Sex in the City: 26% of New Yorkers Have Herpes

Safe sex measure passes preliminary vote

(NEWSER) - No condom might equal no sex for the nation's biggest porn industry. The Los Angeles City Council has given preliminary approval to a law requiring porn actors to practice safe sex during filming, the Los Angeles Times reports. The measure, which passed 11-1, will return for final approval next week. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation had collected enough signatures to make the measure a ballot initiative. More»

Successful simian vaccine marks major advance

(NEWSER) - "There's more hope than ever before that an AIDS vaccine might be possible," says the lead author of a study that marks a major advance in the search. The study found that experimental vaccines used on monkeys reduced their susceptibility to the monkey version of HIV by 80%, the Wall Street Journal reports. Vaccinated monkeys that did get infected had less of the virus in their bloodstream than unvaccinated ones, indicating that the vaccination had left them with a more robust immune system. More»

CDC also says 3 in 4 aren't getting appropriate treatment

(NEWSER) - The CDC has a new study out on HIV treatment across the nation with some disturbing numbers, reports the Wall Street Journal :

• Unaware: About 20% of the 1.2 million people in the US with HIV don't know they're infected. That's 240,000 people.
• Treatment: All told, about three-quarters of those infected are not getting adequate treatment to keep the virus in check, thus raising the risk that it gets passed along.
• New infections: About 50,000 are newly diagnosed with HIV each year, and the lifetime cost of care is currently pegged at $367,000.

Researchers conclude that prevention works

(NEWSER) - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s $258 million AIDS prevention program in India has prevented more than 100,000 people from becoming infected, according to a study published today in the Lancet , which concludes that prevention programs targeted at high-risk populations can be effective. The initiative, dubbed Avahan, focuses on prevention techniques like needle-exchange programs, safe-sex counseling, and condom distribution, which have historically attracted fewer donors than efforts to cure the disease, the AP explains. More»

STD mutating so fast that antibiotics can't keep up

(NEWSER) - The clap is mutating so quickly that there is a real danger that it will become incurable unless new treatments are developed, British doctors warn. The bacterium that causes gonorrhea—the second most common STD in the US—is remarkably adaptable and has proven resistant to the primary drug used to treat gonorrhea in 20% of UK cases last year, the BBC reports. In 2005, that number was zero. More»