Mark H's blog

http://dailyreports.kff.org/Daily-Reports/2009/June/17/HIV-061709-CVS2.aspx

As the roll-out of expensive and potentially controversial biomedical HIV prevention tools looms, I wonder whether we too will insist on being heard.  Will we urge authorities to understand that in a crisis, a higher tolerance of risk is sometimes warranted? Will we demand early access, fast access, and expanded access for those who need it most?

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At last year’s Positive Living conference in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, Martin provided the annual treatment update. Martin only missed one meeting in the conference’s eleven-year history, having had a heart attack a week before the event. Positively Living is one of very few U.S. conferences remaining that are targeted specifically (and almost exclusively) to PLWHAs. A member of the audience was so inspired by Martin’s remarks concerning the role of activism in the history of HIV/AIDS that he approached Martin and conference organizer Butch McKay about creating a session on the subject for this year’s event.

Read the rest on lifelube.org.

 

Last week, as I sat through a day and a half of CDC-sponsored expert consultation on anti-HIV therapy and transmission risk, listening to data on things like the biology of sexual transmission, pharmacology in the genital tract, viral loads and semen, and viral loads and vaginal secretions, the butt-cheeks of bias were spread before me and the gaping hole of neglect revealed.

It’s not like I didn’t know this already.  I subscribe and contribute to lifelube.org, I’m a member of the International Rectal Microbicide Advocates (IRMA), and I’m an active member of CHAMP’s Prevention Research Advocacy Working Group (PRAWG).  But frankly my ass is chapped.  Hearing one presenter casually refer to anal intercourse as having a twenty-fold higher transmission risk than vaginal intercourse and others repeatedly quip that there is little or no corresponding data regarding rectal / anal anything, I had a barely resistible urge to bend over and moon the podium, screaming.  read more »

 

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