FDA ignores critical information on home HIV tests

The FDA is ignoring critical information in deciding whether to approve an over-the-counter, rapid HIV test for home use, according to a recent article in the journal Medical Decision Making (MDM) which is published by SAGE.

As the price of the HIV test rises, some lower-income individuals who are at greater risk for HIV infection will not be able to afford it. The FDA has been criticized because it bases its decisions on small studies performed in non-representative populations.

AIDS Spreads to Infants as Most Mothers Fail to Get Treatments - Bloomberg.com

"Drugs that prevent HIV in infants don’t get to two-thirds of infected expectant mothers, leading the virus to spread to 370,000 newborns a year, a treatment advocacy group said.

Only 33 percent of pregnant women with HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, receive antivirals, a strategy proven 15 years ago to block mother-to-child transmission of the disease, said a report released today from the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition. The group blamed governments and global health groups for poor coordination, funding gaps and valuing “wealthy women over poor,” said Stephen Lewis, founder of AIDS-Free World and co- author of the report’s preface."

Global Challenges | Vietnamese HIV/AIDS Department Announces Funding for Prevention Efforts - Kaisernetwork.org

"Vietnamese officials announced recently that about 678 billion dong, or about $38.7 million, will be allocated for HIV/AIDS prevention efforts in the country in 2009, the VNA/VietnamPlus.com reports. The announcement was made during a press briefing earlier this week held by the Department for HIV/AIDS Prevention and the Vietnam Journalists Association to review Vietnam's HIV/AIDS efforts in 2008. Health officials at the briefing said that more than 27,000 people living with HIV/AIDS received treatment through one of the 207 district-level clinics put in place last year and that about 6,000 peer educators and health workers distributed information about the disease to 53.8% of the country's districts."

SF Health News Examiner: Officials fear swine flu combined with HIV

"As the global threat from the most recent outbreak of H1N1 'swine' flu seems to have peaked, health officials remain concerned that the virus might return this fall in a far more deadly form.

So warned Dr. Margaret Chan, head of the 193-nation World Health Organization, in a recent interview with the Financial Times of London. In the interview, Dr. Chan claims that the H1N1 swine flu virus that caused the Mexico City-centered outbreak could return in the fall in a mutated form that is far more dangerous than the present version."

Tests for New H.I.V. Infection Not Widely Adopted - NYTimes.com

"In December 2008, after a weekend of sex fueled by methamphetamine, Chris, a San Francisco man in his early 30s, sought out testing for sexually transmitted diseases at Magnet, a clinic serving homosexual men in the city’s Castro neighborhood."