HIV & AIDS

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HIV Is Not a Crime: A New Play for Reforming Laws Criminalizing HIV Status

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As the world marks 40 years of the first HIV cases to be diagnosed, an urgent new campaign and storytelling initiative is focusing attention on living with HIV and reforming laws in more than 30 states that treat HIV status as a crime. The Centers for Disease Control says these laws “discourage HIV testing, increase stigma, and exacerbate disparities,” noting they are outdated and do not reflect the significant advances to treat and prevent HIV transmission, such as effective treatments that can suppress the virus to the point of it being undetectable and therefore untransmittable (U=U). President Biden also prioritized reforming the […]

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FDA approves first injectable HIV prevention drug

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The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first long-acting injectable medication for use as pre-exposure prevention, or PrEP, against HIV, the agency announced Monday.  Apretude, the new drug, is an injectable given every two months as an alternative to HIV prevention pills, like Truvada and Descovy, which have been shown to reduce the risk of HIV by 99 percent when taken daily.  Two FDA trials analyzing the safety and efficacy of the novel drug found that Apretude was more likely to reduce HIV than the daily oral medications — by 69 percent for cisgender men and transgender women who have […]

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Black people account for 68 percent of HIV-related arrests in Va.

Since 2001, at least 97 people have been arrested under Virginia laws that criminalize people living with HIV, hepatitis B, and syphilis, according to a new report by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. HIV-related crimes are disproportionately enforced on the basis of race and sex, with Black men being the most likely to be arrested and convicted. Using data obtained from the Criminal Justice Information Services Division of the Virginia Department of State, researchers found that charges were filed in over 70 percent of HIV-related arrests in Virginia and more than half of them resulted in a […]

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Sharp drop in new UK HIV cases due to people having less sex during COVID, data suggests

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(Wallocha/ullstein bild via Getty Images) People changing their patterns of sexual behaviour because of COVID has led to a staggering drop in new HIV diagnoses, according to UK government data. On World AIDS Day 2021 (1 December), the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) released data about HIV testing, new diagnoses and the ability to access HIV services in 2020. This new data revealed that the total number of new HIV diagnoses in England dropped by 33 per cent. According to the data, there were 2,630 new diagnoses in 2020 compared to 3,950 in 2019. Among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex […]

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World AIDS Day: Is the world closer to an HIV vaccine in the face of Covid-19?

As Covid-19 brought nearly every corner of the Earth to a halt early last year, researchers around the world scrambled to develop a vaccine to fend off the deadly respiratory coronavirus. And just several months later — in a process that normally takes years — several vaccines were ready for worldwide distribution. In comparison, about 40 years since the earliest reports of what became known as AIDS, scientists are still scratching their heads to develop a vaccine against the virus that causes the life-threatening disease — HIV. No longer a death sentence: How living with HIV has changed JUNE 10, 202111:11 […]

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Johnson: Fauci Also “Overhyped” The AIDS Epidemic

The Huffington Post reports: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) complained about the new coronavirus variant making global headlines by comparing it to what he called the “overhyped” AIDS crisis while appearing on a Fox News host’s podcast Wednesday. Wednesday was World AIDS Day. Without a wisp of tact, Johnson likened the way Dr. Anthony Fauci has issued warnings about the omnicron variant of COVID-19 to the way Fauci warned about the threat of AIDS. “Fauci did the exact same thing with AIDS. He overhyped it,” Johnson told “Fox and Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade.

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President Biden’s World AIDS Day message proves he’s a very different president than Trump

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oe Biden has promised tackle LGBT+ health inequality in his World AIDS Day message, proving once again that he’s a very different president to Donald Trump. Ahead of World AIDS Day (1 December), the president issued a proclamationin which he said his administration was “focused on addressing health inequities and inequalities and ensuring that the voices of people with HIVare at the centre of our work to end the HIV epidemic globally”. Biden “honoured and remembered” the “36 million people, including 700,000 Americans” that have been lost since the start of the AIDS crisis, and noted the impact of COVID-19 on access to HIV-related healthcare. […]

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NHS gets green light for game-changing HIV treatment injected just six times a year

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People living with HIV could be at long last “liberated” from a “burdensome” daily pill regimen, as a new long-lasting injectable is approved for use in Britain. In news dubbed “brilliant” by a leading HIV activist, the NHS has been given the go-ahead to roll out injections taken every two months to manage the virus. Currently, people living with HIV are offered antiretroviral medicines that must be taken every day to suppress the virus – usually one to four daily pills. Effective treatment reduces a person’s viral load – the amount of virus in their blood – to an undetectable level. When the […]

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Half of Americans say they’d avoid an HIV-positive doctor

Just days after Moderna announced it was starting Phase 1 trials of an HIV vaccine, a new report reveals that stigma and misinformation about the virus continue 40 years after the first articles were published about a mysterious cancer killing “active homosexuals.” The report, “The State of HIV Stigma 2021,” found that less than half (48 percent) of American adults say they feel knowledgeable about HIV, down from 51 percent last year. According to the study, which was published by the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD and the Southern AIDS Coalition, 64 percent of adults said they’re aware that there are medications that […]

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‘This will shut us down’: HIV prevention clinics brace for Gilead reimbursement cuts

Tony Christon-Walker was determined to set up an HIV prevention clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, that would succeed where others have long struggled to combat the scourge of the virus among his fellow queer Black men.  The director of prevention and community partnerships at the nonprofit AIDS Alabama, he spent much of 2019 hiring a clinic staff composed of people of color. They were trained to provide the kind of affirming care that, he said, “reflects our culture,” and that would encourage local men at risk of HIV to keep coming back. Even facing the headwinds of the Covid-19 pandemic, the fledgling […]

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