HIV and AIDS have long had a disproportionate impact on the Black community. In recognition of that stark reality, the U.S. government marked February 7 as National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.
Cheddar News anchor Shannon LaNier spoke with Jessica Shepherd, the chief medical officer at Verywell, a health information website, about the disease's continued impact on Black people, who she said are eight times more likely to be diagnosed than white people.
The challenge in addressing this inequality is stigma, which has historically discouraged people from seeking care.
Shepherd explained that better health care options have helped lift some of that stigma, but it remains an issue for certain disadvantaged groups.
Overcoming the disease's connection with sexual intercourse is another way to help people become more open about the disease and seek the proper care, she added.
"When you think of something that's sexually transmitted, even though you do have [intravenous drug] transmission, you think of something that is bad," she said. "So the person gets a bad label no matter how they acquire the disease."
Better health care in general has helped combat this perception, as HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence but rather something people can live with. "You see people well into their sixth or seventh decade having HIV and living very healthy lives," she said.
Drugmaker giant Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks said during a Senate Committee hearing that the company will not raise the price of insulin products.
New blood donations rules will allow sexually active gay and bisexual men in monogamous relationships to give in the FDA guidelines ease decades-old restrictions put in place to protect the blood supply from HIV.
A new study finds an experimental skin patch shows promise to treat toddlers who are highly allergic to peanuts.
Britain's fertility regulator on Wednesday confirmed the births of the U.K.'s first babies created using an experimental technique combining DNA from three people, an effort to prevent the children from inheriting rare genetic diseases.
Federal health advisers said Wednesday that a decades-old birth control pill should be sold without a prescription, paving the way for a likely U.S. approval of the first over-the-counter contraceptive medication.
Colette Morales, instructor at Core 95, joined Cheddar News to teach a few basic yoga poses aimed at strengthening multiple areas of the body simultaneously.
A group of nationally-recognized medical experts are suggesting women start getting breast cancer screening at 40 years old.
The Food and Drug Administration is kicking off a two-day meeting to consider whether to let people get birth control pills without a prescription, with a decision expected by the summer.
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