Indiana removes gay white men from HIV/AIDS funding priorities
The Indiana State Department of Health recently cut gay white men as an HIV/AIDS funding priority. African-American and Hispanic men who have sex with men are still included as priority populations. The decision was made by the department’s advisory Community Planning Group (CPG).
The CPG is a Center for Disease Control (CDC) mandated process for funding HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs in the states; it aims to be politics-free and representative of the community. The Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) administers CDC HIV/AIDS prevention funds. Indiana health activists charge that the Group ignored the CDC’s criteria for defining community priorities.
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“TEST ME / for hiv” challenges assumptions about HIV risk in the Asian and Pacific Islander Communities
On May 19 2009, A&PI HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, APICHA will be joined by elected officials and community leaders on the steps of City Hall to launch the campaign and urge the public to take control. May is also Asian Heritage month.
Currently, A&PIs are the only racial/ethnic group in New York that have not experienced a decline in the number of new HIV diagnoses, but only six percent (6%) of A&PI New Yorkers report that their doctor recommended an HIV test. This presents a major public health concern that could have a far-reaching impact.
APICHA has identified limited access to HIV testing as a critical unmet need that requires the attention of doctors and the community. Often, doctors have preconceived assumptions about the sexual risk factors and lifestyle choices of A&PIs based on the stereotype of Asians as “the model minority.” APICHA seeks to change attitudes among doctors by encouraging A&PIs to begin the conversation in an effort to address this major public health problem.
The heart of the campaign will be a coordinated effort to have volunteers visit their doctor’s office wearing a tee shirt that reads “TEST ME / for hiv”. The action is meant to initiate conversation and create an opportunity to educate doctors about the discrepancy.
APICHA hopes that the earned media in both mainstream and ethnic press and work with religious and community leaders will expand the discussion about HIV in various A&PI communities. The campaign will also disseminate information about the issue, and educate A&PI community members about obtaining an HIV test.
APICHA’s mission is to combat HIV/AIDS stigma and related discrimination, to prevent the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Asian & Pacific Islander communities, and to provide care and treatment for Asian & Pacific Islanders living with HIV/AIDS and their families. The organization was founded twenty years ago and remains the only Pan-Asian HIV/AIDS organization devoted to working with A&PI communities in New York City.
“I applaud APICHA for empowering Asian and Pacific Islanders to take control of their health,” said Dr. Monica Sweeney Assistant Commissioner of the New York City Health Department’s Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control. “As long as there are people out there who are unaware of their HIV status, there is a great risk of transmission. If you do not know your status, you cannot access the care you need and you can unknowingly spread the virus to others. Everybody needs to know their status.”
APICHA’s Chief Medical officer and Executive Director will brief the media about the issue and the campaign at the May 19 press conference and can be made available for interview prior to the announced. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Governor David Patterson and other elected offices have been invited to attend the press conference.
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Guyana credits U.S. campaign with slashing AIDS rate
(Georgetown, Guyana) Guyana says a U.S.-funded AIDS prevention program has helped slash the HIV infection rate in the South American country from nearly 3 percent to about 1 percent.
Health Minister Leslie Ramsammy says the program led by the U.S. Agency for International Development “is a huge success story.”
The $20 million …
Tags: aids, Aids Prevention, Georgetown Guyana, Health Minister, hiv, Hiv Infection Rate, Led, Prevention Program, Success StorySENEGAL: Jailing of gay activists sets back AIDS fight
The men, who were involved in providing HIV prevention, care and treatment services to Senegal’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, have been sentenced to eight years in prison.
Homosexuality is punishable by up to five years in prison, according to the Senegalese penal code. In this case, the judge added three years for criminal conspiracy.
In a statement released last week, the International AIDS Society, which promotes new HIV research and best practice and is the custodian of the International AIDS Conference, and the Society for AIDS in Africa (SAA), which works to slow the spread of HIV, said criminalising and discriminating against any group of individuals only served to fuel the HIV epidemic by denying services and relevant prevention messages.
“The arrest of these men, based purely on their sexual orientation represents a major setback for the Senegalese response to HIV, which is widely viewed as a model in Africa,” said Joanna Mangueira, President of the SAA.
Cheikh Niang, professor of anthropology at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, and author of studies on AIDS and sexuality in the country, agreed that jailing the activists was “counterproductive”.
“The severity of the sentence has created an atmosphere of panic amongst the associations that are working on HIV prevention and treatment with men who have sex with men (MSM),” he told IRIN/PlusNews.
Michel Bourelly of AIDES, an international organisation working with men who have sex with men in Senegal, said gay activists had gone into hiding or fled the country since the judgement. “Everything has stopped. The associations that provide HIV/AIDS services for homosexuals and MSM are too scared to work.”
Contradictions
According to Bourelly, the men were arrested while attending a meeting on HIV prevention. Brochures, condoms and model penises were confiscated as pornographic material.
“The condoms that were considered pornographic material during the trial were provided by the Senegalese government,” he pointed out.
A young gay member of an HIV/AIDS organisation serving MSM in Senegal, who did not want to be named, confirmed that intolerance of homosexuality had risen.
“Physical violence is more common now. Before we had groups which helped us – they gave us the courage to meet. We would do work on prevention, but now it’s too dangerous,” he said.
The jailed men were detained just two weeks after Senegal hosted the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), where speakers emphasised the importance of addressing the needs of sexual minorities in African AIDS programming. Over 50 gay activists attended.
In an interview with IRIN/PlusNews in November 2008, Souleymane Mboup, President of ICASA, said MSM were a reality in Africa that could not be ignored.
“This is a question that we cannot run away from if we want to advance [the fight against HIV],” he said. “Many countries, including Senegal, must open their eyes and learn. We must think about which strategies to adopt.”
In 2007 the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria granted Senegal US$32 million to strengthen its HIV/AIDS response. Part of the grant was earmarked for targeting “vulnerable groups”, including MSM, with prevention campaigns, condoms and MSM-friendly clinics over the next five years.
“Senegal has been given considerable sums of money to address the needs of MSM in its national AIDS programme,” said Bourelly. “But now they are jailing the people they are supposed to be targeting.”
No one from the National AIDS Committee, one of the two principal recipients of the Global Fund grant, was available for comment. Abdoulaye Wade, director of the AIDS division at the Ministry of Health, told IRIN/PlusNews that the government continued to provide HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment services for MSM, but did not elaborate on what those services were.
Regressive
Joel Nana, advocacy director at the South African office of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), said Senegal had been praised for its progressive and inclusive HIV/AIDS programmes in the past.
“Senegal was the first country in Africa to address MSM in HIV programming, so this [judgment] is really a step backwards,” he told IRIN/PlusNews.
While Senegal has maintained a low HIV prevalence of about one percent in the general population, official data and studies conducted at Cheikh Anta Diop University suggest that about 21.5 percent of MSM were HIV positive in 2005. The studies also found that over 80 percent of MSM had female as well as male partners.
“It is a considerable error to think that this is just a homosexual problem,” said Bourelly. “Most MSM have had, or continue to have, sex with women, so the impact of effectively shutting down MSM programmes will be considerable on the general population.”
Human rights groups and AIDS organisations are calling for the immediate release of the nine imprisoned men, and for a change in Senegal’s penal code. Niang agreed that it was time to debate the merits of the law.
“There is no point in saying that men who have sex with men do not exist in our societies,” he said. “It exists and it is an ancient phenomenon. By ignoring its existence we will not respond appropriately [to the HIV epidemic].”
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Inviting Warren fits Obama’s inclusive ideals
By ANTHONY B. ROBINSON
GUEST COLUMNIST
SHOULD RICK WARREN be giving the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration?
You might think that after the months-long saga surrounding Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, the president-elect would do whatever he could to avoid further pastor-politics dramas.
Apparently not. Inviting Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church in Orange County, Calif., and popular author of the “Purpose-Driven Life” series of books, has touched off a controversy.
During the Jeremiah Wright controversy I suggested that Wright needed to be seen within the context of the black church experience. In a similar way, it seems important to set Rick Warren within the context of evangelical Christianity in the U.S.
Warren embodies what many see as the new evangelical spirit. As an evangelical Christian, he is clear about his commitment to Christ and about conversion as the path. But Warren has parted company with fundamentalism and its political arm, the religious right, over its mean-spirited approach to politics and its fixation on abortion and homosexuality as the be-all and end-all.
Warren has emerged as an evangelical who puts both mouth and money on the line for AIDS prevention and care, issues of poverty and the global gap between rich and poor, and climate change. For this evolution Warren has incurred the wrath of those on the religious right. In the larger scheme of things, Warren represents an important shift in the influential evangelical world. This shift meant Obama captured support among young evangelicals who care about poverty, social justice and climate change.
While people on the fundamentalist religious right are incensed that Warren would agree to take part in the inauguration and give his blessing to a president who supports choice on abortion, folks on the other side are ticked off by Obama’s choice of the bearded, aloha shirt-clad pastor from Southern California because Warren has questions about gay marriage.
While Warren was not out in front on this, he supported Proposition 8 in California’s recent election, a measure that took back what California courts had granted, the right of gay people to marry. Warren is concerned about “redefining the 5,000-year-old institution of marriage,” which he sees as a foundation of human civilization. This has elicited charges that Warren has “defamed” gays. Others tagged Obama himself a bigot for daring to invite Warren.
Here’s what I think. Obama is doing what he said he would do, namely, reach across the culture-war divides, across the polarized minefield of American political life, to invite to the party someone who doesn’t agree with him on every issue. Some argue that Obama lacks the courage of his convictions on full inclusion of gays. It seems to me, rather, that Obama is remaining true to his convictions of a post-partisan, nonideological approach and style. After all, inclusion doesn’t really mean much if you include only those who already totally agree with you.
This is, remember, the man who wrote “The Audacity of Hope.”
“I believe any attempt by Democrats to pursue a more sharply partisan and ideological strategy misapprehends the moment we are in,” he wrote. And, “it’s precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face as a country.” Inviting megachurch pastor Warren, who is also challenging old orthodoxies, fits these sentiments.
Personally, I can think of people I would prefer to Rick Warren for the role of inaugural prayer-giver. But Obama’s choice seems to me consistent with what he has said and his operative philosophy. Moreover, the attempt to reach out to more centrist evangelicals, whom Warren represents, is important. To claim that because Warren has questions about gay marriage means that he’s a bigot or that he has “defamed” gay people is a stretch.
Finally, it is important to note that Rick Warren is not being asked to take up a cabinet post or otherwise make or administer policy. He’s been asked to give a prayer. My hunch is that if this country has a prayer, it will be because we do find a path beyond ideological purity and rigid orthodoxy.
In closing, a personal note: I lost one of my most faithful readers last Sunday when 95-year-old Jim Jambor of Olympia died. Jim watched for this column, “the Saturday Special” as he called it, and seldom failed to comment. We’ll miss you, Jim!
See Articles of Faith: Inviting Warren fits Obama’s inclusive ideals
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