New research has challenged the long-standing belief that HIV and AIDS in Africa primarily affect heterosexuals. A study published on the website of the British medical journal Lancet found that men who have sex with other men are up to 10 times more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to be infected with the virus — which suggests that the fight against AIDS on the continent may be undermined by widespread homophobia.
Researchers from Oxford University, the Population Council of Ghana and the Kenya Medical Research Institute reviewed AIDS studies conducted over the past few years and concluded that male-male sex was a major blind spot in AIDS research and policy in Africa. Men having sex with other men is far more common in Africa than is socially acknowledged, owing to widespread hostility toward homosexuality, and the phenomenon there is underreported in research and largely ignored in public-health responses to the pandemic. The researchers compiled statistics from a small but growing number of studies conducted in various African countries in recent years that included estimates of HIV prevalence among men who have sex with other men. (See pictures from Africa’s AIDS crisis.)
See Closet Case: How Intolerance Fuels Africa’s AIDS Crisis
TIME
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When more than 300 Yale alumni and their guests arrived at Yale for the University’s first-ever lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender alumni reunion this weekend, they found not only camaraderie, but also controversy.
The first-ever recipient of the GALA Lifetime Achievement Award, gay activist Larry Kramer ’57, harshly rebuked the University for its treatment of gay history as an academic field during the three-day reunion, which was jointly organized by the LGBT alumni association Yale GALA and the Association of Yale Alumni. At a dinner ceremony Saturday, Kramer said the University has wrongly relegated the study of gay history to LGBT studies, arguing that there is a significant semantic difference between gay “history” and gay “studies.”
Declaring that queer and gender theories are “relatively useless,” Kramer — who was among the first to call for action against the AIDS crisis — said gay history has been “hijacked” by queer theorists.
Kramer and Yale have clashed before; in the mid-nineties, Yale rejected a sizable gift from Kramer to create either an endowed chair in gay and lesbian studies or a student center for gay students. In 2001, Kramer’s brother, Arthur Kramer ’49, gave a $1 million gift in Larry’s name to found the Larry Kramer Initiative for Gay and Lesbian Studies, which was closed after five years when the gift was spent.
In order to demonstrate the importance of gay history, Kramer declared that he believes many prominent American historical figures were gay, including George Washington, the famous explorer Meriwether Lewis, Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth.
The study of gay history is therefore important as a means of promoting acceptance for LGBT individuals, Kramer said.
“The plague of AIDS was allowed to happen because most of the world hates us,” he said. “They don’t know we’re related to Washington and Lincoln.”
While alumni sat attentively throughout the speech and gave Kramer a standing ovation, some said afterwards that they were standing not necessarily out of agreement with Kramer, but rather out of respect for his activism in the wake of AIDS.
“He’s been a provocateur all of his career, since the AIDS crisis,” said Ken Demario ’64. “I don’t know if this was an appropriate forum for as nasty a broadside as his was against the University.”
In a brief interview after the speech, Provost Peter Salovey said he agreed that the study of LGBT history is important.
See Gay activist and playwright Larry Kramer Blasts Yale & Yale Daily News. * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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(Washington) The Obama White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have announced today a new five-year national communication campaign to combat complacency about the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States.
CDC data show that every 9-and-a-half minutes another …
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SANTA MONICA, Calif. — MTV,
mtvU, LOGO and
MTV Tr3s, with subtitles in Spanish, will present the world
television premiere of Pedro, a movie based on the
remarkable life of The Real World’s
Pedro Zamora, on Wednesday,
April 1 at 8:00 PM ET/PT. BMP
Films, in association with MTV, produced this
biopic written by Academy Award-winner
Dustin Lance Black (”Milk”). For more information and to view the movie trailer, please visit
www.pedro.mtv.com.
In 1994, Zamora captured the hearts of millions as the first-ever openly
gay,
HIV-positive main character on TV — on MTV’s The Real World:
San Francisco. Zamora’s time in the house on
Lombard Street brought a
face to the
AIDS crisis.
President Bill Clinton has long credited Zamora with personalizing and humanizing the
epidemic, and he will introduce Pedro when it makes its world
television premiere
April 1st.
“To this day,
Pedro Zamora remains an extraordinary example of what a huge impact one
young person can make in our world,”
President Clinton said. “I’m glad to have known him, and I’m grateful his life has been able to inspire and enrich so many others.”
Told through the eyes of his
friends and family, the film Pedro celebrates the extraordinary life a
young man who found out he was
HIV positive at 17, then made the
courageous decision to dedicate his life to speaking out about the disease. Zamora testified before the
United States Congress to argue for more explicit
HIV/
AIDS educational programs aimed at youth of color before auditioning for The Real World in 1993.
Zamora’s
appearance on The Real World brought his story and message to a national
audience; and when his
health began to deteriorate in late 1994 (after he left the show), his condition quickly became
front page news nationwide. His death at age 22, following the final episode of “The Real World,” provoked a worldwide outpouring of grief.
“Our historic, simultaneous premiere of the film across multiple networks demonstrates the power of Pedro’s journey to reach a vast array of audiences, just as it did 15 years ago,” said Brian Graden,
President of
Entertainment, MTV Networks
Music Channels and
President of Logo. “His story originally ignited a national
dialogue, permanently impacted our consciousness around the
challenges of
HIV, and gave untold millions the
courage to open up about their
sexual orientation. For those of us who remember him as a treasured
television friend, and for a new generation coming to his story for the first time, we remain grateful for the gift of his story.”
“Pedro made us
promise to tell his story to his very last breath; this film delivers on that
promise by telling his entire life story in a scripted film - including his early life in Cuba, his teen years in Miami and the final months of his life as he fought to stay alive,” said BMP
Films President, Jon Murray. “For the first time viewers will see all the forces that made Pedro the man he was and gave him the
courage to take his message of
AIDS education to a
nationwide audience.”
Nearly 15 years since Pedro heightened national awareness of
HIV/
AIDS, the
epidemic in the U.S. remains a serious concern, especially among younger Americans (under 30) who account for a larger share of new infections than any other
age group. Other
sexually transmitted diseases (
STDs) - such as
chlamydia and gonorrhea - are even more common, with one in two sexually active Americans being infected by age 25 - and most not knowing it. Since 1997, MTV and the Kaiser Family Foundation have partnered to inform millions of young
adults about
HIV, other
STDs and related sexual
health issues. Beginning in
April (STD Awareness Month), MTV and Kaiser will
partner with Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its nearly 880 affiliate
health centers to make an aggressive push to inform America’s young
people about
STDs, as well as help normalize and drive increased testing. Full details on the rest of the campaign will be unveiled soon.
Pedro was Produced by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, Chris Panizzon and Anne Clements (”Quinceanera”). Jon Murray, Gil Goldschein and Scott Freeman of Bunim-Murray Productions served as Executive
Producers along with Paris Barclay. Pedro was directed by
Nick Oceano and written by
Dustin Lance Black (”Milk”) with story by Paris Barclay and
Dustin Lance Black. Pedro stars
Alex Loynaz as Pedro, Justina Machado (”Six Feet Under”) as Pedro’s sister Mily, and Hale Appleman (”Teeth”) as Pedro’s roommate from The Real World, Judd. Maggie Malina is executive producer for MTV.
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(Washington) President Barrack Obama on Thursday named Jeffrey S. Crowley, Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute, to be director of the Office of National AIDS Policy.
“Jeffrey Crowley brings the experience and expertise that will help our nation address the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis and help my administration develop …
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When more than 300 Yale alumni and their guests arrived at Yale for the University’s first-ever lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender alumni reunion this weekend, they found not only camaraderie, but also controversy.
