Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Researchers: Toddler cured of HIV

Excerpt from: CNN Health (click for full article)

 

It's a potential game changer in the fight against HIV, and doctors say it happened almost by accident.

A baby with the virus that causes AIDS was given high doses of three antiretroviral drugs within 30 hours of her birth. Doctors knew the mother was HIV positive and administered the drugs in hopes of controlling the virus.

Two years later, there is no evidence of HIV in the child's blood.

The Mississippi girl is the first child to be "functionally cured" of HIV, researchers announced Sunday. They said they believe early intervention with the antiretroviral drugs was key to the outcome.

A "functional cure" is when the presence of the virus is so small, lifelong treatment is not necessary and standard clinical tests cannot detect the virus in the blood.

Health Matters aims to end barriers to care for affected New Yorkers with disabilities

Excerpt from: Media dis&dat (click for full article)

 

Bailey House, which has served low-income homeless and unstably housed men, women and families living with and affected by HIV/AIDS since 1983 and The Center for Independence of the Disabled, NY (CIDNY), a leading advocate for people with disabilities that has worked for over 30 years to remove physical and social barriers and to ensure that people with disabilities have the tools they need to live independently, provide for financial needs, and enjoy equal opportunities, announce a strategic alliance to improve the health outcomes of low-income men and women living with all types of disabilities – physical, sensory, cognitive, developmental and psychiatric. 

The two agencies are launching this initiative, Health Matters - which combines their expertise in housing, case management, health coverage navigation, entitlement advocacy and legal advocacy - to end barriers to care for affected New Yorkers with disabilities.

Goals of the alliance include ending barriers to health care for disabled New Yorkers who are often forced to use costly emergency and acute care because they are unable to easily access primary care or mental health services in their communities. Three key factors that increase emergency department care by adults with disabilities include lack of access to care and prescription medications, the complexity of individuals’ health profiles, and disability status itself.

Justice Department Settles with Fayetteville Pain Center Over HIV Discrimination

Excerpt from: US Department of Justice (click for full article)

 

The Justice Department announced today that, as part of its Barrier-Free Health Care Initiative, it has reached a settlement with the Fayetteville Pain Center under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  The settlement resolves allegations that the Fayetteville Pain Center violated the ADA by refusing to treat a woman because she has HIV.

The complainant, a woman with HIV who was suffering from back pain as a result of a car accident, visited the Fayetteville Pain Center in Fayetteville, N.C., seeking treatment.  According to the complaint, the woman was unable to obtain medical treatment because the doctor at the Fayetteville Pain Center refused to treat a person with HIV.  The ADA requires public accommodations such as doctors’ offices, medical clinics, hospitals, and other health care providers, to provide people with disabilities, including those with HIV, equal access to goods, services, and facilities.

Under the settlement, the Fayetteville Pain Center must pay $10,000 to the complainant and $5,000 to the United States in civil penalties, train its staff on the ADA, and develop and implement an anti-discrimination policy.

Research on stricken bats may help AIDS fight

Excerpt from: The Washington Post (click for full article)

 

Scientists now hope to study the immunology of bats to try to uncover findings that can assist the development of treatments for AIDS.

Meteyer said she envisions a day when “we can look closely at the mechanism driving this intense response in bats and potentially get insight into this phenomenon in humans.”

Her co-author, Judith Mandl, a research fellow for the National Institutes of Health involved in AIDS research, was also intrigued by the similarities between bat and human reactions. “When you release immune suppression, you get a response that’s a lot more damaging than helpful,” she said. The third co-author is Daniel Barber, who also works at NIH.

“You have a system set up for catastrophe,” Meteyer said, a mad army of white blood cells massed for a lethal attack. What triggers it? “They have no idea how to recognize a fungus without a chemical signal. What is the signal?”

An Experimental Treatment for Leukemia

Excerpt from: The New York Times (click for full article)

 

Last spring, Emma Whitehead was near death from acute lymphoblastic leukemia but is now in remission after an experimental treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Emma is among a handful of people who have received the treatment, in which a disabled form of the AIDS virus is used to reprogram a patient’s immune system genetically to kill cancer cells.

Dr. Carl June, who leads the University of Pennsylvania research team that developed the treatment, hopes it will eventually replace bone-marrow transplantation, an even more arduous, risky and expensive procedure that is now the last hope in leukemia and related diseases.