There is a knock-down, drag-out fight going on over intellectual property at the World Trade Organization. The sparring partners are a sort of caricature of Poor vs. Rich: developing nations on the one hand and the powerful pharmaceuticals lobby on the other. Countries, including India , have been pressing the U.S.
Warning that millions are dying and desperately need U.S. assistance, rock star Bono breezed through Chicago Wednesday with his frenetic Heart of America tour as he criss-crossed the Midwest in a bus to focus attention on the AIDS crisis in Africa. We look like we re coming to town with the cause du jour, Bono told the
Bill Glauber and Christine Tatum, Tribune staff reporters
Rock star Bono, of Ireland s U2, brought his Heart of America tour to the Chicago Tribune today to discuss the AIDS crisis in Africa. We look like we re coming to town with the cause du jour, Bono told the Tribune s editorial board. But the first thing we have to put right is ... the AIDS emergency is not a cause. It i
LINCOLN, Neb. -- The darkly attired, black-haired, broad-shouldered man sits at an industrial metal table in an austere church nursery room, intensely mulling strategies with 50 community activists. Replete with creaky coffee urn and paper cups, the gathering has the air of some clandestine union organizing meeting, es
Keith Murray says he probably never would get tested for HIV outside jail, so on Sunday, under the florescent lights of the Cook County Boot Camp gymnasium, he observed World AIDS Day with a biohazard bag and a cotton swab. I figured it s a good opportunity to do it, said Murray, 19, serving a 4-month sentence for reta
If inspirational spiels by world figures could be converted to cash, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in developing countries would be flush. There would be money for drugs to stem mother-to-child transmission of AIDS, for prevention and education programs to slow down HIV infections, and for mos
African-Americans accounted for 12 percent of the nation s residents in 2000 yet represented 54 percent of new HIV infections as the deadly virus continued to shift into poorer U.S. population groups. The disproportionate infection rate among African-Americans is one of the many troubling statistics that have prompted
For the first time, about half the people worldwide living with the virus that causes AIDS are women, according to estimates in a new United Nations report. The figures also present a stark warning about the swift inroads the deadly disease is making among millions of heterosexual victims from China--where officials fe
SINGAPORE -- Singapore will hand out anti-HIV travel packs to men traveling alone to high-risk countries as part of its efforts to combat the disease that can lead to AIDS, the Straits Times newspaper said Saturday. The packs, to be available from 2003, would contain information on the dangers of casual sex and could a
LAKE COUNTY -- Catholic Charities Care Cupboard HIV/AIDS food pantry is asking for donations. The pantry provides fresh meat and produce as well as food supplements. It is seeking cash or store gift certificates. HIV/AIDS is no longer a visible cause, said Scott Ewart, supervisor. People do not realize that the number
Tradition, modern life clash in a land where the monarch has absolute power--and unlimited wives MBABANE, Swaziland -- King Mswati III, Africa s last ruling monarch, has nine wives and absolute power in this fairy-tale mountain kingdom. The truth is his majesty is not above the law. His majesty is the law, said Pheshe
MOSCOW -- It s a snapshot Russia may want to look away from. The world s sixth most-populous nation has wrapped up its first census in 13 years, and all signs point to a plunge in population that will expose just how debilitating the nation s post-Soviet upheaval was. Demographers project that Russia s population, now
Kevin Lynch and Virginia Groark, Tribune staff reporters
A police officer who claims the Westmont Police Department refused to hire him because he has HIV has sued the village in a case that reverses the usual concerns about the virus and police work. Although there has been much discussion about how police officers can protect themselves from contracting HIV on the job, few
DUPAGE COUNTY -- A Barrington woman has been indicted for criminal transmission of HIV to an Elmhurst man and stealing cash from him. Pamela Sohn, 47, of the 600 block of Fairfield Drive, Barrington, was arraigned Monday after her recent indictment by the DuPage County Grand Jury. Elmhurst police said a man in his 70s
HANGZHOU, China -- After denying the threat AIDS poses to its 1.3 billion people, China finally has taken the step of admitting it is battling a crisis, even inviting a group of Chicago health experts to offer advice. The challenge for the Chicagoans, as they quickly learned during a recent visit, would be to get the C
WORLD -- Rates of infection from the AIDS virus in five of the world s most populous countries are rising so fast that they pose potential security threats to their regions and to the United States , according to a group that advises the CIA. China , Ethiopia ,
CHICAGO -- So many people turned out for charity walks on a balmy fall Sunday that they were almost bumping into each other on the crowded lakefront, officials said. Thousands attended three separate events to raise money for AIDS, asthma and diabetes research. More than 9,000 people packed the museum campus for the an
To mark AIDS Awareness Week during the first week of October, Elgin Community College has planned activities for its student body and area residents, including free HIV tests, a 5K walk and a photo documentary. The Faces of AIDS photography exhibit features portraits of HIV-positive people accompanied by stories about
BEIJING, CHINA -- China released a prominent AIDS activist from detention Friday after he acknowledged leaking state secrets, apparently ending a case that drew widespread international criticism of the government. The activist, Wan Yanhai, disappeared Aug. 25 in Beijing. It was later learned that he had been placed un
JOHANNESBURG -- The AIDS epidemic, combined with drought and political mismanagement, have slashed agricultural production and worsened the threat of famine in southern Africa, United Nations officials said after a two-week tour of the hardest-hit countries. About 14.4 million people--a 12 percent rise from the UN s Ju
JOHANNESBURG -- The World Summit on Sustainable Development wrapped up this week with some impressive promises. Countries agreed that in a little over a decade they would bring clean drinking water to a half-billion people. They committed to rebuilding depleted fisheries by 2015 and to cutting biodiversity losses withi
SOUTH DAKOTA -- Within hours of receiving probation for a felony conviction of having sex without telling his girlfriend he had the AIDS virus, a college student from Chicago violated the terms of his release from jail, South Dakota prosecutors said Wednesday. Nikko Briteramos, 19, was released a few hours after senten
HURON, S.D. -- Saying he wanted to make the defendant the poster child for AIDS awareness, a South Dakota judge today handed down a suspended 5-year prison term to a Chicago man and told him to go to schools and warn young people about the risks of unsafe sex. Besides being assigned to perform 200 hours of community se
INGWAVUMA, South Africa -- To comprehend the AIDS epidemic ravaging southern Africa, you need only count the children playing in the dust outside Busisiwe Nhleko s hut, perched on a parched hillside near town. Three are her brother s kids, orphaned after he and his wife died last year. Another four were dropped off by
The thumping Latin grooves from the Pilsen radio station sound like a party, but they soon give way to a message of unmistakable gravity: We are a cry of liberty, strength and willpower--just and necessary. We are Homofrecuencia. With that slogan this month, Radio Arte launched an unusual new program: a weekly, bilingu
SAN DIEGO -- Justin Adams came of age in Southern California in a foster-care system that clearly had no idea how to help a gay teenager. When he was 15, two other teens who learned of his sexual orientation during a group therapy session beat him severely. A social worker who told Adams, There s something wrong with y
WASHINGTON -- The social issues agency of the United Methodist Church has strongly criticized the Bush administration s decision last week to withhold $34 million from the United Nations Population Fund. The State Department said it acted because the fund s involvement in China aids a government program of forced abort
Two-and-a-half years ago, Dale Lenig helped make the heartbreaking decision to take his partner Bill off life-support, ending Bill s long struggle with HIV and AIDS, putting his lover, at last, to rest. Bill told me before he went into the coma, I m not a gambling man, if it s less than 50 percent, don t do anything he
The amount of money needed to successfully fight the global spread of AIDS is a fraction of what the United States is spending to fight terrorism, former President Bill Clinton said Tuesday, urging the government to pay its share without hesitation. I see this AIDS issue the same way I see the fight against terrorism.
Carlos Morales and Rudolph Bush, Tribune staff reporters
John Klaczak, chief of the Thornton Fire Department until he was fired Sunday, posted bail Monday on charges of sexually assaulting two members of a cadet program he supervised. Klaczak, a former member of the cadet program, was charged with criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual abuse and official miscond
This year s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition conference, From Slavery to Freedom: Leveling the Education and Economic Playing Fields, begins Saturday. Scheduled speakers for the five-day conference include former President Bill Clinton; Faida Mitifu, Democratic Republic of Congo s ambassador to the U.S.; Mildred Trouillot Aristi
MOSCOW -- Since she began using heroin at 12, Oksana Mitrofanova has been to drug abuse clinics twice--once before she was told she was infected with the virus that causes AIDS, once afterward. Each time they flushed the drug out of her body but not the craving for it. As far as counseling, they said, Here, take this m
Rev. Jesse Jackson could have asked Bill Clinton to speak about poverty, equality in education or access to health care at his annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition conference this month in Chicago. Instead he s asked the former president to talk about AIDS--for the second year in a row. Poverty, illiteracy, famine, lack of dr
Compiled by Charles Madigan and Theresa Walla of the Perspective section
Though medical researchers have made tremendous inroads in treating AIDS, the toll and spread of the disease remain staggering. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported at a conference in Spain that after years of warnings and detailed information to the public about sexual practices and the risks of inj
BARCELONA, Spain -- Former President Bill Clinton embraced former South African President Nelson Mandela to wild cheers at the world AIDS conference Friday and declared that the battle against AIDS must be won. One hundred million AIDS cases means more terror, more mercenaries, more war, destruction, and the failure of
SOUTH DAKOTA -- A Chicago man charged in a rural South Dakota town with three counts of intentionally exposing his girlfriend to HIV pleaded guilty Thursday to one of the charges in a Beadle County court. Nikko Briteramos, 18, a freshman at Si Tanka-Huron University in Huron, S.D., was the first person charged under a
In an emotional hearing filled with as many heartbreaking anecdotes as hard statistics, city officials on Tuesday looked into the face of AIDS in Chicago and learned that it is black. And brown. And female, and poor. And gay, and male. And often has little access to health care. African-Americans are disproportionately
African Americans -- particularly women -- are disproportionately affected by AIDS in Chicago, accounting for two-thirds of all newly diagnosed AIDS cases while representing less than 40 percent of the city s population, according to a study released today. The study by the Chicago Department of Public Health also foun
Connie Lauerman, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune wire services contributed to this report
Going into the villages of Africa in a pompous way does not help in starting programs to combat HIV/AIDS, African activist, educator and researcher Dr. Elizabeth Musaba-Mphele said last week in Chicago. Speaking to a group at the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Nursing, Musaba-Mphele said that poverty and hun
On a floor filled with whirring dental drills, only a small sign on a door marks an area reserved for special missions of mercy. People come from every area code in northern Illinois to seek out the Ryan White Dental Clinic. We need help. Money, for what we do, Dr. Mario Alves said last week, leading a visitor through
A movie of seemingly limpid transparency and tremendous, understated compassion, ABC Africa is director Abbas Kiarostami s testament to the suffering and perseverance of the people of Uganda . It s a poetic film on a harrowing subject: the current woes of a country that survived one of the world s bloodiest and most ps
A former prison inmate who sued state corrections officials unsuccessfully several years ago, claiming he contracted the AIDS virus from repeated prison rapes and that they had failed to protect him, is heading back behind bars. A tearful Michael Blucker, 33, of Island Lake, pleaded guilty Monday in McHenry County Circ
In 1984, Broadway songwriter Jerry Herman learned he was HIV-positive. The news, he says, had the ashen taste of a death sentence. His seven-year companion Marty Finkelstein was already dead, an AIDS casualty. I was prepared, he says now, by phone from his Beverly Hills home, to say goodbye to everybody. Nearly two dec
A Chicago attorney who specializes in constitutional law has taken over the case of an HIV-positive Chicago teen charged with deliberately exposing his girlfriend to infection at a South Dakota college. The case has also drawn questions from national public policy groups and HIV/AIDS activists about the effectiveness o
For one day a year, Patricia Funk s house was overrun with cookies. She would begin before dawn in her Oak Park home, baking holiday baskets for HIV/AIDS patients. People came in shifts, starting at 8 a.m., rolling dough until they got blisters, mixing, washing bowls, listening to Christmas carols. Last year, the Cook
WASHINGTON -- Our nation s drug czar is annoyed. If proponents have their way, the District of Columbia will vote later this year to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes for the second time. John P. Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, took some potshots at the issue in a recent Washing
NEW YORK -- The international humanitarian arm of the National Council of Churches is joining religious leaders in South Africa for a campaign to remove the stigma of AIDS. Church World Service and the South African Council of Churches held concerts, prayer services and other events recently to end prejudice against th
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- With the blessing of Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, the Justice Department has decided to grant semipermanent immigration status to a 4-year-old Thai boy who has become an international poster child for the ills of human trafficking, officials said. The decision helps a Los Angeles couple acting as Phanu
UNITED NATIONS -- A United Nations summit has agreed on a document aimed at improving the world for children in the next 15 years. After contentious negotiations between the United States and other nations on sex education, abortion and the death penalty, the 180 nations at the General Assembly special session on child
Evan Osnos, Tribune national correspondent. Tribune news services contributed to this report
NEW YORK -- Opening a landmark summit on the world s children, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday bluntly criticized world leaders for failing to shield the future of humanity from violence, poverty and disease. We, the grown-ups, have failed you deplorably, Annan declared to a General Assembly ch
Despite a decadelong global effort to reduce child labor, the problem persists on a massive scale and has worsened in nations torn by war and economic distress, said an International Labor Office report released Monday. About 180 million youngsters--one of eight children ages 5 to 17--are exposed to the worst forms of
HURON, S.D. -- In this small town on the prairie, word of Nikko Briteramos arrest traveled like an infectious disease. For days, in coffee shops, church vestibules and highway roadhouses, most conversations drifted toward the 18-year-old college student from Chicago--how he had come to play center on Huron University s
James Janega and Jeremy Manier, Tribune staff reporters. James Janega reported from Huron, S.D., and Jeremy Manier reported from Chicago
HURON, S.D. -- A cluster of four HIV infections linked to a Chicago college student has surprised not only this small prairie town, but also public health experts who say they know of no similar cases in which the AIDS virus has spread to so many people through a college s web of sexual contacts. But the growing networ
ILLINOIS -- A Chicago day-care program for children who have HIV/AIDS or have guardians with the disease will lose three-quarters of its operating funds under Gov. George Ryan s proposed budget, its director said Monday. The Children s Place Association, which for three years has run the program for HIV/AIDS-affected c
HURON, S.D. -- A fourth person has tested positive for HIV as health officials trace a web of sexual partners that includes a college student from Chicago who is charged with not telling his girlfriend he was infected before having sex, health officials said Monday. The latest case was discovered the same day Nikko Bri
A Chicago man arrested in South Dakota this week for allegedly failing to tell his girlfriend he was HIV positive before having unprotected sex with her had known for about a month that he was infected, officials said Friday. Intentionally exposing individuals to HIV, which causes AIDS, is a felony in South Dakota puni
Abbott Laboratories Chief Executive Miles White on Friday said the drugmaker would further cut the prices of its AIDS drugs for African nations, responding to shareholders who urged the company to do more for countries ravaged by the deadly disease. Although Abbott shareholders resoundingly defeated a resolution that
SOUTH DAKOTA -- A Chicago man attending college in South Dakota has been charged with a felony for allegedly having unprotected sex after testing positive for HIV. Nikko Briteramos, a Huron University freshman basketball player, was arrested Tuesday and is in the Beadle County Jail in lieu of $10,000 cash bond. He was
By 2005, nearly 30 percent of South Africa s labor force will be HIV positive, according to an annual report by the South African Press Association on labor relations and employee benefits used by government, academic, corporate and financial institutions there. The pandemic will take a dramatic toll on the most produc
For the crowd that showed up Sunday to view Touched: Healing With Art in a side-street art gallery in Rogers Park, many of the benefits of art therapy were on the wall. There was humor. Early on, reservations were proposed to isolate us from you. Could we have built casinos? wondered one drawing, part of a juried show
JOHANNESBURG -- Court decisions requiring South Africa s government to make an AIDS drug available to pregnant women could bring about a significant change in South Africa s controversial policy on the deadly disease. President Thabo Mbeki has long been criticized for refusing to acknowledge that HIV causes AIDS and fo
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA -- A High Court judge ruled again Monday that the government must provide an AIDS drug to HIV-positive pregnant women while it waits to appeal the decision to the country s highest court. Reaffirming an earlier ruling, High Court Judge Chris Botha said the government still has to make the drug
In 1937, Cook County Hospital in Chicago became the first U.S. blood bank site. Sixty-five years later, the city is again helping to achieve breakthroughs to keep donated blood safe. Lifesource Blood Services, which provides 90 percent of the Chicago area s donated blood, typically runs 13 tests, or processes, on the b
Here s one for killers to ponder: Matthew Shepard, the boyish, blond college kid whose death lent such an empathetic face to the victims of all hate crimes, lives. Or, at the very least, he haunts our culture like a ghost. Even after all the intervening tragedy since his 1998 murder in Laramie, Wyo., Shepard is still w
Two women sat Wednesday at a table on the stage of Perry Theatre at Aurora University. On a table in the lobby were two baskets--one with an assortment of fruit, the other with an assortment of condoms. My name is Helen Watkins, and I ve had HIV for 9 years, said one of the woman at the table. I m 50 years old. A
Chicago scientists announced Tuesday the birth of a healthy baby girl who was selected as an embryo to be free of a gene that will overtake her mother with memory loss, dementia and utter helplessness. The 33-year-old mother, a genetic counselor, is doomed to develop early-onset familial Alzheimer s disease, a rare inh
WASHINGTON -- Speaking at a conference of relief workers, Franklin Graham said the AIDS epidemic is an even bigger threat to civilization as we know it than terrorism. Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham, spoke last Sunday at a conference that drew more than 800 Christian workers from around the world who specia
WASHINGTON -- Maybe the next episode of MTV s The Real World will star Colin Powell. Our real world heard a sample in his recent remarks on condom use. Unfortunately, the secretary of state s remarks sparked an angry backlash from some who seem to be living in a dream world. During an MTV teleconference with young peop
BEIJING -- The rumor floats among shoppers and merchants, based on truth but fueled by fear: Assailants are wading into crowds, picking out innocents and jabbing them with hypodermic needles containing HIV-infected blood. The facts, according to several sources, are that dozens of people have been attacked with needles
Secretary of State Colin Powell s frank talk about safe sex and AIDS caused a bit of a flap last week. The Bush administration, to its credit, supported Powell when some conservatives fussed over his remarks. But another move on the AIDS front still leaves the Bush administration s approach open to question. President
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA -- Cocaine speeds the rate at which the AIDS virus spreads through the bodies of mice, scientists reported Thursday. Dr. Gayle Baldwin, a co-author of the UCLA study, said the same phenomenon probably occurs in humans. But proving it would be difficult; she and others said such a study in humans
WASHINGTON -- Fielding particularly sober questions from a youth audience normally tuned in to watch the latest hip-hop videos, Secretary of State Colin Powell explained the war on terrorism to MTV viewers around the world Thursday and stressed the supremacy of American democratic values. He also took a question about
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA -- President Thabo Mbeki committed his government Friday to an intensified fight against South Africa s rampant AIDS epidemic but said the government would not give in to pressure to make AIDS drugs available nationwide in state hospitals. In an upbeat state-of-the-nation address to parliament,
NEW YORK -- Inside the World Economic Forum, foreign economic leaders criticized the United States on Saturday for protectionist policies that they say hurt developing countries. Outside, thousands of protesters demonstrated loudly but peacefully against global capitalism. Dozens of mounted police guarded the Waldorf-A
SAN DIEGO -- More than 4,000 terminally ill people across the country were waiting for heart transplants on Jan. 3 when doctors at Stanford Medical Center operated on one lucky recipient, a 31-year-old man with a viral infection whose only chance at survival was the operation. Two related facts--that the patient is ser
Although statistics suggest that the growing numbers of Asians living in Chicago s suburbs are not at high risk for AIDS, public health officials worry that health agencies and Asian residents may be unprepared if the disease starts to spread in the community. The concern has led the Asian Health Coalition of Illinois,
Eight times a day, Jennifer Flores carefully hooks up a feeding tube and inserts it into the abdomen of a pillow-cheeked baby girl. After the infant drains the bag of milk, Flores disconnects the tube and tenderly swabs around the opening in the child s stomach before twisting a cap back into place. This feeding regime
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.