The US Senate voted to lift the long standing travel ban that prevented HIV Positive and AIDS Diagnosed individuals from entering the US without informing officials of their status and receiving special waivers for entry.  The ban came into law in 1993 and has been a constant reminder of the ignorance and stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS.  Follow the link to find out more about this important and long overdue decision.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iIhMPqDtUc33IcguVjOgN-ZyJRuA

Chastity Pariah as captured by the Burlington Free Press

Vermont CARES’ prevention team was at the Vermont Pride Festival on Saturday July 12th on the waterfront.  Vermont CARES’ table featured potential Anti-stigma campaign ideas and asked for input from the crowd.  Resident drag queen, Chastity Pariah strutted her stuff and offered free condoms, dental dams, female condoms and lube to the festival goers. 

The day was a huge success and Vermont CARES was proud to be a part of it.  Check back to www.vtcares.org for more information about Vermont CARES and the upcoming anti-stigma campaign!

A lawyer friend in DC just sent along this disturbing story off the AP wire:

HIV-positive man sentenced 35 years for spitting at officer

The US House of Representatives just passed a bipartisan measure to spend $50 billion to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa and other affected areas over the next five years. This mandate is very similar to one considered likely to pass the US Senate soon. The funding would not be as heavily restricted as in previous years when a third of the money was required to be spent on abstinence programs.

Opponents of the bill counter that the US has gone too far to take care of the world’s population without adequately funding health care programs at home. California Republican Representative Rohrabacher opposes the funding saying “

“It is terrible that millions of Africans are suffering AIDS. But we cannot afford such totally irrational generosity. This is benevolence gone wild. We can’t take care of our own veterans when they come home from the war. We can’t take care of our elderly. We have people who can’t take care of their own health needs and are at risk of losing their homes,” Rohrabacher added. “We have big hearts. But we need to use our brains.”

This comment and the full story are available from the Washington Post (among others) and can be found here.

What do you think? How far does our obligation as a wealthy country to help other countries extend? Are HIV/AIDS programs here in the states adequately funded? Should this be a consideration when looking at the global epidemic? Let us know!

In this fascinating roller-coaster of a candidate race we haven’t heard terribly much about public health, especially about HIV/AIDS. Granted, much of the focus on issues like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economy and who said what about whom is salient to the large-font headlines that most people glance at in the morning. But whichever candidate ends up in the White House in 2009 will have to face the looming presence of HIV/AIDS both in this country and around the world. Democrats Clinton and Obama have both put forward plans to address the epidemic in every locale. These plans, as well as a multitude of other information about their views and plans. To this blogger’s ear they both seem to be saying the same things: all good things too as it turns out. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a great site to compare the candidates views and plans, click HERE to check it out.

The presumptive Republican candidate McCain has yet to issue a plan for HIV/AIDS and seems to be lacking in general knowledge about responses to the epidemic as evidenced in this blog post from the New York Times. He also has a spot on the Kaiser Family Foundation page.

I’ve no doubt that this will continue to be an interesting race and hope to be able to get a clearer picture of their views and plans for confronting this epidemic head-on. Each of the candidates’ web pages has the opportunity for you to voice your concerns and advocate for specific issue:

Barack Obama: Click here

Hilary Clinton: Click here

John McCain: Click here

In January the Southern Nevada Health District received word of Hepatitis C transmission that has been linked to unsafe needle practices at an the Endoscopy Center of Nevada. We’ve been receiving some questions about this story and discussed it at our staff meeting. We all decided that we would take a closer look at the story and make sure that we were up on the facts. I found the best information on the Southern Nevada Health District site (click HERE for the site.)

As they say on the website this is an isolated incident and should not cause anyone to avoid medical care. Universal Precautions are in place throughout the medical community as well as in places of employment, schools and other facilities. These precautions exist to protect everyone, regardless of their health status. It is well within a patients rights to ask their medical care provider what precautions they use to ensure the health and safety of both the provider and the patient. Here is the wikipedia site that covers Universal Precautions and for those of you who like bigger words or your information to come from the government, here’s the CDC site for infection control.

If you have any questions about this story or your risk for infection please call us here at CARES 802.863.2437.

MTV, purveyor of the good, the bad and the truly ugly when it comes to music has historically been right on when it comes to social justice issues. The same is still true when it comes to sexual health. Their “it’s your (sex) life” campaign (click here for the site) is a well-targeted effort to encourage young people (or anyone who’s on the website) to learn more about their sexual health and how to stay healthy. A cool new addition to the campaign is the A:Minute contest: contestants from 13-25 years old are invited to submit their lyrics about HIV testing. The winning lyrics will be performed by the artist Common on an ad for MTV’s campaign. If you or someone you know wants to submit some lyrics click here to go to the contest’s website. Thanks to organizations like MTV who take the time to let young people know how to take care of themselves and still be “cool” doing it.

The snazziest (in this blogger’s opinion) Vermont CARES’ event is coming up on March 15th! The live and silent auction promises to be better than ever with food graciously donated by NECI, an open wine bar, and the best selection of art, travel and luxury items up for auction.

Dress code ranges from casual to fancy: a great excuse to get out that ballgown with the plunging neckline or your oft-neglected “dress” carharts.

There will be more posts as the auction comes closer as the staff gets quite excited about this event…

Click the image of the invitation for more info, see you there!

Here at Vermont CARES we’re getting pretty excited about the upcoming performances of “Border Stories.” The play is inspired by interviews with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people living on the U.S.-Mexico border. Writer and performer Gregory Ramos portrays 20 different characters in a series of humorous, intimate and emotion-stirring monologues. The journey traces issues of identity, dealing with HIV/AIDS, family, religion, and our human capacity to love.

Border Stories will be performed on February 15th at 6pm and 9pm at FlynnSpace in Burlington.
Tickets are $25 and all proceeds benefit Vermont CARES. Click here for the Flynn website to buy tickets.

For more info please visit www.vtcares.org!

We are proud to join our voices with those leading the effort to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout all communities but every February 7th we commemorate a group that has been disproportionately affected by this disease. The National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) is one of the foremost leaders in the education, support, and advocacy for minorities and all people living with or at risk for HIV/AIDS. The following is an excerpt from their statement about this years National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day:

Held each year on February 7, NBHAAD seeks to increase awareness, participation and support for HIV prevention, care and treatment among African Americans.

“This year, National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is taking place just two weeks after we honored the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. In his honor, this day should serve as a clarion call to those in power that the continued disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS in Black communities in unacceptable,” says Paul A. Kawata, Executive Director of NMAC. “Each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that over half of all new HIV infections are occurring among African Americans. If left unchecked, this epidemic threatens the very future of Black communities nationwide. This is an unconscionable state of affairs in the United States.”

The statistics further support these fears. African Americans are infected with, and die from, HIV/AIDS more than any other racial or ethnic group, though they represent only 13% of the U.S. population. African American adults and adolescents are diagnosed with AIDS at 10 times the rate of whites, and nearly 3 times the rate of Latinos. Black men who have sex with men (MSM) and African American women have been particularly hard hit by HIV/AIDS. A CDC study of MSM found that 46% of the black MSM tested for HIV were positive, compared to 21% of the white MSM and 17% of the Hispanic MSM. Among African American women, AIDS has become one of the leading causes of death, leaving behind daughters, mothers, and generations that will never see a future.
Over 200,000 African Americans have died of AIDS in the past twenty five years.
These staggering statistics of course beg the question: Why are African Americans so disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS? Ethnicity, of course, is not a risk factor for HIV/AIDS; however, the social, economic, educational and political disenfranchisement experienced by many African Americans nationwide fuel HIV infections in black communities.

For more information about National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day or the National Minority AIDS Council please visit www.nmac.org