Contagious and Infectious Diseases

29-Year-Old With AIDS Launches Kickstarter-Type Campaign to Pay for Health Care

Valyn Calhoun posted a photo of himself, looking pale and weighing 95 pounds. "I put up a picture of my body," the 29-year-old wrote. "It may scare some, but this is something I see everyday."Calhoun, a photographer who runs in Fort Lauderdale's music and art scenes, contracted HIV and hepatitis C, ... More >>

Wilton Manors to Hold World AIDS Day Candlelight Vigil Saturday

Hard to believe it's been 25 years since a group of folks gathered in San Francisco to commemorate and remember loved ones who had passed away from AIDS. This small gathering gave birth to the AIDS Quilt, which eventually gave birth to World AIDS Day -- officially observed every December 1. On Satu ... More >>

Florida Whooping Cough Cases Hit Ten-Year High

We've been predicting it for months, and new data from the Department of Health now confirm it. Whooping cough cases are the highest they've been in Florida for the past decade, and probably a lot longer than that. As of Tuesday, there have an astonishing 515 cases around the state, a ... More >>

Whooping Cough Cases Continue to Climb in Broward and Across Florida

Broward health officials have now recorded 34 cases of whooping cough this year, according to the latest data. For the whole of last year, there was only one case documented in the county. See also-Broward Whooping Cough Cases Shouldn't Surprise Anyone-Whooping Cough Cases Surge in Broward, Flo ... More >>

David France on the Plague Years: The History and Survival of ACT UP

Study Shows Oxitec GM Mosquitoes Work: What It Means for a Florida Experiment

See also "Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Glow Red and Self-Destruct; Can They Keep Away Disease?" and "Petition Against GM Mosquitoes in Key West Has Nearly 100,000 Signatures" Opposition to the potential release of Oxitec's genetically modified mosquitoes in Key West caught a h ... More >>

Florida Quarantined Tuberculosis Patients in Some Random Jacksonville Motel

Remember how the Palm Beach Post figured out that Florida covered up the worst tuberculosis outbreak in 20 years and that "the itinerant homeless, drug-addicted, mentally ill people at the core of the Jacksonville TB cluster are almost impossible to keep on their medications" and that they were stum ... More >>

Whooping Cough Cases Surge in Broward, Florida

See also "Broward Whooping Cough Cases Shouldn't Surprise Anyone"According to the most recent data from the Florida Department of Health, 260 cases of whooping cough have been reported throughout the state as of the end of June.That's 120 more cases of the highly contagious respiratory ailment than ... More >>

Genetically Modified Bugs Glow Red and Self-Destruct, but Can They Keep Away Disease?

AIDS Healthcare Foundation Worried As FDA Inches Closer to Approving Drug That Might Prevent HIV Transmission

Last week, a committee of experts recommended that the Food and Drug Administration approve the first drug for protecting against HIV transmission.On the surface, it sounds like great news. But as The Pulp reported in January, some doctors have serious concerns that the pill is not as effe ... More >>

Broward Whooping Cough Cases Shouldn't Surprise Anyone

The Broward County Health Department on Friday afternoon announced that it has confirmed four cases of pertussis, three among school-aged children and one case in an adult. More  commonly known as whooping cough, pertussis is a "highly contagious respiratory disease" that can cau ... More >>

Forbes' Gardasil Story Sheds Light on Why Florida's Well-Meaning HPV Legislation Failed

Florida lawmakers tackled lots of pressing issues this past legislative sessions. They debated whether the barking tree frog should be the Sunshine State's official amphibian. They clashed over making it a crime to pick up pecans that have fallen from privately owned trees. The e ... More >>

Florida Anti-Vaccine Group Ignores Facts, Says It's Not Anti-Vaccine

​The Health Regulation Committee on Wednesday voted seven to zip in favor of SB 1116, a proposal to give parents of sixth-graders information on the human papillomavirus vaccine, which helps protect females from cervical cancer. As discussed yesterday, the original version of the bi ... More >>

Florida HPV Vaccine Bill Gets Watered Down Before Going to Committee; Anti-Vaccine Group Still Not Pleased

​Rick Perry tried making it mandatory. Michele Bachmann insinuated that it causes mental retardation. One of the world's top bioethicists bet Bachmann $10,000 to prove this claim. The human papillomavirus vaccine -- which helps protect women from certain strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer - ... More >>

Circumcision and AIDS: Harvard Doctors Respond to Criticism

​Could a whole coalition of highly accomplished, super educated doctors and researchers -- the ones who work at and advise the Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Harvard School of Public Health -- all be wrong? Or are their critics hinderin ... More >>

Florida AIDS Medicine Waiting List Longest in America

Flickr user: Sully Pixel​More than 3,600 Floridians are on a government waiting list for AIDS medicine -- the longest list in the country, according to the national nonprofit the AIDS Institute. Of the needy patients, 886 live in Palm Beach and Broward counties.The medicine, which keeps patients h ... More >>

BSO Releases New Report That Says Daniel Hay Lewis Claimed to Have AIDS

BSODaniel Hay Lewis​The Broward Sheriff's Office has now released a new "detailed" report on the arrest of Daniel Hay Lewis, claiming that Lewis stated he had AIDS several times before attempting to bite a deputy.Lewis, a Hallandale Beach resident, was arrested May 30 while allegedly trying to ste ... More >>

Daniel Hay Lewis' Bond Reduced as State Starts to Backpedal on HIV-Transmission Charge

BSODaniel Hay Lewis​Apparently it's getting tough for the state to continue prosecuting someone for criminal transmission of HIV when its suspect isn't HIV-positive.Daniel Hay Lewis -- accused by police of attempting to bite a cop in the process of trying to steal $12,000 worth of garden products ... More >>

Daniel Hay Lewis -- Charged With Transmission of HIV -- Doesn't Even Have HIV, Attorney Says

BSODaniel Hay Lewis​Daniel Hay Lewis,a Hallandale Beach resident charged with criminal transmission of HIV after allegedly trying to bite a police officer while being arrested for shoplifting, doesn't actually have HIV, according to his public defender.After allegedly trying to steal $12,000 worth ... More >>

Elton John Complains to Gov. Rick Scott About HIV/AIDS Funding

broadwaymusicalhome.comElton John: Rocket Man and advocate of Florida's HIV/AIDS program.​Just about everyone has had something to complain about with Gov. Rick Scott lately, and you can add Sir Elton John to that list.On behalf of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, John wrote a letter to the governo ... More >>

Practitioners of Quack Autism Treatment in Trouble With Governor

David Geier, (not an) MD.​Two weeks ago, the Pulp published a small item about Mark and David Geier -- a father-son team of self-proclaimed autism experts who treat the condition with a powerful chemical castration agent called Lupron. They're from Maryland, but their interests run deep in Florida ... More >>

Calvin Williams Murder: Why is AIDS Rate so High for Black Men?

Calvin Williams was allegedly killed by his lover.​This spring's murder of L.C. Swain Middle School teacher Calvin Williams brought to light a harsh truth about AIDS among African-American men. For many in South Florida, sex on the down-low is a deadly gamble.According to Riviera Beach police repo ... More >>

Finally - Some Swine Flu Vaccine!

​Here's a cut-and-paste press release about where and when you can -- finally -- get the swine flu vaccine. Officials at the Broward County Health Department announced Broward County's first H1N1 Vaccination Clinic which shall be open to all members of the public starting Monday, November 30, 2009 ... More >>

Lauderdale Dr. Gary Snyder Argues Against Flu Vaccine

Snyder's home flu repellent: Vitamin D​Historians will look back some day on the autumn of 2009 as a period of mass hysteria over a relatively innocuous strain of flu called H1N1, which so far has killed 1,000 Americans (normal seasonal flu averages 36,000 U.S. deaths per year, according to the CD ... More >>

Waiting for Swine Flu Vaccine? Just Skip It.

Don't want it. Don't need it.​In what may come to be called the Great Swine Flu Fuck-Up, local health officials have vaccinated thousands of schoolkids this year with the regular seasonal flu nasal mist -- a vaccination which unfortunately promises to protect them not at all. The seasonal flu vacc ... More >>

Attacking Swine Flu Before It Attacks Us

Flickr: dabby1This fellow hopes to get in your bloodstream before the vaccine.​The past few months, this blog and Broward Health have had a strained relationship, to put it mildly; but hey, global pandemics make for strange bed partners. Juice is glad to report that the north county's $1 billion p ... More >>

NFL Tackles Flesh-Eating Infections

Staph infections sacked these two Pro BowlersLast fall, staph infections were going around the NFL like a bimbo on a broken Ferris wheel. Even Time magazine felt compelled to point out that "a microscopic foe can be much more imposing than a 300-pound lineman"; why, even the indomitable Peyton Manni ... More >>

Are Hospitals Helping the Homeless?

Not enough, say some who are learning to fend for themselves

The Protection Racket

And the band plays on

WHEEL L_VE

Letters for November 3-9, 2005

Agitation Nation

Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart brings back a time of acting up

Unsafe Sex

Our intrepid reporter probes the gay orgies that have helped to spark a runaway syphilis outbreak

Acting Out

Whether or not the state helps out AIDS sufferers, last week's botched protest says much about the HIV community's problem

Best Place to Gamble

Steak houses

Culture For a Cause

"The One Million Dollar Art Show"

The Last Sanatorium

When tuberculosis, one of mankind's most pernicious diseases, threatens public health, the patients are sent to A.G. Holley State Hospital

Letters

Letters

Sexual Roulette

Despite the risk, HIV-positive gay men are engaging in unsafe sex in the wake of improved AIDS medications. Don't believe us? Check out South Florida's "backroom bars."

The Straight Dope

Nova, HEAL Thyself

Members of a student group insist bad behavior, not HIV, causes AIDS, and that controversial message is testing academic freedom

Color Blinded

A federal grant earmarked for "African-Americans" with AIDS has care providers in Broward debating linguistics rather than logistics.

The Straight Dope

An Epidemic of Apathy

Local activists were hoping people would flock to see the AIDS Memorial Quilt. They didn't.

The Dentist Is Out

The closure of a publicly funded children's dental clinic has low-income patients down in the mouth

Cause of Death: Excessive Privacy

You can die HIV-positive in Broward County, and your sexual partners will never know

Letters

The Straight Dope

The Single-Minded Professor