HIV/AIDS news stories on Newser

At-Home HIV Test Moves Step Closer to Reality

Evann Gastaldo — Wed, 16 May 2012 07:02:44 CDT

About 240,000 HIV carriers in the US are unaware of their infection—and they may soon have a quick and easy way to test for the virus at home. The over-the-counter OraQuick test requires a mouth swab and delivers results in 20 minutes, and though it is likely slightly...

Worries Dog HIV-Blocking Little Blue Pill

Neal Colgrass — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:10:20 CDT

A drug designed to block HIV infection comes with a little hitch: Used incorrectly, it could invite infection or create a resistant strain that renders the drug useless. The very FDA panel that recommended approval for the drug, Truvada, tangled with these dilemmas, the New York Times reports: What if...

FDA Panel Backs First Drug to Block HIV

Thu, 10 May 2012 18:28:57 CDT

A panel of federal health advisers has endorsed the first drug shown to prevent HIV infection in healthy people, clearing the way for a potentially landmark approval in the 30-year-old effort against the virus that causes AIDS. In a series of votes, the FDA advisory panel recommended approval of the...

LA Porn Condom Law Starts Today

Mary Papenfuss — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 05:15:00 CST

Today's the day Los Angeles porn stars are supposed to start covering up. A new city law goes into effect, requiring that condoms are used during porn film shoots. Film licensing fees will fund enforcement of the law, which was fought by porn production companies, who are threatening to leave...

How Colonialism Helped Start the HIV Epidemic

Kevin Spak — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:21:05 CST

The origins of HIV are something of a historical puzzle, but recent discoveries make that puzzle a lot easier to solve—and it looks a lot like European colonialism is a big piece of it. That's the thesis of a new book by Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin called Tinderbox...

You're More Likely to Die of Hepatitis C Than HIV

Kevin Spak — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:09:18 CST

In some ways, hepatitis C is the new HIV. Thanks to widespread safe-sex campaigns, HIV and AIDS aren't the killers they once were in America. They now account for about 12,700 deaths a year, down from more than 50,000 at the mid-1990s peak, Scientific American reports. That puts...

Pro Wrestler Gets 32 Years for 'HIV Assault'

Mary Papenfuss — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:26:00 CST

A professional wrestler has been sentenced in Ohio to 32 years or having sex with at least 11 women without telling them he has HIV—or lying that he was healthy. Andre Davis, 29—who has wrestled under the stage names "Gangsta of Love" and "Sweet Sexy Sensation"—was convicted...

Scientists Closing in on AIDS Vaccine

Rob Quinn — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 03:24:51 CST

"There's more hope than ever before that an AIDS vaccine might be possible," says the lead author of a study that marks a major advance in the search. The study found that experimental vaccines used on monkeys reduced their susceptibility to the monkey version of HIV by 80%, the Wall...

Cops: Man Intentionally Infected Women With HIV

John Johnson — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:29:19 CST

Awful story out of Michigan: Authorities say a 51-year-old man who is HIV-positive confessed to intentionally exposing hundreds of people to the disease through unprotected sex, report MSNBC and the Grand Rapids Press . Court documents say that David Dean Smith harbored a "desire to harm women" and tried to infect...