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A rare form of tuberculosis caused by illegal, unpasteurized dairy products, including the popular queso fresco cheese, is rising among Hispanic immigrants in Southern California and raising fears about a resurgence of a strain all but eradicated in the U.S. Cases of the Mycobacterium bovis strain of TB have increased in San Diego county, particularly among children who drink or eat dairy foods made from the milk of infected cattle, a study in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases shows. But the germ can infect anyone who eats contaminated fresh cheeses sold by street vendors, smuggled across the Mexican border or...

The Department of Homeland Security's chief medical officer yesterday acknowledged errors in the federal government's failure to stop a Mexican businessman infected with multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis from entering the United States 21 times over seven weeks in April and May. ...Jeffrey W. Runge, DHS's acting assistant secretary for health affairs, said he and the agency's deputy secretary at the time, Michael P. Jackson, wanted to revoke the border-crossing card of Amado Isidro Armendariz Amaya after learning on April 30 about his situation...But Martin Cetron, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's quarantine division, objected that doing so would...

The straight talk express may have blown a gasket around the beltway, but it is running redline up and down I-95 in South Florida. Mayor Jim Naugle of Fort Lauderdale is being demeaned by the hedonist press of the region because he made a few claims that, while they are easily supported by data, run counter to the Broward state religion. Here is a list of his sins, as recorded in the Sun-Sentinel's encyclicals. First, Naugle said he does not use the term "gay" because homosexuals are "unhappy." Second, he claims his city has a problem with men using public...

PHOENIX — Behind the county hospital's tall cinderblock walls, a 27-year-old tuberculosis patient sits in a jail cell equipped with a ventilation system that keeps germs from escaping. Robert Daniels has been locked up indefinitely, perhaps for the rest of his life, since last July. But he has not been charged with a crime. Instead, he suffers from an extensively drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis, or XDR-TB. It is considered virtually untreatable. County health authorities obtained a court order to lock him up as a danger to the public because he failed to take precautions to avoid infecting others. Specifically, he...

All Americans between the ages of 13 and 64 should be routinely tested for HIV to help catch infections earlier and stop the spread of the deadly virus, federal health officials recommended Thursday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Americans should have an AIDS test during their annual doctor's visit, along with other procedures they might normally have, reported CBS News' Cami McCormick. "We know that many HIV infected people seek health care and they don't get tested. And many people are not diagnosed until late in the course of their illness, when they're already sick with...

POP star Andy Bell says he always WANTED to be HIV positive. The gay Erasure singer, 40, revealed he is HIV positive last month — six years after diagnosis. And in a new interview he says: “You are going to think this strange, but I wanted to be HIV positive. I thought HIV was a touchstone of being gay. “But I’m a fighter. They will have to take me from this world kicking and screaming.” Bandmate Vince Clarke, 44, insisted Bell’s diagnosis did not change anything. He said: “I had no fear this was the end. “I have other friends...

...The Centers for Disease Control has acknowledged that an earlier study inflated the number of obesity-related deaths in the U.S. It turns out that obesity isn't on track to overtake smoking as the nation's No. 1 cause of preventable deaths, or at least not anytime soon. A widely cited CDC study released in March said the number of deaths tied to physical inactivity and poor diet increased by 100,000, or 33%, between 1990 and 2000. Now the government says those numbers are way off due to faulty methodology, and it plans to revise the figures downward. Internal CDC documents reviewed...

...'This is not an emergency," Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Americans Wednesday. She was, of course, referring to the stunning announcement Tuesday that United Kingdom regulators had suspended operations at a Liverpool plant, halting production of some 50 million doses of influenza vaccine that were to provide protection for Americans during the upcoming flu season. Dr. Gerberding was, understandably, trying to prevent panic. She wanted to avoid, or at least minimize, the stampede to physicians' offices by worried consumers who wanted to get their shot now — before supplies were exhausted. And...

The next time you see rats roaming around public housing units in New York City, think of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. He and a handful of his colleagues in other states are working hard to make the city's public housing safe — for rats, mice, cockroaches and other city "wildlife." Working with a collection of green activists, Spitzer and five other state attorneys general recently announced that they might sue the feds for using pesticides in public housing — poor, minority families living in vermin-infested buildings not withstanding. The AGs claim they want to promote "integrated pest management," which just...

Great lice debate comes to a head 17:31 13 September 04 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. A new genetic analysis may finally settle the question, and even help when it comes to getting rid of the little parasites, which are staging a comeback in rich countries. Linnaeus named the human louse Pediculus humanus in 1758, but later realised there might be two sorts. Debate has gone on ever since. Those who regard body lice as a separate species point out that they are bigger than head lice and live in clothes rather than...

Phoenix police arrested two men accused of luring boys to their home for sex. Sargent Randy Force says 28-year-old Thomas Christopher Herbert and 37-year-old Robert John Price were arrested yesterday. They face charges of sexual exploitation of a minor, sexual conduct with a minor and an obscene materials charge. Court records show the men have H-I-V and may have infected their victims. Force says investigators arrested the men after receiving a tip from federal immigration authorities, who were investigating child pornography. Police believe the men would meet teenage boys in chat rooms and then lure them to their central Phoenix...

<p>MONMOUTH, Ore. — The American Red Cross may soon be banned from holding blood drives on one university campus because the organization prohibits some gay men from donating blood.</p> <p>"We're looking at the practices of the Red Cross — whether they are discriminatory, and if they are, how it relates back to our policy," said Gary Dukes, vice president of student affairs at Western Oregon University.</p>

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The Internet has played a significant role in the latest increase in cases of syphilis among gay men by introducing partners more likely to practice high-risk sex, according to a study released on Wednesday. About 22 percent of homosexual men diagnosed with early stage syphilis reported meeting one or more of their sexual partners through the Internet around the time they were infected, said the study by the Los Angeles Health Department. Researchers at a national conference in Philadelphia on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases also said they found gays who used the Web to meet...