Category Archives: News

Models of Pride, a free, one-day, LGBTQ youth conference, is now accepting proposals for workshops to be presented on October 13, 2012 at University of Southern California, USC.

We’d like to invite you to submit a workshop proposal for Models of Pride 20, “Making it Better…Together.”  It’s the 20^th anniversary of this free LGBTQ and Ally youth conference attended by more than one thousand LGBTQA youth!

We are seeking workshops led by youth as well as adult allies covering a range of topics that will fit into our 2012 Workshops Vision: Politics, Justice, and Fabulosity.

–          Politics: 2012 Election, Organizing, Local Campaigns, Legal Issues/Rights, Visibility, Youth Empowerment, School to Prison Pipeline, Undocumented Queer Youth, History, Immigration, GSA’s, Activism

–          Justice: Gender, Sexuality, Race, Class, Disability, Sexuality, Spirituality/ Healing, Health/ Bodies, Self Esteem, Intersectionality, How to be a Straight Ally, Agism, Queer People of Color Empowerment, HIV/STDs, Safer Sex

–          Fabulosity: (how to use the following to heal & empower) Music, Fashion, Performance, Poetry, Dance, Ball Scene, Creating Visibility in Media, Drag, DIY Arts, Sports, Self Defense, Self-Expression, Relationships, Family, Coming Out, Careers, Cultural Identity

Above is a partial list of possible topics within the Workshop’s vision.  Feel free to submit on a topic of your choice.

At MOP 20, we are looking to deepen youth leadership. We seek to provide tools for youth to become educators and activists in their communities, drawing upon the knowledge and resources gained from Models of Pride.  The Models of Pride Workshops Committee will review and evaluate all workshop proposals for content and merit. The Models of Pride Planning Committee will handle all logistical arrangements for your presentation if your workshop is selected. The submission of a workshop proposal does not guarantee acceptance to present at Models of Pride.  Each year, we receive more submissions than we have need.  Please fill out the application with as much detail as possible so that we can properly consider it as an effective presentation for our youth.

Please understand we cannot offer honorariums, lodging, or cover travel expenses.

Please submit your workshop proposals here: http://tinyurl.com/MOP20WorkshopApplication

The deadline to submit a proposal is July 14, 2012.

If you have any questions or inquiries, please feel free to contact the co-chairs of the Workshops Committee:

Sofia Rose Smith & Karamo Brown: ssmith@lagaycenter.org & kbrown@lagaycenter.org

THANK YOU!  See our website for more details about MOP: http://www.modelsofpride.org  

Press Release: HIV Infections in US Disproportionately Impact Communities of Color and the Poor

HIV Specialists Meet to Identify, Help Those Who are Falling Through the Cracks

WASHINGTON, DC (May 31, 2012) – With mounting evidence that many Americans remain the invisible people with HIV/AIDS who live in poverty, have limited health literacy, are diagnosed late in the course of their disease, and therefore, are the most likely to die of AIDS, leading members of the HIV/AIDS community called for a new mobilization to find, test and treat those people with HIV who are falling through the cracks of the healthcare system.

Meeting in San Francisco at a conference convened by the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, HIV experts and advocates mapped a pathway to reduce disparities in HIV/AIDS, applying the lessons learned from the Bay Area where disparities exist across the spectrum of care. In San Francisco alone, it is estimated that as many as a third (33%) of the African American men who have sex with men (MSM) live with HIV. Moreover, across the Bay Area, almost a third (32%) of those infected with HIV and especially low-income African Americans and Hispanics, older residents, and immigrants are “late testers” who develop AIDS within a year of diagnosis and enter the healthcare system when treatment outcomes are poor.

Click here to read the full press release.
Click here to view the presentation slides.

Making HIV testing a routine part of health care for adolescents and adults aged 13–64 years is one of the most important strategies recommended by CDC for reducing the spread of HIV. HIV testing is also an integral part of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy to prevent the spread of HIV and improve health outcomes for those who are already infected. State and local education agencies and schools are essential partners in this effort.

CLICK HERE for the CDC Resource

 Submit a condom package design to enter L.A’s Next Sex Symbol Condom Design Contest

The Division of HIV and STD Programs has launched a contest in which LA County residents can submit a wrapper design for a branded LA Condom.  You can CLICK HERE for details and to enter the contest.  Please “Like” us on Facebook and spread the word!  We want to get as many entries as possible.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact True Ann Beck, M.S., M.P.A.

 True Ann Beck, M.S., M.P.A.

Office of Planning

Division of HIV and STD Programs

Department of Public Health
600 South Commonwealth Avenue, 11th Floor

Los Angeles, CA 90005

(213) 351-1176
tbeck@ph.lacounty.gov

UNITED STATES:   “Take Your Meds:’ Text Messages Get Results”
Star Tribune (Minneapolis)     (05.26.12):: Jackie Crosby

The first large-scale US study of its kind found that text messages were an effective way to encourage people with chronic diseases to stick to their drug regimens.

Researchers at OptumHealth – a division of UnitedHealth Group – in Eden Prairie, Minn., looked at nearly 600 participants with employer-sponsored health insurance as well as seniors enrolled in Medicare. They found a treatment adherence rate of 85 percent for patients receiving text messages, compared with 77 percent for other forms of reminders. Among patients with diabetes, adherence was 91 percent for those who got text reminders versus 82 percent for those who did not.

Text message reminders are used to help people with complex illnesses like HIV keep to their medication schedules. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, almost 70 percent of medication-related hospital admissions occur when patients do not stick to their regimens, costing $100 billion annually.

“Text messages and emerging technologies offer new opportunities to educate and engage patients so they can improve their health and ultimately rein in their health costs,” said study leader Kalee Foreman.

The study, “Impact of a Text Messaging Pilot Program on Patient Medication Adherence,” was published in Clinical Therapeutics (2012;34(5):1084-1091).

CLICK HERE to read the Star Tribune article.

Intermittent use of Truvada (tenofovir plus emtricitabine) as pre-exposure prophylaxis was associated with poor adherence, compared with daily use of the tablet to prevent HIV infection, according to results of a small clinical trial published in the online scientific journal PLoS ONE.

CLICK HERE to read the full study on PLos ONE.

CLICK HERE to read the AIDSMeds.com article about this study.

Background

Little is known about safety of and adherence to intermittent HIV PrEP regimens, which may be more feasible than daily dosing in some settings. We present safety and adherence data from the first trial of an intermittent PrEP regimen among Kenyan men who have sex with men (MSM) and female sex workers (FSW).

Conclusions/Significance

Adherence to intermittent dosing regimens, fixed doses, and in particular coitally-dependent doses, may be more difficult than adherence to daily dosing. However, intermittent dosing may still be appropriate for PrEP if intracellular drug levels, which correlate with prevention of HIV acquisition, can be attained with less than daily dosing and if barriers to adherence can be addressed. Additional drug level data, qualitative data on adherence barriers, and better methods to measure sexual activity are necessary to determine whether adherence to post-coital PrEP could be comparable to more standard regimens.

A great POZ.com article worth sharing.

CLICK HERE to read the full article.

By David Evans on May 23, 2012 3:49 PM

Time to bring in the referees: a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel has voted to approve the first HIV prevention medication for adults in the history of the epidemic–and some people are not at all happy about it.

UNITED STATES:   “A Comparison of Sexual Behavior Patterns Among Men Who Have Sex with Men and Heterosexual Men and Women” 

Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes Vol. 60; No. 1: P. 83-90    (05.01.12):: Sara Nelson Glick, PhD, MPH; and others

MSM have higher HIV and other STI rates than do women and heterosexual men – an elevated risk that persists across age groups and reflects biological and behavioral factors. However, few direct comparisons of sexual behavior patterns have been done between these populations.

The study authors compared sexual behavior patterns of MSM and male and female heterosexuals ages 18-39 using four population-based random digit dialing surveys. MSM data estimates came from a 1996-1998 survey in four US cities and from two Seattle surveys (2003 and 2006); a 2003-2004 Seattle survey provided data about heterosexual men and women.

Compared with heterosexuals, MSM had an earlier sexual debut, and they reported longer cumulative lifetime periods of new partner acquisition and a more gradual decline in new partnership formation with age. Among MSM, 86 percent of those ages 18-24 and 72 percent of those ages 35-39 formed a new partnership during the past year, compared with 56 percent of heterosexual men and 34 percent of women ages 18-24, and 21 percent and 10 percent, respectively, at 35-39. In addition, MSM were more likely to choose partners >5 years older and two to three times as likely as heterosexuals to report concurrent partnerships. MSM reported more consistent condom use during anal sex than was reported during vaginal sex by heterosexuals.

“MSM have longer periods of partnership acquisition, a higher prevalence of partnership concurrency, and more age diassortative mixing than heterosexuals,” the authors concluded. “These factors likely help to explain higher HIV/[STI] rates among MSM, despite higher levels of condom use.”

Last Thursday, the offices of Women With A Vision, a New Orleans-based organization, were broken into and set on fire.  Thankfully no one was hurt, but the supplies and space they use to do important women’s health, harm reduction, HIV and advocacy work were destroyed.

Please go to their website and click ‘Donate’ to make a donation and read a statement from WWAV on the attack below:

http://wwav-no.org/arson-destroys-women-with-a-vision-office

“Dear friends, colleagues and family,

Today we reach out to express our gratitude for your support and to let you know that everyone in the Women With A Vision family is safe.

Thanks to the fast response of all of our supporters across the country, many of you have already heard that our office was broken into last night and set on fire.  The worst damage was concentrated in our community organizing and outreach office where we store all of the resources we use to educate our community.  We lost everything.  We do not have an office to operate out of right now.  Most of our office equipment and all of our educational resources were destroyed.  Because of the targeted nature, we can only assume that this was intentional.

We are shaken to be sure, and deeply worried about how we will provide for our members while we are rebuilding.  But the work will continue.  This cannot and will not stop us from speaking out for people who do not have a voice.

Please know that your thoughts, your prayers, your kind words and your positive energy are felt.  Your care for WWAV is what is giving us the strength to make sure that we reopen, bigger and better than before, as soon as possible.

But we will literally be starting from scratch, so donations and in-kind contributions are critical right now.

Immediate Meeting Spaces for WWAV Events.  We are in the process of finding a new permanent home, but also need immediate assistance with space.  We have several coalition meetings that were to be held at the WWAV office next week, and our new micro-enterprise program is scheduled to launch early next week.  New Orleans friends, do you have conference room space you can lend?  Member programming will need to accommodate 10-15 people.  Coalition events will bring together 20-25 people.

Donations to Replace our Health Education Materials.  We lost all of our health education materials, including harm reduction supplies, condoms/dental dams/lube, reproductive health models, educational brochures, hygiene kits and OraSure HIV tests.  Replacing these will cost thousands of dollars.  If you are able, please make a tax-deductible donation through our website.

$50 will buy a case of male condoms;
$100 will cover a month supply of harm reduction kits,
$250 will replace one of our reproductive health models;
$500 will enable us to make a month’s supply of hygiene kits;
$1000 will buy a case of female condoms; and
$2000 to replace our two cases of OraSure rapid HIV tests.

Suits/Dresses/Shoes to Restock our Clothing Bank.  We have lost all of the professional clothing that was donated to WWAV for our women to go on job interviews.  Please contact us if you have suits, skirts, dress pants, dresses and shoes to donate.  Women’s clothing 8 to plus-size and shoe sizes 7 to 12 are most needed.

Donations to Replace our Office Furniture & Supplies.  When we are ready to move into our new office, we will need to replace most of our office furniture, all of our office supplies, and all of our decorations for WWAV member holiday events and women-centered programming.  Desks, desk chairs, and furniture for our drop-in space will all be incredibly costly.  And we all know how quickly copy paper and post-it notes can add up.  Any donation will help us to open as quickly as possible.  Gift cards to office supply stores like OfficeMax, Office Depot and Staples are welcome.  In-kind contributions of women-centered art, social justice posters, and holiday decorations will all be deeply appreciated when we are nearer to our re-opening date.

Donations to Replace Computers & Printer(s).  One desktop computer, one laptop and one printer were completely destroyed in the fire.  We are in the process of testing our remaining computers and printer to see if they have been permanently damaged by smoke.  At this point, our technology replacement costs are unknown.  Again, any donation will help us to reopen as quickly as possible.

We will continue to post updates to our website as our rebuilding process continues.  Please keep checking back!

For now, we thank you for your love and your support.  We are truly humbled to be on this journey with such an incredible community of allies.  And the work continues…

In struggle,

Deon Haywood, WWAV Board of Directors, WWAV Staff and the women we support”

On May 23, 2012 the CDC released a new fact sheet, HIV Among Gay and Bisexual Men. 

Download the CDC Fact Sheet Here: [Download not found]