India health minister calls homosexuality disease (AP)

NEW DELHI – India's health minister has derided homosexuality as an unnatural "disease" from the West, drawing outrage Tuesday from activists who said the comments set back the country's campaign for gay rights and its fight against HIV.

The comments Monday by Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad at a conference on HIV/AIDS in the Indian capital echoed a common refrain in the conservative South Asian nation that homosexuality is a Western import.

"Unfortunately this disease has come to our country too ... where a man has sex with another man, which is completely unnatural and should not happen, but does," Azad said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi and a slew of government ministers were also present at the conference. There was no immediate comment from the health ministry, and the prime minister's office refused to discuss the Azad's remarks.

Anjali Gopalan, who heads the NAZ Foundation, a rights group that works with HIV positive people and promotes equal rights for homosexuals, said Azad's comments were deeply troubling coming from the health minister of a country fighting a tough battle against HIV infections.

"These comments help no cause. It's definitely not going to help in our fight against HIV," she told The Associated Press.

Roughly 2.5 million Indians have HIV, making it the country with the largest number of people living with the virus in Asia.

Experts say the marginalization of gay people keeps them isolated and makes it harder for HIV/AIDS awareness messages to reach them.

"If you're not going to invest in community building then gay people will continue to be marginalized," Gopalan said.

In 2009, the Delhi High Court struck down a colonial era law — Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code — that made sex between people of the same gender punishable by up to 10 years in prison. While actual criminal prosecutions were rare, the law was frequently used to harass people.

The court ruling was noteworthy in a country where even heterosexual sex is rarely discussed openly.

Over the last decade homosexuals have slowly gained a degree of acceptance in a few parts of India, especially its big cities. Many bars have gay nights, and some high-profile Bollywood films have dealt with gay issues. The last two years have also seen large gay pride parades in New Delhi and other big cities such as Mumbai and Kolkata.

Still, being gay remains deeply taboo in most of the country, and many homosexuals hide their sexual orientation from friends and families.

"How can the health minister say something so unscientific and irrational?" Nitin Karani, a gay rights activist told a television new channel. "He needs to apologize immediately or he needs to go."

This is not the first time Azad's words have embarrassed the government.

A few years ago, he suggested Indians watch more late night television instead of having sex as a means to stem population growth in the nation of 1.2 billion people.

Huge AZ wildfire spreads, health conditions worsen (AP)

SPRINGERVILLE, Ariz. – Smoke from a huge wildfire in eastern Arizona that has claimed more than 30 homes and forced nearly 10,000 people to flee has officials worried about serious health impacts to residents and firefighters as tiny particles of soot in the air reached "astronomical" levels.

"It was off the charts," Mark Shaffer of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality said Friday night.

Calmer winds helped firefighters gain some ground, but also concentrated the sooty air, keeping it stagnant and raising pollution to levels not yet seen since the blaze began several weeks ago.

"We've got a serious potential health problem on our hands," Shaffer said. "When you get levels like this, it's off the map."

Officials planned to bring in more air quality monitoring equipment over the weekend, and warned people to just stay away.

Meanwhile, the blaze was poised to move into New Mexico on Saturday, pushed by stronger winds, threatening more towns and possibly endangering two major power lines that bring electricity from Arizona to West Texas.

The fire has burned 639 square miles of forest, an increase of 114 square miles from a day earlier, officials said.

"It's getting very, very close to the New Mexico state line," Jim Whittington, spokesman for the teams battling the fire. "This is really rugged country. There is a lot of potential" for the fire to grow.

He said that after a good day with calm winds, Saturday was expected to get dicey with stronger winds expected later in the day.

"The atmosphere will be unstable and very conducive to fire growth," Whittington said. "We're very concerned about the winds."

He said firefighters may eventually have to set ablaze 150,000 acres to burn off fuel in the forest in order to stamp out the flames.

"It's going to be really difficult," Whittington added.

Lighter winds Thursday and Friday helped the 4,400 firefighters make progress, but critical fire conditions remain.

Fire crews plan to try to strengthen what lines they've been able to establish and continue burning out forested areas in front of the main fire to try to stop its advance. It was officially just 6 percent contained Friday, but the actual numbers likely are higher, Whittington said.

The advances came on the fire's north side, near the working-class towns of Springerville and Eagar on the edge of the forest. Nearly 10,000 people have been evacuated from the two towns and from several mountain communities in the forest.

On Friday, fire officials gave reporters the first look at two of the mountain communities — Alpine and Nutrioso — in nearly two weeks, driving them through the deserted resort towns and surrounding areas.

Some stands of trees in the forest were untouched while others looked like blackened matchsticks sticking up through lingering smoke. Firefighters were working in the area, using drip torches to light fires and burn out undergrowth.

Deer and elk grazed in unscorched areas, while wild turkeys walked through tall grass along the road. Two miles south of Alpine, whole hillsides of ponderosa were decimated.

The two Arizona-Texas power lines were still in the fire's path, although Whittington said he was less concerned about them Friday. El Paso Electric has warned its 372,000 customers that they may see rolling blackouts if the lines are cut.

The fire is the second-largest in state history and could eclipse the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski fire in size, although only a fraction of the homes have burned.

The Chediski began as a signal fire and merged with the Rodeo, which was intentionally set by a firefighter who needed work. Together they burned 732 square miles (1,895 sq. kilometers) and destroyed 491 buildings.

The current Wallow Fire in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest has destroyed 31 homes or cabins, including 22 in the picturesque mountain community of Greer, Whittington said. Two dozen outbuildings and a truck also were lost and five homes damaged in Greer when the fire moved in Wednesday night.

Firefighters are battling another major wildfire in far southeastern Arizona, also near the New Mexico line. The so-called Horseshoe Two blaze burned through 211 square miles or 135,000 acres of brush and timber since it started in early May. The fire has destroyed 23 structures but caused no serious injuries. It was 45 percent contained late Friday and fire officials hope to have it fully contained by late June.

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Susan Montoya Bryan can be reached at http://twitter.com/susanmbryanNM

Health Tip: Teach Your Child Healthy Eating Habits (HealthDay)

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Health Tip: Is It Time to Stop Driving? (HealthDay)

Copyright © 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
The information contained above is intended for general reference purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice or a medical exam. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health professional before starting any new treatment. Medical information changes rapidly and while Yahoo and its content providers make efforts to update the content on the site, some information may be out of date. No health information on Yahoo, including information about herbal therapies and other dietary supplements, is regulated or evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and therefore the information should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease without the supervision of a medical doctor.