Survival

     I know it's been a while since my last post.  College life as a senior has taken up so much time, energy and effort that this blog has really suffered and for that I am deeply sorry.  It is after all my outlet to openly speak, and bring awareness to topics I think we should know about.

     I sit here today, realizing that somehow, someway I have been deeply blessed to say that as of today I have survived AIDS for 23 years.  Now, I know what you maybe thinking, especially those who were reading regularly, "Charlie you have only 22 years".  Well, I met a friend recently with photographs, that I also happen to have, and we got to digging about information for the Cleveland Gay Pride event, which is where the photographs were taken and its 23 years ago not 22.  It is those photographs in June that for me mark the year as it was in July I got my diagnosis.

     You can imagine my surprise that I had made that simple mistake.  Maybe some of you think "Well  it's only one year what's the big deal?"  The big deal is it finally sunk in that my being diagnosed with AIDS has been half my life and beginning next year it will be over half of my lifetime.

     I know, a miracle into itself that somehow, someway I was able to pull through the early days of the gay holocaust, when nothing but death was around us.  Somehow, I managed to survive through only having one medication that was available to treat us.  Somehow, I survived losing over 600 friends, acquaintances, fellow gay men who in many cases I saw die before my very eyes; while some of those deaths were filled with medical violence--side effects, over use of drug induced comfort and families who in some cases were down right horrible.

     That I was a witness to a "funeral" in front of the White House, with the deceased in a wooden coffin, with the lid off and the young man in that coffin that day was just a few years older than I was.

     Somehow, I have survived where everyone, at every moment was talking simply safe sex.   Now, we as gay men live in an environment were there is the discussion about "safe" barebacking.  We live in an environment now, thankfully where we are living longer, but for those of us who have lived as long or longer than I have how do create a full, enriching and satisfying life when we have literally seen the monstrous eyes of the plague itself?

     This is something I struggle with a fair amount of the time.  It is why I am in college in the first place.  To try to create a life off Medicaid, Medicare, and Food Stamps.  To finally have a career, a life where I can possibly own something, buy something without worrying about how am I going to buy food. To be a contributing member to society.  To be able to work to build an IRA and retirement.  To give voice to the stories I want to tell, to give focus to the research I want to do and finally and most importantly, in my opinion, give at least one voice to those of us who have survived the earliest years.

     My awareness to AIDS came as early as 1986, when I was a mere 19 year boy.  I lost a very good friend to what was then called GRID.   Actually to be honest with you he was a boyfriend.  As a 19 yer old boy, I loved him deeply and when he died I stumbled head first into a world of pills and booze.  Pills and booze, it was a battle for years with two trips into rehab.  But as in all cases time marches on and I fell in love again and by October 1988  I was burying a second lover to AIDS.

     That event lead to my first suicide attempt and my falling "off the wagon" and falling even further into the abyss by frequenting gay bath houses.  It is something I am not proud of, I rarely admit it, but I think for many gay men--- my self included-- it was a part of our lives and our darkest days.

     I was then in an 11 month relationship, that ended with my being thrown down an entire flight of stairs.  It had been violent all along and it took cement stairs to bring me to finally leaving that relationship.  Once again "off the wagon" and back to the baths.

     By 1992 I met an incredible man named Ron Rooy Sr.  who simply turned my world upside down.  I dried out completely.  I stop the cycle of the baths.  I was madly in love with a phenomenal man.  We were together four short months of 10 years when he died in our home in 2002.  I have loved him like no other.

     I think about him a lot these days.  Would he be proud of what I 'm trying to do today?   Would he approve of the man I have become?  What would he say about my Honors Thesis work, a Creative Nonfiction piece on gays in the Holocaust?  Would we really enjoy my trying to become a teacher and author?

     I know at my core, if given the chance I would still be with him. today  In many ways I still am.  He was able to finish my sentences, he knew me inside and out.  He was not only my lover, my husband---he was my best friend.  I lost so much when he died, and honestly at times I wonder if I have ever recovered.

   I sit here today knowing how blessed I have been.  Sometimes I wonder why.  Why me?  Why did I survive the horrors of the gay holocaust? Why am I now thinking about my "old age" when 23 years ago that wasn't even an option.  A career with Full Blown AIDS, 23 years ago was damn near impossible and now it is a reality.  So much has changed; and I wonder have I changed enough with the times?

     Am I still living in the past?  Has the past overshadowed everything else?  What will the next 25 years of living with AIDS be like?  By that time I will be 72 years old, and living with AIDS for 50 of them.  Is that even a possibility?  Will our pharmaceuticals make that a reality?  Will our society as a whole change even more dramatically in acceptance or will we still be bogged in ignorance and bigotry?

     For now I am thankful for what I do have.  I am, if I have to be honest, thankful for even the struggles because without them I wouldn't be the man I am today.  I met a Hindu swami recently and asked his advice for someone living this long with AIDS.  He first said in his country my story would more than likely never happen.  He felt I was looking at my diagnosis with AIDS all wrong.  Maybe G-d chose to come and manifest him/herself as AIDS so I could literally see the face of G-d.  That through this "disease" not only see G-d but feel his/her presence all around me; that I may have missed the appearance of G-d in my life because I chose to see it the way I did.

     I know he didn't mean it as G-d's curse on me, as Hindus do not believe that is even possible.  He saw G-d in the disease.  That G-d is in everything, everyone, and everywhere; we however simply have to see it.  That simple thought has changed my life.

     I want to leave you on that thought---can we see G-d in everything, everyone and everywhere or do we chose not see it that way?

Namaste

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Gives 750 Million Dollars To The Global Fund to Fight AIDS

For those of you who think Bill Gates and Microsoft are evil.  Maybe they really aren’t that evil after all.

Via Press Release:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today renewed its commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Gates Foundation is giving $750 million through a promissory note—a new and innovative funding mechanism. “These are tough economic times, but that is no excuse for cutting aid to the world’s poorest,” said Bill Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation. “The Global Fund is one of the most effective ways we invest our money every year.” Providing funding through a promissory note gives the Global Fund the flexibility and authority to distribute funds efficiently based on immediate needs, leading to greater impact. “By supporting the Global Fund, we can help to change the fortunes of the poorest countries in the world,” said Gates. “I can’t think of more important work.”

Up until now Bill Gates has donated over 29 BILLION DOLLARS to AIDS Education and Research

Julie Roberts, Alec Baldwin to star in "The Normal Heart"

Hollywood — Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy is bringing "The Normal Heart" to the big screen, starring Alec Baldwin, Julia Roberts, and Mark Ruffalo.

The movie is based on the Tony Award-winning, semi-autobiographical play by Larry Kramer, which chronicles the life of gay and HIV activists in New York City from 1981 to 1984.

Ruffalo will play the main character, gay activists Ned Weeks; Baldwin will play Weeks' homophobic brother; and Roberts will play Dr. Emma Brookner, one of the few health officials in New York to be taking the disease seriously.

Jim Parsons, one of the stars of "Big Bang Theory," has appeared in Broadway version of "The Normal Heart" and will reprise his role as a Southern gay activist.

Ruffalo, who is straight, has been active in helping the gay community, and headlined a fundraiser for a small gay club in his hometown of Kenosha, Wisc., last year.

 

Bryan Fischer: God Would Cure AIDS If Gay Men Would Just Having Sex

Stop f*cking! You're killing millions of African babies!

LONDON — Elton John is writing his first book, a personal account of the AIDS crisis.

 

The musician says "Love is the Cure: Ending the Global AIDS Epidemic" will include memories of friends who died of AIDS-related illnesses, including Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.

British publisher Hodder & Stoughton says the book will be published in July along with an audio book read by the British pop star. The U.S. publisher is Little, Brown.

Proceeds will go to the Elton John's AIDS Foundation.

John said Monday the book would ask why more is not being done to cure the disease.
He said AIDS "is a disease that must be cured not by a miraculous vaccine, but by changing hearts and minds, and through a collective effort to break down social barriers."

Ron Paul Defends His Position That People With AIDS Should Have Higher Health Care Costs

In 1987 in his book Freedom Under Siege Ron Paul wrote “The individual suffering from AIDS is certainly a victim, frequently a victim of his own lifestyle, but this same individual victimizes individual citizens by forcing them to pay for his care,”

On January 1st, 2012 Paul defended that statement in a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace . When asked if he still supported this position, Paul steadfastly maintained that people with AIDS often got the disease because of their personal behavior.

He added that the financial burden for their care should not be placed on “innocent” people. Paul would not deny people with AIDS health care insurance, but he would let the market and insurance companies sort it out, which of course would mean HIGHER health care and prescription costs that many cannot afford now.

By the same token I should no longer have to pay taxes for schools because I do not have children and those with with unhealthy diets who develop heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol or hypertension, smokers who develop lung disease, athletes who break bones, and the elderly who visit the doctor more to prolong their lives should have higher health and prescription costs as well.

Ron Paul should not be allowed to run for President Ron Paul let alone be allowed to be in public service as a “Doctor” his remarks are so inhumane and abominable that they stand against the hippocratic oath.
Ron Paul is a dangerous crazy old bastard.  Nothing more, nothing less.

AHF's Tribute To Elizabeth Taylor At Rose Parade

I unfortunately missed the Rose Parade New Years Day, it was one of the first times I had missed it in YEARS. I know, I would have beyond a doubt, been in absolute tears if I had seen this float moving down the avenue .  The AIDS Health Foundation did a float in tribute to their long time advocate, Elizabeth Taylor.   Absolutely gorgeous and a winner of The Queens Trophy for 'Most Effective Use & Display of Roses In Concept, Design & Presentation.  She was a true queen.!!  One announcer said "I wish she were here to see it".  Many people wish that as well.  She is greatly missed.

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Gay Marriage Victory Still Shadowed by AIDS

Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Steve Mendelsohn lost a partner to AIDS. “If my partner were alive, I believe we would have married.”

By AUSTIN CONSIDINE 

ON the evening of June 24, Steve Mendelsohn celebrated in the street with his friends and nearly a thousand other supporters of same-sex marriage outside the Stonewall Inn, the storied gay bar in the West Village.

The setting was nothing if not appropriate: In 1969, a riot at the Stonewall would make the bar forever synonymous with the awakening of the modern gay rights movement in America. That night, nearly a half-century later, a bill passed that would allow gay men and women to legally marry for the first time in New York State.

For Mr. Mendelsohn, 54, the moment represented an unequivocal victory: an apex to decades of struggle for equal recognition under state law. Still, the moment was tinged with a sense of absence, as it was for many gay men his age. Amid the jubilation, he couldn’t help but think of Phil Kanner, his partner of 15 years, who died of complications from AIDS in 1995.

“I was thinking, ‘I wish Phil were here with me,’ ” Mr. Mendelsohn said in an interview in the fall, adding later, “If my partner were alive, I believe we would have married.”

For many middle-aged gay men in New York City, the passage of the same-sex marriage law was in part a fresh reminder of the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic, when men like Mr. Mendelsohn, the director of a nonprofit media group, lost innumerable friends and loved ones to a disease that was often as stigmatizing as it was deadly.

At the height of the epidemic, the disease took tens of thousands of lives in the United States each year; it reached its deadly peak in 1995, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with the number of deaths of those with AIDS reaching more than 50,000 that year.

Those who survived haven’t stopped living, forming new relationships and organizing for equality in the decades since. But the memory of what was lost lingers — a shadow cast by marriage equality’s glow.
“New losses can trigger old feelings of grief, but so can successes, so something like having gay marriage can trigger feelings of loss,” said James Masten, a Manhattan psychotherapist and author who has worked with patients with H.I.V. and AIDS for the last 20 years.

“Even though it’s a positive experience, it can still remind us of all the people who aren’t here, who haven’t had the opportunity to see this — all the activists who never lived to this point,” he added.

Jeffrey Sharlach, 58, founder of a Manhattan-based communications firm and an adjunct associate professor of management communication at New York University, said he lost nearly every one of his gay friends in New York during the 1980s and ’90s, including his partner of more than 12 years, Ken Williams, who died in 1994 at age 33. Mr. Sharlach is publishing a novel in May about that period in his life called “Running in Bed,” which he described as about a quarter autobiographical.

For Mr. Sharlach, New York at the height of the AIDS epidemic became an empty shell, its streets a constant reminder of loved ones who were disappearing. “Every single block would be like, ‘Oh, I remember this guy used to live here.’ ”

“It was like a city of ghosts,” he added.

With the passing of time, many of those who survived the 1980s and ’90s have gone on to form meaningful long-term relationships. Some, like Mr. Mendelsohn, took advantage of the same-sex marriage law fairly quickly. In September, he married Wallie Pagunsan, exactly two years after the day they met.
Others, like Mr. Sharlach, believe that the moment for marrying may have passed. Though he, too, has a long-term partner, his second since Mr. Williams died, he has little interest in marrying.

“I think the relationships that you have when you’re older are different than the relationships you have when you’re in your 20s,” he said. “In your 20s you have this idea that you’re going to grow together, build a life together and kind of grow up together.”

His current relationship, Mr. Sharlach added, is “much more mature.”

The generational marriage gap felt by Mr. Sharlach, and echoed by others, isn’t only about age. It’s also a function of history and denied opportunity. While some middle-aged gay men and lesbians leaped at the chance to marry after having been denied the right, others say the concept feels too foreign today because it was such a remote possibility for so long.

“The idea of gay marriage — I mean nobody ever talked about it, it was nowhere on anyone’s radar screen,” Mr. Sharlach said. During the 1980s and ’90s, he said, “we were just worried about people not being fired from their jobs, people not getting kicked out of their apartments. That was the big thing. Really, basic rights were much more important.”

David Norris lost his partner of 10 years, Jeffery Reddick, in 1992, also from AIDS complications. Like Mr. Sharlach, he focused for years on other issues that, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, seemed more urgent.

 

“It also just seemed like such a pie-in-the-sky thing,” he said of same-sex marriage. “It was just like: ‘That will so never happen. Why put energy into it?’ ”

Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Today, Mr. Norris, 57, has a partner of 18 years who lives with him in the Upper West Side apartment he once shared with Mr. Reddick. The two own a house together in Asbury Park, N.J., and were joined there in a civil union to make property ownership more economical and practical.

But it would feel wrong to have a marriage recognized in one home state, but not another, he said. Mr. Norris, a vice president for an insurance group, has long been active in gay equality groups like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Lambda Legal and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. He hopes to engage more fully in his advocacy role once he retires.

Mr. Norris is thrilled about the New York marriage law, he said, especially for younger people who, largely because of his generation’s efforts, will never know the same kinds of discrimination. But he is reluctant to marry because he believes the law doesn’t go far enough. “We probably will get married, but I still go back and forth on it,” he said regarding his current partner. “I want the whole enchilada.”

If the federal Defense of Marriage Act were repealed, he would feel more certain, Mr. Norris added. “Then we’d be booking the banquet hall. It would be a real celebration.”

The men interviewed for this article may form an imbalanced picture of their generation because each has gone on to form long-term, meaningful romantic relationships — despite the loss of partners, and regardless of feelings about marrying. But, as therapists attest, there are silent others who remain haunted by the tragedies of the AIDS scourge, and unhealed by the passing years.

“Of course, there’s a sense of positivity around gay marriage, but many gay men of my generation, I would describe us, actually, as a lost generation,” said Darrell Greene, a Manhattan psychologist who spent the worst years of the epidemic working for AIDS-related health organizations, first as part of the AIDS Task Force of Greater Cleveland, then at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and the AIDS unit at Goldwater Memorial Hospital, in New York. It was, he said, “like living through a war.”

“There are many people who are survivors and who have tremendous resilience, of course,” Dr. Greene said. “But in terms of my population, there are many people who were profoundly traumatized by the epidemic. And they are still processing what happened to them.”

Mr. Mendelsohn, who welcomed the news of the gay marriage act outside the Stonewall, has learned above all to place his loss within a larger context — in a way that, though tragically ironic, gives added positive meaning to the otherwise devastating experience.

“I believe that there wouldn’t be any gay marriage today if it weren’t for AIDS,” Mr. Mendelsohn said. “There was so much intolerance and misunderstanding about who was gay and who wasn’t until everyone found out that people were gay because they were dying. And it was their friends, their family, their relatives.”

Support groups for gay men grieving the deaths of their partners helped Mr. Mendelsohn, like many of the men interviewed, cope with his loss, especially in the years just after his partner died. As time passed, his grieving evolved, his nightmares stopped.

“Somewhere, the memories were less and less about the hard times and the illness, and more and more about the happy times,” he said. “It was less traumatic. I came to see him more as my angel looking over me and helping me.”

HIV + Man Admits to Trying to Infect Thousands of PArtners

 

In what’s probably the most horrible thing I have heard in months, a HIV+ man in Michigan turned himself in to authorities last week and confessed to sleeping with 3,000 men and women and, according to police reports, “intentionally attempt[ing] to spread the disease to kill people.”

As it stands, David Dean Smith, 51, has only been arraigned on two counts of penetrating a partner who did not know he was positive.  One female victim, who met Smith on Yahoo! Personals, told MSNBC he was a “sociopath” and a predator. ‘He hits [on] drifters. He hits people who are young. He hits young women, and from what I understand, he hits men, too,” she added.

It’s unclear whether Smith’s lawyers will attempt an insanity defense: Sexual penetration with HIV is considered a felony in Michigan but Smith had recently been remanded to a mental hospital Smith after several suicide attempts. (Files from the hospital indicate he is “sexually aroused by causing pain to females.”)

Attorney Richard Zambon told the network that he plans on “exploring all options” in his client’s defense. “I am concerned about his mental health.”

Tournament of Roses Features AIDS Float

Tournament Of Roses Parade To Feature First-Ever AIDS Themed Float

Karen Ocamb reports at LGBT POV:

This year the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena will make history: it will be the first time in the parade’s 123-year history and the first time in the 30 years since HIV/AIDS was identified that a float will acknowledge those who died of AIDS and the advocates who helped them. [snip] Many of the 150,000 water vials will hold “AHF Memory Flowers” with inscriptions of the names of lost loved ones handwritten on the vial. AHF says their “Elizabeth Taylor: Our Champion” Parade Float was designed by award winning float designer Raul Rodriquez and is being built by the respected and award-winning Fiesta Parade floats.

New HIV Vaccine Approved for Human Tests

Dr. Chil-Yong Kang  

 

A team of Canadian scientists from the University of Western Ontario have been given approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to start testing humans on an experimental HIV vaccine they have developed, reported the Toronto Star in a Dec. 20 article.

The scientists have been researching a cure for 20 years and will finally be able to start testing the SAV001 vaccine in January. The group will test the vaccine on forty healthy people who have contracted the HIV virus.

"We started the basic science research two decades ago," Dr. Chil-Yong Kang, professor of virology at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario said. "The vaccine development, we started 10 years ago. This is incredible for us to get to this stage of development."
Kang said that the FDA’s decision to allow testing is a "milestone" and that the vaccine "is the first preventive HIV vaccine approved for clinical trials to use a killed whole HIV-1 virus to activate the immune response in humans."

This method has been used a number of times to create vaccines for hepatitis, rabies influenza and polio.
The virus used in the vaccine has been genetically changed so that it can no longer cause HIV. The scientists continued to inactive the virus by using chemicals and radiation.

 

"In the past, people did not use this strategy (using a killed whole HIV virus) because people did not know how to make a safer virus and people did not know how to make large quantities of it," Kang said. "Now we have solved those problems by the genetic engineering of the virus."

The Star reports that the according to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative there are thirty HIV vaccines that are being tested in phase 1 trials around the world. Several of these vaccines are using the same method that Kang and his team used.

The Canadian Association of HIV Research President, Dr. Jonathan Angel, said it is thrilling for the FDA to approve the vaccine but creating an effective cure for HIV will take awhile. This is because the virus is extremely complex and scientists do not fully understand it yet.

If the vaccine passes stage one trials it will then be given to 600 HIV-negative individuals who are at high risk for HIV infection.

In the last phase the vaccine would be used on 6,000 HIV-negative people. Half would be given the SAV001 and half would be untreated. Officials would follow the progress of the individuals for three years.
Researchers have tried several attempts in the past to find a cure for HIV. EDGE reported in a Sept. 21 article that by stripping the cholesterol out of the HIV virus’ membrane, researchers discovered they could "prevent an excessive initial response against the virus by the body’s immune system". T-cells carry out this response and are the same cells HIV infects.

"HIV is very sneaky," the head of a research project, Imperial College London’s Adriano Basso said. "It evades the host’s defenses by triggering overblown responses that damage the immune system. It’s like revving your car in first gear for too long -- eventually the engine blows out."

HIV Is Not a Crime--or Is It?

HIV Is Not a Crime is a shocking film that asks some basic questions we all need to think about.
Do you think people living with HIV should have to register as sex offenders? Do you believe people living with HIV should be sentenced to 25 years in prison for a sexual act that did not result in transmission of the HIV virus?

Would the fact that an individual did not disclose his or her HIV-positive status change your answer? Do you think someone living with HIV should be virally defined as a second-class citizen with fewer rights and more legal liabilities than someone who is either uninfected or is unaware of his or her status HIV status?
HIV is not a crime. Or is it?

Thirty-four states and two U.S. territories have laws on their books that state that if a person living with HIV has sexual relations without prior disclosure of his or her HIV-positive status, then that person is committing a crime. Some laws permit sentencing a person living with HIV to jail (for up to 25 years) for having consensual sex with someone who is HIV-negative (or does not know his or her HIV status) without prior HIV disclosure -- often even if a condom is used and no HIV is transmitted.

Prosecutions against HIV-positive individuals have occurred in at least 39 states (some states have used non-HIV-specific laws for sexual assault), invoking a spectrum of charges including attempted murder, sexual assault, and assault with a deadly weapon. Yes, ignorance has led to defining blood, semen, vaginal fluid, vomit, and saliva of people living with HIV as "deadly weapons" by the courts -- and has even led to claims of "bio-terrorism" -- even though HIV is now considered a chronic manageable disease. In five states alone more than 500 people have been charged under these laws.

These laws are problematic for several reasons. First, they violate the human rights of people living with HIV by creating a viral sub-class of people (based upon testing positive for the HIV virus) who are singled out for unjust prosecution and excessive punishment in the absence of actual wrongdoing for behaviors that otherwise would be legal for anyone who has not tested HIV-positive. This violates our nation's values of fair and equal treatment under the law.

HIV criminalization laws were supposedly drafted to prevent the transmission of the virus, yet they actually do the opposite: they drive people away from HIV testing, since knowing your status can subject you to criminal prosecution.

In fact, these laws are at odds with evidence-based prevention strategies. They place the burden of responsibility for disclosure of HIV status and the negotiation of condom use solely on the HIV-positive individuals. They absolve the HIV-negative or untested of responsibility for their own health or the health of others. They also absolve the untested of prosecution under HIV transmission laws. Incidentally, the CDC estimates that 20 percent of HIV-positive Americans do not know they are living with HIV.

These punitive laws drive people at risk of HIV infection underground and away from HIV testing, counseling, referral to treatment, care, and support. Evidence-based prevention strategies call for encouraging at-risk individuals to seek out testing, information, treatment, care, and support.
The great majority of HIV-related prosecutions have taken place in North America, Western Europe, and Australia. But in recent years, many poorer countries have also adopted such laws. In sub-Saharan Africa, 20 countries have passed HIV-specific criminal statutes in the last five years.

So what is being done to combat these counterproductive, unjust laws? At the United Nations, the "Global Commission on HIV and the Law" was launched in June 2010 by UNDP and UNAIDS. It has investigated the relationship between legal environments, human rights, and HIV and aims to develop actionable, evidence-informed and human-rights-based recommendations for effective legal responses that promote and protect the human rights of people living with, and those most vulnerable to, HIV. The Commission has reported its finding in Geneva this month to the Programme Coordinating Board of UNAIDS and will issue a final report in early 2012.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee, a California Democrat and member of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, has also introduced H.R. 3053 -- the "Repeal HIV Discrimination Act" -- in the U.S. Congress. This bill creates incentives and support for states to reform existing policies that use the criminal law to target people living with HIV for felony charges and excessive punishment for behavior that is otherwise legal (consensual sex between adults) and that poses no measurable risk of HIV transmission.

What can you do to address this social injustice? First, you should contact your member of Congress and ask that he or she co-sponsor H.R.3053. Next, you can pass around this link -- and post it to Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks -- for HIV Is Not a Crime, a compelling, powerful, and tragic film about the criminalization of HIV in America, created by POZ Magazine founder Sean Strub.

Nick Rhoades and Robert Suttle are two HIV-positive, gay men interviewed in the film. On Thursday, Dec. 15th in Geneva, they spoke at the Programme Coordinating Board Meeting of UNAIDS to discuss their own prosecutions and convictions as lifetime sex offenders, due to being accused of having sex without disclosing their HIV-positive status, even though both used condoms during sex and neither transmitted HIV to their accusers. Please listen to their stories.

To learn more about this issue, go to:
http://www.hivlawandpolicy.org/public/initiatives/positivejusticeproject
http://www.hivlawcommission.org/
http://www.unaids.org/en/ (the UNAIDS website)

Dentist Office Bans HIV+ Employee from Touching Doorknobs, Sprays Him with Lysol

 

Shortly after testing positive for HIV, James White informed his Great Expressions Dental Clinic office manager of his status, but asked that she keep his health private. Imagine White’s surprise days later when he was summoned by the company’s regional director and berated for “having AIDS.”
White was informed that there would be no change to his responsibilities as he didn’t work directly with dental patients, and posed zero risk of infecting anyone. But things pretty much went straight to hell from there.

He says he was prohibited from touching doorknobs in the office. Staff members followed him around with Lysol, spraying and wiping down the surfaces he touched. He was subjected to unexpected changes in his schedule—called and told to come in later than scheduled, or to leave earlier than expected. When he complied with the scheduling offers, he was written up for unexcused absences.
After months of this, he said he was overwhelmed.

His health took a turn for the worse, and he was hospitalized for a week. During that time, the clinic decided to fire him. They called him the day before he was to return to work and informed him that he was fired for excessive unexcused absences.

“I felt like my character was destroyed,” he says. “I went from wanting to be an activist—someone who spoke to groups about HIV—to someone who didn’t want to leave my room for six months.”
His lawyer Nicole Thompson says that “it’s very clear [White] has been traumatized by this.”

Thompson notes he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and White himself says he continues to see mental health professionals weekly to address his concerns. He still has trouble going into public places. For example, White says he “blacks out” when he goes to the grocery store and doesn’t remember being there. Right before the blackouts, White says, he feels like people are following him around and sanitizing everything he touches or that people are talking about him.

White, having a relatively clearcut legal case on his hands, has sued the heck out of his former employer. The Detroit area Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is overseeing the case, and suggested that Great Expressions settle out of court with White for a figure around $185,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. So far, the dental clinic has refused so it looks like the case will be settled in court, where a judge will have the opportunity to hit the discriminatory office with even heftier damages.

Our condolences go out to White. Nobody should have to deal with this nonsense as they are delicately navigating life-altering changes to their health. We applaud you for your bravery. You’re setting a fantastic example for all those who have faced workplace discrimination due to a medical condition. You go boy.

Rita Hayworth Gay Grandson Found Dead in Chelsea

I orginally posted this story because in my thinking we had lost another gay man to suicide. 

I know there is a huge amount of hoopla over this, but I wanted to remember  a man many of us could be, a man may of us may have been and even a man maybe some still are. 

 Fame can be a very good thing and it also can be a very distructive thing as many of us know.

I wanted to give voice to the loss our community sufferes every single time a gay man or gay woman decides to end their lives, and if we take the time to talk about, somehow we will gain the courage to try to more than what we already are to end this outcome.


"Sad news from Chelsea New York—Andrew Embiricos, 25, the grandson of Rita Hayworth and son of Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, was found dead this morning in his home at the Grand Chelsea on West 17th Street.

Embiricos was HIV-positive and was an advocate for HIV/AIDS awareness as well as Alzheimer's disease. In the past, he had also filmed himself on X-Tube engaging in unprotected sex in videos with names like "Chelsea Bareback Whores" (as the New York Daily News discovered in 2007).

In his post today, Musto continues: "He was a strikingly handsome, personable guy who radiated charm no matter what crisis he was weathering... Whatever the case, I'm deeply saddened by the loss of someone with such radioactive charisma."

Daniel Rick convicted of knowingly spreading HIV virus

Daniel Rick could get 10 years in prison, and is facing two other charges.

​Daniel Rick has been found guilty of knowingly spreading the HIV virus through unprotected sex with another man, a felony that could put him behind bars for as long as a decade.

The man who had sex with Rick in the spring of 2009, when the two had known each other only briefly, told police the encounter was wholly consensual. But Rick didn't mention his HIV infection to the other man, who soon fell ill.

Rick, now 26, had known of his own illness for at least three years at that point, but never -- not before, during, or after the unprotected sex -- mentioned his affliction to his partner, who figured it out only after doctors told him he was HIV-positive.

On Friday, a jury found Rick guilty of felony assault. His conviction, which is classified as a first-degree assault, is the first of its kind in Hennepin County. Daniel is also facing trial for two other similar cases.

After Rick and the other man met online and exchanged messages for some time, Rick came in to the Saloon Bar, where his victim worked as a bartender. At the end of his shift, the bartender went to meet Rick for a late-night hook-up.

During the anal sex, during which neither man wore a condom, Rick ejaculated inside the other man, according to the criminal complaint filed in March 2010 by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office.

Spokesman Chuck Laszewski confirmed that Rick is the first person in the county convicted under the crime of felony assault for "knowing transfer of communicable disease," and Laszewski said it might also be the first of its kind in Minnesota.

The jury's conviction, which came down on Friday, means Rick's fate now lies in the hands of the judge. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 28, which will also be used to set a trial date for two other cases being brought against Rick.

13 Arrested for World AIDS Day Protest

Thirteen AIDS activists were arrested in downtown Manhattan today in a joint protest organized by Housing Works, Occupy Wall Street, and others. Among their demands is the institution of an unprecedented tax on millionaires with the revenue specifically directed to fight HIV/AIDS.

Via press release:

In the tradition of the working-class hero of Sherwood Forest, the marchers and the 13 Robins were demanding the implementation of a Financial Transaction Tax on Wall Street and a New York State millionaires tax in order to fund the fight against AIDS here in New York and worldwide. New York City and the federal government have backed away from their commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS in dramatic ways during the past year. “It’s a lie when we’re told there isn’t enough money to fight AIDS,” said Felix Rivera-Pitre, a VOCAL-NY leader who is living with HIV/AIDS and currently in a homeless shelter. “The reality is that Wall Street crashed our economy, and now politicians are saying there’s less money for basic needs like healthcare and housing, or for keeping their promise to fund HIV/AIDS treatment overseas.”

View more photos on the Flickr stream of Housing Works.


UNRELATED: You may recall Felix Rivera-Pitre (quoted above) who made international news when he was sucker-punched on video by a member of the NYPD.

Labels: activism, Housing Works, Michael Bloomberg, NYC, Wall Street, World AIDS Day

Hershey School Turns Away Boy With HIV

NBC Philadelphia, Tim Furlong

The Delaware County boy and his mother say it's discrimination and now the Milton Hersey School is facing a lawsuit.

HIV-Positive Boy Denied Admittance to...

 

The Milton Hershey School was founded by the chocolate tycoon as a school that "nurtures and educates children in social and financial need to lead fulfilling and productive lives."

But it seems that fulfillment won’t be coming for a 13-year-old honor student from Delaware County who is infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

"I feel no other teenager should go through this, being denied just because they have HIV," the boy said in an exclusive interview with NBC Philadelphia’s Denise Nakano.

His lawyer has filed a discrimination suit in U.S. District Court that alleges that the Hershey School "violated multiple anti-discrimination laws" by not admitting the boy based on him being HIV Positive.

The lawsuit was filed under a pseudonym and the boy and his mother's identities weren't revealed per their request.

Multimedia

Admission Denied for Student With HIV

• Read the entire discrimination complaint

The private boarding school doesn’t deny that they rejected the boy’s admission because of concerns for the health and safety of fellow students. They even petitioned to have the court review the case, they said.

Milton Hershey School released a statement Wednesday saying in part that “in order to protect our children in this unique environment, we cannot accommodate the needs of students with chronic communicable diseases that pose a direct threat to the health and safety of others.”

(The entire statement from the Hershey School is listed below.)

Ronda Goldfein from the AIDS Law Project is representing the boy and his mother in the federal discrimination lawsuit.

"If you have a school that’s open to the public, then it’s open to the public," Goldfein said. "If you have a student that has a particular need and requests assistance, then you accommodate. You don’t simply say we don’t like you, we don’t like your diagnosis, you can’t come here."

"It makes me angry, like really, really angry because they don't understand how great he is," the boy's mother said. 

The 13-year-old has lived with HIV all of his life but doesn’t feel it defines him.

He excels in school, is active in sports and is learning to speak two foreign languages. He was hoping to go to Hershey -- a cost-free, private boarding school for children from low-income families -- to advance his education.

"They didn’t look at whether my client presented any threat, they just said 13-year old boy with HIV, oh no, that’s too dangerous," Goldfein said.

The lawsuit calls for Hershey to admit the boy and give unspecified monetary damages.

"I think that it was wrong to put me through emotional distress," the boy said.

Here is the entire statement from the Hershey School:

Today, Milton Hershey School had planned to file a request in federal court asking the court to review our decision to deny enrollment to a child who is HIV positive because of concerns for the health and safety of our current students.

We had been in discussions with the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, which is representing this 13-year-old boy. Recognizing the complex legal issues, the School was preparing to ask the court to weigh in on this matter. Unfortunately, attorneys for the young man took the adversarial action of filing a lawsuit against the School.

The decision to deny enrollment was a challenging one for us to make. Like all our enrollment decisions, we need to balance our desire to serve the needs of an individual child seeking admission with our obligation to protect the health and safety of all 1,850 children already in our care.

Attorneys for this young man and his mother have suggested that this case is comparable to the Ryan White case. But this case is actually nothing like the Ryan White case. Milton Hershey School is not a day school, where students go home to their family at the end of the day. Instead, this is a unique home-like environment, a pre-K to 12 residential school where children live in homes with 10 to 12 other students on our campus 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In order to protect our children in this unique environment, we cannot accommodate the needs of students with chronic communicable diseases that pose a direct threat to the health and safety of others.The reason is simple. We are serving children, and no child can be assumed to always make responsible decisions which protect the well-being of others.

That is why, after careful review and analysis, we determined we could not put our children at risk.

Pope Implies That People With Poor Ethics Spread AIDS

This week a U.N. AIDS report said the number of new HIV infections worldwide has stayed at about 2.7 million for the last three years, suggesting that the epidemic is leveling off. That’s great news! But then comes along Pope Benedict XVI reminding everyone that unethical, slutty, un-Godly people spread HIV. Uuuggghhh.

 Here’s what the Pope said exactly while speaking about the AIDS epidemic in Africa:

Above all, [the spread of HIV] is an ethical problem. The change of behaviour that [solving Africa's AIDS epidemic] requires—for example, sexual abstinence, rejection of sexual promiscuity, fidelity within marriage—ultimately involves the question of integral development, which demands a global approach and a global response from the Church.
“For if it is to be effective, the prevention of AIDS must be based on a sex education that is itself grounded in an anthropology anchored in the natural law and enlightened by the word of God and the Church’s teaching.”

On one hand, he has a point. If a person knows about the importance of getting tested, knowing their status, communicating with sex partners and taking the necessary precautions to prevent HIV, not doing so could be construed as deliberate and unethical. But in Africa where many communities do not have safe-sex educators to disseminate information about HIV-prevention, the spread of the disease cannot be marked up to pure ethics and morality—money, government support, education and condoms all play a part too.

It’s a double-edged sword because even if the Pope considers governments “unethical” for failing to equip their citizens with HIV-prevention info, we can only imagine that sex education “enlightened by the word of God and the Church’s teaching” would also fail to teach people how to responsibly and safely fuck and go for an ineffective abstinence-only approach instead.

Pope Benedict XVI got a lot of well deserved flack in 2009 when he said that condoms in Africa actually make the AIDS problem worse. But he has since backtracked on that by saying that male hookers and pretty much everyone else can use condoms because “using condoms ‘is the lesser evil than passing HIV onto a partner.’

So while he’s managed to offensively imply that people who catch and spread HIV to others have some sort of moral or ethical failing, he’s at least implicated governments for those same failings while instructing the larger Catholic following that using condoms is more ethical and moral than

6 Parishioners Dead After Lying Pastor Tells Them They’ve Been Cured of HIV

 

A Sky News undercover investigation has revealed that evangelical churches in the UK have been lying to HIV positive patients about the curative powers of holy water, and insisting that patients stop taking their HIV medications. Now at least six are dead.

The broadcaster sent three undercover reporters to the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), in the south London Borough of Southwark.

 

All of them were told by pastors they could be healed.

The team – who are all HIV positive – had water sprayed in their faces as part of the healing process.

They were also shouted at and told it would rid them of the devil.

One of the pastors, Rachel Holmes, told Sky News, that SCOAN has a “100% success rate”, adding: “if symptoms such as vomiting or diarrhoea persist, it is actually a sign of the virus leaving the body”.

Except that’s diarrhea and vomiting aren’t a sign that HIV is rocketing out of your body because Christ commands it to. No, those are signs you are dying of HIV. 

Multiple investigations into the – we’re just going to go ahead and play fortune teller here for a second – criminal actions these churches are engaged in.

In addition to the deaths that have been reported, a case of HIV transmission has been documented by the boyfriend of a male parishioner who stopped HIV treatment after being “cured” by his pastor.

NY Republicans Want To Block The Jesus AIDS Video From Public Display… Again

Last December, a bunch of Republican U.S. legislators joined forces with the Catholic League’s blowhard president William Donohue to get the Smithsonian Museum to censor part of their Hide/Seek queer art exhibition, all because of David Wojnarowicz’s video Fire In My Belly which showed ants crawling over a Jesus figurine for a whole 11 seconds.

Now that the show has moved to The Brooklyn Museum, New York state Republicans have started threatening to pull all the museum’s public funding calling Wojnarowicz’s work “sacrilegious,” “Christian bashing,” “a hate crime,” and “blatantly disrespectful and offensive to Christians during the holiday season.”
Even Bill Donohue has jumped into this deja vu scenario by saying that Wojnarowicz died by “self-inflicted” AIDS, something Donohue implies wouldn’t have happened if he had simply lived life according to Catholic doctrine. This is the same man who called Catholic child rape victims “gold diggers” and blamed gays for the Church’s molestation problem adding that the church has been unfairly singled out and scrutinized over the alleged rapes.

Maybe we can divert New York’s public art funds and pay Bill Donohue to deliver more of his anti-LGBT theatrics in the Brooklyn Museum. Viewers won’t be able to tell whether it’s real or just very passionate performance art. Either way, they’ll understand why the public needs queer art exhibitions in the face of Donohue and his elephantine friends