|
 |
|
|
|
Issue #186: July 19, 1998
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 articles in this issue include AIDS, Associated Press, Journal of AIDS and Human Retrovirology, Schizophrenia Bulletin, Washington Post .Commission defeats AIDS funding cut
Prison guards charged in death of PWA
Schizophrenics face special HIV risk
1 in 10 PWAs may survive 25 years or longer
Therapies leading to increase in unsafe sex
GALAEI hosts reception at La Raza conference
Commission defeats AIDS funding cut
The Philadelphia HIV Commission, whose Care Committee announced two weeks ago that it would recommend a cut of over $600,000 in current funding for city organizations and shift those funds to the suburbs, defeated that proposal at a meeting on July 15th.The Committee said it will instead support a different formula, proposed by AIDS Activities Coordinating Office (AACO) co-director Joe Cronauer, which will base the amount of funding available for different parts of the nine-county Philadelphia metropolitan area on the number of living people with AIDS in each county.
Traditionally, AIDS funding has been allocated on the cumulative number of people who have been diagnosed with AIDS since 1981, even though more than half of those people have died.
The Commission had previously proposed a percentage split of almost $14 million in federal AIDS funds, awarded to the region under Title I of the Ryan White CARE Act, which would have limited Philadelphia services to 70% of the total amount available, with 15% going to four remaining Pennsylvania counties and 15% to the four southern New Jersey counties which are included in the region.
The 70-15-15 formula, according to Care Committee co-chair Rick Britt, was adopted by the Commission last year to regulate the current year's AIDS funding distribution, but was not implemented by AACO. Other members of the Commission claimed that the formula was only to be applied to new or supplemental funding received by the region, not across the board. In any case, the Care Committee has structured this year's priority-setting process on the basis of the proposed split, and sought to enforce it on all Title I allocations in fiscal year 1999.
Many Philadelphia Commission members had complained that the 70-15-15 split made little sense given where people with AIDS actually lived and sought care, and criticized the Committee for coming up with a mathematical calculation that, they said, wasn't supported by the available epidemiological data. According to the most recent AIDS surveillance figures, almost 77% of recent AIDS cases have occurred in Philadelphia, 10.7% in the Pennsylvania suburbs, and 12.5% in the New Jersey suburbs.
On July 9th, the Care Committee backed off from its previous position, instead supporting a formula, proposed by Cronauer, which would rely on the number of people known to be living with AIDS in each area of the region, rather than the cumulative total of cases since 1981. According to AACO data, this means that Philadelphia is 76.3% of the funding would be concentrated in Philadelphia; 12% in the Pennsylvania counties, and 11.7% in the New Jersey counties.
AACO and most Philadelphia AIDS service providers are known to believe that many suburban residents, especially in Delaware, Montgomery and Camden counties, routinely seek their care in Philadelphia, and that most of the uninsured people with AIDS -- the primary target of Ryan White funding -- also live in the city.
According to AACO funding reports, Philadelphia AIDS services currently receive about 75.8% of the federal funds; suburban Pennsylvania county services receive about 11.7%; and South Jersey agencies receive about 12.5%. Since strict application of the new formula could result in small reductions in AIDS funding in the suburban areas, AACO co-director Patricia Bass proposed that the formula not require AACO to institute any cuts in AIDS services in the suburban area.
Meanwhile, HIV Commission manager Bernard Warren has criticized in lack of participation from white gay men in the Commission's planning activities, especially with regard to a Consumer Caucus session held in predominately African American North Philadelphia. The Caucus meeting eventually had to be held a second time in Center City in order to assure a representative group of people living with HIV/AIDS.
In the past, minority PWAs have called for more meetings in their neighborhoods in order to enhance the participation of African American and Latino PWAs.
As the epidemic has become more concentrated in minority communities, white gay men have become less involved in the process, Warren told the Philadelphia Gay News in a recent interview.
The Commission is currently in the process of accepting nominations for new Commission members.
"Gay-white men need to stop avoiding this process," Bernard Warren told PGN. "They still make up a majority of the cases nationally, and they need to come to the table. We can do more outreach, but they still have to come to the table."
In Philadelphia, 61% of gay cases of AIDS have occurred among African American, Latino and Asian men, since data began to be collected in 1981. Over 75% of those currently alive with an AIDS diagnosis in the gay community are people of color.
Some gay men, as well as members of other communities, have complained for years that the AIDS planning process is too political and exhausting for them to participate. The Commission routinely schedules several meetings every week, and confusion in leadership -- there have been three Commission managers over the last two years -- has only undermined public confidence in the process.
Richard Gliniak, one of only a few openly identified gay white Commission members, was quoted in PGN as saying he was "frustrated" with the Commission planning process.
"It seems as if the planning process is channeled in the direction of the status quo," Gliniak said. "There's very limited opportunity for consumers to change the direction of the money-flow. The planning format is pre-ordained, and consumers have to fit into it. It's not a free, flexible process."
Pam Ladds, executive director of Women with Immune System Disorders Organizing and Meeting, told PGN that she understands why some gay men are avoiding the process.
"They've seen what [participation] has done to their friends, and they don't want any part of it," she said. "The system should work for people, but it doesn't. It's like a centrifuge. It sucks you in and spins you around. You go from one meeting to another; it's very draining. And when all is said and done, you don't see any tangible changes in the system. You just find yourself getting bent up in the process."
Geza Hrazdina, the commission's senior planner, praised this year's planning process in the PGN article, claiming it "is more representative and sensitive to the needs of each region, and their consumers, than ever before."
"Our process is very consumer-driven. We have consumers sticking up for their rights like you wouldn't believe."
Hrazdina told PGN that the commission is trying to limit the stress on participants.
"We reimburse consumers who attend our meetings for travel, child care, and lost wages, and we are re-evaluating our meeting schedule and trying to reduce the number of meetings, so that it's more beneficial to consumers," he said.
People interested in submitting applications for Commission members should call (215) 546-2013.
LIHEAP faces federal cut
The GOP-crafted budget nearing Congressional approval contains a provision that will kill the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), a project that for years has helped low-income people, including people with AIDS, pay their heating bills over the winter.The program is designed to help people who can survive on their fixed incomes through most of the year, but who face losing their housing when heating and other utility bills become too onerous over the winter months.
Betty Grannis, a mother of eight in Pittsburgh, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that the $340 that she received last winter from the federal energy assistance program was enough to help the mother of eight avoid deciding between heat and food.
The suburban Pittsburgh woman is not sure how she would pay her gas bills if Congress kills the $1 billion program. Her husband takes home $920 a month after taxes from his job laying carpets and tiles.
''I don't think it's a good idea because there's a lot of people who are going to be hurt if they do,'' said Ms. Grannis, of Ellwood City, Pa. ''A lot of people probably won't be eating and stuff if they don't have'' low-income energy aid.
The program, a legacy of the oil crisis of the 1970s that critics say has outlived its purpose, is a perennial target for budget-cutters in Congress.
Its funding has been cut by more than half since 1985, and last month a House Appropriations subcommittee endorsed eliminating it altogether and diverting the $1 billion to spend on medical research and other programs.
That sets the stage for a spending battle later this year over the program. The full House Appropriations Committee is likely to vote to eliminate funding as it struggles to meet stringent balanced-budget spending targets.
The energy aid program, which enjoys broad backing among lawmakers of both parties from cold-weather states, serves 5.6 million households. A small portion of the money is used for summer cooling.
President Clinton requested $1.1 billion for fiscal 1999, a $100 million increase.
''They are feeling the squeeze, and instead of upsetting a lot of people by cutting across the board, ... they are hitting the most vulnerable among us,'' said Kay Guinane, a consulting attorney for the National Consumer Law Center, an advocacy group for the poor.
Eliminating the program could cause widespread utility shutoffs among the poor and increase the risk of fires as families turn to candles and other lighting or heating sources, she warned.
Backers are preparing for a fight when the bill reaches the House floor, and they are counting on the support of dozens of Republicans.
More than 30 Republicans joined some 130 Democrats last month in asking the subcommittee to preserve the money.
The Senate is expected to vote to keep funding the energy aid program, so supporters will have another chance to save it when the two chambers work out differences in their spending bills. The chairman of the Senate panel that handles the program, Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, is from Pennsylvania, a cold-weather state.
The program began in 1981 after the oil crisis in the 1970s, when sharply rising heating costs caused widespread hardship in northern states. Fuel costs have dropped since then, and many question the need to continue the program.
Others, including Rep. John Porter, R-Ill., the chairman of the subcommittee that voted to eliminate the aid, believe that utilities, state and local governments and other federal programs can adequately handle energy needs for the poor.
''Certainly there are people who need assistance in meeting their home energy costs,'' Porter spokesman Dave Kohn said. ''What's being called into question is ... whether it's necessary to have a $1 billion-plus federal program.''
Supporters say last winter's mild weather may have undercut their cause.
It was ''very mild,'' acknowledged Tim Daniels, legislative director of the House's Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition. ''Prices were stable and low. That does make a lot of difference.''
Prison guards charged in death of PWA
Nine Florida corrections officers have been indicted on federal charges in the death of an HIV+ inmate who allegedly was beaten repeatedly before being left chained to a bed to bleed to death.The prison guards, seven from the Charlotte Correctional Institution in Fort Myers and two from the Zephyrhills Correctional Institution, were fired.
All were charged in a seven-count indictment with violating the civil rights of inmate John Edwards.
Edwards bit a guard at Zephyrhills and was transferred to the Charlotte prison in southwest Florida because of the incident, U.S. Attorney Charles R. Wilson said.
According to the indictment, the corrections officers plotted to injure, threaten and intimidate Edwards, and to retaliate because he bit their colleague.
They allegedly kicked and beat Edwards, slamming him into walls while he was in restraints. After three days of being brutalized at the Charlotte prison, Edwards tried to commit suicide by slashing his arm.
He then was moved to a psychiatric dorm and after another beating, while chained naked to a metal bed. He bled to death over a 12-hour period, a grand jury found.
Edwards was found dead Aug. 22, 1997. An examination of his body showed several cuts and bruises, but that he had died as a result of the blood loss from the self-inflicted wound, grand jurors said in handing down the indictment.
Each of the correctional officers charges faces up to 10 years in prison and fines of $250,000 on each count, if convicted.
A tenth guard, John Robbins, pleaded guilty to a single conspiracy count before U.S. Magistrate George Swartz.
NAACP finally notices AIDS
Stung by criticism that the NAACP has done too little to combat the growing AIDS epidemic among African Americans, leaders of the nation's largest civil rights group have promised a series of actions to raise awareness of the disease even as they defended their record on the issue.In a speech before more than 3,500 NAACP members, board chairman Julian Bond said AIDS has become "a black epidemic." He pointed out that the disease is the leading cause of death for blacks age 25 to 44 and said blacks, who are 13 percent of the population, account for 57 percent of new HIV infections in the United States.
"We need to step up our efforts in the fight for fair distribution of AIDS services," Bond said. "Don't let anybody tell you AIDS is God's curse; that's ugly, and God doesn't like ugly. Don't let anybody tell you it is a gay disease . . . it doesn't just happen to 'them'; it happens to your brother and, more and more, to your sister, too."
In recent years, some AIDS activists have accused the NAACP and other major civil rights groups of shying away from the issue for fear of offending their members, many of whom are conservative church stalwarts who associate the illness with the gay community. That silence has contributed to the growing crisis, activists say.
But Bond refused to describe his blunt words on AIDS as a change in NAACP policy. Instead, he insisted that the NAACP has "consistently spoken out on the AIDS crisis."
For more than a decade, he said, the group has called for increases in AIDS research funding, worked to erase the social stigma that surrounds the disease, and called for public school and community-based AIDS education programs.
"We have a long history of activism against AIDS dating back to 1987, but much, much more needs to be done," Bond said.
The NAACP has become a partner in the Black Leadership Council on AIDS, an advocacy group that NAACP leaders said was invited to distribute literature on the deadly disease to the group's members. And earlier this year, the NAACP backed the Congressional Black Caucus in asking President Clinton to declare AIDS a national health emergency, a proposal that NAACP leaders have hinted will be buttressed with street protests, if necessary.
Several dozen NAACP members held a small demonstration this morning outside the World Congress Center, where thousands of NAACP members have gathered for the group's 89th annual convention, to underline the group's new activism on AIDS.
"We just don't understand the absolute silence of the government on this issue, of the private sector on this issue, and quite frankly, among too many of us," NAACP President Kweisi Mfume told reporters. "It's something to be talked about, and it's something, quite frankly, that we ourselves must find a way to deal with."
The NAACP's stepped-up effort on AIDS comes as the storied civil rights group is working to recapture its public policy voice after climbing out of debt and a leadership crisis that threatened its survival several years ago.
Bond told members that while much has improved in American race relations since the NAACP was founded, there are still "clear racial fault lines which divide American society as much now as at any time in our past."
Moreover, Bond said, the convergence of race and class issues has complicated the task of the NAACP. He said many people now blame blacks, not generations of racism, for the social and economic problems that beset many black communities.
"The burden of racial problem-solving [has] shifted from racism's creators to its victims," Bond said, a circumstance he said has stolen the moral authority the civil rights movement once enjoyed. Bond added that the NAACP is struggling to strike a balance between being a strict civil rights watchdog and providing services aimed at the problems many of its constituents face.
"At all times, we must be careful not to confuse social service with social justice -- social justice is what we do," Bond said. "Our main agenda is fighting white supremacy. That is what we do. That is who we are."
Schizophrenics face special HIV risk
Schizophrenics may have a higher risk than most people of becoming infected with HIV, researchers have announced.A review of dozens of different studies shows that schizophrenics need special protection, psychologist Irving Gottesman of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville and graduate student Carol Groome wrote in the National Institute of Mental Health's Schizophrenia Bulletin.
"We do believe ... that there is strong evidence that those who have schizophrenia are at higher risk for subsequent HIV infection," they wrote.
"Since the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, people with schizophrenia have moved into the community with reduced capacity to deal with such additional threats to their well-being as infection from HIV," they wrote.
"Their disadvantaged social and economic status often places them in contact with known high-risk populations," they added.
"The high incidence of homosexuality, substance abuse, sex for sale and homelessness also places these people in high-risk situations. When combined with their secondary naivete about social realities and negligence toward personal safety and health, the risks escalate even further," the researchers said.
1 in 10 PWAs may survive 25 years or longer
A multicenter group of epidemiologists estimates that about 13% of HIV-positive individuals survive for 25 years or longer without progressing to AIDS.Although the risk of AIDS in HIV-positive individuals has been determined by previous cohort studies, "...little is known about the distribution of extreme values of the incubation period, the so-called 'tail' of the AIDS incubation distribution," they explain.
Dr. Mads Melbye of the Danish Epidemiology Science Center, Statens Seruminstitut in Copenhagen and colleagues there and at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, examined an HIV-positive population of Danish and American homosexual/bisexual men between 1981 and 1995. Follow-up data, which were available for 201 subjects, appear in the July 1st issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes and Human Retrovirology.
Dr. Melbye's team observed that 112 of the 201 subjects had developed AIDS at follow-up. "The hazard increased rapidly during the first years following infection, attained a peak of about 15% per year at year 7, and was moderately lower during years 8 through 10," they report.
Based on the results of an extrapolation model, Dr. Melbye's group estimates that "...>10% of HIV-infected persons may survive for up to 25 years without developing AIDS." With the advent of new highly active antiretroviral therapies, they "...hope that these estimates prove to be conservative."
Therapies leading to increase in unsafe sex
The results of a recent survey of 379 homosexual and bisexual men, who were aware of the new combination therapies for HIV infection, indicate a potentially dangerous optimism about the probable outcome of HIV infection."Ten percent of all respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that 'AIDS is now very nearly cured' and 13% felt that the threat of AIDS is less serious than in the past," according to Dr. Jeffrey Kelly and colleagues at the Center for AIDS Intervention Research at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Men who were HIV-positive were more likely to believe that AIDS was less of a threat or almost cured.
Dr. Kelly's group also found that "[overall, 8% of men in the sample indicated that they practice safer sex less frequently since new AIDS treatment came along." Among men on combination therapy regimens, 18% "...said they practice safer sex less frequently since treatments have advanced."
These findings, which appear in the July 9th issue of AIDS, underscore the importance of incorporating behavioral counseling into HIV treatment programs. The authors add that optimism about new antiretroviral treatments must be viewed with the "...recognition that the threat of HIV/AIDS remains great."
GALAEI hosts reception at La Raza conference
On Tuesday, July 21st from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The Gay and Lesbian Latino AIDS Education Initiative (GALAEI) and the National Latino Latina Gay and Lesbian Organization (LLEGO) will host a reception/fundraiser titled Building Bridges at the Marriott Hotel in Center City Philadelphia. The reception coincides with conference of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), taking place in Philadelphia July 19-22, 1998.The reception/fundraiser will highlight the local work the GALAEI Project and the national work of LLEGO. The reception will also recognize the leadership role and support of Philadelphia Councilman Angel Ortiz and New York City Councilwoman Margarita Lopez, the first openly lesbian Puerto Rican official ever elected to public office.
GALAEI Project Executive Director, David Acosta says, "We want to demonstrate to the broader community the presence of a unified Latino lesbian and gay community in Philadelphia, and to educate the Latino community about issues affecting Latino and non-Latino sexual minorities. We hope to develop and strengthen relationships among Philadelphia's Latino heterosexual and Latino and non-Latino gay and lesbian communities."
The reception is set to coincide with NCLR's conference, which will host over 15,000 Latinos from across the United States. The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), is the largest constituency-based Latino organization in the United States. Individuals representing the nonprofit and public sectors, education, youth, social and political activists, Latino elected officials and the business sector will converge over four days to attend workshops, symposia, and celebratory activities addressing issues impacting Latinos in the United States.
The reception will take place on the 21st at the Marriott Hotel - 12th & Market Streets, Salon B, Ballroom level, 5th Floor. The reception will be followed by a dance at Woody's Bar 202 S. 13th Street, from 10:00 to 1:00 p.m.
TEACH offers Qi Gong class
Project TEACH is sponsoring a weekly "Stretching and Qi Gong" class in August to help people living with HIV/AIDS "relax and rejuvenate and introduce them to complementary and alternative approaches to staying healthy.The class will be led by Kevin Greene of the ActionAIDS Complementary and Alternative Therapies Program, and will be held every Wednesday in August from 10 am - 12 noon.
Qi Gong is an ancient Chinese approach of gentle stretches that increases the body's energy and promotes health and vitality.
The class is free and SEPTA tokens are available for those who need them. The class will be held at Philadelphia FIGHT, 1233 Locust Street, 5th floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107. For more information, call Julie Davids or Hassan Gibbs at 215-985-4448.
To obtain a weekly email version of fastfax, contact with the message: "subscribe" or fill in the box on the fastfax index page.