Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

Riverside County officials have rejected Liberace's death certificate and ordered his body returned from Los Angeles for an autopsy to determine whether he died of AIDS. The action overshadowed Friday's memorial service attended by several hundred mourners at Our Lady of Solitude Roman Catholic Church near Liberace's home in Palm Springs. Among them were actor Kirk Douglas and Mrs. Bob Hope. During the service, Father William Erstad read a telegram from President and Mrs.

As a liberal-minded person, Kathy Gerus-Darbison never wanted to stand in the way of equal treatment for gays. As a college professor, she certainly never meant to end up on the wrong side of what many experts consider a settled question of science. But then, she never thought she would watch in helpless horror as her husband, a hemophiliac, received contaminated blood products and ultimately died of AIDS, growing so desperate he begged doctors to radiate his brain in hopes of gaining a little more time with his family.

Marc Christian MacGinnis, who won a multimillion-dollar settlement in 1991 from the estate of his ex-lover, actor Rock Hudson, after convincing a jury Hudson had knowingly exposed him to AIDS, has died. He was 56. Known as Marc Christian, he died of pulmonary problems June 2 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. The details were confirmed Friday by his sister, Susan Dahl, who said she did not publicly announce his death earlier because of her brother's wish for privacy.

A stamp in Heidemarie Kremer's passport reveals her health status as HIV-positive. Because of the disease, Kremer -- a native of Germany -- has been barred from becoming a legal resident of the United States. She and her two children are fighting possible deportation, and their plans for the future are on hold. But that soon may change. This month, the federal government cleared the way for HIV-positive foreigners to visit the country and apply for green cards, lifting a bar that has been in place for more than two decades.

A stamp in Heidemarie Kremer's passport reveals her health status as HIV-positive. Because of the disease, Kremer -- a native of Germany -- has been barred from becoming a legal resident of the United States. She and her two children are fighting possible deportation, and their plans for the future are on hold. But that soon may change. This month, the federal government cleared the way for HIV-positive foreigners to visit the country and apply for green cards, lifting a bar that has been in place for more than two decades.

First Lady Barbara Bush offered a strong defense of private lives, including her own, saying Wednesday that she sympathizes with Wellesley College students who raised questions about her speaking at their graduation, but she thinks they don't understand "where I am coming from." "That's all right," Mrs. Bush said. "I chose to live the life I've lived, and I think it has been a fabulously exciting, interesting, involved life. I hope some of them will choose the same. . . .

A genetic analysis of a biopsy sample recently discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has led researchers to conclude that the virus that causes AIDS has existed in human populations for more than a century, according to a study released Wednesday. The study, led by evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona in Tucson, puts the date of origin at around 1900, which is 30 years earlier than previous analyses.

Gregory Howard found his calling in an infectious disease ward in Newark. He'd gone into detox to withdraw from a decade on drugs. Suddenly, he'd begun losing weight and his lymph nodes had swollen. His skin crawled as though infested with bugs. Lying there, he heard the doctors talking about a new disease. It was killing men who injected drugs and who had sex with other men. Howard had done both. He called his parents and told them he was dying.

Recalling that she served as mayor of San Francisco when AIDS first emerged as a "so-called gay cancer" in 1981, Dianne Feinstein visited a hospice Thursday where AIDS victims go to die and pledged an accelerated state campaign against the disease if she is elected governor. "I was there at the beginning and I hope I'm there at the end," the Democratic nominee told male AIDS victims while touring the 25-bed Chris Brownlie Hospice near Dodger Stadium.

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday narrowly approved the distribution of condoms on high school campuses, but gave parents the option of denying their children permission to obtain them. The action brings to an end more than two years of study and often-rancorous debate over the proposal. Drawing cheers and jeers from more than 200 parents, activists and religious leaders who packed its meeting room, the board members adopted the measure by a 4-3 vote.

The estimated number of new HIV infections each year has declined about 17% since 2001, but for every five people infected, only two begin treatment, according to a report from the World Health Organization and UNAIDS released Tuesday. About 2.7 million people were newly infected with the virus that causes AIDS last year, compared with about 3.3 million in 2001 -- although direct comparisons are difficult because the numbers are counted differently now. The biggest gains were in sub-Saharan Africa, where there were 400,000 fewer infections, even though the region still accounts for 67% of all new infections.

John Duran was a young lawyer living in West Hollywood in 1984 when he joined what would become one of the nation's longest-running studies of HIV/AIDS. "They were going to try to figure out what this thing was that was killing gay men," Duran said. More than a thousand men signed up for the Los Angeles Men's Study, part of the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, or MACS, that also included 5,000 men in Chicago, Baltimore and Pittsburgh. During the next 25 years, the study generated scores of scientific findings as the group of mostly white, openly gay volunteers tested HIV-positive and sought treatment.

Only hours after HIV vaccine researchers announced the achievement of a milestone that has eluded them for a quarter of a century, they began plotting their next steps -- and coming to grips with a sobering reality. Their ultimate goal, halting the spread of AIDS, remains far in the future. A Thai and American team had announced early Thursday in Bangkok that they had found a combination of vaccines that provided modest protection against infection with HIV, offering the first proof of principle that the deadly disease could be tamed by teaching the immune system to recognize the virus and defeat it. Scientists around the world hailed the achievement.

Scientists have discovered that chimpanzees in Tanzania are falling ill and dying from an AIDS-like disease -- a surprising finding that could lead to insights into the illness and, perhaps, to a vaccine. The study, published in Thursday's edition of the British research journal Nature, showed that chimps infected by certain strains of simian immunodeficiency virus, a precursor to HIV, died 10 to 16 times more frequently than uninfected chimps during a nine-year study.

A prominent AIDS advocacy group filed a petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday alleging that county public health officials have failed to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in the pornographic film industry.

As prominent AIDS advocates called Thursday for Los Angeles County officials to require condoms on porn sets or shut down production, more questions arose about why the Public Health Department has not investigated 18 HIV cases reported in the last five years by the clinic that serves the adult film industry. "L.A.

The Saudi government Thursday reported its first cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, saying that seven of the 18 people who contracted the virus had died.

Hungary said it is setting up a telephone hot line to provide information on AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, the official news agency MTI reported.

Timothy Brodt is among more than 2,000 bike riders who left Sunday on a 545-mile trek from San Francisco to Los Angeles as part of the AIDS/LifeCycle benefit. He carried with him a small black-and-white photo of his Uncle Richard, who died of AIDS more than 20 years ago. For the last two years, Brodt has participated in the annual bike ride to raise money for HIV and AIDS-related services at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

Condoms are not the answer to Africa's fight against HIV, Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday as he began a weeklong trip to the continent. It was the pope's first explicit statement on an issue that has divided even clergy working with AIDS patients. Benedict arrived in Yaounde, Cameroon's capital, and was greeted by a crowd of flag-waving faithful and snapping cameras. The visit is his first pilgrimage as pontiff to Africa.