• Antibiotic-Resistant Skin Infections Spreading Among Gay Men, Also in Prisons
  An outbreak of staphylococcus skin infection, causing large boils that are difficult to treat because these bacteria are resistant to many antibiotics, has spread recently among gay men in some cities, and also in certain prisons. In the past this infection occurred mainly in hospitals.

• Retroviruses Conference, Feb. 10-14; Sites to Watch for News
  AIDS Treatment News will cover the important 10th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections starting in our next issue. Here are some Web sites to check for other reports, especially during the next few weeks.

• Building Grassroots Support for AIDS
  Citizen-action campaigns (like getting people to call Congress or their state representatives to support Medicaid, ADAP, or other program for access to medical care) could get much more response if they were made accessible to the millions of people who are already supportive but not already involved. We suggest several ways to make action alerts and other citizen-organizing work better.

• Bush Proposes Near Tripling of U.S. Commitment on Global HIV Epidemic
  The presidential initiative to increase funding for global AIDS prevention and treatment is widely seen as a groundbreaking advance. But critical time will be lost if the U.S. focuses so heavily on building its own new system, instead of using multinational organizations like the Global Fund that are ready now.

• African-Americans and AIDS, Conference Feb. 24 and 25, New York
  This national meeting brings leading experts and professionals together for lectures and networking. It offers continuing education credit for doctors and nurses, but is open to all.

ISSN # 1052-4207

Copyright 2003 by John S. James. Permission granted for noncommercial reproduction, provided that our address and phone number are included if more than short quotations are used.