Category: Health and Wellness

Judge: AZ can’t end domestic partner benefits for state employees

LGBTQ Nation • Saturday, July 24, 2010 • Filed under: Arizona, Health and Wellness • Comments (0)

A federal judge on Friday issued an injunction preventing the State of Arizona from enforcing a law that would have prevented lesbian and gay state employees and their domestic partners (and the children of those partners) from receiving health benefits, referring to it as illegal discrimination.

The bill, passed by the legislature last session and signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, eliminated coverage for non-spouse domestic partners, whether they were heterosexual or gay. The lawsuit, filed by Lambda Legal, said that heterosexual couples had the option of receiving benefits simply by getting married, but gay and lesbian couples can’t do so in Arizona.

United States District Judge John Sedwick agreed, citing the Arizona constitutional amendment that bars same-sex marriages, and said the state is making benefits for the partners of its employees available “on terms that are a legal impossibility for gay and lesbian couples.’’

The state argued, among other things, that the law saves Arizona money, to which Judge Sedwick addressed in his 33-page decision:

“Contrary to the State’s suggestion, it is not equitable to lay the burden of the State budgetary shortfall on homosexual employees, any more than on any other distinct class, such as employees with green eyes or red hair.”

He said the evidence shows that the cost of providing benefits to then partners of gay and lesbian workers is no more than 0.27 percent of total health care spending by the state. And even if cuts had to be made elsewhere, the judge said, that still doesn’t make the law right.

Arizona lawmakers included the provision to eliminate domestic partner health benefits for gay state employees as part of a last-minute budget deal signed by Brewer last September, while retaining spousal health benefits for heterosexual workers. Friday’s injunction barring enforcement of the insurance cut-off will take effect in ten days.

The State can appeal the ruling immediately to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, or proceed to defend the discriminatory budget provision on the merits in the District Court.

About 800 state employees are affected. State officials have not announced whether they will appeal the ruling.

Previously from LGBTQ Nation:

GLAAD pressures ‘The View’ to correct statements on HIV, African Americans

LGBTQ Nation • Tuesday, July 13, 2010 • Filed under: Health and Wellness, Television • Comments (0)

Refusing to be ignored, GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has teamed with the Black AIDS Institute and the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) and placed a full page ad in Monday’s Variety magazine, calling on ABC Television and its popular morning program The View, to correct a misleading quote about the spread of HIV among African Americans.

Last month, co-host Sherri Shepherd and guest host, comedian D.L. Hughley, blamed increased HIV rates among straight African American women on gay and bisexual black men men who are secretly gay, often referred to as “on the down low.”

“When you look at the prevalence of HIV in the African American community, it’s primarily young women who are getting it from men who are on the down low,” Hughley said on the June 22 broadcast.

Shepherd added, “It’s so big in the black community with women because they’re having sex with men who have been having sex with men.”

The Variety ad placement comes nearly three weeks after GLAAD issued a “Call to Action,” charging The View with perpetuating “dangerous myths,” despite evidence to the contrary from the Centers for Disease Control.

(The ad appears below; click on image to enlarge.)

Click to enlarge

After the show aired, thousands of people stood with GLAAD and demanded an apology and a correction. But so far, ABC and The View have remained silent on the issue.

“ABC and The View’s refusal to correct these inaccurate remarks comes at the expense of African American gay and bisexual men, straight African American women and millions of audience members who need facts about HIV/AIDS, not myths. It’s extremely disheartening to see a program that usually covers our community with respect, unwilling to correct this serious lapse in editorial judgment,” said Rashad Robinson, GLAAD’s Senior Director of Programs.

GLAAD has cited a 2009 interview in which a senior CDC official said that heterosexual black men with multiple sex partners — not bisexual men who secretly have sex with men — are responsible for high rates of HIV among black women.

In that interview, Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, said, “We have looked to see what proportion of infections is coming from male partners who are bisexual and found there are actually relatively few.”

“More are male partners who are having female partners and are injecting drugs or using drugs or have some other risks that may put those female partners at risk of acquiring HIV,” he added.

As of late Monday, still no comment from ABC or The View.

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Obama administration to expand family, medical leave benefits to same-sex parents

LGBTQ Nation • Monday, June 21, 2010 • Filed under: Family and Parenting, Health and Wellness, National Agenda • Comments (0)

President Obama is taking another step to expand the rights of gay workers by allowing them to take family and medical leave to care for sick or newborn children of same-sex partners, administration officials annoiunced Monday.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is scheduled to make the announcement on Wednesday that will require employers to allow gay employees the same unpaid time off for family or personal matters that’s been given to heterosexual workers for almost 20 years.

The new regulations will require businesses of 50 or more employees to abide by an expanded interpretation of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, which provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave within a 12-month period for employees to care for family members with medical needs, including childbirth. This expansion applies only to caring for children. Continue reading…

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Advisory panel recommends upholding ban on blood donations from gay men

LGBTQ Nation • Saturday, June 12, 2010 • Filed under: Health and Wellness, National Agenda • Comments (0)

A government health committee Friday voted against rescinding the ban on gay men donating blood but also called for new research on alternative policies, citing flaws in the current rules.

The Health and Human Services Committee, in its recommendations, noted that current policy permits some potentially high-risk blood donations and prevents some possible low-risk donations. But the panel said existing research isn’t adequate to justify lifting the ban.

“This decision is outrageous, irresponsible and archaic,” Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said in a statement.

“We expect more out of this advisory committee and this administration than to uphold an unnecessarily discriminatory policy from another era.”

The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates blood donations, has final say over the blood rules. It currently forbids any man who has had sex with another man in the last 33 years from giving blood.

The FDA policy was imposed in 1985, amidst the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Experts testifying before federal health officials this week said the ban is out of step with advances in screening for HIV and other diseases.

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Obama orders hospital visitation rights for same-sex partners

LGBTQ Nation • Thursday, April 15, 2010 • Filed under: Health and Wellness, National Agenda • Comments (3)

President Obama mandated Thursday that hospitals extend visitation rights to the partners of gay men and lesbians and allow same-sex couples to share medical power of attorney, perhaps the most significant step so far in his efforts to expand the rights of gay Americans.

The president directed the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation in a memo that was e-mailed to reporters Thursday night while he was at a fundraiser in Miami.

There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital. In these hours of need and moments of pain and anxiety, all of us would hope to have a hand to hold, a shoulder on which to lean — a loved one to be there for us, as we would be there for them…

Uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives — unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.

Administration officials and gay activists, who have been quietly working together on the issue, said the new rule will affect any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding, a move that covers the vast majority of the nation’s health-care institutions.

It is currently common policy in many hospitals that only those related by blood or marriage be allowed to visit patients.

Previously from LGBTQ Nation:

Study: 14% of gay men in D.C. are HIV positive

LGBTQ Nation • Saturday, March 27, 2010 • Filed under: District of Columbia, Health and Wellness • Comments (0)

More than 14 percent of gay men in the District are HIV positive, almost five times as high as the overall rate for the city’s adults and teenagers, according to a snapshot of the community released Thursday by the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration.

Interviews with 500 gay men throughout the District found that more than 40 percent were unaware of their diagnosis before the study, even though most had seen a doctor in the past 12 months, and more than a third did not know the HIV status of their last sex partner.

“This is a wake-up call,” said D.C. Council member David A. Catania (D-At Large), 42, who is gay. “It’s time for my generation to assume greater responsibility for themselves and their partners. Just because we escaped the epidemic of the 1980s doesn’t mean we are immune.”

Of those surveyed, younger men generally had safer sex behaviors, while men older than 30 were tested less frequently, had more sex partners and used condoms less. In fact, the report found that more than 40 percent of those interviewed said they did not use a condom with their last sex partner.

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‘In the Life’ looks at progress and efforts in fighting HIV

LGBTQ Nation • Thursday, December 3, 2009 • Filed under: Health and Wellness • Comments (0)

In the LifeOver twenty million people have died from AIDS since its cause, HIV, was discovered in 1981.

Though leading scientists worldwide have dedicated their life’s work to understanding the virus, its genetic complexity is unprecedented and a cure is still beyond reach.

This month, In the Life speaks with scientists working tirelessly for a cure, advocates speaking out about the stigma of HIV, and looks at the success of a cutting edge prevention effort to stop the spread of the disease.

In “Creating Solutions,” In the Life examines the trials in development of an HIV vaccine, which remains the only hope for eradicating the virus, includes conversations with designer Kenneth Cole, chairman of the board of the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), and Regan Hofmann, editor-in-chief of POZ magazine.

In the Life’s mission is to reach the largest audience possible to educate, challenge, and inspire viewers from all walks of life. To that goal, their broadcast is made available to sites such as LGBTQ Nation; please enjoy this month’s edition:

Since 1992, In the Life has been the only network series documenting the LGBT experience. Although it airs on 68% of public television stations across the country, it is relegated to timeslots in the wee hours of the morning and/or being aired inconsistently remains a problem. There remain nearly 100 channels reaching more than 30 million households in 13 states, that refuse to air In the Life at all.

For more information, or to view past editions, go to InTheLifeTV.org.

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AMA says ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ gay marriage bans leave LGBT families vulnerable

LGBTQ Nation • Tuesday, November 10, 2009 • Filed under: Don't Ask Don't Tell, Health and Wellness • Comments (1)

AMA

The nation’s largest doctors’ group has agreed to join efforts to repeal the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, Associated Press reports:

The American Medical Association says the ‘don’t ask, don’t-tell’ law creates an ethical dilemma for gay service members and the doctors who treat them.

The AMA also voted to declare that gay marriage bans contribute to health disparities for gay couples and their children.

Marriage bans leave gay and lesbian families vulnerable to being excluded from health care benefits, health insurance and family and medical leave rights, the AMA said.

Both gay-rights policies were adopted Tuesday at the AMA’s interim policy meeting in Houston.

The health disparities policy is based on evidence showing that married couples are more likely to have health insurance, and that the uninsured have a high risk for “living sicker and dying younger,” said Dr. Peter Carmel, an AMA board member.

Same-sex families lack other benefits afforded married couples, including tax breaks, spouse benefits under retirement plans and Social Security survivor benefits — all of which can put their health at risk, according to an AMA council report presented at the meeting.

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Obama reauthorizes ‘Ryan White Act,’ announces end of HIV travel ban (Video)

LGBTQ Nation • Saturday, October 31, 2009 • Filed under: Health and Wellness, National Agenda, Politics • Comments (0)

Obama signs Ryan White ActPresident Obama on Friday called an end to the 22-year ban on travel to the United States by people tested positive for HIV, fulfilling a promise he made to gay advocates and acting to eliminate a restriction he said was “rooted in fear rather than fact.”

Obama made the announcement as he signed the fourth reauthorization of the federal program named for Ryan White, an Indiana boy who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion. The program, started in 1990, provides funds for HIV-related care.

Obama said that lifting the ban is a “step that will encourage people to get tested and get treatment. It’s a step that will keep families together, and it’s a step that will save lives.”

“We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic — yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people from HIV from entering our own country,” he said. “If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it,” he said.

The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act authorizes a 5 percent annual increase in federal support over the next four years. Funding under the law is scheduled to rise from more than $2.5 billion in fiscal year 2010 to nearly $3 billion in fiscal year 2013.

The measure passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives last week. Similar legislation first passed almost 20 years ago and was reauthorized in 1996, 2000 and 2006.

The process to end the travel ban was started last year by Congress and the Bush administration. The president said his administration will finish it by publishing the final rules on Monday to eliminate the ban. The ban is expected to be lifted early next year.

Previously from LGBTQ Nation:

Personalized therapeutic HIV vaccine shows promise

LGBTQ Nation • Tuesday, October 27, 2009 • Filed under: Health and Wellness • Comments (0)

HIV Vaccine

An experimental treatment strategy involving a vaccine that is tailor-made from an HIV-positive person’s virus and immune system cells can reduce viral load and improve the function of the immune system, according to a presentation at the AIDS Vaccine 2009 conference in Paris on October 21 that was announced by the vaccine’s developer, Argos Therapeutics, and reported recently by POZ.com.

Preventive vaccines work by stimulating the immune system so that when it encounters an infectious pathogen, it will quickly respond and keep the infection from taking hold.

A therapeutic vaccine is also designed to provoke an immune response, but in people already infected with a virus or bacteria. Its aim is to help the body better control the infection. A number of therapeutic vaccines have been tried in HIV disease, but have not proved successful until now.

Jean-Pierre Routy, MD, from McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, gave one of two presentations at the AIDS Vaccine 2009 conference on AGS-004.

Routy presented data on 16 people with HIV who interrupted their antiretroviral (ARV) therapy for 12 weeks after achieving undetectable viral loads and then receiving the vaccine.

Thirteen of the 16 patients had a viral load at the end of their 12-week treatment interruption that was lower than their viral load before starting ARV treatment. The average reduction in virus was about 80 percent.

No signs of significant side effects were reported.

Full story, POZ.com.

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