German parliament OKs heroin prescription

German parliament OKs heroin prescription
BERLIN (AP) — German lawmakers have voted to allow the prescription of synthetic heroin to long-term addicts who fail to respond to other treatments.
The lower house of parliament approved the measure Thursday.
It would apply only to people aged at least 23 who have been addicted for at least five years and undergone two previous, unsuccessful rehabilitation programs.
A cross-party group of supporters says pilot programs in seven German cities found that controlled prescription of synthetic heroin, or diamorphine, at approved facilities helped addicts who failed to respond to treatment with methadone.
Neighboring Switzerland has long had similar programs. They have been credited with reducing drug-related crime and improving addicts' health.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

I hate us.

Doctor Who Performed Abortions Is Shot to Death
George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who was one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions, was shot to death on Sunday as he attended church, city officials in Wichita said.


OP-ED COLUMNIST
Rogues, Robes and Racists
...I have yet to read or hear of Sotomayor’s acts of racial discrimination. (She is nearly 55 years old. Surely if she is a racist, and a judge to boot, there has to be some proof of it in her actions, no?)
Now let’s look at a couple of the men who have ascended to the bench.
First, there’s former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. When the Supreme Court was considering Brown v. Board of Education, Rehnquist was a law clerk for Justice Robert Jackson. Rehnquist wrote Jackson a memo in which he defended separate-but-equal policies, saying, “I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by my ‘liberal’ colleagues, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed.”
Then there’s John Roberts, who replaced Rehnquist as the chief justice in 2005. That year, Newsday reported that Roberts had made racist and sexist jokes in memos that he wrote while working in the Reagan White House. And, The New York Review of Books published a scolding article in 2005 making the case that during the same period that he was making those jokes, Roberts marshaled a crusader’s zeal in his efforts to roll back the civil rights gains of the 1960s and ’70s — everything from voting rights to women’s rights....


Housing Works: News: BARRED!
Up to 60 Canadians living with HIV denied entry to U.S.; AIDS groups outraged
...The 60 Canadians had planned to attend the North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit in Washington, D.C. from June 2 to June 5. The OHTN and NAHC are cosponsors of that event.
In March, DHHS officials indicated that granting a “designated event HIV waiver” for the Housing Summit was underway. Such waivers are designed to allow people living with HIV to attend conferences in the U.S.
On Friday, May 22, 11 days before the summit start date, the Ottawa Embassy informed the OHTN that each of the 60 people in its delegation to the Washington, D.C. AIDS Housing Summit would have to comply with the new, severely onerous visa process.
The visa process requires, among other things, a face-to-face interview; a photo; a $131 money order from a specific Canadian bank; an agreement not to extend the visit for any reason; completion of an intrusive and humiliating health form, and a pledge that the applicant has adequate health coverage—something that many U.S. citizens living with HIV/AIDS are still denied.
To add insult to injury, because the OHTN was informed of the new requirements on Friday, May 22, the Canadians could not even attempt to meet those requirements until Monday, May 25, barely one week from the June 2 start date of the conference—and to do so, they would have to travel from all over Canada to a specific Ottawa U.S. consulate. ...
Housing Works

evil and irresponsibility

Does he think this is cute? Does he think that there is any fiscal responsibility in cruelty, in accelerating the rate at which HIV progresses to AIDS?


Governor proposes deep cuts, with more to come
Some proposed cuts, such as a $55.5 million reduction in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program and other state Office of AIDS programs, would be life-threatening, Courtney Mulhern-Pearson, policy and legislative associate for San Francisco AIDS Foundation, said.
"We were expecting cuts, but this is much, much worse than what we were expecting," said Mulhern-Pearson, adding that about 35,000 low-income Californians with AIDS rely on the drug assistance program.
Schwarzenegger's plan would force AIDS patients to bear more of the cost for medication while reducing or eliminating HIV/AIDS programs such as counseling, monitoring and educational services.


Cuts to CA AIDS budget remain in flux
Last week Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger initially proposed cutting the state Office of AIDS' entire general fund support of $160 million. The proposal would have jeopardized more than $150 million in federal matching funds that the state receives through grants from the Ryan White CARE Act and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation called the idea "draconian" and said it would result in 35,000 Californians losing access to their HIV medications because the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, known as ADAP, would cease to exist.
"This is the worst possible time to take support away from the most vulnerable Californians," stated Judith Auerbach, Ph.D., the foundation's vice president for science and public policy. "Balancing the budget on the backs of those at greatest risk threatens to reverse all progress made against the HIV/AIDS epidemic over the past two decades."
But this week the Schwarzenegger administration backtracked and revised its budget plan to call for only an $80.1 million cut to the AIDS office's budget. It would end support for all of the office's programs and leave in place only $12.3 million for ADAP.

Sick of sellout dems (and what we can do about it)

Nancy Pelosi will co-sponsor this nonsense but not H.R. 179? woman, please.
H.Con.Res.101 Providing for the acceptance of a statue of Ronald Wilson Reagan from the people of California for placement in the United States Capitol. (111TH CONGRESS)
Call and email her offices -
DC: (202) 225-4965
SF: (415) 556-4862

To thank our president for selling out his commitments to empathy, science, and veterans in one shot - email whitehouse.gov

In hopes that David Obey and your rep (if not Pelosi) end the madness - (via housing works)
Step 1: Call for the Labor, Health and Education Appropriations Bill.

Call Rep. David Obey (WI) 202-225-3365, Chair of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. Tell his office: My name is [NAME], and I live in [CITY, STATE]. Thanks for taking my call. I’m calling to encourage Rep. David Obey to take leadership to remove the federal ban on syringe exchange funding in the 2010 Appropriations Bill.

Step 2: Call your Representative.
Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your Representative. When calling the switchboard, you may give your zip code if you do not know the names of your members of Congress.When someone answers the phone, tell them: “My name is [NAME], and I live in [CITY, STATE]. Thanks for taking my call. I’m calling to encourage Representative [REPRESENTATIVE’S NAME] to cosponsor H.R. 179, the Community AIDS and Hepatitis Prevention Act of 2009.

If your representative is a co-sponsor thank them for their support of H.R. 179!

you absolutely must watch this. immediately. wanda sykes at the whcd - hysterical.

too cute

Obama massively disappoints, part 2

for the whitehouse.gov version of selling-out, check out this comparison of the civil rights sections from April and May. All mentions of AIDS prevention, erased.

Correspondents' Dinner highlights

These do not make up for my budget driven furor, but they amuse nonetheless.
Obama Delivers the Zingers at Journalists' Dinner
By Richard Leiby
•"This is a tough holiday for Rahm. He's not used to saying the word 'day' after 'mother.' "
• Wanda Sykes: "It's funny to me that [photographers] have never caught you smoking, but they always catch you with your shirt off. I know you're into this transparency thing, but I don't need to see your nipples."
•"I must confess I really didn't want to be here tonight. But I had to come. That's one more problem I inherited from George Bush."

What the hell is wrong with the New York Times?

How many consecutive days does an article have to be on the "most emailed" list before they notice "Is France Losing the War of the Rosés?" So much for nytimes leading old-media's catch-up...

Last week's sign of the apocalypse

For what must be the first time, I seem to agree with Michael Savage. In principle, anyway.

read his interview here

still cannot believe how much I loved seeing this...

Obama massively disappoints!

President's FY 2010 budget: here
page 795
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR TITLE V—GENERAL PROVISIONS
SEC. 505. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, no funds appropriated in this Act shall be used to carry out any program of distributing sterile needles or syringes for the hypodermic injection of any illegal drug.

page 1208
TITLE VIII—GENERAL PROVISIONS—DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
SEC. [812]811.None of the Federal funds contained in this Act may be used for any program of distributing sterile needles or syringes for the hypodermic injection of any illegal drug.

sometimes I hate David Brooks and sometimes...

op-ed columnist
The Harlem Miracle
By David Brooks
...That’s why I was startled when I received an e-mail message from Roland Fryer, a meticulous Harvard economist. It included this sentence: “The attached study has changed my life as a scientist.”
Fryer and his colleague Will Dobbie have just finished a rigorous assessment of the charter schools operated by the Harlem Children’s Zone. They compared students in these schools to students in New York City as a whole and to comparable students who entered the lottery to get into the Harlem Children’s Zone schools, but weren’t selected.
They found that the Harlem Children’s Zone schools produced “enormous” gains. The typical student entered the charter middle school, Promise Academy, in sixth grade and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile.
...Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap. “The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes,” Fryer wrote in a subsequent e-mail. What Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone’s founder and president, has done is “the equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. It’s amazing. It should be celebrated. But it almost doesn’t matter if we stop there. We don’t have a way to replicate his cure, and we need one since so many of our kids are dying — literally and figuratively.” ...

am I missing something, or have we reached a new level of ridiculous?

U.S. District Court
Mother Testifies Against Boyfriend of Daughter Who Died of Overdose
Testimony Begins in Case of Heroin Fatality
1) This article is written like it belongs in Star Magazine
2) This case sounds ludicrous. The government might as well sue themselves for irrational, unenforceable drug policies.

....Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Grooms said in his opening: "At every phase of this conspiracy, there was one constant. It was the defendant, Skylar Schnippel."
"When others overdosed, there was the defendant," Grooms said. "When his girlfriend overdosed, there was the defendant with her each time. And on March 5, 2008, there was the defendant providing the heroin that killed her. But that event changed nothing for him."
Grooms said that even as Schnippel was aware that police were closing in, "there was the defendant, introducing others to heroin and sticking the needle in their arms." On Nov. 19, when 11 people were arrested, "there was the defendant, picking up a young woman and shooting her up," Grooms said. ....

in case you forgot why arlen specter does not deserve the warmest welcome....

snugget contempt

Wonkette on Souter's departure

just when you thought we could not be any shittier to our vets...

VA: 5th HIV case linked to unsterile equipment
By Lisa Orkin Emmanuel
MIAMI (AP) — A fifth patient has tested positive for HIV, and seven more tested positive for hepatitis after being exposed to contaminated medical equipment at three Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, the agency said Friday.
That brings the total who have tested positive for hepatitis to 33.
They are among thousands tested because they were treated with endoscopic equipment that wasn't properly sterilized between patients and exposed them to the body fluids of others. The equipment is often used in colonoscopies and ear, nose and throat procedures.....

Love for Magnet in the nytimes!

Tests for New H.I.V. Infection Not Widely Adopted
By David Tuller
In December 2008, after a weekend of sex fueled by methamphetamine, Chris, a San Francisco man in his early 30s, sought out testing for sexually transmitted diseases at Magnet, a clinic serving homosexual men in the city’s Castro neighborhood.
Staff members tested him for H.I.V. twice: first with a standard rapid test, which detects H.I.V. antibodies in saliva or a drop of blood, then with a blood test for genetic traces of the virus itself.....