Four days after she graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago, in 1976, Cleo Wilson took what she assumed would be a summer job as an accounting clerk at Playboy Enterprises Inc. Having earned her English degree in her early 30s, Wilson, also a mother of two, thought she wanted to teach and planned to get he
KAMPALA, Uganda -- Eighteen years ago, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni seized this nation devastated by endless war and set about transforming it into an African success story. He privatized failing state industries and brought runaway inflation under control. He spurred Uganda s economic growth rate to a sustained 6
No one denies that sexual abstinence, or for that matter lifelong celibacy, is effective in preventing AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. There is, though, a policy debate in this country on whether the government ought to fund abstinence-only curriculums in schools, to the exclusion or
-- In rural Egypt , special program empowers girls to be students before brides DAQUF, Egypt -- The girls in this village near the languid waters of the Nile were always told they could do no better than to marry young, as early as 11, no later than 16. Shy, dark-eyed Um Kalthoum Hassan was rarely allowed to step beyon
THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS OF ETHIOPIA -- Tihun Nebiyu the goat herder doesn t want to marry. She is adamant about this. But in her village nobody heeds the opinions of headstrong little girls. That s why she s kneeling in the filigreed shade of her favorite thorn tree, dropping beetles down her dress. Magic beetles. Whe
Girls marry young in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. It s a traditional practice that international health and human rights organizations decry, because it restricts personal freedom, limits their education and leads to premature pregnancy and exposure to HIV/AIDS. Rohini, 16, an Indian teenager whose story is told
Before they become women, more than 51 million girls in developing countries become wives and mothers. As a result, they also may become victims of HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, poverty and social rejection. Growing up in her native India , Geeta Rao Gupta remembers the sight--and stench--of female beggars on the stree
-- Newly opened archival documents illuminate the private side of South Africa s political titan, revealing a prison inmate whose concerns transcended race or status JOHANNESBURG -- In the 1980s, while in jail on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela wrote a letter to the wife of one of his prison guards. In it, he said he res
In a completely selfless act of reporting, Toast of the Town attended the World of Chocolate party Thursday night, where she and about 1,000 guests gorged on a sinful array of chocolate concoctions to benefit the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. One of the partiers was a sexologist. We study sexual habits, said Rachel Ross,
Nicollette Sheridan in a towel; raunchy lyrics on the radio; violence, skin and bad language in nearly every film--it s no wonder Americans feel the entertainment industry is putting in overtime doing the devil s work. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that 70 percent of us fear that popular culture--that is,
There is, and always has been, a political role in setting priorities for what scientific research will be underwritten by government. Congress and the White House decide where the money will go, whether it s to breast cancer, AIDS or stem cell research. But those decisions need to be based on sound and unbiased inform
Q. I m a 46-year-old investor and own shares of Abbott Laboratories . What are the prospects for the company? F.M., Chicago A. This broad-based pharmaceutical firm must continually contend with new competition from generic versions of drugs, such as its Synthroid thyroid medication and Tricor cholesterol drug. It h
As AIDS increasingly assumes a female face across the world, new efforts to tackle the social conditions that make women particularly vulnerable to this epidemic are urgently needed, the United Nations top AIDS official said Tuesday. A host of ills afflicting women and girls in developing countries--from violence and a
JOHANNESBURG -- A decade after the end of apartheid, South Africa is a remarkable success story of a nation overcoming its past. But to confront the country s lingering threats--AIDS, widespread poverty, crime, racism--South Africa s government must begin encouraging public debate rather than discouraging criticism as
Managers of a now-closed South Side nursing home have agreed to pay more than $1.6 million to settle a portion of a whistle-blower lawsuit involving allegations of extreme patient abuse and Medicaid fraud. In settling the federal suit, two companies and four managers admitted no wrongdoing. Two former employees had all
-- By Alexandra Fuller. Alexandra Fuller is the author of the memoir Don t Let s Go to the Dogs Tonight, about growing up white in what is now Zimbabwe during its war for independence, and Scribbling We Are All the Same: A Story of a Boy s Courage and a Mother s Love Penguin, 243 pages, $19.95 For southern Africans
South Africa has changed in nearly every conceivable way since 1923, the year Nadine Gordimer was born there. Most of those changes--independence, the end of apartheid--have been triumphant. Others, like the scourge of AIDS, have left the country devastated, forever changing the face of Gordimer s homeland and so man
MAYWOOD -- The waiting room is about half full on this Tuesday morning when Dr. J. Paul O Keefe speeds in. So, what s going on here? the gray-haired doctor asks a group of medical residents standing in the hallway of the Maywood Primary Care Clinic. With only a few hours to see as many patients as he can, O Keefe gets
Creaking and squeaking, The Night Ministry s outreach van, an aged school bus refitted as a mobile soup kitchen, pulled up to a stretch of West 63rd Street where, on many blocks, there was more rubble than buildings. It was a hellish street scene out of some modern Dante s vision. Elevated trains rumbled overhead, the
GULU, Uganda -- After many years of marriage, Aceng Lodah s husband took a young second wife. But the girl grew gaunt and died after only a few years. Then Lodah s husband died as well. In 1996, two years after burying him, Lodah took an AIDS test and found out she, too, was infected. Now the 53-year-old, who lives
-- One man s struggle to cope with his son s self-inflicted death has prompted him to reach out to other survivors, and to call for greater understanding For more than three years, Stan Lewy has begun his days at Chicago s Montrose Beach. With black-and-tan Welsh terriers, Marco and Miles, in tow, Lewy walks along the
Bounty hunters in an HIV-prevention program for ex-convicts are sidelined by funding cuts Armed with little more than a last known address, James Duffy searched high and low for ex-convicts. Canvassing Chicago neighborhoods in his Chevy Lumina, he was often mistaken for a cop--in truth, he was an AIDS bounty hunter of
Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, which aimed to merge movement and social commentary at its Harris Theater debut Thursday, got tangled in its good intentions. The problem was not the content or style of the Chicago troupe s full-length AIDS-themed premiere. It had more to do with pacing and the choice to feature only one w
-- Surveys show many doctors are not discussing STDs with patients, and women s health may suffer as a result Much is said of patients feeling comfortable enough with their doctors to raise questions and concerns about their health care. But when it comes to discussing sexually transmitted diseases, perhaps it s the do
Walk through the door of the food pantry at 5543 N. Broadway in Chicago, and it s almost like walking into a living room. Almost. There s a coffee table, couches, armchairs, plants and a pole lamp. But that s about as far as the living room thing goes. On one wall is a David Romero mural, with tropical foliage, bananas
VATICAN CITY - Surveying the world beyond the cloistered walls of its Roman enclave, the Vatican sees much to worry about: Terrorism, war, AIDS and poverty are ravaging the lives of many of its constituents around the globe. But of all the ills afflicting the modern world, none is causing deeper concern than the rising
LONDON - In Europe and across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, President Bush s election victory produced two vastly different reactions: Some welcomed it while others expressed a sense of gloom and resignation. In France , perhaps the epicenter of European hostility to Bush, a feeling of despair was almost palpable.
For the second time in less than six months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accused Abbott Laboratories of false and misleading marketing of an AIDS drug. The FDA recently ordered Abbott to immediately stop circulating print advertisements for its drug
LONDON - It was their election too. Even though the rest of the world didn t have a say in the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, it surely had a stake in it. Newspapers from around the world dispatched their reporters to the battleground states of Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. On Tuesday night and well into
For the second time in less than six months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration accused Abbott Laboratories of false and misleading marketing of an AIDS drug. This time, the FDA told Abbott that it inflated the benefits for Kaletra , the nation s most popular proteas
Health officials have shut down a laboratory in a suburban cosmetics factory where the company was allegedly manufacturing HIV diagnostic kits without a license, using materials that were labeled as containing live samples of the deadly virus, federal and state regulators said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and
Health officials have shut down a laboratory in a suburban cosmetics factory where the company was allegedly manufacturing HIV diagnostic kits without a license, using materials that were labeled as containing live samples of the deadly virus, federal and state regulators said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and
Laurie Goering, the Tribune's Africa correspondent
Clothes and shoes are luxuries for two African boys left to struggle after their mother and father died of the disease, the Tribune s Laurie Goering writes. HA RAPHIRI, Lesotho -- Each morning, Khoali and Khoolinyane Molalili rise at 5 a.m., splash frigid water from an old plastic basin on their faces, cook a small tin
-- Some parents of teenage girls advocate their daughters abstain from sex until they get married The Facts of Life: Nearly half of U.S. teens have sexual intercourse by the time they finish high school, according to a 2003 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study. For a mother, it is difficult not to have conc
U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde, who has held onto his 6th District seat in the western suburbs for three decades, and his Democratic opponent Christine Cegelis squared off Tuesday in their only debate, a respectful discussion that contrasted his experience and influence with what she called a brighter direction. Sponsored by the
PARIS - From the ramshackle teashops of Kabul to the smart salons of Paris Left Bank, the contest between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry has become the topic of an intense global conversation. Informed by the Internet and satellite television, taxi drivers in Havana and dot-com entrepreneurs in New Delhi are as kno
The DuPage County Health Department will offer a limited supply of influenza vaccinations to county residents meeting strict eligibility guidelines at the department s four public health centers beginning Wednesday, officials announced. Only adults and children 9 and older who are in high-risk groups identified by the
There are social issues we do not like to confront in this town, and one of them is the sad state of neglected purses. But on Tuesday at the third annual Handbags & Halos luncheon, it became impossible to ignore the plight of the untold number of perfectly good purses that are locked away -- ignored and unused -- i
I have strong maternal feelings that extend far beyond my own family. I m passionate about making life better for kids. --Marci Kaminsky talked to Q about her work on the board of the Children Affected by AIDS Foundation. Kaminsky, vice president of communications at USG in Chicago, wants to get the message out that C
MASERU, Lesotho - Mpeo Mahase is a lawyer, a member of Parliament and Lesotho s assistant minister of justice. But when she wants to take out a loan, she needs her husband s permission. She also must get his approval to open a bank account, have surgery, take contraceptives or run for public office. She cannot own or i
In the wake of drug giant Merck & Co. s withdrawal of its arthritis drug Vioxx from the market, doubts are being raised about the safety of the two other approved medications in this class, Bextra and Celebrex. In an article released Oct. 7 by the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Garrett A. FitzGerald, an exper
FORT LAUDERDALE · The yellow, two-story building on the corner of Northwest Seventh Avenue and Northwest Second Street does not look like an upper crust institution. But the Pride of Fort Lauderdale Elks Lodge No. 652 is the oldest black civic organization in Broward County. It s the only place that had the well-to-do
BUENOS AIRES -- Florencia de la V may rule as la reina of Argentina s entertainment world, but please don t call her a queen. Florencia wants to get past all that, past the insults and the snickers and the fears. She wants to get past her former life as Roberto Carlos Trinidad . She wants to be
Please take out your appointment book before you read this. You might want to make some plans. Days, weeks and, in some cases, the entire month of October, have been designated as awareness initiatives. So wear the appropriate ribbons, schedule a screening, make a donation, help a friend, help a stranger, offer some ad
New therapies for cancer, AIDS and other diseases will be the target of a Northwestern University researcher who Wednesday won a federal grant worth about $4.5 million. Chad A. Mirkin, director of Northwestern s nanotechnology center, was one of nine scientists to win a Director s Pioneer Award from the National Instit
Whether stem cell research will be a determining issue in the presidential election remains to be seen. But here s a return that s already in and counted: The topic is emerging as a powerful striking point that pits scientific potential against beliefs about the beginnings of life. On the investment side, the fledgling
LOBAMBA, Swaziland - Swaziland, a tiny traditional kingdom set between South Africa and Mozambique , has the world s highest rate of HIV infection, with close to 40 percent of adults and 49 percent of adult women carrying the virus. But a new study of teen girls has turned up something remarkabl
LOBAMBA, Swaziland - As tens of thousands of maidens danced for Swaziland s royal family last month in a packed palace stadium, a group of pro-democracy activists furtively gathered in a restaurant down the road. At the traditional Reed Dance, where the kingdom s teenage girls deliver new thatching for the queen mother
Paula W. Peterson found out she had AIDS eight years ago in the months following a very happy event, the birth of her child. The 43-year-old Evanston native experienced a string of odd health problems--a long, drawn-out case of sinusitis, weight loss, fevers, headaches and a terrible fatigue. Because she is white, midd
To the incredibly tiny gold particles that doctors send to search a blood sample for signs of illness, human cells would seem as big as mountains. But the particles mission is to hunt down something more their size: prostate specific antigen, or PSA, a signal that prostate cancer may be on its way to returning--long be
On Sept. 9, 1776, the Second Continental Congress replaced the term United Colonies with United States . In 1850 California was admitted to the Union as the 31st state. In 1893 Frances Cleveland, wife of President Grover Cleveland, gave birth to a girl, Esther, the first child born to a first lady in the White House.
Jennifer Brier. Jennifer Brier is an assistant professor of gender and women's studies and history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is working on a book about AIDS and American politic
The Secret Epidemic: The Story of AIDS and Black America By Jacob Levenson Pantheon, 307 pages, $25 The Invisible People: How the United States Has Slept Through the Global AIDS Pandemic, the Greatest Humanitarian Catastrophe of Our Time By Greg Behrman Free Press, 352 pages, $25 Women in the Grove By Paula W.
MOTSHANE, Swaziland -- Dende Hlophe s little patch of land used to produce a decent corn crop. Each year the mother of three would weave grass place mats to sell at the local market, earning enough cash to pay for plowing, seed and fertilizer. Family and neighbors would help out in the fields, and by harvest time there
Ernest Sotomayor and Deborah Morris, Staff Writers
The GOP s Youth Convention was briefly interrupted this morning by at least a half dozen protesters who were promptly silenced by young Republicans shouting four more years and then hauled away by security officers. The protesters were from ACT UP, the same group that kicked off the protests leading up to the RNC with
The Chicago Women s AIDS Project s poetry-rap-theater troupe Imani Nia, a kind of HIV-prevention SWAT team, swooped into a room full of freshman and sophomore girls at John Marshall High School on the West Side one afternoon. They didn t serve up platitudes. It was gritty, real life with no sugarcoating. They talked ab
Flynn McRoberts and Jeff Zeleny, Tribune staff reporters
NEW YORK - The most divisive issue of the 2004 presidential election got a boisterous public airing Sunday as more than 100,000 marchers streamed through Midtown Manhattan in one of the nation s largest protests against the Iraq war and President Bush. Coming on the eve of the Republican National Convention, the ho
Flynn McRoberts and Jeff Zeleny, Tribune staff reporters.
NEW YORK - Madison Square Garden sits girdled in sally ports, a system of modern-day castle doors designed to foil truck bombs or other terrorist attacks. On the eve of the Republican National Convention, federal and local officials boast of fielding the nation s largest-ever show of force to secure any political gathe
Days after the new injectable face filler Sculptra won governmental approval, the anti-wrinkle crowd began calling plastic surgeons in hot pursuit of the next Botox. Sculptra, which treats a disfiguring condition known as lipoatrophy, or the loss of fat tissue under the skin, recently was rushed through the Food and Dr
Sculptra, the latest weapon against what has been called the modern scarlet letter--cheek wasting--consists of a chemical called synthetic polylactic acid that has been used in dissolvable stitches, bone screws and facial implants. But though it has been shown to increase skin thickness and add volume to facial tissue
Don t ask, don t tell: Is it prudent to disclose your legal medications to your present or prospective employer before taking a test? Absolutely not, says Lawrence Beaumont, president of Pacific Medical Co. in Tacoma, Wash. His firm conducts mobile lab unit drug screens and other testing services for employers. You cou
The day Ida W. Byther-Smith learned she was HIV positive is burned into her memory. It was the same day in November 1991 that basketball great Earvin Magic Johnson announced his HIV status to the world. Byther-Smith worked as a dialysis technician in a hospital and wanted to switch to a part-time position. The job chan
There is a silence inside Cook County s Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center that no amount of conversation can fill. It is the void left by the death of Georgie GiGi Nicks, director of patient advocacy at the center and a national crusader for those with HIV, according to colleagues and admirers. She was diagnosed with the v
J.L. King was a woman s worst nightmare. While married, he had sex with men and lied to his wife about what he was doing. His behavior broke up his marriage. It also could have been deadly, and he said that s why he has broken the silence about what he calls a taboo. In the black community, you can be anything you want
The federal government would like to distribute to states $1 billion a year to cover the costs of providing emergency care to undocumented immigrants. Illinois would receive about $10 million. Problem is that states would have to implement a burdensome and counterproductive system to determine how many illegal immigran
Confused and scared after learning he was HIV positive in 1986, Charles E. Clifton could have stayed on the sidelines of the AIDS epidemic, quietly coping out of the public eye. But Mr. Clifton refused to be a silent victim of the disease. Instead, friends and family said, the diagnosis empowered him and made him into
About 12,000 women become infected with HIV each year--30 percent of the estimated 40,000 new U.S. infections annually. But the true extent of the epidemic is not known, because data reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control comes from only 29 states. Chances are the toll is much greater. At year-end 2003, 19
Patrice Dean must cope with AIDS--and menopause. That combination is unknown territory. Dean, 49, was diagnosed with HIV eight years ago as a result of 28 years in a world of heroin, crack and prostitution. Now she s part of another subculture, the isolated world of HIV/AIDS, in which she must grapple with the virus, t
An HIV-positive man who prosecutors allege posed as a police officer to lure a 17-year-old girl off a North Side elevated train and then rape her was charged Tuesday with criminal transmission of the virus. Carlos Colon, 23, of the 5700 block of North Winthrop Avenue, knew that he was infected with the virus that cause
CHICAGO -- The Chicago Department of Public Health recently rolled out its federally funded Rapid HIV Testing Demonstration Project, under which those taking HIV tests can get their results in hours, rather the days or weeks it typically once took. The tests now are available at 15 community-based health agencies and a
So here s a thought: Since O Hare Airport is an international gateway and arts groups embarking on world tours are quite likely to be flying out of that crowded airfield, why not persuade such travelers to do a gig in Chicago before they leave? That, in essence, is how and why an intriguing show called The Glorious and
The Bush administration on Wednesday rejected an effort to force pharmaceutical companies to lower prices on medicines developed with tax dollars, a move that critics said continues an unfair monopoly for drugmakers. In its ruling, the National Institutes of Health said it would not use a little-known law to effectivel
Mickey Ciokajlo and Judith Graham, Tribune staff reporters
A political fight over the future of suburban Cook County s tuberculosis program will likely heat up Wednesday when consultants are expected to report that the disease could resurface if a little-known county agency is dissolved. Questions have swirled for years about the continuing need for the Suburban Cook County Tu
The first building in an $18 million HIV/AIDS campus opened in the North Lawndale neighborhood Tuesday, as advocates hailed the unusual gathering of residences and related services that developers believe will be the first of its kind in the nation. Scheduled for completion next spring, the West Side facility under con
HAVANA -- Cuban President Fidel Castro denied Monday recent charges by President Bush that the Cuban leader was promoting prostitution and human trafficking to bail out the country financially. Clad in his familiar olive green military fatigues, Castro called Bush s charges perfidious accusations and spent much of his
A state-funded pilot program to help educate Kane County Jail inmates about sexually transmitted diseases and offer voluntary HIV testing is drawing a small but steady response since starting in March. More than 100 inmates attended classes, and 40 were tested for HIV in the first three months of the voluntary program,
JOHANNESBURG -- In South Africa , you can drink the tap water. You also can buy a dozen types of goat cheese, sip world-class wine, cage dive with great white sharks or try on some of the hottest fashions in the world. So when the national tourism board recently surveyed foreigners about their perceptions of the count
More than 20 years after it began, the global AIDS epidemic keeps outpacing efforts to contain it, like a puzzle forever growing in size and complexity. The 2004 United Nations Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, released last week, confirms that grim reality. It shows international contributions to fight the disease a
As a matter of course, many African-American churches are attuned to the health needs of their members, providing family counseling, support groups for cancer survivors, programs on diet and exercise. I was excited to learn recently that some also are starting HIV/AIDS prevention programs. And not a moment too soon.
A controversial new national strategy to prevent AIDS is being rolled out in communities across the United States , prompting intense re-evaluation of government efforts to contain the epidemic. The strategy essentially shifts the focus of federally financed prevention from its previous target--minorities, gays and dru
Rapid tests to detect the virus that causes AIDS can be administered successfully to women in labor and contribute to dramatic reductions in the number of babies born with infections, according to a major new study conducted in Chicago and other cities. The findings--to be presented Sunday at an international AIDS conf
Nearly 5 million people across the world contracted the virus that causes AIDS in 2003, more than in any year previously recorded, according to a United Nations report released Tuesday. At the same time, almost 3 million people died of AIDS, another record, as potentially life-saving drugs remained largely unavailable
Charles Leroux, Tribune senior correspondent. Mike Conklin, Patrick T. Reardon, Charles Storch and Sid Smith in Chicago and Stevenson Swanson in New York contributed to this report
Two huge floors all for you!! Dungeons too!! That s an ad for the Power Exchange Mixed Sex Club in San Francisco, one of hundreds of such clubs from Los Angeles to Tokyo to London to Chicago. Despite their ubiquity -- just type sex clubs into Google and 3,470,000 hits come up -- these clubs exist in a world that s lar
He has the look of an uberkid, a 4-year-old version of Arnold Schwarzenegger. But to scientists, the German boy is something more: the first confirmed case of a human with a genetic mutation that removes a fundamental barrier to muscle growth, causing a markedly pumped-up body and unusual strength. Already, he has twic
As controversy swirls about him, Loyola University pathologist Michele Carbone stays focused on his research, unraveling the secrets of a rogue monkey virus. Simian virus 40, or SV-40, is a medical mystery looming at the borders of science s ability to determine the causes of cancer. It is at the center of a controvers
After rejecting rumors that he opposes abortion and pledging to restore the luster and excellence of the Cook County health care system, Dr. Daniel Winship won the unanimous endorsement of two County Board committees to run that system. The approval of the two committees, whose members constitute a majority of the boar
Amid the vast landscape of misery sown by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, Botswana stands as a potential symbol of how even a tiny country--just 1.7 million people--can begin to fight the epidemic. Approximately 40 percent of its population is infected with HIV. According to one estimate, life expectancy in the country is
When the long-running annual Heartland AIDS Ride screeched to a halt in Chicago two years ago amid controversy over soaring administrative costs, Canticle Ministries in Wheaton vowed to keep pedaling for the cause, but on a much smaller scale. I don t know that we will ever see massive AIDS rides like the Heartland aga
U.S. Rep. Danny Davis and other black Illinois congressional leaders are forging ahead to create an action plan for improving the depressing statistics that have long defined the plight of African-American males. Half of African-American males in Illinois between the ages of 20 and 24 are neither in school nor working.
Richard Apodaca recently ran his lucky No. 13 marathon, Memorial Day s Lakeshore Marathon. He says if he s lucky, he ll be back in town in October for the Chicago Marathon. And luck--along with endurance and courage--is something the 61-year-old knows plenty about. I ve had full-blown AIDS for 20 years, he said. Fo
William Neikirk and Dahleen Glanton, Tribune correspondents
SAVANNAH, Ga. -- President Bush said Thursday that NATO s role in Iraq probably would be limited to training the country s security forces because of opposition from key allies to introducing the alliance s troops to put down a bloody insurgency. Closing the Group of Eight summit, the president said it s an unreali
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration accused Abbott Laboratories Thursday of false and misleading marketing of the health risks and costs of its AIDS drug, Norvir . Abbott was warned in an agency letter that it should stop touting Norvir, in certain patient information materials, as the lowest-cost protease
To hear Abbott Laboratories tell it, the company has underpriced Norvir , its popular AIDS drug, for years. Abbott says it has gone out of its way to provide access to Norvir by providing free and reduced-cost drugs to AIDS patients worldwide. It also has frozen the price it charges government programs and h
The climate is growing chillier by the day for drugmakers in this country. Americans, particularly seniors, are increasingly restive about paying the highest drug prices in the world, as well they should be. The pharmaceutical industry s defense that such prices are necessary to fuel research and development of life-sa
Gregg M. Steinberg was named a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Council on Small Business. Steinberg is president of International Profits Associates, a Buffalo Grove-based consulting firm. Leaders Bank appointed Phil Kain senior vice president of commercial banking. Previously, he was a senior relationship manag
When Jeff Cleghorn was in the Army, he lived in fear that someone would find out he was gay. He led a double life, never talking about what he did on weekends or with whom. As a veteran, however, the retired major s actions have been anything but secretive. He lobbies Congress and writes editorials in support of gay ve
Health insurance giant Aetna Inc. decided Thursday to drop its lawsuit against Abbott Laboratories , just two days after accusing the drugmaker of violating antitrust laws in hiking the price of an AIDS drug by 400 percent. Aetna, the nation s third-largest health insurer, now intends to discuss with Abbott the basis
Baxter International Inc. said Thursday that it will pull back some promotional literature for its new blood-clotting drug after a warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Deerfield-based medical products giant said the agency was concerned that it had not displayed appropriate language about side effect
BETHESDA, Md. - Abbott Laboratories on Tuesday defended its recent 400 percent price hike on a popular AIDS drug in testimony before a government panel considering diluting the company s patent rights to make the drug cheaper. Critics of the increase asked the National Institutes of Health to use a little-known law des
Abbott Laboratories decision to quadruple the price of a widely used AIDS drug has prompted government regulators to explore whether they can force pharmaceutical companies to lower prices on drugs developed with the assistance of tax dollars. Critics of Abbott s price increase on Norv
Judith Graham and Bonnie Miller Rubin, Tribune staff reporters
Even as teenagers listen to ever raunchier song lyrics and watch racier movies, they are less likely to be having sex than teens were a dozen years ago, according to a government report released Thursday. Nationally, 53 percent of high schoolers said in 2003 that they were virgins, up from 46 percent in 1991, according
SOUTH SHORE - A Chicago woman credited with helping homeless women with HIV or AIDS has been awarded one of the nation s highest honors in community health leadership. Gwendolyn Mastin, founder of Chicago s first scattered-site housing program for homeless women infected with HIV or AIDS and their children, is one of 1
In a darkened conference room, about a dozen women gather around the table, transfixed on slides that chart breast cancer s lethal path. Still focused on the screen, the audience peppers the instructor with questions: Is it contagious? What are the lymph nodes for? Does cutting out the tumor remove all the bad cells--o
Women play an essential role in sustaining peace in Rwanda , said President Paul Kagame on a visit to Chicago last month. Kagame s visit commemorated the 10-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, in which 800,000 people were killed and nearly 100,000 children orphaned in 100 days after Hutu extremists engaged in a m
Princess Kasune Zulu didn t know why her parents died two months apart when she was 17. She was too busy taking care of her brothers, sister, cousin and grandparents to ask. And the stigma of HIV and AIDS in the southern African country of Zambia was too great. It was years later after she had married and visited hospi
Tribune foreign correspondent Kim Barker, recently on assignment in Iran
There have been some amusing scenes in Tehran s vanguard store for sexual hygiene, but so far no trouble from Iran s morals police, the Tribune s Kim Barker finds. TEHRAN -- The only condom store in Tehran is The Happiness Shop, squeezed into a cramped closetlike space of corrugated metal and concrete walls, just benea
MISSION: Honor a son MOMENT OF TRUTH: When Johnson learned her son, David, was dying of AIDS, she was overcome with sadness, but also felt relief. A burden was lifted because we were no longer going to hide the fact that he had AIDS, that he was homosexual. BACKSTORY: Johnson thought for years that her son was gay, and
It was four years ago that Jim McFarland had a date with destiny. He was chosen as one of 12 gay and lesbian Republicans from across the United States who were invited to a meeting with then-Gov. George W. Bush of Texas. At Bush s Austin campaign headquarters April 13, 2000, the guests jumped to their feet when the Tex
Once upon a time, fairy godmothers had it easy -- ethereally floating about, making things happen with an effortless wave of a wand. Not now -- at least as evidenced by a frazzled Bonnie Tunick, who rushed in late to the second annual gala for her Fairygodmother Foundation. I had to drop off the beer here at 5:45 p.m.,
Abbott Laboratories on Friday defended its pricing practices for HIV medicines in the face of protests and criticism from religious groups and AIDS activists who attended the company s annual shareholders meeting. In the U.S., Abbott has drawn criticism for raising the price of its HIV treatment
On the Down Low by author J.L. King is the book, released this month, that discusses an underground sex world where so-called straight black men engage in unprotected sex with men, then go back to their unsuspecting wives, or girlfriends, sometimes infecting them with HIV. King, who was on The Oprah Winfrey Show rece
Laurie Goering, the Tribune's Africa correspondent
Grace Makushu counts herself lucky to live in the new South Africa . She and her family own a small concrete house in Diepsloot township, their home provided by the government and equipped with electricity, water and a toilet. Her three children each get a $25-a-month government grant to help them pay school costs. Her
SAN ANTONIO - The pregnant sophomore who is due to deliver in June was absent the other day from Lelia Lockett s fourth-period health education class at John F. Kennedy High School. But the 16-year-old girl who recently took an AIDS test and the boy whose mother placed a condom in his Easter basket were both in their s
Thousands of low-income women in Illinois will get free family planning in a new program to combat unplanned pregnancies, officials said Saturday. The Illinois Healthy Women project targets more than 70,000 women who leave Medicaid each year and provides them with continued access to reproductive health care, including
JOHANNESBURG -- What s most remarkable about South Africa s 2004 election is how relatively unremarkable it is. On Wednesday, millions of South Africans who until a decade ago weren t allowed to vote will go to the polls in a national election expected to be democratic, fair and, if anything, a little dull. President T
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Africans are growing disenchanted with democratic governments that don t deliver improvements in life and are dissatisfied with their continuing poverty after two decades of economic reform, a new survey suggests. But they continue to prefer democracy to the kind of authoritarian government
Fear of discovery adds to burden: Stigma, misinformation, poverty and poor medical care cause AIDS to grow among African-Americans in the South LAMAR, S.C.--The middle-age couple living in a trailer park in this small farming community have kept a secret from their friends and neighbors for more than five years: Both a
HANGZHOU, China - On a Saturday night as the disco beat pulsated at a popular gay bar, this prosperous industrial city was set to enter the modern, cautious age of AIDS awareness due to the efforts of local health officials and visiting experts from Chicago. The first evening did not go exactly as anticipated. Whil
JOHANNESBURG -- There s not much disagreement these days that vitamin C, echinacea and other supplements help at least some people with colds. South Africa , however, faces a more pressing question: Does a combination of olive oil, lemon juice and garlic help people with AIDS? That s the contention of the country s hea
Three years after Chicago led the nation in new syphilis cases, data released Monday show that cases here have dropped 25 percent, as the numbers rose across the rest of the nation. City health officials launched an extensive public-awareness campaign in 2001, putting advertising about the disease everywhere from the e
Despite government promises of help, victims of rape in South Africa face an uphill battle to get access to anti-retroviral drugs that could keep them from contracting AIDS, a new human-rights report charges. South Africa, which has more HIV-infected people than any other country, also has the world s highest rate of r
In what may be the first verdict of its kind, a Cook County jury awarded $2 million Tuesday to a woman who sued her fiance s parents for allegedly covering up that he was dying of AIDS. The woman, known only as Jane Doe, was infected through unprotected sex with her fiance, Albert Dilling, in August 1996, according to
Angela O Neill has made of a career out of caring. As regional director for the Horn of Africa at Concern Worldwide, a humanitarian agency based in Dublin, she is responsible for managing relief and long-term development programs in Ethiopia , Eritrea , Sudan ,
Laboratories to protest the company s huge price hike on an important HIV medicine. Abbott s decision in December to raise the price of the drug Norvir , a key component of many AIDS-fighting cocktails, has generated a never-before-seen level of outrage among physicians, said Dr. Benjamin Young, an HIV specialist at
With nearly 2 million children orphaned in Uganda by AIDS, Mamie Smith is certain the 21 young musicians from that country can deliver a powerful message when they perform in Evanston this weekend. I think society as a whole knows that AIDS is entwined in our fabric now, said Smith, manager of Evanston s Fleetwood-Jour
Prosecutors in Illinois and New York are investigating Abbott Laboratories 400 percent price hike on a well known AIDS medicine, probing whether the December increase violated antitrust law. Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan s office confirmed it has opened an investigation into whether the North Chicago-based drugmaker
WASHINGTON -- There are people out there who need our help, President Bush said in his State of the Union address last week, and he proceeded to promise it to them. In large bundles. His promises seemed to open up the coffers of government like a pinata: $15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean, a new opti
Paul Singer, Washington Bureau. Naftali Bendavid of the Tribune's Washington Bureau contributed to this report
WASHINGTON -- Even as President Bush declared he would seek a 10 percent budget increase for homeland security next year, Congress overcame objections by members of both parties Thursday and passed a massive, overdue spending bill that includes billions of dollars for individual districts and dozens of controversial ch
OAKLAND -- When Stacie Traylor opened a medical marijuana dispensary in a vacant art-deco floral store four years ago, it stood among only a few. Now the gritty downtown quarter is a major hub, with as many as a dozen pot clubs surrounding Telegraph Avenue, and Traylor is upset at the notoriety that has come to the cit
MISSION: Fight AIDS segregation MOMENT OF TRUTH: As director of an AIDS advocacy ministry in Wheaton, Ogilvie handles a lot of requests--for information, for care, for money. But a recent request, from a Kenyan pastor visiting the Chicago area, was different. Jackson Wanalo and his wife had lost three of their adult ch
SEATTLE -- Wearing towels around their waists, men stroll through the Club Z and Club Seattle bathhouses to hang out in a spalike atmosphere, watch X-rated movies and have sex with other men. In this intensely social, sexual atmosphere, with music blaring and condoms freely available, patrons also can get life-and-deat
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