Jailhouse Crock

“[New York’s Department of Correctional Services’ James] Flateau noted that ‘condoms are a security threat because inmates and visitors can hide drugs and other contraband inside them and in their body cavities.’ He said he did not anticipate a change in condom prohibition, but acknowledged that inmates do engage in sex. ‘We’ve never said they weren’t, and those inmates risk giving themselves a death sentence, and we have told them that.’”

—“Two Reports Criticize Prisons on HIV Policy,” The New York Times, February 18

Naked City

“I called every studio and didn’t even get return phone calls. If I said I wanted a plane to go to New York to run naked down Park Avenue, they’d send a fleet.”

—Sharon Stone on how Hollywood stonewalled her when she asked for help to send a girl with AIDS to Paul Newman’s camp for youth with terminal diseases, Daily News, February 9

The Milky Way

“Breast-feeding is simply better. It enhances the immune system, even if the mom is HIV positive.”

—HIV naysayer Kathleen Tyson, Eugene, Oregon’s Register-Guard, February 1

And ‘Clinton Infection’

“Heroin dealers stamp brand names on the little wax-paper envelopes in which the drug is packaged…. There is a suicidal candor to ‘Lethal Injection’ and ‘Virus.’”

—“Inside Dope,” New  Yorker, February 1