HIV & AIDS

/ /

First Living HIV-positive Gay Man Donates Kidney

Being a longtime nurse Karl Neumann of Norfolk, Va., understands just how critical it is to have a robust community blood supply available. However, as a sexually active gay man, he is banned from donating blood because of a federal law.  “It’s frustrating that there are shortages of blood, but certain people are still restricted from giving blood at a time when modern medicine can easily test for diseases.”  Karl worries confusion or resentment regarding the “blood ban” might prevent gay men from realizing that they have another opportunity to heal and save lives – by registering to be organ donors.  “I’ve […]

/ /

PrEP’s Unexpected Side Effect: Reduced ‘HIV Anxiety’

When HIV first tore into America’s gay male community in the early 1980s, quotidian questions of sex, love, lust and trust transformed into weighty decisions with potential life-or-death consequences. The decision to stop using condoms with a serious partner? Only as reliable an HIV-prevention method as your partner’s fidelity. A single instance of cheating? An indiscretion that carries the risk of an incurable and deadly disease. A random hookup? A nagging sense that, perhaps, this time was the time. Todd Faircloth, 52, remembers those days well. In 1987, when gay men were still dying from AIDS in large numbers, Faircloth moved […]

/ /

Facebook’s ‘Inaccurate’ HIV PrEP Ads an ‘Imminent Danger,’ LGBTQ Groups Say

More than 50 LGBTQ, HIV and public health organizations have signed an open letter calling on Facebook to remove “factually inaccurate” advertisements placed by law firms that “suggest negative health effects” of HIV-prevention medication Truvada, a type of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. “The advertisements are targeting LGBTQ Facebook and Instagram users, and are causing significant harm to public health,” the letter states. “The law firms’ advertisements are scaring away at-risk HIV negative people from the leading drug that blocks HIV infections.” The ads were bought by various law firms looking to use the platform’s targeted advertising capabilities to recruit gay and bisexual […]

/ /

U.S. to Give Free HIV-prevention Pills to Uninsured — with One Costly Loophole

The U.S. government will start a national HIV prevention program that will distribute free HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis medication, or PrEP, to uninsured Americans at risk of acquiring the virus, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday. Activists, however, say the plan doesn’t go far enough. Health Secretary Alex Azar called the new “Ready, Set, PrEP” program a “historic expansion of access to HIV prevention medication” and a “major step forward” in President Donald Trump’s Ending the HIV Epidemic plan, which was announced in February and seeks to reduce HIV transmission by 90 percent by 2030. “Thanks to Ready, Set, PrEP, […]

/ /

Leading Experts ‘optimistic’ about Ongoing Trials of HIV Vaccine

The global fight against the human immunodeficiency virus is poised to make important advances thanks to three experimental HIV vaccines that are entering the final stages of testing at sites across the globe. While any of these three late-stage HIV vaccine trials — known as HVTN 702, Imbokodo and Mosaico — could fail, scientists say they are more hopeful than at any time since 1984, when Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler raised hopes by predicting that there would be a test-worthy HIV vaccine within two years. This is “perhaps one of the most optimistic moments we have […]

/ /

DNC Blasts Trump On World AIDS Day: He Is No Ally

World AIDS Day provides us the opportunity to support those living with HIV, unite in the fight to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and mourn those we’ve lost. Today, we’re thinking about all the progress we’ve made, and the work still before us. This president is no ally of people living with HIV, who are disproportionately LGBTQ and people of color. His administration has proposed cutting global HIV-prevention programs and attacked health care services that people living with HIV rely on, including the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and Planned Parenthood. Just last month, we saw firsthand just how uninformed and callous […]

/ /

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Donated $100 Million towards Gene Research for HIV Cure

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has teamed up with the National Institute of Health (NIH) to develop revolutionary gene-based cures for HIV and sickle cell anaemia. The billionaire couple are the most generous philanthropists in the US and have previously donated a whopping $287 million to HIV/AIDS research. They are now giving an additional $100 million which, combined with the NIH’s investment, will amount to at least $200 million over the next four years – a huge boost to researchers fighting the diseases. It’s particularly vital as scientists recently announced they have discovered a new strain of HIV for the first time in […]

/ /

First New HIV Strain Discovered In Nearly 20 Years

For the first time in nearly two decades, a new strain of HIV has been identified, according to scientists at U.S. drugmaker Abbott Laboratories.  Mary Rodgers, a principal scientist at Abbott whose team published their findings on Wednesday in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, said there was no reason for the public to be excessively concerned about the newly discovered HIV subtype, which they believe to be extremely rare.  But the scientists said the discovery of the new strain — called HIV-1 Group M, subtype L — should serve as a reminder of how diverse and continually evolving […]

/ /

Feds Sue Gilead Over Patents On HIV-Prevention Drugs

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration on Wednesday sued Gilead Sciences, a pharmaceutical company that sells H.I.V.-prevention drugs that can cost patients up to $20,000 a year, accusing the company of earning billions from research funded by taxpayers without paying taxpayers back. The government said the company infringed upon patents owned by the Department of Health and Human Services, and had refused attempts by the department to license its patents and collect royalties. The company sells two drugs, Truvada and Descovy, that can be taken once daily to prevent H.I.V. infection, a strategy called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. Wider access […]

/ /

FDA Approves Gilead’s Next-generation HIV PrEP Pill, Descovy

Gilead Sciences, the drug giant behind the blockbuster HIV prevention pill Truvada, won FDA approval on Thursday to market Descovy — a medication already used by those who have HIV — as its next-generation prevention drug. The final approval follows an August vote in favor of Descovy as a pre-exposure prophylaxis medication, or PrEP, by an FDA advisory panel. ‘Demisexual,’ ‘biromantic’: LGBTQ youth adopting wide array of labels Descovy is not yet approved for certain groups, including women who have vaginal sex, since its efficacy has not been studied in this population; for these patients, Truvada is an approved option. “Descovy for PrEP provides […]

«‹ 17 18 19 20›»