Trusting Big Pharma (TJDS)

Burma, U.N. rebuilding year after cyclone

John Heilprin (AP)

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visits the village of Kyondah in Burma to inspect reconstruction projects from last year's devastating cyclone, which killed over 130,000 people. Burma's opposition party said Ban's failure to meet its imprisoned leader Aung San Suu Kyi was a "great loss" as the UN chief left the military-ruled nation empty-handed (AFP/UN/Ho/Mark Garten).

KYON DA VILLAGE, Burma – As the U.N. helicopter skimmed above the placid Irrawaddy Delta, Burma's military junta was putting the final touches on its showcase village. Throngs of people lined the muddy walkways of Kyon Da village, a relief camp erected in this cyclone-hit area, while others stayed in their homes — neat rows of small houses made out of dried palm and matted bamboo.

The new houses on stilts replaced the plastic tents and stacks of supplies put on display for visitors a year earlier, after Cyclone Nargis devastated the delta in May 2008. For last weekend's visit by U.N. officials, some villagers smiled, and their kids sported freshly starched and ironed white linen garments. About 1,000 homes collapsed and more than 100 people died in Kyon Da when the cyclone struck.

The angry waters that swallowed 138,000 lives in the cyclone have receded. Seen from above, where there had been a monolith of shimmering water was now a patchwork of rice field and border, river and shoreline, muddy pond and gray cloud. Gone were the endless stretches of flooded rice fields and islands of destroyed homes with a few people standing on the rooftops. It affected more than two million, leaving a quarter-million homeless.

The biggest health threats remain HIV, AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, according to the International Organization for Migration, which began partnering with Burma's government in 2005. In the past year IOM-led medical teams treated 110,613 people in 858 of the affected villages. More>>

Porn Actress' HIV case confirmed

Rong-Gong Lin II and Kimi Yoshino (Los Angeles Times, 6/11/09)

Jen "X," left, and Jessica Drake at a fundraiser in Las Vegas, where lunches with pornstars were auctioned to aid the Adult Industry Medical HealthCare Foundation. In California's unregulated porn film industry, an alarming number of performers are infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and nobody seems to care.

An actress who works in Southern California's pornography industry has tested positive for HIV, renewing county and state health officials' concerns that the adult entertainment industry lacks sufficient safety measures to prevent the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

The new case was confirmed to The Los Angeles Times and pornography industry websites [June 10, 2009] by the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, a San Fernando Valley-based clinic that serves adult-film stars in Sherman Oaks and Granada Hills. Public health officials, however, said no official report had been made at the state or county level.

• From the archives: See No Evil
• At least 16 unpublicized HIV cases in porn film performers

Dr. Jonathan Fielding, health officer for Los Angeles County, said Wednesday that his office was launching an investigation.

Officials from the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health also said they will look into the circumstances of the case, which is the first publicly confirmed HIV infection in Southern California's porn industry since 2004, when an HIV outbreak shut down production for four weeks. More>>