ENTERTAINMENT
July 28, 2011 | By Sophia Lee, Los Angeles Times
The Painted Turtle camp in Lake Hughes affords two preteens with hemophilia the chance to have fun. Kirin and Bailey Heftye are both handsome, healthy-looking preteen boys. Under a shaded area at an El Monte Starbucks, they frequently interrupt each other to discuss their favorite activities at summer camp. But they are not your typical 12-year-old kids, nor is the camp they attend each year your average summer camp. Kirin and Bailey are twins, and the camp they look forward to attending in early August is the Painted Turtle at Lake Hughes . It's a camp for children affected by serious health conditions including hemophilia, a lifelong, inherited bleeding disorder caused by low or nonexistent levels of blood-clotting protein.
NATIONAL
March 13, 2010 | By Andrew Zajac
Federal health officials announced Friday that they would reexamine a 27-year-old set of restrictions on blood donations by gay men. The restrictions, enacted in the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, impose a lifetime ban on men donating blood if they've had sex with another man at any time since 1977. In recent years, the American Red Cross, the American Assn. of Blood Banks and America's Blood Centers, which collectively represent almost all blood banks in the country, have recommended loosening the restrictions to allow men who have abstained from gay sex for one year to donate blood.
HEALTH
February 28, 2005 | From Reuters
A single dose of a drug already used to treat hemophilia can help limit brain damage caused by the deadliest and most debilitating form of stroke, researchers have found. Chief author Stephan Mayer said he was "stunned" by the finding involving the drug recombinant activated factor VII, which is sold for hemophilia treatment under the brand name NovoSeven by Denmark's Novo Nordisk.
NEWS
March 29, 2001 | From Times Wire Reports
In a closely watched court decision, a doctor accused of negligence in the death of a hemophiliac infected with HIV was found not guilty after a four-year trial. Takeshi Abe, 84, a hemophilia expert and vice president of Teikyo University, headed a government panel on AIDS in 1983 and 1984 and opposed swift approval of heat-treated blood products already in use in other countries. In 1996, the mother of a hemophiliac who died in 1991 brought a criminal suit against Abe.
NEWS
October 21, 2000 | From Associated Press
Robert Ray, one of three AIDS-exposed hemophiliac brothers who won a court battle 13 years ago to return to public school only to be burned out of their home by an arsonist, died Friday. He was 22. Ray, infected through contaminated blood products used to treat his hemophilia, died at All Children's Hospital of complications from both diseases, the St. Petersburg hospital said in a statement.
BUSINESS
June 7, 1999 | PAUL JACOBS
Hemophilia is a hereditary bleeding disorder that plagued the descendants of Britain's Queen Victoria. One major form of the disease is caused by a defect in a gene that normally produces a factor vital to forming blood clots. In the most severe cases, any small cut or bruise can cause excessive bleeding. The condition is treated now by using injections to supply the missing blood factor, but the repeated bleeding takes its toll on patients, especially when it flows into joints.