There was a temporary big splash in the HIV/AIDS community last month when President Obama’s Office of National AIDS Strategy finally released its long-awaited plan on how to deal with the on-going – and in some areas, increasing – epidemic of HIV/AIDS.
Last Friday, Aug. 20, AIDS Czar Jeff Crowley blogged on the White House’s websiteabout the Administration’s continuing commitment to prioritizing HIV/AIDS. He announced an amendment to the President’s FY 2011 budget request being sent to Congress to increase HIV/AIDS funding by $65 million – $35 million increase for HIV prevention as called for in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and “a $30 million increase for State AIDS drug assistance programs to respond to the ongoing crisis States are facing in operating these essential programs.”
Crowley also talked about President Obama’s July 13th remarks about the Strategy. But he doesn’t mention how Obama was briefly interrupted by Housing Works CEO Charles King – who took a lot of flack for shouting out. King recently posted an editorial explaining why he thinks the Strategy is a failure. Perhaps King and other HIV/AIDS activists will have a chance to discuss their frustrations during two upcoming webinars sponsored by the grassroots Coalition for a National AIDS Strategy. Please click inside for more on all of this.
The Wall Las Memorias – an inspirational art project dedicated as a Latino AIDS monument on World AIDS Day in 2004 – has been vandalized. Apparently a mother went to see the name of her son on the Wall in Lincoln Park in East LA and found a section of the mural splashed in yellow paint.
The Wall’s founder Richard Zaldivar told me:
“The vandalism was done to the section of the AIDS mural that depicts a child saying, ‘I once knew a child with AIDS.’ And so it is really sad and very troubling that someone would use this opportunity to damage a piece of art that was created for the purpose HIV prevention and education to our community.
We are currently working with the police to see whether or not it was a hate crime. It seemed to be very targeted. There are six painted murals and only this mural was vandalized. So it was very targeted and focused.
I also really appreciate so many people from the community expressing their concern and sadness at this vandalism.”
Zaldivar says that if people want to be supportive, they can help create a discussion with the larger community around safety and other issues in the park. He requests that comments and suggestions be sent to jperez@thewalllasmemorias.org.
Additionally, Eddie Martinez says:
“We plan to try to clean it today at 2pm. We are going to try to use soap and water. If that does not work, we will need to call the company that produced the fabricated murals to see what the next steps are. We don’t want to further damage the murals. We have a team of volunteers and staff going to the monument today. People are welcomed to be there for support but we have enough manpower.”
In advance of Congress taking up the Defense Authorization Bill, the antigay Family Research Council launched a campaign last week focused on the provision in the bill to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The campaign isn’t just aimed at Congress. FRC’s Tony Perkins is in league with the Religious Right Prop 8 network – which includes TheCall’s Lou Engle – that distributes antigay propaganda to churches in areas where the families of military servicemembers live. Those families are being targeted by the military for the DADT repeal survey.
Dr. Robert Labutta (U.S. Army, Colonel, Ret.) of the American Family Association was part of the FRC-sponsored webcast (which also included Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe and Montana Rep. Todd Akin) launching “Mission Compromised: How the military is being used to advance a radical agenda.” (Please see Good As You on AFA’s outlandish Bryan Fischer, another participant.) FRC posted the audio and a transcript of the webcast here.
Tuesday FRC released this video of Perkins talking to Labutta about the health implications of repealing DADT, which Perkins notes were a big part of the discussion in 1993 but are not talked about today. (Please click inside to see how FRC set up this question and video in an email to their supporters.)
But my question is: where are the LGBT or HIV/AIDS organizations that should be responding to these spurious accusations? This is the new Age of Anxiety, remember, and this crap might stick.
The long-awaited National AIDS Strategy will be unveiled Tuesday at 2:00p.m. at a White House-sponsored event, followed by a reception with many of the nation’s leaders on HIV/AIDS. The White House press conference will feature Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, White House Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes, Office of National AIDS Policy Director Jeffrey Crowley, and HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Howard Koh.
A White House press release says the heavy-hitters will “unveil the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) and discuss its goals and details”
But there has been a lot of concern over the plan and how much community input has really been taken seriously, as well as how quickly the administration has acted on the growing lists in several states for AIDS Drug Assistance Program funding. Los Angeles – based AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), which is the largest global AIDS organization, is planning a counter-press conference Tuesday at 3:30 PM Eastern, to discuss some of those issues and to specifically criticize NHAS at the National Press Club with Michael Weinstein, AHF President and Tom Myers, General Counsel & Chief of Public Affairs for AHF.
In a press release, Weinstein previewed his comments:
“The ‘New York Times’ obtained a copy of the President’s AIDS strategy, and from what we’ve learned of it so far, there is really no ‘there’ there. This strategy is a day late and a dollar short: 15 months in the making, and the White House learned what people in the field have known for years. There is no funding, no ‘how to,’ no real leadership.”
The toll of the HIV epidemic among Black men in the United States is staggering. CDC estimates that 1 in 16 Black men will become infected with HIV in their lifetime. An estimated two-thirds of people living with HIV/AIDS in the Black community are men, and Black men in some U.S. cities have HIV rates as high as heavily impacted countries in Africa. According to CDC, Black gay and bisexual men are the most heavily impacted population in the Black community. One study in five major U.S. cities found that as many as half of all Black gay men in these communities were living with HIV. Although not as heavily impacted, Black heterosexual men are also be at high risk for HIV infection through heterosexual sex and injection drug use.
On June 2, 2010, The Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) convened a meeting at the White House on Black Men and HIV. ….
Please click inside to read the rest of Millett’s blog.
Before there was “Sex in the City” there was Blanche Devereaux – the sultry and sexually liberated Southern Belle played by actress/comedienne Rue McClanahan on the hit TV series, “The Golden Girls.” AP reports that McClanahan died early Wednesday morning at New York-Presbyterian Hospital of a brain hemorrhage. She was 76.
Actress/comedienne Betty White, the surviving member of the cult classic, told Access Hollywood: “Rue was a close and dear friend. I treasured our relationship. It hurts more than I even thought it would, if that’s even possible.”
Please click here for AP’s obituary on McClanahan, pictured here on the right with her “Golden Girls” co-stars, Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty and Betty White. But a quick note from me: McClanahan’s character Blanche Devereaux appeared at a time in 1985 when gay men were dying almost as quickly as they were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Their lives shifted dramatically from the fun of sexual liberation to the darkness and depression of equating sex with death. McClanahan’s sex-obsessed, often ego-centric characterization of Blanche gave so many frightened gays a vicarious escape into a magic world when sex was unabashedly fun. Just the sheer laughter at her foibles was itself a treasure. For that, McClanahan and her “Gold Girl” co-stars will always be gratefully cherished. Thank you, Rue.
In recognition of Wednesday’s sixth annual observance of National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Dr. Howard Koh, Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, wrote a post on the White House blog “Encouraging Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to Talk About HIV/AIDS.”
The theme for the day is “Saving face can’t make you safe. Talk about HIV,” which Koh says has “particular meaning” to him having “seen the stigma and silence around HIV in my community.”
“Saving face” is a common cultural concept in A&PI communities, where individuals seek to protect the family from perceived public shame or disgrace. In practice, “saving face” contributes to silence about sex, HIV, and safe sex practices. Saving face and stigma also lead to higher rates of HIV infection and a lack of knowledge about one’s HIV status:
1 in 3 Asians and Pacific Islanders living with HIV don’t know it
Over half of Pacific Islanders have never been tested for HIV
Over two-thirds of Asians have never been tested for HIV – HIV among AAPIs
Here’s their PSA encouraging AAPI’s to break the silence:
I confess: I still consider HIV/AIDS a very serious national health crisis and I have not been shy about criticizing the Obama administration for not acting more swiftly – as promised – to create a National AIDS Strategy to save lives and prevent more infections. The Office of National AIDS Policy has promised a comprehensive strategy next month and that may now be on track.
The grassroots activist/stakeholder group Coalition for a National AIDS Strategy sent out a notice that the White House is holding a telephonic briefing Friday at 1:00p.m. Eastern, 10:00a.m. Pacific to tell community stakeholders what topics the Obama Administration is considering for inclusion in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.
Please click inside to get information on the conference call and links to community recommendations for the strategy.
Editor’s note: I’ve known Sean Strub, longtime HIV/AIDS activist and founder of POZ magazine for just under two decades. One of the most important of his extraordinary contributions over his career was his angry and energetic leadership in 1997 trying to get President Bill Clinton to lift the ban on needle exchange. It was his pressure and organizing skill – along with ACT UP and others (who regularly interrupted Clinton at events, including fancy dinners) that eventually lead to the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS to take the extraordinary step of publicly issuing a “no confidence” protest letter, with several board members resigning as emphasis. He kept it up with his 2005 dissection of AIDS Inc with “What’s Wrong with the AIDS Movement?”
Wednesday Sean posted his first piece on his new blog on the POZ website. It should be a New York Times magazine cover story – but he’s giving it to us – to his people, people who have HIV/AIDS and LGBT and straight people who care about HIV/AIDS. Sean’s “Medical Ethics and the Rights of People With HIV Under Assault” is a tough opinion piece with which many will disagree. But it is important, long and, please, worthy of your time. Here is an excerpt:
It is clear that the health of people with HIV has become, for some, secondary to HIV prevention. Those of us with HIV are now viewed by much of the public health establishment primarily as potential infectors, “viral vectors of disease”.
There are few precedents, in recent history, where drugs are given to people for any reason other than for the patient’s benefit.
The occasions that come to mind are when drugs are administered as part of a clinical trial–and subject to ethical review and protections by an Institutional Review Board–or when they are administered as punishment, like with sex offenders forced to undergo chemical castration.
“Treat everyone” advocates propose to, for the first time outside of a research or punitive context, give pharmaceutical treatment to people for whom it is not been demonstrated to be of benefit.
This is an important precedent with extraordinarily significant ramifications far beyond the HIV epidemic. Where are the ethicists? Are HIV positive lives of so little value that something as monumentally unjust as this can happen and not be worthy of notice?
Please click inside to read Sean’s important essay.
BIENESTAR, the Latino HIV/AIDS and social services organization, is collecting life-saving medications to be sent to earthquake-devastated Haiti. This collection will take place February 1st. through February 5th at all BIENESTAR centers.
The medications can be donated and dropped off at a BIENESTAR center near you (see the list below). These medications should be unexpired, not require refrigeration and preferably sealed.
Medications needed more urgently: Antiretrovirals, Medications to treat Opportunistic Infections, Antifungals, Antivirals, Antibiotics, Antiparasite drugs, Antiallergics and Pediatrics.
Monetary donations can be made through AIDS Healthcare Foundation – click on DONATIONS, and in honor of HAITI. Please click inside to see the drop-off locations and more ways to donate.
I’ve known Kevin Koffler for ages. I wrote for him when he was the West Coast Editor of OUT magazine and when he twice ran the now defunct Genre Magazine as Editor-in-Chief. It was under Kevin that I went “undercover” at an ex-gay ministry and helped the late AIDS activist Michael Callen pen his farewell to the community. Kevin is now a psychotherapist working on his PhD in Psychology at Saybrook University. He co-authored the book The New Breed: Actors Coming Of Age (Holt) and has written for the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, People and the Hollywood Reporter. Herecently started a new blog – The Art of Being Post Fabulous from which this is cross-posted with permission. Here’s the opening of his essay; please click inside to read the rest.
Being my own role model
By Kevin Koffler
Many months ago, I attended a men’s group of sorts and the facilitator of that group asked the participants to rate themselves on a scale of 1-10 (one being the lowest and ten being the highest) of how they felt they were living life as the man they want to be.
He said that the criteria, rationale, characteristics and requirements of how each participant would be left up to the participant but wanted each group member to share what that statement meant to them, as well as how they would rate themselves…..
I just had to turn Twitter off. I cannot read one more Prop 8 tweet. Maybe I can read something on Facebook or I will check later today with all the updates. It has just become too hard for me to watch and listen.
There is thunder and lighting and rain outside. The dogs are out in back with me, playing around, making it seem as if nothing is wrong if I stay out in my office and turn off the world.
What the hell kind of activist am I to do this? Hiding in my backyard away from the rest of the world is not something I usually seek out. I finally figured it out this past weekend while driving to Oregon. The Prop 8 election severely wounded my soul.
Please click inside to read the rest of Gloria’s insightful personal essay.
Okay, time out. It’s understandable that we’re all getting a little overwhelmed here: the federal Prop 8 trial; a conservative Republican winning Teddy Kennedy’s Massachusetts senate seat; the horror in Haiti; torrential rains in SoCal hitting the fire-areas hard; and for good measure – the Yes on 8 folks are absurdly suing the Courage Campaign over their farcical Prop8TrialTracker logo – which Calitics just dubbed “Logogate.”
But one of the stories we’re missing in this constant barrage of news is this one: a scientific model based on transmission of HIV among men in San Francisco predicts a coming surge of drug-resistant strains of HIV over the next five years, according to NewScientist.com.
What can you do? Well, a group called Artists Give Back is hosting a screening of the haunting Oscar-winning film Philadelphia Thursday night, with screenwriter Ron Nyswaner planning on being in attendance. If you’re an old ACT UPer, you might remember that Michael Callen and the Flirtations sang in the film and one of Tom Hanks’ friends was David Drake of “The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me.” If you are young and have NO IDEA what the big deal is/was about HIV/AIDS – this is a pre-drug cocktail mainstream version of a real-life incident. Or if you’re a fan of Bruce Springsteen or Neil Young, you might remember how these straight men captured so profoundly the grief of being a gay dead man walking, clinging to a life wasting away. And you might understand why we promised never to forget. Click inside for more info on the event, on the UCLA study and a concern about ADAP funding cuts to jails.
On Friday, December 4 at 9:30 a.m. ET, (6:30 a.m. PST) the Kaiser Family Foundation is hosting a live webcast of a town hall-style discussion with Ambassador Eric Goosby, the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator.
Webcast viewers may submit questions for Ambassador Goosby anytime before 5 p.m. ET (2:00pm PST) TODAY to ask@kff.org. Please click inside to read how Goosby may hold the key to stopping the “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda.
On the eve of World AIDS Day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett, and other officials discuss the progress the Obama Administration has made in combating HIV/AIDS at home and abroad. November 30, 2009.
Click inside to read a transcript of Secretary Clinton’s remarks, concluding with the announcement that the International AIDS Society will hold the 2012 International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C..
During the past month-plus, I’ve traversed America, touring the twentieth anniversary production of intimacies, a solo performance piece that ostensibly tells bygone stories about HIV/AIDS. While my mission is to entertain and enlighten through the artistic experience, the impact of the ongoing tour encompasses much more; merging the past with the present is tricky, inevitably leading to back-and-forth emotions that both comfort and disturb. Click inside for more of Michael’s essay on his tour and his World AIDS Day performances.
Art Center College of Design will commemorate a historic mural created by artist Keith Haring on the 20th anniversary of his visit to the College and in recognition of World AIDS Day on November 30, said Art Center President, Lorne Buchman.
In 1989, the prolific artist and social activist Keith Haring visited Art Center College of Design and painted an interior mural, which still hangs in the Colleges’ landmark building. Haring passed away two months later from AIDS-related complications in February 1990.
The Keith Haring tribute reception will take place Monday, November 30 at 6:00 p.m. at Art Center’s James Lemont Fogg Memorial Library, located at 1700 Lida Street in Pasadena, California. The event is free and open to the public. Click inside for more on Keith Haring and the tribute.
In the Meantime Men’s Group Presents a Town Hall Forum at Jewel’s Catch One Disco on the impact of budget cuts, and the future of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care in Los Angeles County. Confirmed panelist: Mario J. Perez, Director of the Los Angeles County Office of AIDS Programs and Policy, Stephen D. Simon, AIDS Coordinator for the City of Los Angeles. Click inside for details
There was a temporary big splash in the HIV/AIDS community last month when President Obama’s Office of National AIDS Strategy finally released its long-awaited plan on how to deal with the on-going – and in some areas, increasing – epidemic of HIV/AIDS.
In advance of Congress taking up the Defense Authorization Bill, the antigay Family Research Council 
The long-awaited National AIDS Strategy will be unveiled Tuesday at 2:00p.m. at a White House-sponsored event, followed by a reception with many of the nation’s leaders on HIV/AIDS. The White House press conference will feature Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, White House Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes, Office of National AIDS Policy Director Jeffrey Crowley, and HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Howard Koh.
White House Meeting on Black Men and HIV
Before there was “Sex in the City” there was Blanche Devereaux – the sultry and sexually liberated Southern Belle played by actress/comedienne Rue McClanahan on the hit TV series, “The Golden Girls.” 
In recognition of Wednesday’s sixth annual observance of National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Dr. Howard Koh, Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, wrote a post on the White House blog “
I confess: I still consider HIV/AIDS a very serious national health crisis and I have not been shy about 
Editor’s note: I’ve known Sean Strub, longtime HIV/AIDS activist and founder of POZ magazine for just under two decades. One of the most important of his extraordinary contributions over his career was his angry and energetic leadership in 1997 trying to get President Bill Clinton to lift the ban on needle exchange. It was his pressure and organizing skill – along with ACT UP and others (who 
I’ve known Kevin Koffler for ages. I wrote for him when he was the West Coast Editor of OUT magazine and when he twice ran the now defunct Genre Magazine as Editor-in-Chief. It was under Kevin that I went “undercover” at an ex-gay ministry and helped the late AIDS activist Michael Callen pen his farewell to the community. Kevin is now a psychotherapist working on his PhD in Psychology at Saybrook University. He co-authored the book The New Breed: Actors Coming Of Age (Holt) and has written for the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, People and the Hollywood Reporter. He recently started a new blog – 
The California storms, the Prop 8 trial and me
Okay, time out. It’s understandable that we’re all getting a little overwhelmed here: the federal Prop 8 trial; a conservative Republican winning Teddy Kennedy’s Massachusetts senate seat; the horror in Haiti; torrential rains in SoCal hitting the fire-areas hard; and for good measure – the Yes on 8 folks are absurdly suing the Courage Campaign over their farcical Prop8TrialTracker logo – which 
On Friday, December 4 at 9:30 a.m. ET, (6:30 a.m. PST) the Kaiser Family Foundation is hosting a 
During the past month-plus, I’ve traversed America, touring the twentieth anniversary production of intimacies, a solo performance piece that ostensibly tells bygone stories about HIV/AIDS. While my mission is to entertain and enlighten through the artistic experience, the impact of the ongoing tour encompasses much more; merging the past with the present is tricky, inevitably leading to back-and-forth emotions that both comfort and disturb. Click inside for more of Michael’s essay on his tour and his World AIDS Day performances. 
Art Center College of Design will commemorate a historic mural created by artist Keith Haring on the 20th anniversary of his visit to the College and in recognition of World AIDS Day on November 30, said Art Center President, Lorne Buchman.
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