Kansas Lawmakers OK Repeal of AIDS Quarantines Ban

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators have approved a bill to protect medical and

emergency workers that also repeals a 25-year-old ban on quarantining AIDS and HIV patients.

The bill is headed to Gov. Sam Brownback after both chambers approved it Friday night. The votes were 36-2 in the Senate and 120-0 in the House.

The bill directs the state health department to draft rules making it easier for medical and emergency workers to learn if they've been exposed to infectious diseases.

The provision repealing the 1988 law protecting AIDS and HIV patients faced strong criticism from gay rights advocates and civil libertarians.

The health department promised legislators its new rules would continue a ban. Agency officials said even without a ban, it would never be medically necessary to quarantine AIDS or HIV patients.

Top 50 Blogs About HIV and AIDS

by Samantha Reno
Are you uncertain about when an AIDS patient may require hospice care? Do male AIDS patients need different care than female AIDS patients? This list of top 50 Blogs about HIV And AIDS may help answer those questions for patients, families, nurses and other caregivers.

Lawsuit over false HIV diagnosis settled in DC as trial neared; terms not disclosed

WASHINGTON — A District of Columbia health clinic specializing in HIV and AIDS has settled a lawsuit that accused a staff member of mistakenly telling a patient he was HIV-positive.

The Washington Post says terms of Terry Hedgepeth’s settlement with the Whitman-Walker Clinic weren’t disclosed, but the agreement was reached as both sides prepared for trial. .

Hedgepeth brought a $20 million lawsuit in 2005, five years after a clinic worker mistakenly wrote in his files that he had tested positive for HIV.

The test was negative, but Hedgepeth didn’t know that until he decided to seek alternative treatment in 2005.

His lawyer says the misdiagnosis caused post-traumatic stress.

A D.C. appeals court recently ruled that patients given incorrect information from their doctors about a life-threatening illness can sue for emotional distress.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. 

more: http://tinyurl.com/9dt9hdf

Study: Sudden heart death high among HIV patients

by Erin Allday San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. 


Patients with HIV infections are 4 1/2 times more likely to die suddenly from cardiac arrest than people without HIV, even if the virus is under control and they appear relatively healthy, according to a UCSF study.
The report, published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, found that sudden cardiac death - which occurs when the heart unexpectedly stops beating - was the second-most common killer among HIV-positive patients. AIDS was the most common cause of death.
Researchers involved in the 10-year study believe no single cause is involved but say HIV patients and their doctors need to be more vigilant about being screened and treated for heart disease risks like high blood pressure and high cholesterol as their lives are being extended by antiretroviral drugs.
"Cardiac disease is a big issue as these people are living longer," said Dr. Zian Tseng, a UCSF electrophysiologist and lead author of the study. "HIV providers need to be aware of the risk of these patients dying suddenly."
Over the past two decades, the treatment of HIV has changed dramatically with the success of antiretroviral drugs. The medications can, in many people, suppress the virus to the point where it's undetectable in a patient's blood, and doctors have begun to see HIV infection as a chronic condition and not a death sentence.

Possible causes

But the trade-off is that the virus does damage over time, and perhaps so do the drugs used to treat it. Add to that the fact that HIV patients were slow to adjust to the idea that they could live much longer on the drugs, said Dr. Priscilla Hsue, director of the HIV Cardiology Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital and an author of the UCSF study.
They were reluctant to stop lifestyle choices that contributed to heart disease, such as smoking or heavy drinking, she said. But patients, and their doctors, are beginning to understand, and their thinking is changing, Hsue said.
"Now they're thinking, 'I could live another 25 years if I take care of myself,' " Hsue said. "And I'm really hammering on stop smoking, take blood pressure medication, watch your cholesterol."
The study looked at 2,860 HIV-positive patients who were treated in San Francisco General Hospital's HIV/AIDS ward from 2000 to 2009. In that period, 230 died - 57 percent of them from AIDS, 13 percent from sudden cardiac death, 11 percent from other natural diseases, and 19 percent from suicides, overdoses or unknown causes.
Notably, 86 percent of all cardiac deaths among those patients were sudden. In the general population, the number of sudden deaths is about half of those who have heart-related deaths.

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

Chimps caged for 30 years and injected with HIV in cruel experiments finally feel the sun on their faces again -Dailymail.com

..."The aim of the firm that bought them was to find a vaccine to combat Aids. Because chimps share  99per cent of the gene code of man, they seemed natural subjects for study."

..."Some chimpanzees were infected with the HIV virus. Of course, they became HIV positive. But none of them, not here in Austria or anywhere else in the world, developed full-blown Aids. Therefore, the programme was useless. It achieved absolutely nothing.’"


By ALLAN HALL - dailymail.co.uk

Like prisoners emerging from a lifetime behind bars, a group of chimpanzees step blinking into the sunlight with what appears for all the world to be a wave and a smile.

Schools bar students with HIV

by Bich Huong

"Living without discrimination" reads one of the signs
carried by students from Yen Bai Secondary School and
the Ba Vi Centre for Social Education and Labour at the
Colourful Rainbowl camp this month.
— Photo courtesy Save the Children Viet Nam

HA NOI — As the new school year begins, some 40 youngsters with HIV at the Centre for Social Education and Labour No 2 in Ba Vi, on the outskirts of Ha Noi, still long for the day when they can join mainstream education.

Quach Thi Mai, principal of Yen Bai B Primary School, said a lack of understanding about the disease had led to a great deal of prejudice and a reluctance among parents to let their children study alongside those with HIV.

Mai said five children from the centre were allowed to attend 1st grade at her school four years ago but that they were forced to leave after a few days because of protests by parents of other schoolchildren.

IS A POSITIVE WESTERN BLOT PROOF OF HIV INFECTION?

"...we are not simply contending in order that my view or that of yours may prevail, but I presume we ought both of us to be fighting for the truth..."  From Philebus, the Dialogues of Plato

It is currently accepted that a positive Western blot (WB) HIV antibody test is synonymous with HIV infection and the attendant risk of developing and dying from AIDS. In this communication we present a critical evaluation of the presently available data on HIV isolation and antibody testing. The available evidence indicates that: (a) the antibody tests are not standardised; (b) the antibody tests are not reproducible; (c) the WB proteins (bands) which are considered to be coded by the HIV genome and to be specific to HIV may not be coded by the HIV genome and may in fact represent normal cellular proteins; (d) even if the proteins are specific to HIV, because no gold standard has been used and may not even exist to determine specificity, a positive WB may represent nothing more than cross‑reactivity with the many non‑HIV antibodies present in AIDS patients and those at risk, and thus be unrelated to the presence of HIV. We conclude that the use of the HIV antibody tests as a diagnostic and epidemiological tool for HIV infection needs to be reappraised.

HIV, AIDS patients in Delhi to get free treatment

YAY!! more free drugs!!!

New Delhi: In an unique initiative, Delhi Government on Thursday decided to extend monthly financial assistance and free medical treatment to HIV and AIDS patients in the city.

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, chairing a State AIDS Council meeting, directed Health department to come out with a comprehensive plan to provide financial assistance to the HIV and AIDS affected patients in the city.

The meeting also decided to provide nutritional support to the patients, besides offering them free treatment, including diagnostic tests like CT scan, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), ultra-sound test, at government-run hospitals across the metropolis.

Officials said a total of 30,738 HIV affected people have registered at nine Anti Retro Therapy (ART) centres in Delhi, which is considered as a low HIV prevalence city.

Delhi is currently implementing the third phase of the National AIDS Control Programme with an aim to reduce the number of infected people by 40 per cent in the next five years
According to officials, HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in Delhi is is 0.21% per cent of the total population. 

HIV, AIDS patients in Delhi to get free treatment