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HPV vaccine can prevent genital warts in men

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A small antibody fragment that is highly effective in neutralizing the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by preventing the virus from entering cells has been identified by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This finding may provide insight into the development of new treatments against HIV and other viruses, hopefully in the not too distant future. The study appears online Oct. 20, 2008, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

National Institutes of Health (NIH)  

New CDC/HHS rule on HIV as communicable disease in immigration:

You recall on Sept 30, Dept of Homeland Security reached its unfortunate decision on visa waivers for HIV positive individuals, rejecting most of the overwhelming comments it received and maintaining its burdensome and discriminatory visa policy. DHS justified the action in part by saying this "interim measure" awaits HHS' removing HIV soon from the list of communicable diseases for purposes of immigration. On Oct 6 in the Washington Post CDC director Julie Gerberding defended that view. However, on the very same day, Oct 6, HHS/CDC published the attached interim and proposed rule revising the list of communicable diseases with time for comment- reiterating that HIV is an important part of the list and remaining so. The Oct 6 rule revises requirements to add other diseases to the list of communicable diseases as grounds for inadmissibility. It makes no nod to the issue of removing HIV from the list despite the rationale it uses that the current regulations "are outdated' and "no longer in keeping with current medical knowledge." It repeats that it supports all diseases on the list, including HIV, because of its view of risks to the population and costs. Although this rule is not the promised proposal to remove HIV that CDC has stated it intends to consider, it is still another kick in the shins of failing to do more than just talk. Comments on this interim rule allowed till December 5.

Text of the interim rule

Study traces AIDS virus origin to 100 years ago

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Wed Oct 1, 3:35 PM ET

NEW YORK - The AIDS virus has been circulating among people for about 100 years, decades longer than scientists had thought, a new study suggests. Genetic analysis pushes the estimated origin of HIV back to between 1884 and 1924, with a more focused estimate at 1908.

Previously, scientists had estimated the origin at around 1930. AIDS wasn't recognized formally until 1981 when it got the attention of public health officials in the United States.

The new result is "not a monumental shift, but it means the virus was circulating under our radar even longer than we knew," says Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona, an author of the new work.

The results appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Researchers note that the newly calculated dates fall during the rise of cities in Africa, and they suggest urban development may have promoted HIV's initial establishment and early spread.

Scientists say HIV descended from a chimpanzee virus that jumped to humans in Africa, probably when people butchered chimps. Many individuals were probably infected that way, but so few other people caught the virus that it failed to get a lasting foothold, researchers say.

But the growth of African cities may have changed that by putting lots of people close together and promoting prostitution, Worobey suggested. "Cities are kind of ideal for a virus like HIV," providing more chances for infected people to pass the virus to others, he said.

Perhaps a person infected with the AIDS virus in a rural area went to what is now Kinshasa, Congo, "and now you've got the spark arriving in the tinderbox," Worobey said.

Key to the new work was the discovery of an HIV sample that had been taken from a woman in Kinshasa in 1960. It was only the second such sample to be found from before 1976; the other was from 1959, also from Kinshasa.

Researchers took advantage of the fact that HIV mutates rapidly. So two strains from a common ancestor quickly become less and less alike in their genetic material over time. That allows scientists to "run the clock backward" by calculating how long it would take for various strains to become as different as they are observed to be. That would indicate when they both sprang from their most recent common ancestor.

The new work used genetic data from the two old HIV samples plus more than 100 modern samples to create a family tree going back to these samples' last common ancestor. Researchers got various answers under various approaches for when that ancestor virus appeared, but the 1884-to-1924 bracket is probably the most reliable, Worobey said.

The new work is "clearly an improvement" over the previous estimate of around 1930, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md. His institute helped pay for the work.

Fauci described the advance as "a fine-tuning."

Experts say it's no surprise that HIV circulated in humans for about 70 years before being recognized. An infection usually takes years to produce obvious symptoms, a lag that can mask the role of the virus, and it would have infected relatively few Africans early in its spread, they said.

HIV Incidence

New technology and methodology developed by CDC show that the incidence of HIV in the United States is higher than was previously known. However, the incidence has been stable at that higher level for most of this decade. HIV incidence is the number of new HIV infections occurring during a certain time period, in this case, the year 2006.

HIV Incidence in the US

GMHC Statement on the President’s signing of PEPFAR and the lift of the HIV entry ban:

For Immediate Release                                   Contact:            Krishna Stone, 212-367-1016

July 30, 2008

PRESIDENT BUSH LIFTS HIV ENTRY BAN 

Targets Global HIV Prevention towards Gay and Bisexual men

New York—Today President Bush signed into law a five-year authorization of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) that lifts the 15 year-old HIV entry ban and targets prevention towards men who have sex with men (MSM).  The legislation authorizes $48 billion to be spent on foreign AIDS relief over the next five years.  Since 2003, PEPFAR has provided HIV medications to nearly two million people, mostly in Africa. 

Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) applauds Congress and the President for approvals of two specific provisions within PEPFAR.  The legislation removes the statutory ban on HIV-positive non-citizens gaining immigration status and travel visas originally proposed by the late Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and codified into law in 1993.  The U.S. was one among only 13 countries to ban short-term HIV-positive visitors.  Until the final call to pass the bill, conservative policymakers threatened to propose amendments to strike the language that lifts the ban. The decision to completely remove the ban now rests within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as HIV remains on a list of “communicable diseases of public health significance.”

“Today the United States rejoined the civilized world, at least on this aspect of immigration policy,” said Marjorie J. Hill, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Gay Men’s Health Crisis. “We thank President Bush and Congress, and especially Senators Kerry, Smith and Congresswoman Lee, for their leadership. We call on HHS Secretary Leavitt to remove the remaining regulatory barriers that prevent people living with HIV from entering the United States.”

GMHC has been pushing to overturn the statutory ban for more than a decade.  Recently, GMHC convened the Coalition to Lift the Bar and worked closely with Immigration Equality, AIDS Action Council, Human Rights Campaign and other groups to repeal the HIV entry ban.

PEPFAR now includes provisions that require recipient countries to conduct HIV-prevention programs for gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM), and report to the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator on progress with this implementation. 

This unprecedented requirement will require address health disparities of MSM in countries, many of which have anti-gay laws and cultural practices.  GMHC, along with AIDS Project Los Angeles and other groups, led the fight for the MSM provisions. 

“The passage of PEPFAR is a significant contribution in the global fight against AIDS. It will provide treatment to millions of impoverished HIV-positive children and families across the globe,” said Dr. Hill.  “Where this legislation fails is in the realm of HIV prevention.”  

The requirement remains that countries must spend 50 percent of their prevention funding on unproven abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.  Or they undergo burdensome reporting to justify their programmatic decisions which could lead to possible defunding.  The legislation fails to support integration between family planning services and HIV prevention/treatment programs for vulnerable populations—women and youth.  Lastly, countries still have to oppose commercial sex work before receiving funding.  Yet many prevention programs for sex workers around the world have proven to dramatically reduce HIV infection.

“Abstinence-only-until-marriage has been an abject failure in the U.S. and it is undercutting the local, effective prevention efforts in Africa and elsewhere,” added Dr. Hill.

###

Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) is a not-for-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based organization committed to national leadership in the fight against AIDS. We provide services and programs to over 15,000 men, women and families that are living with or affected by HIV/AIDS in New York City, and outreach and education to hundreds of thousands throughout the world.

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, July 22

Contact:      

Julie Davids, jdavids@champnetwork.org, 646-431-7525

Walt Senterfitt, wsenterfit@aol.com, 323-683-0490

Kenyon Farrow, kenyon@q4ej.org, 917.627.0853

U.S Presidential Candidates to Face Scrutiny During International AIDS Conference As CDC Releases Figures Showing Higher HIV Rates

AIDS community activists demand that McCain, Obama denounce Bush failures, including lack of a national AIDS strategy; cuts in HIV spending; and promotion of ineffective, biased policies like abstinence-only programs

Tuesday, July 29, 2008: 1 – 2 pm EST

PRESS TELECONFERENCE:

Phone Number: 1-866-740-1260 Passcode 8220715#

On August 3 at the International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Mexico City, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will finally release long-awaited revised incidence numbers, revealing that the number of new cases in 2006 was not 40,000, but as high as 55,000. This troubling news strengthens the resolve of AIDS activists who are demanding that Senators McCain and Obama speak out against regressive HIV prevention policies.

The IAC, the largest conference on HIV/AIDS in the world, will happen in the absence of key CDC researchers, NIH scientists and government public health officials, due to a travel ban instigated by Senator Tom Coburn (R, OK), who replaced the late Jesse Helms as a leading force of anti-gay and wrongheaded HIV/AIDS policies in the Senate. Sen. McCain has referred to Coburn as the person whose advice he seeks on HIV/AIDS issues, and Sen. Obama has cited his work with Coburn as an example of cross-party collaboration.

Sen. Coburn also seeks to put warning labels on condoms, is a leading force in the gag rule blocking international U.S.-funded programs from effective prevention efforts with sex workers, and is responsible for ensuring that the recently reauthorized global AIDS bill (PEPFAR) includes ideological barriers to effective HIV prevention and funding limitations that will reduce the number of people with HIV accessing lifesaving treatment.

Shortly after the conference, the candidates will both present at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in their first post-primary co-appearance. Rev. Warren and his wife Kay have encouraged churches to get involved with HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, but have embraced anti-gay clergy (for example, the steering committee chair of their massive Rwandan project is Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini, the Anglican leader who has called on churches in the East African region to fight against homosexuality for the “good of the society,” and have been largely disengaged from the U.S epidemic, in which most cases are in gay men, with the highest rates in Black gay men.

 “Those at the front line of HIV/AIDS in the United States include people of faith of all sexual orientations who oppose the inaccurate abstinence-only programs that have persisted even in a Democratic-led Congress, and who understand the need for honest, accurate HIV prevention for all people, including gay men, sex workers and youth,” said Julie Davids, Executive Director of the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP).

“Now that we are confirming what we’ve long suspected – HIV rates in the US are higher than previous government statistics indicated -- we look to the presidential candidates to use the International AIDS Conference and the Saddleback Church platform to repudiate the policies of President Bush and Senator Coburn, and to show the political leadership we need for a strong national AIDS strategy in which science and justice will trump ideology and bias.”

Press teleconference to feature prominent advocates living with HIV and other policy experts; speakers available for interviews in advance. Issues to be covered include:

New Numbers on HIV in the US Are Neither Pretty nor Petty: Understanding the Implications of the Incidence Estimate: For years, there has been data showing the rise of HIV infection rates in key communities, most dramatically in Black gay men. Now, CDC is releasing data verifying that the long-held estimate of 40,000 new infections a year is not accurate, according to a sophisticated sampling procedure with thousands of HIV test results from more than 20 states. How much can we glean from one year of the new estimate? What are the other data to be discussed in Mexico City that will shed light on HIV/AIDS incidence in the United States? And how could structural interventions confront incidence by tackling underlying causes of racial disparities and high rates in gay men, such as poverty, mass imprisonment, and overlapping epidemics of violence and marginalization in gay men’s lives?

A Look at the Candidates on HIV/AIDS:  What do the statements, candidate poll responses and congressional actions indicate about how McCain or Obama would view his mandate as leader of the nation that is both the largest investor in HIV/AIDS global programs and home to one of the world’s most pervasive AIDS epidemics in our gay, Black and Latino/a communities? Among other AIDS promises, Obama has pledged to institute a National AIDS Strategy to mirror what we require from PEPFAR recipients, but has remained largely mute on domestic AIDS in the news, on the stump and the web. McCain has not released an HIV/AIDS platform and has publicly deferred to Sen. Coburn on AIDS issues.

Who Won’t Be at the International AIDS Conference – and Why it Matters: Next week’s conference will lack high-ranking U.S. politicians as well as hundreds of NIH, CDC and HHS scientist and policy-makers whose work is integral to the struggle against HIV/AIDS. What are the implications of this intellectual ban, how does it reflect larger Bush-era restrictions on objectivity and science, and what should the next President do about it?

Why the Candidates Must Speak Against Sen. Coburn’s Bush-Era Crusade Against Effective HIV/AIDS Policies: Senator Coburn’s shock-fest “Revenge of the STDs” slide show inflicted on Congressional staff and interns would be laughable if it were not for his undue influence on real-world public health policies. His recent actions to restrict PEPFAR will lead to more infections and less people on treatment, and his intellectual ban on the International AIDS Conference hampers key dialogue to move forward collaboration against the epidemic. What are the concerns of AIDS advocates who see presidential candidates referring to him as an expert on HIV/AIDS or as an example of cross-the-aisle congressional deal-making?

# # #

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  July 16, 2008

U.S. Senate Approves Repeal of Discriminatory HIV Travel and Immigration Ban

Human Rights Campaign praises Senate for supporting repeal of draconian policy

WASHINGTON - The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, praised the U.S. Senate today for approving the repeal of our nation's discriminatory law barring HIV-positive visitors and immigrants.  Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) secured a provision to repeal this ban in the Senate's legislation to reauthorize PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.  The PEPFAR bill passed the Senate today with the Kerry-Smith provision by a vote of 80 to 16 and now moves to conference committee before being sent to the President.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) had introduced an amendment to strike the Kerry-Smith provision from the PEFPAR bill.  However, the efforts of Senators Kerry and Smith in addition to robust advocacy from HRC and our coalition partners secured enough opposition to the Sessions amendment that the Senator agreed not to bring it forward for a vote.

"We applaud the Senate for rejecting this unjust and sweeping policy that deems HIV-positive individuals inadmissible to the United States," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.  "We call on the leaders of the House and Senate to retain the Kerry-Smith provision in conference and ensure it is included in the final legislation sent to the President's desk."

"The HIV ban is ineffective, unnecessary, and simply bad public health policy," said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality.  "It is especially harmful to gay and lesbian families, who do not benefit from the waiver available to opposite-sex couples.  The Senate's change is welcome, and long overdue."

HRC has been a lead organization lobbying on Capitol Hill for the repeal.  The Human Rights Campaign has worked closely with the offices of Sens. John Kerry and Gordon Smith, as well as Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), the sponsor of an effort to repeal the ban in the House of Representatives.  Both Sen. Kerry and Rep. Lee participated in a national media conference call held by HRC in March.  In addition to action alerts urging members to contact their Senators, HRC and Immigration Equality drafted a coalition letter on behalf of more than 165 organizations in support of the Kerry-Smith provision in the PEPFAR bill, and has directly lobbied numerous Senate offices on the repeal measure.

In December of 2007, Senators Kerry and Smith introduced legislation, the HIV Non-Discrimination in Travel and Immigration Act (S. 2486), to repeal the ban.  In the House, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced similar the legislation, H.R. 3337, in August 2007.  The travel and immigration ban prohibits HIV-positive foreign nationals from entering the U.S. unless they obtain a special waiver, which can only allow for short-term travel.  Current policy also prevents the vast majority of foreign nationals with HIV from obtaining legal permanent residency in the United States.

The ban originated in 1987, and explicitly codified by Congress in 1993, despite efforts in the public health community to remove the ban when Congress reformed U.S. immigration law in the early 1990s.  While immigration law currently excludes foreigners with any "communicable disease of public health significance" from entering the U.S., only HIV is explicitly named in the statute.  For all other illnesses, the Secretary of Health and Human Services retains the ability, with the medical expertise of his department, to determine which illnesses truly pose a risk to public health.

The Human Rights Campaign is America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against GLBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

 Gays excluded from HIV work in Uganda

By Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk • June 2, 2008 - 13:41