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Advocating for Your Health Care
Share how you’re feeling. Your primary care provider (PCP) and other members of your health care team can be vital players in helping you get and stay healthy in the long term. Building relationships with them is key to making that happen. As with any relationship, developing trust is essential. That will take time and patience, but if you don’t share your feelings and concerns, the relationship probably won’t work. Although it would be nice if your health care team members took the first step, you’ll often have to take the initiative.
Hepatitis C Incidence Among People With HIV Fell After Advent of Antivirals
Among people living with HIV, overall hepatitis C incidence fell dramatically as interferon-free antiviral therapy became readily available, but a higher proportion of those who acquired hepatitis C virus (HCV) were infected more than once, according to study findings published in The Lancet HIV. Due to common transmission routes, people...
Creating Safe Space
As a Black queer man raised in a religious household in the South, I spent most of my life prioritizing being loved by others over loving myself. I felt that to be loved by my family, my community and God, I had to hide parts of myself. I was ashamed of my sensitive side, not realizing my empathy was a gift. Many men carry this same burden and fear being vulnerable.
Study Suggests Reinfections With COVID-19 Virus Likely Have Similar Severity
Using health data from almost 213,000 Americans who experienced reinfections, researchers have found that severe infections from the virus that causes COVID-19 tend to foreshadow similar severity of infection the next time a person contracts the disease. Additionally, scientists discovered that long COVID was more likely to occur after a first infection compared to a reinfection.
Five New Laws in N.Y. Help Support HIV, PrEP and LGBTQ Issues
Happy Pride, indeed! Last month’s celebration of the LGBTQ community ended in New York with more than rainbow flags and a march down Fifth Avenue. Governor Kathy Hochul signed a legislative package of five bills that support queer New Yorkers and people living with and at risk for HIV and AIDS. Several of the new laws help ensure access to HIV meds, whether taken as treatment or as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for prevention.
FDA Guidance Provides New Details on Diversity Action Plans Required for Certain Clinical Studies
[On June 26], the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a draft guidance, “Diversity Action Plans to Improve Enrollment of Participants from Underrepresented Populations in Clinical Studies,” to assist medical product sponsors in submitting Diversity Action Plans to support certain clinical studies. Diversity Action Plans are intended to increase clinical study enrollment of participants of historically underrepresented populations to help improve the data the agency receives about the patients who may potentially use the medical product.
Lack of Affordability Tops Older Americans’ List of Health Care Worries
What weighs most heavily on older adults’ minds when it comes to health care?. The cost of services and therapies, and their ability to pay. Tens of millions of seniors are similarly anxious about being able to afford health care because of its expense and rising costs for housing, food, and other essentials.
Quick Test Could Help Reduce Dementia Care Disparities
More than 6 million older adults in the U.S. are living with dementia. But despite how common dementia is, studies suggest that signs of cognitive impairment are often missed by health care providers in busy primary care settings. This is especially true among older Black and Hispanic Americans. Early diagnosis...
How Budget Cuts to Global AIDS Program PEPFAR Would Impact HIV Care
The Biden administration plans to reduce funding for the U.S. global AIDS program PEPFAR by more than 6% in fiscal year 2025, according to Politico. Launched in 2003 by Republican President George W. Bush, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) works to prevent HIV and accelerate progress toward the elimination of HIV and AIDS in more than 50 countries. PEPFAR has saved an estimated 25 million lives, mostly in Africa.
Features of H5N1 Influenza Viruses in Dairy Cows May Facilitate Infection, Transmission in Mammals
A series of experiments with highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza (HPAI H5N1) viruses circulating in infected U.S. dairy cattle found that viruses derived from lactating dairy cattle induced severe disease in mice and ferrets when administered via intranasal inoculation. The virus from the H5N1-infected cows bound to both avian (bird) and human-type cellular receptors, but, importantly, did not transmit efficiently among ferrets exposed via respiratory droplets.
Does Cannabis Reduce Inflammation in People With HIV?
Studies have found that around a third of people living with HIV have recently used marijuana, and up to 75% have ever done so. Cannabis is more easily available than ever now that recreational use is legal in nearly half of U.S. states, and most of the rest allow medical use. Cannabis and its components have been shown to improve appetite and relieve pain, nausea and insomnia. What’s more, it appears to have anti-inflammatory properties.
Long-Acting Injectables Are Effective for Homeless People
Long-acting injectable antiretrovirals can be an effective treatment or prevention option for homeless and unstably housed people living with or at risk for HIV, according to results from a San Francisco pilot study published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. “The implementation of long-acting antiretrovirals is feasible in...
Governments, Civil Society and United Nations Agencies Join Together to “Accelerate And Sustain” a Resilient Response to HIV
At the 54th meeting of UNAIDS’ Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) which concluded [June 27] in Geneva, Switzerland, governments, civil society and United Nations agencies united in a shared commitment to accelerate progress to meet the 2025 AIDS targets and sustain the gains of the global HIV response toward 2030 and beyond.
Improved Fitness Linked to Lower Prostate Cancer Risk
When their cardiorespiratory fitness improved over time, men were less likely to develop prostate cancer, according to study findings published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. A growing body of research shows that cardiovascular and respiratory physical fitness is associated with reduced cancer risk and improved outcomes, but previous...
Vivent Health/TPAN to Offer HIV Services at New Chicago Health Center
Vivent Health, an HIV care provider, and Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN) announced a collaboration with Chicago’s Northwestern Medicine to bring HIV care and other medical services to Chicagoans via a new health center opening in the fall, reports Vivent Health. The center will be located in the Edgewater...
1st Biden-Trump Debate of 2024: What They Got Wrong, and Right
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, shared a debate stage June 27 for the first time since 2020, in a confrontation that — because of strict debate rules — managed to avoid the near-constant interruptions that marred their previous encounters.
New NASEM Reports Offer Broad Definition, Highlight the Seriousness of Long COVID
The field of long COVID research reached a major milestone last [month] with the release of a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) outlining a working definition of the disease. This definition report, drawing from hundreds of scientific papers and the lived experience of...
CDC Recommends Updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 and Flu Vaccines for Fall/Winter Virus Season
[On June 27], the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended the updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccines and the updated 2024-2025 flu vaccines to protect against severe COVID-19 and flu this fall and winter. It is safe to receive COVID-19 and flu vaccines at the same visit. Data continue to...
CDC Updates RSV Vaccination Recommendation for Adults
On June 26, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its recommendation for the use of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccines in people ages 60 and older. For this upcoming respiratory virus season, CDC recommends:. Everyone ages 75 and older receive the RSV vaccine. People ages 60–74 who...
NIH-Sponsored Trial of Nasal COVID-19 Vaccine Opens
A Phase 1 trial testing the safety of an experimental nasal vaccine that may provide enhanced breadth of protection against emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is now enrolling healthy adults at three sites in the United States. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is sponsoring the...
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POZ is the nation’s leading brand about HIV/AIDS. Offering unparalleled editorial excellence, POZ and POZ.com are identified by our readers as their most trusted sources of information about the disease. Serving the community of people living with and those affected by HIV/AIDS since 1994, POZ chronicles the AIDS pandemic domestically—and around the world.
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