The Conversation Starts Here

This piece about sent me through the roof. It seems our president has appointed a man to head up the PEPFAR program for the State Department who doesn’t get anything– whether HIV issues of LGBT issues.

Some of you might not be aware, but Uganda is currently debating passage of strict new anti-homosexuality laws. How strict? Get caught having gay sex once, and go to prison, for life. Get caught twice, you get put to death. Get caught having gay sex and you are HIV positive? Immediate death sentence. Do you know some one who is homosexual? Don’t report it in a certain amount of time, YOU get to go to prison for seven years.

The measures were drummed up with support of the ex-gay ministries here in the states (see Truth Wins Out excellent coverage on this issue).

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I am thankful…

to have a job, while so many in my state, and my country continue to struggle without employment, or income;

that while I am HIV positive, I remain in good health, with an undetectable viral load, and increasing CD4 counts;

for friends, both near and far, who share in both my pains and my jobs;

for my dogs, Gypsy and Virgil, who constantly remind me that life must never be taken too seriously, rather one should  find time to romp in the leaves, escape from the yard, gallivant about the neighborhood finding amazing new sights, smells and sometimes tastes, and to always be present and living in the now;

to live in a community, which might have its scarred underside, is still home– which means it is a powerful place where neighbors help neighbors, and people care about people;

for the presence of God in my life, and the grace with which God shows his/her presence in everything from the quiet breathing of the dogs snuggled beside me for a good nights sleep, to the rays of sun light shooting through the empty branches of the trees;

that, while there are some in the country who do not cherish the Constitution upon which this nation was built and would rather taint it with their twisted views of Christianity, I am relatively safe to live as an out, HIV positive gay man.

To whom it may concern,

I have long ago abandoned visits to Sparrow Hospital because of the horrible medical care I have received. Unfortunately, I have had to come to the hospital twice since February. I was there in February as a patient, and I filed a complaint about the privacy violations which occurred as a result of my being forced to disclose my HIV status standing in a crowded ER check in desk. I was told things would be changed, but I did not see that when I was there Sat. Nov. 21.

I accompanied a 2[0-something] who had been the victim of a sexual assault to the hospital on Nov. 21. His experience, and mine with the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Justine, was more than acceptable. However, the victim requested a prescription for post exposure prophylaxis– which is a combination of antiretroviral medications taken over a 28 day time period to prevent infection with HIV. Because this was a stranger sexual assault, the HIV status of the assailant was unknown.

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A Chicago-based company — Giant Microbes– has a host of plushy cuddly lovey disease causing agents– just in time for Christmas!

What says snuggly love better than your sweet darling cuddled up with a plush Ebola virus? I mean come on! Ebola is just misunderstood, what with the internal organ break down and bleeding from all those orifices as you die a painful, slow, feverish death. In fact, it’s just cuddly almost snake like virus with furry coverings!

This darling Ebola virus comes in large, and small sizes, with the small sizes coming in their very own petri dish!

But wait, why just stick with Ebola? You can visit his friends the Black Death, you know the plague, or anthrax, or any number of other infections.

That’s right– stop scaring your kids– get them used to diseases today with their very own CDC and WHO related bacterial, viral and parasitic collections! It’s the next fad what with the Beanie Babies market crashing and all. So why not get in on the front end?

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I just got back from Sparrow Hospital, where I worked as a patient advocate for a 2o-something male who was the victim of sexual assault Friday Nov. 20. The victim met with the nurse from the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE) program, and things seemed to go fairly smoothly. At the victims request, I was outside the exam area reading.

The frustration started when the victim was referred back to Sparrow’s Emergency Room in order to gain access to Post Exposure Prophylaxis (P.E.P.). Perhaps I have to high of expectations for our medical establishment, but I do expect them to know what P.E.P. is, when it is indicated and how to prescribe it.

P.E.P in case you are unaware, is the use of antiretroviral medications administered within a certain time frame after a person is exposed or potentially expose to HIV. It is a 28 day course of the medications and has been shown to be quite effective.

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Attorney James Galen, Jr. and his client Daniel Allen in Macomb Circuit Court Monday

I had the chance to catch up with Daniel Allen, 44, in Macomb County Circuit Court on Monday. Allen, you might recall is facing terrorism charges for biting a neighbor in a neighborhood scuffle in Oct. Because Allen is HIV+, a fact released in an offensive piece of shock trash by Fox 2 News masquerading as journalism, the Macomb County Prosecutor, Democrat Eric Smith, announced he would have to add charges to Allen’s sheet from the fight.

He was already facing charges of assault and assault with intent to maim (which has since been changed to assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than death). But Smith evidently didn’t feel that was enough, so he slapped a terrorism charge on Allen– the ever so clarified ‘possession or use of a harmful device.’

I wrote about the case last week, but this week Allen and his attorney James Galen sat down for a wide ranging interview with me. The particulars are here on Michigan Messenger, but here are some highlights:

“Absolutely it troubles me,” Galen said of the terror charge. “I did not expect any additional charges.”

Both Galen and Allen said they were “shocked” and “dismayed” at the inclusion of the terrorism charge, which was added after Fox 2 News reported he was HIV-positive.

And this:

One argument likely to be made in court will be based on Allen’s medical records. Allen says that his viral load — a measure of how much of the HIV virus is present in the bloodstream — has been undetectable for two years. If documented for the court, experts will likely testify that the odds of transmission of the virus were exceedingly low in such circumstances.

That, experts say, is a key piece of information in this case, as a higher viral load could have made the possibility of infection through a bite wound — although very low — slightly higher. The Swiss High Court last year ruled that a person on successful antiretroviral medications with a continuous undetectable viral load for six months or more and no other sexually transmitted infections was legally no longer infectious.

Now, on the one good side, the story from Tuesday finally got the mainstream media to pay attention. MLive.com ran a brief piece on Tuesday.

Meet Kami.

She is a character on South African Seasame Street.

She is sassy.

She is also HIV-positive.

Chances are, however, you won’t see Kami on PBS anytime soon. Why? Because she is HIV-positive of course. We would  never want to introduce kids to a positive muppet here in America. They might ask about (gulp) sex. Or drugs. Or where  babies come from. Or…

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Poz Magazine had a link to an interesting story out of Denver, Colorado. And reading the posting online from ABC Action News 7, I have some questions as a result.

First, the background. Police and prosecutors in Denver say they have charged 29 year old Daniel Garcia with a felony of prostitution with knowledge of being infected with AIDS (ironic that legal charge…). According to the story a cop allegedly saw Garcia agree to a sex act for $50. In the process of the investigation, cops also recovered crack cocaine from Garcia, so cops charged that as well.

Now here are my questions

1. What if Garcia is only HIV-positive, and does not have AIDS? The law specifies infected with AIDS, and since AIDS is a very tightly defined clinical condition, it seems to me if he is merely HIV-positive, a lawyer could get that charge kicked on the technicality. I doubt there is a public defender that is going to take the energy tho to do the leg work to understand the potential for that technicality, let alone argue it in court.
2. The picture of Garcia, to me, shows a transgender. That raises a serious question about the way the story is being sold in the first place. Is Garcia is transgender? If so, where is the news exploration of the issue of survival sex as a coping mechanism for the trans community? Why is the news identifying Garcia, who appears in his mug shot with pierced ears and long hair, much as male to female transgenders living as women often appear, if he in fact is transgender? Is this because law enforcement has identified Garcia as a he, ignoring any female identity he might have? Are the news, and the police, doing the right thing in reporting “truth” if in fact Garcia is trans and identifies as a woman while working?

So, HIV has this perception in modern America which conjures up images of skeletal people languishing in hospitals in western countries or rural clinics and huts in Africa. It is feared by gay men, shunned by black leaders and silenced by “Christians.”

But here’s a new moniker: Life-saving.

No, really.

Scientists reported in the Journal Science this week that they had taken a “de-fanged” version of the virus and using its ability to insert genes into human cells, has delivered a successful genetic therapy to three children with a genetic disease. The disease, which was made famous by the film the Lorenzo’s Oil, adrenoleukodystrophy causes degeneration of the nerves of boys. It kicks in at about age 5, and quickly destroys the boys’ nervous system.

But now, U.S. researchers say two boys, who were 7 at the time of their dosages of HIV Defanged, have stabilized. And French researchers say they have since dosed a boy with the disease and found similar success.

The Detroit media has been abuzz about the case of Daniel Allen, a 44-year-old HIV-positive gay man from Macomb county who bit a neighbor during a fight last month. After the fight, it came out Allen, who was charged with assault and assault with intent to maim, was poz. As a result, Democratic county prosecutor Eric Smith declared more charges would be added. And added they were on Nov. 2. Smith asked a judge to amend the complaint against Allen to include a new felony charge of possession or use of a harmful device.

What the Detroit area media failed to report in their glee of scaring Detroit residents about a madman with HIV biting people was that the charge was a terrorism charge.

From Michigan Messenger:

State lawmakers question terrorism charges for HIV-positive man
Bite during fight called use of a ‘harmful device’ under anti-terror law
By TODD A. HEYWOOD 11/10/09 7:07 AM EDIT
An HIV-positive Macomb County man is facing charges created under Michigan’s 2004 terrorism laws for biting another man in a neighborhood scuffle. That, HIV advocates, state lawmakers and legal experts say is “cowardly” and “nonsense” and increases ignorance and stigma surrounding the virus.

State Rep. Mark Meadows, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee said in an interview he does not believe the legislature had the neighborhood fight situation in mind when it drafted the terrorism laws. The Democrat from East Lansing also said he thought the prosecution was “silly.”

“Is this a dangerous instrumentality? It’s like saying that because I breathed on you and I have tuberculosis and we are fighting, that somehow because I have this disease it suddenly becomes more than just that I have this disease,” said Meadows, a former assistant attorney general. “The other charges are more than sufficient to deal with the issues involved.”

In the end, Meadows believes that the circuit court judge will toss out the terrorism charge, which he said was “a stretch.”

The rest here.