HIV & AIDS

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Congress approves $100m boost to HIV/AIDS initiatives

The appropriations bill for the fiscal year 2023 released by Congress on Tuesday contains an additional $100 million for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Ending the HIV Epidemic in the United States initiative. Among other programs, the funding will strengthen efforts to increase the adoption of preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to reduce the risk of new HIV infections. In a press release, the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute celebrated the boost from Congress but noted that more must be done — including a national PrEP program. “The increases will help expand HIV programs in the targeted jurisdictions most impacted by […]

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HIV myths busted: Everything you need to know about your prevention options

Want to be part of ending new HIV transmissions this decade? Here’s what you need to know. Over the last decade, the fight against HIV has been transformed by medical breakthroughs. England is on track to end new transmissions by 2030, with the HIV prevention medication PrEP, alongside more traditional methods of prevention (HIV testing, condoms, and U=U), proving to “accelerate the downtrend in new HIV infections in recent years”, according to Robbie Currie, lead commissioner of London’s HIV prevention program branded: Do It London. Jo, 27, from Hackney, has been taking the once-daily pill for two years. It works by […]

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Keeping hope alive as a long-term survivor

If you were diagnosed with HIV in the first fifteen years of the AIDS pandemic, your doctor might as well have handed you the diagnosis with one hand and with the other a death certificate, just waiting for the appropriate date to be filled in. Having HIV was an almost certain death sentence. Those of us who were diagnosed as HIV-positive in those years were told to “get your affairs in order,” meaning, “prepare to die.” Many of us did exactly that: we quit work, lived on SSDI payments, settled debts if we could, alerted our friends, and learned to […]

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The infuriating experience of PrEP discrimination

Did you know that you could be discriminated against by insurance companies for taking PrEP?  I didn’t.  Recently, I have been searching for long-term disability insurance options while living in California. Long-term disability insurance could offer some peace of mind if some tragic, unforeseeable event left me unable to work. I chatted with an insurance broker, who scanned providers nationwide, and reported back to me that because I took PrEP daily, most insurers wouldn’t allow me to participate in their program. Drugs prescribed for PrEP such as Truvada, Descovy, and Apretude are on a list of “unaccepted” medications. I received what […]

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Is an HIV Catastrophe Coming to Europe?

Europe has seen a rise in undiagnosed HIV infections — the World Health Organization (WHO) and European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) reported that between at least 2018 to 2021, there have been more HIV infections than diagnoses. The full report showed that testing rates fell during the COVID-19 pandemic and has hindered progress toward eliminating new HIV transmissions by 2030. “We should all be deeply concerned by the data on HIV testing, treatment and care in Europe and Central Asia,” said Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “Continuing, widespread stigma around HIV is deterring […]

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World AIDS Day is a Day to Heal our Grief

World AIDS Day. For most, it is a global event where we honor, memorialize, and celebrate the lives of those we have lost to HIV and AIDS since the pandemic began in 1981. For me it is so much more. During those early years of the AIDS pandemic, many of us long-term survivors experienced nothing short of a catastrophic loss of life–losing friend, after lover, after friend, after lover, after friend within a very short period of time. At the height of the AIDS pandemic, there were many  of us who were attending an average of four memorials a week, […]

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On World AIDS Day Remember Those We Lost and Help Those in Need By ‘Dining Out For Life’ at local Restaurants

Today is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness. Since 1983 Face to Face has been on the forefront of the AIDS crisis in Sonoma County. As we head into our 40th year we are reminded not only of those that we lost to HIV/AIDS but to all those living with HIV in our community. It is our mission to end new cases of HIV while supporting the health and well-being of those living with HIV/AIDS. Our Prevention […]

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A New Way to Tackle HIV Symptoms Like Pain, Negative Body Image

Treating HIV symptoms in “clusters” could help improve a patient’s overall quality of life, according to a study presented at the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care 2022 annual meeting. The evidence, according to Medscape, showed that the four main symptom clusters for HIV include pain, body psychological, gastrointestinal, and body image. These symptoms were also more common in HIV-positive people older than 45. Natalie Wilson, PhD, assistant professor of community health systems at the UCSF School of Nursing, and a group of colleagues performed a study that also suggested that the elderly population experienced more distress from their symptoms, with the […]

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Pentagon and Army sued over decades-old policy barring recruits with HIV 

After a successful effort earlier this year to ease longstanding restrictions on service members living with HIV, LGBTQ rights advocates are now pushing for more change. They want to end the U.S. military’s decades-old policy of barring people with HIV from enlisting. LGBTQ advocacy group Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuitThursday on behalf of three individuals living with HIV: Isaiah Wilkins, a gay police officer in Georgia; a transgender lesbian woman who left the military in 2013 to transition and a straight woman who had dreams of becoming a parachute rigger. (The women are identified in the lawsuit with pseudonyms because they fear further […]

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Democratic governor signs law punishing HIV transmission with up to 10 years in prison

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Pennsylvania’s Gov. Tom Wolf (D) just signed a new law that makes it a felony to pass on a communicable disease when they “should have known” that they had it, the HIV Justice Network reported. Opponents of the law worry it will be used to punish people with HIV or other STDs who unknowingly transmit it to sexual partners. Such HIV criminalization laws have disproportionately been used to target Black men and other men of color. While the offense, a third-degree felony, has to be “intentional,” one could see an arrestee being charged with it if they accidentally spit onto an […]

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