Tag Archives: HIV/AIDS

Via the Victory Fund: Jeffrey S. Crowley, MPH, has been named Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, the White House announced today. Crowley is currently Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute. “Jeffrey Crowley brings the experience and expertise that will help our nation address the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis and help my administration develop policies that …

Yesterday Colorado state Sen. Dave Schultheis voted against a bill paying for the HIV screening of pregnant women because only sluts get AIDS. Democrats were outraged Wednesday morning when Republican state Sen. Dave Schultheis said he planned to vote against a bill to require HIV tests for pregnant women because the disease “stems from sexual promiscuity” and he didn’t think …

Peter Staley at Poz.com dug into the stimulus bill for the NIH and determined that AIDS research funding will likely rise substantially under Barack Obama’s plan. Tucked away in the massive stimulus package signed by President Obama last week is the largest budget increase in the NIH’s history. Thanks to Senator Arlen Specter, the budget of the National Institutes of …

A 35 year old HIV-positive female prisoner has filed a federal lawsuit because her doctor refused to perform surgery on her gall bladder. Melody Rose’s case is supported by gay equality advocates Lambda Legal and the AIDS Resource Centre of Wisconsin (ARCW). The lawsuit was filed today in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Ms Rose …

German doctors are claiming to have cured a man of HIV infection with a stem cell transplant from a person naturally immune to the virus, a process I mentioned here last week. A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a …

Former star New York Mets player Roberto Alomar is being sued for $15M by an ex-girlfriend who claims he had unprotected sex with her while knowing he had full-blown AIDS. Considered by some to be baseball’s greatest second baseman ever, Alomar retired at the top of his game in 2005 due to health issues. Baseball great Roberto Alomar has full-blown …

Continued from last week’s reposting of Ashes, Part 1. When Gary died, we scattered his ashes into the Gulf Of Mexico off Pass-A-Grill beach. That was the gay section of the beach in St. Petersburg and Gary had stipulated that we release his ashes in that place where he’d spent so many languorous afternoons with his best friends. Then we …

A straight married tech exec in MA is giving one of the largest private donations to AIDS research in world history. A Massachusetts businessman has donated $100 million to fund research into the development of an AIDS vaccine, according to Massachusetts General Hospital, which received the gift. Phillip T. Ragon, provider of the gift, is the chief executive of a …

A minute percentage of the population is naturally immune to HIV due to a mutated gene called CCR5. Just launching is a trial which seeks to immunize against and cure HIV by clipping CCR5 out of the t-cells of infected patients. Since the discovery that a small portion of people who are exposed to HIV do not get infected, scientists …

A fascinating new study from Sweden suggests that repeated exposure to HIV via oral sex may trigger neutralizing antibodies that protect against the virus. Some HIV-negative men in long term relationships with HIV-positive men have an antibody response in saliva which may inhibit HIV infection, report Swedish researchers in an article published online ahead of print in AIDS. This is …

Poz.com’s Peter Staley reports that noted AIDS treatment activist Martin Delaney died at his home today. Staley: What a terribly sad day this is. A huge, huge loss for people with HIV, and all those who fight for them. This country’s most accomplished and influential AIDS treatment activist, Martin Delaney, died just minutes ago at his home in San Rafael, …

Senegal, which recently hosted a major international AIDS conference, has sentenced nine gay men to eight years in prison for “unnatural and indecent acts.” Most of the men are HIV/AIDS activists. The jailing in Senegal of nine gay men for eight years over “indecent conduct and unnatural acts” has been condemned by an international gay rights group. Homosexual acts are …

Apologists for Obama’s selection of Rick Warren continually point to his work in fighting AIDS in Africa. OH, but hang on a motherfucking minute. In exhaustive piece at Daily Beast, Max Blumenthal rips the fucking lid off the real job Warren is doing in Africa with his right-hand man Martin Ssempe. [S]ince the Warren inauguration controversy erupted, the nature of …

Nick Partridge, the head of UK’s oldest HIV/AIDS charity, the Terrence Higgins Trust, was knighted yesterday. A leading UK HIV campaigner who has strived to transform attitudes towards HIV/Aids and to the role of gay men and women in society has been knighted. Nick Partridge, chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust, was recognised for his 20-year service to healthcare. …

New research suggests that an ancestor to HIV may have existed millions of years ago. An ancient predecessor to the virus that causes Aids evolved in wild primates many millions of years earlier than previously believed, according to research published yesterday by the Stanford University School of Medicine. The findings open a critical new avenue in the quest to understand …

ABOVE: At the 1985 Xmas party described below: Me, Michael, and Barney. I also wrote about Barney here. Originally posted May 2004. Reposted for World AIDS DayMembership Michael didn’t look good. We were at his annual Christmas Luau party. Tons and tons of people in the house and the backyard. Standing in his kitchen, wearing a grass skirt and a …

Richard Davis at the NYC LGBT Center writes: On November 30, 2008, the eve of World AIDS Day, a small group gathered at Pier 49 on the Hudson River walk to dedicate the AIDS Monument. The project of the AIDS Monument Committee took 14 years to come to fruition. Located on the Hudson River Park at Bank Street, the memorial …

I’m heading back to San Francisco this weekend to attend the SF Gay Men’s Chorus’ world premiere of New World Waking!, the latest work by my fabulous pal Steve Schalchlin, whom you may recall from his recent Off Broadway hit, The Big Voice: God Or Merman? Three-time Oscar nominee Piper Laurie will introduce the evening, which features Tony Award winner …

Mixed in with otherwise positive reforms, Burundi’s parliament unanimously voted to outlaw homosexuality this week. Box Turtle Bulletin has the report: The central African nation of Burundi adopted a new set of laws abolishing the death penalty for the first time in the troubled nation’s history. The sweeping law was seen as an important reform. It incorporated parts of international …