Georgia State Rep. Betty Price—spouse of former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who recently left his role in Donald Trump’s administration after taking a few too many taxpayer-funded charter flights—casually asked a state epidemiologist whether it would be more cost-effective to just force HIV-positive…
HIV transmission is a complex process with factors beyond just who you sleep with and how. The virus ultimately needs to find its way to the correct kinds of cells in order to wreak havoc. And some of the risk, at least for those with penises, may come from the kinds of bacteria on the tip.
Teens today have never known a world where HIV was a certain death sentence. They missed the “plague years” of AIDS—the confusion, the pop-cultural discussions, the general feeling of hopelessness regarding the disease. This is sometimes referred to as “historical privilege.” It means that through no fault of their…
Needle exchange programs are generally considered a huge success. In New York state, the programs have been credited with virtually eradicating the transmission of AIDS through contaminated needles. Now, in an effort to further crack down on disease transmission via shared needles, Las Vegas has become the first city…
Last week, the American Museum of Natural History in New York and famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson held a press event to announce the museum’s new Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation.
Over the past two decades, HIV has gone from a lethal diagnosis to a manageable condition. And yet, the virus continues to spread as some 1.9 million new people are infected each year. HIV is no longer always the fatal disease it once was, but catching it is still common. An implant that offers to do for HIV what the…
Scientists in the UK have developed a USB stick that can quickly and accurately measure the amount of HIV is in a patient’s blood.
This week, an HIV epidemic has been officially declared in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, where the health department estimates 1 out of every 50 residents is a carrier of the virus. The government has been hesitant to recognize that Russia is experiencing one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In May,…
The origin of the AIDS pandemic has been reconstructed in unprecedented detail, showing the disease jumped from the Caribbean to New York City around 1970. The new study subsequently clears the name of Gaétan Dugas, a French-Canadian flight attendant long-thought to be “Patient Zero.”
A 44-year-old man in England is possibly the first person in history to be cured of HIV. Scientists working on an experimental new therapy say that the virus is now completely undetectable in his blood.
The Voice of Night Vale is opening up about being diagnosed with HIV, and shutting down stigmas about living with the disease.
Scientists are excited about the prospect of using CRISPR, a powerful gene-editing tool, to combat HIV. A discouraging follow-up study shows that HIV is capable of developing a resistance to the genetic attack—but scientists say CRISPR’s battle with HIV is far from over.
Physicians from Johns Hopkins Medicine have performed two landmark organ transplantations involving an HIV-positive liver and kidney. It’s a historic precedent that will do much to alleviate the ongoing organ shortage, while paving the way towards similar transplants involving other diseases.
Researchers from Temple University have used the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tool to clear out the entire HIV-1 genome from a patient’s infected immune cells. It’s a remarkable achievement that could have profound implications for the treatment of AIDS and other retroviruses.
This plain-looking silicone ring is more useful than it looks. Doped with an experimental antiretroviral drug, when worn in the vagina by women in sub-Saharan Africa it was shown to reduce the risk of HIV infection by as much as 61 percent.
We’re making progress in the fight against HIV around the world, but it’s still very unevenly distributed. And the United Nations’ brand new report on HIV infections among teenagers in Asia is pretty upsetting. Some 50,000 Asian teens (aged 15-19) became HIV-positive in 2014 alone, and a total of 220,000 adolescents…
AIDS was a terrifying mystery, and then we solved it. When researchers identified the human immunodeficiency virus as the reason why young, previously healthy people were developing rare cancers and wasting away, it was a triumph of medical science.
Scientists have been conscientiously studying HIV for decades, but now a new study suggests that the virus can infect and kill immune cells in a way that scientists have so far overlooked.
Last week brought the horrifying news that the Ebola virus can live in the eyeballs of survivors, even after it’s been eliminated from the rest of the body. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, though. Viruses have always hidden in parts of our bodies you’d never expect. In fact, we’re all walking virus reservoirs.
An artificial molecule built according to our understanding of HIV infection may protect cells more effectively than the body's natural antibodies. A study published in this week's issue of Nature found the molecule kept four monkeys injected with large doses of the virus free of HIV infection.
