New HIV infections increasing among international, US gays
(New York) New HIV infections are increasing among gays, drug users and prostitutes who don’t seek help because of laws that criminalize them, the head of the U.N. AIDS agency said Monday.
Michel Sidibe, the head of UNAIDS, said “it is unacceptable” that 85 countries still have laws criminalizing same-sex relations among adults, including seven that impose the death penalty for homosexual practices.
He called a proposed Ugandan law that would impose the death penalty for some gays “very unfortunate” and expressed hope it will never be approved.
At a time when UNAIDS is scaling up its program and seeking universal access to HIV treatment, Sidibe said he was “very scared” because bad laws are being introduced by countries making it impossible for these at risk groups to have access to services.
“You have also a growing conservatism which is making me very scared,” Sidibe added.
“We must insist that the rights of the minorities are upheld. If we don’t do that … I think the epidemic will grow again,” he warned. “We cannot accept the tyranny of the majority.”
Sidibe told a group of journalists at a luncheon hosted by the United Nations Foundation that in countries from China to Kenya and Malawi, about 33 percent of new HIV infections are in men having sex with men, a significant increase.
By contrast, he said that in the Caribbean where most countries don’t have repressive laws, only between 3 and 6 percent of HIV infections are in male homosexuals.
Even in the United States, where laws are not restrictive and the gay community was the first to tackle AIDS, Sidibe said it is “shocking” that more than 50 percent of new HIV infections last year occurred among homosexuals. And he said in the 19-25 age bracket the infection rate was even higher.
“It seems like we have come full circle” in the United States, he said. “After almost no cases a few years ago we are seeing again this new peak among people who are not having access to all the information, the protection that is needed.”
In addition to failing to adequately deliver the right messages about AIDS prevention, Sidibe blamed complacency in a new generation that has access to treatment.
He added that this was not just a problem in the U.S. but in Europe and in Africa as well.
Sidibe said drug users are also getting the HIV virus that causes AIDS in high numbers.
“You have 70 percent of new infections occurring in Eastern Europe and Central Asia among drug users, but they are criminalized,” he said. “They don’t have access to services. They have to hide themselves and go underground.”
Of the 16 million people in the world who are injecting drugs, almost 3 million are HIV positive, and among them less than 4 percent have access to treatment and less than 8 percent have access to services, Sidibe said.
“It’s the same for men having sex with men,” he said.
In Nigeria, where there are 1,000 new HIV infections every day, over 30 percent are in vulnerable groups – drug users, sex workers and homosexuals, he said.
Sidibe called for “a prevention revolution” including a campaign in major cities around the world like the anti-smoking campaigns launched in recent years.
Full Obama remarks at AIDS bill signing
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT SIGNING OF THE RYAN WHITE HIV/AIDS
TREATMENT EXTENSION ACT OF 2009
Diplomatic Reception Room
11:58 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody.
AUDIENCE: Good morning.
THE PRESIDENT: We often speak about AIDS as if it’s going on somewhere else. And for good reason — this is a virus that has touched lives …
AIDS/LifeCycle charity bike ride gets personal when recession hits
For the last two years, Brodt has participated in the annual bike ride to raise money for HIV and AIDS-related services at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
But Brodt, once a television producer with a six-figure salary, never thought “others” could include him.
After losing his job and health insurance, Brodt, 37, now relies on the same services that he raised money for in the past for his own HIV treatment.
He was laid off last April. Although he was offered another job in the industry, he decided to take time off to reassess his career. When he was ready to return to work, previous job offers had dried up. By then, he said, people who had provided job leads were losing their own positions.
Savings stretched only so far. Brodt moved into an older, cheaper apartment on the edge of Hollywood and gave up his car. Some weeks, he said, he had less than $20 in his bank account.
After six months, Brodt could no longer afford the $500 monthly payment for COBRA health insurance benefits. His HIV medications could run several thousand dollars a year. He stopped taking them.
It wasn’t long before he started to feel fatigued and depressed.
“I thought, maybe I need to talk to someone . . . Maybe I’m just depressed. I can’t find a job,” Brodt said. “I didn’t really think it had to do with HIV.”
Brodt’s symptoms were a textbook example of what can happen when someone who is HIV positive stops taking medication, said Brad Hare, medical director of UC San Francisco’s Positive Health Program at San Francisco General Hospital. A lapse in treatment can increase the risk of disease progression and medication resistance, he said.
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Gay rights advocate, AIDS activist McFarlane dies
(Denver, Colorado) Rodger McFarlane, a Denver-based advocate for gay rights and HIV-AIDS treatment and education, has died while traveling in New Mexico. He was 54.
The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator confirmed Monday that McFarlane died Friday in Truth or Consequences but didn’t immediately release the cause.
A statement released …
