The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has teamed up with the National Institute of Health (NIH) to develop revolutionary gene-based cures for HIV and sickle cell anaemia.
They are now giving an additional $100 million which, combined with the NIH’s investment, will amount to at least $200 million over the next four years – a huge boost to researchers fighting the diseases.
It’s particularly vital as scientists recently announced they have discovered a new strain of HIV for the first time in nearly two decades.
Dramatic advances in genetics over the last ten years have made effective gene-based treatments a reality, including new treatments for blindness and certain types of leukaemia.
However, the high cost of these breakthroughs makes them largely inaccessible to much of the world – particularly for those in the resource-poor countries hit hardest by HIV.
But Bill and Melinda Gates and the NIH have vowed that the cures funded by their investment will be affordable and available for all.
A lab technician draws blood from a patient for HIV testing at the AIDS Information Centre in Kampala, Uganda (ISAAC KASAMANI/AFP/Getty)
The idea is to focus “on access, scalability, and affordability … to make sure everybody, everywhere has the opportunity to be cured, not just those in high-income countries,” NIH Director Francis Collins said in a statement. “We aim to go big or go home.”
They hope to bring safe, effective and durable gene-based cures to clinical trials in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa within the next seven to 10 years.
Anthony S Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, agreed that it was an “ambitious” step.
“[We are] harnessing the most cutting-edge scientific tools and NIH’s sizeable global HIV research infrastructure to one day deliver a cure and end the global HIV pandemic,” he said.
“We are taking into account those with the greatest need at the foundation of this effort, to ensure that, if realised, this exceptional public health achievement will be made accessible to all.”
Mary Rodgers, a principal scientist at Abbott whose team published their findings on Wednesday in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, said there was no reason for the public to be excessively concerned about the newly discovered HIV subtype, which they believe to be extremely rare.
But the scientists said the discovery of the new strain — called HIV-1 Group M, subtype L — should serve as a reminder of how diverse and continually evolving HIV viruses are, and how necessary it is for medical and research communities to remain vigilant.
“We can never become complacent, we need to be proactive and we’re working to stay a step ahead of the virus,” Rodgers told the Chicago Tribune.
“Identifying new viruses such as this one is like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Rodgers added in a statement. “This scientific discovery can help us ensure we are stopping new pandemics in their tracks.”
The identification of a new HIV subtype “tells us that the HIV epidemic is still ongoing and still evolving,” immunology expert Jonah Sacha, who was not involved in the Abbott study, told Scientific American.
“The calling card of HIV is its diversity. That’s what’s defeated all of our attempts to create a vaccine,” said Sacha, a professor at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute at Oregon Health & Science University. “People think it’s not a problem anymore, and we’ve got it under control. But, really, we don’t.”
The Trump administration on Wednesday sued Gilead Sciences, a pharmaceutical company that sells H.I.V.-prevention drugs that can cost patients up to $20,000 a year, accusing the company of earning billions from research funded by taxpayers without paying taxpayers back.
The government said the company infringed upon patents owned by the Department of Health and Human Services, and had refused attempts by the department to license its patents and collect royalties. The company sells two drugs, Truvada and Descovy, that can be taken once daily to prevent H.I.V. infection, a strategy called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP.
Wider access to PrEP is central to the government’s goal, announced in February, to reduce new H.I.V. infections by 75 percent over five years, and to “end the H.I.V. epidemic in America” by 2030. Critics have said the drug’s lofty price tag has limited its accessibility to high-risk people with low incomes, thwarting the government’s efforts.
Gilead is already facing a separate class action anti-trust suit filed by six AIDS activists including Peter Staley.
The Philadelphia Police Department has confirmed to PinkNews they are investigating the death of Alicia Simmons, a trans woman.
Simmons, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was found dead in her apartment on Sunday night.
According to trans activist Ashlee Preston there were no signs of “foul play”, she wrote on Facebook.
Nevertheless, trans activists remain weary around the cause of her death which, if proved to be malicious, would make Simmons the 22nd trans person killed in the US this year alone.
Local community leaders and investigators are scrambling to piece together what happened to Simmons.
Officers stated she was found in an apartment in the 4900 block of Walnut Street, in the northwestern Walnut Hill neighbourhood. A diverse patch of the city packed with coffeeshops and young professionals.
Preston added that Simmons was found “unresponsive in her bed with no signs of forced entry into her apartment” at 8:47pm.
Conservative lawmakers in Texas, Georgia and Kentucky are calling for laws to prohibit minors from receiving gender transition-related health care such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. Providers who administer these treatments, which are in some cases used to treat gender dysphoria in youth, could face a felony charge under a Georgia lawmaker’s proposal.
The proposals come on the heels of a controversy in Texas spawned by a bitter custody battle between two parents who disagree on whether their 7-year-old is transgender. The Dallas case electrified conservative and far-right media in October and spilled over into state and national politics, with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Jr. all weighing in on the issue.
Trump Jr. accused the mother of “child abuse,” and soon after, Texas’ attorney general sent a letter to the Texas Department of family and Protective Services demanding that it investigate to protect the child from “permanent and potentially irreversible harm by his mother.”
Republican Texas Rep. Matt Krause said he would introduce a billthat “prohibits the use of puberty blockers in these situations for children under 18” in the next legislative session. Kentucky Rep. Savannah Maddox, also a Republican, announced on Facebook that she was drafting a similar bill for her state. She referenced the Texas custody case in her announcement.
“I am a strong advocate for parents’ rights — but it is not the right of a parent to permanently alter a child’s gender or identity, even when based upon certain behaviors or the perceptions of a child’s mind which has not yet had time to fully develop,” Maddox wrote, in part.
Georgia Rep Ginny Ehrhart.Dash Photography / Georgia House of Representatives
Ginny Ehrhart, a Republican member of the George House of Representatives, said the Texas case is one reason why she plans to introduce the “Vulnerable Child Protection Act” in Georgia’s 2020 legislative session. A statement announcing the forthcoming bill said it would “make it a felony to perform radical surgery on, or administer drugs to, a minor child for the purpose of attempting to change a minor’s gender,” which Ehrhart called “a form of child abuse.”
The statements made by Ehrhart and a number of other lawmakers, however, perpetuate the false notion that transgender and gender-expansive children are routinely subjected to, as Erhart put it, “life-altering, irreversible surgeries and drug treatments that render them sterile and permanently disfigured.” In fact, medical guidelines call for treating gender dysphoria in pre-pubescent youth with a social transition, like the use of new pronouns, names and attire. Ehrhart said her bill would not impact social transitions.
Once a child starts to experience puberty, and if the child continues to strongly identify with the gender of their social transition, transgender health experts recommend a puberty blocker, as experiencing puberty when suffering from gender dysphoria can be traumatic for trans and gender-nonconforming youth. With age, gender-expansive youth can explore other options such as gender-affirming hormones and surgery. The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) recommends deferring genital surgery until a person is at least 18 years old. Even so, only a quarter of transgender people have had some sort of gender-affirming surgical procedure, according to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey.
“The key approach to gender-expansive children who might be transgender is to follow their lead in terms of how they want to present and dress,” Joshua Safer, executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, told Endocrine Today. “There are no medical treatments for children before puberty of any sort, and there are no surgeries.”
Historically, puberty blockers have been used to treat cisgender (non-transgender) children diagnosed with precocious, or early, puberty. However, Ehrhart clarified that her bill targets the use of puberty blockers “solely for the purposes of transgenderism.”
“This does not affect the ability to use these drugs for other conditions,” Ehrhart told NBC News.
The promised bills from Ehrhart and other conservative lawmakers were widely panned by transgender health experts, LGBTQ advocates and endocrinologists. Even the The Houston Chronicle’s editorial board spoke out against the Texas proposal, writing Wednesday that “Right-wing media spread false information about the case and about the transition process for trans children.”
The Dallas Morning News speculated that these bills may be part of a new effort for conservative lawmakers to rally their base voters ahead of the 2020 election, after efforts to pass so-called bathroom bills — legislation that would proscribe transgender people from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity — failed in several states.
Gillian Branstetter, a spokesperson for the National Center for Transgender Equality, said it would not be “hyperbole to say each of these bills would carry a body count.”
“They would criminalize health care saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of transgender adolescents across the nation,” she told NBC News. “Such an extreme rejection of the scientific consensus would not only destroy lives; it would end lives.”
Apicha Community Health Center wanted to run advertising on Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) to promote public awareness of PrEP, a drug which can prevent HIV transmissions.
Despite Facebook’s newly-relaxed rules around political advertising, the New York-based centre – which serves people of colour and the LGBT+ community – was told that it could not run the adverts because it “hadn’t been authorised to run ads about social issues, elections or politics”.
“They said the copy was the problem but were unable to tell us what part of the copy was too political,” Phillip Miner, Apicha’s director of grants and communications, told Vice.
Since PrEP was introduced in the US in 2012, rates of HIV transmissions among white, black and Latinx men who have sex with men in New York has fallen almost consistently. But among Asian and Pacific Islanders (API) men, the number of new cases has remained stubbornly static.
In an attempt to change this, the Apicha Center’s Instagram account has been posting content created by and featuring API men which talks about PrEP.
It wanted this content to form the basis of a paid advertising campaign, which would have meant that API men who don’t follow its account would see the posts in their feeds.
Miner told Vice that Instagram offered to authorise the campaign if they could authorise every employee who uses its social media accounts through Facebook. This wasn’t possible due to privacy concerns for one member of staff.
The company quietly withdrew a policy of banning false claims in advertising – including in political advertising – in early October, sparking concerns that it could be used to deceive voters.
Zuckerberg appeared visibly shaken on Wednesday, October 23, as Ocasio-Cortez asked him whether she would be able to “pay predominantly black zip codes advertise them he incorrect election date” or “run advertisements targeting Republicans in primaries saying that they voted for the Green New Deal”.
Zuckerberg said that adverts which could cause census or voter suppression would not be allowed, but did not say whether mistruths would be taken down.
“So, you won’t take down lies or you will take down lies? I think that’s just a pretty simple yes or no,” Ocasio-Cortez asked.
In response, Zuckerberg obfuscated, citing “context”.
More than 39 million people in the U.S. are age 65 years or older including 2.4 million people who identify as LGBTQ+, according to the American Psychology Association.
As the baby boomer generation ages, the senior population will increase from 12.8 percent to an estimated 19 percent in 2030. Psychological service providers and care givers for older adults need to be sensitive to the histories and concerns of LGBTQ folks and to be open-minded, affirming and supportive towards LGBT older adults to ensure accessible, competent, quality care. As GBTQ people age, they find themselves facing unique challenges, including access to information and resources, as well as isolation and loneliness. That’s where Living Out Palm Springs comes in.
“Knowing that too many LGBTQ seniors live in unsafe or even openly hostile environments, we wanted to address this issue that is near and dear to us by creating a safe and beautiful community for those 55 and over. The Living Out development will be the first of its kind in the Southern California area,” said Living Out co-founder and creator Loren S. Ostrow. “Living Out Palm Springs was designed by, invested in and created by members of our community who recognize the unique needs we face as we begin the next chapters of our lives.”
Los Angeles-based real estate development company KOAR International LLC, announced recently that Living Out Palm Springs – an active retirement community designed to meet the unique needs of LGBTQ adults – will break ground this fall.
Living Out Palm Springs will provide a safe, supportive and enriched environment in which LGBTQ seniors can live openly and thrive, according to a press release. LGBTQ seniors currently face very limited options for welcoming and inclusive senior living environments. Living Out communities will celebrate the LGBTQ aging experience in a way that has yet to be realized. Living Out Palm Springs will be ideal for seniors who live in, travel to or would like to have a second home with resort-like amenities in the celebrated desert community of Palm Springs.
The Pride LA spoke with Ostrow on what residents can expect. Check it out:
Can you introduce yourself?
My name is Loren Ostrow. I am a real estate attorney and developer. I have served on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center for more than 20 years, the National LGBTQ Task Force for nine years and the Board of Trustees of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood. My business partner of 40 years, Paul Alanis, has been an extraordinary ally over our four decades of association.
Luann Boylan recently joined us Marketing Director for the Living Out project. LuAnn has served with Loren on the LGBTQ Center’s Board for over 27 years.
In one sentence what is Living Out?
Living Out is a luxury condominium community for active LGBTQ 55+ persons in Palm Springs; a community designed to provide LGBTQ seniors a safe, welcoming, inclusive experience where they can live comfortably out as an LGBTQ person.
Can you elaborate more?
Living Out is a nine-acre oasis designed to provide its residents with a five-star, resort-style living experience in historic Palm Springs. Architecturally, Living Out is authentic to its surroundings, referencing the iconic Mid-Century Modern style for which Palm Springs is famous. Our homes feature open floor plans, large lanais, elegant appointments and an exceptional attention to detail, all wrapped in magnificently landscaped grounds and stunning desert mountain views.
At the heart of the Living Out concept is the element of community and we have incorporated opportunities throughout the property for people to come together and enjoy “being home.” Some of the amenities we are providing that encourage the building of community include:
Resort-style lagoon pool
Lap pool and spa
4 pickleball courts
2 bocce ball courts
Putting green
Community BBQ and fire pit areas
Lushly landscaped dog park
Casual dining restaurant
Piano bar
Private screening room
State-of-the-art gym
Game room
Card room
Community gathering room
Grab-and-go coffee shop and community workspace
In short, Living Out has been designed to be the home you have always wanted and the community every LGBTQ person deserves.
Why is there a need for such housing in Palm Springs?
While straight individuals have many opportunities available to them for retirement communities, LGBTQ 55+ people have virtually no opportunities to live openly and comfortably. Unfortunately, one hears stories of LGBTQ individuals and couples being ostracized or discriminated against in the broader retirement world, often being forced back into the closet.
While Palm Springs is one of the most supportive environments for LGTBQ people in the country, as one ages the sense of loneliness can be palpable and I hope to provide a community within a community where people can live comfortably and safely.
What is the story behind the creation of Living Out?
I have been thinking about this issue for over 30 years knowing that the LGBTQ community would age as does the general community. Having served on the Board of the LA Center since 1993, I have seen the glaring disparities in the opportunities for LGBTQ people to live in safe, inclusive environments as they age.
Of course, there are non-profit agencies, like the Center, that provide services for LGBTQ seniors who are less financially able to provide for themselves. However, it occurred to me, there are very few options available to members of our community who are financially independent and would like to live in an LGBTQ-focused community that is supportive of and, in fact, celebrates living authentically. Living Out has been designed to be that option.
In what ways does Living Out create an inclusive and safe environment for LGBTQ+ seniors?
Celebrating living authentically is the core concept of Living Out, not a byproduct or an afterthought. To create an environment where that concept can be realized requires infusing all of our efforts with a consciousness about what it means to be inclusive and what it takes to feel safe. That has been made possible, in part, by having Living Out envisioned by, designed by, and invested in by members of the LGBTQ community who recognize the unique needs our community faces as we begin the next chapter of our lives. This consciousness translates into creating living and community spaces that are open, inviting and purposefully designed to support the concept of community, while offering the safety of knowing you are in an environment that is not “in spite of you” but is “because of you.”
What’s in store for Living Out’s future?
Living Out Palm Springs will break ground in December of this year and will take approximately 18 months to complete, making our move-in date as early as June, 2021 but no later than September, 2021. And, as Palm Springs is being completed, Living Out is exploring and developing other venues for active LGBTQ seniors across the country.
Idaho officials have made it more difficult for young transgender people to change the sex listed on their birth certificates despite a U.S. court ruling that appears to ban such obstacles.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare released comments from the public Wednesday on a temporary rule requiring people younger than 18 to get approval from medical or mental health professionals before requesting the change.
Many of the comments said they wanted the conservative state to go back to banning all gender changes on birth certificates.
Dani Martin, a transgender resident of Idaho, was one of two plaintiffs who sued the state in order to obtain a birth certificate matching her gender identity. A federal judge ruled in her favor in March 2018.Lambda Legal
A federal judge ruled last year that an Idaho law barring transgender people from changing their birth certificates violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
“Any new rule must not subject one class of people to any more onerous burdens than the burdens placed on others without constitutionally appropriate justification,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy Dale wrote.
Health and Welfare’s board of directors complied with the order and changed the state’s rules last year. But this May, the board approved the temporary rule requiring anyone under 18 to get approval before requesting the change.
The requirement “advances the public health, safety, and welfare of minors because it ensures the decision to amend the sex designation is informed and supported by independent professional judgment,” the department said in documents justifying the change.
Because of a unique set of circumstances involving Idaho’s obscure rule-making process, that temporary rule went into effect July 1.
Thousands of rules touching on just about every aspect of daily life were set to expire earlier this year after lawmakers killed a bill reauthorizing them at the end of the legislative session in April. Republican Gov. Brad Little used his executive authority to give rules he wanted to keep temporary status on July 1.
The Idaho Legislature convenes in January, and lawmakers will again consider approving or rejecting rules, including the one on transgender birth certificates.
The newly released public comments are part of that process.
“Your gender is what you were born as biologically. How you self-identify is irrelevant,” Georgia Ryan of Blanchard wrote in one comment that was submitted.
Between April 2018 and September, 121 people, including 20 minors, applied to change the gender on their birth certificates, Health and Welfare spokeswoman Niki Forbing-Orr said. They ranged from 7 to 78.
She said five minors applied after the July 1 rule change, but she didn’t have information about the status of those applications.
Peter Renn of Lambda Legal, the law firm that represented two transgender women whose lawsuit led to the court ruling, said Idaho could be straying from its legal obligations.
“The court recognized that the government shouldn’t be in the business of putting up senseless roadblocks for transgender people seeking to correct their birth certificates,” he said Thursday in a statement to The Associated Press.
The Idaho attorney general’s office had no comment, spokesman Scott Graf said.
After Idaho lost the lawsuit forcing it to change the birth certificate law, it paid $75,000 in court-ordered attorney fees to the winning side.
A man is suing a gay porn site after he received “a barrage” of junk mail because he said it sold his information without written consent and violated his privacy rights.
Dennis Chiamulera is also seeking class action status on behalf of other subscribers to the site who he thinks are in a similar situation.ADVERTISING
He said his privacy rights were violated by the site, owned by TLA Entertainment Group, under the Video Privacy Protection Act and the New York Video Consumer Privacy Act
According to Out, the New York plaintiff is asking for $5 million for “wrongful disclosure of video tape rental or sales records”, including $2,500 in damages for every other plaintiff in the case if it gets class action status.
The lawsuit read: “Despite the sensitive nature of its videos, TLA sold, rented, exchanged, and/or otherwise disclosed personal information about Plaintiff’s video purchases and/or rentals to data aggregators, data appenders, data cooperatives, and list brokers, among others, which in turn disclosed his information to aggressive advertisers, nonprofit organisations, and other third-party companies.”
Chiamulera claims that the gay porn site’s “disclosure of Personal Viewing Information, and other personal, demographic, and lifestyle information is not only unlawful, but also dangerous because it allows for the targeting of particularly vulnerable members of society, including members of the LGBTQ community”.
The Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit alleges, according to the New York Post, that TLA Entertainment Group breaks down its subscribers by sexual orientation and which films they rent or buy.
The lawsuit stated: “In fact, almost any organisation could rent a list with the names and addresses of all gay TLA consumers who live in Texas; such a list would cost approximately $135 per thousand names listed.”
The court papers claimed that TLA “profits handsomely” from selling information, “at the expense of its consumers’ privacy and statutory rights.”
A proposed conversion therapy ban in Utah is in danger of being derailed after The Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter-day Saints came out in opposition, just months after it said it wouldn’t stand in the way of a similar measure under consideration. The church said in a statement that the regulatory rule prohibiting Utah psychologists from engaging in LGBTQ conversion therapy with minors would fail to safeguard religious beliefs and doesn’t account for “important realities of gender identity in the development of children.”
State regulators crafted the rule at the request of Republican Gov. Gary Herbert, a member of the church, who in June asked for a set of rules after a similar bill died in the Legislature despite the church not taking a position. The church’s statement strikes a blow to the hopes of LGBTQ advocates hoping Utah could join 18 states that have enacted laws banning or restricting conversion therapy that’s opposed by the American Psychological Association.
