Stronger Prospects for the President on a Health Care Bill

"Yet other factors suggest that President Obama still has stronger prospects for achieving his health policy goals than surface impressions of the Congressional recess indicate. ...

"For all the political risks of acting, 'Everyone knows the alternative is worse,' said Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff and a veteran of the Clinton White House. 'Failure leads to failure.'"

Read more in New York Times, August 30, 2009.

CDC Publishes New Opportunistic Infection Guidelines for HIV-Positive Children

"Revised guidelines regarding the prevention and treatment of AIDS-related opportunistic infections (OIs) among HIV-infected children were published August 26 online in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. A panel of more than 30 government and nongovernment pediatric HIV and infectious disease experts developed the guidelines, which both update and combine a 2002 and 2004 publication on the treatment of opportunistic infections in children."

Read more in POZ, August 31, 2009.

National HIV Prevention Conference Delivers Call to Action

"There is great interest and anticipation around the President’s call for the development and implementation of a National HIV Strategy. The three main priorities of this plan include: 1) reducing HIV incidence; 2) improving access to care and optimizing health outcomes for people infected with HIV; and 3) reducing HIV-related health disparities. During the Atlanta conference, Jeff Crowley, the director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, spoke of the community forums his office is conducting in 14 U.S. cities most affected by HIV/AIDS to solicit public input on how to form this national strategy"

Read more in AIDS.gov, August 28, 2009.

Medicines needed (AID for AIDS International)

"ANTIRETROVIRALS NEEDED!
Due to increased demand in certain medications, AID FOR AIDS International is in greater need of the following medication:
· Aptivus 250mg
· Atripla 600/300/200mg
· Emtriva 200mg
· Epivir 300mg
· Insentress 400mg
· Norvir 100mg
· Prezista 300mg
· Prezista 600mg
· Prezista 400mg
· Retrovir 300mg (Zidovudine 300mg)
· Truvada 300/200mg
· Videx 400mg EC (Didanosine 400mg)
· Viread 300mg
· Zerit 30mg

Special temporary request:
· Emend 80mg
· Metotrexate 40mg

If you or someone you know has excess of these or any other antiretroviral, please click here.

If you want to know where you can drop the medicine off, click here." [Note the mailing instructions, if you are not in the New York metropolitan area, or near the other drop-off points.]

Read more in AIDS for AIDS International, August 2009.

siRNA and shRNA screens advance key understanding of host factors required for HIV-1 replication

"A recent RNAi screen used a genome-wide shRNA library to search for cellular factors required for HIV-1 replication. This work complements three other siRNA-based screening studies and potentially opens the door to the discovery of factors that are important for HIV-1 replication in physiological host cells such as T lymphocytes. shRNA screens can be further improved, and they could promise to unravel new pathways and new facets of virus-cell interactions."

Read more in Retrovirology, August 27, 2009.

Comment: This technical article could be important. Both siRNA and shRNA are fairly new techniques for turning off a particular gene -- in this case for research, and potentially some day for treatment.

HIV health problems cause few problems in employment, but discrimination still a reality in UK

"A majority of people with HIV employed in the UK report that HIV has no impact on their working life at present, according to research conducted by City University on behalf of the National AIDS Trust. Although most of those who disclosed their HIV status at work had had a generally positive reaction, stigma and discrimination create more problems at work than ill-health."

Read more in Aidsmap, August 27, 2009.

Comment: This study was in the UK, but the U.S. situation is probably similar, especially in regard to health at work. Discrimination may be more different between the countries.

Detectable HIV Levels Don’t Necessarily Increase the Risk of Cognitive Decline

"Having a viral load over 1,000 copies doesn’t necessarily increase the risk for cognitive decline—at least in people with high CD4 counts—according to a study published online August 18 in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes."

Read more in POZ, August 25, 2009.

Risk of kidney problems similar for tenofovir and alternative drugs

"Treatment with tenofovir does not involve a greater risk of kidney problems compared to alternative NRTI drugs, US investigators report in the online edition of AIDS. They found that regardless of whether a patient took tenofovir or an alterative drug as part of their initial antiretroviral therapy, there was a modest decline in kidney function, but that this soon stabilised. However, the research did show that taking tenofovir in combination with a ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitor could have an adverse effect on the health of the kidneys."

Read more in Aidsmap, August 25, 2009.

Patients taking HIV treatment need to maintain undetectable viral load to protect kidney function

"Kidney function declines in patients taking antiretroviral therapy if their viral load is not fully suppressed, US investigators report in a study published in the online edition of AIDS. Although kidney function improved once a patient started taking HIV treatment, continued declines were observed in some patients, especially if their viral load “blipped” to detectable levels."

Read more in Aidsmap, August 25, 2009.

HVTN 505 HIV Vaccine Study Begins Enrolling Volunteers

"The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, has opened enrollment in HVTN 505, an exploratory HIV vaccine clinical study examining whether a two-part vaccine regimen can decrease viral load (the amount of HIV in the blood) in study participants who later become infected with HIV. Viral load is an important health indicator in people who are infected with HIV because typically those with less virus remain healthier longer. Further, HIV-infected individuals with reduced levels of virus may be less likely to transmit the virus to other people. ...

HVTN 505 is planned to take place in 12 U.S. cities and is designed to enroll 1,350 HIV-negative men ages 18 to 45 years who have sex with men. Participants must be circumcised and at the time they are enrolling, without Ad5 antibodies resulting from previous exposure to the Ad5 virus. ...

For more information about the HVTN 505 study, see Questions and Answers: The HVTN 505 HIV Vaccine Regimen Study and www.hopetakesaction.org."

Read more in U.S. NIAID, August 24, 2009.

CDC's 2009 HIV Prevention Conference: “Innovation and Action to End the Epidemic”

"The 2009 National HIV Prevention Conference is reaching over 3,500 of our colleagues in Atlanta this week. Thanks to conference organizers, this year’s highlights are shared to those unable to attend via Twitter: CDC NPIN , AIDS.gov , and others are tweeting with the hashtag #NHPC09 . CDC also provides conference participants with text message updates , and videotaped many of the presentations to broaden reach (CDC NPIN should have these posted around September 7th).

Miguel Gomez, AIDS.gov Director, presents at NHPC09

This morning, AIDS.gov Director Miguel Gomezpresented on the plenary panel, “Advances in HIV Prevention Science and Technology.” The AIDS.gov presentation focused on how the HIV community can adopt new media tools to further their work. Miguel said, “we have a responsibility to learn about new media—to learn what clients are doing online, what new media is, and how to fit it into our overall HIV prevention planning.”

Read more in AIDS.gov, August 25, 2009.

Note: Even if you have never used Twitter and do not have an account, you can click of the Twitter "hashtag" above to read recent "tweets" tagged for this conference.

S. Africa Embraces Study Critical of Health Policy

" Leading South African scientists challenged the governing party on Monday to break with its deeply flawed record on AIDS and public health, spurring the country’s new health minister to say that he and his party shared their diagnosis of systemic problems and were determined to repair them.

"The decision by the health minister, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, to embrace the often withering assessment of his party’s failings, laid out in six papers published online Monday by The Lancet, a medical journal based in London, provided a strong signal that the governing party’s new leadership intended to shake up a badly managed health system."

Read more in New York Times, August 24, 2009.


Note: These articles are available to anyone, but free Lancet registration is required. Or you can read an executive summary (PDF download) without registering.