Results tagged “hiv”

Doctors at St. Vincent's Hospital exposed a Washington Heights woman to the HIV virus when they used dirty medical equipment, a lawsuit alleges.

Demonstrators putting together a display of baby dolls on the steps of City Hall yesterday in recognition of National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day struggled in their attempts to track down a balance of racially mixed dolls. The Times says that having a mix was important because about 90 percent of women living with HIV in New York City are black and Hispanic and an even higher percentage when it comes to new HIV infections in teenage females. But that wasn't easy to convey for members of the Gay Men's Health Crisis who helped organize it. One member said, “A few people who purchased dolls found it very hard to find brown or black baby dolls. I went to three 99-cent stores and couldn’t find any. Another colleague went to four stores. What is that about?” The paper points out that American Girl and Dora dolls (not to mention Homies) have gone a long way to diversifying what used to just include "Barbies dipped in color." Word is that Dora is about to get a sexy new makeover and there are now Sasha and Malia dolls—but not to be confused with the Obamas of course.

Former Mets second baseman and perennial All-Star throughout the '90s has called the lawsuit filed against him by his ex-girlfriend "full of lies." The suit filed by longtime girlfriend Ilya Dahl claims that he insisted on having unprotected sex with her while having "full-blown AIDS." His lawyer called it "a frivolous lawsuit," but that Alomar wishes to keep his health status private. In Alomar's own statement, he called it a "private, personal matter" and added, "I am in very good health and I ask that you respect my privacy during this time."

According to the temperance scolds over at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, you are a binge drinker if you consume more than five alcoholic beverages during one occasion. We always thought that just means you're a New Yorker, but apparently drinkers nationwide go on crazy, multi-drink "binges" just as much as we do here. A study released today finds that 15% of New Yorkers cop to "binging" at least once a month, compared to 16% nationwide.

An unidentified female NYPD officer with HIV, named Jane Doe in court papers, is suing the city for denying her the tax-free "line-of-duty" disability benefits awarded to other male cops with HIV. Court papers obtained by the Daily News reveal that four male officers have been granted the full, tax-free benefits after contracting HIV in the line of duty: One who reached into a perp's underwear to retrieve drugs, another who was bitten on the hands, and a third who was cut by a razor blade while frisking a suspect. It's not known how the fourth cop contracted HIV, but he was the ex-boyfriend of Jane Doe, and the pension board ruled she was not infected in the line of duty. Instead, she was granted an ordinary disability pension along with eight other HIV-infected officers who were denied the tax-free pension.

Having to go on dialysis is bad enough, but patients who received their treatment at Life Care Dialysis Center on West 61st Street have it even worse; at least one of them contracted Hepatitis C thanks to contaminated equipment! After inspecting the place last month, the Health Department shut it down, noting that employees failed to wash their hands, disinfect equipment or change gloves between patients. A spokesperson for the DOH tells the Times, “It was repulsive. The treatment chairs that they gave people to relax in had someone else’s dried blood on them.” On Monday the state’s health commissioner sent letters to 657 patients of the clinic urging them to get tested for hepatitis C, hepatitis B and H.I.V. Dr. Walter Wasser, the clinic’s operator and medical director, was fined $300,000 and could also lose his medical license, the Times reports.

On the heels of announcing 40% of New Yorkers practice unsafe sex, the Department of Health wants to test every adult in the Bronx for HIV over the next three years. Noting the borough's highest AIDS-related death rate in the city, Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said, "The Bronx has the opportunity to lead the city in the fight against HIV/AIDS by being the first borough to have all residents tested."

The Dept. of Health is looking into why hundreds of New Yorkers were informed that they tested positive for HIV infection after an oral exam, when in fact they were HIV negative. The non-infected status was determined by a follow-up blood test that was administered immediately. Still--pretty scary. The State Health Dept. and the CDC are investigating why the OraSure mouth swab tests resulted in an approximate 50% false-positive rate (The FDA's allowable false-positive rate for HIV tests is 2%). The Health Dept. reported that it has suspended use of OraSure as an HIV-infection detector.

Kids who weren't even born when AIDS was an epidemic that ravaged the American gay and IV drug-using communities are apparently oblivious to the potential toll it can take on its generation. New York City's Dept. of Health reported that the number of HIV infections among city high schoolers (between the ages of 13 and 19) rose 29% between 2004 and 2006. Current figures are not yet available, but Rep. Anthony Weiner is proposing a program to curb the spread of the virus.

Yesterday we mentioned that a cache of weapons - including a number of pipe bombs - were found in a Remsen Street apartment in Brooklyn Heights. Now it turns out the apartment was shared by an ex-con and a professor at Columbia University!

Well, most of them. According to a reported issued by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene yesterday, the city's overall death rate fell to an all-time low in 2006 mostly owing to decreases in smoking and HIV-related deaths. But although deaths from these causes were on the decline, those caused by substance abuse were up by 8 percent and lives lost from cancer and heart disease held steady for the year. 55,391 New Yorkers died in 2006, compared with 57,068 the year before (and 60,218 in 2001!).

There are worries that a proposed $50,000 surcharge on all MD's in the state could do irreparable harm to New York's health care community. The state's medical malpractice liability fund is underfunded, and state insurance superintendent Eric Dinallo is looking for ideas.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: serious trauma on 51st St. in Brooklyn, a missing person on 90th St. and Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan, and a large fight at 1087 Broadway in Brooklyn.
• A Brooklyn high school student was stabbed to death yesterday after school. The fatal injury occurred as he was attempting to rob another kid on a playground.
• Don Imus will be returning to the air with a "sidekick," who is black.
• The police are taking her at her word, but it appears that a woman may have faked a violent attack against herself as an excuse to not repay her mother $800. The allegedly faked assault involved using "Krazy Glue" to seal her eyes and mouth shut.
• Today is World AIDS Day, with demonstrations last night and this afternoon emphasizing prevention to halt the spread of HIV.
• Barack Obama tipped his waitress almost 60% on the $17 check he covered having lunch with Mayor Bloomberg.
• Customers who are owed refunds by the furniture chain are not lovin' it at Levitz. The company filed for bankruptcy and checks are bouncing.
• Some tourists are booking expensive rooms on the Upper West Side only to arrive and find out they've just rented space in some woman's apartment, and she has no idea what they are talking about. NYC scams are alive and well apparently.

Governor Spitzer said that the NY State Department of Health's response regarding the Nassau County doctor exposed over 600 patients to hepatitis C and HIV was "unacceptably slow" and ordered an investigation. Dr. Harvey Finkelstein, an anesthesiologist, reused syringes and multiple-dose medicine vials between January 2000 and January 2005; some patients learned they had contracted hepatitis in 2005, but the state and Nassau County officials waited 34 months to contact other patients. It turns out...

How would you like to get a letter from your doctor saying, surprise, you may have hepatitis? Well that's exactly what happened to patients this week who received injections from a certain Nassau County doc. Six hundred thirty patients were contacted by the Nassau County health department who advised them to seek testing for hepatitis B, C as well as HIV.

With Halloween right around the dark, dank corner, the minds of small children are populated with blood thirsty vampires, hairy knuckled werewolves, and nebulous bogeymen. But as they try to sleep and shudder with thoughts of what's hiding in their closet and lurking under their beds, real monsters are on the loose: drug-resistant bacteria! And these so-called "superbugs" - including a bacterium linked to childhood ear infections that is resistant to up to 18 antibiotics - are on the rise. Boo!

The Health Department released preliminary data that shows HIV infections increasing among gay men under age 30.

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an armed carjacking at the intersection of 164th St. and the Union Turnpike in Queens, an unconscious firefighter at 51st St. and 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a slashing on Myrtle and Wyckoff Aves. in Brooklyn.
• Mia Farrow is speaking out against the atrocities in Darfur.
• This is the summer of our discontent. The beach season is winding down with below-average-temperature weather and rain and clouds.
• An eight-month-old boy is doing well after receiving a quintuple organ transplant of a liver, small bowel, pancreas, colon and stomach at the Childrens Hospital of Morgan Stanley New York-Presbyterian.
• Experts begin testifying on causes of steampipe explosion. Any conclusions are likely to be a couple of months away.
• A new law signed by Gov. Spitzer can force rape suspects to undergo HIV testing.
• Oprah Winfrey will leave Chicago behind to tape a show in NYC this September. We predict Dave Letterman as a guest.
• A slideshow of NYC in the apocalyptic future without humans to scoop poop.

New York's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is reporting that there has been an alarming resurgence in the reported number of cases of syphilis in the city. The New York Times writes that after spiking in the late 1980s during a wave of unsafe sex fueled by an epidemic of crack cocaine use, cases of syphilis dropped steadily. By the late 1990s, incidences of the disease became so rare that public health officials at that time were planning on describing it as eradicated by 2005. Unfortunately, cases of syphilis are on the rise and the number of reported patients with the disease is projected to reach its highest level in 2007 in over a decade.

When the City authorized an over-the-counter version of the "morning after" pill last fall, we wondered how quickly its effects would be felt. Well, a study released by the City Council yesterday found that unwanted pregnancies and abortions have been down in the City thanks to the availability of over-the-counter emergency contraception.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a stabbing at Utica and Atlantic Aves. in Brooklyn, an overturned auto with passenger ejection on the LIE in Queens, and a report of a suspicious device on 43rd St. and Lexington Ave. in Manhattan.
• NJ police located the driver of the red pickup truck that initiated the chain reaction car crash that's left the state's Governor John Corzine seriously injured. The 20-year-old driver will not be ticketed.
• Hoping to regain some of the luster lost during the Imus-"Hos" fiasco, CBS Radio will be replacing the shock jock with Mike & The Mad Dog in the station's morning timeslot.
• Hardly a surprise, but the failed-pitcher-turned-actor who beat his girlfriend's cat to death doesn't limit himself to hurting animals. The NY Post reports that he roughs ups the ladies as well, once slamming a girlfriend's fingers in a metal door.
• AIDS activists are upset that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn won't support a housing program for HIV-positive New Yorkers. They feel she's attempting to appear more mainstream in advance of a run for Mayor.
• A Brooklyn woman who joined the Peace Corp after an earlier career in journalism has gone missing in the Phillipines.
• A litany of complaints from an inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center suddenly ceased when he started having sex with his jailhouse therapist.
• A private plane rolled right off the runway at Teterboro Airport early yesterday evening.
• Yankee pitcher Carl Pavano's arm hurts, so the team is reorganizing its pitching rotation.

After the NY Times reported the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wanted to encourage adult men at risk for HIV/AIDS to get circumcised, Mayor Bloomberg distanced himself a bit from such a program. According to today's NY Times, Bloomberg officials "cautioned that [a campaign to promote circumcision] was still in its infancy and not yet something the administration had decided to pursue."

Asked about the approach at a news conference, Mr. Bloomberg expressed support for seeking new ways to combat the disease, but suggested that he was unconvinced that government should be involved in promoting or providing circumcisions.

Continue reading "Mayor Circumspect About City Suggesting Circumcision "

In a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene two-fer, the DOH announced that 5 million NYC Condoms were given given away between February 14 and March 14, while the Times reveals that the DOH is also working on a campaign to promote circumcision.

The pseudonymous Lux Nightmare burst onto the alt porn scene as a college student at Columbia where she launched the naked-guy-and-girl site That Strange Girl, featuring stills and video of herself and numerous other models who looked like they could be her fellow classmates. At a time when Suicide Girls and Burning Angel were coming to prominence, That Strange Girl (who, full disclosure, this interviewer posed for) was a homegrown, indie entry in the genre. Cut to the present, where Nightmare has since folded her XXX business and is a member of Gotham Girls Roller Derby, teaches sex ed to teenagers in East Harlem, and runs the smarty-pants sex site Sexerati, where she conducts interviews, explores Dating 2.0, and explains terms like "the pink ghetto." (Warning: many of the links in this interview are NSFW.) Currently, the "non porn star" is working on a book proposal about her time in the alt porn trenches.

EVENT: Housing works is opening their new store in Brooklyn today. With great events and thrifty finds and a way to support the HIV-positive homeless community, it's nice to see the store is expanding.

Taking a ride on the N train will have a whole new meaning with Mayor Mike’s recent plans to distribute “NYC” brand condoms that are packaged to resemble different subway lines. As the Post reports, this new initiative will distribute millions of these condoms throughout the city and bring New Yorkers one step closer to the stark reality that NYC has the highest rate of AIDS/HIV in the nation.