beijing to ensure that a huge military parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule passes off without a hitch on October 1. Indications that the bizarre attacks may have extended from the mostly Muslim, riot-torn region of Xinjiang to Beijing came in the form of directives from...

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Remarkable movie shows how AIDS story falls apart under questioning Leading luminaries confess flaws, confirming critics’ concerns Clarity and entertainment value may gain wide audience for documentary But John Moore and his goons are on the job to sink it if possible...

A team of scientists in the US has discovered two new antibodies that could lead to an HIV vaccine. Researchers from the Scripps Institute in California, the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and US-based biotech companies Theraclone Sciences and Monogram Biosciences discovered these two broadly neutralising antibodies using high-throughput screening of serum from patients infected with HIV.When people are first infected with HIV, they produce antibodies that are specific to the infected strain, but a few years later some start to make antibodies active against other strains of the virus - known as broadly neutralising antibodies. 'There is a huge variability in...

An Aids-awareness advert depicting Adolf Hitler having unprotected sex has been condemned by mainstream health charities for stigmatising people infected with the virus. The provocative commercial, which ends with the tag-line "AIDS is a mass murder", aims to scare young people into using condoms by associating the deadly disease with the German dictator. But what appears to be a typical, if steamy, advert for perfume or underwear takes a macabre twist when the camera pans to man's face at the moment of climax - revealing him to be Adolf Hitler. "Of course there are many HIV organisations that run their...

A Foley physician said what appears to be the first case of HIV/AIDS cure in the world is getting little mention in the media. Dr. Awadhesh K. Gupta, medical director at Foley Walk-In Med Care, said he first heard of the medical breakthrough in April when he attended the Annual Conference of the American College of Physicians in Internal Medicine in Philadelphia. It’s a conference Gupta tries to attend every year. “This is the most prestigious organization of physicians in Internal Medicine and is responsible for certifying post graduate training in Internal Medicine. It is also one of the oldest,”...

The dangers of homosexual behavior have been long known to anyone with eyes to see them and ears to hear them, despite the “mainstream” media’s efforts to sweep this information under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist; they are, after all, willing and eager participants in the effort to whitewash homosexuality in the eyes of the public. Yet the information keeps popping up in places like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the New England Journal of Medicine, the Department of Justice, the American Sociological Review, the Archives of General Psychology, the Washington Blade, the Journal of Sex Research...

Some of my best friends are gay. Suspiciously large numbers, it has sometimes been suggested to me. But that’s OK, I’m cool with that. What my friends get up to in the privacy of their own homes - or, indeed, the scary back room of their local boite - is very much their own affair. And if they want to get married (Hell-ooo! Why sacrifice the single greatest benefit of being gay?), well I’m probably OK with that too. I don’t believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice so I guess it’s only fair that gay men and women too...

Last week I wrote about former President George W. Bush’s unprecedented work on behalf of the African AIDS epidemic. That $15 billion package, first proposed in January 2003, was entirely Bush’s doing, and has been ignored by the mainstream media and liberals who should hail the initiative. Similarly, it has been dismissed by many conservatives who did not like the massive spending at a time of record deficits. I focused on the latest ignored news on the Bush initiative: the remarkable conclusion that it has saved over one million African lives. According to an April 2009 study by researchers at...

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 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by the end of the year, has yet to be released. Experts are also considering whether the surgery should be offered to adult heterosexual men whose sexual practices put them at high risk of infection. But they acknowledge that a circumcision drive...

Wednesday morning: Lots of talking, little controversy Today for the first time, we got the Goodsoil group handing out high quality booklets with “stories” about gays and lesbians, and singing songs to welcome the voting members. The handing out had to be done out on the street, since convention center (not ELCA) rules ban distribution of materials in the center itself. Incidentally, CORE also has a booklet of stories about people “freed” from homosexuality, but they haven’t been distributing it outside of the CORE room, which seems to make it rather pointless. It also is less effective, having been produced,...

Rationing and triage (in which only people to whom immediate medical treatment means a life or death difference receive it) apply in disaster and battlefield situations in which there are simply not enough resources for everybody. We state up front that we do not believe that the American medical system is anywhere near this point, especially because 30 to 60 cents of every health care dollar are squandered on waste and inefficiency. These include administrative costs, inefficiencies such as doctors and nurses having to walk or wait to get or record information, and easily preventable medical mistakes such as medication...

It was around 11 p.m. when armed men burst into Kazungu Ziwa’s hut, put a machete to his throat and yanked down his pants. Mr. Ziwa is a tiny man, about four feet, six inches tall. He tried to fight back, but said he was quickly beaten down.“Then they raped me,” he said. “It was horrible, physically. I was dizzy. My thoughts just left me.” For years, the thickly forested hills and clear, deep lakes of eastern Congo have been a reservoir of atrocities. Now, it seems, there is another growing problem: men raping men. -- Aid workers struggle to...

What if a president, on his own initiative, under no demands from staff or from supporters or opponents, set out to spend an unprecedented amount of money on AIDS in Africa, literally billions of dollars, at a time when the nation could not afford it, citing his faith as a primary motivation and, ultimately, saved more than a million lives? Wouldn’t the story be front-page news, especially in top, liberal newspapers? Wouldn’t it lead on CNN, MSNBC and the “CBS Evening News”? Might statues be erected to the man in the nation’s more “progressive” cities? What if the president was...

WASHINGTON – A new strain of the virus that causes AIDS has been discovered in a woman from the African nation of Cameroon. It differs from the three known strains of human immunodeficiency virus and appears to be closely related to a form of simian virus recently discovered in wild gorillas, researchers report in Monday's edition of the journal Nature Medicine. The finding "highlights the continuing need to watch closely for the emergence for new HIV variants, particularly in western central Africa," said the researchers, led by Jean-Christophe Plantier of the University of Rouen, France.

French researchers find new strain of HIV virus in African woman who moved to Paris A new strain of the virus that causes AIDS has been discovered in a woman from the African nation of Cameroon. It differs from the three known strains of human immunodeficiency virus and appears to be closely related to a form of simian virus recently discovered in wild gorillas, researchers report in Monday's edition of the journal Nature Medicine... --snip-- Researchers led by Drs. Lawrence Corey and Jia Zhu of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that long after the areas where the herpes...

More Dangerous than Smoking? Men who have had sex with men since 1977 have an HIV prevalence 60 times higher than the general population and 800 times higher than first time blood donors, the FDA reports. When it comes to combating cigarettes, the government not only restricts, taxes and bans smoking, it also funds and encourages anti-smoking messages and advertisements. Given the immense health risks of male homosexual sex, shouldn’t the federal government do a comprehensive study on the matter, tax sodomitic establishments, and educate the public and especially young people about the dangers of “gay” sex? Speaking Friday at...

Some chimps in Gombe National Park have been succumbing to an AIDS-like disease.Michael L. Wilson Researchers have overturned a decade-old consensus that chimpanzees cannot fall ill as a result of infection with a virus similar to HIV.Previously, scientists had thought that chimpanzees were like other non-human primates that can become infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) — which is closely related to HIV — but do not go on to be seriously sickened by the virus.The results suggest that it will not be possible to find the key to HIV immunity in the chimpanzee genome, as scientists had hoped. However,...

A new literature review, published by The Lancet, emphasizes the great proportion of HIV/AIDS cases among men who have sex with men (MSM) in sub-Saharan Africa, a fact often ignored in the fight against AIDS in Africa. The study concludes, however, that the solution to the problem lies in greater openness to homosexual practices from the African nations and better access to interventions, a solution that experts from the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) have called "simplistic." The review, principally authored by Dr. Adrian D. Smith of the University of Oxford, calls for greater acceptance of...

CNSNews.comHealth Care Bill Directs HHS Secretary to Develop 'Standards for Measuring Gender'--As Opposed to 'Male' and 'Female' Monday, July 20, 2009 By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (Photo by Penny Starr/CNSNews.com) (CNSNews.com) – The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee’s health care legislation will give the Health and Human Services secretary the authority to develop “standards of measuring gender” -- as opposed to using the traditional "male" and "female" categories -- in a database of all who apply or participate in government-run or government-supported health care plans.   HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is required...

A rule that prevents many HIV-positive immigrants and travelers from entering the United States will likely be lifted before the year is up, after the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this month recommended changing the regulation. Immigration and HIV/AIDS advocacy groups have been working to repeal the 22-year-old rule, which they call discriminatory, dangerous, and debilitating to the strength of the U.S. scientific community. A large number of foreigners with the human immunodeficiency virus would benefit from the change, the groups say, when these individuals would finally be able to enter the country to see loved ones, attend...

....Palin could have gone to a major hospital in Anchorage and delivered the child and still have Trig as an Alaskan. But, no, she had to add an extra risk to her unborn child by ensuring her local hospital and family doctor could deliver the child - even if that extra 45 minutes (like the ten hours that preceded it) could have posed a deathly risk to a special needs infant....It remains true that no one in the MSM will investigate the details of this truly bizarre story.... The one MSM newspaper that tried to report out the story of...

Obama urges Americans get tested for HIV 33 mins ago WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama on Saturday urged his fellow Americans to get tested for HIV in an effort to reduce transmission of the virus that causes AIDS. "On this 14th commemoration of National HIV Testing Day, I urge Americans to take control of their own health -- and protect those they love -- by getting tested for HIV and working to reduce HIV transmission," Obama said in a statement. "While its impacts are not evenly spread -- infection rates are particularly high among gay and bisexual men, African...

A new internet data map offers a first-of-its-kind, county-level look at HIV cases in the U.S. and finds the infection rates tend to be highest in the South. The highest numbers of HIV cases are in population centers like New York and California. However, many of the areas with the highest rates of HIV—that is, the highest proportion of people with the AIDS-causing virus—are in the South, according to the data map, which has information for about 99 percent of the nation's counties. HIV infection rates are higher in African-American communities, and high minority populations in the South help explain...

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 to protect not only industry workers but their sexual partners as well. “We have an industry that is exposing workers to life-threatening diseases as part of their employment,” said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of public health for Los Angeles County. “That is outrageous and anachronistic. These infections are virtually entirely preventable.” The...

L.A. County health officials say at least 16 performers have been infected in addition to one reported this week. That brings the number of HIV cases in porn performers to 22 in the last five years. Despite porn industry assurances that an adult film actress' recent positive HIV test is the first since a 2004 outbreak shut down production for a month, Los Angeles County health officials said Thursday that at least 16 additional unpublicized cases of HIV have been confirmed in adult film performers. The newly released data bring the number of HIV cases in porn performers in the...

A San Fernando Valley health clinic that serves the adult film industry says an actress has tested positive for HIV. The Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation said Wednesday that initial HIV tests of the woman's partners have come up negative, but they are not being allowed to perform and are being encouraged to test again in two weeks. The case is the first publicly confirmed HIV infection in the industry in Southern California since 2004 when an HIV outbreak shut down porn production for a month. County Public Health Director Dr. Jonathan Fielding says his office received no reports about...