Overdue Update
Merry Christmas everyone!
Sorry for the lack of updates lately. The holidays are in full swing, and this is my first chance to even think about blogging in days. As you can imagine, there's quite a backlog of AIDS news, so I shall do my best to put it out there.
Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that a 2002 study on the AIDS drug nevirapine had violated federal safety rules and produced drug resistance in mothers and newborns. Unfortunately, this report was misinterpreted by authorities in Africa, who took the report as meaning that nevirapine was an unsafe or inaffective drug. Making matters worse, it has also been reported that the director of the NIH's AIDS division re-wrote a report on nevirapine and deleted negative information. Unfortunately this seems to be a case of politics and sloppy science standing in the way of the fight against AIDS. Africa as a whole is extremely wary of American motives, policies, and actions, and when a situation such as this one becomes evident, it sets up a tremendous potential for setbacks.
The music community was stunned to learn that Andy Bell, lead singer of the UK band Erasure, is HIV positive. The group still plans on releasing a new album in January, and going on tour. The silver lining to this story is that Bell plans to begin an HIV education campaign targeting young people. I doubt this admission will be as effective as Magic Johnson's disclosure of his own HIV status, but I'm confident that Bell's voice will add weight to current HIV education efforts in the UK. Bell is openly gay, and his partner of twenty years, Paul Hickey, has also tested positive.
A new BBC documentary has accused the New York City Administration for Childrens' Services (ACS) of forcing HIV positive children under its protection to participate in drug trials. The filmmakers' accusations would place ACS in violation of federal law prohibiting certain use of foster children in experiments. Glaxo SmithKline has been accused of taking advantage of the situation, but denies any wrongdoing.
For some good news, Ugandan Public Servants will be given free access to AIDS drugs. This should have numerous benefits, including increasing the productivity of these workers, making it more appealing for these workers to get tested for AIDS, and reducing the job turnover rate due to sickness and death. Hopefully other governments will follow Uganda's example.
Stay Safe
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 | yeah..
 mercury1975
2004-12-24 00:44
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I read about Andy a while back.
Being the HUGE ERASURE FAN that I am (I have EVERY SINGLE ALBUM, SINGLE, BOX SET EVER RELEASED), I visit www.erasureinfo.com ALL the time. From what I am understanding he's known since I think '98 or so and just know decided to go public with it. Not that you can really blame him because while there is more tolerance today than there was in even 1998 people, the press in general, have a horrible ability to take something and twist it and make a lot more out of it than what's really there. Next thing you know we will be hearing how he was shooting up heroine in a dirty bathroom in a fag bar whilst getting fucked up the ass by two black men at one time and the needle fell on the floor and he just picked it up and used it without cleaning it in bleach first. .. ya know what I mean...
I do think there needs to be A LOT more education for the youth all over the world about this though. It's widespread, it's not going away. We can teach, in school, how there used to be men that thought they were better than someone because of their skin color, yet we can't teach kids how to have safe sex and not fuck up their lives, something isn't right here. heh, but who am I to sit here and preach.
Also, Erasure is going to be in Houston in May 2005! Who's going is this fag. YAY! And their new album, NIGHTBIRD, is actually KICK ASS! It's WAY better than their last two albums. They have gone back to their roots and started making the music that garnered them so much attention. For that, I am thankful!
See ya later J
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