Human Immuno Deficiency Virus

Low doses of human growth hormone can reverse some of the abnormal fat distribution caused by HIV therapy, lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease, but the treatment may produce an unnecessary risk for those who have early stages of diabetes, researchers said Sunday. The hormone produced good results but would have to be used carefully to avoid inducing diabetes, said Dr. Steven Grinspoon of the Harvard Medical School, lead author of the paper.

Disheartened by the failures of vaccines and microbicides in blocking HIV transmission, some AIDS researchers are now touting a third possibility: using existing HIV drugs prophylactically. By next year, as many as 15,000 people worldwide will be enrolled in trials to test the concept -- more than are enrolled in all vaccine and microbicide trials combined -- according to a report issued Sunday at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. There are seven trials underway or planned.

Just over 40% of the adult U.S. population has been screened at least once for HIV, but a quarter of a million people are infected and don't know it, government researchers said Thursday. About 10% of the population gets an HIV test each year -- a figure that has remained stable since 2000 despite efforts to increase testing -- according to a report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A cellphone ring tone that sings "Condom, condom!" has been launched to promote safe sex in India, where condoms carry a strong social stigma and HIV and AIDS are growing problems, health experts said. The tone features a professional singer chanting the word condom more than 50 times, a playful approach that public health activists hope will spark discussion and make condoms more socially acceptable. The ring tone was launched Aug.

The HIV epidemic in the United States is a crisis, federal health officials told a House panel Tuesday, urging additional programs to specifically protect and educate African Americans, Latinos and gay and bisexual men -- the groups hardest hit by the virus that causes AIDS.

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.

Expressions of outrage and regret were issued Friday after a pair of Minneapolis talk-show hosts said that Lakers Hall of Famer Magic Johnson "faked AIDS." Johnson revealed in 1991 that he had contracted the HIV virus, but it has never turned into AIDS.

Fearing that the global economic crisis could cause nations to renege on commitments to fight tuberculosis, new Nobel laureate and HIV co-discoverer Francoise Barre-Sinoussi warned that a drop in TB funding could wipe out gains made against AIDS because so many people suffer from both diseases. "We are at the period of success with antiretroviral treatment" for HIV, Barre-Sinoussi said Tuesday during a teleconference from the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Friday ordered a man who infected his former wife with the virus that causes AIDS to pay her $12.5 million. The six-year legal battle between the couple, identified in court documents as "Bridget B." and "John B.," thrust their sexual history into public record and brought them before the California Supreme Court, where justices in 2006 ruled that people could be held liable for failing to inform a new partner of previous risky sexual behavior.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration flouted a six-year-old state law by failing to enact a program intended to provide medical care to impoverished Californians with HIV, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled in a decision made public Thursday. Writing that the state "has not fulfilled its statutory obligation," Judge James C.