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CEO Of Black AIDS Institute Discusses HIV/AIDS At Newspaper Conference; Group Releases Report Examining HIV Testing In Black Community
Phill Wilson, CEO of the Black AIDS Institute (BAI), last week addressed the annual convention of the National Newspapers Publishers Association where he discussed the reasons blacks "were so slow to grasp the severity of the threat" of HIV, the NNPA/Seattle Medium reports. According to Wilson, many blacks believed that HIV/AIDS was not directly affecting their communities in the early years of the epidemic. In addition, he said when AIDS reached its peak between 1980 and 1982, blacks also were dealing with unemployment, poverty and welfare reform and, as a result, addressing HIV/AIDS was not a priority. Wilson also noted the reluctance by blacks to deal with the stigma related to the virus. Wilson said, however, "I"m more optimistic now around mobilizing black folks around HIV than [ever] before. I think we"ve made tremendous stride[s] and our institutions across the board are at a different place than they were" (Curry, 7/1).
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Correct Placement Of Defibrillators Key To Effective Use
The appropriate placement of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) is critical to optimize their use in public places, according to two studies published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
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Eye Drug Trial Marks Milestone For Southampton's Groundbreaking Research Centre, UK
Eye experts based at Southampton General Hospital are trialling a drug that could repair vision without the need for surgery.
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AP/Washington Post Examines Experimental Malaria Vaccine, Mutant Mosquitoes To Combat Malaria

The AP/Washington Post examines attempts to create a live vaccine and mutant mosquitoes to fight malaria. During the 1990s, Sanaria CEO Stephen Hoffman "irradiated malaria-carrying mosquitoes to weaken the parasites inside them, and he and 13 colleagues subjected themselves to more than 1,000 bites," according to the AP/Washington Post. "Usually malaria parasites race to the liver and multiply before invading the bloodstream" and making their host sick, but these "weakened parasites" sat "harmlessly in the liver, unable to multiply but triggering the immune system to fend off later infections," the AP/Washington Post reports, adding that only one of the people in Hoffman"s test did not achieve immunity "when bitten by regular malaria-infected mosquitoes over the next 10 months." Hoffman said critics charged that turning his experiment into a vaccine was almost impossible and that he was "dismissed by 99 percent of the people in the malaria field." But, two weeks ago about 100 volunteers started receiving doses of Sanaria"s vaccine in a first-stage FDA-approved study. Aside from a vaccine, about "a dozen labs worldwide" are trying to combat malaria by breeding malaria-resistant mosquitoes, the AP/Washington Post reports. David O"Brochta"s lab at the University of Maryland is working on ways to enable mosquitos to pass on malaria parasite resistance to their offspring, according to the AP/Washington Post. To be effective, "a malaria-resistance gene would have to spread a lot faster through mosquito populations," as a result the O"Brochta lab"s main focus is how to speed that up. Sanaria is working on a mosquito that can harbor double the number of immature parasites, to facilitate harvesting the parasites for the vaccine. O"Brochta is working on something similar and is trying to switch off a gene that protects the mosquito when it eats malaria-infected human blood. However, O"Brochta said, "No one has ever made transgenic mosquitoes with this gene knocked out," adding, "We want to cripple its immune system so when it takes an infected meal, it gets infected at very high levels" (Neergaard, AP/Washington Post, 6/8). This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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