A committee of lawmakers in India's Maharashtra state on Wednesday proposed that the state pass a law requiring HIV tests before marriage, The Hindu reports (The Hindu, 2/1). If approved, the law would be the first of its kind in the country. According to BBC News , the proposal will not be...

Researchers on Sunday at the 15th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston discussed a study that examined the effect of male circumcision on female partners, the New York Times reports. Although the researchers said that the study's findings are not statistically significant,...

Researchers have determined how HIV is able to lie dormant in certain immune system cells and prevent the cells from self-destructing, according to a study published Thursday online in the journal Retrovirology, the AP/Google.com reports. HIV often resides in CD4+ T cells because the cells can survive for "years" or "even decades," according to the AP/Google.com. HIV also can lie dormant...

UNAIDS and the World Health Organization last week responded to a claim by a Swiss state commission that HIV-positive people taking antiretroviral drugs cannot transmit the virus during sex under certain circumstances, AFP/Google.com reports. The organizations said that they "strongly recommend a comprehensive...

Some Congressional Democrats have proposed removing abstinence program spending requirements and a mandatory pledge against commercial sex work in the upcoming reauthorization of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief , the AP/Yahoo! News reports (Abrams, AP/Yahoo! News, 2/2). The lawmakers also are hoping to allow "reproductive...

President Bush on Monday will release a fiscal year 2009 budget request that will total more than $3 trillion and include a large reduction in Medicare spending, the Wall Street Journal reports (McKinnon, Wall Street Journal, 2/1). The budget request would decrease Medicare spending by $178 billion over five years as part of a $200 billion reduction in entitlement program spending (Freking, AP/Houston...

Acting CMS Administrator Kerry Weems on Thursday announced that enrollment in the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2008 increased by 6.2% from last year to 25.4 million beneficiaries, Bloomberg/Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Among the overall 44.2 million Medicare beneficiaries, 17.4 million have enrolled in stand-alone prescription drug plans...

Summaries of recent coverage related to CMS appear below.Competitive bidding: Internist Laboratory , Sharp HealthCare and Scripps Health on Tuesday filed a lawsuit to block a Medicare pilot program that is testing competitive bidding for laboratory...

A European regulatory advisory committee recently recommended approval of a pediatric formulation of Abbott Laboratories ' antiretroviral drug Kaletra, the Chicago Tribune reports (Japsen, Chicago Tribune, 1/30). The European...

About 60 volunteers from Virginia Organizations Responding to AIDS on Wednesday lobbied state lawmakers to allocate additional funds for increased HIV prevention and education in the state, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. The volunteers asked legislators to support a budget amendment, sponsored by Del. John...