AIDS Issues Update Blog
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STUDY: Lack of Housing Most Important Health Risk for People with HIV
A new study shows that housing and food are the biggest predictors of health than for people with HIV.
The study was conducted by University of California at San Francisco on 288 homeless men with HIV over a six year period (a similar study was done last year with homeless women and had similar results).
The SF Gate reported on the research study, and noted “Lacking basic necessities had a larger negative health effect than drug abuse, the virus in their blood or lack of treatment. Even among patients who were getting drug therapy for their HIV, the effects of being homeless offset most of the positive effects of treatment. But for many very poor patients, being homeless keeps …
Posted on May 1, 2012 at 3:32 pm
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For 5th Time, GENDA Passes NYS Assembly
GENDA is beginning to feel like the Susan Lucci of Albany bills—always a nominee, not yet winning the prize. Hopefully it won’t take 19 times for this bill to become law (which is what it took for Ms. Lucci to win an Emmy for playing legendary “All My Children” Erica Kane).
Yesterday, GENDA was passed by the NYS Assembly for the 5th time, and awaits a hearing by the New York State Senate, which is where it has always died. Advocates remain hopeful that the Senate will take the cue of the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which recently banned discrimination against transgender people in federal agencies.
Housing Works has been organizing transgender activists who have been taking …
Posted on May 1, 2012 at 11:55 am
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Action Alert: Tell Prez Obama To Stop Abstinence Only Programs
Hasn’t the Obama Administration promised to end AIDS? Not if we consider what they’re funding!
Heritage Keepers, an abstinence-only-until-marriage program, has been included on a very short list of HHS-approved programs eligible for implementation with federal funds by Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative grantees.
Like most abstinence-only programs, Heritage Keepers:
- employs gender bias, telling girls they must “dress modestly” so as not to provoke “lustful thoughts” in boys;
- misleads young people about protection from HIV, STIs and pregnancy, providing no discussion of the benefits of using condoms and contraception; and
- reinforces homophobia: its focus on heterosexual marriage ignores and stigmatizes LGBT youth, who still cannot marry in most states and at the federal level.
Heritage …
Posted on May 1, 2012 at 9:32 am
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ADAP Watch: AIDS Drug Wait List Hits 3,109
As of April 26th, the wait list to receive lifesaving AIDS medication through the nation’s AIDS Drug Assistance Programs had hit 3,109 people across 10 states.
The number of people waiting to receive medication through state-run AIDS drug programs has increased more than 5,000 percent since August 2009, according to the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors. The federal government has reacted with little urgency, however, allotting just $25 million in additional dollars to the program for FY 2012.
To help readers keep tabs on the growing ADAP crisis, we are now posting the Read More
Posted on April 30, 2012 at 11:43 am
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Ten AIDS Activists Kicked to the Curb And Arrested At ACT UP Anniversary
(for photos from today’s action visit our Flickr page)
Ten AIDS activists were arrested near City Hall today for demonstrating how Mayor Bloomberg and HRA Commissioner Robert Doar’s AIDS policies are kicking people with AIDS “to the curb.”
Housing Works activists set up a house, complete with couch, bed, sink and toilet on on Broadway across from City Hall to show the world exactly what recent HASA policies are doing to people with AIDS: creating more homelessness. NYPD came swiftly running, trashed the installation, and arrested the protesters. The demonstration was a part of the 25th Anniversary march and rally to commemorate AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT-UP), which forced NYC and the nation …
Posted on April 25, 2012 at 2:14 pm
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Disability Rights Arrested for Protesting Medicaid Cuts on Capitol Hill
One of my biggest complaints in health advocacy is that the country gets bent out of shape when government officials offer proposals to privatize Social Security or end Medicare, but there are very few people who defend Medicaid.
Well that changed this week! Today, 75 disability rights activists (along with actor Noah WIley) were arrested in Capitol Hill protesting the Paul Ryan budget, which would end Medicaid as a federal entitlement program (and completely underminte the Affordable Care Act, which uses Medicaid to expand coverage to millions of people).
“I’m getting arrested today because my Medicaid services are important to me,” said Michelle Fridley of Rochester New York in handcuffs escorted by a Capitol Police officer. “I don’t want to live …
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 1:04 pm
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US Bans Discrimination Against Transgender Federal Employees
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled that federal employment protection laws apply to transgender people. This could have major impact for the fight for transgender nondiscrimination laws being fought at every level of government.
Metro Weekly reports “Mia Macy [a former Pheonix, AZ police detective], a transgender woman who claims she was denied employment with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) after the agency learned of her transition. [The ruling] also comes on the heels of a growing number of federal appellate and trial courts deciding that gender-identity discrimination constitutes sex discrimination, whether based on Title VII or the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws.”
The Transgender Law Center is representing Ms. Macy …
Posted on April 23, 2012 at 3:30 pm
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ADAP Watch: AIDS Drug Wait List Hits 3,079
As of April 19th, the wait list to receive lifesaving AIDS medication through the nation’s AIDS Drug Assistance Programs had hit 3,079 people across 10 states.
The number of people waiting to receive medication through state-run AIDS drug programs has increased more than 5,000 percent since August 2009, according to the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors. The federal government has reacted with little urgency, however, allotting just $25 million in additional dollars to the program for FY 2012.
To help readers keep tabs on the growing ADAP crisis, we are now posting the ADAP Watch—the document that …
Posted on April 23, 2012 at 10:20 am
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