National AIDS Fund Creates New Campaign, Honors National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
The HIV Research Catalyst Forum Online Scholarship Application Now Open
Lambda Legal Releases Health Care Discrimination Survey Results
Activists Protest Prosecution of Needle Exchangers
Notre Dame Confronted on LGBT Rights Issues
National AIDS Fund Creates New Campaign, Honors National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
On National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, February 7, 2010, the National AIDS Fund (NAF) joined the HIV/AIDS community all over the country in remembering the thousands of African Americans who have lost their lives to the disease, and honoring those currently living with HIV. NAF is committed to helping African Americans, and all communities of color, to protect themselves and their communities against the spread of HIV.
The goal of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is to mobilize communities and address specific issues regarding local epidemics and best practices that are science-based and will influence the course of HIV in black communities across the United States.
Recognizing the need to mobilize even more, the NAF has created the Every Life Matters…Every Dollar Counts campaign. The goal of Every Life Matters…Every Dollar Counts is to cultivate philanthropic leadership and engage donors from within the populations of color most affected by HIV, and then direct these resources back into those respective communities.
“National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day reminds us that our work to end HIV/AIDS is far from over,” said Valerie Montgomery Rice, MD, Executive Director of the Meharry Medical College Center for Women’s Health Research, NAF Trustee, and chair of the Every Life Matters…Every Dollar Counts campaign. “We must become reinvigorated leaders, and we must inspire new leadership to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS in the African American community and in all populations affected by the disease.”
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The HIV Research Catalyst Forum Online Scholarship Application Now Open
The HIV Research Catalyst Forum: Treatment, Prevention, Advocacy is a unique conference focusing on community advocacy in HIV treatment and prevention research. It will take place on April 20-23, 2010, at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel, Baltimore, Maryland.
This four-day conference will provide a rare opportunity for new advocates to gain knowledge, build capacity, and sharpen skills; for experienced advocates to exchange ideas, craft strategies, and tackle new challenges; and for advocacy networks to recruit new participants and collaborators to strengthen planned or ongoing research advocacy campaigns.
There are 150 full scholarships available, including travel (domestic coach class airfare and limited ground transportation assistance), 3-night hotel, and a per diem. All travel and lodging arrangements for scholarship recipients will be made by the organization.
Among those who should apply are: new advocates working in HIV or related fields;
community-based service providers; and experienced advocates and people living with HIV/AIDS.
The deadline for application submission is February 19, 2010. Applicants will be notified by March 8, 2010. The application can be found at http://www.hivresearchcatalystforum.org/scholarship.
Note: A number of spots have been set aside for applicants who live in the Baltimore area and do not need travel and hotel. Registration fees for these applications will be waived on a first come, first served basis.
For questions about the HIV Research Catalyst Forum, please contact Myisha Patterson-Gaston at Myisha@hivresearchcatalystforum.org.
Visit the conference website at www.HIVResearchCatalystForum.org for updates.
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Lambda Legal Releases Health Care Discrimination Survey Results
On February 4, Lambda Legal released the first nationwide survey that examines health care discrimination experienced by LGBT people and people living with HIV.
"The results of this survey should shock the conscience of this nation and make clear that the system is broken when it comes to health care for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and those living with HIV," said Beverly Tillery, Director of Community Education and Advocacy and one of the authors of the report. "No one should be turned away or face discrimination when they are sick or seeking medical care."
In spring 2009, Lambda Legal and over 100 partner organizations distributed a survey to LGBT people and people living with HIV across the country. Survey results are based on responses from approximately 5,000 people and provide a powerful picture of the experiences of a diverse cross section of LGBT and/or HIV-positive people all over the country.
The survey included questions about the following types of discrimination in care: being refused needed care; health care professionals refusing to touch patients or using excessive precautions; health care professionals using harsh or abusive language; being blamed for one's health status; or health care professionals being physically rough or abusive. According to the results, almost 56% of lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) respondents had at least one of these experiences; 70% of transgender and gender-nonconforming respondents had one or more of these experiences; and nearly 63% of respondents living with HIV experienced one or more of these types of discrimination. In nearly every category, a higher proportion of respondents of color and/or of low-income reported experiencing discriminatory and substandard care. Close to 33% of low-income transgender and gender-nonconforming respondents reported being refused care because of their gender identity and almost a quarter of low-income respondents living with HIV reported being denied care.
For the full report and the list of partners in Lambda Legal's national Health Care Fairness Campaign, please visit www.lambdalegal.org/health-care-report.
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Activists Protest Prosecution of Needle Exchangers
On February 1, more than 30 activists from Fresno and the San Francisco Bay Area converged outside the downtown Modesto, California courthouse to protest criminal charges against two people accused of handing out clean syringes and collecting dirty ones from drug addicts in a Modesto park. Protesters held signs that said, “Public Health Over Politics!” Kristy Tribuzio and Brian Robinson face up to a year in jail for breaking a law they consider to be immoral.
"It should be a health issue, not a political issue," said Dallas Blanchard, who operates a legal needle exchange program in Fresno. "By treating it as a political issue, we're just allowing people to die," he added.
Tribuzio and Robinson's defense team planned to argue that they were acting out of medical necessity: that conducting a needle exchange program was a justified act aimed at saving lives and preventing such diseases as HIV and hepatitis C among drug users.
Prosecutors see it differently. They say the two knew what they were doing was illegal.
"Simply put, the defendants are charged with violating the law," Assistant District Attorney Carol Shipley said.
Both sides will have to wait to make their arguments─the judge pushed the hearing back until March 1.
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Notre Dame Confronted on LGBT Rights Issues
After the student newspaper at the University of Notre Dame published a cartoon advocating violent gay-bashing (“What’s the easiest way to turn a fruit into a vegetable? With a baseball bat.”), hundreds of supporters of LGBT rights launched a silent protest to call attention to Notre Dame's glaring silence on LGBT issues. But to hear the point of the demonstrators, many of whom were students, this demonstration went far beyond just a cartoon that appeared in the newspaper.
"When the University refuses to acknowledge club status for [gay/straight alliances] and refuses to add sexual orientation to the non-discrimination clause, we are reminded of our other-ness," said Laurel Javors, one of the activists who organized the demonstration.
Of the top 20 universities in the country, the University of Notre Dame is the only institution that doesn't include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policy, according to demonstration organizers.
The University of Notre Dame's mission statement calls for a focus on injustice. "The University seeks to cultivate in its students not only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings, but also a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many."
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