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Does Your Doctor Need to Take Stigmavir to Treat HIV Stigma?
HIV stigma in health care is real and harmful. Fortunately, health care providers can now take the antiviral drug Stigmavir to treat their stigma. Unfortunately, the drug is fictitious, but you can watch a real ad for it at the top of this story and on YouTube. Casey House, an...
Celebrities Join Call for Generic Version of “Groundbreaking” HIV Med
More than 300 world leaders, scientists, activists, celebrities and people living with HIV are calling for pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences to allow cheap generic versions of its long-acting HIV med Sunlenca (lenacapavir) to extend its reach to people with multidrug-resistant HIV in developing countries, according to The Guardian. When used...
CDC Urges Mpox Vaccination as Deadlier Strain Spreads in Africa
Mpox (formerly monkeypox) cases have risen in the United States this year, though they remain far below the level seen at the peak of the outbreak in the summer of 2022. But a growing outbreak of a more deadly mpox strain in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) raises concerns about wider international spread.
FDA Urged To Relax Decades-Old Tissue Donation Restrictions for Gay and Bisexual Men
The federal government in 2020 and 2023 changed who it said could safely donate organs and blood, reducing the restrictions on men who have had sex with another man. But the FDA’s restrictions on donated tissue, a catchall term encompassing everything from a person’s eyes to their skin and ligaments, remain in place. Advocates, lawmakers, and groups focused on removing barriers to cornea donations, in particular, said they are frustrated the FDA hasn’t heeded their calls. They want to align the guidelines for tissue donated by gay and bisexual men with those that apply to the rest of the human body.
Do Health Insurers Offer Clear Info on Covering PrEP to Prevent HIV?
Does your health insurance plan cover pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV? What about the related essential services, such as doctor visits, screenings and lab work? If you peruse your insurance plan, you might not find an easy answer. According to a report by The AIDS Institute, many insurance plans do not clearly explain their PrEP coverage.
High H5N1 Influenza Levels Found in Mice Given Raw Milk From Infected Dairy Cows
Mice administered raw milk samples from dairy cows infected with H5N1 influenza experienced high virus levels in their respiratory organs and lower virus levels in other vital organs, according to findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The results suggest that consumption of raw milk by animals poses a risk for H5N1 infection and raises questions about its potential risk in humans.
Proposed 5-Year Program Aims to Put Country on the Path to Eliminating Hepatitis C
The Biden-Harris administration’s proposed National Hepatitis C Elimination Program would be a major breakthrough in access to screening, testing and treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV), according to Joshua Sharfstein, MD, Distinguished Professor of the Practice at Johns Hopkins University. His presentation at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2024 provides an update on the proposal for the National Hepatitis C Elimination Program.
Moms With Undetectable HIV Can Breastfeed
Moms living with HIV can safely breastfeed their babies if they’re on HIV meds and maintain an undetectable viral load, according to new recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published in the journal Pediatrics. “The risk of HIV transmission via breastfeeding from a parent with HIV who...
Clues From Bird Flu’s Ground Zero on Dairy Farms in the Texas Panhandle
In early February, dairy farmers in the Texas Panhandle began to notice sick cattle. The buzz soon reached Darren Turley, executive director of the Texas Association of Dairymen: “They said there is something moving from herd to herd.”. Nearly 60 days passed before veterinarians identified the culprit: a highly...
Should People With Long COVID be Donating Blood?
In the fall of 2009, researchers at a lab in Reno, Nevada, said they detected a potentially transmissible virus in the blood of people with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). The study led the American Red Cross to ban blood donations from people with ME. The study was retracted in 2011 and the Red Cross guideline was later reversed, but more than a decade later, there is still a lifetime ban on blood donation from people with ME in the U.K. by the National Health Service (NHS).
CDC Reports Second Human Case of H5 Bird Flu Tied to Dairy Cow Outbreak
A human case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5) (“H5 bird flu”) virus infection in the United States has been identified in the state of Michigan. This is the second case associated with an ongoing multistate outbreak of A(H5N1) in dairy cows.[1]. As with the case in...
New Report Flags Major Increase in STIs, Amidst Challenges in HIV and Hepatitis
Global HIV, viral hepatitis epidemics and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) continue to pose significant public health challenges, causing 2.5 million deaths each year, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report - Implementing the global health sector strategies on HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections, 2022–2030. New...
Damning Report Details U.K. Infected Blood Scandal Involving HIV, Hepatitis
It is the United Kingdom’s worst public health care treatment disaster and a catastrophic moral failure: Over 3,000 people have died and nearly 30,000 patients contracted HIV and/or hepatitis B and C through contaminated blood and blood products between the 1970s and early 1990s, reveals an inquiry and public report released this week by the government.
Exploring a Meningitis Vaccine for Gonorrhea Prevention
A preventive vaccine for gonorrhea would be a major advance in public health, according to an editorial co-authored by NIAID Director Jeanne Marrazzo, MD, MPH, and Myron Cohen, MD, director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The editorial, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, provides context on new mathematical modeling projecting the cost-effectiveness of the meningitis B vaccine 4CMenB, which is currently being evaluated as a preventive intervention for gonorrhea.
New Options to Screen for HPV, Which Causes Cervical Cancer
Women will soon have easier—and more private—options to screen for human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus that causes almost all cases of cervical cancer, as well as anal cancer, some oral cancers and other malignancies. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved two self-collection methods that allow women to use vaginal swabs to gather samples in a health care setting, such as their primary care doctor’s office, a pharmacy or an urgent care facility. The self-collected samples are then sent to a lab for evaluation.
More Than 321,000 U.S. Children Lost a Parent to Drug Overdose From 2011 to 2021
An estimated 321,566 children in the United States lost a parent to drug overdose from 2011 to 2021, according to a study published in JAMA Psychiatry. The rate of children who experienced this loss more than doubled during this period, from approximately 27 to 63 children per 100,000. The highest number of affected children were those with non-Hispanic white parents, but communities of color and tribal communities were disproportionately affected.
HIV Incidence in the U.S. Continues to Decline
New HIV infections in the United States continue to fall, with the greatest declines seen among gay and bisexual men, young people and people living in the South, according to a new HIV Surveillance Supplemental Report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). An estimated 87% of people living with HIV knew their status, and 65% of those diagnosed were on treatment and achieved viral suppression in 2022, but not all groups benefitted equally.
AIDS Walk New York 2024 Raises Nearly $1.9M as HIV Funding Cuts Loom
Over 10,000 participants at the 39th annual AIDS Walk New York helped raise $1,872,909 for GMHC and other HIV service providers in the tristate area—and donations are still being collected! The 2024 theme was “Stride Past Stigma.”. You can watch the AIDS Walk New York opening ceremony on...
End of Internet Subsidies for Low-Income Households Threatens Telehealth Access
For Cindy Westman, $30 buys a week’s worth of gas to drive to medical appointments and run errands. It’s also how much she spent on her monthly internet bill before the federal Affordable Connectivity Program stepped in and covered her payments. “When you have low income and you...
Clean Needles Save Lives. In Some States, They Might Not Be Legal.
Kim Botteicher hardly thinks of herself as a criminal. On the main floor of a former Catholic church in Bolivar, Pennsylvania, Botteicher runs a flower shop and cafe. In the former church’s basement, she also operates a nonprofit organization focused on helping people caught up in the drug epidemic get back on their feet.
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