RIO DE JANEIRO -- For Antonio Carmona, finding out he had AIDS was just the start of an uphill physical, emotional and financial battle to survive. The physical and emotional battle he expected, but it was the financial toll that in some ways was immediately the most devastating. Only months after finding out he had th
ILLINOIS -- A leading health-policy expert says the government should no longer compel HIV-infected doctors to tell patients about their disease, reopening a debate that raged a decade ago after a woman contracted AIDS from her Florida dentist. Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University Law Center said the current rules
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA -- A statewide organization that provides financial help to people with HIV and AIDS has mismanaged hundreds of thousands of dollars, causing some doctors and pharmacies to cut off services to the sick. AIDServe Indiana helps about 800 of the more than 5,000 people with AIDS or HIV across the stat
Chicago AIDS activists recall the days, not so long ago, when the goal of their annual fundraising walk was publicity for the often-misunderstood epidemic. But with headlines now bearing news of medical breakthroughs and declining death rates, organizers of Sunday s AIDS Walk Chicago had to focus on a new target: compl
Abbott Laboratories new AIDS drug, which received approval from the government last week, may give the company s beleaguered pharmaceutical division a boost, analysts and others say. In a head-to-head comparison with a leading rival, Abbott s Kaletra proved effective in more patients than
ODESSA, Ukraine -- Based on the retelling of Kristina Ivanova s short and wrenchingly unhappy life, the infant never had a chance. The doctors who watched her die in Odessa would say otherwise. Kristina s hope, doctors say, lay in anti-AIDS drugs never administered nor available, because they cost too much. Ukraine
One of George W. Bush s favorite slogans is No child left behind, and the Republican national convention has set aside many hours to catalog his devotion to kids. Al Gore has a slew of proposals on education and health care that, we are told, will greatly improve the lot of children. But when it comes to AIDS, the two
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- For all their misfortune, the 34 orphans living at Rainbow House are the lucky ones. They have lost one or both parents to the AIDS epidemic in Haiti, and 28 of the children, from infants to 6 years old, have tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS. More than an orphanage, Rainbow Hous
DURBAN, South Africa -- South Africa faces a public health menace so deadly that it threatens to destroy our families, economy and political stability within 10 years. Nearly 1,600 South Africans become infected with HIV each day. Life expectancy in some parts of South Africa has fallen from 65 years to 56 years--and c
When it comes to Africa, the already staggering statistics of the AIDS pandemic only look more desperate. The United Nations issued a report last week predicting that about half the 15-year-olds in the African countries hardest hit by HIV/AIDS eventually will die of the disease. The report by the UN joint program on HI
There are times when leaders must show the courage of their convictions. But in the case of South African President Thabo Mbeki, the consequences of his maverick convictions regarding the AIDS pandemic, and how to handle it, could well be a matter of life and death. Mbeki, who succeeded Nelson Mandela as president last
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton welcomed South African President Thabo Mbeki for a state visit Monday, and the two meticulously avoided the furor Mbeki has created by challenging Western physicians basic understanding of AIDS even as the disease ravages his country. Mbeki has been consulting with a small group of dissi
America has waged rhetorical wars on so many fronts, from poverty to drug abuse, that it s easy to miss the significance when the defense sector actually turns its awesome attention to a non-military threat. Yet there s little doubt that the AIDS epidemic has the potential to become more than a global catastrophe in pu
The 35-member guest list for South Africa President Thabo Mbeki s meeting this weekend in Pretoria has world-recognized experts on AIDS seated at the same table as the medical establishment s equivalent of Holocaust deniers--researchers who don t believe that AIDS exists. The inclusion of AIDS dissidents is designed to
JOHANNESBURG -- South Africa lurched into another AIDS controversy this week with the announcement that about half of the scientists invited to join a national AIDS advisory panel are so-called dissident researchers who dispute the conventional explanations for the origin of the disease. The panel, set up by Presid
She stood in the midst of a former dump in a dry South African terrain, a group of starving children surrounding her. Just feet away were the children s makeshift shanties, made of cardboard, scrap wood and tiny pieces of metal. Before long, the South African children began tugging on her pant leg, smiling as they look
JOHANNESBURG -- When David Rasnick, an obscure California biochemist, answered his cell phone recently, he scarcely could have imagined that the call would touch off the world s latest--and perhaps most bizarre--controversy over the nature of AIDS. A voice came on the line and said it was Thabo Mbeki, Rasnick recalled,
The announcement this week that a common, inexpensive antibiotic can prolong life for AIDS victims is much more stopgap than breakthrough. Though the treatment promises much-needed relief from suffering for many of the 23 million HIV-infected individuals in Africa, where more effective and expensive treatments are out
On a Lake County campus this winter, a small group of first-year students is beginning a weekly seminar about the nature of their sexuality. Over the next three years, they will study the psychology and physiology of sexuality, traditions for healthy living, guidelines for personal relationships and professional ethics
In the midst of a growing controversy over possible misuse of funds at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Tribune has learned that the chief of the agency s HIV vaccine unit last year helped funnel millions of dollars for research being done for a company where he accepted a high-level job just months
SAN FRANCISCO -- As researchers on Tuesday officially presented the details of a study that pushes back the origin of the AIDS pandemic to around 1930, their results gave new ammunition to an obscure yet often emotional scientific dispute over recent claims that the virus first entered humans during tests of an early o
In a finding that could help vaccine researchers anticipate future changes in the virus that causes AIDS, scientists now believe the global pandemic took root in central west Africa roughly around 1930, decades earlier than many experts had thought. The new estimate, calculated by a team that includes Northwestern Univ
When Robert Williams learned he was HIV-positive six years ago, he was crushed and afraid. But he said that trying to keep his health coverage--and even his job--has been as difficult as fighting the virus itself. Williams, a volleyball coordinator at the McGaw YMCA in Evanston, charges the organization discriminated a
In an unprecedented nod to the depths of Africa s health crisis, the United Nations Security Council on Monday focused on how the continent s grim AIDS epidemic is becoming a threat to regional peace. Vice President Al Gore, the health ministers of several African nations and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned the
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- He was a wealthy, popular pediatrician of the year, who loved to throw parties, wear expensive clothes and travel in elite social circles. Today, Dr. Thomas Terry Jefferson, 53, is broke, divorced, shunned by family and friends and unable to work as a pediatrician. He is HIV-positive. Jefferson, wh
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