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...

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...

Restaurant Owner Kicks Out 'Don't Say Gay' Senator

Evann Gastaldo — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:00:05 CST

Martha Boggs is being touted as a hero after kicking Tennessee GOP state Sen. Stacey Campfield out of her Knoxville restaurant last weekend. Campfield is the controversial author of the state's "Don't Say Gay" bill , and he got even more controversial in a recent interview during which he said, among...

Tenn. Pol: AIDS Came From Gay Guy Having Monkey Sex

Kate Schwartz — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:42:56 CST

The Tennessee lawmaker behind the "Don't Say Gay" bill that cleared the state Senate earlier this year is getting a lot of attention for comments he made in defense of the legislation. And it's not good attention. In a SiriusXM interview with Michelangelo Signorile published on the Huffington Post , state...

LA Council Backs Law Requiring Condoms in Porn

Rob Quinn — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:38:50 CST

No condom might equal no sex for the nation's biggest porn industry. The Los Angeles City Council has given preliminary approval to a law requiring porn actors to practice safe sex during filming, the Los Angeles Times reports. The measure, which passed 11-1, will return for final approval next week....

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...

New AIDS Cases Hit Plateau: UN

Matt Cantor — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:30:36 CST

New cases of AIDS have held steady over the past five years at 2.7 million per year—but only about half of those newly infected people are seeking treatment, the United Nations’ AIDS agency says. About 1.35 million people, or one for every two new cases, started treatment...

Contraceptive Shot May Double HIV Risk

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:39:22 CDT

Alarming new research out of eastern and southern Africa, where both unplanned pregnancies and AIDS wreak havoc: The most popular contraceptive used by women there appears to double their risk of contracting HIV—and if a woman already has HIV, it doubles her risk of transmitting it to her partner...

Scientists Find Trick to 'Disarm' HIV

Kevin Spak — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:42:07 CDT

A group of US and European scientists have discovered a way to prevent the HIV virus from harming the immune system, in a breakthrough that could lead to an entirely new approach to fighting AIDS. They discovered that by extracting cholesterol, they could render the virus a sitting duck for...