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NEW YORK (AP) - It's a Friday evening, traditional kickoff time for the party scene in New York's gay community, but the 75 men packed into a small room at a gay health center aren't in a partying mood. Through a humbling 12-step program modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous, they are battling to kick their addiction to methamphetamine, and in doing so escape an epidemic that is roiling urban gay communities nationwide with disease, despair, embarrassment and anger. Meth is an equal-opportunity menace - many thousands of men and women, gay and straight, have fallen prey to it in rural villages,...

WITHIN days of infection, the AIDS virus destroys more than half of the immune cells that might recognise and help fight it, US researchers have found. The discovery might force a re-evaluation of how to tackle the deadly infection. Two separate studies in monkeys showed that SIV, the monkey version of the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, attacked CD4 memory T-cells right away and wiped out more than half of them. "The findings may require a rethink of strategies to design HIV drugs and vaccines," said Dr Mario Roederer, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The findings...

March 18, 2005 Rare AIDS Strain Is Very Aggressive, Study Says By MARC SANTORA A genetic study of a rare strain of AIDS that led New York City health officials to issue a public warning last month will be published today, allowing experts from around the world to more accurately evaluate the scientific basis of the alert. The study, appearing in The Lancet, a medical journal, shows the virus to be resistant to nearly all licensed drugs and particularly aggressive. Most of the study's details were disclosed earlier during an AIDS conference in Boston. The report is based on the...

CNSNews.com) - A nationally syndicated columnist who is openly homosexual is offering what he calls "a truly radical step" to curb unsafe sex -- forcing HIV-positive homosexual men who knowingly or negligently spread the virus to be financially accountable to their affected sexual partners. The idea is being panned by medical experts who work extensively with the homosexual community, but it has drawn praise from a spokesman for a leading conservative group in Washington, D.C., who not only called the establishment of HIV paternity a "useful" idea, but said there should be more criminal prosecution for the reckless spread of...

New York Suburb Has First Case of Rare STD Sat Feb 26, 6:29 PM ET Health - AP MINEOLA, N.Y. - A Nassau County man has been diagnosed with a rare sexually transmitted disease, the first case in the county and one of seven around the country. The Nassau County Department of Health has confirmed that the man has Lymphogranuloma Venereum, a form of chlamydia. The disease's symptoms can be serious — rectal pain and bleeding, and sores. The disease can also increase the risk of HIV (news - web sites) transmission. Two men in New York City were diagnosed...

BOSTON, Feb. 24 - The researchers whose findings led the New York City health department to warn of a rare and possibly virulent strain of H.I.V. defended on Thursday their decision to notify city officials, saying the virus presented a serious threat to public health. Giving a detailed account of their investigation for the first time at a scientific meeting here, the researchers said their discovery of the potentially more aggressive strain in a New York City man with multiple sexual partners was reason enough to sound the alarm. Dr. David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Laboratory...

BOSTON - The New York man who sparked fears of a powerful new strain of HIV had drug-fueled, unprotected sex with more than 100 men in the months before his diagnosis, a top researcher said yesterday. Dr. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in Manhattan will unveil today a case study of the unidentified man, who his team believes may harbor a mutant strain of the deadly virus. Skeptical AIDS researchers from around the world believe the case is isolated and not the beginning of a new epidemic. In a preview of the study, Ho said the...

Tony Venenum (we’ll call him), 26, reasons that he has always taken risks in life. He was raised by a single parent and made his way in a neighborhood where toughness was a requirement for survival. He discovered, in his teens, that he had solace in male companionship, and before he was 20, had been seduced, and had lived then with Guido, an older man. Both had jobs in establishments that required conformist behavior — Tony even wore a jacket and tie to work, but then Guido took sick and the diagnosis was AIDS. But the retrovirus inhibitor kept him...

The manager of Manhunt.net on the HIV “super-strain,” unsafe sex, crystal meth, and corporate—and personal—responsibility. The news that a New Yorker had contracted what appears to be an especially fast-acting, medically impervious form of HIV put the three-year-old gay-personals site Manhunt.net on the front page of the Times, and on the defensive. Along with AOL chat rooms, the popular site was repeatedly cited as a place where men arrange to have sex with other men (although the actual site, or sites, where this man met some of his “hundreds” of unsafe-sex partners while bingeing on crystal meth, has not been...

New AIDS Strain? Of Course. Gay activists are already protesting the announcement of the appearance of a new and deadly strain of the AIDS virus. In reporting the story, the The New York Times wondered aloud about the protests (e.g., who could protest a scientific announcement?) but then went on to justify it: announcing the new strain apparently might call attention to the continued reckless behavior of the gay community, and its continued intimidation of public health officials â€" as in this protest. Of course the Times didn't quite put it this way, but that was its meaning. This protest...

An unidentified San Diego resident may be infected with the same rare, aggressive and highly drug-resistant strain of HIV found last week in a New York City man who has rapidly become ill with AIDS, health officials said yesterday. "(The local person's) HIV has a similar molecular makeup as the patient in New York City," said Dr. Nancy Bowen, the San Diego County public health officer who held a press conference about the finding yesterday afternoon in San Diego. It's important to notify the public about a new and possibly supervigorous strain of HIV so people can take extra precautions,...

Last week's announcement by federal and New York City health authorities of the discovery of a superstrain of HIV that is unimaginably aggressive and impossible to treat has help smash clichés about homosexuals and fidelity while undermining the foundation of arguments for mandatory HIV testing for all Americans. A 40-something homosexual is believed to have contracted the superstrain in October, but was not diagnosed until December. In between, he had unprotected sex with hundreds of men, which means a geometric progression of the supervirus through the homosexual community may be under way. What has health officials horrified is the man...

NATIONAL NEWS | washingtonblade.com Bush cuts AIDS prevention funds in '06 budget Abstinence programs would see $38 million boost By LOU CHIBBARO JR. Feb. 11, 2005 The proposed 2006 budget that President Bush submitted to Congress this week calls for cutting funds for federal AIDS prevention and surveillance programs by $4 million, a development that drew sharp criticism from AIDS activists. Activists said they were especially concerned that the proposed cuts came at the same time the president is calling for a $38 million increase in programs aimed at curtailing AIDS and teen pregnancy by promoting sexual abstinence until marriage....

After all the thousands of AIDS deaths and all the years of "Safe Sex Is Hot Sex" prevention messages, it has come down to this: many gay men who know the rules of engagement in the age of AIDS are not using condoms. As news of a potentially virulent strain of H.I.V. settles in, gay activists and AIDS prevention workers say they are dismayed and angry that the 25-year-old battle against the disease might have to begin all over again. While many are calling for a renewed commitment to prevention efforts and free condoms, some veterans of the war on...

AIDS viruses isolated from two individuals are being studied to determine whether either might be the source of a rare and potentially more aggressive form of HIV .... resistant to 19 of the 20 licensed antiretroviral drugs. ...The two male contacts in New York, only one of whom is cooperating with the investigation, are among hundreds of men with whom the New York man told health officials he has had sex in recent weeks while using crystal methamphetamine. The man who sparked the investigation is cooperating with city health officials but apparently does not know the names of all his...

At a Friday news conference, city health officials said the case marked their first encounter with the strain. The man, who tested positive for HIV in December and is now sick with AIDS, had used the recreational drug crystal methamphetamine and had unprotected anal sex with multiple male partners. He had not responded to three of the four classes of AIDS drugs. Just one case "was not enough to warrant a public health alert," Gallo said in an interview from his Maryland home. "It's irresponsible and outrageous," he said. "We've already heard past claims about superviruses that all turn out...

A rare strain of H.I.V. that is highly resistant to virtually all anti-retroviral drugs and appears to lead to the rapid onset of AIDS was detected in a New York City man last week, city health officials announced on Friday. It was the first time a strain of H.I.V. had been found that both showed resistance to multiple drugs and led to AIDS so quickly, the officials said. While the extent of the disease's spread is unknown, officials called a news conference to say that the situation is alarming. "We consider this a major potential problem," said Dr. Thomas R....

A new, highly resistant strain of HIV that appears to develop rapidly into AIDS has been diagnosed in a New Yorker who had not previously undergone antiviral drug treatment, says the city health department, which is holding a press conference today. While drug resistance is increasingly common in people who have been treated for the human immunodeficiency virus, city officials called the case “extremely rare.” The patient, who now has AIDS, is a male in his mid-40s who reported multiple male sex partners and unprotected anal intercourse, often while using crystal methamphetamine. The patient appears to have developed AIDS within...

Homosexual Males Award Us Again Saltnlight Feb 8, 2005 So you thought AIDS was the worst of it? Think again. Now there is LVG among men who have sex with men. This stems from Chlamydia and is just in it's beginnings in New York where there has been 2 cases thus far. It's medical name is Lymphogranuloma venereum and has been seen most in tropical climates until recently when 92 cases of it were reported in the Netherlands in one year. I wonder why???? According to New York's Department of mental health and hygiene commissioner, Dr Thomas Frieden this disease...

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...