Bush urges additional AIDS money
Sat, 01 Dec 2007 11:51:34 GMTBy JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
MOUNT AIRY, Md. - President Bush urged Congress on Friday to approve an additional $30 billion for the fight against AIDS worldwide over the next five years, and announced he would visit Africa early next year to further highlight the need and his administration's efforts.
"We dedicate ourselves to a great purpose: We will turn the tide against HIV/AIDS — once and for all," Bush said. "I look forward to seeing the results of America's generosity."
Bush chose the gymnasium at the Calvary United Methodist Church in this tiny western Maryland town to make his remarks. The church supports a Christian group home and school in Namibia for children orphaned by the disease. Before speaking, he met with representatives from churches and other religious groups that have been fighting AIDS, part of his attempt to highlight his belief that faith-based organizations are the best vehicles for such work.
Evangelical Christians, who make up a large and influential portion of Bush's political support, have been key to his policies increasing U.S. involvement in the fight against AIDS, particularly in Africa. Bush has been said to believe that the United States, and his administration, do not get enough credit for the work being done on the issue.
"Every year American taxpayers send billions of their hard-earned dollars overseas to save the lives of people they have never met," he said.
But "in return for this extra generosity, Americans expect results," the president said, adding that his program demands measurable progress, accountability and the involvement of local partners. The result: The number of people in sub-Saharan Africa receiving treatment for AIDS has gone from 50,000 five years ago to nearly 1.4 million now.
"We have pioneered a new model for public health," Bush said. "So far, the results have been striking."
In May, the last time he devoted a speech to the topic, Bush asked Congress to double the $15 billion that the U.S. committed over the program's first five years to therapy, testing and counseling through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The program is active in 120 countries, with a concentrated focus on 15, including Namibia, in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
As of the end of September, 1.36 million people in those focus countries have received antiretroviral treatment through the program, with a focus on averting infant infections by treating pregnant women. Others receive testing and counseling.
"Some call this remarkable success. I call it a good start," Bush said, adding that he has worked with other nations and the private sector to increase their commitments.
Doubling the funding for PEPFAR would provide treatment for 2.5 million people, the White House said.
Also in honor of Saturday's World AIDS Day, the White House hung a red ribbon — 28 feet tall and 8 feet wide — in the North Portico of the mansion to symbolize the fight against AIDS. It will stay up for two days and, on Saturday, guests who visit the White House will receive a red ribbon sticker and a fact card.
The White House also said Friday that the Department of Homeland Security will publish a final rule this winter aiming to help reduce discrimination against those living with the virus that causes AIDS. The new rule would establish a categorical waiver for HIV-positive people seeking to enter the United States on short-term visas. A 1993 law prohibits HIV-positive people from receiving visas to visit the United States without a waiver. A categorical waiver will enable HIV-positive people to enter the United States for short visits through a streamlined process.
The Children of Zion Village, an orphanage in northeastern Namibia, was opened in 2003 by missionaries Gary and Rebecca Mink of Rising Sun, Md. They belong to Mount Zion United Methodist Church in Bel Air, which provides most of the home's $14,000-a-month operating funds with help from other United Methodist churches in Maryland and Ohio, said Lisa McLaughlin, board chairwoman of Children of Zion Inc.
The facility is home to 55 children up to 17 years old. Children of Zion also feeds 116 more orphans in nearby Mafuta and hopes to build a group home and preschool there.
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Fosamax users seek classaction status
Sat, 01 Dec 2007 07:52:16 GMTBy LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - Lawyers for Fosamax users who believe their jaws were damaged by the osteoporosis drug on Friday asked a federal judge to order Merck & Co. to provide a dental monitoring program for the drug's users.
The lawyers made the suggestion to U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan as they argued for the case to be certified as a class-action, in order to pursue claims by users who believe the drug caused osteonecrosis of the jaw, a condition in which portions of the jaw bone die, sometimes leaving the bone exposed.
Timothy M. O'Brien, a lawyer for plaintiffs, said hundreds of thousands of patients would benefit from a dental monitoring program that would include regular dental screenings, X-rays and lab tests, all aimed at preventing the need for dental surgery.
Paul Strain, a Merck attorney, called Fosamax a "life altering and life saving drug" that helps to prevent the kind of bone fractures that can hasten the deaths of people as they age. He said the drug was a pioneer 11 years ago.
Strain also said there was no proven link between degeneration of the jaw bone in some patients and Fosamax.
Damage to the jaw bone can result in many ways, including from using steroids, from diseases or weaknesses in the body and from poor dental hygiene.
O'Brien said as many as one in every 296 patients who use Fosamax develop the severe damage to the jaw, though Merck disputed the figure. O'Brien said jaws were more susceptible to damage because they are used so frequently and are under greater stress than most bones.
Keenan did not immediately rule after hearing arguments.
Vance Andrus, another lawyer for the plaintiffs, argued a class-action certification would allow for a trial where a jury could decide whether Fosamax is toxic and hazardous and whether Merck was negligent and should have warned users of dangers.
Reporter gets circumcised to fight AIDS
Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:22:19 GMTBy JOSEPH J. SCHATZ, Associated Press Writer
LUSAKA, Zambia - A southern African radio correspondent has been receiving a flood of text messages and cell phone calls — some from offended listeners and readers.
All because Kennedy Gondwe chose to get circumcised to protect himself from AIDS, and took the British Broadcasting Corp.'s radio and Web audience through the procedure with him Friday.
A study published in the Lancet medical journal in February concluded that the findings of three major trials — in Kenya, South Africa and Uganda — show that circumcision can significantly reduce men's chances of contracting the virus that causes AIDS. U.N. health agencies followed up with an endorsement, but stressed that the procedure offers only partial protection and that abstinence, condom use, having few partners and delaying the first sexual experience are all among the steps that need to be encouraged.
Frank talk about AIDS and prevention methods, is still rare in Gondwe's Zambia, where HIV prevalence is 16 percent. That's what made the 27-year-old Gondwe's public testimony Friday, the eve of World AIDS Day, even more striking.
A prominent Zambian journalist, Mildred Mpundu, died in November after going public with her HIV-positive status earlier this year and urging her fellow journalists to get tested.
Gondwe, who says he undergoes an AIDS test several times a year, said in an interview Friday he finds it "sad" that more people don't talk about circumcision as a prevention method.
"We as journalists also have a role to play in the fight against the disease," he said.
Gondwe, on the radio piece and in an online diary Friday, recounts his Nov. 22 procedure. Listeners can hear him gasp as a doctor injects him with a local anesthetic, but he assures them the procedure is otherwise painless. He was up, walking to his car and driving himself home soon afterward.
Dr. Jan van den Ende, a microbiologist at Toga Laboratory, which provides AIDS testing and counseling in neighboring South Africa, the country hardest hit by AIDS, said it was not entirely clear why circumcision provides the protection it does. He described it as a relatively simple and painless procedure, something Gondwe's story demonstrated.
While one admiring Web reader from Zambia told Gondwe he would soon follow his example, the reporter said others told him they were offended. Gondwe's Tumbuka people of Zambia's Northern Province do not embrace circumcision, he said.
David Alnwick, a senior AIDS adviser to UNICEF based in Nairobi, said UNICEF supports educating people that "circumcised men are relatively well protected against HIV." But he said there was a danger of creating demand that the world's poorest continent is not now prepared to meet.
Alnwick said Zambia has a long waiting list of men who want to be circumcised and only a few centers providing the service. But he says he expects governments to come aboard across the continent and international donors to provide funding.
New subtype of Ebola suspected in Uganda
Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:44:07 GMTBy FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writer
GENEVA - A new form of the deadly Ebola virus has been detected in an outbreak in western Uganda that has so far killed 16 people, the World Health Organization said Friday.
Tests conducted by a national lab in Uganda and confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the virus belongs to a different subtype than the four already known, said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl.
"We are very concerned about this because it does not present in exactly the same way as other Ebola strains," he said, adding that the new subtype appeared to be associated with vomiting, which does not usually occur in Ebola patients.
Dr. Sam Zaramba, director general of Uganda's health service, said on Thursday that laboratory tests in South Africa and the United States had confirmed 51 Ebola cases, and of those, 16 patients died.
The first case was reported on Nov. 10 in Bundibugyo district, 200 miles west of the capital, Kampala, Zaramba said.
Ebola typically kills most of those it strikes through massive blood loss, and has no cure or treatment. It is spread through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions.
Word of a new strain "is an important discovery for the scientific community," Pierre Formenty, a WHO expert on hemorrhagic fevers, told The Associated Press.
Improved disease surveillance was bound to turn up new forms of Ebola, he said, and "different subtypes cause different types of disease."
"This could be a milder strain of the disease, but we still need additional information to confirm that," Formenty said.
The three main subtypes usually kill 50 to 90 percent of infected patients. A fourth subtype, Reston, does not cause any symptoms and is not fatal.
Hartl said the outbreak in Uganda was not currently being linked to cases elsewhere. The outbreak in Uganda occurred near the country's western border with Congo. WHO and local officials said last week that an Ebola outbreak there, which killed six people, had been contained.
The last previous outbreak of Ebola in Uganda occurred in October 2000 when 173 people died and a total of 426 people were diagnosed with it in the north of the country.
The World Health Organization says more than 1,000 people have died of Ebola since the virus was first identified in 1976 in Sudan and Congo. Primates, hunted by many central Africans for food, can carry the virus.
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Associated Press Medical Writer Maria Cheng contributed to this report.
Thai candidates accused of votebuying with Viagra official
Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:24:20 GMTBANGKOK - Parliamentary candidates in Thailand's upcoming election are trying to buy the votes of elderly men by passing out free Viagra, a local government official said Friday.
Thais head to the polls on December 23 for the first time since the military toppled the elected prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless coup last year.
Residents in Prathumthani, on the northern outskirts of Bangkok, reported some of the candidates were passing out doses of the anti-impotence drug in exchange for promised votes, said Sayan Nopkham, a local government official.
&;The villagers told me they have been given one or two pills of Viagra by candidates. Then they come to me to ask for more pills, or sometimes coffee, in exchange for voting for my brother, who is also running for a seat,&; he told AFP.
Thailand has a long history of vote-buying, but laws banning it have recently been toughened.
Anyone found guilty of buying votes could face up to 10 years in prison while voters who accept money face up to five years in jail.
Charungwit Phumma, an investigator with the Election Commission, said he had received no formal complaints about a Viagra-for-votes scheme.
&;It's a funny claim,&; he said.
Charungwit said the most common complaints filed with his office were voters being paid to join a political party or being promised cash for going to the ballot box.
