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ACLU Sues Alabama For Segregating HIV-Positive Prisoners – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Corrections for segregating HIV-positive prisoners from the rest of the inmate population. According to the suit, prisoners with HIV are housed separately, which reveals their HIV status and prevents them from participating in certain work release and other programs. The Department of Corrections states that HIV-positive prisoners have access to the same programs and that the segregation does not violate any of the prisoners’ rights; the Department has asked that the lawsuit be dismissed. For more information, please see the article on the CBS news site.

AIDS.gov Opens “Facing AIDS 2011” Campaign For World AIDS Day – To commemorate World AIDS Day on December 1, AIDS.gov is raising awareness through its “Facing AIDS 2011” campaign. Interested individuals are encouraged to download a “Facing AIDS” flier from the website and share why they are facing AIDS. Participants can take photos of themselves with their flier and then upload their images to the Facing AIDS website. All participants are encouraged to share their photos online with family and friends. Instructions on how to plan community events for the campaign are also available. For more information on how to participate, please see the AIDS.gov website.

Gilead Sciences Signs Agreement To Develop New Type Of Antiretroviral Drugs – Gilead Sciences has signed a licensing agreement with pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim to develop and market a new type of antiretroviral drug, initially pioneered by Boehringer Ingelheim. The new drugs are integrase inhibitors but work differently than Isentress (raltegravir) or the investigational drug elvitegravir. As a result, they are expected to be effective against HIV that is resistant to current integrase inhibitors. The agreement includes the investigational drug BI 224436, which has been tested in a Phase 1 clinical trial. For more information, please see the Gilead Sciences press release.

Theratechnologies Begins Development On New Lipodystrophy Drug – Theratechnologies announced last week that it has discovered a new potential drug in the same class as Egrifta (tesamorelin) and will begin pre-clinical testing of the new compound for treatment of lipodystrophy, a condition of abnormal fat distribution that is a side effect of certain anti-HIV medications. Theratechnologies stated that the new drug candidate appears to be as effective as Egrifta but may not need to be injected, as Egrifta is. Egrifta, which was approved in the U.S. in November of last year, was the first drug approved to treat lipodystrophy. For more information, please see the Theratechnologies press release.

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A group of researchers found that while the total number of incarcerated individuals affected by HIV/AIDS has remained nearly the same from 1997 to 2006, the percentage of incarcerated individuals with HIV has declined. Their findings were published in PLoS ONE, an online peer-reviewed journal.

In 1997, 7.3 million people were released from a United States correctional facility. Nearly one in five, or 20 percent, of all HIV-infected Americans was among those released. By 2006, that percentage declined. Nearly 14 percent, or one in seven, of Americans affected by the…