HIV & AIDS

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PrEP’s promise to change the course of HIV has succeeded — but only for white gay men

A decade into the era of the HIV prevention pill, called PrEP, efforts to leverage its heralded power to curb new infections have stagnated in the United States. This shortfall is a key reason the nation lags far behind many others in combating HIV, with a national epidemic long plagued by racial inequities and only a modestly declining new infection rate.  “We are reaching a scientific crisis in HIV prevention,” LaRon Nelson, an associate professor of nursing and public health at Yale University, said last month at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle. Nelson lamented the gulf […]

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Feds Seek Input on National PrEP Coverage

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The federal government is seeking public input concerning whether its Medicare department should cover HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis and PrEP medication nationwide, including a new injectable drug that has been developed. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is considering whether it will cover HIV prevention pre-exposure prophylaxis drugs (PrEP) such as Apretude, a prescription injectable given every two months to individuals at risk of contracting HIV. As part of the analysis, CMS seeks comments from the public, particularly those that include scientific evidence. As of 2020, Medicare coverage for PrEP varies by state or county, but the average cost of […]

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Repeal HIV Criminalization Laws to End the Epidemic & to Advance Racial Justice

On Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, we must remember the myriad ways the work to end the HIV epidemic overlaps with the work for LGBTQ justice and overlaps with the work to dismantle white supremacy. One of these overlaps is laws that criminalize HIV. HIV criminalization is when a state criminalizes otherwise legal conduct or increases the penalties for illegal conduct based on a person’s HIV status. As of 2022, there are at least 35 states with HIV criminalization laws. Each state’s laws vary. Some require the prosecution to prove the person intended to expose others to HIV, but in most states, simply […]

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How Tennessee axed millions in HIV funds amid scrutiny from far-right provocateurs

Tennessee’s recent decision to reject over $8 million in federal funds to combat HIV was motivated, at least in part, by right-wing provocateurs stoking anti-LGBTQ sentiment, according to four sources within the state Health Department. The move by Republican Gov. Bill Lee will hamstring, if not cripple, efforts to combat one of the country’s most poorly controlled epidemics of the virus, HIV advocates said.  The announcement followed a political crisis in Tennessee that began in September when conservative media personalities, including Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro, launched attacks on Vanderbilt University Medical Center over its care of transgender minors, which they alleged […]

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PEPFAR marks 20th anniversary

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief marks its 20th anniversary Saturday, marking the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in the world. The initiative which was personally led and launched by former President George W. Bush in 2003,  its funding has totaled more than $110 billion to date, including funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), to which the U.S. government is the largest donor. PEPFAR is credited with saving millions of lives and helping to change the trajectory of the global HIV epidemic. The White House today released a statement […]

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AIDS/LifeCycle Announces New Santa Monica Beachside Finish Line

AIDS/LifeCycle, the seven-day, 545-mile bike ride fundraiser traversing the golden state from San Francisco to Los Angeles, has announced a new finish line location in Santa Monica.  Co-producers the Los Angeles LGBT Center and San Francisco AIDS Foundation this week, the gFrom June 4-10, the route wheels out nearly 3,000 participants “from the Bay to the Beach” for the very first time in its almost 30-year history.  “We are excited to welcome the AIDS/LifeCycle Ride to Santa Monica. The work of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles LGBT Center made possible by the Ride advances our commitments […]

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Another major HIV vaccine trial fails

The only HIV vaccine in a late-stage trial has failed, researchers announced Wednesday, dealing a significant blow to the effort to control the global HIV epidemic and adding to a decadeslong roster of failed attempts. Known as Mosaico, the trial was the product of a public-private partnership including the U.S. government and the pharmaceutical giant Janssen. It was run out of eight nations in Europe and the Americas, including the U.S., starting in 2019. Researchers enrolled nearly 3,900 men who have sex with men and transgender people, all deemed at substantial risk of HIV. The leaders of the study decided to discontinue the […]

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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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