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......

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......

A 17-year-old student at Massapequa High School died of bacterial meningitis yesterday. Michael Gruber had gone to bed with flu-like symptoms on Wednesday and on Thursday morning his parents were unable to wake him up. He died at New Island Hospital. Gruber was also in the St. Rose of Lima Catholic Youth basketball league and worked part-time at a King Kullen in Massapequa Park. The Nassau County Health Department is notifying people who had close......

The health scare of the season continued this week with news of an outbreak of the methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) "superbug" at an Upper East Side hospital's children's ward. The New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center said that nine infants were infected with the drug-resistant strain of bacteria that killed a New York 7th Grader last month. Omar Rivera Jr. was felled by the staph infection on October 14th after being misdiagnosed at Kings County......