In an editorial Bernard Hirschel and Patrick Francioli of the 12th World Aids Conference Geneva say: Patients seek our

In an editorial, Bernard Hirschel and Patrick Francioli of the 12th World Aids Conference, Geneva, say: “Patients seek our advice about their infectiousness but we are unable at present to provide clear answers.”They warn that Aids campaigns must highlight the limits of current treatments to prevent carelessness and a return to old sexual habits.The new treatments also raise a new dilemma: when to start the drugs. Testimony to their success is contained in a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, which shows that among more than 1,200 patients with the severest immunosuppression caused by HIV infection, the incidence of Aids decreased by 73 per cent and deaths by 75 per cent between 1994 and mid-1997.In New York, Aids deaths fell 29 per cent between 1995 and 1996 and by 44 per cent between 1996 and 1997. But as the threat of full-blown Aids and death recede for those infected with the HIV virus, they are increasingly demanding to know whether they can return to unprotected sex and start families.
The progressively more intense anti-retroviral drugs with which they are being treated dramatically reduce the amount of virus present in the blood. The extraordinary success of the Aids drugs introduced in the past four years in cutting the death rate from the disease has radically changed patients’ lives. THE transformation of Aids from a death sentence to a treatable condition is raising a new spectre among doctors: that it will encourage carelessness about sex and a resurgence of the epidemic. Downing Street said last night: “We don’t detail conversations the Prime Minister may or may not have had with people.”The President of the Board of Trade, Margaret Beckett, yesterday rejected a demand by Paddy Ashdown for Mr Murdoch’s take-over of the Times to be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission for editorial interference over China, in breach of his own 1981 take-over promises.Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman, could be called before the Commons select committee on public administration to give assurances that there has been no political interference in the appointment of Whitehall press officers.. Mr Murdoch called Mr Blair from Milan early last week, according to reports, when Mr Murdoch visited Italy to close the deal with Silvio Berlusconi, the Opposition leader in Italy, for control of Mediaset.
The fresh allegations reopen the controversy after the Prime Minister 24 hours earlier had refused to confirm or deny raising Mr Murdoch’s bid for Mediaset with Romani Prodi, the Italian Prime Minister.Mr Murdoch told senior executives of his News Corp, owners of the Times, that he would telephone Mr Blair to help him find out whether the Italian government would oppose the takeover, the Financial Times reported.

The Prison Service was accused of failing to heed lessons of past – this is the third unlawful killing verdict returned for an inmate in jail since 1979.The unanimous verdict by the inquest jury at Kidderminster town hall, after 15 days of evidence and testimony from 30 witnesses, was greeted by cheers from the public gallery.The jurors heard how Mr Manning, of Sparkbrook, Birmingham, had pressure placed on his neck at some stage before he was pronounced dead at the jail. They were told that he died of asphyxia consistent with his breathing becoming impaired while being restrained.. It is when there is pressure put down on the windpipe.”Campaigners yesterday called for an end to use of headlocks as a restraint technique, which is being reviewed, and for the Home Secretary to set up a public inquiry. DOWNING Street was put back on the defensive last night over the Prime Minister’s links with Rupert Murdoch after fresh allegations of Tony Blair’s intervention on his behalf in a deal for control of an Italian broadcasting group. “There is a physiological difference,” he told the BBC’s Newsnight programme. “That is the evidence emerging in other countries as well.”Mr Tilt accepted there was racism within the Prison Service, but said there were ongoing measures to deal with it.A Prison Service spokesman later said “positional asphyxia” was the term used to refer to asphyxiation suffered by people held in a restraining position.He added: “It is when they are held in a certain position. The family of Alton Manning, 33, who died of asphyxia at Blakenhurst prison near Redditch, Hereford and Worcester, in December 1995, called for the prison officers involved to be prosecuted.
The Prison Service announced that seven officers had been suspended at Blakenhurst jail, which is run by the private company UK Detention Services, while investigations are carried out.

The Crown Prosecution Service is believed to be studying the findings to decide whether criminal charges should be brought.Meanwhile Richard Tilt, director-general of the Prison Service, last night said people of Afro-Caribbean background were more prone to suffer “positional asphyxia” than white people. Take into account the ages of your children, and call first to check details of special events.
If your child wants to participate in a workshop or other activity, bear in mind that these are popular and can get crowded Some require adults to stay and join in. A tempered, less ardent course in buying and eating our food could be preventative without a change of quality in our lives.”. THERE are some allegations about politicians to which the only reaction can be: is he really that stupid ?

Into this category falls the claim that Tony Blair last week lobbied his Italian counterpart on behalf of Rupert Murdoch’s pounds 4bn attempt to buy the Berlusconi television empire.
Mr Blair’s desire to keep on the right side of the owner of the Sun is well known.

But to intervene so soon after Mr Murdoch’s recent gracing of the front pages? That would display as much acumen as the BBC offering Messrs Hall and Shepherd a consultancy on Match Of The Day after the Newcastle fiasco.”It was Prodi who called Blair,” a Downing Street spokesman is said to have snarled, “the case falls at the first hurdle.” And maybe it does. But about Tony Blair’s hankerings to meddle in industry, the case is rather stronger.From the moment he became Labour leader four years ago, he has courted businessmen, and understandably so. Nothing would help exorcise memories of bad Old Labour, and its kneejerk hostility to enterprise, than their support.Successful industrialists also were by definition dynamic, and, increasingly, classless – the very image of Blair’s New Britain. And it is an affair not just of the head, but of the heart, born perhaps of naivete, perhaps of the instinctive affinityof members of the high achievers club, perhaps even of the romantic notion that in mutual admiration’s golden glow, all Britain’s ills would vanish.And feelings were reciprocated. New Labour’s courtship of the City of London dispelled ancient fears. Business liked Mr Blair’s pleasant certainty of tone, his conciliatory language on Europe.