FASTFAX is available by fax in the 215 and 610 area codes at no cost, or by mail anywhere for $20.00 per year, by calling 215-545-6868, and by E-mail by contacting and type the message SUBSCRIBE in the message section. Sources for some information in this issue include Albuquerque Tribune, Nature Medicine, and The Washington Post.
WTP sets workshops to refine agenda for black PWAs
Women's caucus developing at HIV Commission
CLR volunteer claims abuse by staff member
Coburn Act gains ground in Congress
Chimps benefit from HIV vaccine
TEACH hospital visit program announced
Poll says most favor Medicaid guarantees for PWAs
N.M. governor endorses needle exchange
WTP sets workshops to refine agenda for black PWAs
We The People, which last month produced the first comprehensive recommendations aimed at improving HIV care services for low-income African Americans in the region, begins a series of workshops this month to obtain further input from African American people living with HIV/AIDS on the plan's perspectives and recommendations.
Roy Hayes, who was part of the original team which pulled together the plan over a six-week period in February and March, said that the meetings will seek to get new ideas and input from people who were not able to participate in the first round of discussions held to develop the document, called The Time to Act is Now!
Curtis Osborne, executive director of We The People, said the original document was developed to respond to the debate then occurring in the Philadelphia HIV Commission around whether to concentrate new federal AIDS funding in minority community initiatives. He said that a second edition of the plan will be produced after the new round of meetings, and that it will be a stronger document because of the new input.
Hayes said that the original plan also unintentionally failed to place emphasis on the special needs of African American women and children living with HIV/AIDS, and that the new plan will specifically address those issues based on the input of HIV+ women and caregivers of HIV+ children.
Initially, workshops to develop the revised plan will be held at We The People's Life Center, 425 South Broad Street, in south central Philadelphia. The first series is set as part of We The People's "Learning for Life" skills-building group, and will be held on Wednesdays, May 7th and 21st, at 1:00 p.m. Two other "Learning for Life" group sessions, also at the Life Center on Wednesday, May 14th and 28th at 1:00 p.m., will be sponsored by ACT UP, focusing on strategies for HIV+ women and men to advocate for themselves in the AIDS arena.
Women's caucus developing at HIV Commission
An organizing meeting to develop a women's caucus to advocate for services for women living with HIV disease in the Philadelphia region has been scheduled for Wednesday, May 14th at the offices of the Philadelphia HIV Commission, Fidelity Building, 123 South Broad Street, Room 2284 on the 22nd Floor, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Unlike other caucuses of the Commission, which is responsible for planning and monitoring over $13 million in federal AIDS funding in the region, the meeting invitation specifies that it is for members of the Commission "who identify as women" only. It was unclear whether women with HIV/AIDS who are not formal members of the HIV Commission would be permitted to attend.
About one-third of the Commission members are women or transgendered people who identify as women.
Several HIV+ women who are members of the Commission expressed concern to fastfax that the organizing meeting was scheduled while they will be attending a national conference for women with AIDS being held in Los Angeles at the same time as the meetings. Concern has also been raised by HIV+ women who are not part of the Commission that the caucus may be exclusionary of women who are not already part of the Commission planning process, and that, as with other Commission caucuses, service providers may heavily influence the caucus agenda to the detriment of HIV+ women because they can participate in the caucus as paid staff of their agencies and have more experience in navigating the complex politics of AIDS planning and advocacy.
Uniformly, however, HIV+ women contacted by fastfax endorsed the development of the caucus as and idea "whose time came a long time ago," according to one comment. "The needs of women are always overlooked or trivialized," said one observer. "Even We The People's attempt to define the needs of the African American community [over 85% of AIDS cases among women are among women of color] ignored us. If we can make the providers put their self-interest aside and take their leadership from us about what we really need, the caucus could have an historic impact," she said.
CLR volunteer claims abuse by staff member
Tony Hill, a PWA volunteer at the Community Living Room, has charged that a CLR staff member hit and harassed him while he was working as a peer support counselor at the agency.
The Community Living Room is a project of COMHAR, a local mental health agency, aimed at providing mental health services to area people living with HIV/AIDS. COMHAR has previously been criticized for ignoring PWA input in its planning and management of the CLR program, and has been threatened with legal action by a former staff member, also HIV+, who claims that COMHAR discriminated against him in cutting off his disability insurance when his illness forced him to resign.
Hill told fastfax that on March 21st, a COMHAR staffer told him that he was required to attend a counseling group she was facilitating even though he had been assigned to perform an intake on a new client coming to the agency. Hill said that in full view of several other CLR clients, the staffer yelled at him to "get out, get out," and later slapped him on the arm and pushed him.
Hill's version of the incident was confirmed to fastfax by several witnesses, one of which said that the staff member told Hill to "get in the room now and behave" or "get out and stay out." She said that the staff member also loudly told Hill that if he was not more compliant she would have him "removed."
The staff member has since resigned from the agency.
Hill said that the incident was the culmination of a string of verbal attacks and harassment from the CLR staff member, which he had previously raised with CLR and COMHAR managers to no avail. "I am a person with HIV and a member of the CLR," Hill said. "This is not the type of treatment that I or any other member should have to experience from someone who is supposed to be a clinical care provider."
Hill said that he believes he was targeted because he tried to share complaints of CLR members about some of the CLR programs. "On many occasions, members have complained about groups where they are required to color, cut and past as if they were in pre-school," he said. "When a member objects to what is going on, and why or what purpose something has as far as helping people, they are told to leave the group!" He said that members have also complained that the staff member referred to them as "those people" and "vile and disgusting druggies."
Hill said that after the incident, he was assured by COMHAR that the incident would be investigated and that he would be informed of the outcome. He said that COMHAR failed to respond to his complaint by April 11th, the date he was originally told he would be informed of the results. He said that, instead, he was informed that he had been suspended from the CLR for three weeks.
As a volunteer peer counselor, Hill is paid a small stipend for his expenses related to his volunteer work. He said that COMHAR has refused to pay him for the time he has lost due to the lengthy investigation.
"I'm not at fault for this incident," he said. "But I get to be the one that's punished."
Coburn Act gains ground in Congress
The HIV Prevention Act of 1997, introduced by Representative Tom Coburn (R-OK), now has a total of 88 cosponsors, despite growing opposition from national public health and government groups.
A companion bill (S. 503) has been introduced in the Senate by Senator Don Nickles (R-OK). The Nickles bill is identical to the Coburn bill except that it does not require that states implement the provisions of the bill in order to receive Medicaid funding.
Representative Coburn and Senator Nickles are working to get further support for their bills. However, thanks to lobbying visits by AIDS advocates, according to the AIDS Action Council, many sponsors are reconsidering their support of the bill.
In a press release, AIDS Action said that continuous communication by advocates with their congressional representatives "is necessary in order to defeat the bills. There is a very real danger that both bills or parts of the bills will be attached to appropriations or other authorization bills, and it is crucial that we prevent this from happening."
According to AIDS Action, both the House and Senate bills would impose huge unfunded mandates on states and also require that over 265 state laws be changed. This would cost states in excess of $420 million to implement.
"Neither bill does anything in the way of real HIV prevention," the group said. "Real prevention must be developed at state and community levels where they can best assess how to meet the needs of their particular at-risk populations, not come in the form of mandates handed down from Washington."
"Both bills would allow medical professionals to refuse to treat patients unless they submit to an HIV test," the group continued. "The Coburn Bill will force state compliance by holding vital state Medicaid funding hostage. Medicaid funding finances basic health care services for more than 37 million Americans, including over half of all adults and 90 percent of all children living with HIV/AIDS," they said.
Public health and health care provider associations which oppose the Coburn/Nickles bills include the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, the American Nurses Association, and the National Governors' Association (NGA). In particular NGA opposes the establishment of a national partner notification and tracking system permitting funeral service practitioners to refuse to provide services to a deceased individual unless an HIV test was performed on the corpse placing "Medicaid funding at risk in order to advance testing requirements of dubious merits."
The American Medical Association, however, has joined with many right-wing advocacy groups in endorsing the measures.
Further information on the bills is available from the AIDS Action Council at 202-986-1300, ext. 3053.
Chimps benefit from HIV vaccine
Two chimpanzees who received a vaccine containing genetic material from HIV were protected against the virus, University of Pennsylvania scientists report in the May issue of Nature Medicine. The chimps, given a total of eight vaccinations over the course of a year, then received intravenous doses of HIV that normally would have been enough to infect 250 animals and fought off the virus within two months. They remain free of HIV more than a year later.
While the results raise hopes that a vaccine similar to the Apollon one used in the trial might protect humans from HIV, some critics of the study warn that a weak version of the virus was given to the chimps, one that is known for being relatively easy to fight off.
Moreover, critics warn, other vaccines have looked similarly promising at the early stage of development, only to later fail in human testing.
Apollon is currently conducting safety testing of the vaccine in a small group of healthy, uninfected males.
TEACH hospital visit program announced
Project TEACH, a treatment advocacy project sponsored by Philadelphia FIGHT and We The People, has announced a special initiative at two local hospitals to help hospitalized people living with HIV/AIDS deal with treatment choices and issues arising from their hospital stays.
A corp of volunteers -- all people living with HIV/AIDS -- has completed formal training for the hospital visitation project, which is centered at Temple University and Presbyterian Hospitals. If the program meets a real need at the two hospitals, the intention is to expand it to other area hospitals.
Hospitalized people living with HIV/AIDS must request a visit from the peer volunteers to get help. Help can be obtained by calling 215-212-9050 (a pager) and the call will be returned, or by calling Philadelphia FIGHT (215-985-4448) or We The People (215-545-6868. The quickest response will come by calling the pager number.
Poll says most favor Medicaid guarantees for PWAs
Almost 70 percent of Americans polled in a nationwide survey overwhelmingly support getting new AIDS drugs into the hands of more low-income people in the early stages of HIV infection through Medicaid.
The poll, which was conducted by a leading GOP polling firm, shows that support for AIDS Action's initiative to expand Medicaid eligibility to people with HIV cuts across party lines and political idealogies, with all groups showing equal widespread support. Polls have consistently shown that efforts to cut or cap Medicaid spending would meet with strong opposition from the American public.
"The proposed Medicaid expansion initiative has tapped into the pulse of America around one of the key issues in the fight against AIDS," said Daniel Zingale, AIDS Action's executive director. "We have known for some time that the American public rejects tampering with Medicaid in a way that freezes people with HIV and AIDS out of the health care system --which includes Medicaid per capita cap plans. Now we have discovered that most Americans want to expand Medicaid to ensure that all people with HIV and AIDS can access the new hope that combination therapies with protease inhibitors represents."
The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted by leading GOP polling firm American Viewpoint for AIDS Action. The survey results will bolster efforts, led by AIDS Action, to work with Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) officials who were asked last month by Vice President Gore to find ways in which to implement a Medicaid expansion plan.
AIDS Action originally proposed its Medicaid expansion initiative over two months ago to HCFA and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) officials, citing current Medicaid eligibility criteria as contradictory to AIDS clinical evidence and care standards which call for early treatment of HIV disease. While over 53 percent of all Americans with AIDS rely of Medicaid for access to health care, many low-income people with HIV are denied that access. People with HIV are ineligible for Medicaid unless they are below certain income levels and the Social Security Administration declares them as disabled, which usually follows diagnosis with full-blown AIDS or late-stage HIV infection.
"Beyond historic, Medicaid expansion to low-income people with HIV who are not currently eligible will benefit thousands of people who would otherwise not be touched by the new hope that promising scientific advancements brings," Zingale said.
N.M. governor endorses needle exchange
New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson has signed the Harm Reduction Act, which authorizes the New Mexico Department of Health to establish a needle-exchange program for intravenous drug users in an effort to help fight the spread of HIV and hepatitis.
The department's AIDS and HIV bureau chief, Don Torres, says the law, which goes into effect June 20, "will make a big difference with the health of New Mexicans in preventing HIV and other blood-borne pathogens." While the state will use current street outreach workers for the program, some $20,000 was shifted within the state's health budget to make the program possible.
Advocates, who had lobbied unsuccessfully for needle exchange for seven years before this bill was passed, maintained during its legislative hearings that preventing the spread of HIV and hepatitis could save New Mexico billions in indigent health care costs.
Gov. Johnson also signed into law the Health Test Reporting bill, another AIDS-related piece of legislation. This law says that physicians are to report a patient's positive test result to the state Health Department. Previously, physicians did not report patients until they developed AIDS.
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