The Daoist Diaries

It’s only August 26th and believe it or not.. I am almost ready to put my boat up on blocks. You believe it? I know Sept. and Oct. are the best months to boat in, but with the pace of my household.. I am afraid I have time for little else. Don’t get me wrong, I love love love this boat, but as soon as my wedding anniversary hits (yesterday) I feel like calling summer quits. I’m even looking at the fall crafts and halloween accesories at Michaels Crafts! Am I pushing it? I have my pumpkin candles already burning on our kitchen table. I usually do that until the end of Sept?! It was a long summer and I’m ready to settle into school, homework, karate, football, musical instruments and all that childhood has to torture me with. I’ll keep you posted~
Out to enjoy the east coast Indian Summer!

The gay community in the western world, mauled by the first wave of the AIDS AIDS pandemic, now faces a second storm, according to a forecast released at the International AIDS conference.Since 2001, new cases of HIV HIV in the homosexual population in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australasia have been rising by about 1.9 % every year, the research by the University of Pittsburgh said.Without action to correct this trend a return to safe sex or an unexpected medical breakthrough the infection rate is set to soar as the population ages.

In 2001, HIV affected on average roughly one in 12 gay 20-year-olds in these countries. By the time they are 30, researchers projected, the rate could rise to one in four. And by the time this group reaches 60, 58 percent could be infected.Ensuing generations are also at threat, said the study, which was a review of papers in published journals.“Ongoing incidence rates at this level will yield very high HIV prevalence rates within each generation of gay men,” University of Pittsburgh researcher Ron Stall said.Stall was especially alarmed by the explosion in HIV infections among African-American gays.In this group, the rate of new infections today is four percent among those between 15 and 22 years of age - but 15 % among those aged 23-29.

Assuming an average rate of increase of four percent of new infections per year, three-quarters of individuals in the 23-29 group will be HIV-positive when they reach the age of 50.”It’s not a new story, it has been repeated time and again in the literature in the past… an almost unbelievable incidence rate,” Stall said.”African-American men who have sex with men suffer among the highest HIV prevalence rates of any risk group in the world.”The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC CDC) also warned of a daunting rise in the rate of gays contracting HIV in 35 US states.Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV, said the surge in infections among gay men could partly be explained by the growing use of methamphetamines, a drug that enhances sexual appetites and can drive users into risky sex.

He also pointed to what he called “AIDS burnout” complacency about the risks from AIDS in the era of antiretroviral drugs, which keep HIV to a manageable level but are not a cure and carry major side-effects.”We have a new generation of gay men who didn’t go through the early years, who didn’t see neighbourhoods dying,” said Valdiserri.”HIV is still an incurable disease. In the United States five percent (of the budget for HIV) is spent on prevention,” he added.”America is more interested on treating this disease than preventing it. We can’t treat our way out of this epidemic, even as a rich country.”

Original post by Spaceman

A team of US scientists hasdeveloped an experimental drug treatment that kills prostatecancer cells in mice while sparing normal cells. The approach is based on delivering small interfering RNAs(siRNAs) to tumor cells, North Carolina-based researchersreport in the journal Nature Biotechnology.In tests in mice with prostate cancer, the researchersfound that tumors treated with the experimental RNA-based drughad a 2.21-fold reduction in volume. In contrast, variouscontrol tumors left untreated increased in volume by 3.63-foldover a period of about 2 weeks.The mice given the RNA-based drug showed no ill effects.”Our initial animal studies using prostate cancer as amodel are encouraging,” said study investigator Dr. Bruce A.Sullenger from Duke University Medical Center in Durham, “andwe plan to explore the use of this strategy for targeting avariety of other cancers and diseases.”

Moreover, he and his colleagues intend to “evaluate thepotential of this approach in … clinical studies in the nextfew years.” Explaining the rationale behind the RNA-based strategy,Sullenger told Reuters Health: “RNA is such a multifacetedmolecule, that a single molecule of RNA can simultaneouslytrick cells into taking it up via a targeting RNA sequence andshut down the expression of an essential cancer survival genevia a silencing RNA sequence.”The approach is a “simple yet elegant” way to target cancercells for destruction without harming normal cells, he said.

SOURCE: Nature Biotechnology August 2006.

Original post by Hennady

Circumcision, microbicides and drugsall offer promising new possibilities for battling the AIDS pandemic, but it will not be easy to roll out this arsenal ofpreven tion methods, experts said on Tuesday.

And the ultimate goal of a vaccine is still far away, although vaccine researchers said they were making progress.”An AIDS vaccine is the only tool that can end the pandemic,” Dr. S. Berkley of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative told a news conference.”All evidence suggests that a vaccine is possible. There isprogress being made. It’s slow but it’s steady.”

In the meantime, people need to mobilize every prevention method possible, according to the report by the Global HIV Prevention Working Group, presented to the InternationalConference on AIDS.The global HIV group is in a position to make some of itsrecommendations happen. Its members work at the World Health Organization World Health Organization, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, European Commission and the World Bank .”This is really putting prevention on the map in ways thatit hasn’t been done before,” Dr. H. Gayle of the aid group CARE and an organizer of the AIDS conference, said in aninterview. “Research on some of these approaches, such as malecircumcision and diaphragms, could show results within the nexttwo years,” the report concludes.No method would work on its own, but combining severalcould make a dent in the epidemic, the report says.The United Nations United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS estimates that $11.4billion will be needed annually for HIV prevention by 2008,more than twice what is now spent.The AIDS virus infects more than 39 million peopleglobally, more than 60 % of them in sub-Saharan Africa.It kills more than 4 million people every year.Condoms and abstinence are the only reliable methods toprevent AIDS in adults, which is spread sexually and viaintravenous drug use.

LITTLE PLANNING “Despite the fact that some new HIV prevention methodscould be shown to be effective in the near future, virtually noplanning or resources have been dedicated to ensuring futureaccess to new prevention approaches,” the report says.They include:

- Circumcision: A study in South Africa showed circumcisedmen were 60 % less likely than uncircumcised men tobecome infected with HIV from female partners. The foreskin ofthe penis contains many of the cells HIV can easily infect.

- Cervical barriers: Diaphragms and similar birth controlmethods might block the virus from reaching the cervix, whichin women is the area most susceptible to the virus.

- Pre-exposure prophylaxis with HIV drugs. Research inanimals suggests taking one or two drugs a day could protectpeople at high risk of infection.

- Herpes suppression: The herpes virus, which infects upto 70 % of people in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa,creates lesions that make HIV easier to acquire and transmit,but can be suppressed with several antiviral drugs.

- Microbicides: A gel or cream, perhaps containing an HIVdrug, could be applied to the vagina or rectum to reduce HIVtransmission. Five promising microbicides are currently inlate-stage clinical trials.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton Bill Clinton told the meeting muchprogress had been made in beating down the price of HIVtreatments and getting them to the people who need them most.Four years ago, Clinton said, a course of treatment withgeneric versions of first-line HIV drugs cost $400 a year. “Wewere able to lower this price to just $140 a person a year,”Clinton said. Rapid HIV tests now cost just 50 cents, he said.And leaders who had refused to recognize the extent of theAIDS problem have signed on to fight it, he added. “China, oncein a state of denial, deserves all of our respect for turningon a dime and recognizing the problem,” Clinton said.

Original post by SX

ATLANTA - Fewer U.S. high school students are having sex, and the ones who do are less likely to have multiple partners, according to a report issued Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some 46.8 percent of students said they engaged in sexual intercourse in a 2005 survey, down from 54.1 percent in 1991, according to the report.

Some 14.3 percent of students in 2005 said they have had multiple partners, defined as sex with four different people during one’s lifetime. That figure is down from 18.7 percent in 1991.