(blackaids) An alarming new statistic shines a glaring light on the increasingly Black and female faces of HIV in New York City. According to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (pdf), a staggering 93. 4 percent of all new HIV cases reported among NYC women in the first half of 2009 were Black and Latina women, with sistas, who make up more than 66 percent of new infections, beating Latinas two to one. The overall rate of new cases for both groups is up nearly two percentage points from 2008. While the statistic, displayed prominently on billboards throughout the city, may startle the average pedestrian, it doesn't surprise Marjorie Hill, Ph.  More...

(BlackAidsInstitute) The amount of food their daughters are consuming, or the extra pounds they are packing on, may now be the least of parents' worries. According to a recent study presented at the annual meeting of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AGOG), overweight teenage girls are more likely than normal-weight teens to start having sex early, take on multiple partners and forgo using condoms. The South Carolina researchers who worked on the study found that overweight girls were nearly three times as likely as teens of average weight to have sex before age 13, and 30 percent more likely to have had sex with more than three partners during adolescence. Margaret S. Villers, M.  More...

(canada) California researchers have found that if pregnant women have more than 200 mg of caffeine per day, they are twice as likely to miscarry than women who avoid caffeine. . . . .  More...