For women who can’t get to—or can’t afford—an OB-GYN, a bill introduced by At-Large Councilmember David Catania could be a boon.
Catania is proposing that women should be able to access birth control pills without an OB-GYN appointment, which includes a Pap smear and urine tests and typically costs more than the average checkup. The bill, [...]

With new statistics showing alarming levels of HIV infection among the estimated 36,500 District men who have gay sex, the city is recommending that they be tested for the virus twice yearly.
A new report [PDF] indicates that 14 percent of men who have sex with men (aka MSMs) test positive for HIV—"a rate five times [...]

"Our rates are higher than West Africa....They’re on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya."
—Dr. Shannon Hader, city AIDS czar, March 16

Six days after entering Howard University Hospital for what's been reported as a case of dehydration, Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry was discharged today. At one point, he had been admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit.
His spokesperson, Natalie Williams, released a statement:
Councilmember Barry says he is feeling much better and is following his medical [...]

The New York Times has a story today about farmed salmon from Chile that makes a few pretty scary points:

Chile used almost 350 times more antibiotics in its farmed salmon in 2008 than Norway, its chief competitor.
Chile is the biggest supplier of salmon supplier to the United States. So, if you’ve purchased the pretty pinkish [...]

Well, it’s not the lawn, exactly, but the country’s most widely used weed killer that French scientists say also kills human cells and may cause miscarriages, abnormal fetal development and low birth weight babies.
Environmental Health News reports today that one of the inert ingredients in Roundup, the country’s most widely used herbicide, might not be [...]

LL exclusive: Two George Washington University students have "probable" cases of H1N1 "swine" flu.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is minutes from convening a press conference to discuss the cases.
LL is told that both students have recovered and that they continue to be quarantined out of an abundance of caution.
UPDATE, 4:50 P.M.: Here is the official press [...]

Thanks to the Washington Post's preview yesterday of the city's latest HIV/AIDS numbers, we know know that, with 3 percent of the population diagnosed, D.C.'s rates are "higher than West Africa" and "on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya."
Those comparisons came from Dr. Shannon Hader, head of the city's HIV/AIDS Administration and a [...]

Marion Barry, former mayor, current Ward 8 councilmember, and political legend, is awake and resting comfortably at Howard University Hospital this morning after six-hour kidney transplant surgery.
Said Barry spokesperson Natalie Williams, "I think of only two words: true soldier."
The surgery, which began shortly before 5 p.m. yesterday and ended around 11 p.m., has been [...]

Right now, At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania is nearly an hour into a roundtable he's holding on the operations of Whitman-Walker Clinic, the Logan Circle health center that's historically treated the city's gay and lesbian community and victims of HIV/AIDS. The inquiry follows the clinic's decision in December to lay off 26 employees and cut [...]

A man died Monday morning while receiving treatment for a drug addiction at a District facility.
Sandy Ethridge, 59, was pronounced dead at Prince George's Hospital Center on the morning of Dec. 15. He had been admitted on Dec. 11 to the Addiction Prevention and Recovery Administration's detox facility on the D.C. General campus, according to [...]