White House Hold LGBT Health Conference

via Advocate, by Andrew Harmon

PHILADELPHIA — The White House rolled out its first campaign-season LGBT conference Thursday, one focused on health care issues facing the community and headlined by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

The conference series was first announced by the White House last month.

Sebelius didn’t break big news on health care initiatives during a morning address at Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University.

But the White House’s engagement on the issue, coupled with the HHS secretary’s attendance, brought national visibility to what Sebelius accurately described as a health care system that has been “especially broken for LGBT Americans,” who have lower rates of coverage and have been historically excluded from federal health surveys.

“Given the discrimination that often is faced in the workplace, LGBT Americans often have a harder time getting access to employment-based coverage,” Sebelius said at the conference, also attended by gay White House officials including Gautam Raghavan, the LGBT liaison in the Office of Public Engagement; and John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management.

But “all Americans, regardless of where they live, what age, sex, race, sexual orientation, or gender identity, have a basic right to get the health care they need here in the United States, and that’s a principle we are committed to fighting for in this administration,” Sebelius said.

The speech was similar in tone and structure to Sebelius’s address before the National Coalition for LGBT Health in October, where she enumerated the administration’s regulatory accomplishments over the past three years — most famously a hospital visitation mandate for same-sex couples — and touted health care reform as a major step toward improving health care access for the community. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on the law’s constitutionality in late March.

The lack of marriage rights can be a major barrier to care, as Sebelius discussed with The Advocate in an interview published last month.

President Obama has endorsed legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriages, though the White House has not budged in recent months beyond talking points of the president “evolving” on the issue of full marriage rights and opposing “divisive and discriminatory” measures against same-sex couples — this in reference to anti-gay marriage ballot measures in states such as North Carolina and Minnesota.

The issue-specific LGBT conferences, ranging from HIV/AIDS to aging-related and antibullying efforts, are slated to take place around the country over the next several months, ending in June.

Invites have already been sent out for a March 9 event in Detroit focused on housing and homelessness.

At the Creating Change conference last month in nearby Baltimore, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, announced the agency had finalized a rule prohibiting antigay and antitransgender discrimination in housing programs that HUD oversees.

The rule, Donovan said at the January conference, “says clearly and unequivocally that LGBT individuals and couples have the right to live where they choose.”

Donovan has stood out in pushing the envelope on LGBT rights in Obama’s cabinet, coming out ahead of the president in support of full marriage equality last November.

The Democratic Party has been urged to follow suit by supporting a pro-marriage equality platform with inclusive language on the issue, as proposed earlier this week by the group Freedom to Marry.

A spokesman for Rep. Nancy Pelosi told Metro Weekly Tuesday that the House Democratic keader supports the proposed language (read the report here).

Another trending topic discussed Thursday was that of cultural competency standards for health care professionals treating LGBT patients.

There are no uniform standards for doctors and medical staff on how (and how not) to treat LGBT individuals.

Sebelius said in January that she does not necessarily believe codified regulation needs to be implemented, though the Office of Minority Health is working to add sexual orientation and gender identity into the language of its Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health Care standards.


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The Case for a Second Term

via Advocate, by Andrew Harmon

WASHINGTON — In a public relations video released late last month, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius enumerated the accomplishments and key news from her agency in 2011.

Two notable developments did not make the final cut. The first was her controversial decision in December overruling a Food and Drug Administration recommendation that Plan B One-Step, an emergency contraceptive, be available without prescription to people under 17.

The second was far less headline-grabbing — if perhaps far more impactful and not the type of achievement that HHS has otherwise shied away from touting.

Under Secretary Sebelius, HHS has taken a hard look at the breathtaking disparity in health care access that LGBT Americans face.

How those who do have access to care are treated in the system seems to vary widely: One striking survey released in 2010 by Lambda Legal reported high rates of myriad negative experiences among gay and transgender respondents, including health care professionals using abusive language or even refusing to touch patients.  

With LGBT antidiscrimination legislation and a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act not expected to move anytime soon in a divided Congress, leadership on LGBT health issues from the executive branch has proved crucial.

Some of that progress, as outlined by Sebelius in an October address to the National Coalition for LGBT Health, easily translates into media attention.

For example, an Obama administration mandate that forbids hospitals receiving Medicare or Medicaid funds from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in their visitation policies is “due in no small part” to people like Janice Langbehn who have experienced the tragic consequences of unjust rules, White House officials wrote nearly a year ago when the rule went into effect.

In 2007, Langbehn was kept from her dying partner’s side in a Miami hospital along with the couple's children.

President Obama awarded Langbehn the Presidential Citizens Medal in October for her advocacy on the issue ever since.

Putting a face on other positive steps forward can be difficult.

Questions on sexual orientation and gender identity, for instance, have historically been excluded from federal health surveys that factor other demographics such as race and ethnicity, as detailed by a groundbreaking report in 2011 by the Institute of Medicine.

Collecting such information on surveys is essential to establishing research priorities and sound health care policy, experts widely agree.
HHS released a two-year data collection plan last year to help close the gap.

“The Department of Health and Human Services decision to collect health data on the LGBT population will allow public health professionals to understand for the first time patterns and risks for disease among LGBT people, as well as how to design the most effective interventions,” said Ilan Meyer, an expert on LGBT health and a senior scholar of public policy at the Williams Institute.

Other agencies, such as the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, have also moved to incorporate LGBT data collection.

In a recent interview with The Advocate, Secretary Sebelius spoke about the year in LGBT health at HHS, the impact of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act expected later this year, and how marriage rights (or lack thereof) may affect the health of LGBT Americans.


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U.S. Conference on AIDS

via Windy City Times, by Kate Sosin

The U.S. Conference on AIDS, held this year in Chicago for the first time, opened with a welcoming plenary breakfast that featured major names in HIV/AIDS prevention.

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the Department of Health and Human Services headlined the morning.
 
But the moment that left many talking later in the day was a protest that interrupted the introduction of Sebelius. As Sebelius was announced with much fanfare, a large group of protesters with posters marched out and stole the microphone.
 
The group, protesting on behalf of Asian Pacific Islanders, demanded that their voices be heard in HIV prevention. They came bearing signs that read "Our Lives Matter."
 
"We cannot to wait," said Sharon Day of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force. "We, the first Americans, can no longer be the last in line for funding."
 
In what appeared to be a last-minute switch, National AIDS Policy Director Jeff Crowley took the stage in place of Sebelius. Crowley had been scheduled to speak later in the program.
 
Crowley challenged HIV service providers to adapt to healthcare changes and medical advancements to end AIDS. He called for focus and unity from AIDS organizations as pre-exposure prophylaxis (taking HIV meds to prevent becoming infected with HIV) is now a tool on the horizon.
 
"That is great news but right now it's a research study," said Crowley, who pressed providers to think realistically about how new science can be used to end HIV/AIDS. "I would ask all of you in this time of fundamental change to really seize the moment."
 
Protesters appeared a second time as Sebelius attempted to take the stage. She acknowledged the group before they sat down.
 
According to staffers for the National Minority AIDS Council, the organization that hosts the annual conference, organizers had anticipated the protest, although the last-minute swap of presenters appeared to be unscripted.
 
Sebelius spoke of the Obama administration's commitment to ending AIDS. She said the president had requested $50 million in additional funds for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which currently suffers from lack of funds, leaving thousands on a waiting list for HIV/AIDS treatment.
 
Despite the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which will provide health insurance to Americans by 2014, Sebelius said that the administration remains committed to Ryan White funding (that money has funded HIV/AIDS treatment for patients without insurance who cannot afford to pay).
 
The secretary added that her department is working to reallocate funding to communities considered high-risk currently.
 
Sebelius echoed the sentiments of many at the conference, who argue that the current moment is critical for mobilizing to end AIDS. Experts say that given new advances in science, an end to the virus is on the horizon, but those advancements have also led to apathy as the those who contract HIV and get treatment can live healthier and longer lives than ever before.
 
Further, significant funding increases are needed if those treatments are to be implemented.
 
"We have some very important questions to ask ourselves today," Sebelius said. "What will we do with this opportunity … will we watch HIV/AIDS further recede from the national spotlight?"
 
In a special press conference after her appearance, Sebelius reaffirmed her commitment to Ryan White funding, stating that those funds will now fill "cracks in the system, not gaping holes." She also commented on the morning's protest.
 
"They were saying 'our lives matter,' and my response is, you bet they do," she said.
Thousands attended the breakfast, the first of four days of conference events.
 
David Ernesto Munar, president of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, welcomed the conference on behalf of the host committee.
 
Munar encouraged conference attendees to adopt a Chicago attitude while in town.
 
"Chicagoans are a roll up your sleeves kind of people," Munar said. "I hope the hardy spirit of Chicago rubs off on you," because, he said, there is much work to be done to end AIDS.


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FDA Begins Process of Ending Gay Blood Donor Ban

Via POZ - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has started the process to review and possibly end the ban on blood donations from gay men, the Washington Blade reports.

The Department of Health and Human Services has scheduled meetings June 10 and 11 with the Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability to consider “the most important factors (e.g. societal, scientific and economic) to consider in making a policy change,” states a notice published by the Federal Register.