ATLANTA -- Declaring AIDS to be the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 25 and 44, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that the disease has moved dramatically into the heterosexual community and that the transmission rate there is growing.
PARIS -- With the Eiffel Tower wearing a ribbon of bright red lights, political leaders from 42 countries signed a global declaration here Thursday, promising to protect the rights of people with AIDS and to work more closely with organizations representing them.
FROM PULPITS THROUGHOUT THE area, the holiday message will go out: Think of the less fortunate, share your blessings, give generously of your time and your pockets.
NORTHWOOD, N.H. - Quilters are always thinking about the next pattern. More importantly, they think about who will get that next pieced-together monument to geometry and craftsmanship. They think about who will touch it, who will hold it close.
Miss Kitty flies down a hallway, skids around a corner, ricochets off a wall and vaults into the men's restroom, eluding the redhead with the Russian-French accent who beckons: "My boo-boo, my mooshky, come here, my dahling."
HemaCare research--In a Nov. 22 story, The Times understated the money needed by HemaCare Corp. for future research on an AIDS-therapy product called Immupath.
A rare piece of good news from the AIDS front poses difficult ethical questions: Should pregnant women be compelled to take the test for the virus that causes AIDS and then, if they test positive, be required to undergo AZT drug therapy to help save their unborn children from the disease? After all, pregnant women must be tested for syphilis; why not for the far deadlier AIDS?
To stroll past the handsome first-floor exhibit in AIDS Project Los Angeles' rambling new building is to get a sense of what people love and loathe about the place.
TIRANA, Albania - When this Rip Van Winkle country opened its doors to the outside world four years ago, few of those who had been locked away for half a century expected the first major foreign influx to be infectious disease.
WASHINGTON - Hoping to repair his tarnished image within the AIDS community, President Clinton on Thursday named Patricia (Patsy) Fleming, a widely respected legislative specialist with 21 years of government experience, as his new director of AIDS policy.
SEATTLE - Ever since Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming stumbled on penicillin in 1929, drug development has been more serendipity than science. Researchers at large pharmaceutical companies screen thousands of compounds in trial-and-error "grind and find" tests before finally hitting on a promising drug--typically spending $400 million and 12 years in the process.
It was envisioned as one of the first ethnically balanced, large-scale studies of its kind: a trial of 16,000 women to test tamoxifen's ability to prevent breast cancer in women at high risk.
ANAHEIM -- Amid the playful squeals of neighborhood children, a dozen women put aside their evening chores and carried kitchen chairs to the grass courtyard of their apartment complex to hear a neighbor talk about AIDS, intimacy and their bodies.
LANCASTER -- Antelope Valley's first AIDS clinic was dedicated here Thursday by county officials who said it would provide specialized care for patients who might otherwise have to seek treatment in Los Angeles.
WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration Monday reopened the contentious debate over the speedy approval of new AIDS drugs in response to a growing split within the usually unified network of AIDS patients and their advocates.
TORONTO -- Canadians were questioning the safety of their blood supply Thursday after disclosures that U.S. and Canadian health officials had detected substandard practices at collection centers.
Saying that AIDS has reached epidemic proportions, Mayor Richard Riordan on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles in an effort to sidestep state law and allow the distribution of clean needles to drug users to continue without police interference.
SAN FRANCISCO -- On the sidewalk below, a watchdog group has stenciled a reminder in black paint: "A Queer Was Bashed Here." Two men move past, walking arm in arm. Across the street are Hot 'N Hunky, a hamburger joint, and the Deaf Gay and Lesbian Center. Less than two blocks down is Castro Street, the heart of this city's gay community.
Saying Los Angeles needs to face reality and head off the further spread of AIDS, the City Council on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a motion designed to stop police from interfering with activists distributing clean needles to drug addicts.
The Los Angeles riots, the Northridge earthquake, last fall's wildfires--each of them prompted city officials to declare a local state of emergency. If Hollywood Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg has her way, the AIDS epidemic will prompt the same response.
YOKOHAMA, Japan -- Toshihiro Oishi is very lonely. Oishi is one of only two self-acknowledged AIDS victims in Japan. Two others came out of the closet as well, but they have died, leaving Oishi and one other as the lone public symbols of Japan's 764 AIDS patients and 3,075 HIV-positives.
YOKOHAMA, Japan -- The U.S. government will boost its budget for basic laboratory research on the AIDS virus by 20% next year by shifting $70 million away from clinical studies now designed to test drugs and vaccines to curb the epidemic, Dr. William E. Paul, the new director of the Office of AIDS Research, said here Tuesday.
YOKOHAMA, Japan -- Researchers have identified as many as 30 different strains of the AIDS virus that often elude conventional tests used to detect their presence in blood, a Belgian researcher said here Monday.
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO -- In the depths of a converted warehouse, stuck in the corner of a vast refrigerated room, sits a padlocked steel cage that rarely is opened. Locked inside are nine bottles of a crystal clear liquid that, scientists here believe, has the power to cripple the spread of AIDS.
There is no cure for AIDS, no good treatment to control its symptoms for long periods and no vaccine to prevent it, for one major reason: HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes the disease, is a sloppy housekeeper when it comes to tending its genetic endowment.
YOKOHAMA, Japan -- A sense of foreboding pervaded the gathering Sunday of more than 11,000 scientists, journalists and AIDS activists and patients from 128 countries for the 10th International Conference on AIDS.
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton, moving to plug holes in an AIDS-fighting policy that activists say is sagging, Tuesday named a temporary replacement for the White House AIDS coordinator who resigned under fire last month.
Climaxing the first AIDS medical fraud case to come to trial in the United States, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury ordered North Hollywood Medical Center on Friday to pay $1.8 million in punitive damages for allowing an "unethical medical experiment" on five patients.
WASHINGTON -- The United States acknowledged Monday that government scientists used a French-provided virus to invent the American test kit for the AIDS virus, and Washington agreed to increase payments to the French under a 1987 royalty-sharing formula.
In a move to give California's children equal rights with adults in medical malpractice cases, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a boy who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion may sue the American Red Cross and Children's Hospital of Orange County even though a lower court ruled that the statute of limitations had expired.
WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration Wednesday reopened the controversial debate over whether to approve home AIDS test kits, an idea that was rejected four years ago.
WASHINGTON -- Federal AIDS researchers decided Friday against expanding human studies of two experimental AIDS vaccines but agreed to allow current trials to continue.
WASHINGTON -- An effort by an Orange County congressman to oust from the military all service members who are HIV-positive or are restricted by a chronic illness was defeated Wednesday when the House approved a milder version that would allow discharge but would not require it.
WASHINGTON -- An effort by an Orange County congressman to oust from the military all service members who are HIV-positive or are restricted by a chronic illness was defeated Wednesday when the House approved a milder version that would allow discharge but would not require it.
WASHINGTON -- A battle is shaping up in the House of Representatives over a provision that would immediately discharge from the military anyone infected with the AIDS virus or whose duties are restricted by other medical ailments such as heart disease, cancer, asthma or diabetes.
LAGUNA BEACH -- Federal housing authorities on Monday approved a plan to convert a General Telephone & Electric building here into 24 low-cost apartments for people infected with the AIDS virus, said a consultant to the nonprofit organization spearheading the project.
Helen MacEachron lay on her bed, blinking back tears as she made another entry in her videotaped diary. With her camcorder whirring, she talked quietly about trying a new drug, Viroxan, that she hoped would stop the lymph cancer that was slowly killing her.
Kevin Johnson and Leslie Berkman; Times Staff Writers
SANTA ANA -- The county Board of Supervisors accepted more than $700,000 in state grants Tuesday to extend a program that provides the controversial drug azidothymidine--AZT--to low-income residents with AIDS or AIDS-related illnesses.
A Los Angeles County counseling and testing program for the AIDS virus requires more money per test and turns up a lower percentage of cases of HIV infection than other such programs in the country funded by the federal Centers for Disease Control.
There are certainly easier ways to raise money for AIDS services than pedaling 500 miles down the coast of California. That, of course, is part of the allure of the California AIDS Ride, a weeklong bicycle jaunt that is as much allegory as fund-raiser.
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO -- Like any good fisherman, Sister Mary Elizabeth rises early--4 a.m.--for her day's catch. At a powerful computer in her home here, she casts her net to Washington and across the sea, drawing in the latest research findings and other information that could help people afflicted with AIDS.
David R. Olmos and Stuart Silverstein; Times Staff Writers
Workers with the AIDS virus cost their employers far less in medical and other expenses than is commonly believed. The average patient's tab amounts to $17,000, a new report says.
WASHINGTON -- The Clinton Administration has outlined what it described as "an action agenda" for confronting the AIDS epidemic, but AIDS groups complained that the plan is woefully lacking in both action and specifics.
Researchers at UC San Francisco say they have found the first evidence that the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, also can cause cancer rather than simply make patients susceptible by weakening their immune system.
MOSCOW -- The young woman's face blushed the color of borscht. Her chin disappeared into the high collar of her fur coat as she looked furtively around the hospital waiting room making sure no one she knew was there. Then she whispered that she had caught "it" from her husband
Orange County has received a $1.2-million federal grant earmarked for services to people with AIDS, including home health care and services for women and African Americans, the head of the county HIV Planning Advisory Council said Friday.
A leading AIDS specialist endorsed Magic Johnson's surprise return to the Lakers as the team's coach, saying Wednesday it could prove beneficial to his health.
WASHINGTON -- Seeking to send "a clear message" to stop discrimination against AIDS patients, the Justice Department on Monday settled a discrimination suit with Philadelphia that bars emergency medical personnel from refusing assistance to those with the disease.
SAN DIEGO -- Ruling in a case with similarities to the movie "Philadelphia," a judge Wednesday decided that a gay lawyer was not fired from a San Diego firm because he is HIV-positive.
COSTA MESA -- More widespread HIV testing among the general public, but especially for pregnant women, was strongly advocated Tuesday by AIDS experts during the second day of an Orange County conference on the disease.
WASHINGTON -- Why would a bench scientist--an internationally known immunologist regarded as one of the best in his field--leave his laboratory to work in a hornet's nest?
The California Medical Board has moved to revoke the license of a doctor, one of the first in Orange County to treat AIDS patients, for alleged sexual misconduct and gross negligence involving a patient.
COSTA MESA -- When the Orange County HIV/AIDS conference convenes today, speakers will confront the changing face of the AIDS epidemic in Orange County, where the disease, once largely confined to white gay men, is cropping up among Latinos, blacks and heterosexuals, and among women and children.
During the two weeks she was waiting for the results of her HIV test, 17-year-old Sarah Dixon thought about the AIDS virus and the destruction it can cause--something many of her peers seem reluctant to do.
WASHINGTON -- The results of a federally sponsored study testing the AIDS drug AZT in infected pregnant women have shown that the drug has a dramatic effect in preventing transmission of the virus to the fetus, The Times has learned.
Jenifer Warren and Richard C. Paddock; Times Staff Writers
SAN FRANCISCO -- Randy Shilts, a tenacious, award-winning journalist who became the nation's foremost chronicler of gay life and the AIDS epidemic, died early Thursday at his ranch in the Sonoma County redwoods. He was 42.
To hear TriStar Pictures tell it, the idea for the Academy Award-nominated screenplay for "Philadelphia" was developed in 1991, two years after director Jonathan Demme and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner first began brainstorming a movie about AIDS.
SAN DIEGO -- Viewing the film "Philadelphia" on the eve of his own legal battle was "like watching my own nightmare," says Martin D. Caprow, a gay lawyer.
SANTA ANA -- The AIDS death rate in Orange County is exceeding the national mortality rate and the disease continues to be the leading cause of death for males between 25 and 45, county officials said Wednesday.
Richard J. Trauger, chief scientist at Immune Response Corp., went to the international AIDS conference in Berlin last June to deliver what he thought was good news: promising results from clinical trials of the company's anti-AIDS therapy.
NEW YORK -- The family of Geoffrey Bowers, a lawyer who brought one of the first AIDS employment discrimination cases in the United States, has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Hollywood producer Scott Rudin, TriStar Pictures and the creators of the movie "Philadelphia," charging that the film is substantially based on Bowers' story.
Lee Mathis has just shaved his head, a step he had been contemplating for a long time but lacked the courage to take. Advertising himself as an HIV-positive actor who needed work to qualify for union health coverage bolstered his resolve not to pull punches--as did the outpouring of concern in its wake.
If anyone doubts how the AIDS epidemic has decimated the ranks of the arts and entertainment fields, the point was relentlessly made at Thursday's starry and somber Commitment to Life VII at the Universal Amphitheatre, where the entertainment industry raised a record $5 million for the community outreach organization AIDS Project Los Angeles.
NEW YORK -- Federal health officials made front-page news this month with the unveiling of a new series of TV commercials that for the first time frankly advocate the use of latex condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS.
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has scrapped plans to begin a third phase of clinical trials for an experimental AIDS vaccine, saying it was too soon to tell whether it was worth going ahead with the $20-million program, despite orders from Congress to conduct the tests.
The Times Mirror Company Los Angeles Times - January 22, 1994
Scott Kraft; Times Staff Writer
PARIS -- More than a year after two French doctors were sent to prison for knowingly giving AIDS-infected blood products to hemophiliacs, the debate over the scandal was reignited this week by a petition from 98 doctors and scientists worldwide seeking a pardon for the prisoners.
Plans were announced Thursday for "The Wall--Las Memorias," a proposed memorial to be built on Los Angeles' Eastside to alert the Latino community to the deadly threat of AIDS.
At age 3, Erin was told: Mom isn't feeling well. She needs to lie down. At age, 4, she was told: Mom and Dad have bad blood, and they will get real sick. At age 5, Erin knew her mother had died of an AIDS-related disease and that her father was probably next.
An underground needle exchange program in San Francisco--illegal but operating with the express backing of the mayor and the tacit approval of police--has been found to be highly effective in reducing risky behavior among drug addicts and, contrary to the fears of critics, does not promote drug abuse, a new study shows.
VAN NUYS -- When accused serial rapist Monette Johnson goes on trial this week, the prosecutor will say he is the man who broke into the homes of at least six San Fernando Valley women and raped them, and the defense lawyer will argue that he isn't.
Copyright 1994/The Los Angeles Times - January 06, 1994
Mark Arax; Times Staff Writer
FRESNO -- A 35-year-old woman dying of AIDS has been released from state prison after a three-month campaign by other inmates and AIDS activists who demanded her freedom on grounds of compassion.
WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials unveiled a new and potentially controversial television and radio AIDS-education campaign Tuesday that for the first time explicitly promotes condom use to reduce the risk of AIDS transmission.
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.