Chris Johnson

With the coronavirus claiming thousands of lives across the globe, medical experts are throwing any and all medications they can against the disease , including drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS that — if effective in clinic trials — may turn attention toward Truvada, commonly used as PrEP for HIV prevention. One medical expert told the Washington Blade if the early promising results for the HIV drug Remdesivir hold out in clinical trials, the drug Truvada — the more standard medication against HIV/AIDS — could also work against the coronavirus. David Hardy, adjunct professor of medicine for the Division of Infectious […]

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading voice of medical authority as the world confronts the coronavirus, is no stranger to viral epidemics — nor protesters who once displayed him in effigy in frustration amid new infections and rising death tolls. At the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the early 1990s, Fauci was at the frontlines as director of the National Institutes of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, a role he began in 1984 and continues to this day. During that time, Fauci’s research contributed to the understanding of HIV’s destruction of the immune system and therapy that has significantly contained the […]

Seven current candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination were the among the respondents to an LGBTQ survey the nation’s leading LGBTQ group unveiled on Monday, but Tulsi Gabbard — who has been criticized for having an anti-LGBTQ past — wasn’t among them. The seven current candidates who responded — Joseph Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer and Elizabeth Warren — responded affirmatively to each of HRC’s questions on LGBTQ issues, including whether they support the Equality Act, oppose President Trump’s transgender military ban and will commit to tackling anti-trans violence. The lack of response from Gabbard […]

n a speech touting economic growth and promising “the best has yet to come,” President Trump in the State of the Union address Tuesday renewed his pledge to beat HIV by 2030. Trump made a call to beat HIV/AIDS to cheers from lawmakers in the joint session of Congress during a portion of speech dedicated to health initiatives under his administration. “We have launched ambitious new initiatives to substantially improve care for Americans with kidney disease, Alzheimer’s and those struggling with mental health,” Trump said. “And because Congress was so good as to fund my request, new cures for childhood cancer, […]

Sen. Amy Klobuchar is facing scrutiny on the campaign trail for voting to confirm many of President Trump’s judicial nominees — and a closer look at that record reveals she backed one pick who once derided as “social policy” not only LGBTQ rights and abortion, but also school integration. With weeks remaining before the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3, Klobuchar’s vote to confirm David Ryan Stras to the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals could dissuade supporters of LGBTQ rights and other progressives from supporting her in the Democratic presidential primary.  Although Stras hasn’t been as viciously anti-LGBTQ as some […]

The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled the City of Phoenix cannot apply its LGBT-inclusive Human Rights Ordinance to penalize a local business for refusing to make custom-made invitations for a same-sex wedding, delivering a victory for groups seeking to justify anti-LGBT discrimination in the name of “religious freedom.” In a 4-3 decision written Justice Andrew Gould, the court determines the guarantee of freedom of religion and speech under the Arizona state constitution permits Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studios, LC, to deny services to same-sex couples.  “Duka and Koski’s beliefs about same-sex marriage may seem old-fashioned, […]

The U.S. House is expected to hold a floor vote next week on the Equality Act, legislation that seeks to ban anti-LGBT discrimination, a senior Democratic aide told the Washington Blade on Monday. The official announcement on the vote, the aide said, was set for Friday, which is the normal day for when the next week’s schedule is announced in the House.  The floor vote on the Equality Act, legislation that was introduced for the first-time ever this year with a Democratic majority in the House, will mark the first-time ever either chamber of Congress has considered the pro-LGBT legislation. […]

A gay foreign policy expert who worked in the Obama administration on international LGBT issues has declared his intention to run for U.S. Senate in Colorado. Daniel Baer, who’s 42 and a former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe, announced his candidacy Tuesday in an email blast referencing his spouse, Brian Walsh. “Like many of you, Brian and I are dismayed by the chaos unfolding in Washington under this president,” Baer said. “But we’ve also realized that the best way to find hope and optimism is by putting ourselves on the line, taking risks for […]