Vienna AIDS 2010 - Gay Days with Vlogger Mark King

"My Fabulous Disease" - a delicious video blog by LifeLube pal Mark King,  is posting daily from AIDS 2010, and this entry takes you to the Global Forum on MSM and HIV's ("Gay Day") pre-conference in Vienna. Workshops on aging, the role of HIV+ gay men in leadership, rectal microbicides, and interviews with advocates from around the world are included.

AIDS 2008 Impact Report Available

The AIDS 2008 Impact Report, a report of the key learning from the XVII International AIDS Conference, held in Mexico City in August 2008, is now available here.

The report is also available on the AIDS 2008 homepage, as well as the IAS homepage.

According to the IAS, the report is not meant to capture all of the hundreds of sessions, events and activities at AIDS 2008 (as no one report could reasonably do this), rather it is an analysis/reflection on the key learning in the following areas:

- Epidemiology

- Basic and Clinical Research

- Biomedical Prevention Research

- Regional Focus

- and a section on how AIDS 2008 and previous international AIDS conferences have contributed to the overall response to HIV/AIDS

All analyses are referenced to sessions/abstracts.

Please note that several organizations are producing their own reports associated with conference activities, or key issues/areas of focus during AIDS 2008, and we will make them available on the AIDS 2008 website as well.

Oh, the Humanity

We must envision a day
when we are reflexively
empathetic to gay men.

Homophobia—multiplied nineteen times

by Jim Pickett
in the November/December 2008 issue of Positively Aware

So, as it turns out, efforts (and the lack thereof) to eradicate HIV across the globe are systematically ignoring, denying, under-serving, and failing gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM).

While this was not exactly a surprise on a planet where 86 countries continue to criminalize LGBTs in any number of human rights-crushing ways, to fully comprehend the broad, wide-reaching neglect of gay/MSM in the global AIDS pandemic is nevertheless a shock and awe to the soul. I was delighted that this issue emerged as a key, defining theme of the XVII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2008), held in Mexico City August 3–8.

The AIDS 2006 conference in Toronto had frustrated me with the paucity of discussion and energy around gay/MSM topics. While AIDS 2008 featured gay/MSM issues prominently, my emotions were yet again set to frustration, and rage, as the extent of the neglect was revealed in countless plenaries, sessions, symposia, and press conferences.

Read the rest of the article.

We Need to Put Sex on the Table

How can we undertake effective HIV prevention programs in the U.S. if we refuse to talk openly about gay sex?

Carl Schmid, Director of Federal Affairs for

The AIDS Institute (Washington DC), shares his ideas on the 2009 Gay Men's Health Agenda

One of the first sessions I attended at the 2008 International AIDS Conference in Mexico City was “Sexuality on the Table”. It was organized, believe it or not, by the Federal Government of Mexico and moderated by Javier Cabral, Director of Prevention for Mexico’s HIV/AIDS office. He began by saying how can we have a conference on AIDS in Mexico City without having a session on sex since AIDS is primarily transmitted through sex? I listened in amazement to speaker after speaker from Mexico and Spain talk opening about sex, including gay sex, in a positive manner and how the failure to put sex on the table impedes HIV prevention efforts. In this session and others, we heard about the successful anti-homophobia and positive gay HIV prevention media campaigns conducted by the Mexican government.

While I sat in astonishment, during the same weekend the U.S. released its new estimates that revealed that 57 percent of all new HIV infections in 2006 were among men who have sex with men, I said to myself, this would never happen in the United States. Sure, private individuals and groups could put on such a program, but certainly our federal government would not nor could groups do it with federal dollars. But, there in Mexico, a conservative Catholic country, their own government was leading a session titled “Sexuality on the Table” at an international AIDS Conference.

The failure to talk about sex in our country, including gay sex, in part, is fueling the spread of HIV. How can we undertake effective HIV prevention programs in the U.S. if we refuse to talk openly about gay sex? Over the past 8 years most anything “gay” in our federal government has been erased and there is little talk about the “g” word. What has not been erased is not talked about and is allowed to continue in silence. There have been very few positive gay moments, while numerous anti-gay ones. Sad to say, this attitude reflects a large segment of our society, but we know things are changing and our government needs to change, as well, with the times.

In order to put sex on the table in the United States, one of the first goals for 2009 to advance gay men’s health should be to delete what has become known as the “no promo homo” law. A relic of the past, thanks to Sen. Jesse Helms, this provision in the Ryan White law prohibits the expenditure of federal money “to fund AIDS programs, or to develop materials, designed to promote or encourage, directly, intravenous drug use or sexual activity, whether homosexual or heterosexual” This is why our federal government could not put on that session in Mexico or why our prevention for positive programs within the Ryan White program are so bland or non-existent depending on the clinic. It is time we change that and the next time Congress takes a look at the Ryan White law should be an opportune time. It will not be an easy battle, even with a Democratic Congress, but if we are going to put sex on the table in this country this must be a debate we are willing to wage.

CDC and the NIH also need to develop more behavioral interventions for men who have sex with men, particularly for African American and Latino MSM. Earlier this year, The AIDS Institute conducted a review of CDC’s Updated Compendium of Evidence-Based Interventions. We found that of the 49 evidence-based prevention interventions only four target MSM and none target African American or Latino MSM. With 57% percent of the epidemic and growing, this is completely unacceptable and needs to be rectified immediately. We also have to make sure CDC allocates its prevention funding and programs for MSM in proportion to our share of the epidemic. There is ample evidence that they and the states, who receive the bulk of CDC’s prevention funds, do not.

Finally, the HIV/AIDS and LGBT communities have to stop “de-gaying” HIV and take ownership of the virus that is infecting our community. For far too long, HIV/AIDS and LGBT advocates have downplayed the number of gay men with HIV in our country. We really did not need the latest CDC numbers to remind us that MSM is the population most impacted by HIV in the U.S; we knew that already. It has been reassuring to see the response of many community organizations to the new CDC numbers and a desire to address gay men and other MSM in HIV prevention. It is a good beginning and it is time for all HIV/AIDS and LGBT organizations to put this near the top of their agenda and devote the necessary time and resources it takes to reverse current trends.

Results won’t happen overnight and we have a long way to go, but if we are going to prevent HIV in the U.S. we are going to have to put sex on the table.

[Click here to read previous input into the 2009 Gay Men's Health Agenda. Please feel free to comment there - or you could send in a full post of your own here. We will be happy to publish it! The feedback we receive will be featured in the closing plenary of the upcoming National Gay Men's Health Summit and will be a means of moving the community forward in the new year around issues that are important to all of us.]

“HIV is a virus, not a crime"

Justice Edwin Cameron calls for a campaign
against 'misguided criminal laws and prosecutions'

“HIV is a virus, not a crime,” argued South African Supreme Court Justice Edwin Cameron during his impassioned call for “a campaign against criminalisation” on the final day of the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City.

Justice Cameron’s plenary presentation was the vocalisation – and culmination – of a growing movement against criminalisation of HIV exposure and transmission that has been supported – and nourished – by organisations as powerful and diverse as UNAIDS and UNDP; the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+); the International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (ICW); the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF); the Open Society Institute; the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network; and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA); as well as many individual academics and HIV advocates.

Read the whole article on aidsmap.


Highlight:

Ten reasons why criminal prosecutions are bad policy

However, he provided ten reasons why creating HIV-specific laws, or applying current assault laws, to anything other than intentional HIV transmission are “misdirected and bad” policy. Many of these arguments were developed from a paper that Justice Cameron recently published in JAMA, co-written with Scott Burris of Temple University Beasley School of Law and Michaela Clayton of ARASA.

• Criminalisation is ineffective since it targets people already diagnosed, when studies show that most HIV transmission takes place during sex between two consenting adults neither of whom is aware that the other is infected with HIV.

• Criminal laws and criminal prosecutions are “shoddy and misguided substitutes” for measures that really protect those at risk of contracting HIV. “We need effective prevention, protection against discrimination, reduced stigma, strong leadership, greater access to testing and most importantly, treatment,” he said.

• Criminalisation victimises, oppresses and endangers women. Although policymakers’ impulse is often to protect women, “it is a grievously misguided impulse” because many laws, especially those in Africa, expose women “to assault, to ostracism and to further stigma” making them “more vulnerable to HIV, not less vulnerable. Rather, he argued, we need laws that guarantee a women’s social and economic status, and that enhance their “capacity to negotiate safer sex and to protect them for predatory sexual partners. We must change the social circumstances that will empower those women to say no when they wish to and to insist on protection when they want to.”

• Criminalisation is often unfairly and selectively enforced. He noted that “prosecutions and laws single out already vulnerable groups like sex workers, men who have sex with men, and in European countries, black males.”

• Criminalisation places blame on one person instead of responsibility on two. “The person who passes on the virus may be more guilty that the person who acquires it,” he said, “but criminalisation unfairly and inappropriately places all the blame on the person with HIV.”

• Criminalisation laws are difficult and degrading to apply. “Those laws that target reckless, or negligent or inadvertent transmission of HIV only introduce uncertainty into an area that is already difficult to police,” he noted. “In court we look back with a clinical harshness of the lawyer's eye on the complexities of these transactions and I do not believe that it is proper for the law to do so.”

• Many HIV-specific laws are extremely poorly drafted. He cited the example of Sierra Leone, based on the African Model Law, which explicitly criminalises mother-to-child transmission and is vague about who will be prosecuted and under what circumstances.

• HIV criminalisation increases stigma. “It is stigma,” he said, “that I believe lies behind the enactment of these bad laws. Those laws seem attractive, but they are not prevention or treatment friendly. They are hostile to both. And this is simply because they add fuel to the fires of stigma. Prosecutions for HIV transmissions and exposure and the chilling content of the laws themselves reinforce the idea of HIV as a shameful, disgraceful, unworthy condition requiring isolation and ostracism.”

• Criminalisation is a blatant disincentive to testing. “Why would a woman in Kenya want to go for an HIV test when she knows that it will expose her to seven years in jail?” he asked.

• Criminalisation assumes the worst about people with HIV, and punishes their vulnerability.

Read the whole article on aidsmap.

Global AIDS prevention gives short shrift to gays

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Jorge Saavedra's moment of truth came in the middle of an impassioned speech to 5,000 people about the paltry amount of money being spent to stop the spread of AIDS among gay men.

The Mexican federal official paused, then said publicly for the first time that he was gay.

As he held up a photo of himself with his partner, the crowd applauded wildly. Afterward, men from Africa and India congratulated him with tears in their eyes.

"They told me that I was a hero, and that they wished they could do the same in their countries," said Saavedra, who is infected with HIV and also heads the AIDS prevention program in a country where many gay men live in denial.

Saavedra's coming out on Tuesday at the International AIDS Conference sent a powerful message to the world: Homophobia must be stamped out if AIDS is to be controlled. Fewer people are dying from AIDS, but new HIV infections among gay and bisexual men in many countries are rising at alarming rates.

Yet less than 1 percent of the $669 million reported in global prevention spending targets men who have sex with men, according to UNAIDS figures from 2006, the latest available data.

Read the rest.

Methadone Man - que rico

Yesterday in the Global Village at the International AIDS Conference, we couldn't help but notice Methadone Man (above left.)

He handing out cards, with his partner Buprenorphine Babe, that asked for us to "help drug users stop injection, reduce HIV risk, and stay on AIDS treatment."

Check out www.wheresthemethadone.org

and

www.wheresthebupe.org

We just love anything that makes this work fun and sexy...

Brit Chicks I Fancy - live from Mexico City

LifeLube's Jim Pickett, coming to you live from Mexico City, at the International AIDS Conference.

Read his post on the aforementioned chicks aqui... - on the Positively Aware blog. One, btw, is a rather famous female singer, right out of a sweet dream.

[pictured above, Pickett and one of the chicks (at left) with two other very cool lasses, at the TGI Fridays of Mexico -Sanborn's - having a cerveza and some chilequiles - and scheming.)

Check out the conference community blog - some great stuff there.

New HIV Infection Figures From CDC Underscore Need for National AIDS Strategy for the U.S.

"This is a direct result of years of policy and programs that demonize and ignore the sexual health needs of gay men, especially African-American and Latino gay men who bear the brunt of the epidemic in the U.S."

The new HIV infection figures released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) increase the estimate of new HIV infections from 40,000 to 56,000 annually, with a range of 48,200 to 64,500. Derived from laboratory data collected in Illinois and 21 other states in 2006, the higher estimate demonstrates that the HIV infection rate is not falling and may very possibly be increasing significantly.

The new estimates are published in August 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and will be presented publicly tomorrow at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. The revision also includes a back-calculation revealing that, for the last 15 years, infection rates were approximately 25 to 50 percent higher than the long-held 40,000 annual estimate. This figure is known as incidence, while the overall number of people living with HIV is known as prevalence.

The CDC estimates reveal a steady rise in infections occurring since the early 1990s, with increases primarily among gay men and African Americans.

READ MORE

MSM Issues at International AIDS Conference 2008 - What do you want to see covered in pre-conference satellite?

1. 

ANNOUNCEMENT (December 5, 2007): What issues do you want to see covered at the International AIDS Conference 2008 MSM Pre-Conference Satellite in Mexico City?

(Para español, refiérase más abajo)

We recently sent out an e-blast asking you to save the dates of August 1 and 2 for our two-day Pre-Conference Satellite at IAC 2008 focused on MSM and HIV. The Satellite, co-sponsored and produced by the Global Forum, will be focused on how insufficient epidemiologic and social science research on MSM drives the dearth of HIV prevention, treatment and care resources targeting MSM needs.

The goals for this conference are: 1) for researchers, human rights organizations and community based organizations to share information and create better linkages and collaborations; 2) to develop shared strategies for expanding epidemiologic and social science data collection and resource allocation for appropriate HIV prevention, treatment and care among MSM and 3) to enhance advocacy campaigns to address repressive laws and policies that underlie data, resource and service shortages.

Keeping in mind these themes and goals, we would like to hear from you about what kind of content areas you would like to see included at the Satellite. You can email these suggestions directly to jbeck@apla.org.

The Global Forum Steering Committee is convening for a two-day meeting in mid-January to discuss the details of the satellite. Information on how to register for the Satellite and the exact time and location of the event will be sent out soon afterwards, so keep an eye out in your inbox for more e-blasts in this regard.

Thank you in advance for your input!!

*****

In addition, IAC 2008 has recently published a Web-based Guide for Community Involvement at the conference. This guide includes:

-A Tools section with tip sheets, calendars, and forms.

-A section focused on People Living with HIV, with key advice and suggestions to support their involvement.

-A section structured around the Conference Programme, giving practical advice on how you can get involved in various aspects of AIDS 2008.

-A section called Before, During and After the Conference, details the things you need to know about getting to Mexico and getting the most out of the conference.

You can access this guide at www.aids2008community.org

ATENCIÓN: (5 de diciembre del 2007): ¿Cuáles asuntos quieres ver cubiertos en la Conferencia Internacional del SIDA 2008 HSH Pre-Conferencia Satélite en la Cuidad de México (Distrito Federal)?

Hace poco les mandamos un e-blast (correo electrónico) para que anoten las fechas el primer y segundo de agosto, nuestros 2-días Pre-Conferencia Satélite en IAC 2008 con foque en HSH (Hombres teniendo sexo con hombres) y el VIH. El satélite, co-patrocinado y producido por el Forum Global le dará enfoque en como la falta de epidemiología e investigacion en las ciencias sociales en HSH obstaculiza la prevención, tratamiento y atención del VIH de HSH que se necesita.

La metas de esta conferencia son: 1) para investigadores, organizaciones de derechos humanos y organizaciones comunitarias para compartir información y crear conexiones y colaboraciones beneficiarias; 2) desarrollar estrategias comunes para ampliar la documentación de la epidemiología e investigacion en las ciencias sociales de VIH y recursos asignados para conducir de forma cierta la prevención, tratamiento y atención de VIH entre HSH y 3) para realzar campañas de defensa para tratar leyes represivas y políticas que restringe datos, recursos y servicios limitados.

Tomando en cuentas los temas y las metas, nos gustaría oír de ustedes que tipo de asuntos les gustarían ver incluidos en el Satélite. Se puede mandar sus sugerencias por correo electrónico directamente a jbeck@apla.org.

El Manejo del Comité del Forum Global se juntará por una reunión de 2-días en medio de enero para discutir los detalles del satélite. Información de cómo registrar para el Satélite, la hora exacta y el local del evento se mandará muy pronto después de este evento, pues manténgase alertos a sus cuentas electrónicas para más información al respecto.

¡¡Les dio las gracias por adelantado por las sugerencias!!

*****

Además, IAC 2008 ha publicado recién “Guía por la Red para Envolvimiento Comunitario” en la conferencia. Esta guía incluye:

- Una sección de herramientas con una hoja de ayudas, calendarios y formularios.

- Una sección enfocando a Personas Viviendo con el VIH, con consejos dominantes y sugerencias para apoyar sus envolvimientos.

- Una sección estructurar acera la Programación de la Conferencia, ofreciendo consejo practícales en como se puede envolver en varios aspectos en SIDA 2008 (AIDS 2008.)

- Una sección llamada, Antes, Durante y Después de la Conferencia, detallando cosas que debería saber sobre llegando a México y como aprovechar la conferencia lo mas posible.

Se puede accesar la guía a www.aids2008community.org

Mexico City - 2008

Planning is underway for the next International AIDS Conference to be held in Mexico City, August 3 - 8, 2008.