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New guidelines for managing chronic kidney disease in patients living with HIV infection

The HIV Medicine Association has released guidelines for managing chronic kidney disease in patients living with HIV infection. They are published in the June 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

27 Apr 2005

Breastfeeding causes nearly 40 percent of all pediatric HIV infections

Breastfeeding causes nearly 40 percent of all pediatric HIV infections, yet also prevents millions of child deaths every year by protecting infants from diarrhea and other infections. Finding ways to make breastfeeding safer for infants of HIV-infected mothers has been an urgent research priority.

27 Apr 2005

International coalition works to develop a cocktail of drugs to combat Malaria

As Africa marks its own Malaria Day in recognition of the fact that it bears 90% of the deadly disease’s burden, an international research coalition is working to develop a cocktail of drugs that overcomes increasing resistance to conventional treatment exhibited by the elusive parasite.

27 Apr 2005

Jackie Chan says stop discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS

At the conclusion of his first mission to Viet Nam, UNICEF/ UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador Jackie Chan called for an end to discrimination and stigma towards children and families infected or affected with HIV/AIDS.

27 Apr 2005

Promising new West Nile therapy cures disease in mice

West Nile virus alarmed Americans when it made its first U.S. appearance in New York City in 1999. It has since spread from coast to coast, sickened more than 16,000 Americans and killed more than 600.

27 Apr 2005

Drug adverts are a haphazard approach to health promotion

As California State Assembly Bill 95 (Koretz, D-West Hollywood), designed to reign in drug marketing costs in California by requiring manufacturers of drugs for life-threatening chronic conditions to pay the state a rebate equal to the drug marketing cost, moves to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) -- cites a study and accompanying editorial published today in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) that demonstrates the influence that Direct to Consumer Advertising (DTCA) has on physicians' prescribing decisions.

26 Apr 2005

HIV epidemic among young men unabated because many are unaware they are infected

U.S. health officials say many young gay and bisexual men who are HIV-positive are unaware they have the virus.

26 Apr 2005

Generex Biotechnology receives Australian patent for vaccine technology to fight cancer and pandemic influenza

Generex Biotechnology announced today that its wholly owned subsidiary, Antigen Express, has received Australian Patent No. 778115 titled "Hybrid Peptides Modulate the Immune Response." Antigen Express is designing and testing such vaccine peptides for the control of cancer and infectious diseases with a particular focus on the pandemic H5N1 influenza, which has been reported in South East Asia.

26 Apr 2005

P12 protein influences key cell-signaling pathway

New research shows that a protein produced by a cancer-causing virus influences a key signaling pathway in the immune cells that the virus infects. This stimulates the cells to divide, helping the virus spread through the body.

26 Apr 2005

How Ebola virus infects cells - discovery

Ebola virus reproduction in laboratory-grown cells is severely hampered by enzyme-inhibiting chemicals, and these chemicals deserve further study as possible treatments for Ebola virus infections in humans, report scientists supported in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

23 Apr 2005

Wide variation in access to HIV medications across states

Twenty-one State AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs) report limiting access to their programs in some way, including 11 with waiting lists, despite an increase in the national ADAP budget, according to the ninth annual National ADAP Monitoring Project Report released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Alliance of State AIDS Directors (NASTAD).

23 Apr 2005

Outrage over usage of HIV positive children as Guinea pigs

Saying “the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) has perpetrated a 21st century Tuskegee Experiment on nearly 500 New York City children over the course of 15 years,” New York State Assemblyman Keith L.T. Wright (D- Central Harlem/West Harlem) today demanded that the Vera Institute of Justice in conjunction with the NYS Office of Children and Family Services conduct a thorough investigation of ACS policy in light of its enrollment HIV-positive children who are in foster care in clinical drug trials during the late 1980s to 2001.

23 Apr 2005

HIV kids in care may have had their rights violated in drug trials

Children's rights advocates are demanding an independent review of a New York city agency's program which subjected more than 400 HIV-positive foster children to clinical trials for AIDS drugs after children's rights advocates said it amounted to exploitation.

23 Apr 2005

Discovery may lead to new drugs to prevent sexually transmitted HIV infection

Scientists have long suspected that HIV hijacks immune cells called dendritic cells to infiltrate the immune system. Now UCLA AIDS Institute researchers have shown that blocking HIV's access to a naturally occurring molecule on dendritic cells may cut their ability to smuggle the virus into other immune cells.

21 Apr 2005

With a complement, the sperm gets the egg

When a sperm fuses with an egg, a specific reaction takes place that exposes the inner membrane of the spermatozoa, where a protein called the complement regulator membrane cofactor protein (MCP) is expressed. MCP is an immune regulatory molecule and its presence in reproductive tissues was unclear.

21 Apr 2005

Global Health Service needed to fight AIDS

A report by the non-partisan Institute of Medicine is calling for the creation of a U.S. Global Health Service comprised of doctors, nurses and other health care workers to help combat HIV/AIDS in the world's hardest hit countries.

20 Apr 2005

Official Indian AIDS figures in dispute

A claim by AIDS expert Richard Feachem, that India now has the most HIV-positive people in the world has been dismissed by the Indian government.

20 Apr 2005

Call for a United States Global Health Service

The federal government should create and fund an umbrella organization called the United States Global Health Service (GHS) to mobilize the nation's best health care professionals and other experts to help combat HIV/AIDS in hard-hit African, Caribbean, and Southeast Asian countries, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

19 Apr 2005

Experimental vaccine targeting West Nile virus

A small trial testing the safety of an experimental vaccine targeting West Nile virus (WNV) opened today at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD.

19 Apr 2005

Scientists reveal the shape of a protein that helps retroviruses break into cells

Retroviruses are among the trickier and more malicious disease agents, causing AIDS and cancers such as leukemia. The viruses manage to sneak into cells with the help of special protein assemblies scattered all over their surfaces. These retrovirus surface proteins cause the membrane envelope of the virus to fuse with the membrane of the cell, spilling virus RNA into the cell to wreak damage.

13 Apr 2005