The largest clinical trial of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for people with HIV infection ever run in Africa has found that regular laboratory tests offer little additional clinical benefit to populations when compared to careful clinical monitoring.
The DART study was a controversial one that saw mislead and misleading activists trying to stop a study which outcome could contribute to save many lives.
The study published in The Lancet today concluded that “ART can be delivered safely without routine laboratory monitoring for toxic eff ects, but diff erences in disease progression suggest a …

Why HIV “prevention does not work” has been the subject of recurrent discussions during the past weeks. It all started with a thought-provoking article published online by Frontiers in LA, “a one-stop source of content for Southern California’s LGBT community” (welcome to the Ghetto) by Michael Liberatore who wrote that “if pharmaceutical companies were supplying the cash to develop [HIV/AIDS] treatments, couldn’t they just as easily stall the development of newer, less profit-friendly treatments to assure that their bank accounts continue to swell?”
The article is worth reading and raises some …

This is the second part of a true story told through a friend, a first person account of the life of Nhlanhla , a nurse in a Sub-Saharan country afflicted by HIV and AIDS (read part 1 here). Names, places and minor details have been changed to protect people’s privacy. It is a story of fear, stigma, discrimination but also of hope, the everyday story of a young woman whose life, on revealing to her family that she is HIV positive, spirals into hell and despair.

“A few days later I …

A few weeks ago, Steve Weinstein, editor-In-Chief of the Boston-based Edge, commented on “Disco dosing”, the alleged Gay-men practice of taking a cocktail made of a psychostimulant, methamphetamine, an antiretroviral, Tenofovir, and a drug used to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension Viagra, better known for its ability to correct erectile dysfunction, before going clubbing. Such mix even has a name: “MTV”.
Disco dosing has been around for years. It was reported that Gay men were taking the antiretroviral Tenofovir before going on the prowl for the weekend and enjoy unprotected sex, hopping …

Access to life saving medicines is once more at the heart of trade negotiations between Thailand and the US. And again the US administration and businesses have chosen to bully the Thai government in advance of a meeting in Washington prior to the release of the that impacts on trade conditions between the US and its partners.
Compulsory licensing (CL) has been the casus beli of an ongoing battle started when the junta government led by Surayud Chulanont issued compulsory licences for antiretrovirals and anti-cancer drugs in September 2006 in …