Indiana man with HIV faces additional charges

by Associated Press
Posted on March 16, 2010
******

FRANKLIN, Ind. (AP) -- A suburban Indianapolis man who failed to warn sexual partners that he has HIV now faces more felony charges.

Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper on Tuesday filed 15 additional charges against 47-year-old Tony Perkins, who used a dating site to meet women after being diagnosed with HIV six years ago.
The Greenwood man already faces up to six years in prison after pleading guilty last month to two counts of failure to warn partners. Cooper says the new counts represent 15 of 24 additional women who have come forward since February.

Police say nine women chose to remain anonymous, so no charges were filed on their behalves.
Cooper says none of the victims has tested positive for HIV so far.
Perkins is jailed without bond.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) http://www.whas11.com/news/Indiana-man-with-HIV-faces-additional-charges-87843867.html

Finances sank HIV vaccine facility bid

'No one is hiding anything,' Aglukkaq tells House committee
 Tuesday, March 16, 2010 | 4:03 PM ET 
CBC News

The decision not to build a planned multimillion-dollar HIV vaccine manufacturing facility in Canada was based on finances, not politics, the country's chief public health officer says.
Dr. David Butler-Jones and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq both spoke Tuesday to the Commons health committee.

In February, the Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed that a facility to make HIV vaccines used by researchers worldwide in clinical trials wouldn't be built in Canada. The facility would have been the main project in the $111-million Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative, a venture between Canada and the Gates Foundation that was announced three years ago.
In the February announcement, the agency said a study commissioned by the foundation concluded there was enough vaccine manufacturing capacity worldwide to meet research needs.
The four bids came from corporations and universities in Winnipeg, Peterborough, Ont., London, Ont., and Quebec City.

On Tuesday, Butler-Jones told MPs that peer reviewers ranked the four bids internally on scientific merit to advise the department. But none of the bids met key criteria of sustainability or financial capacity to continue, Butler-Jones said.
"There was a fair and open process," Butler-Jones said in response to questions to the minister on the review process from NDP health critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis. "You suggest somehow I would alter that. That's untrue," he said.

"No one is hiding anything," agreed Aglukkaq.

Gates and others in the field recognized that the research capacity issue was addressed in the past 18 months, which wasn't the case two or three years ago when the bidding process began, Butler-Jones said.

Both Butler-Jones and Aglukkaq said funding earmarked for the facility is still going to the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative. The federal government and the Gates Foundation are discussing how the money will be used.

Isotope costs

Bidders had spent up to $2 million, including $750,000 by Winnipeg, opposition MPs said.
Aglukkaq also answered questions about the shortage of medical isotopes. The price of available isotopes has gone up, and the world's two biggest isotope producers, Canada and the Netherlands, have taken their reactors offline.

The Dutch reactor will be shut down for six months and Canada's reactor in Chalk River, Ont., is not expected to be running until the end of May.

Aglukkaq said she has "committed to having discussions" with provinces and territories about the extra overtime costs they've faced in paying health-care workers mitigating the isotope shortage by working on evenings and weekends.

Liberal health critic Carolyn Bennett said the government should just go ahead and agree to pay the bill.

"Once you get the numbers from them, minister, will you be able to reimburse them for the money they've had to spend in hospitals and clinics because there have been no isotopes?" Bennett asked.
Aglukkaq replied that she has not received cost information from provinces and would not speculate on if they will be reimbursed.

The government is trying to help ease the shortage by turning to isotopes now being made at a refurbished reactor in Poland.

"We have expedited the reviews for submissions to increase the supply in Canada," Aglukkaq said.
Conservatives will also reintroduce bill C-6, a proposed consumer product safety bill that aims to modernize Health Canada's response to protect children from injury such as the power to search for, seize and recall dangerous consumer products. Aglukkaq gave the example of recalling cribs for amputation risk.

Before Parliament prorogued, Liberal senators tried to alter the bill in December with amendments to protect entrepreneurs and homeowners from its search-and-seizure provisions.


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/03/16/hiv-vaccine-isotopes-aglukkaq-butler-jones.html?ref=rss#ixzz0iNOtRaAp

Help millions of young adults/children cope psychologically, emotionally and physically who live with or have lost their moth...

The Somwa Foundation

Hundreds of thousands of children across the world lose their mother to AIDS, or is the primary caregiver for their family do to their mother living with HIV. The Somwa Foundation primary focus is to act as a breath of fresh air for the entire family. If we do not take care of HIV positive women children, the system will. http://www.thesomwafoundation.com/home.html

Mississippi Department of Corrections to end segregation of HIV inmates

The Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. -- Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps says the Mississippi prison system will end the practice of keeping male HIV-positive inmates in segregated units.

Starting in May, Epps says male HIV-positive inmates will be allowed into general prison population. Epps said he plans to gradually implement the policy while moving 152 prisoners housed at the state penitentiary at Parchman to prisons throughout the system.

The ACLU brought suit against the state in 1990 on behalf of HIV-positive prisoners housed at Parchman to force the state to provide proper medical care.
In 2005, U.S. Magistrate Jerry Davis ruled Mississippi Department of Corrections had addressed problems with prisoner conditions, ending the suit.

Epps told The Clarion-Ledger he would have ended segregation of the prisoners then, but the ACLU asked they be kept separate.

"The ACLU asked us not to (move the prisoners) because they were concerned about the inmates going out into general population as it relates to their safety," Epps said. "After they contacted me and asked me about it, I said, 'Well, this would have been done if you hadn't asked me not to do it.'"
ACLU spokesman Will Matthews said the organization initially was concerned prisoners held in the unit would be ostracized and subject to possible violence if they were introduced into the general population.

Epps said female HIV-positive inmates already are housed among the general population. A small number of HIV-positive male inmates are serving their time in low-security community correctional facilities, he said.

Epps said MDOC has 258 male and female inmates with HIV or AIDS.
He said there are 5,621 inmates with medical conditions ranging from failing kidneys to heart disease.
"Those are some staggering numbers for a population of 21,000 people," he said.
Information from: The Clarion-Ledger.

Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2010/03/17/1204778/mdoc-to-end-segregation-of-hiv.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#ixzz0iXr7ot1M

Annie Lennox trying to get world to see changing face of AIDS. On CNN Christiane Amanpour Show

By Tom Evans, CNN
March 13, 2010 12:50 p.m. EST

Watch Annie Lennox on "Amanpour" at 2100 CET Sunday on CNN International, at 2 p.m. ET Sunday on CNN, or podcast @ amanpour.com/podcast.

(CNN) -- Singer and activist Annie Lennox wants the world to know that the HIV virus and the debilitating condition it causes, AIDS, are the leading killers of women of reproductive age in the world.

"The world needs to wake up and realize that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has changed its face since the 1980s. It has been affecting women and children at an enormous rate," Lennox told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an interview aired Friday.
"As a woman and a mother myself, I want to contribute to keeping this issue on the table. HIV is invisible," she added.

"You have swine flu, you have bird flu, and everybody is up in arms. But this has been a killer for years and it's not getting any better."

Lennox this month went to the United Nations headquarters in New York to help launch a five-year action plan to provide recommendations on how to address the disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls worldwide.
Health officials acknowledge that great strides have been made addressing HIV/AIDS as a whole. But they say when it comes to women and girls, the world has made little progress.
Lennox said her intention is not to shock, but to break stigmas on the subject, by using the power of her music.

"Music is a great vehicle for communications, and I have a certain platform. I have an opportunity and I have to take it," she said. "As a woman, and as a mother and as an artist, it's something that I feel compelled to do. Otherwise it would be a complete waste."
Lennox said she has been very focused on this issue since she heard former South African President Nelson Mandela describe HIV/AIDS as "genocide" in 2003.
"To hear Mandela describe the HIV pandemic as a genocide really almost knocked me off my chair," she said.

"You know in South Africa, post-apartheid, one in every three pregnant women is carrying HIV. That is hugely significant. If they don't have intervention, the baby will be born with the virus. That baby will probably last, maybe a year."

Lennox added that a woman is raped every minute in South Africa, a country that is believed to have more people infected with HIV/AIDS than any other nation.
"You're seeing women especially, and young girls and young children, right at the front of the devastation. And it breaks my heart."

Asked whether she thinks the next generation will take up the HIV/AIDS issue as energetically as she has, Lennox said, "Unless people campaign in civil society, unless governments and leaderships campaign and keep the issue on the table, it's very hard to say." http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/13/annie.lennox.aids/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

You call me ‘denialist,’ I call you ‘believer,’ a dissident person tells the average person who belie...

FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2010
7 of 8 - What's in a Word? Dissidence, 'Denial,' and Health on a Poly Planet - From The G Tales

You call me ‘promiscuous,’ I call you ‘dishonest,’ a poly person tells the average person who believes that monogamy is the only natural way to love.
You call me ‘denialist,’ I call you ‘believer,’ a dissident person tells the average person who believes that HIV is the only cause of AIDS.

When you call AIDS Dissidents by their own name you exercise leadership in the sexual freedom movement.

Alternative lovestyle communities ignore AIDS Dissidence at their own peril.
From private conversations
Part Seven

“If AIDS was just as simple as the Swine Flu, don’t you think that a simple vaccine would have been produced already?  Don’t you remember when we talked about Echinacea?” G asked as we resumed the conversation.

“Yeah, you were flabbergasted that the government would not openly recommend this indigenous remedy,” I commented.
“The vaccine was produced immediately, remember?  So quickly that I felt a time-tested indigenous remedy would be safer if one used it ahead of time, as a preventative.”
“Yes G,” I said.  “It took a few weeks to produce a flu vaccine, and it’s been twenty five years since the beginning of AIDS,” I reflected. “One can’t be too surprised that scientists--as well as a large portion of the general public--dissent from the simple explanations that are the basis for comparing AIDS Dissidence with denial of the Holocaust.  Is that your point?”
“Exactly!” G exclaimed.  “Do you know what dissidents call those who believe in the official explanations?”
“No.  What do they call ‘em?”
“Believers,” G said.
“Believers--as in a church?” I asked.
“Yeah,” G said.  “Believers as in a church, because dissenters realize official science is full of dogmas that serve to keep the power structures in place.”
“But that’s quite offensive,” I commented.
“Just as offensive as being called a ‘denialist’ when you’re a dissenter.”
“Point taken, G,” I replied, “but the problem seems to be that these two groups are not hearing each other--they’re not communicating.”
“Correct.”

“How could they possibly communicate better?” I asked.
“One way is offer them scapegoats, sacrificial lambs, naïve foreigners like myself who end up rocking the boat.”

“And that’s been done apparently.  What else?”

“Another way is to make comparisons on a different register.  For example, one can compare ‘believers’ to flat-Earthists back in the Renaissance, or to those who still deny global warming today.”
“How does that help?” I asked.

“It helps to get the point across that dissenters are widely aware of the historical existence of AIDS. That they know its effects have been and continue to be felt by the vast majority of the population, either because they have succumbed to the epidemic, or because their loved ones have, or because their personal and public lives have been affected in significant ways.  There is an entire new generation whose sexual, emotional, and personal lives have been organized around AIDS and the fear of ‘getting it.’  There is a healthy ‘poz’ population whose lives take place under the aegis of being considered both an anomaly and a public peril.”

“What’s your point G?”

“The point is that calling things by their name is science, it is a form of knowledge that helps to unveil the direction we need to take if we want a problem to be solved.”
“I still don’t get it, G.”

“Those in the hard sciences often do not have the humanistic skills to bring their voice to the wider public in incisive, respectful ways.  It is up to those in the humanities to do that.  For example, this young man, Brent Leung, a documentary film director, journeyed all over the world to interview scientists who’ve worked on AIDS, of all schools and perspectives.  House of Numbers, his film is called.  He also interviewed healthy ‘poz’ people, including now-adult ’AIDS babies,’ who’ve refused conventional treatments and are absolutely vital and healthy.  Don’t you think that if we want to find a solution to the AIDS problem, we should encourage science to go there?  To find out how these ‘poz’ people made it?  How they kept vital and healthy?  How they healed themselves?”

House of Numbers, by Brent Leung, Trailer

“Ok.  So what I hear you saying is that AIDS Dissidence is a form of science, that it indicates possible paths authentic scientific inquiries would explore.”

“Yes, and you see that silencing all that effort as ‘denialism,’ really denies its value, its potential to produce knowledge that is very valuable, especially to those, like us, who practice love in alternative ways.  Dissident science produces knowledge that helps in understanding the complexity of immune-related syndromes especially in relation to environmental problems, like contamination of food, water, and air supply.”

“So would you say that polys and other sex-positive people ignore AIDS Dissidence at our own peril?”
“I’d certainly agree with that.  Plus,” G continued, “by now, this movement includes several world renown scientists, some honored with a Nobel Prize, and has produced countless self-funded experiments, conventions, and other knowledge producing venues.”

“Oh.  For example?” I asked.

“The latest ‘Rethinking AIDS Convention’ in Oakland, Ca, November 2009.  Countless books, articles, investigative reports.  The latest important name is Dr. Henry Bauer, of Virginia Tech, who recapitulates the whole Dissidence theory, saga, and data, in its fierce logic and relates it to the concerns for global health and ecology that dominate climate change activism today.”
“Woooow.”

“As polys,” she continued, “we ignore the AIDS Dissidence Movement at the risk of becoming complicit with the institutional project of reducing our wonderful ability to expand love beyond monogamy to what, in mainstream society, registers as mere ‘promiscuity’.”

“What do you mean?  Explain.”

End of Part Seven, G Tale # 5

Disclaimer:  This Tale does not constitute medical advice in any way.  Readers are invited to consult their own healers and health care providers.
References: For scholarly and scientific references to contents and theories referred to in this dialog, refer to Gaia & the New Politics of Love, whose bibliography lists all sources involved http://polyplanet.blogspot.com/2010/03/7-of-8-whats-in-word-dissidence-denial.html

Henry H. Bauer, Ph.D., writes that "HIV tests are not HIV tests." A positive test does not mean that a person has or will get...

A Positive Routine "HIV Test" is Likely to be a False Positive, Scientist
In many jurisdictions, tests for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are required screening for pregnant women. Some even suggest screening the entire population for HIV. The rationale is to administer powerful antiretroviral drugs to healthy individuals to "prevent transmission."
But what if healthy people take expensive, toxic drugs for a condition they cannot transmit because they don't have it?
In the spring 2010 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Henry H. Bauer, Ph.D., writes that "HIV tests are not HIV tests." A positive test does not mean that a person has or will get AIDS. It doesn't even mean that he has HIV. Rather, it is a test for antibodies, either to HIV or to something that cross-reacts with it.
The FDA said in 1987 that "the significance of antibodies in an asymptomatic individual is not known." It is still not known, as positive tests have been reported in many illnesses, including multiple sclerosis, tuberculosis, malaria, and aplastic anemia. They have also been reported after immunizations to tetanus or influenza, and may even be caused by pregnancy itself.
"The problem of false positive tests applies to all screening tests, not just HIV," states Jane M. Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). "If a population with a very low likelihood of a disease is tested, there will be very few positive tests. But even with an excellent test, a positive is more likely than not to be a false positive."
If only one in 1,000 tested individuals has HIV, then only one out of every six positive tests is a true positive, even if the HIV test is as good as is claimed.
This is why a test that is a very good for screening blood donors can do much more harm than good if used to screen the entire population, Dr. Orient stated.
Dr. Bauer's article on HIV testing can be accessed at
Source: Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=349718&Itemid=96