Saliva HIV Test As Effective As Blood Test: Study

Here we good more PR to push Testing:

www.huffingtonpost.com

Despite advances in the treatment of HIV, one huge challenge still lingers in the medical community: getting people tested in the first place.

The stigma associated with being tested and potentially exposed in a public clinic has prompted scientists at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre to evaluate the efficacy of an oral HIV self-test, a method they believe can serve as an effective but much more private alternative to clinical testing.

Compared to a traditional blood screening, the saliva test OraQuick HIV1/2, the only oral fluid test approved for use in a health-care setting by the Food and Drug Administration, was 99 percent accurate in detecting HIV antibodies in high-risk populations and about 97 percent in low-risk populations, according to study findings published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

To evaluate this saliva test's potential for worldwide use, researchers analyzed real-life field research data from five global databases. High-risk groups include injection drug users, men who have sex with men, and people who have unprotected sex.

Much like home pregnancy tests, researchers believe that oral HIV self-tests can serve as an effective preliminary method of diagnosis.

"Getting people to show up for HIV testing at public clinics has been difficult because of visibility, stigma, lack of privacy and discrimination," the study’s lead author, Dr. Nitika Pant Pai, said in a release announcing the study findings. "A confidential testing option such as self-testing could bring an end to the stigmatization associated with HIV testing."

Earlier this month, another innovative HIV testing program called Testing Together was unveiled, allowing couples to hear their HIV status together, within minutes of receiving a blood test.

Study Looks at Possible HIV Drugs-Birth Defect Link

MONDAY, Jan. 30, 2012 (HealthDay News)

Pregnant women with HIV can prevent passing the AIDS-causing virus to their babies by taking antiretroviral drugs, but there remains a possibility that some of these medications might cause birth defects, such as cleft lip and palate, according to a new study.

Antiretroviral drugs have been found to reduce the risk of mothers passing HIV on to their children from between 15 and 25 percent to less than 1 percent. These drugs, however, are still under investigation and not considered safe during pregnancy, the study authors noted.

To analyze the possible association between antiretroviral drugs and birth defects, Vassiliki Cartsos, an associate professor and director of graduate orthodontics at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston, and colleagues examined five years of adverse events compiled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Their findings are published in the January issue of Cleft Palate--Craniofacial Journal.

The investigators found seven antiretroviral drugs were associated with 26 incidents of cleft lip and palate. However, the authors noted, uncovering an association does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

In other words, although the study findings should serve as a red flag, the researchers pointed out that the findings do not confirm that the antiretroviral drugs caused the birth defects.

Those drugs included lamivudine (Epivir); efavirenz (known as EFV); nelfinavir (Viracept); and the combination of abacavir (Ziagen), sulfate, lamivudine and zidovudine (Retrovir).

The study authors concluded in a journal news release that more research is needed to determine if there is a link between antiretroviral drugs and cleft lip and palate, a congenital malformation believed to have several causes, including genetic and environmental factors.

Truvada, Foster City Drugmaker's HIV Prevention Pill, Draws Concern From Experts

Bernice Yeung - californiawatch.org
Foster City drugmaker Gilead recently updated its application with the federal Food and Drug Administration for approval to market its HIV treatment medication Truvada as a HIV prevention pill. 

If the FDA approves Truvada for preventive use, it “would be the first agent indicated for uninfected individuals to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV through sex,” according to a company statement at the time of the filing last month.

Gilead’s application, however, has sparked debate among public health advocates who argue that the wide availability of the drug would discourage safe sex and would, in fact, increase the incidence of HIV.

"THE TRUTH ON AZT"-"LA VERDAD SOBRE EL AZT"

POZ Named An Official Media Partner for AIDS2012!

By Regan Hofmann 

Seem POZ.com wants to hear from you: 

start a conversation with you all about what you want to see and hear...and what you want American and world leaders to know about what's happening with HIV/AIDS in the United States! So post your comments below!

I am delighted to announce that POZ has been named an official media partner for this summer's upcoming XIX International AIDS Conference, AIDS2012, scheduled for July 22-27 in Washington, DC.

Here's the formal announcement.

Walgreens launches Free HIV Testing in LA

Poor Neighborhoods of LA 

come get your FREE HIV Test. 

Which test?

Before you run, take the bus, subway READ: Understanding HIV Testing, for Beginners 

In partnership with Greater Than AIDS and the Los Angeles Department of Public Health,Walgreens is proud to offer FREE HIV testing at select Walgreens pharmacies in Los Angeles on the last Thursday of every month from 1 – 7pm, starting on Thursday, January 26, 2012. Check out the list of participating stores below.

Recently Launched: Interactive Access to CDC’s HIV and STD Data

From the AIDS.gov Blog by Gary D. Price

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has launched a new interactive web tool—the NCHHSTP Atlas—that allows users to create maps, charts, and tables using HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted disease (STD) data collected by CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP).

Tanzania: Rejected HIV Test Kits Doubted Since 2007

Tanzania Daily NewsREPORTS have emerged that a deal to import and supply HIV Test kits manufactured by South Korean firms that were later found to be defective was questionable since 2007.
Earlier this month, the Minister for Health and Social welfare, Dr Hadji Mponda, announced the withdrawal of a South Korean HIV test kit from circulation following warnings about its poor quality.In November, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) removed the Standard Diagnostics Bioline® HIV 1/2 3.0 Rapid HIV Test Kit from its list of approved rapid test kits with immediate effect; the alert was issued after Bioline failed quality assurance tests.
"What we know so far is that 1,178 test kits have been used in the field, but we have yet to substantiate exactly how many of them were defective," Dr Mponda, was quoted as saying at a news conference on January 5.

Experts Express Concerns Over Use Of HIV Fingerprinting To Establish Proof Of HIV Criminal Transmission

By Kieryn Graham and Courtney McQueen

In a recent article in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, experts warned that a forensics technique called HIV phylogenetic analysis, sometimes called HIV fingerprinting, cannot definitively establish whether a specific individual transmitted HIV to another person. The authors also stressed the need for scientists to recognize the limitations of the technique as a basis for proving HIV criminal transmission.

“Phylogenetic analysis is more powerful in its ability to exclude certain scenarios,” said Professor Anne-Meike Vandamme of the Rega Institute for Medical Research at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and coauthor of the Lancet article, in correspondence with The AIDS Beacon. “Phylogenetics can prove that people cannot have infected each other, but it can never prove that people infected each other.”

FDA approves formulations of tenofovir for HIV-infected children

Posted on PediatricSuperSite.com 

The FDA has approved updated labeling for tenofovir disoproxil fumarate to include dosing information for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in pediatric patients aged 2 to 18 years.

The FDA has also approved a supplemental New Drug Application for three lower-strength, once-daily tablets of tenofovir (Viread; Gilead Sciences) in doses of 150 mg, 200 mg and 250 mg for children aged 6 to 12 years, as well as an oral powder formulation to support dosing in pediatric patients aged 2 to 5 years.

For the treatment of HIV-1 in pediatric patients aged at least 2 years, the recommended oral dose of tenofovir is 8 mg/kg of body weight (up to a maximum of 300 mg) administered once daily as oral powder or tablets.

Zimbabwe orders door to door HIV testing

by Staff Reporter at newzimbabwe.com

HEALTH Minister Henry Madzorera has unveiled controversial new plans for door-to-door HIV testing countrywide.

Madzorera said Wednesday his ministry is training thousands of volunteers who will knock on doors, test and counsel people in their homes.

He insists taking the tests would be voluntary, amid concerns by rights groups that the programme infringes on people’s privacy.

Tapuwa Magure, the chief executive officer of the state-run National Aids Council, said his organisation had made an input to the controversial programme expected to start within months

AIDS. The First World Swindle. Two swindlers who shook the world! BY DR. SHIRDEL HOR

READ FOR FREE ON LINE  AND POST YOUR COMMENTS AFTERWARDS

 AIDS. The First World Swindle. Two swindlers who shook the world!

The book offers a different view on the origin of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). For the first time in the history of medicine, it presents the scientific evidence based on the author’s theory of the pathocomplex process that exposes the standard theory of AIDS as the first world swindle and simultaneously suggests a practical treatment for its complete elimination.

Dear Reader!

The author of this book provides it for open and free access, dedicating his work to the victims of AIDS – the first world swindle. However, in the event of a desire to donate voluntary financial support to the author, our bank account information can be found 

below.

READ HERE: http://www.drshirdel.com/en/publications/

FDA-APPROVED HIV TESTS pt 5

Abbott HIVABTM HIV-1/HIV-2 (rDNA) EIA

A person who has antibodies to HIV-1 is presumed to be infected with the virus... Clinical correlation is indicated... to decide whether a diagnosis of HIV infection is accurate.

RECALL 23 Nov 2010 – Reaction Tray lots with ABBOTT PRISM HBsAg and/or ABBOTT PRISM HIV O Plus and to contact ABBOTT for an alternate lot of ABBOTT PRISM Reaction Trays.

RECALL 23 Sep 2010 – Calibration failures when PRISM-HIV-1 Group O Positive Assay Control (2) (Symbol: OPC) is out of specification high.

All the FDA-APPROVED HIV TESTS Here

*credit to omsj.org  for this list

They Found A Cure For AIDS - South Park

Scientists discover the cure for AIDS is $180,000.

: Tonsil Trouble

                                                  SouthPark Season 12

LA City Council vote Condom are a must in Porn to Preventing HIV and AIDS

Los Angeles to porn industry: wear a condom

• Matt Williams guardian.co.uk
  LA city councilors approved an ordinance that makes the use of condoms in porn mandatory, but the industry claims it is unnecessary and will cost them jobs

AND THE REALITY IS: 
"What will happen is productions affected by this ordinance will have to move outside the city limits," said Joanne Cachapero, spokeswoman for the FSC. "People can get adult movies without condoms in them from around the world and the only thing they are doing is putting the Californian industry at a disadvantage."

2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology / Medicine Prof. Luc Montagnier's Extended interview from the HIV and AIDS Documentary "House of Numbers"

Prof. Luc Montagnier's Extended                             House of Numbers Interview

Follow the dialog about this video

What’s happened with the fight against AIDS? Giving props to documentaries about AIDS.

Tom Roston is a guest columnist for POV's documentary blog
I ask that question as a follow-up to a recent post I wrote about the ten documentaries I am most looking forward to in 2012. One of them is Act-Up!, the story of the galvanizing activists who fought to raise awareness about AIDS. In honor of all those who have had to deal with the epidemic in one way or the other, I want to give props to some documentaries about AIDS. But, first, let’s take a quick look at answering my initial question (all numbers are culled from The New York Times).

What’s happened with the fight against AIDS?

There are 34 million people currently infected with the virus in the world, and that includes 1.2 million Americans (240,000 of whom are unaware). Recently, President Obama announced he wanted to set up programs to provide drug therapy to six million infected people by the end of 2013, which is up from about four million. What’s most troubling is that the epidemic has reached a plateau internationally, with 2.7 million new people being infected each year for the past five years. Asia and Eastern Europe are two of the regions where the numbers are increasing most.

For those who want to learn more about AIDS through documentaries, I’ve come up with a few places where you can start. First, I’d recommend FRONTLINE’s The Age of Aids, a comprehensive series from 2006, about the history and politics of AIDS which you can watch online. And for a more personal look, there’s 1993’s Silverlake Life: The View from Here, a video diary which aired on POV about living with AIDS.

And then thanks to Lee Mills at Screen Junkies, there’s an intriguing list of “the five best AIDS documentaries,” which includes The Lazarus Effect, The Origin of AIDS,The Other City, AIDS Inc., and House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic. SnagFilms also has a selection of mostly international AIDS docs, many of which were shot in Africa, that also can be viewed online for free.

Watch "House of Numbers"

That should get us started, if you want to use documentaries as a guide, on answering the question about what’s happened to the epidemic. Still, I look forward to Act-Up!, which, as it turns out, won’t be the first film about the pioneering activists. Fight Back, Fight AIDS: 15 Years of ACT UP, by director James Wentzy, came out in 2002.

Get more documentary film news and features: Subscribe to POV’s documentary blog, like POV on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @povdocs.

1

TAGS: Act-Up!, aids, AIDS Inc., documentary, epidemic, Fight AIDS: 15 Years of ACT UP,Fight Back, frontline, House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic, James Wentzy, Screen Junkies, Silverlake Life: The View from Here, SnagFilms, The Age of Aids, The Lazarus Effect, The Origin of AIDS, The Other City

Tom Roston

Tom Roston is a guest columnist for POV's documentary blog. He comes to us as a ten-year veteran of Premiere magazine, where he was a Senior Editor, and where he wrote the column, Notes from the Dream Factory. Tom was born and raised in New York City. He graduated from Brown University and started his career in journalism at The Nation and then Vanity Fair. Tom has also written forThe New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, GQ, New York, Elle and other publications. Tom's favorite documentaries are: 1. Koyanisqaatsi - Godfrey Reggio 2. Hoop Dreams - Steve James 3. The Up series - Michael Apted 4. Crumb - Terry Zwigoff 5. Capturing the Friedmans - Andrew Jarecki

• Follow the Author:
• Twitter

Lab technician gets jail for 'declaring' man HIV+

NAGPUR: 

Soumittra S Bose, TNN

Ad-hoc judge KL Vyas has sentenced a pathology laboratory technician to five years in jail for abetting the suicide of a man who ended life after being informed that he is HIV affected. The court also awarded a compensation of 1 lakh to the man's mother who is his sole survivor.

OMSJ exposes HIV experts as incompetent in several prominent criminal trials

OMSJ Victories Raise HUMANITARIAN Complaints

Despite 25 years of criminal prosecutions against hundreds of factually-innocent men and women, US and UN officials – along with pharmaceutically-funded gay activists – are suddenly calling for the end of all HIV-related criminal prosecutions.  Their demands coincidentally began months after OMSJ began to expose HIV experts as incompetent in several prominent criminal trials.   This report explains why.

TALL TALES

In his book Night, Elie Wiesel introduces the world to Moshe the Beadle, a clown-like waif who tells this unbelievable story:
“The train full of deportees had crossed the Hungarian frontier and on the Polish territory had been taken in charge by the Gestapo. There it had stopped. The Jews had to get out and climb into lorries. The lorries drove toward a forest. The Jews were made to get out. They were made to dig huge graves.  And when they had finished their work, the Gestapo began theirs.  Without passion, without haste, they slaughtered their prisoners. Each one had to go up to the hole and present his neck. Babies were thrown into the air and the machine gunners used them as targets.  This was in the forest of Galicia, near Kolomaye. How had Moshe the Beadle escaped? Miraculously.  He was wounded in the leg andtaken for dead.”

Is this true? A new film to Celebrate: 

How to kill yourself by forcing the government to give you AIDS drugs faster 

Faced with their own mortality, an improbable group of mostly HIV-positive young men and women broke the mold as radical warriors taking on Washington and the medical establishment. How to Survive a Plague is the story of two coalitions—ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group)—whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time. With unfettered access to a treasure trove of never-before-seen archival footage from the 1980s and '90s, filmmaker David France puts the viewer smack in the middle of the controversial actions, the heated meetings, the heartbreaking failures, and the exultant breakthroughs of heroes in the making.

As HIV Epidemic Grows, Jacksonville, Fla., Grapples With Fear and Denial

From U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
www.thebody.com

When AHF opened a Magic Johnson clinic in the city to serve HIV/AIDS patients a decade ago, organizers moved the ribbon-cutting ceremony indoors because visitors feared being associated with the disease. The clinic no longer bears Johnson's name: "The only way we can get people to come through the door is to create a fictitious name," Reese said. "No one walks into any building or floor that has any association with HIV."

December 21, 2011

"House of Numbers" is a balanced, fair look at the HIV/AIDS epidemic

from the blog:

Writing a Better Story: Boundless Ministries

Have I ever mentioned that I really, really like to watch documentaries? That's more of a rhetorical question at this point if you've read this blog very long!

Taking into consideration my avid interest in the documentary art form, it's no wonder that next to blogger.com, facebook and checking my e-mail,TopDocumentaries.com is my favorite website. Yes, it even surpasses Netflix.
What I like best is getting the "other" side. These are movies that for the most part are not funded by big money, old money or those who hold the seats of power. Of course, the filmmakers set out to prove their point...so they aren't completely unbiased, but having a background in broadcast journalism myself...I believe this is the type of reporting network newsshould be doing...but can't...mostly, because they are owned by big money themselves. [Disembarking from soapbox!]

Back to the film at hand...House of Numbers is a balanced, fair look at the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And I have to be honest, I've read the huge (650+ pages) book And the Band Played On; I remember following this story with great interest as it broke in the 1980's; I lived in the state where Ryan White lived...we were inundated with information from the news media; but I've never heard the information like this.

China sees rise of 'HIV phobia'

By Chris Hogg 

BBC News, Shanghai

Hundreds of people in China believe they might have a new disease with HIV-like symptoms, but doctors suggest their illness could be the result of a mental rather than a physical condition.
The Chinese authorities have been accused of covering up respiratory illnesses like Sars in the past.
This time doctors are blaming a breakdown in trust between the medical profession and patients, who fear they are being lied to when their diagnostic tests come back negative.
One man convinced he has the condition insisted on meeting in an empty motel room. He tries to avoid public places to reduce the chances of transmission.

Recall of Standard Diagnostics Bioline® HIV 1/2 3.0 Rapid HIV Test Kit

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a global alert to remove the Standard Diagnostics Bioline® HIV 1/2 3.0 Rapid HIV Test Kit from its list of approved rapid test kits with immediate effect. The global alert on the Bioline Rapid Test Kit was issued following failures in quality assurance tests.

READ MORE: MINISTRY OF PUBLIC HEALTH & SANITATION

Paper refuting HIV–AIDS link secures publication

Work by infamous AIDS contrarian passes peer review.
Zoë Corbyn

A controversial research paper that argued “there is as yet no proof that HIV causes AIDS" and met with a storm of protest when it was published in 2009, leading to its withdrawal, has been republished in a revised form, this time in the peer-reviewed literature.

The reworked version of the paper, led by Peter Duesberg of the University of California, Berkeley, who is well known for denying the link between HIV and AIDS, was published in the Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology (IJAE) last month¹.