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A cross-section of articles we've read this week about HIV/AIDS, STIs and a wide cross-section of structural and systemic factors impacting HIV/AIDS in Black communities.
Science
Could HIV Make Hearing Worse?
Human immunodeficiency virus can be incredibly debilitating, leaving individuals vulnerable to serious illnesses. On top of this, researchers have now suggested that adults with the virus have poorer low- and high-frequency hearing than adults who do not have the disease.
Treatment
AbbVie Deal Heralds Changed Landscape for Hepatitis Drugs
In a sign that price competition may take hold for hepatitis C drugs, the nation's largest manager of prescriptions will require all patients to use AbbVie's newly approved treatment rather than two widely used medicines from its rival Gilead Sciences.
Miscellaneous
As Medicaid Rolls Swell, Cuts in Payments to Doctors Threaten Access to Care
WASHINGTON - Just as millions of people are gaining insurance through Medicaid, the program is poised to make deep cuts in payments to many doctors, prompting some physicians and consumer advocates to warn that the reductions could make it more difficult for Medicaid patients to obtain care.
F.D.A. Easing Ban on Gays, to Let Some Give Blood
WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it would scrap a decades-old lifetime prohibition on blood donation by gay and bisexual men, a major stride toward ending what many had seen as a national policy of discrimination.
Group Sues Aetna, Claiming Discrimination Against H.I.V. Patients
A consumer group has sued the health insurer Aetna, claiming that it discriminated against patients with H.I.V. when it required them to obtain medications exclusively through its own mail-order pharmacy.
'Homosexual Agenda' Is 'Greatest Threat To Liberty' That The U.S. Has Ever Seen, Bryan Fischer Claims
On his "Focal Point" radio show, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer recently claimed that the "active, aggressive homosexual lobby" represented a threat to U.S. democracy.
Is It Bad Enough Yet?
THE police killing unarmed civilians. Horrifying income inequality. Rotting infrastructure and an unsafe "safety net." An inability to respond to climate, public health and environmental threats. A food system that causes disease. An occasionally dysfunctional and even cruel government. A sizable segment of the population excluded from work and subject to near-random incarceration.
The Median Wealth for Whites in the US is Nearly $142,000. For Blacks, it's $11,000.
Everyone knows inequality is growing in the US, but a new Pew report shows how stark that divide is by race and ethnicity: the median household headed by a white person has a net worth 13 times greater than the median black-headed household. And for whites and Hispanics, the gap is tenfold. In both cases, those gaps are growing.
No Health Insurance? Penalties to Rise in 2015
WASHINGTON (AP) - The cost of being uninsured in America is going up significantly next year for millions of people.
It's the first year all taxpayers have to report to the Internal Revenue Service whether they had health insurance for the previous year, as required under President Barack Obama's law. Those who were uninsured face fines, unless they qualify for one of about 30 exemptions, most of which involve financial hardships.
The Obamas, Race and Slights
The president and the first lady added their voices this week to the raging conversation on race following the protests that erupted in the wake of grand juries not indicting police officers who killed two unarmed black men - Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
Storytelling Your Way to a Better Job or a Stronger Start-Up
IT'S been called a strategic tool with "irresistible power" by Harvard Business Review. And "the major business lesson of 2014" by Entrepreneur magazine.
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam Proposes Alternative Plan To Obamacare
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Dec 15 (Reuters) - Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam will call a special session of the state Legislature to consider a plan aimed at providing healthcare coverage to state residents who either do not have insurance or whose options are limited, he said on Monday.
Transgender Teen Who Died of An Apparent Suicide: Fix Society. Please.
The first time Abby Jones talked to Leelah Alcorn, it was the summer, when Alcorn had just taken a new job as a caricaturist at an Ohio amusement park. That day, Jones didn't notice the sadness. She didn't see the confusion - or the pain that she would come to recognize in Alcorn's pale brown eyes. Alcorn was demure, but witty, someone who would surprise with a quiet joke that left you rolling. "She had this light," Jones told The Washington Post. "She would make these jokes, and say these things quietly that were really funny. Basically, we were soon best friends."
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