tagged w/ HIV/AIDS
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Actual quote from this idiot:
"Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community -- it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall. My understanding is that it is virtually -- not completely, but virtually -- impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex...very rarely [transmitted]."
http://veracitystew.com/2012/01/31/homophobic-gop-lawmaker-kicked-out-of-restaurant-video/Actual quote from this idiot:
"Most people realize that AIDS came from the... more
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Chris Whitney lived in San Francisco in the 1980s, when there wasn’t much known about AIDS. But then he tested positive for HIV in 1985. He explains what happened next to his friend Erin Kuka.Chris Whitney lived in San Francisco in the 1980s, when there wasn’t much known... more
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The HIV infection rate among the homeless transgender population is more than TWENTY-TWO percent! That’s huge.
The HIV infection rate in Sub-Saharan Africa is just 5% and world-wide, it’s .8%. However, for homeless transgender people, it’s OVER TWENTY-TWO PERCENT!The HIV infection rate among the homeless transgender population is more than... more
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There is probably nothing more agonizing than the moment in which you and your eager partner discover that you’re out of condoms. Thankfully, an app called iCondom might help such an awful situation come to a happy ending...There is probably nothing more agonizing than the moment in which you and your eager... more
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Earlier this year, the Health Department launched the NYC Condom Finder, a free smartphone application designed to locate the five nearest New York City venues that distribute free NYC Condoms. The application allows users to determine their location through either global positioning system (GPS) technology on their smartphone or by manually entering an address.Earlier this year, the Health Department launched the NYC Condom Finder, a free... more
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It was a perfect sunny day for walkers, celebrities, politicians, activists, friends, co-workers and families to gather in West Hollywood to walk and raise money for the 27th Annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles 2011.
Continue reading on Examiner.com 27th Annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles Raises $3 Million for the fight against AIDS - Los Angeles events | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/events-in-los-angeles/27th-annual-aids-walk-los-angeles-raise-3-million-for-the-fight-against-aids#ixzz1bLcYDupE
http://www.examiner.com/events-in-los-angeles/27th-annual-aids-walk-los-angeles-raise-3-million-for-the-fight-against-aidsIt was a perfect sunny day for walkers, celebrities, politicians, activists, friends,... more
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What is it about prostitutes, in particular, that drive men crazy to the point of risking their careers and putting their families on the line? DJ Mona-Lisa discusses the life of couples whose husbands are having torrid affairs with strippers and street prostitutes. Unsuspecting wives who lie with cheating husbands-jeopardizing their health. The humanitarian talk show host also reports the prevention and treatment of multiple types of sexual transmitted diseases which she defines in full details: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/djmonalisa/2011/07/14/dj-mona-lisa-live-broadcastWhat is it about prostitutes, in particular, that drive men crazy to the point of... more
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PARIS — Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.
The exploit is published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where -- exceptionally in scientific publishing -- both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.
Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV.
Figuring out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them.
But a microscope gives only a flat image of what to the outsider looks like a plate of one-dimensional scrunched-up spaghetti. Pharmacologists, though, need a 3-D picture that "unfolds" the molecule and rotates it in order to reveal potential targets for drugs.
This is where Foldit comes in.
Developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, it is a fun-for-purpose video game in which gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids -- the building blocks of proteins -- using a set of online tools.
To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.
Cracking the enzyme "provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs," says the study, referring to the lifeline medication against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
It is believed to be the first time that gamers have resolved a long-standing scientific problem.
"We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed," Firas Khatib of the university's biochemistry lab said in a press release.
"The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems."
One of Foldit's creators, Seth Cooper, explained why gamers had succeeded where computers had failed.
"People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at," he said.
"Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans. The results in this week's paper show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before."
http://tinyurl.com/3w9rz4uPARIS — Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or... more
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LOrion
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added this
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5 months ago
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As some of you know, I’m involved in HIV prevention on the local and national level. Today I’m in Atlanta, GA for a UCHAPS meeting and… I’m pissed. I’ve been part of UCHAPS for a couple of years and I’ve watched our as cold-hearted tea bagging idiots have systematically sought to pay for corporate tax breaks with the blood of our citizenryAs some of you know, I’m involved in HIV prevention on the local and national... more
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Esteban "Steven" Escobar, Executive Editor-In-Chief of Diversity News Magazine published by Diversity News Publications and Captain of Diversity News 3960 for AIDS WALK LA 2011 makes Public Service Announcement inviting you to come to the AIDS WALK LA 2011 Red Carpet Fundraiser to be held at Gus Harper Studios on August 20, 2011 from 3:00 pm to 8:00 pm.,live from The Gus Harper Studios in Los Angeles, CA.
http://blip.tv/diversity-news-tv/esteban-steven-escobar-diversity-news-3960-aids-walk-la-2011-psa-5459629Esteban "Steven" Escobar, Executive Editor-In-Chief of Diversity News... more
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Great news but don't throw away your condoms yet folks. We still have a long way to go, but one man appears to be the first to have been completely cured of HIV. (CBS News)
Thirty years ago from Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control issued the first report on the emerging AIDS epidemic. Now, after years of progress in holding back the disease, there is finally an apparent case of one successful cure.
CBS News correspondent Hank Plante, with San Francisco affiliate KCBS, reports that 45-year-old Timothy Ray Brown, now living in the Bay Area, tested positive for HIV back in 1995, but now has entered the scientific journals as the first man in world history to have his HIV completely eliminated from his body. It's what doctors call a "functional cure."
He was living in Berlin, Germany, in 2007, dealing with HIV and leukemia, when scientists there gave him a bone marrow, stem cell transplant that had astounding results.
"I quit taking my HIV medication on the day that I got the transplant and haven't had to take any since," Brown says, adding that his diseases are effectively gone.
In fact, his only medical problem these days is one involving his speech and motor skills because of neurological damage after the treatment, but that's getting better.
"The Berlin Patient," as Brown is known, received stem cells from a donor who was immune to HIV. In fact, about one percent of Caucasians are immune to HIV. Some say it goes back to the Great Plague; People who survived the plague developed an immunity, and that immunity was passed down to their heirs today.
Brown says being the first man to be cured of HIV makes him very, very happy.
Needless to say, Brown is now being monitored by doctors at San Francisco General Hospital and here at UCSF, where we sought out a medical opinion from one of the most respected AIDS researchers in the world, Dr. Jay Levy, who was one of the co-discoverers of the HIV virus.
"If you're able to take the white cells from someone and manipulate them so they're no longer infectable by HIV, and those white cells become the whole immune system of that individual, you've got essentially what we call a functional cure," Dr. Levy says.
We also sought out a medical opinion from Dr. Paul Volberding, another pioneering AIDS expert, who has studied the disease for all of its 30 years.
"One element of his treatment, and we don't know which, allowed apparently the virus to be purged from his body. So its going to be an interesting, I think, productive area to study," Dr. Volderding says. "He hasn't had any recurrence now for several years I think of the virus, and that hasn't happened before in our experience."
Timothy Brown's radical procedure may not be applicable to many other people with HIV, because of the difficulty in doing stem cell transplants, and finding the right donor. But this one case does open the door to the field of "cure research," which is now gaining more attention.
"I'm cured of HIV," Brown says. "I had HIV, but I don't anymore."
Those are words that so many in the scientific community are now cautiously clinging to.
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/05/eveningnews/main20069146.shtml#ixzz1QAmX2Wim video and article at linkGreat news but don't throw away your condoms yet folks. We still have a long way... more
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At first it seemed an oddity: a scattering of reports in the spring and early summer of 1981 that young gay men in New York and California were ill with forms of pneumonia and cancer usually seen only in people with severely weakened immune systems.
(click on the link for the full article)At first it seemed an oddity: a scattering of reports in the spring and early summer... more
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A slutty Steamboat Fritz cat named Smutley performs freaky and unspeakable acts of a sexual nature upon a variety of species to the tune of Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” in the name of AIDS prevention.
Brilliant!A slutty Steamboat Fritz cat named Smutley performs freaky and unspeakable acts of a... more
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The astonishing beauty that was Liz Taylor.
It is a sad day indeed. My favorite Hollywood icon, Elizabeth Taylor, passed away this morning. My sister and I were talking about how amazing she was and that no one comes close to her stature and grace. She had an incredible impact on our society though her life’s work of spearheading and supporting the HIV/AIDS community. That, coupled with her amazing talent and divine beauty, well, there’s no one like her in Hollywood anymore. It is truly the end of Hollywood glamour. Yeah, you can mention Angelina Jolie…ish. But as the sun sets on Dame Elizabeth Taylor, please take a moment of silence to honor one of the greatest icons of our time. My time anyway.
Read more: http://imeanwhat.com/blog/peoplewelerve/elizabeth-taylor-you-were-the-greatest#ixzz1HR7c5lcTThe astonishing beauty that was Liz Taylor.
It is a sad day indeed. My favorite... more
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A doubling of new HIV infections in the UK in the past decade is leading experts to tell GPs to offer testing to all adult male patients in some areas.
Health Protection Agency data shows new UK-acquired cases rose from just under 2,000 in 2001 to nearly 3,800 in 2010.Men who have sex with men remain the group most at risk of becoming infected with HIV. New diagnoses in this group alone have increased by 70% in the past 10 years. There are more than 30,000 men who have sex with men living with HIV in the UK and experts estimate nearly a third of these are currently undiagnosed and unaware that they are infected.Another high risk group that would benefit from increased HIV testing, according to NICE, is the black African community living in England. In 2009, more than 2,000 black Africans were diagnosed with an HIV infection; one-third of all new diagnoses in the UK.Routine testing for HIV should be offered to all patients, regardless of age or ethnic background, who are registering with a GP, taking a blood test or being admitted to hospital in these areas, NICE says. The aim is to avoid stigmatising the groups with the highest incidence of the disease – gay men and black Africans.The lifetime cost of treating someone with HIV is almost £320,000 and the HPA says the NHS could have saved £1.2 billion if all 3,780 cases infected in the UK in 2010 had been prevented.There were 65,319 people known to be living with HIV in the UK in 2009. However, surveillance of blood samples given in hospital tests for other conditions suggests the true number living with the virus was 86,500.
Sources: The Independent and BBCA doubling of new HIV infections in the UK in the past decade is leading experts to... more
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Seventy New York City public school students came together on February 4th at a workshop hosted by Media Impact in an effort to improve their school communities.
The youth, students at the Urban Assembly Academy of Civic Engagement (CIVIC) and the Urban Assembly School of Business for Young Women (SBYW), are part of Media Impact’s My School – My Community program to engage students in creating critical conservations about issues in their schools.
My School – My Community is an innovative approach to learning that directly and actively engages students. Through hands-on exploration, students learn to effectively use creative storytelling and media to catalyze change and mobilize action about critical issues affecting their schools. After six months of independent work, the students from both schools came together today for the first time to share ideas about producing and broadcasting serial dramas in their schools.
“We were thrilled to have all of the students in one room,” said Media Impact Program Officer, Katie Bartels. “What these kids are doing for their schools is truly amazing. They are leading a process that has the potential to change the school culture.”
The workshop included several interactive stations to reinforce students’ skills prior to the launch of their broadcasts next months. Working with Media Impact staff and volunteers – including a professional actress and scriptwriter -- students learned about scriptwriting, acting, editing video and audio clips, developing campaigns and hosting a radio talk show.
http://3blmedia.com/theCSRfeed/New-York-City-Youth-Tackle-School-Culture-through-Communications-CampaignSeventy New York City public school students came together on February 4th at a... more
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The drug whoonga is said to be so addictive that users are hooked within days of starting to smoke it. Whoonga is a mixture of rat poison, detergent and marijuana and the key ingredient - crushed antiretroviral (ARV) medication prescribed to people with HIV - which is smoked in a joint to get high.Demand for the substance has prompted a massive wave of thefts of Aids drugs across the country.The street-value of the powder is ca 30 rands (about £3) per packet.Not only is the drug extremely toxic and has lead to the death of scores of addicts across South Africa during the past year, it is also leading to the death of innocent HIV patients. Because the ARV drugs are the essential to the concoction scores of Aids patients are being robbed of their antiretroviral drugs every week - some even being killed for their lifesaving ARV drugs. Sithenjwa Nyawose, an ANC councillor in Durban, said: "The patients are being mugged for their drugs. They are violently attacked in the streets as they leave the clinics."In Johannesburg, a police officer was implicated this month in a cartel that has targeted health clinics to steal ARVs.Doctors say the prescription medication does not contain anything that could deliver a "high", even when smoked.The country's Treatment Action Campaign, an Aids lobbying group, has described the belief that the drugs have recreational value as a "myth".The drug whoonga is said to be so addictive that users are hooked within days of... more
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AIDS is a plague allowed to happen
AC360
By Larry Kramer, Special to CNN
January 14, 2011 1:20 p.m. EST
Editor's note: Watch "Hope Survives: 30 Years of AIDS," an AC360° special, at 9pm ET Friday. Larry Kramer co-founded Gay Men's Health Crisis and founded ACT UP, an activist organization that has campaigned for treatments for HIV/AIDS. His play, "The Normal Heart," about the early years of AIDS and directed by Joel Grey, will be produced on Broadway by Daryl Roth and will star Joe Mantello; it will also be filmed next summer starring Mark Ruffalo and directed by Ryan Murphy. "The American People," his novel about the history of homosexuals in America, will be published by Farrar Straus and Giroux. Kramer, whose partner is David Webster, is HIV+ and the recipient of a liver transplant.
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New York City (CNN) -- I want this article to break your heart. But it deals with a subject that has had a tough time of it in the break-everyone's-heart department. I'll bet that a number of you will be more angry at me than sympathetic by the time you finish reading it. If indeed you finish reading it.
From its very beginning, most people have not wanted to know the truths about AIDS. This is an indisputable fact that continues until this very minute. I have been on the front lines since Day 1, so I know what I'm talking about.
Here are 10 realities about AIDS, and I've learned them the hard way:
1. AIDS is a plague -- numerically, statistically and by any definition known to modern public health -- though no one in authority has the guts to call it one.
2. Too many people hate the people that AIDS most affects, gay people and people of color. I do not mean dislike, or feel uncomfortable with. I mean hate. Downright hate. Down and dirty hate.
3. Likewise, both people who don't have sex the way they do (if they have it at all) and people who take drugs in order to feel better in a world that they find wretched are considered two highly expendable populations by the powerful forces that control this world.
4. AIDS was allowed to happen. It is a plague that need not have happened. It is a plague that could have been contained from the very beginning.
5. It is a plague that is not going to go away. It is only going to get worse.
6. There is no cure and the amount of money expended toward finding one is pathetically small, miniscule, puny, and totally indicative of a system and a government and a country and a world that does not want to end this plague.
7. There is no incentive for pharmaceutical companies to find a cure since they are making billions selling, at highly inflated prices, the many anti-viral drugs that those infected must consume -- drugs that only keep us living but still infected just enough to continue to possibly still infect others.
8. Educational campaigns, indeed all attempts at prevention, have been too stupid, useless, lily-livered, and nicey-nicey to accomplish much of anything.
9. There is no one of any use really in charge of this plague, in America or anywhere else in the world -- and it is a worldwide plague by now -- and this lack of decent, responsible and humane leaders has been so since its beginning in 1981. They lie to us. I consider most of those who have been or are in charge as equal to murderers.
10. One out of every five men who have sex with men in America is now HIV-positive, and more than 50% of gay men do not know it. Doctors in Chelsea say the statistics for that New York neighborhood have jumped from one out of five to one out of four. At the rate things are going, almost all gay men in America could be HIV-positive, which a lot of people would really like to see happen.
These are appalling statistics, appalling statements, appalling facts, and yet no one responds to them when I raise them. Why should they? Too many people want too many other people dead, and it is fearful and as we continue to see over and over, often dangerous to confront them.
30 years of HIV -- Three men reflect
Governments and bureaucrats and presidents and politicians and the people who run this world lie to people. They tell us HIV is under control. They tell us case numbers are decreasing. They tell us that all is being done that can be done. They tell us HIV is too complicated to eradicate. They tell us gay people and people of color have made more progress than ever before. These are all lies.
We must not believe them. How could we when, in one place or another:
-- They also tell us we can't get legally married.
-- They also tell us that we cannot legally adopt children.
-- They also tell us religions will not recognize us.
-- They also tell us we can't serve our country yet.
-- They also tell us our real history cannot be taught in schools.
-- They also tell us that gay students cannot organize in schools.
-- They also tell us that people who murder us are not committing hate crimes.
-- They also tell us we cannot insure our partners.
-- They also tell us our partners are not legal.
-- They also tell us we cannot have equal opportunities.
-- They also tell us we can't kiss each other or hold each other's hands in public.
-- They also tell us that our Supreme Court doesn't want to know about any of this, doesn't want to make us free and equal, doesn't want to honor the Bill of Rights.
If you want to know why AIDS is a plague, I have just told you why.
I could add a thousand more "they also's." I could expound and expand and add so many facts and figures to the above they'd put you to sleep. I helped start the two major AIDS organizations in America. I have watched almost everyone I once knew die.
For some 30-plus years, I have been trying to tell the world where this plague came from and why, and I will continue to do so until I die, too.
You see, I simply can't get the memories and the ghosts of just about every friend I had out of my life. And since there is no doubt in my mind that this plague of HIV/AIDS that took them from me was and continues to be allowed to happen, I am duty bound to tell this hideous history as best and as fully as I can. It's the least I can do.
That is correct: This plague of HIV/AIDS was intentionally allowed to happen. It still is. Nothing has changed in the intentionality department. Hate has a way of hanging around forever and too often winning out in the end.
The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Larry Kramer.AIDS is a plague allowed to happen
AC360
By Larry Kramer, Special to CNN
January... more
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