On the heels of announcing 40% of New Yorkers practice unsafe sex, the Department of Health wants to test every adult in the Bronx for HIV over the next three years. Noting the borough's highest AIDS-related death rate in the city, Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said, "The Bronx has the opportunity to lead the city in the fight against HIV/AIDS by being the first borough to have all residents tested." The health department hopes......

The Dept. of Health is looking into why hundreds of New Yorkers were informed that they tested positive for HIV infection after an oral exam, when in fact they were HIV negative. The non-infected status was determined by a follow-up blood test that was administered immediately. Still--pretty scary. The State Health Dept. and the CDC are investigating why the OraSure mouth swab tests resulted in an approximate 50% false-positive rate (The FDA's allowable false-positive rate......

Kids who weren't even born when AIDS was an epidemic that ravaged the American gay and IV drug-using communities are apparently oblivious to the potential toll it can take on its generation. New York City's Dept. of Health reported that the number of HIV infections among city high schoolers (between the ages of 13 and 19) rose 29% between 2004 and 2006. Current figures are not yet available, but Rep. Anthony Weiner is proposing a......

Last year, the Health Department unveiled its free NYC Condoms on Valentine's Day. For this year's Valentine's Day, not only will volunteers from the Health Department be distributing condoms again, there's a new packaging and a new ad campaign with the tag "Get Some." Don't worry - the condom is the same lubricated Lifestyles latex condom as before. The Health Department gave out 36 million NYC Condoms last year and Assistant Commissioner for HIV......

Above right image from WNBC, below photograph of 58 Remsen Street from the Daily News Yesterday we mentioned that a cache of weapons - including a number of pipe bombs - were found in a Remsen Street apartment in Brooklyn Heights. Now it turns out the apartment was shared by an ex-con and a professor at Columbia University! Ivaylo Ivanov got the attention of police around 1AM yesterday morning, claiming he was shot in......

Well, most of them. According to a reported issued by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene yesterday, the city's overall death rate fell to an all-time low in 2006 mostly owing to decreases in smoking and HIV-related deaths. But although deaths from these causes were on the decline, those caused by substance abuse were up by 8 percent and lives lost from cancer and heart disease held steady for the year. 55,391 New Yorkers......

There are worries that a proposed $50,000 surcharge on all MD's in the state could do irreparable harm to New York's health care community. The state's medical malpractice liability fund is underfunded, and state insurance superintendent Eric Dinallo is looking for ideas. Doctors unable to obtain liability insurance from commercial carriers are required to get insurance from a pool for high-risk doctors called the Medical Malpractice Insurance Plan, which charges doctors at least 290% the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: serious trauma on 51st St. in Brooklyn, a missing person on 90th St. and Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan, and a large fight at 1087 Broadway in Brooklyn. A Brooklyn high school student was stabbed to death yesterday after school. The fatal injury occurred as he was attempting to rob another kid on a playground. Don Imus will be returning to the air with a "sidekick," who is black. The......

Governor Spitzer said that the NY State Department of Health's response regarding the Nassau County doctor exposed over 600 patients to hepatitis C and HIV was "unacceptably slow" and ordered an investigation. Dr. Harvey Finkelstein, an anesthesiologist, reused syringes and multiple-dose medicine vials between January 2000 and January 2005; some patients learned they had contracted hepatitis in 2005, but the state and Nassau County officials waited 34 months to contact other patients. It turns out......

How would you like to get a letter from your doctor saying, surprise, you may have hepatitis? Well that's exactly what happened to patients this week who received injections from a certain Nassau County doc. Six hundred thirty patients were contacted by the Nassau County health department who advised them to seek testing for hepatitis B, C as well as HIV. This is due to a confirmed case of HCV transmission between two patients at......

With Halloween right around the dark, dank corner, the minds of small children are populated with blood thirsty vampires, hairy knuckled werewolves, and nebulous bogeymen. But as they try to sleep and shudder with thoughts of what's hiding in their closet and lurking under their beds, real monsters are on the loose: drug-resistant bacteria! And these so-called "superbugs" - including a bacterium linked to childhood ear infections that is resistant to up to 18 antibiotics......

The Health Department released preliminary data that shows HIV infections increasing among gay men under age 30. Specifically, for men-who-have-sex- with-other-men (MSM) under 30, HIV cases have increased by 33% and account for 44% of all new diagnoses (in 2001, they accounted for 31% of all new cases). The number of older MSM with new diagnoses of HIV is declining, but the number of new HIV cases for MSM between ages 13 and 19 has......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: America at a Crossroads: Anti-Americans (A Hate/Love Relationship) (Monday, 10:00 P.M., WNET 13) A look at the Europeans love/hate relationship with the United States. Live From New York: The First 5 Years of Saturday Night Live (Tuesday, 8:00 P.M., WNBC 4) Two hours of classic SNL sketches and interviews with the performers who created them in this rebroadcast of this retrospective. Wide Angle: The Dying Fields (Tuesday,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an armed carjacking at the intersection of 164th St. and the Union Turnpike in Queens, an unconscious firefighter at 51st St. and 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a slashing on Myrtle and Wyckoff Aves. in Brooklyn. Mia Farrow is speaking out against the atrocities in Darfur. This is the summer of our discontent. The beach season is winding down with below-average-temperature weather and rain and clouds. An eight-month-old boy......

New York's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is reporting that there has been an alarming resurgence in the reported number of cases of syphilis in the city. The New York Times writes that after spiking in the late 1980s during a wave of unsafe sex fueled by an epidemic of crack cocaine use, cases of syphilis dropped steadily. By the late 1990s, incidences of the disease became so rare that public health officials at......

We know that the last thing City kids want to think about is the next school year, especially with summer vacation just starting or just about to kick off. But parents may want to check out the latest City Health Information newsletter from the Department of Health (DOH) that outlines the medical evaluations, immunizations, and screenings Junior will need before returning to the schoolhouse this fall. The full newsletter is available here. Already helping keep......

When the City authorized an over-the-counter version of the "morning after" pill last fall, we wondered how quickly its effects would be felt. Well, a study released by the City Council yesterday found that unwanted pregnancies and abortions have been down in the City thanks to the availability of over-the-counter emergency contraception. The study found that 94% of pharmacies surveyed knew that the medication was available as an OTC item and carried the item on......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a stabbing at Utica and Atlantic Aves. in Brooklyn, an overturned auto with passenger ejection on the LIE in Queens, and a report of a suspicious device on 43rd St. and Lexington Ave. in Manhattan. NJ police located the driver of the red pickup truck that initiated the chain reaction car crash that's left the state's Governor John Corzine seriously injured. The 20-year-old driver will not be ticketed. Hoping......

After the NY Times reported the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wanted to encourage adult men at risk for HIV/AIDS to get circumcised, Mayor Bloomberg distanced himself a bit from such a program. According to today's NY Times, Bloomberg officials "cautioned that [a campaign to promote circumcision] was still in its infancy and not yet something the administration had decided to pursue."Asked about the approach at a news conference, Mr. Bloomberg expressed support for......

In a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene two-fer, the DOH announced that 5 million NYC Condoms were given given away between February 14 and March 14, while the Times reveals that the DOH is also working on a campaign to promote circumcision. The condoms, which the city handed out to the public on Valentine's Day and distributed to community organizations and stores, are a "sensation" according to Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden. Frieden said, "I......

The pseudonymous Lux Nightmare burst onto the alt porn scene as a college student at Columbia where she launched the naked-guy-and-girl site That Strange Girl, featuring stills and video of herself and numerous other models who looked like they could be her fellow classmates. At a time when Suicide Girls and Burning Angel were coming to prominence, That Strange Girl (who, full disclosure, this interviewer posed for) was a homegrown, indie entry in the genre.......

EVENT: Housing works is opening their new store in Brooklyn today. With great events and thrifty finds and a way to support the HIV-positive homeless community, it's nice to see the store is expanding. 11am to 7pm // Housing Works Thrift Store [122 Montague St, Brooklyn Heights] ART: Photographer Haik Kocharian’s solo show at Robin Rice Gallery is “Isild Le Besco: the Early Years”. Fans of French cinema know Le Besco for her mercurial screen......

Taking a ride on the N train will have a whole new meaning with Mayor Mike’s recent plans to distribute “NYC” brand condoms that are packaged to resemble different subway lines. As the Post reports, this new initiative will distribute millions of these condoms throughout the city and bring New Yorkers one step closer to the stark reality that NYC has the highest rate of AIDS/HIV in the nation. While existing resources and organizations are......

This is a question that you may expect to hear from your doctor during your next check up if a new proposal by health commissioner Thomas Frieden and state assembly member Darryl Towns passes. A NY State law passed in the 1980s that required patients to provide permission or "informed consent" before they were tested for HIV may be replaced by new CDC recommendations that everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 should undergo......

On this day when many are reveling in gifts, there are others who need the most basic of things. This morning, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn helped deliver Christmas Day meals with Citymeals on Wheels - the Mayor delivered the estimated 34 millionth meal. The 25 year old program was started by New York magazine restaurant critic Gael Greene, who also got James Beard involved, and Citymeals on Wheels supports agencies......

Queens Hospital to Help the Neediest Helping the neediest this holiday season isn't just limited to canned food drives and dropping some change in those red Salvation Army kettles. AM New York reports that at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, almost 1,500 uninsured patients have been given low-cost birth control and counseling to prevent unwanted pregnancies. The service is in response to the high rate of unintended pregnancies over the past year: 49%......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a hazmat condition in L.E.S., a "car vs. house" in Queens, and a suspicious package on 34th and 7th. Rose Mattus, the co-creator of Haagen-Dazs, died this week at age 90: "Around 1960, while sitting on their couch in the Bronx, Mr. and Mrs. Mattus fabricated the foreign-sounding name. It was Mr. Mattus’s idea to include a map of Denmark on the carton and to put an umlaut over......

As you celebrate Thanksgiving with your friends and family, Gothamist Health wants you to feel reassured that your government is concerned for your well-being. We saw this strange poster at the Manhattan Veterans Hospital earlier this week encouraging our vets to go ahead and get tested for HIV. This is all well and good as we know our vets pick up more than just horrible memories and mistrust of our leaders while overseas. But......

To avoid the runny noses, aches, and missed days of work/school (darn) that come with the flu, consider getting yourself over to one of the many clinics set up by the Department of Health that will be giving away FREE FLU SHOTS to anyone over the age of 4 this Saturday. From 8 am until 6 pm, you can just drop by without an appointment and get the vaccine (made up of a mix of......

The Health (and Mental Hygiene) Department released some interesting reports that detail New Yorkers' health by neighborhood. You can check out a profile for where you live, which turns out to be a 16-page PDF listing various stats, like alcoholism, smoking, death rates, and other health issues, as well as giving other interesting demographics (population with age breaks or ethnicity, compared with NYC as a whole). There are also a series of maps that......