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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 19, 2006
Luis Vizcaino | Phone: 202/216.1547 | Cell: 310/869.5700
Brad Luna | Phone: 202/216.1514 | Cell: 202/812.8140

President Signs Ryan White Reauthorization

WASHINGTON - The following statement was made today by Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign, upon signage by the President of the United States of the reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act. Before adjourning for the year, Congress passed this critical life-line for over half a million low-income Americans living with HIV/AIDS.

"We are pleased that a bipartisan Congress and the President were able to come together and agree on the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act and officially sign it into law today," said Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign. "This critical life-saving piece of legislation will help over a half million low-income Americans living with HIV/AIDS continue to receive the medical care they so desperately need. However, as we head into a new year and a new Congress we will aggressively push to ensure that the years of insufficient funding of this program be corrected. If our government is serious about combating this epidemic we must not allow rhetoric to mask itself as real action."

The Human Rights Campaign is America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against GLBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

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‘Breakthrough’ in bid for Aids vaccine

Jun 27 2003

Scientists have made a vital breakthrough in the search for an Aids vaccine, according to new research. Experts from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), based in California, in the United States, have solved the structure of an antibody which neutralises the HIV virus.

The findings, reported in the latest issue of respected journal Science, will boost the search to find a vaccine for HIV/Aids, which killed more than four million people in 2001. TSRI Professor Ian Wilson, one of two professors who led the research said: "Nothing like this has ever been seen before." HIV causes Aids by binding to, entering and ultimately, killing T helper cells - immune cells that are necessary to fight off infections.

The World Health Organisation estimates that about 40 million people are living with HIV worldwide. An important part of any potential vaccine will be a component that elicits or induces effective neutralising antibodies against HIV in the blood of the vaccinated person. Also called immunoglobins, antibodies are the basis for many existing vaccines, including those against measles, polio, hepatitis B, and hepatitis A. 'Good' antibodies bind to and neutralise the virus, making it unable to invade cells. Because neutralising antibodies attack the virus before it enters cells, they could conceivably be used to prevent HIV infection if they were present prior to virus exposure