HIV Rate Soars 12% Among Young Gay Men

Andre Davis didn't tell sex partners about disease

(NEWSER) - A professional wrestler has been sentenced in Ohio to 32 years or having sex with at least 11 women without telling them he has HIV—or lying that he was healthy. Andre Davis, 29—who has wrestled under the stage names "Gangsta of Love" and "Sweet Sexy Sensation"—was convicted of felonious assault, reports the Cincinnati Enquirer. Davis argued in court that he's a "sex addict" who was too "scared" to tell anyone he had HIV, and that he didn't intend to hurt anyone. "I am a loving and compassionate man. I'm not a monster," he said. But a prosecutor called him a "manipulative man and a liar." More»

Michigan's David Dean Smith says he exposed hundreds

(NEWSER) - Awful story out of Michigan: Authorities say a 51-year-old man who is HIV-positive confessed to intentionally exposing hundreds of people to the disease through unprotected sex, report MSNBC and the Grand Rapids Press . Court documents say that David Dean Smith harbored a "desire to harm women" and tried to infect as many people as he could. More»

More than one partner in year could label you as risky

(NEWSER) - Anyone who has had sex with two or more people in the past year could be classified as a risky organ donor even if they possess no other risk factors, according to new health guidelines proposed by the CDC. The new federal policy would flag organ donors who have not been monogamous for the previous 12 months as at increased risk for carrying HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C, reports MSNBC's health blog, Vitals . 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.

David Heckerman says spam, HIV present similar challenges

(NEWSER) - David Heckerman, the man who invented the spam filter for Microsoft, is taking on another scourge against humanity: HIV. Sound like a stretch? It’s not, Heckerman insists: He’s a medical doctor, and HIV and spam are strangely similar problems. "We have an adversarial situation going on between spam filters trying to block the spam and the spammers changing and mutating," he tells the LA Times . "And in the case of HIV, we have the immune system fighting the virus and HIV mutating to try to get through." More»