On Thursday, May 16, 2019, the House Oversight Committee conducted a hearing to try and get to the bottom of the Truvada pricing and patent scandal. They were not messing around. The title of the hearing was, “HIV Prevention Drug: Billions in Corporate Profits after Millions in Taxpayer Investments.” The hearing was the culmination of [...]
Gilead Sciences, the pharmaceutical that makes Truvada, the only FDA-approved drug for PrEP, is having a great week in the public relations department. First, Gilead announced they were surrendering their patent for Truvada a year early, and now Federal officials have announced that Gilead will donate enough Truvada for 200,000 people in the United [...]
Krishna Stone, one of the many women profiled in the book, Fag Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community. My first job in AIDS in the 1980s was at the Los Angeles Shanti Foundation, an organization that provided companions for the dying. When our founding director, Daniel [...]
I’m a Southerner, first and foremost. We love beauty pageants and drag queens. So, the new video series Anal About My Health is right up my (ahem) alley. Produced by MPACT (Global Men’s Health and Human Rights), the cheeky series is based on the actual life experiences of several Bay Area drag personalities. In each [...]
This November, the HIV Cruise Retreat (also known as “the Poz Cruise,” although it is not associated with POZ Magazine) will celebrate its 15th Anniversary voyage with a cruise to the Caribbean from Ft Lauderdale. As the host and MC, I can’t wait to join them. Grab a floppy hat and some sunscreen and come [...]
James Krellenstein and Nicholas Faust of #PrEP4All at AIDS Watch in Washington, DC Advocates pressuring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to claim royalties from sales of ‘Truvada as PrEP’ report “strong interest” in congressional hearings on the growing controversy, based on visits to the Hill today between HIV advocates and [...]
You are going to read this story and think it is too outrageous to be true. You would be wrong. And, especially if you are an HIV advocate attending AIDS Watch in Washington, DC, this week, you must demand that our elected officials answer for it. Here’s the story, and some simple questions for [...]
Angie Kelley of Moveable Feast Angie Kelley found her redemption on a bicycle, somewhere along the 140-mile route of Ride for the Feast, the annual fundraiser for Moveable Feast. The arduous trail transformed a young woman with a troubled past into something entirely new. A queer advocate. A mother. A woman of worth. [...]
Brace yourselves, Gilbert & Sullivan fans. The Rev. Steve Pieters has a treat for you. Steve is a long-term survivor – and by long, I mean since before 1985, when HIV/AIDS was known as Gay Related Immune Disorder (GRID). Steve has been an advocate of many decades for both HIV causes and for the religious [...]
Project Inform founder, the late Martin Delaney, with David Evans in a 1997 photo (The HIV community was dealt a sad blow this week when it was announced that the iconic non-profit HIV treatment advocacy organization, Project Inform, will end its programs. Project Inform’s Director of Research Advocacy, David Evans, has been [...]
