As I take a look back, I’m very grateful for some amazing things that have happened this year in the U.S.- things that I never thought would happen in my lifetime — including:

• Marriage equality in New York and the Suquamish Nation
• Civil Unions in Delaware, Illinois, Rhode Island and Hawaii
• Groundbreaking legislation mandating gay history components in schools, and greater awareness and legislation against school bullying
• The end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
• Chaz Bono on Dancing With The Stars
• Marriage equality polling high
• The President not pursuing DOMA
• Domestic Partner benefits for Marquette University
• The US Department of Labor and the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Nevada banning discrimination based on gender identity
• The Presbyterian Church officially allowing openly gay clergy
• American Catholics polling high in favor of marriage equality, rights
• An amazing number of openly Gay/Lesbian officials elected all over the country- including Montana
• Hillary Clinton declaring to the United Nations that LGBT rights are human rights, and
• Hillary Clinton calling for greater attention to treatment of HIV
• The President releasing an additional 50 million dollars to fund HIV treatment and prevention
• The HPTN 052 Study, showing early antiretroviral treatment decreases HIV transmission by as much as 96%
• New medications approved for the treatment of HIV, Edurant and Complera
• And many other things too exhaustive and amazing for one article.

All good stuff.

But what I am finding amazing is the conspicuous absence or light mentions in the LGBT media about the dramatic advances in HIV treatment and prevention in the “best of” roundups this year.

A year when there have arguably been more advances in treatment, prevention and scientific breakthroughs than in any other year in the 30 since AIDS was discovered. A year when top government officials committed time, money and policy to ending this disease. A year when Science magazine called the HPTN 052 Study the scientific breakthrough of the year.

It’s puzzling.

Are we getting complacent about HIV? Are we in denial about the very real danger it still poses to our community? Do people understand that having HIV is difficult- creating financial, medical, emotional and social problems that can be devastating for people, families and communities?

It seems so.

I am, like I said, grateful for all the things listed above. I am grateful for Chaz and trans representation. I am grateful for relationship rcognition. I am grateful for advances in employment nondiscrimination. I am grateful that my government is taking LGBT rights seriously. I am especially grateful that the elected administration of this land is treating HIV like it should be treated — as a disease, a viral infection — and not as some Divine Punishment inflicted on the sexually and socially repugnant dregs of society. That is a big deal.

In fact it’s huge.

So why did we miss it?

About the Author:

On her radio show last week, Harvey said that parents should prohibit gay and lesbian health care employees from attending to their children because their sexual orientation is “erroneously influential to children.”

Linda Harvey

“There are a few homosexual doctors treating kids, there are far more nurses, LPNs, technicians and other health care workers in these lifestyles,” Harvey contends. “Should your child ever be hospitalized, you do not want your child treated or cared for by one of these members of the Children’s Hospital gay employees group.”

Listen:

harvey-day-doctors

“How do you feel about open homosexuals tending to your child in a health care setting? Do you think these folks provide good role modeling at a time when your child is very vulnerable? I was thinking about this recently when I heard that Children’s Hospital in Columbus has a homosexual employees group called NCHARGE, which stands for Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Advocates Representing Gay Employees. The meeting minutes of this groups reveal that they participated in last June’s gay pride parade, that they participated in a health expo on adolescent health this summer and that they’re concerned about same-sex partner benefits. They’re also planning to be identified with rainbow lapel pins.

“But let’s say your eleven year-old has broken her leg rather badly and needs to be in the hospital a few days, which would you prefer: a nurse who’s proud of her lesbianism, who has rainbow identifiers on her work clothing, or a nurse who does not?

“I would like to suggest that parents think long and hard about this. If you want your children to admire people who proclaim a homosexual lifestyle, they’re involvement with your child during a hospital stay is sure to be an influence.

“And let me be clear that folks involved in these behaviors can be certainly competent workers but they are tacking on to their workplace identity one that is highly offensive to many people and can be erroneously influential to children who won’t, or shouldn’t, see the whole picture of how this behavior really manifests itself.

“Here’s what parents can do: select your pediatrician very carefully, first of all. There are a few homosexual doctors treating kids, there are far more nurses, LPNs, technicians and other health care workers in these lifestyles so you may want to consider writing a letter that you file with your pediatrician that should your child ever be hospitalized, you do not want your child to be treated or cared for by one of these members of the Children’s Hospital gay employees group except in the case of an emergency situation.

“But for routine in-hospital care where contact with your child would be required, your values should be respected.”

According to Dr. Firas Khatib of Washington University’s biochemistry lab, players created an accurate model of a particularly tricky enzyme in “less than 10 days.”

Most importantly, the enzyme in question comes from an AIDS-like virus that affects Rhesus monkeys and could possibly open the door for treatments to that horrific disease.

“We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed,” Khatib said. “The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems.”

One of Foldit’s creators, Seth Cooper, explained why gamers had succeeded where computers had failed.

“People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at,” he said. “Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans. The results show that gaming, science, and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before.”

In Foldit, players are presented with a series of brightly colored pieces that represent individual molecules. The rules of chemistry are built into the game, setting the stage for players to strut their stuff folding the molecules into the lowest energy configuration. As the energy gets lower, the score rises, and so go the mechanics of the game. Understanding the folded shape is vitally important for researchers, especially when creating drugs to stop dangerous diseases.

Twelve to fifteen gamers called the Foldit Contender Group (not so far removed from a guild) came together and provided an accurate 3D rendition modeling the crystal structure of the M-PMV retro-viral protease, which in plain English, is an AIDS-like virus found in monkeys. Figuring out the structure will allow scientists to develop drugs whose molecular structure targets and locks onto those proteins responsible for spreading a disease.

In this case, the enzyme in question belonged to a group of enzymes called proteases that help the virus spread.

Zoran Popovic, director of University of Washington’s Center for Game Science, believes this is a new frontier for gaming and science.

“Foldit shows that a game can turn novices into domain experts capable of producing first-class scientific discoveries,” Popovic said. “We are currently applying the same approach to change the way math and science are taught in school.”

Jason King, a pharmacy specialist and patient advocate at AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Ft Lauderdale, was kind enough to give me a tour of their “Out of the Closet” thrift store and then sit down to discuss ways to save money that your pharmacist might not be telling you.

Most of these tips, by the way, can also apply to medications which are not HIV specific. And we have even included a tip just for our HIV-negative friends. I’m an equal opportunity money saver!

I’m amazed at how many people don’t know about co-pay assistance cards, a program in which the pharmaceutical picks up your co-pay costs. It’s a simple program to use without any income restrictions, and you can save up to $400 per year per medication! Fabulous. Your pharmacy or physician should have cards for you, or Google your medication along with “co-pay assistance” and you should find cards or information to print out.

Specialty pharmacies are a smart move these days. They focus on a particular disease, like HIV, but provide a full spectrum of medications like other pharmacies. The difference is usually service: their technicians are trained in HIV and know more about interactions, for instance, and they are more likely to point out savings opportunities like co-pay cards and patient assistance programs.

When I recently chose a new pharmacy, I went to a specialty pharmacy and just asked them, what can you do for me that Walgreens doesn’t? A lot, as it turns out. They offered free delivery and free shipping anywhere in the continental U.S., and they said they would provide free supplements with a prescription from my doctor! I made the switch, and along with my HIV meds, they provide my vitamins and fish oil at no charge. It pays to ask about perks.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation pharmacy isn’t the only HIV specialty pharmacy in town. Others include BioScrip and Commcare, and they will all ship to you if you don’t have one in your area.

I was intrigued by the idea of buying generic meds from out of the country, but kept getting the icks. What if they make these meds in some ratty factory somewhere with no quality control? I mean, ick.

A little research put my mind at ease. The helpful folks at AIDS-Drugs-Online.com reminded me that people have been purchasing medications from Canada for decades because of the low cost. And India, which produces most of the generic HIV meds available, is the 2nd largest pharmaceutical industry in the world, with FDA-approved facilities.

And the prices. Wow. No wonder people who are without insurance (or in the doughnut hole) are purchasing their meds this way.

The laws are vague about the legality of this, but at any rate are not enforced. Generally speaking, it appears that people can purchase up to a 90-day supply of a medication from other countries as long as it is for personal use. If you’re shopping around and want to be sure the manufacturer is legit, visit pharmacychecker.com to do your research.

Compounding pharmacies, like APSMeds.com, are able to create special versions of generic medications in whatever strength or format (pill, capsule, liquid) that your physician requests. And their product is a lot less expensive than you are paying for the medication in its regular form! Since they only deal with generics, this is a tip for medications like testosterone gels or Lipitor or Flomax.

Finally, there are patient assistance programs offered by the pharmaceuticals that you might qualify for. There are doughnut hole programs for people with insurance that cover your meds when you fall into that financial abyss, and other programs for people with no insurance at all. The best resource online to navigate your way through these programs is NeedyMeds.org.

Between the co-pay cards and the supplements provided by my specialty pharmacy, I’ll be saving hundreds of dollars on my medications this year. I hope you’ll find similar savings.

Now, if we could create universal healthcare in the great United States, we would not be scrambling to pay for medications, and people from other countries would stop snickering and shaking their heads at the necessity of this blog posting.

Feel free to share/post/like this posting, in case it might save your friends some money! In the meantime, please be well.

Mark

According to the CDC’s, the annual number of new HIV infections in the United States was at approximately 50,000 new infections each year between 2006 and 2009.

The CDC’s first multi-year estimates from its national HIV incidence surveillance find that overall, the annual number of new HIV infections in the United States was relatively stable at approximately 50,000 new infections each year between 2006 and 2009.

However, HIV infections increased among young men who have sex with men (MSM) between 2006 and 2009, driven by alarming increases among young, black MSM – the only subpopulation to experience a sustained increase during the time period.

“More than 30 years into the HIV epidemic, about 50,000 people in this country still become infected each year. Not only do men who have sex with men continue to account for most new infections, young gay and bisexual men are the only group in which infections are increasing, and this increase is particularly concerning among young African American MSM ,” said CDC Director Thomas Frieden, M.D.

“HIV infections can be prevented. By getting tested, reducing risky behaviors, and getting treatment, people can protect themselves and their loved ones.”

Dr. Kevin Fenton, Director for the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, noted that the greater overall prevalence of HIV in minority communities means individuals within those communities face greater risk of acquiring HIV with every sexual encounter.

According to CDC estimates, there were 48,600 new HIV infections in the United States in 2006; 56,000 in 2007; 47,800 in 2008; and 48,100 in 2009.

In 2009, the largest number of new infections was among white MSM (11,400), followed closely by black MSM (10,800). Hispanic MSM (6,000) and black women (5,400) were also heavily affected.

Gay & bisexual men bear greatest burden; young, black gay and bisexual men experience significant increases in HIV:

Men who have sex with men remain the group most heavily affected by new HIV infections.

While CDC estimates that MSM represent only 2 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for the majority (61 percent; 29,300) of all new HIV infections in 2009. Young MSM (ages 13 to 29) were most severely affected, representing more than one quarter of all new HIV infections nationally (27 percent; 12,900 in 2009).

Young MSM of all races are heavily affected. By race/risk young, black MSM were the only group to experience a statistically significant increase in new infections over the four-year time period studied. CDC estimates that new HIV infections among young, black MSM increased 48 percent during that period (from 4,400 HIV infections in 2006 to 6,500 infections in 2009).

Though the reasons are not yet clear, studies suggest that several factors may be driving this trend: higher proportions of young, black MSM are unaware of their infection than MSM of other racial/ethnic groups; stigma of HIV and homosexuality, which can hinder utilization of HIV prevention services; limited access to health care, HIV testing and treatment; increased likelihood of having older sexual partners (who are more likely to be HIV infected), compared to MSM of other racial/ethnic groups; higher rates of some sexually transmitted diseases among young black men, which can facilitate HIV transmission; and under-estimating personal risk for HIV.

“We are deeply concerned by the alarming rise in new HIV infections in young, black gay and bisexual men and the continued impact of HIV among young gay and bisexual men of all races,” said Jonathan Mermin, M.D., director of CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention.

“We cannot allow the health of a new generation of gay men to be lost to a preventable disease. It’s time to renew the focus on HIV among gay men and confront the homophobia and stigma that all too often accompany this disease.”

Communities of color, particularly African Americans, disproportionately affected:

The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to exact a heavy toll on communities of color. While blacks represent 14 percent of the total U.S. population, the new estimates find that they accounted for 44 percent of new HIV infections in 2009.

The HIV infection rate among blacks in 2009 was almost eight times as high as that of whites. The HIV infection rate among black men was the highest of any group by race and sex — more than six times that of white men — and the rate among black women was 15 times that of white women.

There was no statistically significant change in HIV incidence from 2006 to 2009 overall, among black men or black women.

Hispanics represent approximately 16 percent of the total U.S. population, but accounted for 20 percent of new HIV infections in 2009.

The HIV infection rate among Hispanics in 2009 was nearly three times as high as that of whites. The HIV infection rate among Hispanic men in 2009 was two and a half times that of white men, and the rate among Hispanic women was more than four times that of white women.

There was no statistically significant change in HIV incidence from 2006 to 2009 among Hispanic men or Hispanic women.

I was crestfallen, and felt something close to shame, certainly embarrassment. Why is it that I can produce this blog, proudly march with HIV POSITIVE on my t-shirt in gay parades, and even write a book about coming of age during the dawn of AIDS — but I get upset if someone can tell I’m positive by how I look?

When I choose to disclose, privately or publicly, it’s on my terms. I choose how and when to tell you. I want you to know.

Facial wasting (known as lipodystrophy) takes that choice away. It’s as if the disease is intruding, is taking the upper hand somehow, and worse, taking away my decision about when and to whom I disclose my status. And as much as I want to claim “Most Out Poz Guy Ever,” I don’t like wearing HIV across my face.

Most of us know “the look.“ It’s the telltale gullies and sunken cheeks associated with longtime HIV infection or (more likely) medications (right). Many of my friends and colleagues in this struggle suffer from it, and they may either be comfortable with it, proud of it as a badge of honor, or simply resigned to it. I salute us all, whether our features tells our HIV story or not. But meanwhile, I’ll do what I can to wipe that shit off my face.

Dr. Gerald Pierone in Vero Beach, Florida (regarded as the leading expert in fillers and one of the Ask the Experts team at TheBody.com), and I documented that first visit and my facial filler treatments in a video blog, Treating My Facial Wasting (left). In that video I focused on my own attitudes — Was I ashamed? Trying to look younger? Simply vain? — and on the procedure process itself. Nearly a year later I revisited Dr. Pierone and got another treatment and documented it in my video blog, A Facial Wasting Update.

In this video episode of My Fabulous Disease, I revisit Dr. Pierone for a new treatment with the facial filler products Sculptra and Radiesse. While I’m there, I learn enough about Artefill, the only FDA approved permanent facial filler, to make me strongly consider the product the next time my face needs fluffing.

This video also focuses on very specific information about the actual costs of facial filler treatment. Both Sculptra and Radiesse have patient assistance programs that significantly reduce the cost of the medication, but you still need to pay the physician to do the procedure, and that price can vary. TheBody.com has a great article that outlines all the facial filler choices and how much they cost.

Tip: don’t allow any street corner vendor (or gym or even doctor office) to inject stuff into your face. Do some research and above all, find a physician who has done this many, many times (over 500 would be a good start). Be a smart shopper and empowered patient and ask about their experience level first.

I hope you find the video helpful and that you aren’t too afraid of needles!

In the meantime, my friends, please be well.
Mark

PLUS…

Compelling, sexy, and courageously paced, the short film “SLOW” by filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe is worth your time.

In 13 minutes, the film takes two African-American men on a sexy journey in which one of them discovers that the fast way (to sex, to real intimacy) isn’t the only way. If you are working with MSM outreach, this is a wonderful discussion tool.

If you appreciate confident film making with a gay theme, this is it. Director Darius Clark Monroe told me he had nothing to add to the film’s message: “everything I wanted to say is expressed in the work…” and indeed it is. The video is NSFW, due only to brief nudity, but otherwise this flick wants to stimulate you mentally much more than by parading naked men around — a lazy tactic employed by most gay films today.

I hope you’ll check it out!

Scott Hammer MD, in an editorial for the journal, gives a brief overview of the study:

In this issue of the Journal, Cohen et al. describe the results of the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 052 study, which has now provided definitive proof that (as suggested by the findings of previous cohort studies) antiretroviral treatment reduces the rate of sexual transmission of HIV-1.

Did you hear that? Definitive proof.

Early antiretroviral treatment not only significantly lowers the risk of transmitting the virus, it also shows increased health benefits for the HIV infected. The conclusions by the research team in the article:

In conclusion, the biologic plausibility of the use of antiretroviral therapy for the prevention of HIV-1 infection has been carefully examined during the past two decades. The idea of HIV-1 treatment as prevention has garnered tremendous interest and hope and inspired a series of population-level HIV-1 treatment-as-prevention studies that are now in the pilot or planning stages. Such interventions are based on the hypothesis that the use of antiretroviral therapy reliably prevents HIV-1 transmission over an extended period of time.

In this trial, we found that early antiretroviral therapy had a clinical benefit for both HIV-1–infected persons and their uninfected sexual partners. These results support the use of antiretroviral treatment as a part of a public health strategy to reduce the spread of HIV-1 infection. (emphasis mine)

This is science at work. Get tested. If you’re HIV-positive, get into care and take your meds. We can slow this thing down.

Money quote from Dr. Hammer:

Antiretroviral therapy is by no means perfect and is not the ultimate answer to controlling and ending the HIV epidemic. Adverse events, emergence of drug-resistant viral strains, maintenance of adherence, sustainability, and cost are just some of the concerns. However, this is precisely the wrong time to limit access to antiretroviral therapy in resource-limited settings, since we have the tools in hand to maintain or restore health in infected persons and reduce transmission to their sexual partners.

Yep. So now that we know, will anything happen?

(P.S.: The picture above is of my morning pills.)

About the Author:

Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of the CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, stated that two clinical trials in Kenya and Uganda along with a separate trial in Botswana, demonstrated that even with a current lack of a vaccine to combat against the HIV virus, this new approach, “termed pre-exposure prophylaxis,” may be the best hope for slowing or even halting the spread of the deadly plague throughout the developing world.

The two-drug combination pills are known commercially as “Truvada” manufactured by Gilead Sciences Corporation, in Foster City, California. The pills are generically obtainable in many developing countries for as little as 25 cents per pill, (U.S.), according to officials from the World Health Organization.

The new results — a breakthrough finding that promises to intensify a new focus on AIDS prevention — are scheduled to be presented next week at the International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention in Rome, Italy.

“The last year has brought several breakthroughs in AIDS prevention research, in addition to this latest finding and the study involving gay men, a study released last July found that microbicides could sharply reduce HIV transmission in women and a study in HIV-positive people showed that treating the infected person intensively could reduce transmission by as much as 96%,” said Kevin Frost, chief executive of amfAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

According to Mermin, the CDC would immediately begin working with other public health groups to establish guidelines for using the drugs prophylactically in this country.

“Physicians should await those guidelines before prescribing the drugs,” Mermin said, “but if they believe it is imperative to do it, they should adhere to the guidelines previously announced for using them in gay men.”

A study published in November in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that those who popped the pill more than 90% of the time, were 73% less susceptible to contract HIV.

Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis was made.

The cause of the outbreak is unknown, and there is as yet no evidence of contagion. But the doctors who have made the diagnoses, mostly in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area, are alerting other physicians who treat large numbers of homosexual men to the problem in an effort to help identify more cases and to reduce the delay in offering chemotherapy treatment.

Just weeks earlier, on June 5, in 1981, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta published a report of five cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) among previously healthy young men in Los Angeles. All of the men were described as “homosexuals” — two had died.

At the time, the disease had no name, no known means of transmission, no treatment and no cure.

So began what would become the global AIDS pandemic.

In the thirty years that followed, more than 60 million people were infected with HIV, and more than 30 million people lost their life to the AIDS virus. At its peak in 1996, an estimated 2.6 million people became infected with HIV.

Today, while there is increased access to treatments for AIDS and HIV that can slow the course of the disease, there is still no known cure or vaccine.

An estimated 34 million people are currently living with HIV — including nearly 1.2 million in the U.S. — and stigma continues to prove as deadly as the disease itself, keeping people from getting tested and treated for HIV/AIDS.

According to a 2010 study by the CDC, nearly one in five gay and bisexual men in 21 major U.S. cities are infected with HIV, and nearly half of them do not know it.

This was the first official mention of a disease that had no name, no known means of transmission, no treatment and no cure.

Weeks later, on July 3, 1981, under the headline “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals,” The New York Times reported:

Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis was made.

The cause of the outbreak is unknown, and there is as yet no evidence of contagion. But the doctors who have made the diagnoses, mostly in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area, are alerting other physicians who treat large numbers of homosexual men to the problem in an effort to help identify more cases and to reduce the delay in offering chemotherapy treatment.

And so began what would become the global AIDS pandemic.

In the thirty years that followed, more than 60 million people were infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, and more than 30 million people lost their life to the most destructive epidemic in recorded history.

At its peak in 1996, an estimated 2.6 million people became infected with HIV.

But while the rate of new HIV infections has declined globally — about 25 percent over the last decade — the total number of HIV infections remains high, at about 7,000 per day, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Today, while there is increased access to treatments for AIDS and HIV that can slow the course of the disease, there is still no known cure or vaccine.

“We pause to mark the thirty years we have been fighting HIV/AIDS.” said President Barack Obama, in a statement on Friday. “As we remember people in our own lives we have lost and stand by those living with HIV/AIDS, we must also rededicate ourselves to finally ending this pandemic — in this country and around the world.”

An estimated 34 million people are currently living with HIV — including nearly 1.2 million in the U.S. — and stigma continues to prove as deadly as the disease itself, keeping people from getting tested and treated for HIV/AIDS.

According to a 2010 study by the CDC, nearly one in five gay and bisexual men in 21 major U.S. cities are infected with HIV, and nearly half of them do not know it.

For more information: AIDS.gov, UNAIDS, Information on Getting Tested.

After years of negligent silence, President Ronald Reagan finally uses the word “AIDS” in public.

On April 2, 1987, Reagan said: “How that information is used must be up to schools and parents, not government. But let’s be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call ‘value neutral.’ After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don’t medicine and morality teach the same lessons.”

Today would have been Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday.

The American ultra right and Christian conservatives, along with nearly all of the GOP are singing his praises, and in the case of the politico’s, either trying to emulate the “Gipper” or at least live in the long shadow of his career and life’s accomplishments.

I’m not, and not just because I’m Canadian.

No, I think that Reagan was despicable on numerous social issues that have left a legacy of hatred, disdain, and hypocrisy on anyone who was not lily white, christian, and upper middle class to wealthy. In particular, nearly everyday as I hear more vilification being heaped on the LGBTQ community, I deem that the true legacy of Ronald Reagan.

Frankly? I have zero sympathy for the suffering he endured at the end of his life with Alzheimer’s disease as I see that as “biblical” amends for the suffering he caused towards tens of thousands of his fellow Americans who suffered from AIDS — most dying — and the legacy he left that allows so-called christian organizations like Focus On The Family, Family Research Council, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, and the American Family Association, to name a few, who parade never ending streams of hate towards gay persons and hold Reagan up as their shining example of a good and decent American president.

In a word? Bullshit. As events proved last fall in this country with American teens taking their lives, words from these Reaganesque organizations are deadly. I’ll even take that one step further — it spread overseas to Uganda where hate of gay and lesbians is codified, and thanks to American Evangelicals, led to the death of LGBTQ equality rights activist David Kato.

Let’s review shall we?

LGBT Rights

No civil rights legislation for LGBT individuals passed during Reagan’s tenure. On the 1980 campaign trail, he spoke of the gay civil rights movement:

“My criticism is that [the gay movement] isn’t just asking for civil rights; it’s asking for recognition and acceptance of an alternative lifestyle which I do not believe society can condone, nor can I.”

Civil Rights

Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Reagan gave a States’ Rights speech at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964, when running for president in 1980 (many politicians had spoken at that annual Fair, however). Reagan was offended that some accused him of racism.

In 1980 Reagan said the Voting Rights Act was “humiliating to the South”, although he later supported extending the Act.

He opposed Fair Housing legislation in California (the Rumford Fair Housing Act), but in 1988 signed a law expanding the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Reagan was unsuccessful in trying to veto another civil rights bill in March of the same year.

At first Reagan opposed the Martin Luther King holiday, and signed it only after an overwhelming veto-proof majority (338 to 90 in the House of Representatives and 78 to 22 in the Senate) voted in favor of it.

Congress overrode Reagan’s veto of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988. Reagan said the Restoration Act would impose too many regulations on churches, the private sector and state and local governments.

Response to AIDS

Perhaps the greatest criticism surrounds Reagan’s silence about the AIDS epidemic spreading in the 1980s. Although AIDS was first identified in 1981, Reagan did not mention it publicly for several more years, notably during a press conference in 1985 and several speeches in 1987. During the press conference in 1985, Reagan expressed skepticism in allowing children with AIDS to continue in school, stating:

It is true that some medical sources had said that [HIV] cannot be communicated in any way other than the ones we already know and which would not involve a child being in the school. And yet medicine has not come forth unequivocally and said, ‘This we know for a fact, that it is safe.’ And until they do, I think we just have to do the best we can with this problem.

The CDC had previously issued a report stating that “casual person-to-person contact as would occur among schoolchildren appears to pose no risk.” During his 1987 speeches Reagan supported modest educational funding on AIDS, increased AIDS testing for marriage licenses and mandatory testing for high risk groups.

Even with the death from AIDS of his friend Rock Hudson, Reagan was widely criticized[citation needed] for not supporting more active measures to contain the spread of AIDS. Until celebrity Elizabeth Taylor spoke out publicly about the monumental amount of people quickly dying from this new disease, most public officials and celebrities were too afraid of dealing with this subject.

Possibly in deference to the views of the powerful religious right,[citation needed] which saw AIDS as a disease limited to the gay male community and spread by “immoral” behavior, Reagan prevented his Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, from speaking out about the epidemic.

When, in 1986, Reagan was highly encouraged by many other public officials to authorize Koop to issue a report on the epidemic, he expected it to be in line with conservative policies; instead, Koop’s Surgeon General’s Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome greatly emphasized the importance of a comprehensive AIDS education strategy, including widespread distribution of condoms, and rejected mandatory testing. This approach brought Koop into conflict with other administration officials such as Education Secretary William Bennett.

Social action groups such as ACT UP worked to raise awareness of the AIDS problem. Because of ACT UP, in 1987, Reagan responded by appointing the Watkins Commission on AIDS, which was succeeded by a permanent advisory council.

The Failure to Act: The Reagan Administration’s Deliberate Failure to Address the Aids Epidemic — watch:

Timothy Ray Brown, 44, an American patient living in Berlin, who was both HIV positive and stricken with Leukemia — a cancer of the immune system — underwent a bone marrow transplant, or, more commonly, a blood stem cell transplant, in 2007.

Now, three years later, Brown shows no signs of leukemia or HIV infection, and physicians have declared they believe they have cured both illnesses, according to a report in the journal Blood.

According to researchers at Charite-University Medicine in Berlin, Brown’s treatment included wiping out his own immune system with high-dose chemotherapy and radiation, and giving him a transplant of blood stem cells.

On the day of the transplant, Brown stopped taking his antiretroviral HIV medications. The initial findings, first published in the New England Journal of Medicine in February 2009, indicated Brown’s HIV had not rebounded in the first 20 months after the transplant.

And now, 3 1/2 years after the transplant, doctors claim that Brown’s CD4 cells to match that of a healthy person, and that none of his original CD4 cells remain. Moreover, the virus was not detected in the body, and Brown showed no signs of infection, the researchers said.

“In conclusion,” they wrote, “our results strongly suggest that cure of HIV has been achieved in this patient.”

When Brown’s case first surfaced two years ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the procedure was too expensive and too risky to be practical as a cure.

But researches hope this latest success might give more clues to using gene therapy or other methods to achieve the same result, or point the way towards developing a cure for HIV/AIDS infection through genetically engineered stem cells.

According to UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, an estimated 33 million people worldwide are currently living with HIV.

Read the following post from LifeLube:

This ad is, hmmmmm, let’s see, absolutely hateful and totally stigmatizing to all of us living with HIV. For a start…

Thanks New York City Health Department for making us out to be demented lepers. Thanks for saying that even if we take our meds, our lives will be hell, with brittle bones and anal cancer. And thanks for the super scary voice-over to make sure we’re all appropriately terrorized.

Who consulted on this? Focus on the Family? Concerned Women of America? David Bahati, our friendly Ugandan legislator who wants gays imprisoned or dead? Satan?

How many guys who don’t know their status -– and should know their status –- will be convinced by this horror show to get tested?

Would you want to know your status if this told the truth about what lay in store for you?

Negative guys -– will the lovely glimpse of anal cancer make you wear a condom every single time, maybe scare you into a full latex body suit? Will this ad make you run for the hills when the guy you’re cruising tells you he’s POZ (aka DERANGED DISFIGURED?

We’re just numb with shock, horror and disgust. Oh, we bet Maggie Gallagher and friends just can’t wait to add this video to their selection of anti-gay paraphernalia, pamphlets, and goodies.

How thoughtful of the New York Department of Health to help them out in this respect.

And hey, while doing it, let’s just brand, humiliate and stomp all over the dignity of our HIV positive brothers in the process.

Watch here (warning: contains graphic images):

This ad from the New York City Department Of Health is probably the most irresponsible action we have ever seen on the behalf of an public agency and prevention methods regarding HIV infection. It’s just stunning. What the hell were these people thinking?

We could go on and on and on.

We only hope that some heads roll because of this. And that the agency issues a public apology to all HIV positive individuals in this country.

This is beyond shameful. There are just not enough words in a Websters Dictionary to express how totally and unforgivably “eeffed” up this ad is.

Today is World AIDS Day.

In what has become one of the most recognized international health days in modern history, World AIDS Day is a day to raise awareness and commemorate those who have passed on.

And while there is cause to celebrate victories such as increased access to treatments for AIDS and HIV that can slow the course of the disease, there is still no known cure or vaccine. An estimated 33 million people are currently living with HIV.

Last month, UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, announced that while the global epidemic was slowing — there were about 20% fewer new infections last year than in 1999 when the epidemic was at its peak — 2.6 million people became infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, in 2009, or about 7,000 new infections every day.

Of those currently infected, one in five does not know they have the condition, and the majority of new infections are spread by people who are unaware of their own status.

About 41% of new infections last year affected young people aged 15-24, and women accounted for about 51% of new infections.

As infection rates decline, the public’s level of awareness of their very real risk for contracting HIV wanes. Stigma continues to prove as deadly as the disease itself, keeping people from getting tested and treated for HIV/AIDS.

There are many ways you can take action in response to HIV/AIDS:

• Get tested
• Practice safer methods to prevent HIV
• Decide not to engage in high risk behaviors
• Talk about HIV prevention with family, friends, and colleagues
• Provide support to people living with HIV/AIDS

For a list of World AIDS Day events in your country or region, click here.

The study, published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that those who popped the pill more than 90% of the time, were 73% less susceptible to contract HIV.

The drug duo, consisting of Tenofovir and Emtricitabine, is being hailed as the biggest success to-date in the fight against AIDS.

The study provides further proof that the drugs that have transformed AIDS treatment over the past 15 years might be powerful tools in preventing infection, as well. Earlier evidence of that appeared last summer, when a study testing a vaginal gel containing an AIDS drug lowered African women’s risk of acquiring HIV by 40 percent. [The Washington Post]

“This study really represents what I think is a major advance in HIV prevention research,” said Kevin Fenton, a physician who directs AIDS prevention activities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was not involved in the study.

“This is a huge step forward,” says lead researcher Robert Grant, at the J. David Gladstone Institutes at the University of California-San Francisco, a non-profit research foundation that carried out the study.

The Preexposure Prophylaxis Initiative involved nearly 2500 high-risk gay men in Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, South Africa, Thailand and the United States.

Because Truvada is already on the market, the CDC is rushing to develop guidelines for doctors using it for HIV prevention, and urged people to wait until those are ready.

The news came as UNAIDS announced that the global epidemic was slowing — 2.6 million people became infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, in 2009, about 20% fewer new infections than 1999 when the epidemic was at its peak. An estimated 33 million people are currently living with HIV. Health officials credit part of the decline to wider condom use.

The AIDS pandemic is almost 30 years old. In that time, 60 million people have been infected with HIV — more than the combined populations of California and New York — and more than 30 million people have died as a result.