i remember my very first friend, monti tetro, who had aids. i met him at a tacky trashy party in the early 70's on the upperwestside. monti was the only one at the party willing to sit on the floor with me even tho it did not seem the proper protocol. monti spoke several languages and lived in a luxurious yet simple dormer apartment in the ansonia hotel while living the gay life of 1970's New York City.
he passed with aids in '82? we didn't know what it was then, or how to get it. when i went to the hospital and and found one of the most beautiful men i had ever met starving to death because of this gay desease that turned out to be aids. I was dumb founded and asked myself, in ignorance, why isn't he eating -- this can't happen in america!
no one at the hospital would come near him without masks/gloves/frocks. i kissed him on the forehead when we met. i touch his dry skin and attempted to confort him. i am glad i went, even tho he asked for the return of the gorgeous statue of shiva i loved so much, and was hoping to keep, just two weeks before he died.
chris was another story..............
i have noticed since the early 80's, that every ten years we all need to discuss aids again, for the new generation that has come up. we may never assume that people should know, we all need to teach.
love,
merlin
(first post on mothernyc)
Judge Orders City To Provide AIDS Services In Timely Manner
AIDS advocates are applauding a federal judge's ruling that orders the New York City Division of AIDS Services and Income Support to provide benefits and services in a timely manner to thousands of New Yorkers living with AIDS.
In the ruling, dated Dec. 11, Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. of the Eastern District Court of New York ordered the city to comply with existing legal mandates requiring the city to provide the benefits and services in a timely manner. The ruling also requires DASIS to issue dated receipts indicating the time of requests for assistance made by DASIS clients.
In September 2000, Johnson issued a 97-page ruling that said the city's "widespread and systemic failure" to provide services to people living with HIV and AIDS violated the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as state law.
That scathing ruling appointed a federal magistrate judge to monitor DASIS for three years to ensure things improve, giving the magistrate the power to recommend penalties and sanctions if she found DASIS did not improve its service to people with AIDS. Johnson also wrote that DASIS consistently closed cases for no reason, leaving clients without needed benefits, and that DASIS, by its own admission, retaliated against clients who sought remedies by closing their cases again, even after being ordered by courts to reopen them.
The city appealed Johnson's ruling, which stemmed from a class-action lawsuit against the city, first brought in 1995 by Housing Works, the HIV Law Project, and the firm Pillsbury Winthrop LLP.
The suit charged that the city was violating federal and state law by failing to house people with AIDS on a timely basis or process benefits for them. The case was brought on behalf of thousands of clients of DASIS, an arm of the city Human Resources Administration, that has been a sore point between AIDS activists and the Giuliani administration almost since he took office. In 1994, Giuliani sought to dismantle the agency entirely.
Armen Merjian, a staff lawyer for Housing Works, is applauding Johnson's latest ruling.
"It's a wonderful decision -- and long overdue," Merjian said Wednesday.
In addition to having to comply with existing legal mandates, the city must, for three years, operate a troubleshooter system whereby DASIS clients can call in complaints that they're having with DASIS.
"The troubleshooter will exist to expedite resolution of those complaints," explained Merjian.
The troubleshooter will report to Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak, who has been empowered to monitor the city's compliance with the law. The city must also provide monthly reports to the judge regarding its performance -- in particular its timeliness -- in providing benefits and service for which clients are eligible.
A spokesperson from the city's corporation counsel's office did not respond to the Blade's inquiry by presstime.
By Inga Sorensen , NYBlade, December 21
--------------------------------------------------
AIDS advocates are applauding a federal judge's ruling that orders the New York City Division of AIDS Services and Income Support to provide benefits and services in a timely manner to thousands of New Yorkers living with AIDS.
In the ruling, dated Dec. 11, Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. of the Eastern District Court of New York ordered the city to comply with existing legal mandates requiring the city to provide the benefits and services in a timely manner. The ruling also requires DASIS to issue dated receipts indicating the time of requests for assistance made by DASIS clients.
In September 2000, Johnson issued a 97-page ruling that said the city's "widespread and systemic failure" to provide services to people living with HIV and AIDS violated the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as state law.
That scathing ruling appointed a federal magistrate judge to monitor DASIS for three years to ensure things improve, giving the magistrate the power to recommend penalties and sanctions if she found DASIS did not improve its service to people with AIDS. Johnson also wrote that DASIS consistently closed cases for no reason, leaving clients without needed benefits, and that DASIS, by its own admission, retaliated against clients who sought remedies by closing their cases again, even after being ordered by courts to reopen them.
The city appealed Johnson's ruling, which stemmed from a class-action lawsuit against the city, first brought in 1995 by Housing Works, the HIV Law Project, and the firm Pillsbury Winthrop LLP.
The suit charged that the city was violating federal and state law by failing to house people with AIDS on a timely basis or process benefits for them. The case was brought on behalf of thousands of clients of DASIS, an arm of the city Human Resources Administration, that has been a sore point between AIDS activists and the Giuliani administration almost since he took office. In 1994, Giuliani sought to dismantle the agency entirely.
Armen Merjian, a staff lawyer for Housing Works, is applauding Johnson's latest ruling.
"It's a wonderful decision -- and long overdue," Merjian said Wednesday.
In addition to having to comply with existing legal mandates, the city must, for three years, operate a troubleshooter system whereby DASIS clients can call in complaints that they're having with DASIS.
"The troubleshooter will exist to expedite resolution of those complaints," explained Merjian.
The troubleshooter will report to Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak, who has been empowered to monitor the city's compliance with the law. The city must also provide monthly reports to the judge regarding its performance -- in particular its timeliness -- in providing benefits and service for which clients are eligible.
A spokesperson from the city's corporation counsel's office did not respond to the Blade's inquiry by presstime.
By Inga Sorensen , NYBlade, December 21
--------------------------------------------------
It's about time you joined the party Merlin, we've been waiting for you.
Confronted with reports of increasing sexually transmitted diseases and new HIV infections among gay and bisexual men, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is embarking on a campaign to reverse those trends.
"We want to make sure that these issues stay highly elevated, that issues related to HIV prevention continue to be discussed in a productive manner and not let people revert to the most simplistic explanation that HIV prevention doesn�t work,� said Dr. Ronald O. Valdisseri, deputy director of the CDC�s National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention.
Over the past three months the CDC has held four meetings with community groups, and state and local health agencies to talk about recent developments in the AIDS epidemic and HIV prevention for men. Valdisseri and Terry Hammond, a CDC media relations director, sat down with LGNY for an hour-long chat on December 11 as part of the effort to raise the profile of HIV prevention.
The CDC issued a bulletin earlier this year raising the alarm over what might be a resurgent HIV epidemic among gay men. The bulletin also detailed prevention efforts for men who have sex with men. The agency will issue a guidance to AIDS groups that is meant to help those agencies in delivering HIV prevention services to gay and bisexual men.
Researchers give a number of reasons for some gay men giving up safe sex practices. Drugs and alcohol can lead men to be unsafe or they may have grown tired of being safe. A desire for a feeling of greater intimacy makes some toss the condoms. New and effective treatments may make the disease seem less threatening.
�When people became infected in the '80s it was a death sentence,� Valdisseri said. �It isn�t anymore... That perhaps doesn�t give us the contextual oomph that we had earlier in the epidemic.�
At the same time, some in the gay community have said that the AIDS epidemic is over. Andrew Sullivan made that point in �When Plagues End: Notes on the Twilight of an Epidemic� for The New York Times Magazine article in 1996. One group, Act UP/San Francisco, has attacked researchers and journalists who have reported studies showing increasing STDs and HIV infections among gay men.
The gay men�s health movement wants to make AIDS no more important and no less important than any other health concern. Eric Rofes, a Californian who is a leading voice in that movement, has said that while AIDS remains a community concern it is no longer a crisis. Rofes has also objected to what he has termed the overly sensational coverage of recent studies on STD and HIV increases among gay men.
�There are certainly a few people who continue to try to discount it,� said Terry Hammond, a CDC media relations director. �Whether that is because they are misinformed or whether that is purposeful who knows, but I�ve seen no reasonable epidemiologist who looked at all of these data taken together who said �This is not a problem.��
�We�d like to see this stay on the agenda,� Hammond said. �I think that some of the more traditional gay community organizations have moved on to other issues.�
Burnout may have reached prevention professionals as well. In a recent interview with gay.com, Dr. Thomas Coates, the head of San Francisco�s Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, suggested that the community should surrender when asked how the gay community can stem the spread of HIV.
�Well, maybe we should just stop,� Coates said. �Maybe we should just make lots of condoms available... and just accept that every year there will be a certain percentage of people who will get HIV... AIDS just is not the dreaded disease it once was in the gay community, and, perhaps, people are taking risks because they have other priorities such as feeling loved, feeling desired, and getting laid.�
Coates did propose a second option that included analysis of who was getting infected today and focusing prevention efforts on those men.
�I�m not sure what Tom�s motives were, but I think that, in what he says, it gives anyone, the listener, the reader, a sense of how complicated this is,� Valdisseri said. �There are overriding emotional motives, there are other health concerns and those make it difficult.�
Additionally, the prevention push comes as the Bush administration is scrutinizing the CDC�s HIV prevention budget. Some rightwing groups and elected officials have called for those funds to be slashed.
�We are going to be entering an era where a lot of folks are going to be asking questions about HIV prevention,� Valdisseri said. �The way I look at it is that there are going to be a lot of questions being asked about what works and how can we make our programs more effective. I think if they ask those questions and they inform that discussion then that will be helpful for us.�
Indeed, as the AIDS epidemic enters its third decade there are more questions about the success of HIV prevention. New York City will spend $33.0 million on HIV prevention this year. The Big Apple is seeing a syphilis outbreak and increasing new HIV infections among gay and bisexual men.
City testing of 436 anonymous blood samples collected at STD clinics in 1999 from gay and bisexual men found that 8.4 percent of the gay men had been infected that year. The incidence rate, or the percent newly infected in a year, among bisexual men was 4.9 percent. Other studies have shown infection high rates among African-American and Latino men.
"This is an incidence rate in men who have sex with men that we have not seen since the late 1980s,� said Dr. Lucia V. Torian, director of AIDS research and HIV sero-surveys at the city health department, in March.
San Francisco will spend $16.0 million on HIV prevention this year yet that city found that incidence among men who have sex with men using HIV testing sites there climbed from 1.3 percent in 1997 to 2.6 percent in 1998 to 3.7 percent in 1999.
Valdisseri said he did not know enough about any city to comment on their HIV prevention efforts, but he did offer a general response.
�Despite the fact that we might say that, relatively speaking, San Francisco has a lot of resources, one hypothesis might be it is still not enough,� he said. �After all we do have more people living with HIV now than at any other time in the past and more and more diverse populations.�
It might also be that the programs are not right for the communities they are reaching, Valdisseri said. He noted that marketers in the private sector regularly change their messages in response to marketplace tastes.
�I don�t know that public health does that to the degree that it should,� Valdisseri said. �First of all, we don�t often have the resources to do that and, sometimes, we don�t have the expertise to do that.�
Despite the obstacles the CDC is forging ahead. The agency sounded the alarm earlier this year and it will continue.
�The whole picture was such that we thought that that information was adequate for action,� Valdisseri said. �I would still say it�s a very worthwhile investment of resources to prevent people from becoming infected with HIV.�
By DUNCAN OSBORNE
LGNY, January 3, 2002
------------------------------------------------
"We want to make sure that these issues stay highly elevated, that issues related to HIV prevention continue to be discussed in a productive manner and not let people revert to the most simplistic explanation that HIV prevention doesn�t work,� said Dr. Ronald O. Valdisseri, deputy director of the CDC�s National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention.
Over the past three months the CDC has held four meetings with community groups, and state and local health agencies to talk about recent developments in the AIDS epidemic and HIV prevention for men. Valdisseri and Terry Hammond, a CDC media relations director, sat down with LGNY for an hour-long chat on December 11 as part of the effort to raise the profile of HIV prevention.
The CDC issued a bulletin earlier this year raising the alarm over what might be a resurgent HIV epidemic among gay men. The bulletin also detailed prevention efforts for men who have sex with men. The agency will issue a guidance to AIDS groups that is meant to help those agencies in delivering HIV prevention services to gay and bisexual men.
Researchers give a number of reasons for some gay men giving up safe sex practices. Drugs and alcohol can lead men to be unsafe or they may have grown tired of being safe. A desire for a feeling of greater intimacy makes some toss the condoms. New and effective treatments may make the disease seem less threatening.
�When people became infected in the '80s it was a death sentence,� Valdisseri said. �It isn�t anymore... That perhaps doesn�t give us the contextual oomph that we had earlier in the epidemic.�
At the same time, some in the gay community have said that the AIDS epidemic is over. Andrew Sullivan made that point in �When Plagues End: Notes on the Twilight of an Epidemic� for The New York Times Magazine article in 1996. One group, Act UP/San Francisco, has attacked researchers and journalists who have reported studies showing increasing STDs and HIV infections among gay men.
The gay men�s health movement wants to make AIDS no more important and no less important than any other health concern. Eric Rofes, a Californian who is a leading voice in that movement, has said that while AIDS remains a community concern it is no longer a crisis. Rofes has also objected to what he has termed the overly sensational coverage of recent studies on STD and HIV increases among gay men.
�There are certainly a few people who continue to try to discount it,� said Terry Hammond, a CDC media relations director. �Whether that is because they are misinformed or whether that is purposeful who knows, but I�ve seen no reasonable epidemiologist who looked at all of these data taken together who said �This is not a problem.��
�We�d like to see this stay on the agenda,� Hammond said. �I think that some of the more traditional gay community organizations have moved on to other issues.�
Burnout may have reached prevention professionals as well. In a recent interview with gay.com, Dr. Thomas Coates, the head of San Francisco�s Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, suggested that the community should surrender when asked how the gay community can stem the spread of HIV.
�Well, maybe we should just stop,� Coates said. �Maybe we should just make lots of condoms available... and just accept that every year there will be a certain percentage of people who will get HIV... AIDS just is not the dreaded disease it once was in the gay community, and, perhaps, people are taking risks because they have other priorities such as feeling loved, feeling desired, and getting laid.�
Coates did propose a second option that included analysis of who was getting infected today and focusing prevention efforts on those men.
�I�m not sure what Tom�s motives were, but I think that, in what he says, it gives anyone, the listener, the reader, a sense of how complicated this is,� Valdisseri said. �There are overriding emotional motives, there are other health concerns and those make it difficult.�
Additionally, the prevention push comes as the Bush administration is scrutinizing the CDC�s HIV prevention budget. Some rightwing groups and elected officials have called for those funds to be slashed.
�We are going to be entering an era where a lot of folks are going to be asking questions about HIV prevention,� Valdisseri said. �The way I look at it is that there are going to be a lot of questions being asked about what works and how can we make our programs more effective. I think if they ask those questions and they inform that discussion then that will be helpful for us.�
Indeed, as the AIDS epidemic enters its third decade there are more questions about the success of HIV prevention. New York City will spend $33.0 million on HIV prevention this year. The Big Apple is seeing a syphilis outbreak and increasing new HIV infections among gay and bisexual men.
City testing of 436 anonymous blood samples collected at STD clinics in 1999 from gay and bisexual men found that 8.4 percent of the gay men had been infected that year. The incidence rate, or the percent newly infected in a year, among bisexual men was 4.9 percent. Other studies have shown infection high rates among African-American and Latino men.
"This is an incidence rate in men who have sex with men that we have not seen since the late 1980s,� said Dr. Lucia V. Torian, director of AIDS research and HIV sero-surveys at the city health department, in March.
San Francisco will spend $16.0 million on HIV prevention this year yet that city found that incidence among men who have sex with men using HIV testing sites there climbed from 1.3 percent in 1997 to 2.6 percent in 1998 to 3.7 percent in 1999.
Valdisseri said he did not know enough about any city to comment on their HIV prevention efforts, but he did offer a general response.
�Despite the fact that we might say that, relatively speaking, San Francisco has a lot of resources, one hypothesis might be it is still not enough,� he said. �After all we do have more people living with HIV now than at any other time in the past and more and more diverse populations.�
It might also be that the programs are not right for the communities they are reaching, Valdisseri said. He noted that marketers in the private sector regularly change their messages in response to marketplace tastes.
�I don�t know that public health does that to the degree that it should,� Valdisseri said. �First of all, we don�t often have the resources to do that and, sometimes, we don�t have the expertise to do that.�
Despite the obstacles the CDC is forging ahead. The agency sounded the alarm earlier this year and it will continue.
�The whole picture was such that we thought that that information was adequate for action,� Valdisseri said. �I would still say it�s a very worthwhile investment of resources to prevent people from becoming infected with HIV.�
By DUNCAN OSBORNE
LGNY, January 3, 2002
------------------------------------------------
(Saturday January 12, 9AM-5PM.)
This conference is sponsored by HX & Abbott Laboratories and presented by NYU, Body Positive, and the Center for HIV/AIDS Education Studies and Trainng (CHEST). Speakers include MD's from New York Blood Center, St. Vincent's Hospital, Harvard School of Medecine and New York University.
Space is limited so make reservations now!
(212)566-7333 X10--For more info. and registration call Kim.
(212)566-7333 15--To reserve a table call Tim.
--------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 01-24-02 at 03:35 AM.]
This conference is sponsored by HX & Abbott Laboratories and presented by NYU, Body Positive, and the Center for HIV/AIDS Education Studies and Trainng (CHEST). Speakers include MD's from New York Blood Center, St. Vincent's Hospital, Harvard School of Medecine and New York University.
Space is limited so make reservations now!
(212)566-7333 X10--For more info. and registration call Kim.
(212)566-7333 15--To reserve a table call Tim.
--------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 01-24-02 at 03:35 AM.]
(Wednesdays, 8PM.)
Information on alternative treatment.
(718)873-0780
-------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 01-16-02 at 02:01 AM.]
Information on alternative treatment.
(718)873-0780
-------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 01-16-02 at 02:01 AM.]
(Wednesdays, 6:30PM, Through March, 2002. Free.)
Join a support group for recently diagnosd men who have sex with men.
Call Paul for more information:
(212)271-7168
-------------------------------------------------
Join a support group for recently diagnosd men who have sex with men.
Call Paul for more information:
(212)271-7168
-------------------------------------------------
(Thursday February 14, 6PM)
(Thursday January 17, 6PM.)
Self-help support group for HIV negative men who cannot stop having unsafe sex.
Call Lou for details:
(212)673-0392
--------------------------------------------------
*AIDS Vaccine 3-Day*
-To Benefit UCLA AIDS Institute, Aasron Diamond AIDS Research Center, and he Emory Vaccine Center-
(Friday July 19th-Sunday July 21st, 2002.)
A 3-day/60 mile march from Bear Mountain,NY to Manhattan to help search for the AIDS vaccine. The march is designed for people of all ages, shapes and sizes. "Mobile City" will provide hot meals, showers, massage and chiropractic services.
For catalogue:
1-(800)378-1525
Or online:
www.BeThePeople.com
-------------------------------------------------
*The Smart Couples Project*
-For Couples Involving One Positve and One Negative HIV Partner-
A research study requiring several paid confidential interviews that will make you eligible to enter a program that helps you and your partner deal with medical and HIV.
Sponsored by the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the NYS Psychiatric Institute in conjunction with the St. Luke's-Roosevelt Center for Comprhensive Care.
For Information:
(212)740-3202
--------------------------------------------------
*Spellbound/Blue Ball 2002*
-To Benefit.."Philadelphia Fight"-
The area's largest AIDS organization providing services regardless of ability to pay, research, prevention and education.
One of the biggest circuit parties with a large roster of DJs, drag and other varied performances and entertainment.
Drag Entertainment includes:
Blue Redo Galz do a little "tu-tu" stepping.
Azure, Periwinkle and Cobalt will take center stage for the premiere performance of the "Dance of the Blue Wigs," with a little help from their back-up dancers, the men and women of the Pennsylvania Ballet. Don't ask. Just be there. At the Trocadero Theatre Sunday night for the famed Blue Redo Closing Party.
Shamblue
@Shampoo
8th & Willow Streets
Philadelphia, Pa
(215)922-7500
For full information on in-person & online tickets, full schedule of events, DJs and performers, hotel packages,etc.:
www.blueballphilly.com
--------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 01-16-02 at 04:14 AM.]
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 02-13-02 at 09:30 PM.]
(Thursday January 17, 6PM.)
Self-help support group for HIV negative men who cannot stop having unsafe sex.
Call Lou for details:
(212)673-0392
--------------------------------------------------
*AIDS Vaccine 3-Day*
-To Benefit UCLA AIDS Institute, Aasron Diamond AIDS Research Center, and he Emory Vaccine Center-
(Friday July 19th-Sunday July 21st, 2002.)
A 3-day/60 mile march from Bear Mountain,NY to Manhattan to help search for the AIDS vaccine. The march is designed for people of all ages, shapes and sizes. "Mobile City" will provide hot meals, showers, massage and chiropractic services.
For catalogue:
1-(800)378-1525
Or online:
www.BeThePeople.com
-------------------------------------------------
*The Smart Couples Project*
-For Couples Involving One Positve and One Negative HIV Partner-
A research study requiring several paid confidential interviews that will make you eligible to enter a program that helps you and your partner deal with medical and HIV.
Sponsored by the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the NYS Psychiatric Institute in conjunction with the St. Luke's-Roosevelt Center for Comprhensive Care.
For Information:
(212)740-3202
--------------------------------------------------
*Spellbound/Blue Ball 2002*
-To Benefit.."Philadelphia Fight"-
The area's largest AIDS organization providing services regardless of ability to pay, research, prevention and education.
One of the biggest circuit parties with a large roster of DJs, drag and other varied performances and entertainment.
Drag Entertainment includes:
Blue Redo Galz do a little "tu-tu" stepping.
Azure, Periwinkle and Cobalt will take center stage for the premiere performance of the "Dance of the Blue Wigs," with a little help from their back-up dancers, the men and women of the Pennsylvania Ballet. Don't ask. Just be there. At the Trocadero Theatre Sunday night for the famed Blue Redo Closing Party.
Shamblue
@Shampoo
8th & Willow Streets
Philadelphia, Pa
(215)922-7500
For full information on in-person & online tickets, full schedule of events, DJs and performers, hotel packages,etc.:
www.blueballphilly.com
--------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 01-16-02 at 04:14 AM.]
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 02-13-02 at 09:30 PM.]
*Date Bait: HIV+Event*
(Saturday January 26.)
Fun, structured and result-oriented singles mixers.
@LGBT Center
208 West 13th Street
(212)971-1084..(Call for time - how it works.)
www.datebait.com
-------------------------------------------------
*You Gotta Have Friends*
Partners in the Fight Against AIDS
-Benefit Concert for GMHC-
(Thursday January 31, 7:30PM, Wide range of prices/packages- Call for more information.)
Hosted by Whoopie Goldberg this benefit features R.E.M., Bruce Vilanch, Jewel, Sweet Honey In The Rock and surprise guests!
@Carnegie Hall
Seventh Avenue & 57th Street
(212)247-7800..Carnegie Charge for Tickets
Benefit Level Tickets include reception with cast:
(212)245-6570..You Gotta Have Friends Office
Tickets online:
www.gmhc.org
*Tickets are also available at Carnegie Hall Box Office.
-------------------------------------------------
*Alchemy 4*
-Morning Benefit for amFAR's HIV/AIDS Directory-
(Sunday January 20, 10AM-8:30PM, $65,
DJs:Michael Duretto, Carlos Pedraza.)
@Snapper Bear Stuios
8 Bond Street
(212806-1558
(212)806-1601
alchemy@amfar.org
www.boxofficetckets.com
1-800-494 TIXS
-------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 01-24-02 at 03:36 AM.]
(Saturday January 26.)
Fun, structured and result-oriented singles mixers.
@LGBT Center
208 West 13th Street
(212)971-1084..(Call for time - how it works.)
www.datebait.com
-------------------------------------------------
*You Gotta Have Friends*
Partners in the Fight Against AIDS
-Benefit Concert for GMHC-
(Thursday January 31, 7:30PM, Wide range of prices/packages- Call for more information.)
Hosted by Whoopie Goldberg this benefit features R.E.M., Bruce Vilanch, Jewel, Sweet Honey In The Rock and surprise guests!
@Carnegie Hall
Seventh Avenue & 57th Street
(212)247-7800..Carnegie Charge for Tickets
Benefit Level Tickets include reception with cast:
(212)245-6570..You Gotta Have Friends Office
Tickets online:
www.gmhc.org
*Tickets are also available at Carnegie Hall Box Office.
-------------------------------------------------
*Alchemy 4*
-Morning Benefit for amFAR's HIV/AIDS Directory-
(Sunday January 20, 10AM-8:30PM, $65,
DJs:Michael Duretto, Carlos Pedraza.)
@Snapper Bear Stuios
8 Bond Street
(212806-1558
(212)806-1601
alchemy@amfar.org
www.boxofficetckets.com
1-800-494 TIXS
-------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 01-24-02 at 03:36 AM.]
(Monday January 28, 3AM, Sundance Channel.)
Paul Monette won a National Book Award for his 1992 memoires.
He collaborated with Monte Bramer and Lesli Klainberg shortly before his death to document his life with AIDS.
--------------------------------------------------
Paul Monette won a National Book Award for his 1992 memoires.
He collaborated with Monte Bramer and Lesli Klainberg shortly before his death to document his life with AIDS.
--------------------------------------------------
-Benefits Body Positive-
(First & Third Tuesdays of the Month, 6PM-9PM, $10.)
Gay Professionals of all stripes socialize and network.
@XL
357 West 16th Street
(Bet. 8th & 9th Avenues)
(212)995-1400
------------------------------------------------
*Northeast AIDSRide*
(Orientation-Every Monday from January 7-June 3rd and every second Saturday from January-May. Ride takes place June 20th-23rd.)
A 350 mile bicycle ride from Bear Mountain, NY to Boston, Massachusetts to benefit AIDS service organizations that the ride passes through. Benefits will include drug availability, counseling, education, and meals to homebound.
Palotta TeamWork's holds orientation sessions for the upcoming ride, for first year riders and those considering participating. Session lasts for 1 1/2 hours. Short video, discussions of training for the event and fundraising.
(800)825-1000...for more information
www.bethepeople.com
--------------------------------------------------
Concerns over AIDS Funding
By Inga Sorensen
New York Blade, January 25, 2002
In its Jan. 22 AIDS Issues Update, the New York City AIDS organization Housing Works sounded the alarm over Pataki's spending plan, saying the proposal "moves to eliminate several crucial AIDS service programs and to carry out multimillion dollar cuts to others � for the second year in a row."
According to Housing Works, Pataki has again proposed cutting $7.9 million in funding for 175 AIDS service providers around the state. Pataki's plan, it says, would eliminate two crucial AIDS programs: the treatment adherence program, which helps people living with AIDS and HIV comply with complicated medication schedules of up to 70 pills a day; and the permanency planning program, which helps HIV-positive parents plan for the care of their young children in the event of death or long-term hospitalization.
Housing Works is also angry that Pataki has proposed a $10 million cut in the Homeless Housing Assistance Program, which provides construction funding for supportive housing programs and is New York's largest source of new apartments for homeless people living with AIDS and HIV.
Additionally, it charges that Pataki's budget "fails to address the crisis of AIDS in communities of color, and would carry out multimillion dollar cuts to community-based AIDS service providers already reeling from similar cuts in last year�s 'bare-bones' budget."
"AIDS cases in New York are up by 58 percent and homelessness here is at an all-time high. Our state needs to do more to fight AIDS and house the homeless, not less," said Michael Kink, Housing Works' legislative counsel in Albany.
Ronald Johnson, associate executive director of Gay Men's Health Crisis, a New York City AIDS group, said, "Until funding levels meet the needs of our communities, we are headed toward letting the crisis control us. We implore Governor Pataki to utilize his 30-day amendment period and commit additional funding to restore previous cuts in HIV/AIDS programming and allocate new funds to fight the epidemic in communities of color."
INFO:
Gov. George Pataki
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224
www.state.ny.us/governor/
------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 01-31-02 at 03:41 AM.]
(First & Third Tuesdays of the Month, 6PM-9PM, $10.)
Gay Professionals of all stripes socialize and network.
@XL
357 West 16th Street
(Bet. 8th & 9th Avenues)
(212)995-1400
------------------------------------------------
*Northeast AIDSRide*
(Orientation-Every Monday from January 7-June 3rd and every second Saturday from January-May. Ride takes place June 20th-23rd.)
A 350 mile bicycle ride from Bear Mountain, NY to Boston, Massachusetts to benefit AIDS service organizations that the ride passes through. Benefits will include drug availability, counseling, education, and meals to homebound.
Palotta TeamWork's holds orientation sessions for the upcoming ride, for first year riders and those considering participating. Session lasts for 1 1/2 hours. Short video, discussions of training for the event and fundraising.
(800)825-1000...for more information
www.bethepeople.com
--------------------------------------------------
Concerns over AIDS Funding
By Inga Sorensen
New York Blade, January 25, 2002
In its Jan. 22 AIDS Issues Update, the New York City AIDS organization Housing Works sounded the alarm over Pataki's spending plan, saying the proposal "moves to eliminate several crucial AIDS service programs and to carry out multimillion dollar cuts to others � for the second year in a row."
According to Housing Works, Pataki has again proposed cutting $7.9 million in funding for 175 AIDS service providers around the state. Pataki's plan, it says, would eliminate two crucial AIDS programs: the treatment adherence program, which helps people living with AIDS and HIV comply with complicated medication schedules of up to 70 pills a day; and the permanency planning program, which helps HIV-positive parents plan for the care of their young children in the event of death or long-term hospitalization.
Housing Works is also angry that Pataki has proposed a $10 million cut in the Homeless Housing Assistance Program, which provides construction funding for supportive housing programs and is New York's largest source of new apartments for homeless people living with AIDS and HIV.
Additionally, it charges that Pataki's budget "fails to address the crisis of AIDS in communities of color, and would carry out multimillion dollar cuts to community-based AIDS service providers already reeling from similar cuts in last year�s 'bare-bones' budget."
"AIDS cases in New York are up by 58 percent and homelessness here is at an all-time high. Our state needs to do more to fight AIDS and house the homeless, not less," said Michael Kink, Housing Works' legislative counsel in Albany.
Ronald Johnson, associate executive director of Gay Men's Health Crisis, a New York City AIDS group, said, "Until funding levels meet the needs of our communities, we are headed toward letting the crisis control us. We implore Governor Pataki to utilize his 30-day amendment period and commit additional funding to restore previous cuts in HIV/AIDS programming and allocate new funds to fight the epidemic in communities of color."
INFO:
Gov. George Pataki
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224
www.state.ny.us/governor/
------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 01-31-02 at 03:41 AM.]
(All of February.)
Donate your clean, used jeans to the Gay Men's Health Crisis and get a 20% discount on brands such as Levi's, Diesel, Energie, G-Star or Lucky Brand when you make the exchange.
@Universal Gear
140 8th Avenue
(212)206-9119
-------------------------------------------------
Donate your clean, used jeans to the Gay Men's Health Crisis and get a 20% discount on brands such as Levi's, Diesel, Energie, G-Star or Lucky Brand when you make the exchange.
@Universal Gear
140 8th Avenue
(212)206-9119
-------------------------------------------------
(Tuesday February 26, 7-9PM, Free.)
A two hour workshop for gay, bisexual men, regardless of HIV status. Bring any questions about HIV transmission, safer sex, testing, oral sex, anal sex, disclosure or whatever else is on your mind.
@GMHC
The Tisch Building
119 West 24th street
(212)807-6655...Hotline
(212)645-7470...TTY (Deaf Access)
www.gmhc.org
--------------------------------------------------
*Open Your Heart*
(Wednesday February 13,
Co-chairs: Susan Sarandon & Alan Cumming, auction follows a reception.)
Fourtenth Annual Baily House Open Your Heart Auction-Items to bid on:
Clothes: John Bartlett, Tommy Hilfiger, Nicole Miller, Todd Oldham, Cynthia Rowley , Phat Farm.
Photographs: David LaChapelle.
Trips: Hawaii, Bali.
Furniture:
One-of-a-kind La-Z-Boy recliners, Matching chairs designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, circa 1938.
Cutting Edge Exercise Equipment:
Enough to open a gym!
@Metropolitan Pavilion
125 West 18th Street
(212)414-2993
www.baileyhouse.org
--------------------------------------------------
*Rouge, Une Fette Boheme*
-Benefit for God's Love We Deliver-
(Thursday February 14, $50-advance, $60-Door,
6-9PM, DJ: Scott Ewalt.)
Twenties, Thirties Parisian/Berlin-style cocktail party with performances by cabaret artists Daniel Isengart and Dana Farner.
@The Chambers Hotel
15 West 56th Street
(212)414-0306
-------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 02-12-02 at 03:06 PM.]
A two hour workshop for gay, bisexual men, regardless of HIV status. Bring any questions about HIV transmission, safer sex, testing, oral sex, anal sex, disclosure or whatever else is on your mind.
@GMHC
The Tisch Building
119 West 24th street
(212)807-6655...Hotline
(212)645-7470...TTY (Deaf Access)
www.gmhc.org
--------------------------------------------------
*Open Your Heart*
(Wednesday February 13,
Co-chairs: Susan Sarandon & Alan Cumming, auction follows a reception.)
Fourtenth Annual Baily House Open Your Heart Auction-Items to bid on:
Clothes: John Bartlett, Tommy Hilfiger, Nicole Miller, Todd Oldham, Cynthia Rowley , Phat Farm.
Photographs: David LaChapelle.
Trips: Hawaii, Bali.
Furniture:
One-of-a-kind La-Z-Boy recliners, Matching chairs designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, circa 1938.
Cutting Edge Exercise Equipment:
Enough to open a gym!
@Metropolitan Pavilion
125 West 18th Street
(212)414-2993
www.baileyhouse.org
--------------------------------------------------
*Rouge, Une Fette Boheme*
-Benefit for God's Love We Deliver-
(Thursday February 14, $50-advance, $60-Door,
6-9PM, DJ: Scott Ewalt.)
Twenties, Thirties Parisian/Berlin-style cocktail party with performances by cabaret artists Daniel Isengart and Dana Farner.
@The Chambers Hotel
15 West 56th Street
(212)414-0306
-------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 02-12-02 at 03:06 PM.]
*Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS*
(Sunday February 10)
Yearly auction of one-of-a-kind teddy bears in replica costumes of famous Broaway shows, autographed be the likes of Nathan Lane, Reba McEntire, Kate Burton, Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews, Christine Ebersole, Stephen Sondheim and others.
@B.B.King Blues Club & Grill
237 West 42nd Street
(212)997-4144
(212)997-4511
--------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 02-09-02 at 07:47 AM.]
(Sunday February 10)
Yearly auction of one-of-a-kind teddy bears in replica costumes of famous Broaway shows, autographed be the likes of Nathan Lane, Reba McEntire, Kate Burton, Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews, Christine Ebersole, Stephen Sondheim and others.
@B.B.King Blues Club & Grill
237 West 42nd Street
(212)997-4144
(212)997-4511
--------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 02-09-02 at 07:47 AM.]
*Screen Door*
-Benefit for God's Love We Deliver
& TweedTheatreWorks-
(Monday Feburary 18, 8PM, $25, $45, $75, $100-includes postshow reception, $250-reception, priorty seating, gift bag. After party at Jack Rose.)
Campy staged reading of classic Hollywood film, "Stage Door", who's cast included starlets Katherine Hepburn. Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball, and Ann Miller.
Given a down to earth (with a chuckle) new title-"Screen Door" and with one of today's most happening downtown club headliners- Jackie Hoffman, leading uptown lady- Blaine Trump, drag's most polished divas-Varla Jean Merman & Charles Busch, the funniest commedienne ever-Joan Rivers, and to name just a few favorites thrown in- Mary Birdsong & Sheila MacRae-- This sounds like a Win/Win Situation! ...Directed by Kevin Malony.
@Town Hall
123 West 43rd Street
(Bet.Sixth & Seventh Avenues)
(212)294-8138...Tickets/Michael Lombardi
Tickets also sold in person @Town Hall Box Office
-------------------------------------------------
*ABsolutely POZitive*
(Friday February 15, 7PM-11PM.)
NYC Pos Social Party
@Posh
405 West 51st Street
www.Dress-Sire.com/party/
-------------------------------------------------
-Benefit for God's Love We Deliver
& TweedTheatreWorks-
(Monday Feburary 18, 8PM, $25, $45, $75, $100-includes postshow reception, $250-reception, priorty seating, gift bag. After party at Jack Rose.)
Campy staged reading of classic Hollywood film, "Stage Door", who's cast included starlets Katherine Hepburn. Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball, and Ann Miller.
Given a down to earth (with a chuckle) new title-"Screen Door" and with one of today's most happening downtown club headliners- Jackie Hoffman, leading uptown lady- Blaine Trump, drag's most polished divas-Varla Jean Merman & Charles Busch, the funniest commedienne ever-Joan Rivers, and to name just a few favorites thrown in- Mary Birdsong & Sheila MacRae-- This sounds like a Win/Win Situation! ...Directed by Kevin Malony.
@Town Hall
123 West 43rd Street
(Bet.Sixth & Seventh Avenues)
(212)294-8138...Tickets/Michael Lombardi
Tickets also sold in person @Town Hall Box Office
-------------------------------------------------
*ABsolutely POZitive*
(Friday February 15, 7PM-11PM.)
NYC Pos Social Party
@Posh
405 West 51st Street
www.Dress-Sire.com/party/
-------------------------------------------------
Will Gorges & Garrett Kimball present:
*Ski Daze 2002*
-Donation to Utah AIDS Foundation-
(Thursday-Sunday February 28-March 3,
Three day party pass-$50.)
Ski at Utah's best resorts, BBQ parties on the slopes, Club parties, Ski Daze Ball.
(310)360-7852... Call Eris-Flights/car rentals
(323)866-7018..All Tix
(1,2,3 day ski & party passes)
Hotel Wyndham SLC
(801)531-7500...mention Ski Days for packages
For party passes:
www.willandgarrett.com
--------------------------------------------------
*Ski Daze 2002*
-Donation to Utah AIDS Foundation-
(Thursday-Sunday February 28-March 3,
Three day party pass-$50.)
Ski at Utah's best resorts, BBQ parties on the slopes, Club parties, Ski Daze Ball.
(310)360-7852... Call Eris-Flights/car rentals
(323)866-7018..All Tix
(1,2,3 day ski & party passes)
Hotel Wyndham SLC
(801)531-7500...mention Ski Days for packages
For party passes:
www.willandgarrett.com
--------------------------------------------------
*Gay Network Series*
-Admission Fee Benefits Body Positive-
(First & Third Tuesdays of the Month, 6-9PM, $10.)
Get to know people and help a worthy cause at the same time.
@xl
357 West 16th Street
(Bet. 8th & 9th Avenues.)
(212)977-6498
-------------------------------------------------
-Admission Fee Benefits Body Positive-
(First & Third Tuesdays of the Month, 6-9PM, $10.)
Get to know people and help a worthy cause at the same time.
@xl
357 West 16th Street
(Bet. 8th & 9th Avenues.)
(212)977-6498
-------------------------------------------------
State Sen. Tom Duane wants to see a more efficient system for people to access HIV/AIDS services in the Empire State.
State Sen. Tom Duane, a gay Manhattan Democrat, is sponsoring legislation that would create a state Division of AIDS Services aimed at streamlining HIV/AIDS-related services.
Duane and Brooklyn Assemblymember Roger Green, flanked by AIDS advocates, announced the bill?s introduction during a Feb. 9 press conference in New York City.
According to Duane, a state Division of AIDS Services would provide New Yorkers with HIV/AIDS easier access to benefits and services, as well as provide intensive case management to address individual needs.
It would assist in such areas as transitional and permanent housing, Medicaid, long-term care, home care, food stamps, rent subsidies, financial benefits and child care.
Currently, New York state provides AIDS services by funding city- and community-based programs.
"It is outrageous that many New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS have no idea what benefits and services are available to them," said Duane. "DAS will provide one stop access to these services and will enhance the quality of life for countless New Yorkers."
Green, the Assembly sponsor, said that a state Division of AIDS Services would "ensure quality and timely service delivery" to affected communities throughout New York.
The bill is S.6035/A.9678.
NYBlade, Feb. 15, By INGA SORENSEN
------------------------------------------------
*Act-Up*
Mondays, 7:30PM
AIDS coalition to Unleash Power general meeting.
(212)966-4873..for information
--------------------------------------------------
State Sen. Tom Duane, a gay Manhattan Democrat, is sponsoring legislation that would create a state Division of AIDS Services aimed at streamlining HIV/AIDS-related services.
Duane and Brooklyn Assemblymember Roger Green, flanked by AIDS advocates, announced the bill?s introduction during a Feb. 9 press conference in New York City.
According to Duane, a state Division of AIDS Services would provide New Yorkers with HIV/AIDS easier access to benefits and services, as well as provide intensive case management to address individual needs.
It would assist in such areas as transitional and permanent housing, Medicaid, long-term care, home care, food stamps, rent subsidies, financial benefits and child care.
Currently, New York state provides AIDS services by funding city- and community-based programs.
"It is outrageous that many New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS have no idea what benefits and services are available to them," said Duane. "DAS will provide one stop access to these services and will enhance the quality of life for countless New Yorkers."
Green, the Assembly sponsor, said that a state Division of AIDS Services would "ensure quality and timely service delivery" to affected communities throughout New York.
The bill is S.6035/A.9678.
NYBlade, Feb. 15, By INGA SORENSEN
------------------------------------------------
*Act-Up*
Mondays, 7:30PM
AIDS coalition to Unleash Power general meeting.
(212)966-4873..for information
--------------------------------------------------
(Friday February 22, Slidng Scale Donations..
$5-$25, 8PM, raffle for Babes In Toyland goodies.)
- Benefit to help PWA's w/affordable Housing-
All femle line-up including the band "Company", folk rock's Tunisia Thompson, and singer Maritime.
@Meow Mix
269 East Houston Street
(at Suffolk Street)
(212)254-0688
--------------------------------------------------
*Zookeeper*
(Friday February 22, 7-9PM, Free.)
SoulFood one of GMHC's outreach groups is sponsoring this performance of "Zookeeper" by Juan Shamsul Alam, which explores the impact of AIDS on the Puerto Rican community.
@GMHC
119 West 24th Street
(Bet. Sixth & Seventh Avenues)
(212)254-0688
--------------------------------------------------
$5-$25, 8PM, raffle for Babes In Toyland goodies.)
- Benefit to help PWA's w/affordable Housing-
All femle line-up including the band "Company", folk rock's Tunisia Thompson, and singer Maritime.
@Meow Mix
269 East Houston Street
(at Suffolk Street)
(212)254-0688
--------------------------------------------------
*Zookeeper*
(Friday February 22, 7-9PM, Free.)
SoulFood one of GMHC's outreach groups is sponsoring this performance of "Zookeeper" by Juan Shamsul Alam, which explores the impact of AIDS on the Puerto Rican community.
@GMHC
119 West 24th Street
(Bet. Sixth & Seventh Avenues)
(212)254-0688
--------------------------------------------------
*Trans +*
TransPositive is a 10 week drop-in support group for HIV+ trans-identified persons.
A collaborative effort of Callen-Lorde Community Health Center and The LGBY Community Center.
(212)271-7223..Ray Carannante, MSW @ Callen-Lorde
(212)620-7310..Carrie Davis, Counselor, Gender Identity Project.
--------------------------------------------------
*Toward the Harbor of the New World*
(Thursday February 28, 10:30AM-Noon.)
Panel discussion examines, "critical issues of race identity, gender identity and sexuality that is impacting African Americans in the HIV & AIDS pandemic.
@Gay Men's Health Crisis
119 West 24th Street
(Bet. Sixth & Seventh Avenues)
(212)367-1016
--------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 03-29-02 at 09:58 AM.]
TransPositive is a 10 week drop-in support group for HIV+ trans-identified persons.
A collaborative effort of Callen-Lorde Community Health Center and The LGBY Community Center.
(212)271-7223..Ray Carannante, MSW @ Callen-Lorde
(212)620-7310..Carrie Davis, Counselor, Gender Identity Project.
--------------------------------------------------
*Toward the Harbor of the New World*
(Thursday February 28, 10:30AM-Noon.)
Panel discussion examines, "critical issues of race identity, gender identity and sexuality that is impacting African Americans in the HIV & AIDS pandemic.
@Gay Men's Health Crisis
119 West 24th Street
(Bet. Sixth & Seventh Avenues)
(212)367-1016
--------------------------------------------------
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 03-29-02 at 09:58 AM.]
HUGE ALBANY AIDS DEMONSTRATION ~ APRIL 9th, 2002
Dozens of AIDS groups are fighting in Albany for $12 million in new state AIDS funding targeted directly at the needs of communities of color. This would be the largest increase in AIDS funding in the past decade.
Housing Works, NYAC, Harlem United, the Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, the Latino Commission on AIDS, People of Color in Crisis and others are planning a large demonstration and civil disobedience on Tuesday, APRIL 9 in Albany, before the state budget is final.
The groups involved are aiming for 500 people to take part in the demonstration and for a civil disobedience/direct action on the steps of the Capitol with over 150 people to be arrested. We have pledges from dozens of legislators, ministers and executive directors to take part in the direct action and be arrested.
The arrests will be negotiated with the Capitol Police, and we expect that people will be released within two or three hours with misdemeanor charges.
We will arrange lawyers for all arrestees, who will negotiate reduced or dropped charges for an expected court date a week or so later. This is a fairly "easy" arrest, so those staff and clients who have been thinking about doing direct action
should jump right in. CD trainings will include information on how to check warrant status, etc. for those who may be at risk.
Charles King of Housing Works and other EDs will lead Civil Disobedience/Direct Action training across New York during the month of March. Four trainings are currently scheduled:
Housing Works 594 Broadway:
Thursday, March 14, 3:00 - 5:00 * 6th Floor
Housing Works 743-749 East 9th Street:
Friday, March 15, 3:00 - 5:00 * Downstairs Dining Room
Housing Works 320 West 13th Street:
Thursday, March 21, 3:00 - 5:00 * Large Conference Room
Housing Works East New York
2640 Pitkin Avenue Brooklyn:
Friday, March 29 3:00 - 5:00 * Cafeteria
Additional trainings will be scheduled Uptown, in the Bronx, on Long Island, at People of Color in Crisis in Brooklyn, and in Albany. Other locations considered if enough interest is expressed.
For more information on the action, contact Michael Kink/Mark Hayes in our Albany office at 518-449-4207
kink@housingworks.org
or terri smith-caronia at x1296 at 594 Bway.
------------------------------------------------
Dozens of AIDS groups are fighting in Albany for $12 million in new state AIDS funding targeted directly at the needs of communities of color. This would be the largest increase in AIDS funding in the past decade.
Housing Works, NYAC, Harlem United, the Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, the Latino Commission on AIDS, People of Color in Crisis and others are planning a large demonstration and civil disobedience on Tuesday, APRIL 9 in Albany, before the state budget is final.
The groups involved are aiming for 500 people to take part in the demonstration and for a civil disobedience/direct action on the steps of the Capitol with over 150 people to be arrested. We have pledges from dozens of legislators, ministers and executive directors to take part in the direct action and be arrested.
The arrests will be negotiated with the Capitol Police, and we expect that people will be released within two or three hours with misdemeanor charges.
We will arrange lawyers for all arrestees, who will negotiate reduced or dropped charges for an expected court date a week or so later. This is a fairly "easy" arrest, so those staff and clients who have been thinking about doing direct action
should jump right in. CD trainings will include information on how to check warrant status, etc. for those who may be at risk.
Charles King of Housing Works and other EDs will lead Civil Disobedience/Direct Action training across New York during the month of March. Four trainings are currently scheduled:
Housing Works 594 Broadway:
Thursday, March 14, 3:00 - 5:00 * 6th Floor
Housing Works 743-749 East 9th Street:
Friday, March 15, 3:00 - 5:00 * Downstairs Dining Room
Housing Works 320 West 13th Street:
Thursday, March 21, 3:00 - 5:00 * Large Conference Room
Housing Works East New York
2640 Pitkin Avenue Brooklyn:
Friday, March 29 3:00 - 5:00 * Cafeteria
Additional trainings will be scheduled Uptown, in the Bronx, on Long Island, at People of Color in Crisis in Brooklyn, and in Albany. Other locations considered if enough interest is expressed.
For more information on the action, contact Michael Kink/Mark Hayes in our Albany office at 518-449-4207
kink@housingworks.org
or terri smith-caronia at x1296 at 594 Bway.
------------------------------------------------
Rally in Washington DC -- April 10, 2002 * 12:30 PM
Join Danny Glover, Rep. Barbara Lee, religious leaders, people with AIDS, and students to demand that Congress and the Bush Administration:
Donate the Dollars
Treat the People
and Drop the Debt
to fight AIDS worldwide
___________________________________
In the midst of a global health disaster, our nation's leaders have failed to commit the modest resources needed to stop the decimation
of impoverished nations.
Join us on Wednesday, April 10 when we gather at the Capitol from our different communities, faiths, and backgrounds to unite in the call for our country to fulfill the ethical demand for access to AIDS medication for all. We will demand the the United State contribute the modest resources--$750 million emergency supplemental-- needed to fight the escalating global AIDS epidemic.
Sponsors: Health GAP, ACT UP Philadelphia, ACT UP New York, Artists for a New South Africa, and Jubilee USA.
Free transportation from New York City and Philadelphia. Details below.
For more information and flyers go to: www.healthgap.org
_____________________________________________
>Since 1996 when life-extending antiretroviral therapy first became available for those that could afford it in wealthy countries, not one person in the developing world has received such drugs as a result of financial assistance from the US or other wealthy governments.
Not one person. Not one person of the 2.3 million Africans who died in 2001 due to AIDS.
A global movement for access to treatment--people fighting for their lives and their supporters around the world--have brought about a shift in US government policy and in the international community. As a matter of policy anyway, the lives of people with AIDS in poor countries are no longer expendable.
However, resources from the US are needed if this political victory is to become a meaningful reality for the 38 million who do not have
access to the medicine they need to survive.
As we planned this event, we considered periodically ringing a bell to mark each death from AIDS during the time of our rally.
Then we did the math.
8000 people die from AIDS each day. One death every 11 seconds.
That is not a periodic ringing. It is a metronome of overwhelming and absolutely unnecessary suffering and loss from a treatable illness.
We can allow the bell to toll,
or we can demand change.
Please join us, through your endorsements, your presence on April 10, and through your contributions to this struggle.
______________________________________________
FREE BUSES FROM NEW YORK CITY and PHILADELPHIA
NEW YORK:
Free buses leave NYC at 6:30 am from Columbus Circle at 59th Street and Broadway. Meals provided. Call to reserve seats.
Info: tel 212-674-9598 * email: salynch@healthgap.org * www.healthgap.org
Info: 215.731.1844 * e-mail: actup@critpath.org * www.healthgap.org
For information on making donations, please see end of message
_____________________________________________
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
1. Rally and protest
Time: 12:30-2:00 PM
Location: West side of Capitol steps (Washington Monument side)
People with AIDS and their supporters from the across the country
demanding life-saving action on global AIDS from Congress and the
Administration converge on the Capitol for a spirited, powerful
rally. Speakers include people with AIDS, Danny Glover, others.
Activists and health experts educate Congress about global AIDS crisis
Time: 2:30-4:30 PM
Location: Congressional Office Buildings
Hundreds of AIDS activists and other experts will move from the demonstration to Congressional office buildings to demand legislators take the action needed to save lives. These post-rally lobby visits will be an opportunity to show our power and breadth to key Members;they will not be long, technical meetings.
3. Post-rally dinner for out-of-towners
Time: 5:00-6:00 PM
Location: TBA
Dinner for exhausted activists!
__________________________________________________Please send your endorsement to salynch@healthgap.org
We endorse the April 10 Rally for Global AIDS
Name:
Organization:
Email:
Address:
Phone:
Fax:
Endorsement is
( ) Individual
( ) Organizational
( ) Both
I / my organization can assist with the following needs:
( ) Will attend / bring others
( ) Will assist with rally by:
( ) Will make financial contribution (see below)
__________________________________________________
Donations sought for expenses of rally, especially transportation andfood needs of low-income participants. For example, it costs $35 for
bus fee, food and local transportation for one person living with HIV from Philadelphia to participate in the rally.
Tax-deductible donations can be mailed to:
Mobilization Against AIDS,
584 Castro Street, # 416, San Francisco, CA 94114
Please make checks out to Mobilization Against AIDS. In the memo>line, write "Health GAP April 10." Thank you.
Remember that someday the AIDS crisis will be over. And when that day has come and gone there will be people alive--gay and straight people, black and white people, men and women--who will hear that once there was a terrible disease, and that a brave group of people stood up and fought and in some cases died so others might live and
be free. --Vito Russo, October 10, 1988
"... we've heard so much of it before. I don't know how all of you working in the field can stand it...So let me tell you what we haven't heard...we haven't heard where the money is coming from to stop the epidemic from further wanton spread, as we all know it can be stopped. " - Stephen Lewis, ICASA Conference December 2001,
Ouagadougou,
Burkina
ENDORSERS
Sponsoring Organizations:
Health GAP
Jubilee USA
ACT UP New York ACT UP Philadelphia
Artists for a New South Africa
Organizational Endorsements:
50 Years Is Enough Network, Washington DC
ACT UP/Cleveland, OH
ACT UP/East Bay, CA
ACT UP/Los Angeles, CA
ACT UP/Paris, France
AFL-CIO, Washington DC
AIDS Foundation of Chicago, IL
AIDS Health Care Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
AIDSmeds.com, Brooklyn, NY
AXIOS Eastern Orthodox LGBT Christian AIDS Ministry & Network, NYC, NY
Action AIDS, Inc., Philadelphia, PA
Africa Action, Washington DC
Boston Global Action Network - Africa AIDS Project, Boston, MA
Bread and Roses Community Fund, Philadelphia, PA
Call To Action of Michigan, Washtenaw Branch, Ann Arbor, MI
Center for Independence of the Disabled in NY, Brooklyn, NY
Critical Path AIDS Project, Philadelphia, PA
Drug Policy Forum Tri-State, Philadelphia, PA
Florida AIDS Action, Tampa, FL
Foundation for Integrative AIDS Research (FIAR), Brooklyn
Global AIDS Alliance (GAA), Washington DC
Global Campaign for Microbicides, Philadelphia, PA
Green Party
International AIDS Empowerment, El Paso, TX
International Action Center, NYC, NY
International Socialist Organization, Washington DC
Investing in Our Neighborhoods, Inc., Philadelphia, PA
Jubilee South Africa
KAIPPG/International, Barrington, RI
Mobilization Against AIDS International, San Francisco, CA
National Organization for Women, Philadelphia Chapter, PA
New York State Independent Living Council, Albany, NY
North Coast HIV/AIDS Coalition, Cleveland, OH
Northwest Coalition for AIDS Treatment in Africa (NCATA), Seattle, WA
Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women, Philadelphia, PA
POZ Magazine, NYC, NY
Project Inform, San Francisco, CA
Queers For Racial & Economic Justice, NYC
Rainbow Flags for Mumia, NYC
SPEAKOUT Project, Portland, Maine
Society for the Advancement of Women, Lilongwe, Malawi
Society of Missionaries of Africa, Justice and Peace Office, Washington DC
South Africa Development Fund, Boston, MA
The Southern Africa Network of AIDS Service Organisations (SANASO),
Harare, Zimbabwe
Student Global AIDS Campaign, Cambridge, MA
Temple Covenant of Peace, Easton, PA
Treatment Action Group (TAG), NYC
United Methodist Board of Church and Society, Washington DC
Vermont Justice of the Peace, Burlington, VT
Washington Office on Africa, Washington DC
WORLD (Women Organized to Respond to Life Threatening Diseases), Oakland, CA
Youth Health Empowerment Project, Philadelphia, PA
How many times have you heard that it's a matter of political leadership; that youth are the most vulnerable; that young women are
the most vulnerable among the most vulnerable; that the interlocking
factors of gender and poverty compromise our responses; that we have
to roll out programmes that address mother to child transmission;
that the orphan population is growing dramatically; that the social
and economic consequences of the pandemic are catastrophic; that
societies are shredded; that health systems are defunct; that schools
are without teachers; that behaviour change is elusive; that a
contemporary plague has descended on Africa forcing upon the
continent a struggle for survival?
So let me tell you what we haven't heard...we haven't heard where the
money is coming from to stop the epidemic from further wanton spread,
as we all know it can be stopped. "
- Stephen Lewis, ICASA Conference December 2001, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Paul Davis
pdavis@critpath.org
Health GAP Coalition
ACT UP Philadelphia
+1.215.833.4102 mobile
+1.215.474.6886 tel.
+1.215.474.4793 fax
------------------------------------------------
Join Danny Glover, Rep. Barbara Lee, religious leaders, people with AIDS, and students to demand that Congress and the Bush Administration:
Donate the Dollars
Treat the People
and Drop the Debt
to fight AIDS worldwide
___________________________________
In the midst of a global health disaster, our nation's leaders have failed to commit the modest resources needed to stop the decimation
of impoverished nations.
Join us on Wednesday, April 10 when we gather at the Capitol from our different communities, faiths, and backgrounds to unite in the call for our country to fulfill the ethical demand for access to AIDS medication for all. We will demand the the United State contribute the modest resources--$750 million emergency supplemental-- needed to fight the escalating global AIDS epidemic.
Sponsors: Health GAP, ACT UP Philadelphia, ACT UP New York, Artists for a New South Africa, and Jubilee USA.
Free transportation from New York City and Philadelphia. Details below.
For more information and flyers go to: www.healthgap.org
_____________________________________________
>Since 1996 when life-extending antiretroviral therapy first became available for those that could afford it in wealthy countries, not one person in the developing world has received such drugs as a result of financial assistance from the US or other wealthy governments.
Not one person. Not one person of the 2.3 million Africans who died in 2001 due to AIDS.
A global movement for access to treatment--people fighting for their lives and their supporters around the world--have brought about a shift in US government policy and in the international community. As a matter of policy anyway, the lives of people with AIDS in poor countries are no longer expendable.
However, resources from the US are needed if this political victory is to become a meaningful reality for the 38 million who do not have
access to the medicine they need to survive.
As we planned this event, we considered periodically ringing a bell to mark each death from AIDS during the time of our rally.
Then we did the math.
8000 people die from AIDS each day. One death every 11 seconds.
That is not a periodic ringing. It is a metronome of overwhelming and absolutely unnecessary suffering and loss from a treatable illness.
We can allow the bell to toll,
or we can demand change.
Please join us, through your endorsements, your presence on April 10, and through your contributions to this struggle.
______________________________________________
FREE BUSES FROM NEW YORK CITY and PHILADELPHIA
NEW YORK:
Free buses leave NYC at 6:30 am from Columbus Circle at 59th Street and Broadway. Meals provided. Call to reserve seats.
Info: tel 212-674-9598 * email: salynch@healthgap.org * www.healthgap.org
Info: 215.731.1844 * e-mail: actup@critpath.org * www.healthgap.org
For information on making donations, please see end of message
_____________________________________________
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
1. Rally and protest
Time: 12:30-2:00 PM
Location: West side of Capitol steps (Washington Monument side)
People with AIDS and their supporters from the across the country
demanding life-saving action on global AIDS from Congress and the
Administration converge on the Capitol for a spirited, powerful
rally. Speakers include people with AIDS, Danny Glover, others.
Activists and health experts educate Congress about global AIDS crisis
Time: 2:30-4:30 PM
Location: Congressional Office Buildings
Hundreds of AIDS activists and other experts will move from the demonstration to Congressional office buildings to demand legislators take the action needed to save lives. These post-rally lobby visits will be an opportunity to show our power and breadth to key Members;they will not be long, technical meetings.
3. Post-rally dinner for out-of-towners
Time: 5:00-6:00 PM
Location: TBA
Dinner for exhausted activists!
__________________________________________________Please send your endorsement to salynch@healthgap.org
We endorse the April 10 Rally for Global AIDS
Name:
Organization:
Email:
Address:
Phone:
Fax:
Endorsement is
( ) Individual
( ) Organizational
( ) Both
I / my organization can assist with the following needs:
( ) Will attend / bring others
( ) Will assist with rally by:
( ) Will make financial contribution (see below)
__________________________________________________
Donations sought for expenses of rally, especially transportation andfood needs of low-income participants. For example, it costs $35 for
bus fee, food and local transportation for one person living with HIV from Philadelphia to participate in the rally.
Tax-deductible donations can be mailed to:
Mobilization Against AIDS,
584 Castro Street, # 416, San Francisco, CA 94114
Please make checks out to Mobilization Against AIDS. In the memo>line, write "Health GAP April 10." Thank you.
Remember that someday the AIDS crisis will be over. And when that day has come and gone there will be people alive--gay and straight people, black and white people, men and women--who will hear that once there was a terrible disease, and that a brave group of people stood up and fought and in some cases died so others might live and
be free. --Vito Russo, October 10, 1988
"... we've heard so much of it before. I don't know how all of you working in the field can stand it...So let me tell you what we haven't heard...we haven't heard where the money is coming from to stop the epidemic from further wanton spread, as we all know it can be stopped. " - Stephen Lewis, ICASA Conference December 2001,
Ouagadougou,
Burkina
ENDORSERS
Sponsoring Organizations:
Health GAP
Jubilee USA
ACT UP New York ACT UP Philadelphia
Artists for a New South Africa
Organizational Endorsements:
50 Years Is Enough Network, Washington DC
ACT UP/Cleveland, OH
ACT UP/East Bay, CA
ACT UP/Los Angeles, CA
ACT UP/Paris, France
AFL-CIO, Washington DC
AIDS Foundation of Chicago, IL
AIDS Health Care Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
AIDSmeds.com, Brooklyn, NY
AXIOS Eastern Orthodox LGBT Christian AIDS Ministry & Network, NYC, NY
Action AIDS, Inc., Philadelphia, PA
Africa Action, Washington DC
Boston Global Action Network - Africa AIDS Project, Boston, MA
Bread and Roses Community Fund, Philadelphia, PA
Call To Action of Michigan, Washtenaw Branch, Ann Arbor, MI
Center for Independence of the Disabled in NY, Brooklyn, NY
Critical Path AIDS Project, Philadelphia, PA
Drug Policy Forum Tri-State, Philadelphia, PA
Florida AIDS Action, Tampa, FL
Foundation for Integrative AIDS Research (FIAR), Brooklyn
Global AIDS Alliance (GAA), Washington DC
Global Campaign for Microbicides, Philadelphia, PA
Green Party
International AIDS Empowerment, El Paso, TX
International Action Center, NYC, NY
International Socialist Organization, Washington DC
Investing in Our Neighborhoods, Inc., Philadelphia, PA
Jubilee South Africa
KAIPPG/International, Barrington, RI
Mobilization Against AIDS International, San Francisco, CA
National Organization for Women, Philadelphia Chapter, PA
New York State Independent Living Council, Albany, NY
North Coast HIV/AIDS Coalition, Cleveland, OH
Northwest Coalition for AIDS Treatment in Africa (NCATA), Seattle, WA
Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women, Philadelphia, PA
POZ Magazine, NYC, NY
Project Inform, San Francisco, CA
Queers For Racial & Economic Justice, NYC
Rainbow Flags for Mumia, NYC
SPEAKOUT Project, Portland, Maine
Society for the Advancement of Women, Lilongwe, Malawi
Society of Missionaries of Africa, Justice and Peace Office, Washington DC
South Africa Development Fund, Boston, MA
The Southern Africa Network of AIDS Service Organisations (SANASO),
Harare, Zimbabwe
Student Global AIDS Campaign, Cambridge, MA
Temple Covenant of Peace, Easton, PA
Treatment Action Group (TAG), NYC
United Methodist Board of Church and Society, Washington DC
Vermont Justice of the Peace, Burlington, VT
Washington Office on Africa, Washington DC
WORLD (Women Organized to Respond to Life Threatening Diseases), Oakland, CA
Youth Health Empowerment Project, Philadelphia, PA
How many times have you heard that it's a matter of political leadership; that youth are the most vulnerable; that young women are
the most vulnerable among the most vulnerable; that the interlocking
factors of gender and poverty compromise our responses; that we have
to roll out programmes that address mother to child transmission;
that the orphan population is growing dramatically; that the social
and economic consequences of the pandemic are catastrophic; that
societies are shredded; that health systems are defunct; that schools
are without teachers; that behaviour change is elusive; that a
contemporary plague has descended on Africa forcing upon the
continent a struggle for survival?
So let me tell you what we haven't heard...we haven't heard where the
money is coming from to stop the epidemic from further wanton spread,
as we all know it can be stopped. "
- Stephen Lewis, ICASA Conference December 2001, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Paul Davis
pdavis@critpath.org
Health GAP Coalition
ACT UP Philadelphia
+1.215.833.4102 mobile
+1.215.474.6886 tel.
+1.215.474.4793 fax
------------------------------------------------
Northeast AIDSRide (listed in previous post above)
Orientation meetings every Monday till May 27th.
Call:
1 (800) 825-1000 for further information
------------
*Date Bait*
-For relationship oriented poz guys-
(Thursday, May 9, $15.)
@LGBT Center
208 West 13th Street
www.datebait.com
----------------
Artist and activist Frank Moore dies......
Artist and activist Frank Moore died on Sunday, April 21, at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan. He was 48. The cause of Moore's death was complications from AIDS, which he had been living with for 17 years.
Moore was born in New York City in 1953. He grew up on Long Island and summered in the Adirondacks, two places that eventually helped shape his views on art, the environment, and ecology. He graduated from Yale in 1975 with a bachelor of arts, spending his senior year as one of 12 students selected to study a field of their choice as graduate students. Moore's choice, of course, was art.
Moore had his first solo show in 1983 at the Clocktower in Tribeca. At that time, however, his artistic focus had switched to theatre, designing sets and costumes for choreographer Jim Self and working on several dance film projects. "Beehive," a film shot in Moore's loft-turned-film-set, won a Bessie in 1985. With the financial independence this work had brought him, he returned to the studio in the late 1980s.
Though he was a painter, and usually of large canvases, Moore's most recognizable work is the small red AIDS ribbon, which he, as a member of the Visual AIDS Artist Caucus, helped create. The caucus chose red because of the "connection to blood and the idea of passion-not only anger, but love, like a valentine," according to Visual AIDS materials.
Drawing from a wide array of influences which included Social Realism, Magical Realism, the Hudson River School and the murals created by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Moore's works, too, are laden with meaning. "Niagara," for example, depicts the majestic falls and the mist it creates. Adding a bit of magic to an otherwise realistic canvas, Moore allows viewers, as if they are looking through a microscope, to see the chemical compounds of the pollutants we have introduced to those waters.
Genetic engineering and the dangers it presents are also subjects Moore depicted many times. And not surprisingly, AIDS and the medical and societal responses to it were subjects for Moore. "Beacon" shows the artist on a hospital bed adrift in an ocean, syringes, IVs, and other medical implements float about him. In the distance, a lighthouse shines a ray of light made up of a DNA strand, a common motif in his work.
Moore traced his skepticism about science, technology, and progress to an education he received by simply observing the world around him. As a child, he visited the pristine Adirondacks. Over time, he noticed changes in the ecosystem and the destruction of the environment. He made similar observations of the depletion of the scallop stock and eelgrass near his home on Long Island.
"That had a big impact on my view of the human role in the interaction with nature," he said in an interview in the April-May 2002 "Update" newsletter produced by the New York Academy of Sciences.
Despite that, Moore was well aware that it was man's tinkering with nature that produced the drugs that prolonged his life.
People who knew Moore comment on his ability to be both straightforward and opinionated, yet able to rally people around his point of view. In his paintings, instead of beating viewers over the head with his messages, Moore helped people draw their own conclusions.
"I see myself as providing a visual form for people to reflect on what their relationship with nature is and how they feel about such issues as genetic engineering, our use of chemicals and fossil fuels, pollution and our relationship to technology," he said in the "Update" interview.
Yet, Moore was an activist. With the anger he had over the way his AIDS-afflicted lover was being treated in the early-1990s, he was a ripe candidate for ACT UP. Though he certainly felt angry enough to join, ACT UP was not the place for him. "The sixties made me," he told an interviewer. "I'm into flower power. ACT UP was not about flower power."
Visual AIDS, the art-oriented wing of ACT UP, seemed much more suitable to the artist. Apart from his contributions to the Red Ribbon Project, Moore also founded The Archives Project in 1994 to catalog and safeguard the cultural contributions of artists with AIDS. Moore also co-curated "A
Living Testament to the Blood Fairies" with Sur Rodney Sur and Geoffrey Hendricks in 1997, a show hailed for its ambition.
Moore leaves his lover Patrick Orton of New York, two sisters, two brothers, his stepmother, a body of striking art, the red ribbon, and a legacy, the Gesso Foundation an organization to support artists with AIDS and small AIDS organizations.
STEPHEN DOMINIC D'AGOSTINO/NY Blade
**His paintings are truly amazing!-RR
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 05-07-02 at 04:16 AM.]
Orientation meetings every Monday till May 27th.
Call:
1 (800) 825-1000 for further information
------------
*Date Bait*
-For relationship oriented poz guys-
(Thursday, May 9, $15.)
@LGBT Center
208 West 13th Street
www.datebait.com
----------------
Artist and activist Frank Moore dies......
Artist and activist Frank Moore died on Sunday, April 21, at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan. He was 48. The cause of Moore's death was complications from AIDS, which he had been living with for 17 years.
Moore was born in New York City in 1953. He grew up on Long Island and summered in the Adirondacks, two places that eventually helped shape his views on art, the environment, and ecology. He graduated from Yale in 1975 with a bachelor of arts, spending his senior year as one of 12 students selected to study a field of their choice as graduate students. Moore's choice, of course, was art.
Moore had his first solo show in 1983 at the Clocktower in Tribeca. At that time, however, his artistic focus had switched to theatre, designing sets and costumes for choreographer Jim Self and working on several dance film projects. "Beehive," a film shot in Moore's loft-turned-film-set, won a Bessie in 1985. With the financial independence this work had brought him, he returned to the studio in the late 1980s.
Though he was a painter, and usually of large canvases, Moore's most recognizable work is the small red AIDS ribbon, which he, as a member of the Visual AIDS Artist Caucus, helped create. The caucus chose red because of the "connection to blood and the idea of passion-not only anger, but love, like a valentine," according to Visual AIDS materials.
Drawing from a wide array of influences which included Social Realism, Magical Realism, the Hudson River School and the murals created by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Moore's works, too, are laden with meaning. "Niagara," for example, depicts the majestic falls and the mist it creates. Adding a bit of magic to an otherwise realistic canvas, Moore allows viewers, as if they are looking through a microscope, to see the chemical compounds of the pollutants we have introduced to those waters.
Genetic engineering and the dangers it presents are also subjects Moore depicted many times. And not surprisingly, AIDS and the medical and societal responses to it were subjects for Moore. "Beacon" shows the artist on a hospital bed adrift in an ocean, syringes, IVs, and other medical implements float about him. In the distance, a lighthouse shines a ray of light made up of a DNA strand, a common motif in his work.
Moore traced his skepticism about science, technology, and progress to an education he received by simply observing the world around him. As a child, he visited the pristine Adirondacks. Over time, he noticed changes in the ecosystem and the destruction of the environment. He made similar observations of the depletion of the scallop stock and eelgrass near his home on Long Island.
"That had a big impact on my view of the human role in the interaction with nature," he said in an interview in the April-May 2002 "Update" newsletter produced by the New York Academy of Sciences.
Despite that, Moore was well aware that it was man's tinkering with nature that produced the drugs that prolonged his life.
People who knew Moore comment on his ability to be both straightforward and opinionated, yet able to rally people around his point of view. In his paintings, instead of beating viewers over the head with his messages, Moore helped people draw their own conclusions.
"I see myself as providing a visual form for people to reflect on what their relationship with nature is and how they feel about such issues as genetic engineering, our use of chemicals and fossil fuels, pollution and our relationship to technology," he said in the "Update" interview.
Yet, Moore was an activist. With the anger he had over the way his AIDS-afflicted lover was being treated in the early-1990s, he was a ripe candidate for ACT UP. Though he certainly felt angry enough to join, ACT UP was not the place for him. "The sixties made me," he told an interviewer. "I'm into flower power. ACT UP was not about flower power."
Visual AIDS, the art-oriented wing of ACT UP, seemed much more suitable to the artist. Apart from his contributions to the Red Ribbon Project, Moore also founded The Archives Project in 1994 to catalog and safeguard the cultural contributions of artists with AIDS. Moore also co-curated "A
Living Testament to the Blood Fairies" with Sur Rodney Sur and Geoffrey Hendricks in 1997, a show hailed for its ambition.
Moore leaves his lover Patrick Orton of New York, two sisters, two brothers, his stepmother, a body of striking art, the red ribbon, and a legacy, the Gesso Foundation an organization to support artists with AIDS and small AIDS organizations.
STEPHEN DOMINIC D'AGOSTINO/NY Blade
**His paintings are truly amazing!-RR
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 05-07-02 at 04:16 AM.]
Tuesday, July 09, 2002
Dear Friend:
I am writing you to request your presence for a two-part event be hosted by the Network to Initiate Action group (NIA) at People of Color in Crisis (POCC) in Brooklyn on Saturday, July 20, 2002, 1:30 p.m. NIA is a newly founded youth run group operating under the continuous goal of reducing HIV infection rates among black young men who have sex with men and Transgender (BYMSM/TG) communities, by highlighting issues regarding the HIV epidemic on a local, regional and ultimately national level.
The primary goal of NIA, which means purpose in Swahili, is to have a series of Round Tables/Community Forums to gather local community youth and highlight the issues they are facing. Some of the key questions we hope to answer are why infection rates are still rising, why youth are not accessing HIV service providers on a regular basis to find out their health status, and to report this information to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Our other major goal is to develop a needs assessment based on the information we gather from our Roundtables/Community Forums.
We would greatly appreciate your support for this youth led initiative. We are asking each invited agency to send their young adult coordinator and a youth representative to participate in this event. The first portion will be a presentation about the NIA project and how it came to be. Our hope is your youth program will be interested in collaborating with NIA to promote a youth focused HIV prevention agenda. The later half of the event will be spent on our first Roundtable/Community Forum; we invite you to attend this as a member of the community who wishes to discus issues that (B)YMSM/TG communities are facing.
We hope you and your agency will be able to work with us towards achieving the goals mentioned in this letter. The NIA Public Relations Team (Ka'Leef Washington and Kevin Edwards) will be in touch with you soon to follow up to confirm your attendance for this event, further details such as the times for both events, and directions to the location will be provided at that time. If you would like to RSVP via E-mail, or if you would like to receive more information about our initiative, please reply to the address listed below. We as young people believe that saving the lives of our fellow youth is important, because the lives of BYMSM/TG are important. Thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Christan G. Narvaez
Secretary, The NIA Group
Christan Narvaez
NIA, The group with a purpose
NIA Project Secretary
E-mail: cn204@columbia.edu
Dear Friend:
I am writing you to request your presence for a two-part event be hosted by the Network to Initiate Action group (NIA) at People of Color in Crisis (POCC) in Brooklyn on Saturday, July 20, 2002, 1:30 p.m. NIA is a newly founded youth run group operating under the continuous goal of reducing HIV infection rates among black young men who have sex with men and Transgender (BYMSM/TG) communities, by highlighting issues regarding the HIV epidemic on a local, regional and ultimately national level.
The primary goal of NIA, which means purpose in Swahili, is to have a series of Round Tables/Community Forums to gather local community youth and highlight the issues they are facing. Some of the key questions we hope to answer are why infection rates are still rising, why youth are not accessing HIV service providers on a regular basis to find out their health status, and to report this information to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Our other major goal is to develop a needs assessment based on the information we gather from our Roundtables/Community Forums.
We would greatly appreciate your support for this youth led initiative. We are asking each invited agency to send their young adult coordinator and a youth representative to participate in this event. The first portion will be a presentation about the NIA project and how it came to be. Our hope is your youth program will be interested in collaborating with NIA to promote a youth focused HIV prevention agenda. The later half of the event will be spent on our first Roundtable/Community Forum; we invite you to attend this as a member of the community who wishes to discus issues that (B)YMSM/TG communities are facing.
We hope you and your agency will be able to work with us towards achieving the goals mentioned in this letter. The NIA Public Relations Team (Ka'Leef Washington and Kevin Edwards) will be in touch with you soon to follow up to confirm your attendance for this event, further details such as the times for both events, and directions to the location will be provided at that time. If you would like to RSVP via E-mail, or if you would like to receive more information about our initiative, please reply to the address listed below. We as young people believe that saving the lives of our fellow youth is important, because the lives of BYMSM/TG are important. Thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Christan G. Narvaez
Secretary, The NIA Group
Christan Narvaez
NIA, The group with a purpose
NIA Project Secretary
E-mail: cn204@columbia.edu
New generation of gay men at AIDS risk
Studies released at global meeting show high rates of HIV infection, low testing and prevention knowledge
Members of the AIDS activist group ACT UP took over the stage and jeered U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services Tommy Thompson during his July 9 address to delegates of the XIV International AIDS conference in Barcelona.
Yonnathan Hernandez, 20, hadn't even been born in 1981, when the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention in Atlanta first documented the disease that would later become known as AIDS.
In the late '80s and early '90s, when AIDS decimated gay men around the country, Hernandez was in elementary school, learning spelling and multiplication tables, not safer sex.
Hernandez' family moved to the United States from Mexico when he was 13. When he acknowledged his sexual orientation four years later, he came out into a world of young gay people who had never known what it was like to be sexually active without the reality of AIDS.
Yet unlike many older gay men, Hernandez also has never had a friend die of the disease, and he said many young people he knows don't act concerned about HIV.
"I know some people who are really worried about it, but a lot of people don't care about it," he said. "They know, but they don't get tested."
And while Hernandez, who is HIV-negative, got his first HIV test last year, studies released at the XIV International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain, this week show many other young gay men don't know their HIV status and aren't taking steps to keep from getting the virus.
"The problem is huge, unacceptable and raging," said Duncan MacKellar, a CDC epidemiologist presenting several studies of young gay men at the Barcelona conference. "We have to do more prevention, and we have to do it better."
MacKellar and his colleagues presented several reports at the July 7-12 conference that examined alarming results from a survey of young gay and bisexual men ages 15-29, conducted at gay venues in six cities: New York, Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and Seattle.
"What the data tell us is that many young gay and bisexual men are infected with HIV, most do not test frequently, and as a consequence, most do not know they are infected," MacKellar said in an interview from Barcelona.
More disturbing, "of those with unrecognized infections, many do not think they are at risk for being infected and unknowingly engage in behaviors that can transmit HIV," he said.
Other news from the XIV International AIDS Conference
The scores of studies presented at the Barcelona conference covered topics from treatment to prevention, for populations ranging from gay men in the United States to AIDS orphans in Africa. Below is a sample of findings of key interest to gay men; for more information, visit the conference Web site at www.aids2002.org.
Majority of HIV diagnoses in 25 states still gay men. In a CDC analysis of data from 25 states with longstanding HIV reporting -- not including Georgia, which tracks AIDS but not HIV cases -- researchers found rates had stabilized at about 16,000 new diagnoses each year. During the seven-year period from 1994 to 2000, 43 percent of diagnoses were among gay and bisexual men, 27 percent were people infected through heterosexual intercourse and 23 percent of infections came from injection drug use.
Gay men have nine times higher HIV rate. A study by CDC epidemiologist Laurie Linley examined blood samples from 40,000 people at sexually transmitted disease clinics in four cities -- Los Angeles, Denver, Miami and Newark -- from 1997 to 1999. Using a testing method that detects new infections, researchers found 4.8 percent of gay men were infected with HIV annually, compared 0.4 percent of heterosexual men and 0.5 percent of women.
Rural states need more money for gay outreach. The first "major study evaluating HIV prevention in rural states" looked at efforts targeting men who have sex with men, and found a huge need for more funding, according to author Victor Barnes of the CDC. Researchers interviewed 80 HIV experts in 13 rural states, including gay leaders, state AIDS directors and prevention workers, along with 200 community volunteers. Participants estimated they needed an average of $847,000 more per state -- including $500,000 for programs directed at gay and bisexual men -- for adequate prevention efforts.
Mental health problems increase gay HIV risk. A CDC study of 2,881 men who have sex with men in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco found that those with "psychosocial" problems such as childhood sexual abuse, depression, multiple drug use and partner violence had higher rates of unsafe sex and HIV infection. Men who participated in risky sex jumped from 7.1 percent of those with none of those problems to 33.3 percent for those with all four. Only 13 percent of those with none of the problems had HIV, while 25 percent of those with all four problems were HIV-positive, the CDC reported.
Studies promising on new AIDS drug. A new drug that attacks the AIDS virus in an entirely different way could dramatically restore the health of HIV patients whose infections have outfoxed all existing medicines, research indicates. Studies presented July 8 in Barcelona found that patients for whom current drugs had stopped working were twice as likely to have virus concentrations decrease below detectable levels if they added the new medicine, known as enfuvirtide, or T-20, to their cocktail. Experts said the drug, expected to be on the market next year, could save the lives of people who have exhausted treatment options. Current HIV drugs block either of two substances the virus uses to make new copies of itself once it is inside a blood cell. T-20 is the most advanced experimental drug in a new class of AIDS medicines, called entry inhibitors, which attack the virus by preventing it from getting into the blood cells it kills.
New guidelines suggest treatment can wait. New treatment guidelines suggest symptom-free HIV patients can wait longer than previously recommended to begin taking AIDS drugs. "The threshold for initiation of therapy has shifted to a later time in the course of HIV disease'' because of increased awareness of the effectiveness of AIDS drugs and their toxic side effects, an International AIDS Society-USA panel concluded. The panel recommends starting drug treatment when levels of disease-fighting CD4 white blood cells drop to between 200 and 350 per cubic millimeter. The group two years ago suggested treatment with CD4 levels of about 350. A U.S. Health & Human Services group of experts issued similar guidelines in January 2001.
VaxGen president expects aids vaccine within three years. At a July 8 press conference in Barcelona, Donald Francis -- president of VaxGen, a company working to develop an AIDS vaccine -- suggested that he expects a vaccine to be on the market by 2004 or 2005, according to the conference news service. VaxGen's vaccine is currently in stage III of clinical trials. Francis said a vaccine likely won't be 100 percent effective, but any protection could make a huge difference in the global AIDS fight.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Bleak picture
The 17,000 researchers, activists, government officials and other participants at the six-day XIV International AIDS Conference focused on seven tracks: basic science, clinical science, prevention science, social science, epidemiology, intervention and program implementation and advocacy and politics.
But while the conference focuses on the theme "Knowledge and commitment for action," some of the highest profile action has taken place outside of the official agenda, as protesters targeted U.S. officials over a perceived lack of support for the global AIDS fight.
Jeering activists crashed a press conference Tuesday and drowned out U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson's speech to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, saying the U.S. has not contributed enough money to the worldwide fight against AIDS.
Thompson's speech could not be heard over shouts of "Shame!" by activists who said they wanted to "blow the whistle on Tommy Thomson and President George Bush for crimes against people with AIDS," the conference news service reported.
As protests raged outside, inside the conference, little news could be perceived as positive, especially in terms of gay and bisexual men in the U.S.
The research conducted by MacKellar and his colleagues at the CDC offered bleak statistics that drew quick -- and horrified -- reaction from HIV activists, especially those focusing on young African-American men, the group the studies show is hardest hit by the epidemic.
"In some cities, the HIV infection among black gay men is equal to or greater than the HIV infection rates of developing nations," said Steven Walker, a representative of National Advocates for Black Gay Health.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the original epicenter of the epidemic among gay men, a separate five-year study presented in Barcelona suggested a rise in a drug-resistant strain of HIV.
And although overall cases of full-blown AIDS in the U.S. appear to have remained stable from June 1998 to June 2001, at roughly 40,000 cases diagnosed each year, even that isn't good news, CDC officials stressed at a July 7 press briefing as the conference opened.
Prior to 1998, cases of full-blown AIDS were declining, said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD & TB Prevention.
The new appearance of stability -- likely caused in part by people who don't know their HIV status or aren't receiving treatment -- may be masking an increase among gay and bisexual men and some heterosexuals, the CDC reported.
"These data point to the urgent need to stem the spread of HIV among gay and bisexual men and heterosexuals in many areas of the country, especially in those African-American communities most dramatically impacted," Valdiserri said.
In the dark about HIV
The CDC's six-city study of young gay and bisexual men -- one of the largest ever conducted, according to MacKellar -- found high rates of HIV and low rates of testing and risk reduction behavior.
The agency began releasing statistics from the study last year, immediately setting off alarms for HIV activists: Of men ages 23-29 in the study, 30 percent of young gay African-Americans had already been infected with HIV, compared to only three percent of Asians, 15 percent of Hispanics and seven percent of whites.
News released this week at the Barcelona conference offered little more hope: Of the total study sample of 5,719 gay and bisexual men ages 15-29, 10 percent tested positive for HIV. Out of those, a staggering 77 percent were unaware of their status.
Broken down by race, the numbers showed significant disparities in testing behaviors: 91 percent of African-Americans with HIV didn't know their status, compared to 70 percent of Hispanics and 60 percent of whites.
Almost 60 percent of young gay men of all racial groups with undiagnosed HIV thought they were at low or very low risk of contracting the virus, and in the six months before their diagnosis, 49 percent had three or more sex partners and 51 percent had unprotected anal intercourse.
"We asked those who didn't test why they hadn't and the two main reasons were they thought they were at low risk and they were scared to learn the result," said MacKellar, the study's lead author.
"But many of those who thought they were at low risk had engaged in high risk behaviors, and many were actually infected," he said. "So clearly, our prevention efforts need to make sure we clarify perceived risk."
While MacKellar said it is "hard to say" if the results of his six-city study could be extrapolated around the rest of the country, "it's amazing how consistent the findings were across the cities in terms of HIV prevention, risk behaviors and testing rates," he said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if you found similar rates in other metro areas," MacKellar said.
AIDS activists and gay young people said they wouldn't be surprised either.
Hernandez said he initially was afraid to be tested for HIV because he wondered if he would be positive, and the leader of HIV programs at the Atlanta gay youth group where Hernandez gets tested said he frequently hears similar fears.
"We have to do education and convincing to let people know how truly important testing is," said Damian Denson, men's program manager for African-American HIV prevention at YouthPride, a gay youth center in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur. "We see a lot of fear, which is normal. Each time I get tested, I'm just as nervous as the previous time."
At 24, Denson, who is African-American, is technically a youth himself. But with a master's degree in public health, he said he is "frustrated" and "disappointed" to learn so many gay young men -- especially black gay men -- still aren't being tested.
"For the African-American community, it goes into so many social constructs as far as racism and homophobia, which creates this level of risky behavior that erupts in a large number of infections," Denson said. "It shows us how so much more work needs to be done."
In August, YouthPride will expand its free HIV testing from the first and third Wednesday of each month to every Wednesday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Denson said.
New fears in San Francisco
While CDC studies showed an increase in HIV in young gay men, a new study released in Barcelona showed an increase of drug-resistant strains of HIV among San Francisco's newly infected gay men.
Those infected with HIV strains resistant to at least two different classes of drugs rose from 2.5 percent in 1996 to 13 percent in 2000, according to a study by the University of California, San Francisco.
"Some people are becoming infected with a virus that is much more difficult to treat,'' said Dr. Frederick Hecht, the study's co-author and a San Francisco General Hospital AIDS specialist.
The results are particularly noteworthy, Hecht said, because the evolution of the HIV epidemic around the country often follows the pattern of San Francisco.
Resistance to the latest class of AIDS drugs developed quickly, and resistant strains are being transmitted even by those undergoing treatment, the study reported.
FOR MORE INFO
XIV International AIDS Conference
www.AIDS2002.org
But the study may not mean HIV is becoming more dangerous, Hecht said. Differences in blood cell counts were relatively small, and some people with the new virus strains showed more disease-fighting white blood cells than those with the nonmutant virus.
Still, resistant HIV strains are harder to treat because physicians must start with "salvage regimes," usually only prescribed when other treatments have failed, Hecht said.
LAURA DOUGLAS-BROWN/NY Blade
Studies released at global meeting show high rates of HIV infection, low testing and prevention knowledge
Members of the AIDS activist group ACT UP took over the stage and jeered U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services Tommy Thompson during his July 9 address to delegates of the XIV International AIDS conference in Barcelona.
Yonnathan Hernandez, 20, hadn't even been born in 1981, when the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention in Atlanta first documented the disease that would later become known as AIDS.
In the late '80s and early '90s, when AIDS decimated gay men around the country, Hernandez was in elementary school, learning spelling and multiplication tables, not safer sex.
Hernandez' family moved to the United States from Mexico when he was 13. When he acknowledged his sexual orientation four years later, he came out into a world of young gay people who had never known what it was like to be sexually active without the reality of AIDS.
Yet unlike many older gay men, Hernandez also has never had a friend die of the disease, and he said many young people he knows don't act concerned about HIV.
"I know some people who are really worried about it, but a lot of people don't care about it," he said. "They know, but they don't get tested."
And while Hernandez, who is HIV-negative, got his first HIV test last year, studies released at the XIV International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain, this week show many other young gay men don't know their HIV status and aren't taking steps to keep from getting the virus.
"The problem is huge, unacceptable and raging," said Duncan MacKellar, a CDC epidemiologist presenting several studies of young gay men at the Barcelona conference. "We have to do more prevention, and we have to do it better."
MacKellar and his colleagues presented several reports at the July 7-12 conference that examined alarming results from a survey of young gay and bisexual men ages 15-29, conducted at gay venues in six cities: New York, Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and Seattle.
"What the data tell us is that many young gay and bisexual men are infected with HIV, most do not test frequently, and as a consequence, most do not know they are infected," MacKellar said in an interview from Barcelona.
More disturbing, "of those with unrecognized infections, many do not think they are at risk for being infected and unknowingly engage in behaviors that can transmit HIV," he said.
Other news from the XIV International AIDS Conference
The scores of studies presented at the Barcelona conference covered topics from treatment to prevention, for populations ranging from gay men in the United States to AIDS orphans in Africa. Below is a sample of findings of key interest to gay men; for more information, visit the conference Web site at www.aids2002.org.
Majority of HIV diagnoses in 25 states still gay men. In a CDC analysis of data from 25 states with longstanding HIV reporting -- not including Georgia, which tracks AIDS but not HIV cases -- researchers found rates had stabilized at about 16,000 new diagnoses each year. During the seven-year period from 1994 to 2000, 43 percent of diagnoses were among gay and bisexual men, 27 percent were people infected through heterosexual intercourse and 23 percent of infections came from injection drug use.
Gay men have nine times higher HIV rate. A study by CDC epidemiologist Laurie Linley examined blood samples from 40,000 people at sexually transmitted disease clinics in four cities -- Los Angeles, Denver, Miami and Newark -- from 1997 to 1999. Using a testing method that detects new infections, researchers found 4.8 percent of gay men were infected with HIV annually, compared 0.4 percent of heterosexual men and 0.5 percent of women.
Rural states need more money for gay outreach. The first "major study evaluating HIV prevention in rural states" looked at efforts targeting men who have sex with men, and found a huge need for more funding, according to author Victor Barnes of the CDC. Researchers interviewed 80 HIV experts in 13 rural states, including gay leaders, state AIDS directors and prevention workers, along with 200 community volunteers. Participants estimated they needed an average of $847,000 more per state -- including $500,000 for programs directed at gay and bisexual men -- for adequate prevention efforts.
Mental health problems increase gay HIV risk. A CDC study of 2,881 men who have sex with men in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco found that those with "psychosocial" problems such as childhood sexual abuse, depression, multiple drug use and partner violence had higher rates of unsafe sex and HIV infection. Men who participated in risky sex jumped from 7.1 percent of those with none of those problems to 33.3 percent for those with all four. Only 13 percent of those with none of the problems had HIV, while 25 percent of those with all four problems were HIV-positive, the CDC reported.
Studies promising on new AIDS drug. A new drug that attacks the AIDS virus in an entirely different way could dramatically restore the health of HIV patients whose infections have outfoxed all existing medicines, research indicates. Studies presented July 8 in Barcelona found that patients for whom current drugs had stopped working were twice as likely to have virus concentrations decrease below detectable levels if they added the new medicine, known as enfuvirtide, or T-20, to their cocktail. Experts said the drug, expected to be on the market next year, could save the lives of people who have exhausted treatment options. Current HIV drugs block either of two substances the virus uses to make new copies of itself once it is inside a blood cell. T-20 is the most advanced experimental drug in a new class of AIDS medicines, called entry inhibitors, which attack the virus by preventing it from getting into the blood cells it kills.
New guidelines suggest treatment can wait. New treatment guidelines suggest symptom-free HIV patients can wait longer than previously recommended to begin taking AIDS drugs. "The threshold for initiation of therapy has shifted to a later time in the course of HIV disease'' because of increased awareness of the effectiveness of AIDS drugs and their toxic side effects, an International AIDS Society-USA panel concluded. The panel recommends starting drug treatment when levels of disease-fighting CD4 white blood cells drop to between 200 and 350 per cubic millimeter. The group two years ago suggested treatment with CD4 levels of about 350. A U.S. Health & Human Services group of experts issued similar guidelines in January 2001.
VaxGen president expects aids vaccine within three years. At a July 8 press conference in Barcelona, Donald Francis -- president of VaxGen, a company working to develop an AIDS vaccine -- suggested that he expects a vaccine to be on the market by 2004 or 2005, according to the conference news service. VaxGen's vaccine is currently in stage III of clinical trials. Francis said a vaccine likely won't be 100 percent effective, but any protection could make a huge difference in the global AIDS fight.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Bleak picture
The 17,000 researchers, activists, government officials and other participants at the six-day XIV International AIDS Conference focused on seven tracks: basic science, clinical science, prevention science, social science, epidemiology, intervention and program implementation and advocacy and politics.
But while the conference focuses on the theme "Knowledge and commitment for action," some of the highest profile action has taken place outside of the official agenda, as protesters targeted U.S. officials over a perceived lack of support for the global AIDS fight.
Jeering activists crashed a press conference Tuesday and drowned out U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson's speech to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, saying the U.S. has not contributed enough money to the worldwide fight against AIDS.
Thompson's speech could not be heard over shouts of "Shame!" by activists who said they wanted to "blow the whistle on Tommy Thomson and President George Bush for crimes against people with AIDS," the conference news service reported.
As protests raged outside, inside the conference, little news could be perceived as positive, especially in terms of gay and bisexual men in the U.S.
The research conducted by MacKellar and his colleagues at the CDC offered bleak statistics that drew quick -- and horrified -- reaction from HIV activists, especially those focusing on young African-American men, the group the studies show is hardest hit by the epidemic.
"In some cities, the HIV infection among black gay men is equal to or greater than the HIV infection rates of developing nations," said Steven Walker, a representative of National Advocates for Black Gay Health.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the original epicenter of the epidemic among gay men, a separate five-year study presented in Barcelona suggested a rise in a drug-resistant strain of HIV.
And although overall cases of full-blown AIDS in the U.S. appear to have remained stable from June 1998 to June 2001, at roughly 40,000 cases diagnosed each year, even that isn't good news, CDC officials stressed at a July 7 press briefing as the conference opened.
Prior to 1998, cases of full-blown AIDS were declining, said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD & TB Prevention.
The new appearance of stability -- likely caused in part by people who don't know their HIV status or aren't receiving treatment -- may be masking an increase among gay and bisexual men and some heterosexuals, the CDC reported.
"These data point to the urgent need to stem the spread of HIV among gay and bisexual men and heterosexuals in many areas of the country, especially in those African-American communities most dramatically impacted," Valdiserri said.
In the dark about HIV
The CDC's six-city study of young gay and bisexual men -- one of the largest ever conducted, according to MacKellar -- found high rates of HIV and low rates of testing and risk reduction behavior.
The agency began releasing statistics from the study last year, immediately setting off alarms for HIV activists: Of men ages 23-29 in the study, 30 percent of young gay African-Americans had already been infected with HIV, compared to only three percent of Asians, 15 percent of Hispanics and seven percent of whites.
News released this week at the Barcelona conference offered little more hope: Of the total study sample of 5,719 gay and bisexual men ages 15-29, 10 percent tested positive for HIV. Out of those, a staggering 77 percent were unaware of their status.
Broken down by race, the numbers showed significant disparities in testing behaviors: 91 percent of African-Americans with HIV didn't know their status, compared to 70 percent of Hispanics and 60 percent of whites.
Almost 60 percent of young gay men of all racial groups with undiagnosed HIV thought they were at low or very low risk of contracting the virus, and in the six months before their diagnosis, 49 percent had three or more sex partners and 51 percent had unprotected anal intercourse.
"We asked those who didn't test why they hadn't and the two main reasons were they thought they were at low risk and they were scared to learn the result," said MacKellar, the study's lead author.
"But many of those who thought they were at low risk had engaged in high risk behaviors, and many were actually infected," he said. "So clearly, our prevention efforts need to make sure we clarify perceived risk."
While MacKellar said it is "hard to say" if the results of his six-city study could be extrapolated around the rest of the country, "it's amazing how consistent the findings were across the cities in terms of HIV prevention, risk behaviors and testing rates," he said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if you found similar rates in other metro areas," MacKellar said.
AIDS activists and gay young people said they wouldn't be surprised either.
Hernandez said he initially was afraid to be tested for HIV because he wondered if he would be positive, and the leader of HIV programs at the Atlanta gay youth group where Hernandez gets tested said he frequently hears similar fears.
"We have to do education and convincing to let people know how truly important testing is," said Damian Denson, men's program manager for African-American HIV prevention at YouthPride, a gay youth center in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur. "We see a lot of fear, which is normal. Each time I get tested, I'm just as nervous as the previous time."
At 24, Denson, who is African-American, is technically a youth himself. But with a master's degree in public health, he said he is "frustrated" and "disappointed" to learn so many gay young men -- especially black gay men -- still aren't being tested.
"For the African-American community, it goes into so many social constructs as far as racism and homophobia, which creates this level of risky behavior that erupts in a large number of infections," Denson said. "It shows us how so much more work needs to be done."
In August, YouthPride will expand its free HIV testing from the first and third Wednesday of each month to every Wednesday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Denson said.
New fears in San Francisco
While CDC studies showed an increase in HIV in young gay men, a new study released in Barcelona showed an increase of drug-resistant strains of HIV among San Francisco's newly infected gay men.
Those infected with HIV strains resistant to at least two different classes of drugs rose from 2.5 percent in 1996 to 13 percent in 2000, according to a study by the University of California, San Francisco.
"Some people are becoming infected with a virus that is much more difficult to treat,'' said Dr. Frederick Hecht, the study's co-author and a San Francisco General Hospital AIDS specialist.
The results are particularly noteworthy, Hecht said, because the evolution of the HIV epidemic around the country often follows the pattern of San Francisco.
Resistance to the latest class of AIDS drugs developed quickly, and resistant strains are being transmitted even by those undergoing treatment, the study reported.
FOR MORE INFO
XIV International AIDS Conference
www.AIDS2002.org
But the study may not mean HIV is becoming more dangerous, Hecht said. Differences in blood cell counts were relatively small, and some people with the new virus strains showed more disease-fighting white blood cells than those with the nonmutant virus.
Still, resistant HIV strains are harder to treat because physicians must start with "salvage regimes," usually only prescribed when other treatments have failed, Hecht said.
LAURA DOUGLAS-BROWN/NY Blade
The NYC AIDS Housing Network has created a team to walk on Sept. 29th in the Walk On Home walk-a-thon for Affordable Housing. 100% of the money that our team mates raise will go to support the vital community organizing and advocacy efforts of the NYC AIDS Housing Network.
I am writing to ask that you join our team (team
name: AIDS Housing Network) and help us raise money. If you can't give up your Sunday, then I'm asking you to sponsor me or another staff member as we struggle to complete the 5 mile walk! When you say what organization you would like your pledges to go to, goto NYC AIDS
Housing Network. All team registration or donations can be made on line at:
w.walkonhome.com.
The AIDS Housing Network will happily answer any of the questions that you may have about our projects or where we hope to spend the money that we raise. We also always need volunteers and supporters so feel free to contact me for more general information (718) 802-9540.
You should also know that this event is helping to support tons of nonprofit housing providers and community based organizations that fight for housing. It's sponsored by Washington Mutual Bank so they're putting up the costs which is why every single nonprofit can keep 100% of the funds. Even if you don't support the NYC AIDS Housing Network, I sure hope that you're support another organization fighting to end homelessness
and build affordable housing here in NYC.
Thank you for your commitment to ending AIDS and
homelessness.
--Jennifer Flynn
NYC AIDS Housing Network
(718) 802-9540
flynn@nycahn.org
www.nycahn.org
I am writing to ask that you join our team (team
name: AIDS Housing Network) and help us raise money. If you can't give up your Sunday, then I'm asking you to sponsor me or another staff member as we struggle to complete the 5 mile walk! When you say what organization you would like your pledges to go to, goto NYC AIDS
Housing Network. All team registration or donations can be made on line at:
w.walkonhome.com.
The AIDS Housing Network will happily answer any of the questions that you may have about our projects or where we hope to spend the money that we raise. We also always need volunteers and supporters so feel free to contact me for more general information (718) 802-9540.
You should also know that this event is helping to support tons of nonprofit housing providers and community based organizations that fight for housing. It's sponsored by Washington Mutual Bank so they're putting up the costs which is why every single nonprofit can keep 100% of the funds. Even if you don't support the NYC AIDS Housing Network, I sure hope that you're support another organization fighting to end homelessness
and build affordable housing here in NYC.
Thank you for your commitment to ending AIDS and
homelessness.
--Jennifer Flynn
NYC AIDS Housing Network
(718) 802-9540
flynn@nycahn.org
www.nycahn.org
FYI - Available Community Scholarship Program from National AIDS Fund for 2002
National AIDS Fund
www.aidsfund.org
The National AIDS Fund is one of America's largest philanthropic organizations dedicated to eliminating HIV/AIDS as a major health and social problem. For the 2002 Community Advocates Scholarship Program application packages visit
the website at:
www.aidsfund.org
Possible scholarships opportunities still available for the following:
4th National Harm Reduction Conference
Dec 1-4 - 2002
Seattle Washington
Application Deadline - September 30th
North American AIDS Treatment Forum
Dec 1-8, 2002
New Orleans, Louisiana
Application Deadline - September 30th
Yours in the Struggle:
Oliver W. Martin III
Deputy Director
Conscious Contact of New York, Inc.
Please visit our Website for more event listings
Website: www.ccofny.org
National AIDS Fund
www.aidsfund.org
The National AIDS Fund is one of America's largest philanthropic organizations dedicated to eliminating HIV/AIDS as a major health and social problem. For the 2002 Community Advocates Scholarship Program application packages visit
the website at:
www.aidsfund.org
Possible scholarships opportunities still available for the following:
4th National Harm Reduction Conference
Dec 1-4 - 2002
Seattle Washington
Application Deadline - September 30th
North American AIDS Treatment Forum
Dec 1-8, 2002
New Orleans, Louisiana
Application Deadline - September 30th
Yours in the Struggle:
Oliver W. Martin III
Deputy Director
Conscious Contact of New York, Inc.
Please visit our Website for more event listings
Website: www.ccofny.org
The National AIDS Fund is one of America's largest philanthropic organizationsdedicated to eliminating HIV/AIDS as a major health and social problem. For the 2002 Community Advocates Scholarship Program application packages visit
the website at:
www.aidsfund.org
Possible scholarships opportunities still available for the following:
4th National Harm Reduction Conference
Dec 1-4 - 2002
Seattle Washington
Application Deadline - September 30th
North American AIDS Treatment Forum
Dec 1-8, 2002
New Orleans, Louisiana
Application Deadline - September 30th
Yours in the Struggle:
Oliver W. Martin III
Deputy Director
Conscious Contact of New York, Inc.
Please visit our Website for more event listings
Website: www.ccofny.org
the website at:
www.aidsfund.org
Possible scholarships opportunities still available for the following:
4th National Harm Reduction Conference
Dec 1-4 - 2002
Seattle Washington
Application Deadline - September 30th
North American AIDS Treatment Forum
Dec 1-8, 2002
New Orleans, Louisiana
Application Deadline - September 30th
Yours in the Struggle:
Oliver W. Martin III
Deputy Director
Conscious Contact of New York, Inc.
Please visit our Website for more event listings
Website: www.ccofny.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS ADVISORY
September 12, 2002
ACT UP PICKETS CHINESE CONSULATE: RELEASE DR. WAN!
China's #1 AIDS Activist Detained by Chinese Police
(New York) ACT UP New York and Human
Rights in China, in an unprecedented coalition, are co-sponsoring a peaceful picket at the Chinese Consulate in New York to call for the release of Wan Yanhai, China's foremost AIDS activist who was detained by police in Beijing
August 24. US and Chinese activists will speak about Dr. Wan's AIDS work; they will also fly banners and carry picket signs with large photos of Dr. Wan.
Tomorrow,
on September 13, Dr. Wan Yanhai would have been received in person an award honoring his work on HIV/AIDS and human rights from Human Rights Watch and the
Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. Police in China cited "revealing state secrets" as the reason for his detainment. This summer Wan circulated via email a government report by health officials on the blood collection practices and the link to the incredibly high rate of infection in the Henan province.
Says ACT UP's Laurie Wen:
Dr. Wan is one of the most knowledgeable men in the world about AIDS and the Chinese people. He's got to be released"”he needs to keep working." The United Nations estimates that at the current infection rate, China will have 10 million citizens with HIV/AIDS by 2010.
Adds
Eustacia Smith of the Health GAP:
Dr. Wan is trying to help China avert a disaster with AIDS. He deserves to be honored"”not thrown in jail."
"Dr. Wan Yanhai is an expert and a hero in addressing and exposing China's coming AIDS epidemic. We demand his unconditional release and urge the Chinese government to allow him to continue his invaluable work in his own country." Xiao Qiang, Executive Director, Human Rights in China.
Dr. Wan, 38, is a physician and recent Fulbright grant recipient operates a web site which is one of the only independent sources of AIDS information for China.
Through it, he helped expose blood selling businesses in the Henan provincet that lead to the HIV infection of as many as 1 million poor farmers. He founded the first telephone hotline for people with AIDS in China and has organized AIDS support groups. China is currently awaiting word on a multimillion-dollar grant from the United Nations Global Fund for AIDS, a request rumored at $90 million. In addition, Chinese President Jiang Zemin is slated to visit
President Bush in late October. Activists are calling on President George Bush to do everything in his power to help free Dr. Wan. "When the Chinese President comes to Crawford for his coveted ranch date with Bush, the President should
put the detention of Dr. Wan at the top of the agenda," said Mark Milano of ACT UP New York.
Contact: Sharonann Lynch:
212-674-9598
Laurie Wen:
917-443-4121
PRESS ADVISORY
September 12, 2002
ACT UP PICKETS CHINESE CONSULATE: RELEASE DR. WAN!
China's #1 AIDS Activist Detained by Chinese Police
(New York) ACT UP New York and Human
Rights in China, in an unprecedented coalition, are co-sponsoring a peaceful picket at the Chinese Consulate in New York to call for the release of Wan Yanhai, China's foremost AIDS activist who was detained by police in Beijing
August 24. US and Chinese activists will speak about Dr. Wan's AIDS work; they will also fly banners and carry picket signs with large photos of Dr. Wan.
Tomorrow,
on September 13, Dr. Wan Yanhai would have been received in person an award honoring his work on HIV/AIDS and human rights from Human Rights Watch and the
Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. Police in China cited "revealing state secrets" as the reason for his detainment. This summer Wan circulated via email a government report by health officials on the blood collection practices and the link to the incredibly high rate of infection in the Henan province.
Says ACT UP's Laurie Wen:
Dr. Wan is one of the most knowledgeable men in the world about AIDS and the Chinese people. He's got to be released"”he needs to keep working." The United Nations estimates that at the current infection rate, China will have 10 million citizens with HIV/AIDS by 2010.
Adds
Eustacia Smith of the Health GAP:
Dr. Wan is trying to help China avert a disaster with AIDS. He deserves to be honored"”not thrown in jail."
"Dr. Wan Yanhai is an expert and a hero in addressing and exposing China's coming AIDS epidemic. We demand his unconditional release and urge the Chinese government to allow him to continue his invaluable work in his own country." Xiao Qiang, Executive Director, Human Rights in China.
Dr. Wan, 38, is a physician and recent Fulbright grant recipient operates a web site which is one of the only independent sources of AIDS information for China.
Through it, he helped expose blood selling businesses in the Henan provincet that lead to the HIV infection of as many as 1 million poor farmers. He founded the first telephone hotline for people with AIDS in China and has organized AIDS support groups. China is currently awaiting word on a multimillion-dollar grant from the United Nations Global Fund for AIDS, a request rumored at $90 million. In addition, Chinese President Jiang Zemin is slated to visit
President Bush in late October. Activists are calling on President George Bush to do everything in his power to help free Dr. Wan. "When the Chinese President comes to Crawford for his coveted ranch date with Bush, the President should
put the detention of Dr. Wan at the top of the agenda," said Mark Milano of ACT UP New York.
Contact: Sharonann Lynch:
212-674-9598
Laurie Wen:
917-443-4121
Subject: Rally and Speak Out on Tuesday October 8th at Community Forum on AIDS emergency housing
Homeless People Living with HIV/AIDS NEED PERMANENT HOUSING AND YOU CAN HELP THEM GET IT...
WHY
WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT
There are currently 1600 homeless people living with AIDS in the commercial SRO's;
A State Supreme Court Judge has confirmed that they are living in substandard conditions;
Homeless people living with AIDS at the Malibu and other Upper West Side SRO hotels have been criminalized by the community; The City spends $2200 per month to send a homeless person living with AIDS to a horrible commercial SRO while cheaper apartments sit vacant; Placing homeless people in commercial SRO's leads to a depletion of affordable housing. The City needs to do more to end homelessness.
OUR SOLUTION
The NYC AIDS Housing Network is demanding that the City immediately place all people living with AIDS in commercial SRO's into permanent housing The City Council must pass a law ensuring that all New Yorkers living with AIDS will get an immediate referral to permanent housing;
The Mayor must create an AIDS housing plan immediately to address the crisis;
The MAYOR MUST RECOMMIT THE $25 MILLION FROM HOPWA TO BUILD AIDS HOUSING!
What Can You Do?
SHOW UP ON TUESDAY, OCT. 8TH
BLOOMINGDALE LIBRARY'
100TH STREET AND AMSTERDAM AVENUE
6:45 P.M.
TAKE THE B,C, OR 1 TRAIN TO 103RD ST.
OR MEET AT THE NYC AIDS HOUSING NETWORK,
5:15 P.M.,
80A FOURTH AVENUE BROOKLYN
B/T ST. MARKS & BERGEN STS.
(TAKE THE W,M,N,R TO PACIFIC ST. OR THE 2,3, 4,5,Q TRAIN TO ATLANTIC AVE.)
OPENLY HIV + CITY COUNCILMEMBER PHIL REED IS HOLDING A FORUM TO HEAR THE COMMUNITIES CONCERNS
ABOUT HOMELESS PEOPLE LIVING WITH AIDS BEING PLACED IN THEIR COMMUNITY! WE NEED YOU TO SHOW UP AND HAVE YOUR VOICES HEARD! HOMELESS PEOPLE ARE NOT THE PROBLEM, HOMELESSNESS IS!!!
For more information or to join the House Every One! Campaign or to become a member of the
NYC AIDS Housing Network, call Jennifer at
(718) 802-9540
The next planning meeting will be Wednesday, Oct. 2nd at 6:00 p.m. at the office of
the NYC AIDS Housing Network.
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 10-04-02 at 02:52 AM.]
Homeless People Living with HIV/AIDS NEED PERMANENT HOUSING AND YOU CAN HELP THEM GET IT...
WHY
WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT
There are currently 1600 homeless people living with AIDS in the commercial SRO's;
A State Supreme Court Judge has confirmed that they are living in substandard conditions;
Homeless people living with AIDS at the Malibu and other Upper West Side SRO hotels have been criminalized by the community; The City spends $2200 per month to send a homeless person living with AIDS to a horrible commercial SRO while cheaper apartments sit vacant; Placing homeless people in commercial SRO's leads to a depletion of affordable housing. The City needs to do more to end homelessness.
OUR SOLUTION
The NYC AIDS Housing Network is demanding that the City immediately place all people living with AIDS in commercial SRO's into permanent housing The City Council must pass a law ensuring that all New Yorkers living with AIDS will get an immediate referral to permanent housing;
The Mayor must create an AIDS housing plan immediately to address the crisis;
The MAYOR MUST RECOMMIT THE $25 MILLION FROM HOPWA TO BUILD AIDS HOUSING!
What Can You Do?
SHOW UP ON TUESDAY, OCT. 8TH
BLOOMINGDALE LIBRARY'
100TH STREET AND AMSTERDAM AVENUE
6:45 P.M.
TAKE THE B,C, OR 1 TRAIN TO 103RD ST.
OR MEET AT THE NYC AIDS HOUSING NETWORK,
5:15 P.M.,
80A FOURTH AVENUE BROOKLYN
B/T ST. MARKS & BERGEN STS.
(TAKE THE W,M,N,R TO PACIFIC ST. OR THE 2,3, 4,5,Q TRAIN TO ATLANTIC AVE.)
OPENLY HIV + CITY COUNCILMEMBER PHIL REED IS HOLDING A FORUM TO HEAR THE COMMUNITIES CONCERNS
ABOUT HOMELESS PEOPLE LIVING WITH AIDS BEING PLACED IN THEIR COMMUNITY! WE NEED YOU TO SHOW UP AND HAVE YOUR VOICES HEARD! HOMELESS PEOPLE ARE NOT THE PROBLEM, HOMELESSNESS IS!!!
For more information or to join the House Every One! Campaign or to become a member of the
NYC AIDS Housing Network, call Jennifer at
(718) 802-9540
The next planning meeting will be Wednesday, Oct. 2nd at 6:00 p.m. at the office of
the NYC AIDS Housing Network.
[This message was edited by Rose Royalle on 10-04-02 at 02:52 AM.]
HEADLINES:
1. DIRECTION OF MOST NEW STATE FUNDING TO FIGHT HIV/AIDS IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR STILL UNRESOLVED; SENATE REPUBLICANS DIRECT $500,000 TO BLACK AND LATINO COMMISSION; HOUSING WORKS AND OTHERS URGE LEGISLATIVE LEADERS TO PUT PUBLIC HEALTH OVER POLITICS IN DISTRIBUTING FUNDS
2.BUSH PUSHES BIG INCREASE IN MILITARY SPENDING WHILE FLAT-FUNDING AIDS AND LEAVING STATE BUDGETS BLEEDING: WE TOLD YOU THAT WAR AND PEACE ARE AIDS
ISSUES NOW
3.ERISTOFF PLAYS POLITICS WITH AIDS IN EFFORT TO UNSEAT KREUGER IN UPPER EAST SIDE STATE SENATE RACE; CALL ERISTOFF THIS WEEK TO TELL HIM TO GET REAL ON HIV TRANSMISSION
DIRECTION OF MOST NEW STATE FUNDING TO FIGHT HIV/AIDS IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR STILL UNRESOLVED; SENATE REPUBLICANS DIRECT $500,000 TO BLCA AND LATINO COMMISSION; HOUSING WORKS AND OTHERS URGE LEGISLATIVE LEADERS TO PUT PUBLIC HEALTH OVER POLITICS IN DISTRIBUTING FUNDS
Elected officials and activists succeeded in earmarking about $4.75 million in this year's state budget for new investments in the fight against HIV/AIDS in communities of color. Legislative sources say that the final distribution of most of the funding is yet to be determined, five months after passage of budget bills. But State Senator Pedro Espada announced
Tuesday morning that $500,000 in funds from Senate Republicans would be directed to the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS and The Latino Commission on AIDS.
Officials at BLCA and the Latino Commission say they will each contribute at least $150,000 of their $250,000 grants to a pool for distribution to community groups, and that they'll work to obtain matching funds for the $300,000 pool from one or more foundations.
Some observers fear that the Senate distribution is a sign of further politicization to come. Rumors swept the AIDS advocacy community last week
about the Senate funding, as well about a potential split of Assemblydollars that might have channeled funds to the most politically-connected groups, including large non-minority service providers.
But a high-level Assembly official assured advocates late Friday that no decision had been made on the distribution of $3 million in new funding obtained by Speaker Sheldon Silver and the Assembly Democratic Majority.
This official emphasized that broad input into the distribution process would be sought from AIDS champions like Assembly Members Roger Green, Peter Rivera and Dick Gottfried, and from community organizations and advocacy groups before any process was finalized.
Aides to Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno did not respond to numerous calls from the Update inquiring about plans for the remainder of what Senate officials have previously claimed would be $1.75 million in new HIV/AIDS funding targeted to communities of color by the Senate Republican Majority Conference.
But Senator Espada's office told the Update that the $500,000 is from the $1 million in new HIV funding appropriated by the Senate Majority conference, and not from the controversial $745,000 in member item funding Senator Espada had tried to channel to the social service organization that he established and that still employs him.
Housing Works and other groups that advocated for the new funding (including BLCA and the Latino Commission) have urged Senate and Assembly leaders to direct a significant amount of new resources to the MSA and CDI programs that currently make up our state's targeted HIV/AIDS infrastructure for communities of color.
* We've recommended that 2/3 of new funding be directed straight to the 44 MSA/CDI groups, without an application process, in order to beef up the existing targeted infrastructure in the areas hardest-hit by HIV/AIDS. The MSA/CDI system is currently the best way to get resources to frontline service providers located in and run by minority communities.
* We've also recommended that 1/3 be made available to smaller and fast-growing groups in underserved communities that aren't in the MSA/CDI
program, with top priority given to groups run and staffed by members of the minority communities they serve. We've urged legislators to create an easy one-page application for this funding and to create a workgroup made up of
legislators with relevant expertise to make decisions on funding.
Groups joining on to these recommendations include Housing Works, the New York AIDS Coalition, Harlem United, People of Color in Crisis, the Long Island Minority AIDS Coalition, and the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, as well as BLCA and the Latino Commission.
Assembly Member Roger Green, chair of the Black, Puerto Rican & Hispanic Legislative Caucus and a prime mover behind the new funding, has told groups he supports these recommendations and will work to encourage Speaker Silver to back them. Coalition members are planning meetings with Rivera, Gottfried, and other top officials and staff to reemphasize our concerns.
There's a real danger that the impact of new funding will be lost if the distribution of funds is overly political. Certainly there are many
high-quality service groups that maintain good connections with elected officials, who want to work to support them. But political connections
shouldn't be a requirement to access the new funding: the most important qualifications should be
(1) a leadership role in hard-hit communities of
color
(2) connections to people of color living with HIV/AIDS or at high risk for it.
Housing Works feels strongly that no group should have to have a lobbyist to gain access to these important new resources. Priority should go to groups that are either already a part of our state's current minority-targeted infrastructure (MSA/CDIs) or who are leaders in a hard-hit minority community ready with a plan for saving local lives, or both. When lives are at stake, public health must go before politics and self-interest. We hope that New York's legislative leaders will agree.
BUSH PUSHES BIG INCREASE IN MILITARY SPENDING WHILE FLAT-FUNDING KEY AIDS
PROGRAMS AND LEAVING STATE BUDGETS BLEEDING: WE TOLD YOU WAR AND PEACE ARE AIDS ISSUES NOW
Last year, the Update warned that the Bush administration's zealous focus on putting the nation onto a permanent war footing would lead to a shortage of resources for crucial domestic needs like HIV/AIDS prevention and care. As
you may already know, that's exactly what happening in Washington now:
polls indicate the public believes that the President is paying too much attention to the war and not enough to domestic issues, and Bush's budget priorities put war funding over everything else.
President Bush wants $396 billion for war in next year's federal budget: $379 billion for the Defense Department and $16.8 billion for nuclear
weapons through the Department of Energy are included in the Defense appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2003. This amounts to a 13% increase
above current levels, an increase of about $45.5 billion dollars from 2002 levels  that's 45,000 million dollars, just so you know.
And there are more war costs to come. The Congressional Budget Office estimates in its letter to the chairs of the House and Senate Budget Committees that "prosecuting a war" could roughly cost anywhere from $9 to $13 billion dollars a MONTH, but could not give any final figures as to the actual cost of the coming war with Iraq.
In contrast, Bush has proposed the second straight year of flat funding for the Ryan White CARE Act and the Minority AIDS Initiative, two key federal AIDS programs. And he's neglecting the massive need for resources in the fight against the global AIDS pandemic, which is now recognized as a key national security issue. (According to the National Intelligence Council,
HIV/AIDS will cause a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Russia, Nigeria, India and China, and is likely to result in dramatic upheavals across Africa, which now provides an increasing portion of America's oil supply.)
Here's a quick list of increases in war spending  note that the numbers are in billions, each of which is a thousand million:
Department of Defense:
Military Personnel: 15% increase to $94.2 billion
Operations/Maintenance: 18% increase to $150.2 billion
Procurement: 12% increase to $68.7 billion
Research/Development: 11% increase to $53.9 billion
Military Construction: 27% decrease to $4.8 billion
Housing: 2% increase to $4.2 billion
Other (Administration): 3.3 billion
Department of Energy/Nuclear Weapons: 2.5% increase to $16.8 billion
Now compare that with the following list of mostly flat AIDS spending, and note that the numbers are in millions, each of which is .001 billion:
Ryan White CARE Act:
Title I: 0% increase to $619 million
Title II Base: 0% increase to $338.5 million
Title II ADAP: 0% increase to $639 million
Title III: <1% increase to $194.5 million
Title IV: 0% increase to $71 million
Part F(Dental): 58% increase to $23.4 million
Part F(AETC): 0% increase to $35.3 million
CDC AIDS Programs: 0% increase to $840 million
Minority AIDS Initiative: 0% increase to $540 million
One more comparison: the Ballistic Missile Defense (Star Wars) program at $8.9 billion dollars is twice as big as the federal domestic AIDS budget, including research.
The priorities of the Bush administration are clear and getting clearer: trillions more for the war effort, and trillions in tax cuts for the very
rich. Meanwhile the fight against AIDS here and abroad is neglected, and millions of people, overwhelmingly people of color, will die. The United States will continue to see 40,000 or more new HIV infections each year, with the epicenter in New York's communities of color. Basic public health programs like safe-sex education and harm reduction and needle exchange programs are frozen, cut or blocked.
Is the public health of this nation unimportant to the President as he ignores the plea of the people to drop the war and pay attention to domestic issues? Increasing infection, increasing medical costs, increasing need for
services continue to arrive at this doorstep and he continues to take the money away to give to his war. And make no mistake -- this is HIS war, not the people's war. The people's war belongs to those at home caring, working and advocating for the health and welfare of this nation.
(More information on the Bush war budget is available from the Center for Defense Information at www.cdi.org.).
ERISTOFF PLAYS POLITICS WITH AIDS IN EFFORT TO UNSEAT KREUGER IN UPPER EAST SIDE STATE SENATE RACE; CALL ERISTOFF TO URGE HIM TO GET REAL ON HIV
TRANSMISSION
Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, candidates for public office have been tempted to play politics with AIDS, instead of focusing on responsible public health efforts to fight the epidemic. It's happening again in this year's State Senate race on the East Side of Manhattan.
Some really irresponsible New York politicians, like Nettie Mayersohn and Steve Kaufman, seem to have built entire personas around "getting tough on AIDS" when they really want to "get stupid" on AIDS. And even otherwise admirable politicians like Attorney General Eliot Spitzer have stooped to playing politics with AIDS; advocating stupid policies to seem "tough" is a Clintonesque move that seems particularly attractive to certain individuals who are either deeply misinformed or deeply insecure (or both).
Andrew Eristoff, a Republican former City Council member and a candidate for the State Senate seat currently held by Democrat and AIDS champion Liz
Kreuger, is zeroing in on the same issue Spitzer did four years ago: forced HIV testing of crime suspects. Housing Works led protests at Spitzer's
campaign office to urge him to listen to health experts instead of pollsters on this issue, and we might have to return to the streets to knock some sense into Mr. Eristoff.
Eristoff is criticizing Senator Kreuger in television ads and political mailings for voting against a bad forced HIV testing bill, not mentioning that Kreuger's Republican predecessor voted against the same bad bill every time it came up in the last six years he was in office.
S. 7419 wouldn't do anything to help survivors of sexual assault, and it might do a lot to hurt them. The bill is premised on the entirely wrong
idea that HIV prophylaxis should wait until police track down a crime suspect, and then that decisions on prophylaxis should be based on the test results of the suspect.
Rape crisis counselors point out that prophylactic medications against HIV/AIDS need to be taken within 72 hours of a sexual assault, and that waiting for test results from an alleged perpetrator would decrease the likelihood that such prophylactic treatments would be provided in time to be effective. They also point out that the suspect could be the wrong person, leading to an erroneous treatment judgment whether the test turned out positive or negative.
Senator Kreuger and others have pointed out that the bad bill also includesa wildly expansive list of alleged offenses that could result in forced HIV testing, so that under S. 7419 someone accused of pushing someone on the street could be forcibly tested for HIV without their consent. It's a really bad bill, and that's why Kreuger voted against it.
At a Kreuger press conference, State Senator Tom Duane said "After Senator Krueger is re-elected to the Senate, I will be more than happy to sit down with Andrew Eristoff and teach him the basics of HIV/AIDS transmission unfortunately, it sounds like he needs it."
Anyone who'd like to call Andrew Eristoff's campaign to register your complaint against his misleading and damaging campaign commercials should call his uptown office at 212-288-2351 or his downtown office at 917-606-0730. Ask the campaign why they need to play politics with AIDS,
and ask them to stop their current ads and start telling the truth.
________________________________________________
The Housing Works New York State AIDS Issues Update is reported, written and edited by Michael Kink and staff at the Housing Works Albany Advocacy Center. This week's issue includes an article on federal issues by Nuris Rodriguez and Michael Kink. You can reach us by phone at 518-449-4207, by fax at 518-449-4219, & by email at update@housingworks.org.
Housing Works provides housing, advocacy and services to homeless people living with AIDS and HIV. Housing Works is the nation's largest
community-based AIDS organization and the nation's largest minority-controlled AIDS organization.
OCTOBER 7, 2002
1. DIRECTION OF MOST NEW STATE FUNDING TO FIGHT HIV/AIDS IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR STILL UNRESOLVED; SENATE REPUBLICANS DIRECT $500,000 TO BLACK AND LATINO COMMISSION; HOUSING WORKS AND OTHERS URGE LEGISLATIVE LEADERS TO PUT PUBLIC HEALTH OVER POLITICS IN DISTRIBUTING FUNDS
2.BUSH PUSHES BIG INCREASE IN MILITARY SPENDING WHILE FLAT-FUNDING AIDS AND LEAVING STATE BUDGETS BLEEDING: WE TOLD YOU THAT WAR AND PEACE ARE AIDS
ISSUES NOW
3.ERISTOFF PLAYS POLITICS WITH AIDS IN EFFORT TO UNSEAT KREUGER IN UPPER EAST SIDE STATE SENATE RACE; CALL ERISTOFF THIS WEEK TO TELL HIM TO GET REAL ON HIV TRANSMISSION
DIRECTION OF MOST NEW STATE FUNDING TO FIGHT HIV/AIDS IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR STILL UNRESOLVED; SENATE REPUBLICANS DIRECT $500,000 TO BLCA AND LATINO COMMISSION; HOUSING WORKS AND OTHERS URGE LEGISLATIVE LEADERS TO PUT PUBLIC HEALTH OVER POLITICS IN DISTRIBUTING FUNDS
Elected officials and activists succeeded in earmarking about $4.75 million in this year's state budget for new investments in the fight against HIV/AIDS in communities of color. Legislative sources say that the final distribution of most of the funding is yet to be determined, five months after passage of budget bills. But State Senator Pedro Espada announced
Tuesday morning that $500,000 in funds from Senate Republicans would be directed to the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS and The Latino Commission on AIDS.
Officials at BLCA and the Latino Commission say they will each contribute at least $150,000 of their $250,000 grants to a pool for distribution to community groups, and that they'll work to obtain matching funds for the $300,000 pool from one or more foundations.
Some observers fear that the Senate distribution is a sign of further politicization to come. Rumors swept the AIDS advocacy community last week
about the Senate funding, as well about a potential split of Assemblydollars that might have channeled funds to the most politically-connected groups, including large non-minority service providers.
But a high-level Assembly official assured advocates late Friday that no decision had been made on the distribution of $3 million in new funding obtained by Speaker Sheldon Silver and the Assembly Democratic Majority.
This official emphasized that broad input into the distribution process would be sought from AIDS champions like Assembly Members Roger Green, Peter Rivera and Dick Gottfried, and from community organizations and advocacy groups before any process was finalized.
Aides to Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno did not respond to numerous calls from the Update inquiring about plans for the remainder of what Senate officials have previously claimed would be $1.75 million in new HIV/AIDS funding targeted to communities of color by the Senate Republican Majority Conference.
But Senator Espada's office told the Update that the $500,000 is from the $1 million in new HIV funding appropriated by the Senate Majority conference, and not from the controversial $745,000 in member item funding Senator Espada had tried to channel to the social service organization that he established and that still employs him.
Housing Works and other groups that advocated for the new funding (including BLCA and the Latino Commission) have urged Senate and Assembly leaders to direct a significant amount of new resources to the MSA and CDI programs that currently make up our state's targeted HIV/AIDS infrastructure for communities of color.
* We've recommended that 2/3 of new funding be directed straight to the 44 MSA/CDI groups, without an application process, in order to beef up the existing targeted infrastructure in the areas hardest-hit by HIV/AIDS. The MSA/CDI system is currently the best way to get resources to frontline service providers located in and run by minority communities.
* We've also recommended that 1/3 be made available to smaller and fast-growing groups in underserved communities that aren't in the MSA/CDI
program, with top priority given to groups run and staffed by members of the minority communities they serve. We've urged legislators to create an easy one-page application for this funding and to create a workgroup made up of
legislators with relevant expertise to make decisions on funding.
Groups joining on to these recommendations include Housing Works, the New York AIDS Coalition, Harlem United, People of Color in Crisis, the Long Island Minority AIDS Coalition, and the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, as well as BLCA and the Latino Commission.
Assembly Member Roger Green, chair of the Black, Puerto Rican & Hispanic Legislative Caucus and a prime mover behind the new funding, has told groups he supports these recommendations and will work to encourage Speaker Silver to back them. Coalition members are planning meetings with Rivera, Gottfried, and other top officials and staff to reemphasize our concerns.
There's a real danger that the impact of new funding will be lost if the distribution of funds is overly political. Certainly there are many
high-quality service groups that maintain good connections with elected officials, who want to work to support them. But political connections
shouldn't be a requirement to access the new funding: the most important qualifications should be
(1) a leadership role in hard-hit communities of
color
(2) connections to people of color living with HIV/AIDS or at high risk for it.
Housing Works feels strongly that no group should have to have a lobbyist to gain access to these important new resources. Priority should go to groups that are either already a part of our state's current minority-targeted infrastructure (MSA/CDIs) or who are leaders in a hard-hit minority community ready with a plan for saving local lives, or both. When lives are at stake, public health must go before politics and self-interest. We hope that New York's legislative leaders will agree.
BUSH PUSHES BIG INCREASE IN MILITARY SPENDING WHILE FLAT-FUNDING KEY AIDS
PROGRAMS AND LEAVING STATE BUDGETS BLEEDING: WE TOLD YOU WAR AND PEACE ARE AIDS ISSUES NOW
Last year, the Update warned that the Bush administration's zealous focus on putting the nation onto a permanent war footing would lead to a shortage of resources for crucial domestic needs like HIV/AIDS prevention and care. As
you may already know, that's exactly what happening in Washington now:
polls indicate the public believes that the President is paying too much attention to the war and not enough to domestic issues, and Bush's budget priorities put war funding over everything else.
President Bush wants $396 billion for war in next year's federal budget: $379 billion for the Defense Department and $16.8 billion for nuclear
weapons through the Department of Energy are included in the Defense appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2003. This amounts to a 13% increase
above current levels, an increase of about $45.5 billion dollars from 2002 levels  that's 45,000 million dollars, just so you know.
And there are more war costs to come. The Congressional Budget Office estimates in its letter to the chairs of the House and Senate Budget Committees that "prosecuting a war" could roughly cost anywhere from $9 to $13 billion dollars a MONTH, but could not give any final figures as to the actual cost of the coming war with Iraq.
In contrast, Bush has proposed the second straight year of flat funding for the Ryan White CARE Act and the Minority AIDS Initiative, two key federal AIDS programs. And he's neglecting the massive need for resources in the fight against the global AIDS pandemic, which is now recognized as a key national security issue. (According to the National Intelligence Council,
HIV/AIDS will cause a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Russia, Nigeria, India and China, and is likely to result in dramatic upheavals across Africa, which now provides an increasing portion of America's oil supply.)
Here's a quick list of increases in war spending  note that the numbers are in billions, each of which is a thousand million:
Department of Defense:
Military Personnel: 15% increase to $94.2 billion
Operations/Maintenance: 18% increase to $150.2 billion
Procurement: 12% increase to $68.7 billion
Research/Development: 11% increase to $53.9 billion
Military Construction: 27% decrease to $4.8 billion
Housing: 2% increase to $4.2 billion
Other (Administration): 3.3 billion
Department of Energy/Nuclear Weapons: 2.5% increase to $16.8 billion
Now compare that with the following list of mostly flat AIDS spending, and note that the numbers are in millions, each of which is .001 billion:
Ryan White CARE Act:
Title I: 0% increase to $619 million
Title II Base: 0% increase to $338.5 million
Title II ADAP: 0% increase to $639 million
Title III: <1% increase to $194.5 million
Title IV: 0% increase to $71 million
Part F(Dental): 58% increase to $23.4 million
Part F(AETC): 0% increase to $35.3 million
CDC AIDS Programs: 0% increase to $840 million
Minority AIDS Initiative: 0% increase to $540 million
One more comparison: the Ballistic Missile Defense (Star Wars) program at $8.9 billion dollars is twice as big as the federal domestic AIDS budget, including research.
The priorities of the Bush administration are clear and getting clearer: trillions more for the war effort, and trillions in tax cuts for the very
rich. Meanwhile the fight against AIDS here and abroad is neglected, and millions of people, overwhelmingly people of color, will die. The United States will continue to see 40,000 or more new HIV infections each year, with the epicenter in New York's communities of color. Basic public health programs like safe-sex education and harm reduction and needle exchange programs are frozen, cut or blocked.
Is the public health of this nation unimportant to the President as he ignores the plea of the people to drop the war and pay attention to domestic issues? Increasing infection, increasing medical costs, increasing need for
services continue to arrive at this doorstep and he continues to take the money away to give to his war. And make no mistake -- this is HIS war, not the people's war. The people's war belongs to those at home caring, working and advocating for the health and welfare of this nation.
(More information on the Bush war budget is available from the Center for Defense Information at www.cdi.org.).
ERISTOFF PLAYS POLITICS WITH AIDS IN EFFORT TO UNSEAT KREUGER IN UPPER EAST SIDE STATE SENATE RACE; CALL ERISTOFF TO URGE HIM TO GET REAL ON HIV
TRANSMISSION
Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, candidates for public office have been tempted to play politics with AIDS, instead of focusing on responsible public health efforts to fight the epidemic. It's happening again in this year's State Senate race on the East Side of Manhattan.
Some really irresponsible New York politicians, like Nettie Mayersohn and Steve Kaufman, seem to have built entire personas around "getting tough on AIDS" when they really want to "get stupid" on AIDS. And even otherwise admirable politicians like Attorney General Eliot Spitzer have stooped to playing politics with AIDS; advocating stupid policies to seem "tough" is a Clintonesque move that seems particularly attractive to certain individuals who are either deeply misinformed or deeply insecure (or both).
Andrew Eristoff, a Republican former City Council member and a candidate for the State Senate seat currently held by Democrat and AIDS champion Liz
Kreuger, is zeroing in on the same issue Spitzer did four years ago: forced HIV testing of crime suspects. Housing Works led protests at Spitzer's
campaign office to urge him to listen to health experts instead of pollsters on this issue, and we might have to return to the streets to knock some sense into Mr. Eristoff.
Eristoff is criticizing Senator Kreuger in television ads and political mailings for voting against a bad forced HIV testing bill, not mentioning that Kreuger's Republican predecessor voted against the same bad bill every time it came up in the last six years he was in office.
S. 7419 wouldn't do anything to help survivors of sexual assault, and it might do a lot to hurt them. The bill is premised on the entirely wrong
idea that HIV prophylaxis should wait until police track down a crime suspect, and then that decisions on prophylaxis should be based on the test results of the suspect.
Rape crisis counselors point out that prophylactic medications against HIV/AIDS need to be taken within 72 hours of a sexual assault, and that waiting for test results from an alleged perpetrator would decrease the likelihood that such prophylactic treatments would be provided in time to be effective. They also point out that the suspect could be the wrong person, leading to an erroneous treatment judgment whether the test turned out positive or negative.
Senator Kreuger and others have pointed out that the bad bill also includesa wildly expansive list of alleged offenses that could result in forced HIV testing, so that under S. 7419 someone accused of pushing someone on the street could be forcibly tested for HIV without their consent. It's a really bad bill, and that's why Kreuger voted against it.
At a Kreuger press conference, State Senator Tom Duane said "After Senator Krueger is re-elected to the Senate, I will be more than happy to sit down with Andrew Eristoff and teach him the basics of HIV/AIDS transmission unfortunately, it sounds like he needs it."
Anyone who'd like to call Andrew Eristoff's campaign to register your complaint against his misleading and damaging campaign commercials should call his uptown office at 212-288-2351 or his downtown office at 917-606-0730. Ask the campaign why they need to play politics with AIDS,
and ask them to stop their current ads and start telling the truth.
________________________________________________
The Housing Works New York State AIDS Issues Update is reported, written and edited by Michael Kink and staff at the Housing Works Albany Advocacy Center. This week's issue includes an article on federal issues by Nuris Rodriguez and Michael Kink. You can reach us by phone at 518-449-4207, by fax at 518-449-4219, & by email at update@housingworks.org.
Housing Works provides housing, advocacy and services to homeless people living with AIDS and HIV. Housing Works is the nation's largest
community-based AIDS organization and the nation's largest minority-controlled AIDS organization.
OCTOBER 7, 2002
Subject: Fw: Global Protests against Coke: AIDS Treatment for workers
October 17, 2002, Join Health GAP, ACT UP, and AIDS activists around the globe to demand Coca-Cola and other multinational corporations
pay for AIDS treatment for workers living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries.
Multinational corporations like Coke are making a killing in countries in Africa and throughout the Third World. Coke is the largest foreign private sector employer in Africa, employing about
100,000 workers.
An international coalition of activists--from Accra to Manhattan, from Casablanca to Oakland, from Harare to Atlanta--will target Coca-Cola with simultaneous protests, pickets, press conferences, marches and more on October 17, for Coke's refusal to pay for HIV medicines for sick workers in developing countries, particularly
African countries.
**************************************************
STOP MEDICAL APARTHEID -- FIGHT FOR AIDS TREATMENT FOR WORKERS HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE GLOBAL DAY OF PROTEST:
RALLY IN NYC: Join us at on Thursday, Oct. 17 at 2pm at Coca-Cola Headquarters (711 5th Ave near 56th St).
OUTSIDE OF NYC: e-mail salynch@healthgap.org for local actions or to get help planning one.
PLEASE ENDORSE: Complete the form at the end of this e-mail and send to
info@healthgap.org
GO TO: www.treat-your-workers.org
**************************************************
DE-BUNKING COKE'S "NON-PLAN"
After many months of campaigning, Coke is starting to give in to activist pressure.
AIDS activists have been demanding that the company pay for HIV drugs and treatment for workers living with HIV among the 100,000 people
who bottle and distribute Coke-not just Coke's so-called "direct workforce" of 1500 people.
On September 29, 2002, Coke announced they planned to start an initiative to share the costs of AIDS treatment with 8 of 40 bottlers
in Africa. These 8 participating bottlers are some of the largest in Africa, and several already have insurance plans of their own.
Activists are concerned about Coke's commitment to extending a workable plan quickly to the many smaller bottlers starting medicines schemes from scratch. The devil is in the details, and the details from Coke are not forthcoming.
- Coke will demand workers contribute a 10% co-payment on drugs. Activists point out this is Coke's cynical ploy to drive down use of the program by creating barriers to access. Workers can't afford a co-payment and won't use the program. Coke on the other hand can easily afford the cost of the co-pay-marginal for them.
- Coke isn't committing to buying from multiple drug suppliers. Maximum benefit for workers comes from drugs procured at the cheapest price. That means negotiating price with multiple companies,
including generic producers. When will Coke publicly commit to using generic competition to ensure maximum coverage of workers?
- What about the family?
Children of workers aren't covered under the current plan-only the worker and one spouse. Coke must not be allowed to leave the HIV-positive children of workers behind.
- What about the rest of the world?
Coke's workplace policies in Africa are less than perfect. But in the rest of the developing world, they are worse. Coke workers in regions hard-hit by AIDS need comprehensive treatment, prevention and care programs-including access to antiretroviral drugs.
Keep the pressure on! October 17, 2002 is the Global Day of Protest
against Coke.
**************************************************
INFORMATION
* Check out our new and updated Global Day of Action campaign materials at
www.treat-your-workers.org
* Want to know if an event is already scheduled for your area?
Contact us at: info@healthgap.org or (212) 674-9598.
* Let us know what you are planning: contact us at info@healthgap.org
or (212) 674-9598 to share information about what you are doing on October 17 as part of the Global Day of Protest.
* Questions or comments about the campaign? Contact Sharonann Lynch at
salynch@healthgap.org
(212) 674-9598
**************************************************
DEMANDS
We demand that Coca-Cola and other multinational corporations operating in developing countries:
* Provide all workers and their dependents with comprehensive healthcare - including life-sustaining antiretroviral treatments.
* Offer confidential HIV testing and counseling to all workers, in the context of a clear anti-discrimination policy.
* Distribute free condoms in the workplace, and provide safer-sex and sexual health education classes.
* Develop further HIV/AIDS prevention and education policies in collaboration with affected employees, their labor representatives, and community-based health initiatives.
**************************************************
ENDORSE THE GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST COKE, OCTOBER 17, 2002.
(send to info@healthgap.org)
I / We endorse the Global Day of Protest against Coke.
Name:
Organization:
Email:
Address:
Phone:
Fax
Endorsement is
( ) Individual
( ) Organizational
( ) Both
I / my organization can assist with the following needs:
( ) Will organize an event in my area
( ) Will attend / bring others to an event in my area
( ) Will assist with the Global Day of Protest by:
ENDORSE THE GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST COKE, OCTOBER 17, 2002.
SEND TO INFO@HEALTHGAP.ORG
**************************************************
SPONSORS
The organizations sponsoring the Global Day of Protest against Coca-Cola include Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa), Pan-African HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Movement (PHATAM), Health GAP, ACT UP New York, ACT UP Philadelphia, Act Up-Paris, ACT UP East Bay, Global AIDS Alliance, European AIDS Treatment Group, Association Marocaine de Lutte Contre le Sida (Association Fighting AIDS), Morocco, Africa-Japan Forum, the Thai Network of People Living with HIV (TNP+), and Student Global AIDS Campaign.
Endorsing organizations:
Act Up East Bay, (USA)
Act Up New York, (USA)
Act Up philadelphia, (USA)
Act Up/Cleveland (USA)
Act Up-Paris, (France)
Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA)
Africa Action (USA)
Africa Japan Forum (Japan)
African Services Committee (USA)
Aids Action Baltimore (USA)
Aids Action Baltimore, Baltimore, Md (USA)
AIDS Alliance in Nigeria, NIGERIA
Aids Healthcare Foundation (USA)
Alliance For Justice: Medical Mission Sisters, Wash. Dc (USA)
American Friends Service Committee Pmr (USA)
American Jewish World Service (USA)
American Medical Students Association (USA)
Artists Against Aids Worldwide
Association Marocaine De Lutte Contre Le Sida(Association Fighting Aids),
(Morocco)
Bayou La Rose (USA)
Berkeley Gray Panthers, (USA)
Berkeley Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek
Bread And Roses Community Fund (USA)
California Newsreel (USA)
California Nurses Association (USA)
Canadian Treatment Action Council (Ctac) (Canada)
City Councilor Kriss Worthington (USA)
Connecticut Peace Coalition/ New Haven (USA)
Conscious Movements Collective, Nyc (USA)
Councillors Kriss Worthington, Berkeley (USA)
Councillors Linda Maio, Berkeley (USA)
Councillors Margaret Breland, Berkeley (USA)
Deseret International Foundation Namibia (Namibia)
Disciples Peace Fellowship (Usa)
Drop-In Center For People Living With Aids, New Britain, Ct (USA)
East Bay Community Law Center, Berkeley (USA)
Ecology Center (USA)
Essential Action Wash. Dc (USA)
European Aids Treatment Group,
Fiar (Foundation For Integrative Aids Research), Brooklyn, Ny (USA)
First Congregational Church Of Oakland, Oakland, Ca (USA)
Food First, USA
Freedom Foundation-India (India)
Ganismo Para O Desenvolvimento Socio-Economico Integrado (Mozambique)
GAT - Grupo PortuguÃÂs de Activistas sobre Tratamentos de VIH/SIDA
Global Aids Alliance, (USA)
Global Campaign For Microbicides (USA)
Global Exchange, Sf (USA)
Global- Gay, Lesbian, Or Bisexual Alliance (Student Organization At Uh)
(USA)
Global Sweatshop Coalition_(USA)
Green Students For Environmental Awareness, Philadelphia, Pa (USA)
Gri Charitable Foundation (USA)
Harm Reduction Coalition, Nyc (USA)
Hayward City Councilor Kevin Dowling (USA)
Health Gap, (USA)
Indy Design (Canada)
Institute For Agriculture And Trade Policy (USA)
International Action Center (USA)
International Gay And Lesbian Human Rights Commission (Iglhrc) (USA)
International Labor Rights Fund (USA)
Jubilee Northwest Coalition (Usa)
Kaippg/International, Barrington, Ri (USA)
Kenya Association Of Forest Users (Kenya)
Kenya Association Of Forest Users, Nairobi(Kenya)
Lironga Eparu (Namibia)
Lungujja WomenÃŒs Association (Uganda)
Management Communication (Germany)
MÈdecins Sans FrontiÃ"¹res, Luxembourg
Michigan Pwa Task Force (USA)
Middle East Childrens Alliance, (USA)
Millsaps College Cmt Aids Awareness Task Group (USA)
Mother Africa And Child Care Org/Ghanet/Plwhas (Ghana)
Nadir Hiv Treatment Group, Italian Community Advisory Board, Bologna (Italy)
Northwest Coalition For Aids Treatment In Africa(USA)
Nyc Aids Housing Network, Ny (USA)
Philadelphia Chapter, Coalition Of Labor Union Women (Cluw) (USA)
Prakritajan. (Bangladesh)
Project Teach, (USA)
Queer Youth Training Collaborative (USA)
Resources For Survival, (USA)
San Francisco Bay View, (USA)
Sf Bay Area Jubilee Debt Cancellation Coalition (USA)
SF Supervisor Tom Ammiano, USA
Soja - Students Organizing For Justice In The Americas, Oakland, Ca (USA)
Student Global Aids Campaign,(USA)
Students For Global Public Health (USA)
Survive Aids, San Francisco, Ca (USA)
The Center (Zimbabwe)
The Thai Network Of People Living With Hiv (Tnp+), (Thailand)
Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa),
University Of The Witwatersrand Faculty Of Health Sciences, (South Africa)
University of Vermont: Students for Peace and Global Justice, USA
Ursuline of Tildonk for Justice and Peace, USA
Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk, US Province, USA
Vote Health, Oakland, Ca (USA)
Vso Mozambique, Maputo (Mozambique)
World-Women Organized To Respond To Life Threatening Diseases, Oakland, Ca
(USA)
Yale Aids Network (USA)
Zimbabwe Aids Network (Zan) (Zimbabwe)
--
Sharonann Lynch
salynch@healthgap.org
ACT UP New York
Health GAP (Global Access Project)
Tel +1 212 674-9598
Mob +1 646 645-5225
http://www.healthgap.org
October 17, 2002, Join Health GAP, ACT UP, and AIDS activists around the globe to demand Coca-Cola and other multinational corporations
pay for AIDS treatment for workers living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries.
Multinational corporations like Coke are making a killing in countries in Africa and throughout the Third World. Coke is the largest foreign private sector employer in Africa, employing about
100,000 workers.
An international coalition of activists--from Accra to Manhattan, from Casablanca to Oakland, from Harare to Atlanta--will target Coca-Cola with simultaneous protests, pickets, press conferences, marches and more on October 17, for Coke's refusal to pay for HIV medicines for sick workers in developing countries, particularly
African countries.
**************************************************
STOP MEDICAL APARTHEID -- FIGHT FOR AIDS TREATMENT FOR WORKERS HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE GLOBAL DAY OF PROTEST:
RALLY IN NYC: Join us at on Thursday, Oct. 17 at 2pm at Coca-Cola Headquarters (711 5th Ave near 56th St).
OUTSIDE OF NYC: e-mail salynch@healthgap.org for local actions or to get help planning one.
PLEASE ENDORSE: Complete the form at the end of this e-mail and send to
info@healthgap.org
GO TO: www.treat-your-workers.org
**************************************************
DE-BUNKING COKE'S "NON-PLAN"
After many months of campaigning, Coke is starting to give in to activist pressure.
AIDS activists have been demanding that the company pay for HIV drugs and treatment for workers living with HIV among the 100,000 people
who bottle and distribute Coke-not just Coke's so-called "direct workforce" of 1500 people.
On September 29, 2002, Coke announced they planned to start an initiative to share the costs of AIDS treatment with 8 of 40 bottlers
in Africa. These 8 participating bottlers are some of the largest in Africa, and several already have insurance plans of their own.
Activists are concerned about Coke's commitment to extending a workable plan quickly to the many smaller bottlers starting medicines schemes from scratch. The devil is in the details, and the details from Coke are not forthcoming.
- Coke will demand workers contribute a 10% co-payment on drugs. Activists point out this is Coke's cynical ploy to drive down use of the program by creating barriers to access. Workers can't afford a co-payment and won't use the program. Coke on the other hand can easily afford the cost of the co-pay-marginal for them.
- Coke isn't committing to buying from multiple drug suppliers. Maximum benefit for workers comes from drugs procured at the cheapest price. That means negotiating price with multiple companies,
including generic producers. When will Coke publicly commit to using generic competition to ensure maximum coverage of workers?
- What about the family?
Children of workers aren't covered under the current plan-only the worker and one spouse. Coke must not be allowed to leave the HIV-positive children of workers behind.
- What about the rest of the world?
Coke's workplace policies in Africa are less than perfect. But in the rest of the developing world, they are worse. Coke workers in regions hard-hit by AIDS need comprehensive treatment, prevention and care programs-including access to antiretroviral drugs.
Keep the pressure on! October 17, 2002 is the Global Day of Protest
against Coke.
**************************************************
INFORMATION
* Check out our new and updated Global Day of Action campaign materials at
www.treat-your-workers.org
* Want to know if an event is already scheduled for your area?
Contact us at: info@healthgap.org or (212) 674-9598.
* Let us know what you are planning: contact us at info@healthgap.org
or (212) 674-9598 to share information about what you are doing on October 17 as part of the Global Day of Protest.
* Questions or comments about the campaign? Contact Sharonann Lynch at
salynch@healthgap.org
(212) 674-9598
**************************************************
DEMANDS
We demand that Coca-Cola and other multinational corporations operating in developing countries:
* Provide all workers and their dependents with comprehensive healthcare - including life-sustaining antiretroviral treatments.
* Offer confidential HIV testing and counseling to all workers, in the context of a clear anti-discrimination policy.
* Distribute free condoms in the workplace, and provide safer-sex and sexual health education classes.
* Develop further HIV/AIDS prevention and education policies in collaboration with affected employees, their labor representatives, and community-based health initiatives.
**************************************************
ENDORSE THE GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST COKE, OCTOBER 17, 2002.
(send to info@healthgap.org)
I / We endorse the Global Day of Protest against Coke.
Name:
Organization:
Email:
Address:
Phone:
Fax
Endorsement is
( ) Individual
( ) Organizational
( ) Both
I / my organization can assist with the following needs:
( ) Will organize an event in my area
( ) Will attend / bring others to an event in my area
( ) Will assist with the Global Day of Protest by:
ENDORSE THE GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST COKE, OCTOBER 17, 2002.
SEND TO INFO@HEALTHGAP.ORG
**************************************************
SPONSORS
The organizations sponsoring the Global Day of Protest against Coca-Cola include Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa), Pan-African HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Movement (PHATAM), Health GAP, ACT UP New York, ACT UP Philadelphia, Act Up-Paris, ACT UP East Bay, Global AIDS Alliance, European AIDS Treatment Group, Association Marocaine de Lutte Contre le Sida (Association Fighting AIDS), Morocco, Africa-Japan Forum, the Thai Network of People Living with HIV (TNP+), and Student Global AIDS Campaign.
Endorsing organizations:
Act Up East Bay, (USA)
Act Up New York, (USA)
Act Up philadelphia, (USA)
Act Up/Cleveland (USA)
Act Up-Paris, (France)
Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA)
Africa Action (USA)
Africa Japan Forum (Japan)
African Services Committee (USA)
Aids Action Baltimore (USA)
Aids Action Baltimore, Baltimore, Md (USA)
AIDS Alliance in Nigeria, NIGERIA
Aids Healthcare Foundation (USA)
Alliance For Justice: Medical Mission Sisters, Wash. Dc (USA)
American Friends Service Committee Pmr (USA)
American Jewish World Service (USA)
American Medical Students Association (USA)
Artists Against Aids Worldwide
Association Marocaine De Lutte Contre Le Sida(Association Fighting Aids),
(Morocco)
Bayou La Rose (USA)
Berkeley Gray Panthers, (USA)
Berkeley Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek
Bread And Roses Community Fund (USA)
California Newsreel (USA)
California Nurses Association (USA)
Canadian Treatment Action Council (Ctac) (Canada)
City Councilor Kriss Worthington (USA)
Connecticut Peace Coalition/ New Haven (USA)
Conscious Movements Collective, Nyc (USA)
Councillors Kriss Worthington, Berkeley (USA)
Councillors Linda Maio, Berkeley (USA)
Councillors Margaret Breland, Berkeley (USA)
Deseret International Foundation Namibia (Namibia)
Disciples Peace Fellowship (Usa)
Drop-In Center For People Living With Aids, New Britain, Ct (USA)
East Bay Community Law Center, Berkeley (USA)
Ecology Center (USA)
Essential Action Wash. Dc (USA)
European Aids Treatment Group,
Fiar (Foundation For Integrative Aids Research), Brooklyn, Ny (USA)
First Congregational Church Of Oakland, Oakland, Ca (USA)
Food First, USA
Freedom Foundation-India (India)
Ganismo Para O Desenvolvimento Socio-Economico Integrado (Mozambique)
GAT - Grupo PortuguÃÂs de Activistas sobre Tratamentos de VIH/SIDA
Global Aids Alliance, (USA)
Global Campaign For Microbicides (USA)
Global Exchange, Sf (USA)
Global- Gay, Lesbian, Or Bisexual Alliance (Student Organization At Uh)
(USA)
Global Sweatshop Coalition_(USA)
Green Students For Environmental Awareness, Philadelphia, Pa (USA)
Gri Charitable Foundation (USA)
Harm Reduction Coalition, Nyc (USA)
Hayward City Councilor Kevin Dowling (USA)
Health Gap, (USA)
Indy Design (Canada)
Institute For Agriculture And Trade Policy (USA)
International Action Center (USA)
International Gay And Lesbian Human Rights Commission (Iglhrc) (USA)
International Labor Rights Fund (USA)
Jubilee Northwest Coalition (Usa)
Kaippg/International, Barrington, Ri (USA)
Kenya Association Of Forest Users (Kenya)
Kenya Association Of Forest Users, Nairobi(Kenya)
Lironga Eparu (Namibia)
Lungujja WomenÃŒs Association (Uganda)
Management Communication (Germany)
MÈdecins Sans FrontiÃ"¹res, Luxembourg
Michigan Pwa Task Force (USA)
Middle East Childrens Alliance, (USA)
Millsaps College Cmt Aids Awareness Task Group (USA)
Mother Africa And Child Care Org/Ghanet/Plwhas (Ghana)
Nadir Hiv Treatment Group, Italian Community Advisory Board, Bologna (Italy)
Northwest Coalition For Aids Treatment In Africa(USA)
Nyc Aids Housing Network, Ny (USA)
Philadelphia Chapter, Coalition Of Labor Union Women (Cluw) (USA)
Prakritajan. (Bangladesh)
Project Teach, (USA)
Queer Youth Training Collaborative (USA)
Resources For Survival, (USA)
San Francisco Bay View, (USA)
Sf Bay Area Jubilee Debt Cancellation Coalition (USA)
SF Supervisor Tom Ammiano, USA
Soja - Students Organizing For Justice In The Americas, Oakland, Ca (USA)
Student Global Aids Campaign,(USA)
Students For Global Public Health (USA)
Survive Aids, San Francisco, Ca (USA)
The Center (Zimbabwe)
The Thai Network Of People Living With Hiv (Tnp+), (Thailand)
Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa),
University Of The Witwatersrand Faculty Of Health Sciences, (South Africa)
University of Vermont: Students for Peace and Global Justice, USA
Ursuline of Tildonk for Justice and Peace, USA
Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk, US Province, USA
Vote Health, Oakland, Ca (USA)
Vso Mozambique, Maputo (Mozambique)
World-Women Organized To Respond To Life Threatening Diseases, Oakland, Ca
(USA)
Yale Aids Network (USA)
Zimbabwe Aids Network (Zan) (Zimbabwe)
--
Sharonann Lynch
salynch@healthgap.org
ACT UP New York
Health GAP (Global Access Project)
Tel +1 212 674-9598
Mob +1 646 645-5225
http://www.healthgap.org
NY Assoc. of HIV Over 50 --- Fall Conference on October 23 NYC
Dear Colleagues,
The NY Association of HIV Over 50 will hold it's
Fall Conference on October 23, 2002 9am-1pm at
Iris House
2348 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd
between 137th and 138th streets.
The conference title is
"Middle-aged and Older Women: The Impact of the The HIV Epidemic"
For more information please call Iris House at 646-548-0200
Sincerely,
Nancy E. Margeson
Coordinator, HIV CEI
Mount Sinmai Medical Center
nmargeson@hotmail.com
Yours in the Struggle:
Oliver W. Martin III
Deputy Director
Conscious Contact of New York, Inc.
Please visit our Website for more event listings
Website: www.ccofny.org
Dear Colleagues,
The NY Association of HIV Over 50 will hold it's
Fall Conference on October 23, 2002 9am-1pm at
Iris House
2348 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd
between 137th and 138th streets.
The conference title is
"Middle-aged and Older Women: The Impact of the The HIV Epidemic"
For more information please call Iris House at 646-548-0200
Sincerely,
Nancy E. Margeson
Coordinator, HIV CEI
Mount Sinmai Medical Center
nmargeson@hotmail.com
Yours in the Struggle:
Oliver W. Martin III
Deputy Director
Conscious Contact of New York, Inc.
Please visit our Website for more event listings
Website: www.ccofny.org
Save the Date - Sept. 23-2, 2003-10th NY Statewide HIV/AIDS
Policy Confere
FYI - Save the Date - Sept. 23-2, 2003 -- 10th New York Statewide HIV/AIDS Policy Conference.
Save the Date
September 23-24, 2003
The New York State and New York City Departments of Health Present The Tenth Statewide HIV/AIDS Policy Conference
Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers
811 Seventh Avenue, New York City
Make your hotel reservation early by calling the Sheraton at (212) 581-1000
and ask for group code"HRI" to guaranteed your reduced rate of $208. per night
for single or double occupancy.
Watch your mail in March for Scholarship application materials --- Conference Brochures and General Registration Forms will be mailed in June 2003
Yours in the Struggle:
Oliver W. Martin III
Deputy Director
Conscious Contact of New York, Inc.
Please visit our Website for more event listings
Website:
www.ccofny.org
Policy Confere
FYI - Save the Date - Sept. 23-2, 2003 -- 10th New York Statewide HIV/AIDS Policy Conference.
Save the Date
September 23-24, 2003
The New York State and New York City Departments of Health Present The Tenth Statewide HIV/AIDS Policy Conference
Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers
811 Seventh Avenue, New York City
Make your hotel reservation early by calling the Sheraton at (212) 581-1000
and ask for group code"HRI" to guaranteed your reduced rate of $208. per night
for single or double occupancy.
Watch your mail in March for Scholarship application materials --- Conference Brochures and General Registration Forms will be mailed in June 2003
Yours in the Struggle:
Oliver W. Martin III
Deputy Director
Conscious Contact of New York, Inc.
Please visit our Website for more event listings
Website:
www.ccofny.org
Please Endorse a proposal for a White House global AIDS initiative
[Please forward this to any and all of your advocacy networks.
Send organizational sign-on's to: pdavis@healthgap.org]
Oct 21, 2002
Dear colleague worldwide in the struggle to end AIDS, US President George Bush plans to make his first visit to Africa at the end of January. He will not go empty handed, but a fear is that Bush will propose only a modest new AIDS initiative without new money to fund it.
A broad cross-section of NGOs has begun work inside and outside of the White House to influence and generate support for a bold AIDS initiative Africa journey.
Humankind faces as many as 100 million infections before the decade has ended. Continents are being exterminated by treatable illnesses, and a lack
of leadership and funding can no longer be accepted. Please join the undersigned groups and implore President Bush to use the political moment of his journey to Africa to lead a global initiative to control AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Please endorse the simple statement below. Advocates are taking these statements to meetings with Administration officials _this_ week, so please sign on as soon as your organization can. Please send organizational
sign-on's to pdavis@healthgap.org [thanks]
-------------------------------
SAVING FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES
A Proposal for a US Presidential Global AIDS Initiative
US Presidential leadership is critical to galvanizing concerted global action to address the AIDS crisis. President George W. Bush has taken initial steps to expand US leadership in this critical area. To build on these positive steps, the undersigned organizations appeal to President Bush to use the occasion of his upcoming trip to Africa to propose a new US
Presidential AIDS Initiative, taking leadership in a new, global initiative to control the scourge of AIDS, as well as tuberculosis and malaria.
This AIDS initiative must consist of new monies and policies that complement existing US-supported programs and are additional to the Millennium Challenge Account. The Initiative should consist of the following essential
elements (see below, plus see attached Appendix for a longer and more detailed description).
GOAL: A comprehensive initiative to save families and communities affected by the AIDS crisis, extend the parent-child relationship and secure the future of young people.
ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS:
I. Ensuring Access to Affordable Medication:
-- a commitment to funding and implementing, by 2005, an equitable percentage of the World Health Organization's plan to provide anti-retroviral therapies to 3 million people in need of such treatment.
-- support for a limited exception to international patent rules (and in future trade negotiations) to allow the export of a broad range of affordable generic medications to poor countries where such factors as lack of production capacity and insufficient market size inhibit efficient local manufacture.
II. Ensuring Prevention Services and Support for Affected Communities:
-- provision of medication to prevent transmission of HIV from mother to child, as well as treatment to sustain and enhance the quality of life for mothers with AIDS, with a commitment to an appropriate US share of the goal of achieving by 2005, and sustaining thereafter, 80% coverage of the estimated 2 million women with HIV who give birth each year globally
-- a sustained, fair-share US contribution to support an annual global investment in comprehensive HIV prevention in low- and middle-income countries that increases from approximately $1.2 billion today to $4.8 billion in 2004, as called for by UNAIDS and supported by Global HIV Prevention Working Group. Such efforts should include effective economic, social, and public health strategies aimed at women and girls.
-- support on a global basis for community based care and support services to reach by 2005 80% of children orphaned or left vulnerable by the AIDS
pandemic, in accordance with, at a minimum, the UNGASS goals for orphaned and vulnerable children.
III. Ensuring Adequate Financial Resources:
-- inclusion in the FY04 Budget request of a provision for $2.5 billion for implementation of global AIDS programs, as well as additional funds to fight TB and Malaria. We urge at least 50% of funds for global AIDS programs be allocated to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.
-- insistence on comprehensive debt cancellation for impoverished nations facing an HIV/AIDS crisis, with support for locally-determined processes to ensure resulting savings are re-channeled to social needs, and so that no such country should spend more than a maximum of 5% of total government revenues from internal sources on debt payments or future loans.
Signed,
Africa Action
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP)Philadelphia
AIDS Foundation of Chicago
AIDSETI - AIDS Empowerment & Treatment International Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) Church World Service
Episcopal Church
Florida AIDS Action
Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC)
Global AIDS Alliance
Health GAP
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA) Â USA
National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
National Minority AIDS Council - NMAC
OXFAM America
Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation
Physicians for Human Rights
Project Inform
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Student Global AIDS Campaign
Title II Community AIDS National Network
United Methodist Church - Board of Church and Society
Washington Office on Africa
Paul Davis
Health GAP
ACT UP Philadelphia
e: pdavis@healthgap.org
t: +1 215.833.4102 (mobile)
f: +1 215.474.4793
w: www.healthgap.org
[Please forward this to any and all of your advocacy networks.
Send organizational sign-on's to: pdavis@healthgap.org]
Oct 21, 2002
Dear colleague worldwide in the struggle to end AIDS, US President George Bush plans to make his first visit to Africa at the end of January. He will not go empty handed, but a fear is that Bush will propose only a modest new AIDS initiative without new money to fund it.
A broad cross-section of NGOs has begun work inside and outside of the White House to influence and generate support for a bold AIDS initiative Africa journey.
Humankind faces as many as 100 million infections before the decade has ended. Continents are being exterminated by treatable illnesses, and a lack
of leadership and funding can no longer be accepted. Please join the undersigned groups and implore President Bush to use the political moment of his journey to Africa to lead a global initiative to control AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Please endorse the simple statement below. Advocates are taking these statements to meetings with Administration officials _this_ week, so please sign on as soon as your organization can. Please send organizational
sign-on's to pdavis@healthgap.org [thanks]
-------------------------------
SAVING FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES
A Proposal for a US Presidential Global AIDS Initiative
US Presidential leadership is critical to galvanizing concerted global action to address the AIDS crisis. President George W. Bush has taken initial steps to expand US leadership in this critical area. To build on these positive steps, the undersigned organizations appeal to President Bush to use the occasion of his upcoming trip to Africa to propose a new US
Presidential AIDS Initiative, taking leadership in a new, global initiative to control the scourge of AIDS, as well as tuberculosis and malaria.
This AIDS initiative must consist of new monies and policies that complement existing US-supported programs and are additional to the Millennium Challenge Account. The Initiative should consist of the following essential
elements (see below, plus see attached Appendix for a longer and more detailed description).
GOAL: A comprehensive initiative to save families and communities affected by the AIDS crisis, extend the parent-child relationship and secure the future of young people.
ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS:
I. Ensuring Access to Affordable Medication:
-- a commitment to funding and implementing, by 2005, an equitable percentage of the World Health Organization's plan to provide anti-retroviral therapies to 3 million people in need of such treatment.
-- support for a limited exception to international patent rules (and in future trade negotiations) to allow the export of a broad range of affordable generic medications to poor countries where such factors as lack of production capacity and insufficient market size inhibit efficient local manufacture.
II. Ensuring Prevention Services and Support for Affected Communities:
-- provision of medication to prevent transmission of HIV from mother to child, as well as treatment to sustain and enhance the quality of life for mothers with AIDS, with a commitment to an appropriate US share of the goal of achieving by 2005, and sustaining thereafter, 80% coverage of the estimated 2 million women with HIV who give birth each year globally
-- a sustained, fair-share US contribution to support an annual global investment in comprehensive HIV prevention in low- and middle-income countries that increases from approximately $1.2 billion today to $4.8 billion in 2004, as called for by UNAIDS and supported by Global HIV Prevention Working Group. Such efforts should include effective economic, social, and public health strategies aimed at women and girls.
-- support on a global basis for community based care and support services to reach by 2005 80% of children orphaned or left vulnerable by the AIDS
pandemic, in accordance with, at a minimum, the UNGASS goals for orphaned and vulnerable children.
III. Ensuring Adequate Financial Resources:
-- inclusion in the FY04 Budget request of a provision for $2.5 billion for implementation of global AIDS programs, as well as additional funds to fight TB and Malaria. We urge at least 50% of funds for global AIDS programs be allocated to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.
-- insistence on comprehensive debt cancellation for impoverished nations facing an HIV/AIDS crisis, with support for locally-determined processes to ensure resulting savings are re-channeled to social needs, and so that no such country should spend more than a maximum of 5% of total government revenues from internal sources on debt payments or future loans.
Signed,
Africa Action
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP)Philadelphia
AIDS Foundation of Chicago
AIDSETI - AIDS Empowerment & Treatment International Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) Church World Service
Episcopal Church
Florida AIDS Action
Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC)
Global AIDS Alliance
Health GAP
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA) Â USA
National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
National Minority AIDS Council - NMAC
OXFAM America
Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation
Physicians for Human Rights
Project Inform
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Student Global AIDS Campaign
Title II Community AIDS National Network
United Methodist Church - Board of Church and Society
Washington Office on Africa
Paul Davis
Health GAP
ACT UP Philadelphia
e: pdavis@healthgap.org
t: +1 215.833.4102 (mobile)
f: +1 215.474.4793
w: www.healthgap.org
Housing Works agrees that a Finance Committee might be able to make NYCDOHMH and MHRA more accountable to Council and to the HIV/AIDS community, and might be able to prevent future scandals. But that will only happen if the Finance Committee has real power, authority, and democratic responsibility.
It's not enough to hold, as some City officials have suggested, a one-time "facilitated discussion" of the federal funding scandal and then sweep everything under the rug.
Any new Finance Committee should:
conduct a thorough investigation of the previous scandal, with full access to all NYCDOHMH and MHRA records including internal recordkeeping and
reports to federal officials; operate with the assistance of unbiased outside accountants and attorneys (perhaps on a volunteer basis), at least one staffer from the NYC Comptroller's office, and with full public access to all meetings; issue a public report explaining exactly how the current scandal happened, with recommendations on policy and personnel changes necessary to prevent another scandal and ensure sound practices in the future;
obtain direct access to current and future finance and contracting information in real time  the Committee and the Finance Officer should be
able to contact line staff at NYCDOHMH and MHRA to obtain spending information on a regular basis;
be charged with recommending to the full Planning Council and the Executive Committee budget and contract modifications for future spending if
programs have a timely contract in place and are unable to translate dollars into services as promised.
If these concrete reforms are put in place, the new Finance Committee could start to restore trust in New York City's process for distributing federal AIDS funds. Without them, we fear it could turn into just another mechanism for inept City and agency officials to continue doing such a terrible job administering hundreds of millions of dollars.
For more information about the NYC HIV Planning Council, please call terri smith-caronia
212-966-0466, ext.1296
or at
smith-caronia@housingworks.org.
To obtain a list of upcoming Planning Council meetings, call the Mayor's Office of AIDS Policy Coordination at
212-788-2752.
It's not enough to hold, as some City officials have suggested, a one-time "facilitated discussion" of the federal funding scandal and then sweep everything under the rug.
Any new Finance Committee should:
conduct a thorough investigation of the previous scandal, with full access to all NYCDOHMH and MHRA records including internal recordkeeping and
reports to federal officials; operate with the assistance of unbiased outside accountants and attorneys (perhaps on a volunteer basis), at least one staffer from the NYC Comptroller's office, and with full public access to all meetings; issue a public report explaining exactly how the current scandal happened, with recommendations on policy and personnel changes necessary to prevent another scandal and ensure sound practices in the future;
obtain direct access to current and future finance and contracting information in real time  the Committee and the Finance Officer should be
able to contact line staff at NYCDOHMH and MHRA to obtain spending information on a regular basis;
be charged with recommending to the full Planning Council and the Executive Committee budget and contract modifications for future spending if
programs have a timely contract in place and are unable to translate dollars into services as promised.
If these concrete reforms are put in place, the new Finance Committee could start to restore trust in New York City's process for distributing federal AIDS funds. Without them, we fear it could turn into just another mechanism for inept City and agency officials to continue doing such a terrible job administering hundreds of millions of dollars.
For more information about the NYC HIV Planning Council, please call terri smith-caronia
212-966-0466, ext.1296
or at
smith-caronia@housingworks.org.
To obtain a list of upcoming Planning Council meetings, call the Mayor's Office of AIDS Policy Coordination at
212-788-2752.
HOUSING WORKS WILL HOLD NINTH ANNUAL 24-HOUR WORLD AIDS DAY COMMEMORATION IN HARLEM ON SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1
Housing Works will host the ninth annual 24-hour commemoration of World AIDS Day on Sunday December 1st, 2002. The day will include a 24-hour "Reading of the Names" Vigil, press conferences, and AIDS education and awareness
events throughout the day. We hope you will join us for this opportunity to unite the many organizations and individuals who are fighting the AIDS epidemic.
For the second consecutive year, World AIDS Day will take place on the Plaza of the Harlem State Office Building, located at 163 West 125th Street at Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard.
Our World AIDS Day Commemoration pays homage to the people that we have known and lost to AIDS. It is intended to bring attention to devastating
impact of AIDS across the city, state, nation and the world. New York State has the largest numbers of men, women and children living with HIV and AIDS in the nation. People of color -- Blacks, Latinos/as, Asian Pacific Islanders and Native Americans  have made up the majority of the epidemic in New York since 1983. People of color now make up 31% of the general population of New York State and 81% of people living with AIDS. In New York City, 89% of all female adults living with AIDS are women of color, and men of color make up 75% of all male adults living with AIDS.
If you or members of your organizations would like to participate by reading names, please call Jody Rudin, Housing Works' New York City Issues Organizer at 212-966-0466, ext. 1165 and she will give you a block of time that can accommodate you and your organization's schedule. In addition, if you or your organization would like to set up tables with HIV/AIDS materials in the plaza of the Harlem State Office Building, also call Jody to book a space.
Housing Works will host the ninth annual 24-hour commemoration of World AIDS Day on Sunday December 1st, 2002. The day will include a 24-hour "Reading of the Names" Vigil, press conferences, and AIDS education and awareness
events throughout the day. We hope you will join us for this opportunity to unite the many organizations and individuals who are fighting the AIDS epidemic.
For the second consecutive year, World AIDS Day will take place on the Plaza of the Harlem State Office Building, located at 163 West 125th Street at Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard.
Our World AIDS Day Commemoration pays homage to the people that we have known and lost to AIDS. It is intended to bring attention to devastating
impact of AIDS across the city, state, nation and the world. New York State has the largest numbers of men, women and children living with HIV and AIDS in the nation. People of color -- Blacks, Latinos/as, Asian Pacific Islanders and Native Americans  have made up the majority of the epidemic in New York since 1983. People of color now make up 31% of the general population of New York State and 81% of people living with AIDS. In New York City, 89% of all female adults living with AIDS are women of color, and men of color make up 75% of all male adults living with AIDS.
If you or members of your organizations would like to participate by reading names, please call Jody Rudin, Housing Works' New York City Issues Organizer at 212-966-0466, ext. 1165 and she will give you a block of time that can accommodate you and your organization's schedule. In addition, if you or your organization would like to set up tables with HIV/AIDS materials in the plaza of the Harlem State Office Building, also call Jody to book a space.
Darlings,
Hepatitis is a serious life threatening disease that attacks your liver. Vaccines are available to protect you from Hepatitis A and B. To be protected from both types, a series of three shots are required. The first two are taken one month apart, followed by a third a few months later. They don't hurt.
Yes, you can get it from sex, and there is a lot of it out on the street today and it's getting worse. You can also get it from an infected person handling your food if they don't wash their hands after, you know.
So talk to your Doctor, and get vaccinated!
Unfortunately, there is no vaccine for Hepatitis C available today, so keep using those condoms like I know you always do!
Hepatitis is a serious life threatening disease that attacks your liver. Vaccines are available to protect you from Hepatitis A and B. To be protected from both types, a series of three shots are required. The first two are taken one month apart, followed by a third a few months later. They don't hurt.
Yes, you can get it from sex, and there is a lot of it out on the street today and it's getting worse. You can also get it from an infected person handling your food if they don't wash their hands after, you know.
So talk to your Doctor, and get vaccinated!
Unfortunately, there is no vaccine for Hepatitis C available today, so keep using those condoms like I know you always do!
In the decades ahead, the center of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic is set to shift from Africa to Eurasia. The death toll in that region's three pivotal countries--Russia, India, and China--could be staggering. This will assuredly be a humanitarian tragedy, but it will be much more than that. The disease will alter the economic potential of the region's major states and the global balance of power. Moscow, New Delhi, and Beijing could take steps to mitigate the disaster--but so far they have not.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20021101faessay9990/nicholas-eberstadt/the-future-of-aids.html
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20021101faessay9990/nicholas-eberstadt/the-future-of-aids.html