Journalists have only 44 days left to write about epilepsy if they want to win an award. Epilepsy Scotland will give a £500 prize and trophy for the best story printed about this common condition in the Scottish press between 1 February 2008 and 31 January 2009.
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44 Days Left For Epilepsy Articles - Epilepsy Scotland
Published at Dezember 21st, 2008Researchers Find Evidence About Evolution Of Hiv In Lemurs
Published at Dezember 20th, 2008Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered a virus related to HIV in the genetic makeup of the Madagascar grey mouse lemur, a finding that could provide new evidence about the origins of HIV, according to a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, IRIN/PlusNews reports. According to the researchers, the study suggests that lentiviruses — the family of viruses to which HIV belongs — have been present in primates for more than 14 million years. Madagascar was last linked with mainland Africa about 14 million years ago, and this allowed lentiviruses to pass to lemurs. According to IRIN/PlusNews, it was widely believed that HIV-1 and HIV-2 were passed to humans from primates in mainland Africa and that the primates have harbored the virus for about one million years at the most. However, the study’s findings contradict this theory. One of the two senior authors of the study, Robert Shafer, called the discovery “one of the most important missing links” needed to understand the evolutionary history of HIV-related viruses.
Robert Gifford, another lead author of the study, said that the lentivirus material found in the genetic makeup of the lemur will aid scientists in understanding the functions of different genes within the virus and the limit to which the virus can adapt. This information could be used to help develop HIV/AIDS treatments and prevention methods for humans, IRIN/PlusNews reports.
Gifford said, “Our discovery means that primate lentiviruses have been present in Madagascar historically and may still be circulating there. Since Madagascar has been very isolated throughout evolutionary history, it’s not clear how we could have these viruses present both there and in Africa, unless they are in fact many millions of years old.” He added, “If we are ever going to properly understand the relationships between lentiviruses and disease, assess the risk of new epidemics occurring, and harness the body’s natural defenses to prevent and control HIV infections, we need to establish the proper ecological and evolutionary contexts.” According to IRIN/PlusNews, some scientists now believe that lentiviruses could be at least 50 million years old and that they could be present in primates worldwide.
Although the findings are unlikely to dramatically alter the course of HIV/AIDS research in the immediate future, they are expected to affect scientists’ understanding of the disease, IRIN/PlusNews reports (IRIN/PlusNews, 12/16). Shafer said, “If we understand how hosts have controlled infection over millennia, then that opens the way to developing new drugs or to other ways of encouraging innate resistance,” London’s Guardian reports.
In addition, the study’s findings also indicate that the lemurs might have survived an epidemic similar to HIV/AIDS before developing immunity, “promising important insights into how the human epidemic might unfold,” according to the Guardian (Beaumont, Guardian, 12/18).
The study is available online.
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Study Looks At Male Circumcision As Hiv Prevention Among Black Men In Baltimore
Published at Dezember 19th, 2008HIV risk appears to be lower among U.S. black men who have been circumcised and are considered at high risk of contracting the virus than among black men who have not been circumcised, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Reuters reports. Two other studies in the journal also examine the benefits of male circumcision to prevent the spread of disease and infection.
For one of the studies, CDC researcher Lee Warner and colleagues looked at black men living in Baltimore and found that 10% of those who were at high risk of HIV and were circumcised had the virus, compared with 22% of those who were not circumcised. According to the report, “Circumcision was associated with substantially reduced HIV risk in patients with known HIV exposure, suggesting that results of other studies demonstrating reduced HIV risk for circumcision among heterosexual men likely can be generalized to the U.S. context.”
Ronald Gray of Johns Hopkins University and colleagues in an editorial accompanying the study noted that in the U.S., circumcision is less common among blacks and Hispanics. However, blacks and Hispanics are the most at-risk of groups for contracting the virus. “Thus, circumcision may afford an additional means of protection from HIV in these at-risk minorities,” they wrote.
The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend routine circumcision for infants, and as a result, Medicaid does not cover the procedure, according to the editorial. The editorial adds that “this is particularly disadvantageous for poorer African-American and Hispanic boys who, as adults, may face high HIV exposure risk” (Fox, Reuters Health, 12/17). The study is available online. The editorial also is available online.
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Women Can Contract Hiv Through Healthy Tissue, Study Says
Published at Dezember 19th, 2008A new study has found that HIV appears to attack normal, healthy genital tissue in women and does not require breaks in the skin to infiltrate cells, offering new perspectives on how the virus is spread, researchers said on Tuesday, Reuters reports. Thomas Hope, a study author from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said that scientists have had little detailed understanding of how HIV is transmitted sexually in women and that it was “previously thought there had to be a break in [genital tissue] somehow” for women to contract the virus. He added that the study’s findings show that “[n]ormal skin is vulnerable.”
For the study, researchers in a partnership between Northwestern and Tulane University introduced HIV — which carried fluorescent, light-activated tracers, a new method developed to better see how the virus worked — to newly removed vaginal tissue taken from hysterectomy surgeries. A microscope was used to observe the virus as it penetrated the outer lining of the female genital tract — also called the squamous epithelium — and found that HIV was able to move quickly past the skin barrier to reach immune cells. The process also was observed in nonhuman primates, according to Reuters. In addition, the results of the study suggest that HIV focuses on areas of the genital tissue where skin cells recently had been shed, Hope said (Steenhuysen, Reuters, 12/16). Hope said the results are “an important and unexpected result — we have a new understanding of how HIV can invade the female vaginal tract.” He added, “We urgently need new prevention strategies or therapeutics to block the entry of HIV through a woman’s genital skin” (BBC News, 12/17).
According to Reuters, researchers in the past have assumed that HIV sought out breaks in the skin — like a herpes sore — to gain access to immune system cells deeper in tissue, and some thought the normal lining of the vaginal tract could work as a barrier to transmission during sexual intercourse. Reuters reports that the study “casts doubt” on the theory that HIV transmission requires a break in the skin or that the virus gains access through the cervical canal’s single layer of skin cells. The findings also “might explain why some prevention efforts” — such as diaphragms or herpes treatment — have “failed,” Reuters reports (Reuters, 12/16).
Lisa Power from the Terrence Higgins Trust in the United Kingdom said the results are an “important finding” but “sadly, not surprising” because it has been “long known that it is easier for a man to transmit HIV sexually to a woman than for a woman to transmit it to a man.” She added that the study “helps us understand why” and “will help in developing better prevention mechanisms — but until then, it’s more clear than ever that a condom is a vital part of safer sex.” The British not-for-profit organization AVERT said that the study “serves to strengthen” the argument for condom use during heterosexual intercourse and “will hopefully give weight to the need for safer heterosexual sex to be advocated further by governments and practitioners worldwide” (BBC News, 12/17). According to Hope, the findings emphasize the importance of methods to prevent transmission, such as a vaccine and condom use. He said, “People need to remember that they are vulnerable. The sad part is if people just used a condom, we wouldn’t have this problem” (Reuters, 12/16).
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Advocates Urge Obama To Increase Global Health Spending, Others Call For Freeze On Foreign Aid
Published at Dezember 18th, 2008While more than 100 global health and development organizations have signed on to several policy papers urging President-elect Barack Obama’s administration to increase spending for HIV/AIDS, global health and development assistance, one dozen House Republicans argue that the current economic downturn necessitates a freeze on foreign aid, CQ Today reports. One letter, submitted by the Global AIDS Roundtable and signed by more than 100 organizations, calls for $12 billion for its programs in fiscal year 2010, including $2 billion for the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. In addition, the Global Health Council in a transition paper called for about $13.2 billion for global health efforts in FY 2010, including $8.5 billion for HIV/AIDS programs. Several TB organizations also called for $650 million for their efforts and $2.7 million for the Global Fund. Eight maternal health organizations also called for $1.3 billion for their programs in FY 2010.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), Foreign Affairs Committee ranking Republican, drafted a letter signed by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and 10 other House Republicans from the Foreign Affairs panel calling for Obama to freeze foreign assistance at FY 2008 levels for FY 2009 and 2010. According to the letter, the representatives are concerned about the costs of the $700 billion financial bailout program and the Democrats’ proposed economic stimulus package. The letter recommends freezing assistance levels “at least until the required reports” on the bailout program are issued and the impact of the stimulus efforts are better understood. The letter does not specify whether the foreign aid freeze would apply to all foreign assistance programs, including the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Liz Shrayer, executive director of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, said the letter is not necessarily “reflective of where the Republican Party is on these issues.” According to CQ Today, her organization garnered support from 51 senators and 166 representatives from the 110th Congress for a letter urging Obama to request a “robust” budget allocation for international affairs. In addition, other groups such as the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network have provided “modest suggestions” about restructuring overseas aid programs, CQ Today reports. According to Smita Baruah, director of government relations at the Global Health Council, advocates are “feeling more optimistic” about potential increases in foreign assistance because Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden “have been engaged with global health issues in the Senate.” Baruah added that Obama and Biden “already have a level of commitment” to global health, but advocacy groups are “just working to be sure to get the follow through.” Adotei Akwei, acting director of government relations at CARE, said, “The big question mark is not if there’s going to be strong leadership from [Obama's] administration, but when it’s going to kick in.” According to CQ Today, during the presidential campaign Obama pledged to increase U.S. foreign assistance to $50 billion annually by the end of his first term and to increase aid for HIV/AIDS and other diseases to $50 billion over five years (Graham-Silverman, CQ Today, 12/17).
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Washington, D.c.-based Whitman-walker Clinic Announces Staff, Program Reductions
Published at Dezember 18th, 2008The Whitman-Walker Clinic — a not-for-profit health organization that is the largest HIV/AIDS service provider in the Washington, D.C., area — on Tuesday announced that it will be reducing some staff and programs, the Washington Post reports. The clinic announced that it plans to close its office in Northern Virginia, which provides services to 1,100 clients, and shut down an eight-bed residential addiction program in the district. The clinic also announced that it will lay off 45 employees.
According to Donald Blanchon, Whitman-Walker CEO, the cuts are because of the current economic situation. He added that government reimbursement for services has not equaled the increasing cost of providing care. In addition, private donations have decreased by 29% compared with last year, the Post reports. Blanchon said that former clients of the clinic’s Northern Virginia office can access services at Whitman-Walker’s two locations in the district (Hull, Washington Post, 12/17). The clinic recently sold its property for $8 million to address increasing debt, and the organization will continue to operate in a new, smaller space two blocks from the old location. The clinic currently serves about 10,000 clients, 3,400 of whom are living with HIV (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 12/16).
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New Orleans Faces Delay In Start Of 2009 Ryan White Funding Distribution Process
Published at Dezember 17th, 2008Errors in a public notice last week in New Orleans have forced city officials to delay the start of the 2009 process for distributing an expected $5 million in Ryan White Program funding for local HIV/AIDS agencies, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. The announcement of the delay comes after Fran Lawless — who serves as director of Mayor Ray Nagin’s Office of Health Care Policy — in October testified before the city council’s Housing and Human Needs Committee that 2008 funding distribution was delayed by six months and that service providers went without funding from March to October.
According to the Times-Picayune, City Council member Arnie Fielkow called on officials to begin the application process for 2009 earlier in the year. In an effort to meet this request, officials listed a public request for proposals in the Times-Picayune on Dec. 8, 9 and 10, which set the deadline for picking up applications as Dec. 5 — a date that had already past. The deadline for submission also was listed incorrectly in the electronic notice sent directly to the service providers, which left many of them confused, according to the Times-Picayune. Carlos Butler — Health Policy office manager and the contact who was listed in the public notice — said that the request for proposals was canceled and referred questions to Lawless and a Nagin spokesperson, who did not respond to requests for comment, the Times-Picayune reports.
Several agencies that receive funding to provide assistance to more than 4,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in the city complained in October that they would be unable to operate if their funding continued to face delays as it had in 2008, according to the Times-Picayune. Doug Morgan, who administers Ryan White Program funding for the federal Health Resources and Service Administration, said, “Our hope is that some of the issues they faced in [2008] will not be repeated in [2009].” He added, “I’m unhappy to learn the initial draft of the (requests for proposal) had glitches in it. It sounds like they’re close to repeating some of the timelines they had last year, and that makes me a little nervous.”
A new notice appeared Tuesday in the Times-Picayune and the deadline for submitting requests was listed as Jan. 9. The notice also will appear Wednesday and Thursday in the newspaper. Dave Munroe of In This Together — a not-for-profit agency serving 225 patients that was forced to shut down over the summer because of the delay in funding and reopened in October — said that the agency will not apply for 2009 funding because of “continuing issues of truthfulness, transparency and professionalism” at the city level (Hammer, New Orleans Times-Picayune, 12/17).
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Kenya’s Hiv Transmission Law Divides Government, Advocates, irin/plusnews Reports
Published at Dezember 17th, 2008A new law in Kenya — which has been approved but not yet implemented — is intended to prevent willful transmission of HIV/AIDS, but some advocates and government agencies are divided on its possible implications, IRIN/PlusNews reports. Kenyan HIV/AIDS advocate Inviolata Mbwavi warned that the legislation could in effect label HIV-positive people as dangerous, adding, “When you criminalize HIV, then we are going back to square (one) of trying to stigmatize the virus even more, yet we have not effectively dealt with the stigma associated with HIV. Why do we want to further burden those who are already burdened by coming up with HIV-specific legislation?”
The government-run National AIDS Control Council strongly opposes the law, arguing that it puts the responsibility of transmission solely on HIV-positive people. Tom K’Opere, an advocate at the country’s High Court, said, “Why would one bother to go for a test when they already know it could be used against them in a court of law?” He added that the law is “ridiculous” because it will “discourage” testing. In addition, the AIDS council estimates that most Kenyans are unaware of their HIV status.
Meanwhile, some supporters of the law argue that it should be implemented to protect vulnerable groups, such as women and children. Anne Gathumbi, an officer at the Open Society Initiative for East Africa, said, “We know that the majority of those who know their status are women. What we are doing by passing such a law is therefore to condemn people we are claiming to protect to jail.” Some advocates are concerned that the legislation does not address the responsibility of HIV-negative people. In addition, a clause in the law that gives health care providers the right to disclose a patient’s HIV status to relatives, resulting in a violation of confidentiality, is causing concern, IRIN/PlusNews reports. However, it has not been determined whether the government will implement this clause (IRIN/PlusNews, 12/12).
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washington Post Examines History Of Whitman Walker Clinic
Published at Dezember 16th, 2008The Washington Post on Tuesday examined the history of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, a not-for-profit community health organization in Washington, D.C., that runs special programs for people living with HIV/AIDS. The clinic recently sold its property for $8 million to “beat back mounting debt,” the Post reports, adding that the organization will continue to operate in a new, smaller space two blocks from the old location. The clinic currently serves about 10,000 clients, 3,400 of whom are living with HIV. According to the Post, the sale of the clinic’s property “was just another real estate deal among many,” and the move is a “kind of requiem” for the people who have been involved with the clinic.
Whitman-Walker purchased its former property in 1986 for $1.25 million. Jim Graham — a lawyer who was Whitman-Walker’s executive director for 14 years and currently is a district council member — made the purchase to “launch a full scale defense for AIDS patients: medical, dental, psychological and legal services,” the Post reports. Graham said, “You took great satisfaction in doing what you could do, but you knew the suffering was horrific. It affected everything you did.” The Post reports that the clinic “desperately needed money” to provide services to people living with the virus, and “when other institutions wanted nothing to do with AIDS” then-Mayor Marion Barry and the Meyer Foundation were the earliest financial supporters of the clinic, in addition to the gay community, which covered almost half of the operating costs through donations.
According to the Post, the clinic had a staff of 34 with 700 volunteers by 1987 and was able to hire a full-time lawyer and open a food bank. The clinic in 1987 “could not provide the most elusive antidote: medicine to stop or cure the virus“; however, that same year treatment and prevention of pneumocystis pneumonia — which is often fatal in people living with AIDS — was found in aerosol pentamidine and Bactrim tablets, and the first FDA-approved antiretroviral drug — zidovudine, also known as AZT — was made available to people living with the virus.
According to the Post, the clinic began to apply for grant money totaling $3 million in 1991. About 10 years into the epidemic, the clinic had treated 2,600 clients, of which 1,600 had died. The Post reports that education about AIDS “had calmed some of the paranoia, but not all,” and that “race was a tricky complication.” Barbara Chin, a clinic staff member, said, “The white boys had gotten to the point where they said, ‘I’m gay and to hell with you.’ African-Americans were afraid that someone would label them HIV. This was their home town.”
The Post reports that in the early 1990s, many of the clinic’s clients were entering into clinical research trials in an attempt to increase their life expectancies. Patricia Hawkins, a psychologist and social worker with the clinic since 1984, said the participants “are the unsung heroes of the epidemic. It was all about the people who would come later. And they were right.” By 1994, the clinic had purchased additional property and expanded its operations, and the clinic “that used to represent death adjusted to caring for people living long-term with HIV,” according to the Post.
However, the clinic recently has experienced financial difficulties as the issue of HIV has become “more of a poverty issue,” the Post reports. The clinic’s staff has been reduced from 252 to 173 employees, with additional restructuring expected. Hawkins said that data scheduled to be released soon will show that HIV prevalence in the district is increasing. “I wake up every day fearing that a new, faster, more virulent form of this virus will hit us,” Hawkins said (Hull, Washington Post, 12/16).
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U.s. Government Should Double Global Health Spending By 2012, Iom Report Says
Published at Dezember 16th, 2008President-elect Barack Obama’s administration and Congress should double annual U.S. international health aid to $15 billion by 2012, and Obama should appoint a senior official to work with a White House committee for coordinating such aid with other areas of foreign affairs, according to a National Institute of Medicine report released Monday, Bloomberg reports (Lauerman, Bloomberg, 12/15). The report, which says global health should be a “pillar” of U.S. foreign policy, was compiled by a committee of outside experts — including Harold Varmus, president and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and former head of NIH, and Thomas Pickering, former ambassador and under secretary of state for political affairs. The report also recommends increased U.S. support for the World Health Organization (Jack, Financial Times, 12/15). In addition, the authors emphasize the importance of sustaining commitments to global health programs, such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, particularly during the current economic downturn.
According to Varmus, the U.S. currently spends less per capita on international health aid than many other countries and should work to increase its relative spending. The IOM report found that the U.S. spends about 0.16% of its gross national income on development aid, which is about one-third of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals target of 0.54%. According to the report, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway and Sweden exceed the MDG target and 15 other industrialized nations contribute proportionally more than the U.S. The report is “just drawing attention to the fact that we do underspend,” Varmus said, adding, “[E]specially in times of economic stress, we need to pay attention to the poor of the world.” According to Varmus, “This is the time to make the investments” in global health aid. Bill Gates of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said, “By making global health a top priority, even in difficult economic times, our nation’s leaders can make a phenomenal statement about America’s commitment to a better world for all.” Gates added that the IOM report “sends a critical message at a critical time: America’s investments in global health are working.” Varmus said that additional health aid is “a good thing to do just for basic ethical reasons, and it boosts the economies of nations that receive health assistance.”
According to the report’s authors, increasing health assistance will demonstrate that the U.S. “fundamentally believes in the value of better health for all” (Bloomberg, 12/15). The IOM advisers said that the U.S. would be acting “in the global interest” by increasing global health aid and that “long-term diplomatic, economic and security benefits for the United States would follow.” According to the report, international health funding will contribute to U.S. “soft power” abroad by building support among developing nations. The report calls for the U.S. to work with developing countries to determine the most effective delivery methods for medical support and implement “rigorous evaluation” measures to ensure improved health outcomes. Michael Leavitt, outgoing HHS secretary, has said increased global health efforts would be an important non-military aspect of U.S. foreign policy and would help Americans recoup “the benefits of our benevolence.” Leavitt in a speech last week to the Center for Strategic and International Studies also called for greater coordination between international donors and a unified “branding” of U.S. international health support (Financial Times, 12/15). Nick Shapiro, a spokesperson for the Obama transition team, would not comment on the IOM report(Bloomberg, 12/15). The report is available online. IOM expects to release a “more complete exploration of this vision — including the role of the commercial sector, foundations, academia and nongovernmental organizations” — in the spring of 2009.
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