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Three women were likely infected with HIV while receiving so-called vampire facials at a New Mexico spa, marking the first known HIV cases transmitted via cosmetic injections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Thursday. The first HIV case linked to the VIP Spa in Albuquerque was discovered in 2018 and prompted the New Mexico Department of Health to offer free testing to anyone who got injections at the facility. (Bendix, 4/25)

The woman’s HIV diagnosis was puzzling. Her only recent sexual partner tested negative. She didn’t report injecting drugs or undergoing a blood transfusion. But she did receive a cosmetic rejuvenating procedure known as a vampire facial, in which a person’s face is injected with their own blood through microneedles. In the coming years, disease detectives discovered that’s how she and two other women who went to the same unlicensed New Mexico spa with unsanitary practices probably contracted HIV. This marks the first known transmission of the virus through nonsterile cosmetic injection services. (Nirappil, 4/25)

Increases in HIV infections, and in cases of syphilis passed from mothers to newborns, marred an otherwise hopeful decline in sexually transmitted diseases in Minnesota last year. Minnesota's state epidemiologist called those two increases "troubling," because they occurred despite awareness of the risks and opportunities to prevent them. (Olson, 4/25)

By the end of June, health care providers in Maryland will lose nearly three-quarters of the funding they use to find and treat thousands of people with HIV. Advocates and providers say they had been warned there would be less money by the Maryland Department of Health, but were stunned at the size of the drop — from about $17.9 million this fiscal year to $5.3 million the next. The deep cuts are less than three months away. Without the money, they say there could be a public health catastrophe. (Cohn, 4/24)

Aaron Rodgers, already famous after nearly two decades as an NFL quarterback, is drawing a new kind of notoriety for peddling conspiracy theories. Recently, a video clip went viral of Rodgers, known for his anti-vaccine views, criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci’s handling of the AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic during his decadeslong tenure as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. ... Rodgers said Fauci promoted an antiretroviral drug in the 1980s called zidovudine, also known as azidothymidine or AZT, to treat HIV. Rodgers falsely claimed that taking AZT was “killing people” at that time. (Czopek and Swann, 4/23)