The Narrowing Food Tree

(Source)

AMA Comes Out For Marriage

In response to the vote in the New York legislature, the American Medical Association has issued a call for the marriage equality across the United States. Via press release from Freedom To Marry:

With the New York State now the sixth – and largest – state to end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a policy position declaring that excluding same-sex couples from marriage is “discriminatory” and reaffirming existing AMA policy to support relationship recognition of gay and lesbian couples as a means of addressing health disparities faced by those couples and their families. “With this deliberate policy statement by the American Medical Association, the nation’s doctors diagnose the pain and injury that exclusion from marriage inflicts on lesbian and gay couples, their children, and loved ones – and make clear that ending marriage discrimination is the cure,” said Evan Wolfson, founder and President of Freedom to Marry. “The AMA now joins every other mainstream public health organization in America in making the case for providing the freedom to marry – and the critical safety-net that comes with marriage – to loving, committed same-sex couples.”

FOTF Denies Climate Change

Religion Shrinks Your Brain

From Scientific American:

In this study, Owen et al. used MRI to measure the volume of the hippocampus, a central structure of the limbic system that is involved in emotion as well as in memory formation. They evaluated the MRIs of 268 men and women aged 58 and over, who were originally recruited for the NeuroCognitive Outcomes of Depression in the Elderly study, but who also answered several questions regarding their religious beliefs and affiliation. The study by Owen et al. is unique in that it focuses specifically on religious individuals compared to non-religious individuals. This study also broke down these individuals into those who are born again or who have had life-changing religious experiences. The results showed significantly greater hippocampal atrophy in individuals reporting a life-changing religious experience.

Italics are mine. Heh.

CDC Responds To End Of African PrEP

The CDC writes us this morning to note their response to the early halting of an African HIV PrEP study, which I mentioned yesterday. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) involves taking an HIV medication as a preventive to infection. The CDC expresses disappointment with the cessation of the African study, as "this approach has already been shown to be effective in reducing HIV infection among men who have sex with men."

While PrEP with FTC/TDF was not shown to be effective in preliminary analyses of these study results, it cannot yet be definitely determined whether this drug combination works, or does not work, to prevent HIV among women. FEM-PrEP study investigators will be conducting additional analyses in the coming months to better assess potential reasons for the results in this study – including examining factors such as adherence and differential risk behavior between the two trial arms -- that may account for the lack of demonstrated efficacy in this trial. Investigators from other PrEP trials, including CDC, will be working closely with FHI to review all available data and determine any implications for ongoing research. Given today's results, CDC cautions against women using PrEP for HIV prevention at this time. We will not know if PrEP is effective for women, couples, or injection drug users until the conclusive results of this and other trials are reported.

African HIV PrEP Study Halted

Citing poor early results, researchers have halted an African study in which women were given the HIV medication Truvada as a preventive to infection. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has been considered one of the more promising advances against AIDS.

Women taking Truvada, made by Gilead Sciences Inc., are just as likely to get HIV as other women who have been given dummy pills, an interim analysis of the study found. Even if the study were to continue, it would not be able to determine whether the pills help prevent infection, since the results are even this far along, researchers said. The finding is disappointing because another study last fall concluded that Truvada did help prevent infections in gay and bisexual men when given with condoms, counseling and other prevention services. Many AIDS experts view that as a breakthrough that might help slow the epidemic.

Last month the U.S.-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation denounced a similar study for gay men, saying, "There is no magic pill." Truvada costs as much as $14,000/year in the United States, but is available in generic form overseas for as little as $140/year.

Identity Gap

The Wall Street Journal looks at recent estimates of the size of the LGBT community in the United States and why some consider such figures to be inherently unreliable.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation Denounces PrEP Study: There Is No Magic Pill

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is denouncing the study of using existing HAART medications as a daily preventive for HIV infection. From their website, No Magic Pills:

AIDS Healthcare Foundation takes the matter of HIV prevention very seriously. We are concerned about the implications of a recent study of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) using Gilead Sciences, Inc.’s drug Truvada using 2,500 gay men and showing a 44% effectiveness rate in preventing HIV transmission. AHF supports continued research on HIV prevention, but opposes quick fixes that run the risk of contributing to the spread of HIV and drug-resistant viruses. Our community must consider these issues if we are going to offer up hundreds of thousands of gay men for this totally misguided experiment.

Jeff Berry, editor of Positively Aware, responds to a full-page ad published by AHF in this week's edition of the Windy City Times.

Of course there is no magic pill. There has never been, and never will be, a one-size-fits-all method to prevent the spread of HIV. And for those populations who may be at higher risk, or who may not have the luxury of having all of the tools at their disposal (for example men or women whose partners are unwilling or unable to use a condom or other form of protection), if they could use a microbicide gel or even a pill to lessen their risk, why would we not want that?

Oral PrEP (if proven safe and effective), vaginal and rectal microbicides, condoms, risk-reduction and adherence counseling, treatment as prevention—all of these and other methods must be allowed to be fully explored and studied. We owe it to ourselves, our partners, our families, our friends, and to future generations. We cannot and must not allow politics or fear tactics to trump science—we are better than that. To do any less is a disservice to those whom we purport to serve.

VIDEO: Positively Aware writer Keith Romell explains PrEP.

A Day Made Of Glass

Yeah I want pretty much everything in this ad. And a flying car. We were all promised flying cars, you know.

CDC Issues Interim PrEP Guidance

Last last year researchers announced some success in preventing HIV among gay men who were taking a daily dose of the HIV medication Truvada. The concept of warding off infection by pre-dosing with a medication is known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP.) But alarmed by the prospect for abuse, yesterday the CDC issued some interim PReP guidance as studies continue.

CDC says it wanted to fend off improper use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (or, more catchily, PrEP) as it and other agencies work on more detailed guidelines, which will take “several months.” It says that the drug should only be used in men who have sex with men, since studies in other high-risk groups such as IV drug users are still underway. And it should be used only in high-risk men (with multiple partners or partners from an area with a high prevalence of HIV infection), who are most likely to benefit. Also, the drug isn’t the equivalent of the morning-after pill for HIV; it’s meant to be taken daily. “Support for adherence to the prescribed medication regimen must be a routine component” of PrEP, the CDC says. (In the study, the risk of HIV infection was reduced just 21% in men whose adherence was less than 90%, compared to a 73% lower risk of infection for those with adherence of 90% or better.) And other preventive measures, such as condom use, should continue to be taken.

The wholesale cost of Truvada in the United States is $1000 for a month's supply, a cost unlikely to be covered by insurance when the drug is used as a preventive. In some countries, Truvada costs as little as $12/month.

AIDS Denialists: Science Under Attack

In the first half of this BBC Science Under Attack special aired Sunday night, Nobel Prize winner Sir Paul Nurse examines the mindsets of folks who deny the science behind global warming. Interesting stuff, but skip forward to 43:00 where Nurse takes on a New Yorker who blithely denies that HIV causes AIDS.

(Via -Atheist Media Blog)

Tears Kill Boners

When scientists exposed men to women's tears, they expected the men to respond with sympathetic emotions. Instead, they lost interest in sex.

In several experiments, researchers found that men who sniffed drops of women’s emotional tears became less sexually aroused than when they sniffed a neutral saline solution that had been dribbled down women’s cheeks. While the studies were not large, the findings showed up in a variety of ways, including testosterone levels, skin responses, brain imaging and the men’s descriptions of their arousal. “Chemical signaling is a form of language,” said one of the researchers, Dr. Noam Sobel, a professor of neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. “Basically what we’ve found is the chemo-signaling word for ‘no’ — or at least ‘not now.’ ”

When gay men are exposed to women's tears, they respond with offers of cocktails and shopping.

A Cocaine Vaccine?

Scientists are testing a vaccine that causes the body to treat cocaine like an attacking virus and thereby keep it away from the brain.

So far, the vaccine has only been tested on mice, but the results are extraordinary. Mice given the vaccine no longer exhibited any of the hyperactive signs of a cocaine high when they were next given the drug. The vaccine was created by taking just the part of the cold virus that alerts the body's immune system to its presence, and then researchers connected the signaling mechanism to a more stable version of the cocaine molecule.

Once the mice received an injection of the vaccine, they started producing anti-cocaine antibodies which targeted and destroyed any cocaine that then entered their system. Normally, cocaine does not produce an immune response, leaving it free to wreak havoc on the brain and body of whoever takes it. But the cold virus segments taught the immune system to treat cocaine like a hostile invader, offering a nearly impregnable wall of protection from the cocaine's effects.

All kinds of ethical implications are raised by this research, of course. For example, should it be legal for parents to immunize their children against the pleasurable effects of some drugs without ever knowing if that person was capable of responsible use?

Quote Of The Day - Michael Weinstein

"Recent headlines that heralded taking medication as a means of preventing transmission of HIV among gay men were applauded by many AIDS experts. The news came in a study of nearly 2,500 men in six countries that found that an average man taking the medication was 44 percent less likely to become infected than a control group taking a placebo.

"How very sad that we have come to this point. The applause for this approach shows just how disposable we consider the lives of gay men. If we were talking about protecting the general population with a treatment that was only 44 percent effective, would we be celebrating? Yet that is how the media and most of the public interpreted this study. [snip]

"I applaud efforts to find new ways to prevent HIV transmission. However, far too often baby steps forward are interpreted as huge leaps in scientific knowledge. We must consider this if we are going to offer up hundreds of thousands of gay men for this misguided experiment." - AIDS Healthcare Foundation head Michael Weinstein, writing for the San Jose Mercury-News.

FDA Approves One-Minute HIV Test

The FDA has approved an HIV test that provides results in one minute.

“We believe the speed, accuracy, and unique technology of our 60-second HIV test will make the testing and early treatment of HIV/AIDS more efficient in all patient settings, including hospital emergency rooms and public health clinics,” said bioLytical Laboratories president Philip Bligh in a press release. “Additionally, our high-volume, automated manufacturing capability makes INSTI one of the most cost-effective solutions available for providers of HIV rapid testing.”

Got a minute? Get tested.

Offspring Created From Two Male Mice

Using stem cell technology, scientists have been able to create male and female baby mice from two male parents. Most notably for us here, the breakthrough raises the possibility of same-sex couples having children genetically related to both parents.

In the work reported today, the Behringer team manipulated fibroblasts from a male (XY) mouse fetus to produce an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell line. About one percent of iPS cell colonies grown from this XY cell line spontaneously lost the Y chromosome, resulting in XO cells. The XO iPS cells were injected into blastocysts from donor female mice. The treated blastocysts were transplanted into surrogate mothers, which gave birth to female XO/XX chimeras having one X chromosome from the original male mouse fibroblast. The female chimeras, carrying oocytes derived from the XO cells, were mated with normal male mice. Some of the offspring were male and female mice that had genetic contributions from two fathers.

This work could also help in the battle to preserve endangered animal species.

UPDATE: The Family Research Council is reassuring their followers that nothing will come of this in human terms.

Poppers May Damage Your Eyes

From a little-noticed October story in the New York Times:

In a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, the ophthalmologists describe four cases over three months in which patients’ vision was affected after they used poppers at parties. Several complained of seeing bright dots of light, and retinal imaging revealed damage to the photoreceptors in the fovea, part of the retina that is responsible for the sharp central vision needed for driving or reading. Two of the patients’ vision returned to normal over time, though their retinas may still have sustained damage, the doctors said. In one, a 27-year-old woman, the impairment persisted for at least a month. The damage may occur because nitric oxide affects photoreceptor function and metabolism, the doctors said.

Doctors say the problem is probably very underreported.

HIV Drug Effective In PrEP Study

A just-released pre-exposure prophylactics (PreEP) study reveals that taking the HIV drug Truvada once a day reduces the incidence of HIV infection by about 44%. The result was even better among men who were the most compliant about taking the drug every day.

The drugs tenofovir and emtricitabine, packaged as a once-daily pill and sold in drugstores as Truvada, reduced HIV infections by an average of 44% among gay and bisexual men who took the drug, compared with those taking a placebo. Men who reported being the most diligent about taking their pill each day reaped an even bigger benefit, reducing their risk by 73%. "This is a huge step forward," says lead researcher Robert Grant, at the J. David Gladstone Institute at the University of California-San Francisco, a non-profit research foundation that carried out the study. David Paltiel of Yale University says that his research shows that Truvada could be as cost-effective a prevention method as those used to combat heart disease diabetes and cancer, despite its $8,700 annual cost.

The findings have bred new enthusiasm in a field where, for years, optimism was rare. Over 30 years, HIV has infected 40 million people. But this year alone, researchers have demonstrated that a pill and a vaginal gel (containing a component of Truvada) can prevent HIV and shown, at least in concept, that a vaccine can work. This is a very exciting, dynamic time in HIV prevention research," says Alan Bernstein, head of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a non-profit effort to accelerate vaccine research. "It couldn't come at a better time. There's clearly a growing realization that we're not going to be able to treat our way out of this epidemic.

Read the full details of the study.

New Survey: 8% Gay, 7% Lesbian

In what they are calling the "largest nationally representative study of sexual and sexual-health behaviors ever fielded," a just-released survey commissioned by Indiana University says that 8% of adult American men self-identify as gay or bisexual, with 7% of women identifying as lesbian or bisexual. Those numbers are almost triple the percentages claimed by some anti-gay groups.

ABC News takes note of the study's "interesting findings."

About 85 percent of men reported that their partner had an orgasm during their most recent sexual encounter, but only 64 percent of women report having had one. Researchers said the difference is too great to attribute to men having had their last encounter with another man. Eight percent of men and 7 percent of women identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, but a much higher percentage report engaging in sexual activity with someone of the same sex at least once. The study found that 15 percent of men aged 50-59 have received oral sex from another man at some point.

Here's one of the sexual behaviors graphs from the study.

Spray-On Clothing In A Can

To be sold as Fabrican. Sure to be a big hit at IML.