Mar 25, 2005  | COMMENTS     

NEW YORK — Dr. John Nelson, the president of the American Medical Association, apologized for anti-gay comments he made last month in an interview with a newspaper, the New York Journal News reported. During the interview with the Journal News, Nelson defended a decision by New York Medical College to ban a gay students’ group by comparing it to a decision by Brigham Young University officials to suspend four students accused of rape, the Journal News reported. Nelson announced the AMA has agreed to expand the work of a commission that is studying minority access to medical care “to include disparities experienced by GLBT people.” That commission had been focusing on ethnic and racial minorities, the Journal News reported. New York Medical College officials denied a gay group because it is affiliated with the Catholic Church and said such a group does not conform to church philosophy, according to the Journal News. Nelson. In the interview, Nelson stressed doctors should treat gay Americans “with dignity, with respect and with absolute confidentiality.” He added that the rights of gay students should be balanced against the right of a private institution to enforce its own policies, the Journal News reported. Nelson then likened the decision to ban the gay group to Brigham Young’s decision to suspend the students accused of rape and to ban Coca-Cola (in fact, the school bans only coffee, tea and alcohol).

Conn. doctor sees state link to drug-resistant HIV virus
BRIDGEORT, Conn. (AP) — An AIDS specialist believes that one of his Connecticut patients may be linked to a case of drug-resistant HIV discovered in a New York City man. Dr. Gary Blick said last week that in a preliminary study he found epidemiological and genetic links between the virus strains infecting both men. “The two patients appear to have had unsafe sex together during a night of sex and drugs last fall at a club in Manhattan,” Blick told the Connecticut Post. However, Blick said it “does not by any means confirm direct person-to-person transmission of HIV between the two individuals.” The New York patient, a man in his mid-40s who had unprotected sex with other men, contracted a strain of HIV that is “difficult or impossible to treat and which appears to progress rapidly to AIDS,” New York Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said last month. The new strain of the virus that both men tested positive for is known as multi-drug resistant HIV, or MDR-HIV. Not only is it drug-resistant, but it can progress from HIV to full-blown AIDS in a matter of months, according to health officials.

Anonymous letters mailed to HIV-positive Floridians
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Palm Beach County’s top health official is asking for a criminal investigation into anonymous letters received by HIV-positive people. The letters have been mailed since a confidential list of about 6,500 HIV carriers was mistakenly e-mailed to about 800 county health workers last month. At least 16 people opened the e-mail. The list did not include addresses. One letter with no return address said, “Your name appeared on a list of HIV-AIDS patients for Palm Beach County.” Health Department director Jean Malecki said last week that the letters are not official correspondence, and she wants a criminal investigation, calling the mailings “terrorism.” “We have a creep or creeps out there trying to frighten people following a separate incident with that e-mail,” Malecki said. Florida requires people who carry HIV to register for monitoring purposes. Disclosing the list is a crime.

Study: AIDS drug cocktails may protect against cancer
WASHINGTON — International researchers said last week that drug cocktails taken to battle the AIDS virus may also protect patients against some cancers related to the disease, Reuters reported. The highly active antiretroviral therapy or HAART drug mixtures rein in the virus and help patients fight off pneumonia and other infections that result when HIV begins to destroy the immune system, according to Reuters. But HAART also prevents some cancers, said researchers including Gary Clifford of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, Reuters reported. By analyzing the records of more than 7,300 Swiss with HIV, researchers found that those on HAART had lower risks of Kaposi’s sarcoma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma than those who were not on HAART, according to Reuters. Still, health officials noted, both kinds of cancer are 20 times more common in HIV patients than in the general population, Reuters reported.