AIDS Issues Update Blog
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Health Care Reform Will Challenge New York’s AIDS Service Providers
Lillian Anglada was worried before a recent presentation about how federal health-care reform will affect New York State–and she was still worried afterwards.
“There’s going to be a lot of confusion, especially when there is a language barrier,” said Anglada, a member of the board of the Latino Commission on AIDS, a consumer adviser for the Manhattan HIV Care Network, and the founder and president of Caring Hands For Positive Women. “Some folks might not understand. Some people will stop going to medical appointments.”
Anglada and about 100 predominantly Latino advocates, service providers and New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS attended a Latinos Unidos Contra El SIDA (LUCES) forum last Friday in lower Manhattan where AIDS Institute Director Humberto Cruz and Assistant Director Jackie Treanor attempted …
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We Must Not Pass Up Mississippi’s Chance for Change
By Luke Versher
Mississippi has started a search for a new state AIDS director, which in itself is good news to people living with HIV/AIDS throughout the state.
We are no longer bound to an outdated, uncreative and shortsighted director who wanted things run his way or no way. Under Craig Thompson’s stewardship, monies were returned unspent to the federal government (HRSA, as well as HUD), HIV infection rates rose, grants were underutilized or not applied for, money was mismanaged such as the recently discovered overspending of Ryan White funds in excess of $800,000.
But that is the past and we are looking toward the future. The state of Mississippi needs not only a compassionate and understanding state AIDS director but one who grasps …
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A Conference For All? Travel Ban Threatens IAC 2012
With the 2010 International AIDS Conference barely a month behind us, controversy is already brewing over who will—and won’t—be able to attend the conference when it hits Washington, D.C. in 2012.
At the closing of this year’s conference, President Obama delivered an enthusiastic video message, welcoming “all” delegates to the capital in 2012. In reality, however, strict U.S. travel regulations ban two groups heavily impacted by HIV—sex workers and drugs users. The restrictions, if left unchanged, threaten the conference’s efficacy as a forum for all, further disenfranchising two of the major populations it claims to serve.
Earlier this month, four human rights organizations sent a letter to Dr. Elly Katabira, president of the International AIDS Society, requesting that the conference be moved …
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In New York, Needle Exchange Law a True Grassroots Victory
It’s a storyline we don’t hear often: Drug users, empowered, lobby politicians and create change.
This is exactly, however, what happened this summer. When a state syringe access bill passed this July, it was a victory achieved not only by HIV/AIDS activists, but also by those who so infrequently play a role in shaping the policies that affect them: Drug users themselves.
How did this happen? United under the umbrella of the VOCAL-NY Users Union, a coalition of substance users and their allies, a growing number of users are asserting that they, too, have rights.
A leader shatters perceptions
Jill Reeves, 50, was at the front line of the battle. She enjoys challenging clichéd notions of drug users: She’s homeless, and has been using …
About AIDS Issues Update
Your inside source for in-depth activism news is updated daily by Staff Writer, Julie Turkewitz
