Longer looks: Battling HIV in Washington; Adderall use among U.S. high schoolers

Jun 15 2012

Every week, KHN reporter Shefali S. Kulkarni selects interesting reading from around the Web.

Global Post / PBS NewsHour: Groups Fighting HIV In D.C. Find Lessons In Africa
On a recent day not far from Capitol Hill and the White House, about a dozen HIV outreach workers toting bright yellow duffle bags stuffed with condoms and prevention information stood outside of the Anacostia Metro station. ... After a couple of hours, they had handed out hundreds of packs of condoms -- and had persuaded 21 people to take an HIV test with an oral swab in a Chevy van parked nearby. "You have to know your status, man. I'd rather be safe than sorry," said Alvern Harris, 25, as he waited for his results. "What we do is a reflection to the younger generation. If we don't, they won't, and that's another generation's curse, another generation dying" (John Donnelly and Juliana Schatz, 6/12).

New York Times: Risky Rise Of The Good-Grade Pill
The boy exhaled. Before opening the car door, he recalled recently, he twisted open a capsule of orange powder and arranged it in a neat line on the armrest. He leaned over, closed one nostril and snorted it. Throughout the parking lot, he said, eight of his friends did the same thing. The drug was not cocaine or heroin, but Adderall, an amphetamine prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that the boy said he and his friends routinely shared to study late into the night, focus during tests and ultimately get the grades worthy of their prestigious high school in an affluent suburb of New York City (Alan Schwarz, 6/9).

New York Times Magazine: How Do You Live Knowing You Might Have An Alzheimer's Gene?
(M)any of these relatives have come together to be part of a large international study of families who carry an Alzheimer's gene. The study, known as DIAN (for Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network), involves more than 260 people in the United States, Britain and Australia and includes at least 10 members of Doug and Gary's family. Since 2008, researchers have been monitoring the brains of subjects who have mutations in any of three genes that cause Alzheimer's to see how the disease develops before symptoms occur. By early next year, DIAN researchers plan to begin a new phase. Subjects will receive one of three experimental drugs that the researchers hope will slow or stop the disease in people otherwise destined to get it (Gina Kolata, 6/7).

American Medical News: Migrant Farmworkers: Medical Care For An Invisible Population
During the summer, internist Bruce Gould, MD, drives to the farm fields that stretch across Connecticut to see his patients. He arrives at night after the migrant farmworkers have finished harvesting tobacco. He examines them behind barns, at picnic tables or in makeshift exam rooms that consist of a folding massage table and a tarp roof. ... The doctor helped establish the University of Connecticut's mobile Migrant Farm Worker Clinic in 1997 to bring medical care to a severely underserved population. From June through October, medical students and physicians affiliated with the university volunteer at local farms, and try to manage chronic diseases, treat infections and mend injuries (Christine Moyer, 6/11).