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In prison, Mychael Patterson learned the true meaning of rehabilitation.
Treating HIV early can reduce the risk of transmitting it to HIV- partners by 96 percent.
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Source: queerability
Researchers in Denmark are calling a new treatment that could eradicate HIV from infected cells “promising”.
Almost a fifth of transgender women worldwide are infected with HIV, results of a meta-analysis published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases shows. A total of 39 studies involving over 11,000 transgender women in 15 different countries were included in the study, which…
Source: transqueery
Transgender women are the fastest-growing population of HIV-positive people in the country, according to Miss Major, a 70-year-old transgender woman of color and the executive director of TGI Justice Project, a San Francisco–based advocacy organization that fights for the rights of transgender, intersex, and gender-variant people who are in prison or have served jail time. Most experts agree with Major’s assertion, but hard data backing up that reality is hard to come by since HIV data collection methods often either mistakenly categorize transgender women as men who have sex with men, or don’t distinguish between transgender and non-transgender women.
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Some countries are tricky when it comes to traveling with HIV
Civil rights leaders, health care workers, and all those who battle against HIV and its disproportionate effect on people of color got a welcome surprise in December. In a lengthy report released at the end of 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the first-ever decline in new HIV infections among African-American women. The number dropped 21%, from 7,700 to 6,100, between 2008 and 2010. It appears that African-American women have finally turned a corner with HIV, though at the moment it’s unclear if these numbers are anomalous or if targeted initiatives have finally taken root. The CDC itself focused in on this group of people last year with its “Take Charge. Take the Test” campaign, which advocated HIV awareness and testing in 10 cities where black women are particularly at risk.
Leisha McKinley-Beach, director of stakeholder engagement at the Black AIDS Institute, believes the reduction is partly thanks to the federal government’s emphasis on black women (she has much praise for the CDC’s pro-condom Sista program) as well as an unwavering commitment to African-American women from groups such as hers.
“We have an African-American HIV university where we’ve trained people, including women, across the country to go back to their communities and educate them about HIV,” McKinley-Beach says of the Black AIDS Institute’s initiatives. “So they train their neighbors and also build networks. There’s also been wonderful social media campaigns like Greater Than AIDS, which we partnered with the Kaiser Family Foundation on.”
Teaming up pays dividends by helping campaigns reach a greater number of people, McKinley-Beach says. She points to the successful partnerships of the CDC’s current Act Against AIDS campaign, which utilizes TV and radio public service announcements, print and online advertisements, doctor participation, and nonprofit and private-sector organizations to reach the public about prevention and testing. The federal agency had 19 partner groups to help blast its message, including the Black Women’s Health Imperative, the National Council of Negro Women, and the NAACP. Innovative thinking by other groups could also be behind the reduction, McKinley-Beach says. Officials in Florida, which in the past few years made it a priority to test and educate black women, sought assistance from an African-American–focused women’s motorcycle club.
“When we think of HIV, that’s not a group we automatically think of,” McKinley-Beach says.
Florida officials would have club participants take a pledge to get tested and educate other women about HIV, and then take another black woman to get tested. It was a success.
“With all these interventions, I’m not surprised to finally see some progress,” McKinley-Beach says, adding she hopes such initiatives serve as models for other groups greatly affected by HIV, like young gay and bisexual black men. “I know we have a long way to go, but for now it’s nice to celebrate that our strategies are working for one of the hardest-hit populations with HIV.”
LaVera Anom is determined not to rest on any laurels. The HIV-positive mom is a graduate student in marriage and family studies and also a peer educator for AIDS Project Los Angeles. She speaks to everyone from high school students to mothers just like herself about healthy relationships, condom negotiation, coping mechanisms for living with HIV, and the importance of knowing your status.
“I can’t tell you how many times when I’m open about my status and mention it in my graduate studies, women are shocked and say, ‘How did you get it? You’re educated and you’re this and you’re that.’ You can be as educated as you want to be, but it means nothing if you’re not educated about HIV,” Anom says. “I think there’s a growing awareness [among black women about HIV], but there still needs to be more.”
To underscore Anom’s point, though the rate of new HIV infections among black women has dropped, it remains 20 times that of white women, the CDC reported. Anom believes the most effective messages for black women are those delivered by black women. “That’s another reason I’m so open about my status now,” she says. “I realize I have to be that face. I have to talk about it if I want to see a change and make a difference.”
Anom views the CDC’s report with cautious optimism, knowing that good news can translate to a decrease in urgency.
“Unfortunately, when we see things start to go well, we back off and it becomes a problem again,” she says. “[HIV discussion] needs to be a part of culture, part of daily life, part of our part of our education system on a long-term basis.”
1. Missouri: It is unlawful for any individual knowingly infected with HIV to bite another person. The law also specifically prohibits the use of a condom as a defense in a nondisclosure case.
2. Michigan: It is a felony, with a four-year jail sentence, for those who know they are HIV-positive to engage in “sexual penetration, however slight” without first disclosing that status to a partner. Sexual penetration is defined to include oral, anal, and vaginal intercourse but also includes inserting an “object” into a person’s “genital or oral openings.”
3. Indiana: It is a Class D felony, meaning six months to three years in prison for the crime of “malicious mischief,” placing blood, urine, semen, or feces in a place with the intent a person will “involuntarily touch” the prohibited body fluids, if the accused was infected with HIV.
4. Georgia: It is a felony for an HIV-infected person to commit an assault with the intent to transmit HIV using his or her body fluids (blood, semen, or vaginal secretions), saliva, urine, or feces upon a peace officer or a correctional officer in the course of their duties. Convictions can lead to a sentence of five to more than 20 years in prison.
In the late fall of 1988, state lawmakers and representatives from major insurance and pharmaceutical companies were hard at work addressing the looming AIDS crisis for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative-leaning think tank that produces state-based business-friendly model legislation. The efforts of ALEC’s AIDS policy working group were published that year in a 169-pagebook containing 13 HIV-specific legislative recommendations. Some of those model laws would, after becoming real state laws, go on to effectively criminalize the behavior of people living with HIV and perpetuate a lasting stigma against HIV-positive people. Today, a majority of states have laws on the books that criminalize HIV exposure regardless of whether the virus was transmitted or there was an intention to infect another person with HIV.
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CURRENTLY WATCHING: How to Survive A Plague (2012)
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By WBadmin
Philadelphia skyline (Photo public domain)
A majority of Philadelphia residents who test positive for HIV already have full blown AIDS by the time they’re diagnosed, a Centers for Disease Control study reported by a Philadelphia CBS news affiliate found. The numbers are from the CDC’s HIV Surveillance Report, which comes out every three years, CBS said. The latest statistics are from 2011 and find Philadelphia ranked 24th among metro areas in terms of new diagnoses with about 12,000 people living with AIDS in the city. An ActionAIDS official told CBS about 75 percent of the new cases diagnosed were at “stage three” for AIDS.
“It means they have full blown AIDS when they find out they’re sick, which is way too late in terms of the disease progression,” Kevin Burns, executive director of ActionAIDS told CBS.
Early testing is the key to keeping patients healthy, Burns and other health experts said.
An Illinois police officer is facing a charge of criminally transmitting HIV, the Windy City Times reports. John Savage, 38, of La Grange Park, a suburb of Chicago, is accused of having sex with an unidentified 24-year-old man in 2012 without disclosing he has HIV. The men had sex at Savage’s home. The man later asked Savage about his HIV status, which is when Savage disclosed he is HIV positive.
After the disclosure, the man contacted the police. Savage was arrested March 13, released on bond and is scheduled in court March 21. It is unclear whether the man actually contracted HIV from Savage or if the man even has the virus. HIV transmission laws in Illinois were updated in 2012, making prosecutions more difficult. Under new rules, prosecutors must prove intent to spread the virus, failure to wear a condom and the occurrence of insertive anal or vaginal sex.
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It’s difficult enough being a mother with HIV or the mother of an HIV-positive child—or both. It’s even more difficult if you don’t have stable housing, a situation faced by many people with HIV.
“If they don’t have any place to live, they’re not going to be adhering to their medications,” says Kathie Hiers, CEO of AIDS Alabama and president of the National AIDS Housing Coalition. To address the problem, AIDS Alabama and similar organizations around the nation are now providing housing to families in which at least one member is HIV-positive, but the demand still often exceeds the available space.
And, more often or not, the families served tend to be headed by single moms. The threat of homelessness, or the reality, results from a variety of factors, including discrimination and lack of resources. Chicago House and Social Service Agency was founded in 1985, when it was common for people with HIV to be kicked out of their homes. Initially, it largely served individuals, but in 1992 it opened an apartment building dedicated to serving families, the first such facility in the Midwest. It added a second family building in 2009 and now also has scattered-site units for families, on the whole housing about 25 families at any given time, says CEO Stan Sloan. He estimates that Chicago House has provided homes to 300 families since 1992, and in most of them the mother has been the only parent in the household.
The story is similar at AIDS Alabama, which got into the housing business in the early 1990s, serving individuals, then recognized the need to expand its mission. In 1993 the group built its first family complex, which was also the first in the South, says Hiers. Her organization also administers federally funded vouchers under the Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS law, allowing HIVers statewide to find housing on the open market.
“We’ve always known that people have better health outcomes when they have safe, affordable housing,” says Hiers. That knowledge was initially based strictly on informal observation, but once researchers undertook some scientific studies, they generated enough evidence to fill an entire issue of the journalAIDS and Behavior, she says.
AIDS Alabama’s experience has been similar to Chicago House’s in that most of its family households have consisted of a single mother with children. Women with families have a particular need for housing and other supportive services, says Hiers: “Nine times out of 10, they’re going to be putting those children ahead of their own health needs.”
These organizations and other housing providers for people with HIV offer additional services to their residents, such as case management to coordinate their health care; transportation; and tutoring and recreational programs for children. “Prior to our families getting here, there’s so little hope for them,” Sloan says, but stable housing and related services help improve their quality of life.
The goal of supportive housing providers is to allow residents to stabilize their health and finances to the point that they can move on to housing available on the general market. For some this process takes a few months, for others several years. Sloan sums it up this way: “People can stay,” he says, “as long as they need to build a whole life.”
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