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Special Report: The arc of Michael Weinstein’s moral outrage from AIDS to homelessness

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AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein speaks a press conference announcing a statewide ballot measure to repeal Costa-Hawkins at LA City Hall Plaza on Monday, April 23, 2018, in Los Angeles.(Carlos Delgado/AP Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation)

California is caught in a conundrum. While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff are steadily guiding America through the divisive impeachment process, President Donald J. Trump seems more and more determined to punish the big blue state for its resistance to his draconian pronouncements.

On Nov. 3, for instance, Trump threatened to withhold federal funds for the devastating wildfires, tweeting that Gov. Gavin Newsom “has done a terrible job of forest management. I told him from the first day we met that he must ‘clean’ his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him.”

“No more,” if Newsom asks for funding, Trump tweeted, apparently unaware that the federal government controls forest land and the funding would help the displaced.

But there is an odd, unrecognized disconnect between concern for the burned-out fire victims and the larger issue of homelessness in cities such as San Francisco and San Diego and Los Angeles – 981 human beings died on the streets of LA County in 2018.

And the expectation of more turmoil looms large with Trump’s anticipated intervention into California affairs after the Nov. 15 firing of Matthew Doherty, the gay executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Doherty is likely to be replaced by Robert Marbut, a Texas-based consultant who “has long encouraged elected officials to stop coddling people on the streets.” For instance, The Times reports, in 2012, Marbut “pushed the Florida city of Clearwater to stop ‘renegade food’ donations from churches and other charitable organizations. At the time, he characterized Clearwater as the second-most enabling city in America.”

Marbut’s philosophy, which broadly includes expanding police authority to crack down on the homeless for minor offenses, “is in line” with the Trump administration, The Times reports.

And what is that philosophy? “We have people living in our … best highways, our best streets, our best entrances to buildings … where people in those buildings pay tremendous taxes, where they went to those locations because of the prestige,” Trump said during a September LA site visit by administration officials. “And all of a sudden they have tents.”

Trump’s options are legally limited. But when has that stopped him?

If officials order sweeps of streets and homeless encampments, where would they go? Or might they be rounded up and placed into unspecified federal facilities?

But Newsom may now have a much-needed resource. On Dec. 4, he hired fired federal homeless expert Matthew Doherty to be his senior adviser, perhaps even figuring out how to pry loose millions of dollars in stalled funding for the state with half the nation’s unsheltered homeless population.

Doherty has a daunting job. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority estimates approximately 50,000 to 60,000 people were homeless in LA on any given night in 2019, more than 44,000 on the streets. About 34% are Black, hugely disproportionate to their 8% of the population; 31% are females; and minors through age 24 make up 8,915 of the county’s homeless population, up from 8,072 in 2018.

The jump comes “despite over $619 million in spending on the [homeless] problem in the region over the past year,” AIDS Healthcare Foundation co-founder and President Michael Weinstein said in a June 2 statement.

The LAHSA did not post LGBTQ-specific statistics but last June, when out City Controller Ron Galperin introduced an online map to help link homeless and at-risk LGBTQ youth to services, he noted that up to 40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ.

“The homelessness crisis gripping our region spans the spectrum of age, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation and expression, but is particularly difficult for LGBTQ youth,” Galperin said.

Within this context, a majority of voters recognize homelessness as a crisis — exacerbated by a paucity of affordable housing, escalating rents, retaliatory evictions and gentrification. But, The Times notes, “there is some appetite among L.A. County residents to have law enforcement be more involved.

To Weinstein, the humanitarian calamity on the streets and the criminalization of homelessness is a moral outrage.

“AIDS Healthcare Foundation was born of moral outrage over the mistreatment of people with AIDS. We began as a hospice provider when people were dying in the hallways of the county hospital,” Weinstein says. “Today’s housing crisis is a similar crisis of indifference to suffering. Our patients and employees are feeling the devastating impact of skyrocketing rents. AHF has jumped into the breach with advocacy and by directly creating affordable housing units.”

In 2017, AHF created the Healthy Housing Foundation by AHF,  which bought and renovated SROs in Hollywood and Downtown LA. AHF has also sued to prevent destruction of available housing units by developers proposing luxury housing with some affordable units set aside.

Weinstein, whose first apartment at 19 was in West Lake for $100 a month, believes the supposed “trickle down” of luxury complexes actually makes surrounding housing units too expensive for someone living on minimum wage.

Watching this, Weinstein turned to his board of directors and his management team and asked: “What can we do to not just say how bad it is, but create a solution?”

“And so we went out in the marketplace and we bought our first single room occupancy hotel that was two thirds vacant and we rehabilitated it to put people in there,” Weinstein told the Los Angeles Blade. “And now we have seven of them and we have almost 800 rooms. The average cost is $100,000, including the renovation — whereas the city is spending $500,000. And the first units from Proposition HHH, which was the city initiative around building affordable housing, have yet to come online, not one single unit.

“It’s an urgency to meet human need,” he continues. “So not only are we criticizing and advocating, we’re also providing a solution. And I’ve committed to 10,000 rooms over the next five years,” including building from scratch. “We’ve amassed three lots and we will eventually build a project that hopefully will be 800 units there. So we’re very, very serious about creating solutions.”

Weinstein remembers the 1986 fight with his best friend Chris Brownlie against Lyndon LaRouche’s Prop 64 initiative to quarantine people with HIV/AIDS. After the measure failed, they asked what they should do next.

Seeing poor gay men evicted from their apartments, dying homeless and loveless on the streets or in the halls of County General Hospital or the overcrowded 5P21, they founded the AIDS Hospice Foundation and opened the Chris Brownlie Hospice to give them death with a modicum of dignity.

“As human beings, I think one of the things that differentiates us from other animals is that we take care of our own. And in this environment, in the AIDS environment, taking care of our own sometimes means providing people with AIDS with a clean, warm place to live out the last days of their life and a way to die without the distractions of homelessness or freaked out relatives or any of those things,” Brownlie says in the June 2017 documentary “Keeping The Promise,” narrated by Meryl Streep.

In the miracle three-drug cocktail came out in 1996, Weinstein decided to give the medication to AHF clients in their clinics and in their Chris Brownlie and Carl Bean hospices. But the government was not paying reimbursements for the medications in those days, so the cost came out of AIDS organization’s own pocket — bringing AHF to the brink of bankruptcy and provoking a near coup to oust the co-founder.

“I wouldn’t have done anything different because it was really a moral imperative. I mean, you couldn’t let people die who you knew could be saved,” Weinstein said in the documentary. “What happened was virtually all of the patients got better within a month or two. Before that, hardly anybody left the houses. Most people – they came there and that’s where they died. But all of sudden people were leaving and going back to their lives. And that was just miraculous.”

Thousands did not live to see the miracle, including Chris Brownlie. Nov. 29 was the 30th anniversary of his death at the AIDS hospice that bore his name.

“Not only is homelessness and housing affordability akin to the moral outrage of AIDS in the ’80s, but AIDS seemed like an insoluble problem, right? It just seemed like an overwhelming thing that you couldn’t get your arms around. And AHF and others who worked on this issue made it a solvable problem. Same thing can and should happen with housing affordability.”

On Nov. 30, AHF announced it would appeal a dismissed lawsuit filed last August in Superior Court against the City of Los Angeles, the City Council and four Hollywood developers. The lawsuit sought to enforce the federal Fair Housing Act and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act regarding developments that AHF asserts were “approved without providing adequate measures to ensure that the projects would not displace protected minorities.”

In addition to the gentrification of minority neighborhoods, AHF is tackling the issue of escalating rents. On Dec. 5, AHF announced it has secured nearly one million signatures — far more than the required 623,212 voter signatures needed — to qualify the Rental Affordability Act for placement on statewide ballots for November 2020.

The RAA is sponsored by Housing Is A Human Right, AHF’s housing advocacy division. It is endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Rep. Maxine Waters, and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, among others.

If passed, the initiative would remove restrictions in state law to give cities and counties the ability to devise rent control policies that limit how much rents can increase each year.

“Seventy-five percent of Californians hold a positive to very positive view of rent control,” Weinstein said at a Dec. 5 news conference, according to a press release. “The housing affordability and homelessness crises are the most pressing social justice and public health emergencies in our time, especially in Southern California. We must take action to stop it now. To that end, we intend to bring the issue directly to California voters next November.”

Last year, a similar measure, Prop 10, was defeated. The effort cost $96.66 million – with Coalition for Affordable Housing raising $25.30 million (AHF contributed $22.52 million) and the No on Prop 10 real estate PACs raising $71.37 million.

Big PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association) also chipped in $500,000 to the No on 10 campaign. When the medical news organization STAT asked why, a PhRMA spokesperson claimed they had over 900,000 people living and working in California (thus 2.3% of the state population) and they were concerned that the measure “…could make housing harder to find,” according to a Sept. 20, 2018 report on Business Wire.

Weinstein has a long history of tangling with Big PhRMA, from the late 1980s when AIDS Hospice Foundation and ACT UP protested drug companies profiteering from outrageous drug pricing, to his lawsuits challenging Gilead Sciences drug patents making “untold billions off of tenofovir in its various treatment combinations since its introduction in 2001.” AHF’s lawsuits have paved the way for hundreds of other lawsuits, including a recent patent infringement case by the federal government involving Truvada.

“A rift between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences ruptured further Wednesday when the Trump administration sued Gilead in U.S. District Court, asserting that Gilead made billions of dollars on HIV prevention therapy while repeatedly ignoring government patents,” the Washington Post reported Nov. 7.

 

Weinstein is also a favorite target of critics who tend to repeat the same debunked claims, even into the pages of the New York Times.

“To his many critics in AIDS activism, Weinstein is the Koch brothers of public health,” Christopher Glazek wrote in a New York Times Magazine feature story, citing a slew of old allegations, including “giving kickbacks to patients, overbilling government insurers.”

“AHF has always been and remains clean as a whistle and at the same time, because our advocacy and our outspoken voice, we are a huge target,” Weinstein said. “Plus, oppression sickness that’s still very alive and kicking in the LGBT community does not allow anyone to rise to a level of leadership without being subjected to this kind of malicious attack.”

Weinstein encourages simple fact checking. For instance, in the so-called “Whistleblower Kickback case” in Florida, the original judge validated the AHF clinic’s business model of giving bonuses to employees to get people tested and using incentives and gift cards for clients who returned for a second appointment, now a more common practice in public health. After the initial lawsuit by former employees failed, they went to both the U.S. Department of Justice and the state government alleging Medicare fraud – but both declined to pursue the case.

In August 2018, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled in AHF’s favor.

“They lost, they appealed, they lost again. And not only did the court rule in our favor, but the [Florida] government intervened  to say that what we were doing is not only OK, but what they wanted us to do, which is to put everything under the same roof,” Weinstein said. Not only did AHF win the case, “but they’re having to pay us back the legal costs.”

In another Florida lawsuit, in November 2018, a judge ruled in AHF’s favor in a Medicaid contract case that threatened to disrupt care for nearly 2,000 HIV patients.

Regarding the criticism around LA funding, Weinstein said, “there’s been a lot of prejudice against us because of the advocacy, which we have fought and won in 90+ percent of the cases.”

In one instance, LA County strenuously asserted that AHF over billed for the services for which they were contracted.

“They spent $3 million fighting us on that and then they wound up settling without any claim that we had done anything wrong,” Weinstein said.

Weinstein has been excoriated for calling PrEP a “party drug,” which was translated into his opposition to the drug. In fact, AHF dispenses PrEP after a medical checkup to ensure the client should take it and is advised about side-effects and accompanying condom use.

“It’s a mischaracterization to say that we were opposed to PrEP,” Weinstein told the Los Angeles Blade. “We said that we did not believe it would be a successful public health strategy. And the jury is in on that, right? The people who are taking it are not the people who need it most. They’re older, white, middle-class men. The infection rate has not gone down. The STD rates have gone up, the condom culture has been damaged. We went from a variety of different prevention approaches to basically all PrEP and that has not been successful.”

Weinstein said the reason PrEP has not caught on, “despite the tens of billions of dollars that’s been invested in it, is because it’s very difficult to get people to take a drug for a disease they don’t have. It’s hard enough to get people to take a drug for disease they do have.

“One size does not fit all,” he continued. “That’s what we said from the very beginning — that PrEP would help individuals who were certain not to use condoms but that it would not be effective as an overall public health strategy. It’s been seven and a half years since the approval and we have not seen any significant change in the situation,” especially in reaching people of color.

To make condom use more sexy, for International Condom Day, AHF premiered a funny, lively parody of Cardi B with “Wrap It Like That” that has been viewed almost 859,000 times.

“Part of what has made us unpopular in certain quarters is that from day one we have had an ironclad commitment to serving people of color communities,” Weinstein said. “You still have a tremendous amount of segregation and discrimination in the LGBT community to this day. Whether you talk about Minority AIDS Project or In The Meantime, or  Bienestar and if you look at the composition of our board of directors, our senior management, our global leadership — I’ll say this flat out — there is no other organization working in this space that is as diverse as AHF. And we’ve put our money where our mouth is, in terms of where we located our facilities, organizations that we financially support, and alliances that we’ve built.”

AHF’s Michael Weinstein with In The Meantime’s Jeffrey King (Photo by Karen Ocamb)

Impulse Group/ Buenos Aires (Photo courtesy AHF)

“You pay a heavy price for being ahead of your time, being in the vanguard. And I’m not saying that to brag. I mean that’s simply true. Over and over and over again,” Weinstein said.

The most recent flareup with AHF comes from popular, legislatively-prolific out State Sen. Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco) who apparently blames AHF’s strong opposition to SB 50, the transit housing bill he co-authored with State Sen. Ben Hueso (D – San Diego), for killing the bill this year.

“Senator Scott Wiener, SB 50’s author, recently wrote in an email that “AHF and Weinstein are now effectively California’s NIMBY-In-Chief,” the Bay City Beacon wrote in a highly critical story.

However, there was much opposition to SB 50 in its current form. In a statement posted on his website May 16, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Anthony Portantino (D – La Canada Flintridge) explained why he turned SB 50 into a two-year bill.

“SB 50 is a well-intentioned effort to help solve our state’s housing crisis and it highlights two valid ways to affect land use decisions across the state:  providing incentives or legislating mandates. My preference has always fallen on the side of incentives for local governments to accomplish goals.  There were legitimate concerns expressed from both large and small cities about the scope of SB 50 as it pertained to bus corridors, historic preservation, the definition of ‘jobs rich’ neighborhoods and whether it would increase gentrification and discourage light rail expansion as unintended consequences; all of which justified the pause established today by the committee.  My colleague from San Francisco is one of the smartest and most earnest legislators in the capitol. He cares deeply about the housing crisis and I expect him to continue to pursue his goals.  Hopefully we provided the opportunity to broaden the conversation, which can result in a more targeted legislative effort.”

In fact, according to a May 8 Business Wire press release, the League of California Cities cited 35 municipalities that opposed SB 50: Burlingame, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Chino Hills, Cupertino, Diamond Bar, Downey, Fremont, Glendale, Glendora, Hermosa Beach, La Mirada, Lafayette, Laguna Niguel, Lakewood, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Manhattan Beach, Mountain View, Novato, Paramount, Pasadena, Pinole, Palo Alto, Rancho Cucamonga, Rancho Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach, Santa Clarita, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solana Beach, Sunnyvale, Vista, West Covina, and West Hollywood.

Nonetheless, efforts were made to disparage AHF, including a news conference taking AHF to task for using a quote by and image of gay icon James Baldwin in an ad.

“As someone whose community has been so deeply impacted by HIV, I’m deeply offended by how they misuse HIV healthcare dollars,” Wiener, who is gay, recently said of AHF’s anti-SB 50 campaign.

Hueso sent a letter to Attorney General Xavier Becerra requesting an investigation of AHF over alleged misuse of federal 340B funds, Politico reported last August.

“This action is payback from Scott Wiener for our successful opposition to SB 50,” Weinstein tells the Los Angeles Blade. “These charges were made before and nothing came of it. AHF is extensively audited. Politico didn’t bother to say that 96% of our funding goes to patient care. And Senator Hueso’s own letter says that there are no restrictions on 340B funds, which come 100% from drug companies. Lastly, Politico didn’t even bother to speak to me for its article.”

Becerra’s office does not comment on the status of investigations or litigation, but as of Dec. 4 AHF has heard nothing from either from Becerra or the federal Department of Justice. Meanwhile, AHF says Wiener and Hueso are beholding to real estate developers by taking their campaign contributions.

Weinstein pointed out that most of the stories critical of him and AHF “give such short shrift to our humanitarian efforts,” often in “very extremely dangerous and difficult circumstances across the world — not to mention our work on Ebola and our disaster relief where we air-lifted into the Bahamas and into Puerto Rico and Haiti before the U.S. government could get there.”

Since 1987, AHF has developed funding streams through a network of pharmacies, thrift stores, healthcare contracts and strategic partnerships. Today, AHF’s budget is $1.6 billion – with 96% of the funding going to patient care; with 6,500 employees caring for 1,332,868 patients in 43 countries, including 664 free global treatment clinics. AHF also operates in 38 of the 48 US counties the Trump administration wants targeted for HIV prevention, care and treatment.

“You can talk all day long about whatever your political issues are with AHF. But the bottom line is that 1.3 million people are entrusting us with their care,” Weinstein said.

“We started out as a tiny grassroots organization. Our budget in the first year was $50,000, approximately. We were a fraction of the size of APLA. And now we’re a hundred times their size,” Weinstein said. “It’s a tremendous amount of hard work, dedication, and most of all really having our finger on the pulse of what the needs were. And now we’re taking on homelessness and affordability and housing and we’re taking on trying to build a sustainable public health structure in the world. None of the snark, none of the attacks, and none of these so-called legal arguments have slowed us down one iota.”

In fact, AHF’s Healthy Housing Foundation in LA is buoyed by the help they’ve been able to give people such as Herbert Butler, an 88-year-old homeless veteran of the Korean War who has been on the Hollywood streets for 20 years.

“Butler, an avid amateur pianist, long resisted going to shelters (for myriad reasons known best to him), preferring his life on the street,” AHF’s Ged Kenslea told the Los Angeles Blade. “However, one ritual remains sacred to him: several times a week he travels from Hollywood to Union Station to wait his turn for the chance to play — and entertain harried commuters — for 20 minutes or so on the community piano in the station’s waiting room.”

Nicole Farley, from JWCH Wesley Health Care Center, worked to earn Butler’s trust and bonded with him over his deep admiration for her grandfather, the famous alto sax jazz musician Captain John Handy. In October, Farley connected Butler to AHF’s Healthy Housing Foundation and they secured him a spot in the Baltimore Hotel, a 1910 SRO hotel on Skid Row in downtown LA that AHF has repurposed for homeless and extremely low-income housing.

Herbert Butler (Photos courtesy AHF)

“Inspired by Mr. Butler’s story, his service to our country and his passion for music,” Kenslea said,  “AHF recently obtained a secondhand mini baby grand piano and placed it in the lobby of AHF’s King Edward Hotel, directly across the street from the Baltimore. Now, Mr. Butler, and other musically inclined residents of AHF’s residences, can play to their hearts’ content.”

“The biggest issue of all the issues that we’re facing is income and inequality,” says Weinstein. “Whether it’s drug companies that price their drugs out of the reach of people, not only here, but around the world. Or whether it’s the fact that, that the system as it exists now, cannot put a roof over everybody’s head. I do a lot of international travel and I go to very poor places. And there’s no place that I have been where there are as many people sleeping on the street as there are in Los Angeles. There are people in huts, there are people in shacks with corrugated roofs, there are some terrible living conditions that I see. But a person who, lying on the sidewalk, the sidewalk is home for tens of thousands of people. I’ve not seen that anywhere that I’ve traveled. If that is not a moral outrage, then I don’t know what it is.”

“Homelessness is the worst wildfire California has ever seen,” says a recent AHF video on the issue of rent control.

AHF President Michael Weinstein and husband Kevin Tran Nguyen (Photo by Karen Ocamb)

“The bottom line is love,” Weinstein tells the Los Angeles Blade. “The bottom line is love of humanity. The bottom line is love of sisters and brothers. And you know, sometimes you really need to fight like hell for the people and the things you love.”

 

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AIDS and HIV

Gilead Sciences awards grants to HIV/AIDS groups in Caribbean, Latin America

Stigma, criminalization laws among barriers to fighting pandemic in region

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Free condoms in a São Paulo Metro station. Gilead Sciences has announced it has given grants to 35 organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The groups will use the funds to fight HIV/AIDS in the region. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

FOSTER CITY, Calif. — Gilead Sciences this week announced it has given $4 million in grants to 35 organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean that fight HIV/AIDS.

A press release notes Asociación Panamericana de Mercadeo Social (Pan-American Association of Social Marketing) in Nicaragua, Fundación Genesis (Genesis Foundation) in Panama, Fundación por una Sociedad Empoderada (Foundation for an Empowered Society) in Argentina, Associação Nacional de Travestis e Transexuais (National Association of Travestis and Transsexuals) in Brazil and Caribbean Vulnerable Communities are among the groups that received grants. Gilead notes this funding through its Zeroing In: Ending the HIV Epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean will “improve access to care, increase health equity and reduce HIV-related stigma for populations most affected by HIV.”

“The HIV prevention and care needs of people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean are incredibly diverse, and each of these programs addresses a unique community challenge,” said Gilead Vice President of Corporate Giving Carmen Villar. “Our grantees are deeply embedded in their communities and best positioned to provide needed HIV care and support services.” 

“Their expertise will be essential to achieve the Zeroing In program’s goals of improving access to comprehensive care among priority populations, decreasing HIV-related stigma and reducing HIV and broader health inequities,” she added.

The pandemic disproportionately affects Transgender people and sex workers, among other groups, in the region. Activists and HIV/AIDS service providers in the region with whom the Washington Blade has previously spoken say discrimination, stigma, poverty, a lack of access to health care and criminalization laws are among the myriad challenges they face.

First Lady Jill Biden in 2022 during a trip to Panama announced the U.S. will provide an additional $80.9 million in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Latin America through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. 

Cuba in 2015 became the first country in the world to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The Cuban government until 1993 forcibly quarantined people with HIV/AIDS in state-run sanitaria.

Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago in recent years have decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations. 

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2021 ruled Jamaica must repeal its colonial-era sodomy law. The country’s Supreme Court last year ruled against a gay man who challenged it.  

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Local, national events to mark 35th annual World AIDS Day

HIV disproportionately affects certain populations. Men who have sex with men accounted for 70% of 32,100 estimated new HIV infections

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

WASHINGTON – UNAIDS dubbed this year’s World AIDS Day theme as “Let Communities Lead.” This is how conversations around HIV and AIDS should be structured, Duante’ Brown said, who manages two programs at NMAC — a nonprofit dedicated to working to end the AIDS epidemic. People living with HIV need to be considered the subject matter experts, he said. 

“Bringing those people into the room, showing them that they have a voice and that there’s not just this group of people who are making a decision for them … is definitely the way that you go about this.”

Brown manages the ESCALATE program at NMAC, which aims to empower people to address HIV stigma, and the ELEVATE program, which is a training program for people with HIV to be more involved in the planning and delivery of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which is the largest federal program designed specifically for people with HIV. 

In the United States, it’s estimated 1.2 million people are living with HIV, according to HIV.gov. About 13% are unaware they have HIV.

HIV also continues to disproportionately affect certain populations. Men who have sex with men accounted for 70% of the 32,100 estimated new HIV infections in 2021. And Black individuals accounted for 40% of the new infections that year, while only comprising 12% of the population of the United States, according to the CDC

In 2023, stigma is a key inhibitor to ending the epidemic, Brown said. When stigma gets out of the way, there could be a day when there are no new cases of HIV transmissions, he said. To get around that stigma, people need to have meaningful and productive conversations about AIDS. 

“Not treating it as taboo, making sure that we are empowering people living with HIV and AIDS to tell their stories and to be empowered to feel that it’s OK,” Brown said. “And that nothing is wrong with you.”

And there are events in the locally and nationally to recognize World AIDS Day, many of them aimed at abolishing the stigma that comes with talking about HIV.

Icon Janet Jackson headlines the World AIDS Day Concert on Dec. 1 in Houston.

At a national level, Janet Jackson is set to headline the World AIDS Day concert on Dec. 1 — an annual fundraiser sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The concert will be at the NRG Arena in Houston, and will also honor actor and activist Blair Underwood with its lifetime achievement award. 

“[The concert] really is a way to commemorate World AIDS Day in a way that is both remembrance of those that we’ve lost, recognizing where we’re at, but also really celebrating and connecting the work that’s yet to be done. And having folks still leaving uplifted and elevated about what the future could hold,” said Imara Canady, AHF’s national director for communications and community engagement. 

Jackson has long been an outspoken advocate for people living with HIV. Her song, “Together Again,” is a tribute to a friend she lost to AIDS, as well as a dedication to patients around the world. 

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the largest nonprofit HIV/AIDS service organization and advocacy group, has several health care centers in the region and many across the nation and world. AHF also has a free HIV test locater online at freehivtest.net

AIDSWatch, the electronic memorial to people lost to HIV and AIDS, will be viewable on www.AIDSWatch.org and on the City of West Hollywood’s WeHoTV broadcast and streaming channels, including Spectrum Channel 10 within West Hollywood, beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 1, for 24 hours.

The City of West Hollywood will join STORIES: The AIDS Monument and APLA Health in a World AIDS Day event on Friday, Dec. 1. The evening will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a reception at the West Hollywood Park Aquatic and Recreation Center (ARC) Respite Deck, located at 8750 El Tovar Place.

After a short program with refreshments, attendees will descend the grand staircase of the ARC at 6:30 p.m. in a candlelight procession through West Hollywood Park and along N. Robertson, Santa Monica, and N. San Vicente Boulevards to the City’s Council Chambers/Public Meeting Room, located at 625 N. San Vicente Boulevard. There, the evening will continue with a screening of the award-winning 2023 documentary “Commitment to Life.” Doors will open at 7 p.m. and the screening will begin promptly at 7:15 p.m. 

Events are free to attend and open to the public. Limited validated parking will be available at the West Hollywood Park 5-Story structure. 

Advance RSVP is requested by reserving a spot on Eventbrite.

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Maxine Waters criticizes House GOP over proposed cuts to HIV/AIDS programs

Calif. Democrat spoke at U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS in D.C.

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U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) speaks at the U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS on Sept. 6, 2023, in Washington. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Wednesday sharply criticized House Republicans over their proposed cuts to HIV/AIDS prevention programs.

The California Democrat who represents the state’s 43rd Congressional District in a speech she delivered at the U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS noted the House Appropriations Committee’s Fiscal Year 2024 Labor, Health, Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill would cut $767 million from domestic HIV/AIDS programs.

Waters said the bill would cut funds to fight HIV/AIDS among underrepresented groups by 53 percent and “completely eliminates” funding for “Minority AIDS Initiative activities within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.” Waters also noted the appropriations measure “eliminates funding” for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and community health centers.

“The cuts to the Minority AIDS Initiative will exacerbate racial disparities and the elimination of the (Ending the) HIV Epidemic Initiative,” said Waters.

Waters also criticized House Republicans for “refusing to authorize” the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.” The California Democrat said ending PEPFAR “would endanger the lives of millions of people around the world who are living with HIV and endanger the lives of millions more who are at risk.” 

“Moreover, it would compromise United States leadership on global health issues,” added Waters. “These programs used to have widespread support. It’s shameful that House Republicans are now trying to eliminate them. We cannot allow these cuts to pass. We cannot compromise. We will not give up.”

U.S. Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) are among those who Waters criticized by name in her speech.

“I will speak truth to power. I want to use words that they will understand. Hell no! We won’t go! We are not going to give up,” said Waters. “That’s the people’s money. You can’t decide who you’re going to spend it on and not who you’re going to spend it on.”

More than 3,000 people are expected to attend the National Minority AIDS Council-organized conference that will end on Saturday. This year’s theme is “A Love Letter to Black Women.”

“We need a love letter to Black women,” said Waters. “We need it not only from this conference. We need it from our families often times. We need it from our communities. We need it from the churches that we give so much attention to and give our resources to and don’t really get it back. We need a love letter coming from all over this country for what we have suffered, for what we have endured, for the way that we have been denied and for the way that we have been ostracized.” 

Waters in her speech specifically praised former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank and the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) for their work in support of LGBTQ+ rights and efforts to combat HIV/AIDS. Waters also thanked Jewel Thais-Williams, who opened Catch One, a bar and restaurant on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles that became a refuge for people with HIV/AIDS.

“They had nowhere to gather, nowhere to go, nowhere to be recognized as people who needed support,” said Waters.

B. Kaye Hayes, deputy assistant secretary for infectious disease in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health who is also the executive director of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, is among those who are expected to speak at the conference. Mark S. King, an HIV/AIDS activist and blogger who published “My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor” on Sept. 1, is scheduled to talk on Thursday.

Cal Benn contributed to this story.

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AIDS and HIV

American Red Cross ends ban on blood donations by gay men

Many healthy individuals who previously could not give will now be able to support their community through the gift of blood donation

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Photo Credit: American Red Cross

WASHINGTON – The American Red Cross announced a historic change in the organization’s policies regarding blood donations by gay and bisexual men. Under this new donor screening process, all donors answer the same eligibility questions regardless of gender or sexual orientation and will be assessed for blood donation based on individual risk factors, not on sexual orientation.

This change by the Red Cross falls within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized guidelines for blood donation issued this past May that will use a uniform individualized risk assessment questionnaire for respondents regardless of their sexual orientation, sex, or gender.

In a statement the Red Cross noted:

“This change means many healthy individuals who previously could not give will now be able to support their community through the gift of blood donation.

Andrew Goldstein, a cancer researcher from Los Angeles, was a regular blood donor in his younger years before the FDA’s previous policies made him ineligible to donate as a gay man. His desire to influence change compelled him to register as a participant in the FDA funded ADVANCE Study in 2021, which sought to gather data to evaluate the possibility of moving to an individual donor assessment. He is proud he was able to be part of the study that led to this change and is excited to finally be able to give blood again.

“There’s so much in the world that you can’t help with, and you sometimes have to see people going through difficult times, but something like giving blood feels like something so small that you can do, and it means a lot to me that I’ll be able to do that again,” said Andrew. Now, Andrew and many others are able to share their good health with patients in need of lifesaving transfusions.”

The FDA’s new protocols issued in May note that prospective donors who have had a new sexual partner, or more than one sexual partner in the past three months, and anal sex in the past three months, would be ineligible.

So would those who are “taking medications to treat or prevent HIV infection (e.g., antiretroviral therapy (ART), pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP),” because these drugs can delay the detection of HIV.

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Elton John AIDS Foundation launches ambitious new initiative

Throughout Pride Month, Sir Elton John and the co-chairs of The Rocket Fund are challenging supporters to let their #InnerElton out

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Elton John & David Furnish at Oscars Viewing Party 2021 (Screenshot/YouTube Hollywood TV)

NEW YORK – The Rocket Fund is the Elton John AIDS Foundation’s latest transformative $125 million campaign to redouble the fight against AIDS everywhere. Growing levels of stigmatization, marginalization, and poverty have led to high rates of HIV and low access to healthcare globally. 

“For years, HIV/AIDS has caused enormous pain across the world, but I pray that soon this epidemic will be a thing of the past” said Sir Elton John. “More than 30 years after I launched the Elton John AIDS Foundation, my passion for reaching everyone, everywhere with education and compassionate care is still as strong as ever. The Rocket Fund will turbo-charge our mission and reach those most at risk from this terrible disease. Now is the time. This epidemic has gone on too long. We must all act together to see AIDS defeated in our lifetimes.”

Money from the fund will go towards supporting access to HIV prevention and treatment services, including providing access to HIV tests, antiretroviral therapies, and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), according to the press release. Donatella Versace, one of the Rocket Fund’s co-chairs — alongside Furnish, Tani Austin, and David Geffen — has also pledged to match donations to the fund up to $300,000 during the month of June.

Throughout Pride Month, Sir Elton John and the co-chairs of The Rocket Fund are challenging supporters to let their #InnerElton out. Letting your #InnerElton out is about proudly expressing your authentic self, showing love for others and taking compassionate action. Supporters are encouraged to join the movement by posting photos of themselves on social media wearing their own take on Elton’s signature looks – or whatever makes them feel their true self – with the hashtag #InnerElton. Many notables are joining to let their #InnerElton out, including Dolly Parton, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, JoJo Siwa, Heidi Klum, Smokey Robinson and more. Learn more here. The Let Your Inner Elton Out campaign was created by advertising agency Invisible Man and produced in partnership with global communications agency BCW.

The Foundation launched this critical initiative on June 5, the day in 1981 when the Centers for Disease Control released its first report on what would become the AIDS epidemic. This inaugural Rocket Day commemorates the early days of the fight against HIV/AIDS, while committing to accelerate progress towards ending AIDS for all.

“The end of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is within sight, and The Rocket Fund is the push we need to finally cross the horizon,” said David Furnish, Chairman of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. “To end AIDS, we must make targeted investments that can level the playing field, by tackling the inequalities and stigma that prevent people from accessing the care they desperately need. By joining The Rocket Fund and our mission, you can help transform the future for millions of people globally.”

“As we’ve learned through the global fight to stop COVID-19, epidemics do not recognize state borders, economic or cultural differences. If left unchecked, they only worsen with devastating impacts on the most vulnerable,” said Anne Aslett, Chief Executive Officer of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. “It is critical that we meet this moment to connect vulnerable people with the care and resources they need to live vibrant, healthy lives and we welcome all who want to see an end to this disease to join us.”

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New data shows HIV infections dropped- mostly among whites

Significant decline in new HIV infections, but impact of prevention efforts far less substantial for Black and Hispanic-Latino populations

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta. (Photo Credit: CDC/GSA)

ATLANTA – Data published Tuesday. by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a significant decline in new HIV infections, but suggests the impact of prevention efforts was far less substantial for Black and Latino populations.

From 2017 to 2021, as rates of HIV testing, treatment, and the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication rose, new cases dropped by 12 percent overall and by as much as 34 percent among gay and bisexual males aged 13 to 24.

The numbers show a “move in the right direction,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a press release.

However, when broken down by race, the CDC found new infections were down by 27 percent and 36 percent, respectively, among Black and Hispanic-Latino populations, compared with 45 percent of whites.

Similarly, by 2021 about one third of those who are considered eligible were taking PrEP for HIV prevention, but the CDC noted this number includes “relatively few Black people or Hispanic/Latino people” despite the significant increase in prescriptions up from just 13 percent in 2017.

“Longstanding factors, such as systemic inequities, social and economic marginalization and residential segregation,” Walensky noted, continue to act as barriers “between highly effective HIV treatment and prevention and people who could benefit from them.”

She added, “Efforts must be accelerated and strengthened for progress to reach all groups faster and equitably.”

Robyn Neblett Fanfair, acting director of the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention, said that “At least three people in the U.S. get HIV every hour—at a time when we have more effective prevention and treatment options than ever before.”

“These tools must reach deep into communities and be delivered faster to expand progress from some groups to all groups,” she said.

The HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute issued a press release following the CDC’s announcement of the new data, noting both the encouraging progress and need for improvement.

“It appears that our investments in HIV prevention are providing some positive results, but the persistent high number of new diagnoses and the low usage of PrEP among the communities most impacted by HIV point to the need for increased resources, particularly for a national PrEP program,” said the group’s executive director, Carl Schmid.

President Joe Biden’s FY24 budget requested $237 million for a national PrEP program along with $850 million to support the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ “Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S.” initiative.

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President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief marks year 20

Achievements PEPFAR have been remarkable, well-documented by outside evaluators, and hugely applauded throughout the advocacy community

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President George W. Bush signing PEPFAR’s authorizing legislation January 28, 2003. (Photo Credit: George W. Bush Presidential Center)

WASHINGTON – The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) marks its twenty year anniversary today, marking the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in the world.

The initiative which was personally led and launched by former President George W. Bush in 2003,  its funding has totaled more than $110 billion to date, including funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), to which the U.S. government is the largest donor.

PEPFAR is credited with saving millions of lives and helping to change the trajectory of the global HIV epidemic.  The White House today released a statement by President Joe Biden marking the 20th Anniversary:

Twenty years ago today, President George W. Bush declared that preventing and treating HIV/AIDS was a foreign policy priority of the United States. At a time when nearly 30 million people were HIV positive, but very few were receiving life-saving medicines, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) transformed the global AIDS response and laid a marker for America’s commitment to countries that were impacted the hardest by the AIDS epidemic. Helping lead the bipartisan effort in Congress to authorize PEPFAR is among my proudest achievements from my time in the Senate. To this day, PEPFAR remains a powerful example of America’s unmatched ability to drive progress and make life better for people around the world.
 
Since 2003, PEPFAR has saved more than 25 million lives and dramatically improved health outcomes in more than 55 partner countries. AIDS-related deaths have declined by 68 percent since their peak in 2004, and new HIV infections are down 42 percent. PEPFAR investments have ensured that 5.5 million babies have been born HIV-free. And two decades of investment in partner nations’ health systems played a critical role in countries’ ability to respond to other health crises such as COVID-19, Mpox, and Ebola.    
 
Today, PEPFAR continues to support 20.1 million people around the world with HIV/AIDS treatment, and my Administration is committed to continuing to lead the global HIV/AIDS response. We will build on our decades of progress to reach the Sustainable Development Goal of ending AIDS by 2030, work to eliminate the stigma and inequities that keep people from accessing care, and keep the voices of people living with HIV/AIDS at the center of our response.  I look forward to working with Congress on PEPFAR’s reauthorization this year.

PEPFAR is overseen by the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, who is appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and reports directly to the Secretary of State, as established through PEPFAR’s authorizing legislation.

PEPFAR’s original authorization established new structures and authorities, consolidating all U.S. bilateral and multilateral activities and funding for global HIV/AIDS. Several U.S. agencies, host country governments, and other organizations are involved in implementation.

Dr. John Nkengasong, the current coordinator was sworn in on June 13, 2022, and holds the rank of Ambassador leading the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) at the U.S. Department of State.

Nobel Prize winning scientist Harold Varmus, who served as Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1993 to 1999 and currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, wrote in an article honoring World Aids Day 2013:

[…] “the PEPFAR story must begin with George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, and their interests in AIDS, Africa, and what Bush termed “compassionate conservatism.” According to his 2010 memoir, Decision Points, the two of them developed a serious interest in improving the fate of the people of Africa after reading Alex Haley’s Roots and visiting The Gambia in 1990.3 In 1998, while pondering a run for the U.S. presidency, he discussed Africa with Condoleezza Rice, his future secretary of state; she said that, if elected, working more closely with countries on that continent should be a significant part of his foreign policy. She also told him that HIV/AIDS was a central problem in Africa but that the United States was spending only $500 million per year on global AIDS, with the money spread across six federal agencies, without a clear strategy for curbing the epidemic.”

Key Facts (As provided by Kaiser Health & Family Foundation)

  • Although the U.S. has been involved in efforts to address the global AIDS crisis since the mid-1980s, the creation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003 marked a significant increase in funding and attention to the epidemic.
  • PEPFAR is the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in the world; to date, its funding has totaled more than $110 billion, including funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), to which the U.S. government is the largest donor. PEPFAR is credited with saving millions of lives and helping to change the trajectory of the global HIV epidemic.
  • U.S. funding for PEPFAR grew from $2.2 billion in FY 2004 to $7.0 billion in FY 2022; FY 2022 funding includes $5.4 billion provided for bilateral HIV efforts and $1.6 billion for multilateral efforts ($50 million for UNAIDS and $1.56 billion for the Global Fund).
  • As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have profound effects across the world, PEPFAR has acted to respond to COVID-19 in countries that receive support in order to minimize HIV service disruptions and leverage the program’s capabilities to address COVID-19 more broadly.
  • Looking ahead, PEPFAR faces several issues and challenges, including how best to: address the short- and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on PEPFAR and the HIV response; accelerate progress toward epidemic control in the context of flat funding; support and strengthen community-led responses and the sustainability of HIV programs; define its role in global health security and broader health systems strengthening efforts; and continue to coordinate with other key players in the HIV ecosystem, including the Global Fund.

Key Activities and Results (As provided by Kaiser Health & Family Foundation)

PEPFAR activities focus on expanding access to HIV prevention, treatment, and care interventions. These include provision of antiretroviral treatment, pre-exposure prophylaxis, voluntary male circumcision, condoms, and other commodities related to HIV services. In addition, PEPFAR has launched specific initiatives in key strategic areas. For example, in 2015, PEPFAR launched DREAMS, a public-private partnership that aims to reduce HIV infections in adolescent girls and young women.

The latest results reported by PEPFAR indicate that it has:

  • supported testing services for 63.4 million people in FY 2021;
  • prevented 2.8 million babies from being born with HIV, who would have otherwise been infected;
  • provided care for more than 7.1 million orphans and vulnerable children (OVC);
  • supported training for nearly 300,000 new health care workers; and
  • supported antiretroviral treatment for 18.96 million people.
  • In the 15 countries implementing the DREAMS initiative, new diagnoses among adolescent girls and young women have declined with most DREAMS areas (96%) experiencing declines greater than 25% and nearly two-thirds with declines greater than 40%.

The achievements of the PEPFAR program have been remarkable, well-documented by outside evaluators, and hugely applauded throughout the advocacy community and the developing world. In general, milestones have been met, the program has been enlarged (for instance, to include some research on implementation of medical assistance), the roster of PEPFAR countries has grown and spending plans have not been exceeded.

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FDA eases blood donation restrictions for gay & bisexual men

The FDA’s proposal would lift the mandatory three-month deferral period for some men who have sex with men

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FDA headquarters (Photo Credit: U.S. Government/GSA)

SILVER SPRING, Md. – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) introduced a proposed change to its blood donation guidelines on Friday that would ease restrictions for gay and bisexual men.

The FDA notes the proposal, news of which was first reported in November, would bring U.S. policies in alignment with those in place in countries like the U.K. and Canada. The agency is expected to formally adopt the new guidelines after a public comment period.

The move follows criticism from LGBTQ groups and organizations like the American Medical Association (AMA) who have long argued the current policy is homophobic and based on an outdated understanding of the risks associated with blood donation by men who have sex with men.

As the AMA wrote of the current policy: “a man who has protected sex with another man in the three months prior to a blood donation cannot be a donor, but a man or woman who has unprotected sex with multiple partners of the opposite sex over the same time period remains eligible.”

The FDA’s proposal would lift the mandatory three-month deferral period for some men who have sex with men and instead use a “gender-inclusive, individual risk-based questions relevant to HIV risk.”

Potential donors would be asked for information about their sexual history over the past three months. Respondents who indicate they have had sex with one or more new sexual partners would then be asked whether they have had anal sex during this period. Those who answer “yes” would be deferred from blood donation.

Axios noted that as of this morning, about 20 percent of the country’s community blood centers have a one-day supply or less, while the FDA’s broadened eligibility criteria would increase the annual blood supply by two to four percent, citing data from America’s Blood Centers’ daily tracker and the Williams Institute.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) issued a statement celebrating the FDA’s proposal. “As I have long advocated for, this blood donation policy takes a step forward and is better rooted in the most up-to-date science with a focus on individual risk factors, not outdated stigmas that effectively ban gay and bisexual men,” she said.

Baldwin has repeatedly urged the agency to revisit its blood donation policy over the years, including by corralling support from other members of Congress to cosign letters to the FDA in 2014 and 2016, raising the issue again in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated shortages in the blood supply.

The Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus also acknowledged the move in a statement by its chair, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.): “I am glad the FDA is finally moving toward an individual risk-based assessment model, but recognize, based on existing reporting, that many LGBTQI+ people may still be barred from donating,” he said. “I look forward to taking a closer look at the proposed guidelines once they are published and working with the FDA to ensure that any unnecessary barriers are removed.”

Several LGBTQ groups also issued statements celebrating the FDA’s new guidance.

“These changes are 40-plus years in the making, and are a tremendous leap forward toward elevating science over stigma,” said GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis. “GLAAD and leading medical experts have long been advocating for guidelines that see and treat LGBTQ people the same as any other person, including as potential donors who want to help others.”

“This new policy removes a decades-long barrier for many in our community – and there is more to do to ensure gay, bisexual and transgender people are no longer unfairly stigmatized when they try to donate blood,” Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said. “The assessment criteria have flaws, focusing excessively, for instance, on the number of partners a potential donor has instead of just on new partners,” she added.

Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute, said: “While this long-overdue change is being made based on the science and the facts, which have been clear for years, it is the result of the leadership of the Biden administration that continues to tear down discriminatory government policies.”

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Experimental HIV vaccine failure, deemed safe but ineffective

“We remain steadfast in our commitment to advancing innovation in HIV & hope the data from Mosaico will provide insights for future efforts”

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HIV (Photo Credit: National Institutes of Health)

BETHESDA, Md. – A clinical trial of an investigational HIV vaccine regimen, being conducted in partnership with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) by Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies and global partners of parent company Johnson & Johnson dubbed “Mosaico,” was discontinued.

In an announcement made Wednesday, NIAID said the HIV vaccine regimen tested among men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people was safe but did not provide protection against HIV acquisition, an independent data and safety monitoring board had determined.

A spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson noted in light of the board’s determination, the Mosaico clinical trial will be discontinued. Participant notifications and further analyses of the data are underway. Throughout the trial, study investigators have ensured that any individuals who contracted HIV received prompt HIV treatment and care.

Both Johnson & Johnson and NIAID stressed that no safety issues with the vaccine regimen were identified.

“We are disappointed with this outcome and stand in solidarity with the people and communities vulnerable to and affected by HIV,” said Penny Heaton, M.D., Global Therapeutic Area Head, Vaccines, Janssen Research & Development, LLC. “Though there have been significant advances in prevention since the beginning of the global epidemic, 1.5 million people acquired HIV in 2021 alone, underscoring the high unmet need for new options and why we have long worked to tackle this global health challenge. We remain steadfast in our commitment to advancing innovation in HIV, and we hope the data from Mosaico will provide insights for future efforts to develop a safe and effective vaccine. We are grateful to our Mosaico partners and the study investigators, staff and participants.”

Janssen Vaccines & Prevention sponsored the Mosaico study with funding support from NIAID, part of the National Institutes of Health. The trial was conducted by the NIAID-funded HIV Vaccine Clinical Trials Network, based at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. The U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command provided additional study support.

The Phase 3 Mosaico Study:

Mosaico, a Phase 3 study of Janssen’s investigational HIV vaccine regimen, began in 2019, and completed vaccinations in October 2022. The study included approximately 3,900 cisgender men and transgender people who have sex with cisgender men and/or transgender people, who represent groups and populations vulnerable to HIV, at over 50 trial sites in Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Spain and the United States.

The study evaluated an investigational vaccine regimen containing a mosaic-based adenovirus serotype 26 vector (Ad26.Mos4.HIV) administered during four vaccination visits over one year. A mix of soluble proteins (Clade C/Mosaic gp140, adjuvanted with aluminum phosphate) was also administered at visits three and four.

The Mosaico DSMB analysis, based on the data available to date, indicated that the regimen does not protect against HIV and the study is not expected to meet its primary endpoint. No safety issues with the vaccine regimen were identified. In light of this, the study will be discontinued, and further analyses are underway.

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Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight dazzle World AIDS Day concert 

“As millions remain affected by HIV/AIDS, World AIDS Day provides an opportunity to honor those we’ve lost and those living with HIV/AIDS”

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Patti LaBelle performs onstage during World AIDS Day 2022 at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on November 30, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation)

WASHINGTON – The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) hosted its 2022 World AIDS Day Concert on Wednesday, Nov. 30, in the concert hall of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the nation’s capital.

Renowned multi-Grammy Award-winning vocalists Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight delivered show-stopping performances to the packed crowd, which included supporters, dignitaries such as: Harold Phillips, Director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy; White House Senior Advisor for Public Engagement, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, and New Orleans Mayor, Mayor LaToya Cantrell, and more, in a night of hope and celebration.

The legendary Gladys Knight performs at the Kennedy Center during a free concert hosted by AHF to commemorate World AIDS Day on December 1, 2022, in Washington.
(Joy Asico/AP Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation)

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), is the world’s largest HIV/AIDS care provider, currently operating in 45 countries. The concert is held every year to commemorate World AIDS Day, observed internationally each year on Dec. 1. This year also marked the global organization’s 35th anniversary. 

At the event, longtime humanitarian and AIDS advocate, Princess Diana was honored, posthumously, with AHF’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Under its “Keep the Promise!” banner, AHF also acknowledged progress made in the global fight against HIV and AIDS and continues to raise awareness about “The Other Pandemic” as a reminder of the significant work still to be done on HIV/AIDS, as well as remembering the lives that have been lost over the years.  

Legendary entertainers Patti LaBelle (L) Gladys Knight (C) and AHF President Michael Weinstein, together at The Kennedy Center during a free concert hosted by AHF to commemorate World AIDS Day on December 1, 2022, in Washington.
(Joy Asico/AP Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation)

Michael Weinstein, President of AHF, said, “As millions remain affected by HIV/AIDS around the globe, World AIDS Day annually provides an opportunity to honor those we’ve lost and those living with HIV/AIDS today, as well as reminding leaders and the community of the work that still remains to address this epidemic. From providing compassionate AIDS hospice care in those darkest early days to growing to become the largest global AIDS organization today, now providing lifesaving care and treatment to more than 1.7 million people around the globe, we also celebrate the tireless work of all those who help make today’s AHF possible: our staff, Board, affiliate organizations and affinity groups, friends, family and elected officials and community partners across the globe, but most of all, our clients and patients—with our annual 2022 World AIDS Day event. It was a momentous night to host our World AIDS Day concert at The Kennedy Center for the first time, and welcome back the legendary Patti LaBelle, and have another great American icon, Gladys Knight join us, while also being able to honor the legacy and humanitarian work of the late Princess Diana.”

President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Michael Weinstein and Director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, Harold Phillips attend World AIDS Day 2022 at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on November 30, 2022 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation)
Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee and Patti LaBelle attend World AIDS Day 2022 at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on November 30, 2022 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation)
Derek J. attends World AIDS Day 2022 at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on November 30, 2022 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation)
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