Author: Randy Slovacek

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Gilead Will Donate PrEP For 200K People

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, Inc. has agreed to donate pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication for up to 200,000 individuals each year for up to 11 years.

PrEP is used to reduce the risk of HIV infection in individuals who are at higher risk for HIV. It has been shown to reduce the risk of new infection by up to 97 percent when taken consistently.

The agreement between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Gilead will last until at least December 31, 2025 and possibly through December 31, 2030, and will provide medication to treat individuals who are at risk for HIV and who are uninsured.

This donation will deliver Gilead’s PrEP medication Truvada, which currently carries a list price of more than $20,000 per patient per year, to up to 200,000 people per year, including in the states and counties identified as priority areas in the Trump Administration plan – PDF to end the HIV epidemic in America.

Gilead will donate Truvada until its second-generation HIV preventative medication, Descovy, becomes available. At that time, Gilead will donate Descovy. The agreement would end after 11 years, or when a generic version of Descovy becomes commercially available, whichever comes first. The government has agreed to cover costs associated with distributing the drugs.

But some folks point out this isn’t a simple case of the Gilead folks being generous.

The U.S. government spent years, as well as tens of millions of dollars, developing the treatment. The federal government patented the treatment in 2015, but doesn’t make a penny from it while Gilead, which has a U.S. monopoly on the drug, has cleaned up.

A month’s supply of Truvada can cost $2,000, but costs a small fraction of that to produce.

(via press release)

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White House Welcomes Boston Red “Socks”


First, several members of the world champion Boston Red Sox announced they would not be attending the annual White House reception.Today, Boston’s CBS News affiliate noticed the crack team at the White House clearly doesn’t follow baseball all that much.

It looks like someone on the White House staff doesn’t know much about Boston or baseball. The Boston Red Sox will meet with President Trump at the White House Thursday afternoon to celebrate their 2018 World Series championship.The event has already been clouded by issues of politics and race. Now there’s the embarrassing typo. “President Trump Welcomes the 2018 World Series Champions The Boston Red Socks to the White House.” There has been no comment from the White House yet.

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Trump World: Junior Subpoened, Attorney General Held in Contempt, Trump Asserts Executive Privilege

Donald Trump

Trump World is getting that much more complicated:

• Don Trump Jr., Trump’s eldest son, has been subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee (led by Republican Sen. Burr) to answer questions about his contacts with Russia, according to Axios‘ Jonathan Swan.

• The House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for refusing to release Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s unredacted report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

• Amid all this, Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege for the first time in the Mueller investigation debacle.

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Facebook Co-Founder Considers Breaking Up The Social Media Giant

Chris Hughes

In an op-ed for the New York Times, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes suggests it’s time to consider breaking up the monopoly that is Facebook.

Mark’s influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government. He controls three core communications platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — that billions of people use every day. Facebook’s board works more like an advisory committee than an overseer, because Mark controls around 60 percent of voting shares.

Mark alone can decide how to configure Facebook’s algorithms to determine what people see in their News Feeds, what privacy settings they can use and even which messages get delivered. He sets the rules for how to distinguish violent and incendiary speech from the merely offensive, and he can choose to shut down a competitor by acquiring, blocking or copying it.

And I’m worried that Mark has surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challenging them. We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well intentioned the leaders of these companies may be. Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American. It is time to break up Facebook.

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Out Music: Kisos “Happily Ever After”

Kisos (photo: Adam Ouellette)

As he was recovering from a life-shaking breakup, out singer/songwriter Kisos penned (in real time) his upcoming EP, sweet nothings, featuring one track for each of the 5 stages of grief.

The lead single, “Happily Ever After,” is a bouncy electro-pop bop with the handsome artist deep in denial, using delusion as poisoned motivation to better himself and survive the pain of seeing his ex with someone new.

Billboard writes:

In an interview with Billboard, Kisos revealed that many of the sets and props for his new video are the actual locations of his heartbreak. The bed in the video, for example, belongs to a different ex-boyfriend (and now friend) of his, where he spent days dealing with the breakup the song talks about. “It’s also where I literally/figuratively beat myself up over the ex after him, running to John (his friend and former boyfriend) for comfort when I couldn’t sleep alone,” he says

Making the video as authentic as possible was important to the singer; he says that he used real objects from his life as props in order to create a relatable experience for his audience. “I’m not kidding when I say I wanted to make the most honest visual, even if it’s embarrassing!” he says. “I’ll show the vulnerable parts of myself if it helps others feel less alone or ashamed.”

Hit the play button below and enjoy! “Happily Ever After” is available now – click here.

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Bud Light Goes Rainbow For Pride Month

CNN reports that Bud Light will sell rainbow-colored aluminum bottles in bars nationwide for Pride Month 2019.

For each case of beer sold, Bud Light will donate $1 to GLAAD.

The rainbow bottles are among Pride Month actions the company is taking this year with GLAAD. It’s also a sponsor of the Governors Ball Music Festival May 31-June 2 in New York and will host an all-LGBT lineup of performers on its own stage.

The company’s support of the LGBT community dates back to the 1980s, said Andy Goeler, vice president of marketing, in a news release.

“The way we see it, our beer is for everyone to enjoy,” Goeler said. “With the release of these new bottles, we hope to create something that everyone can feel proud to hold during Pride month.”

Pride month is celebrated each June. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the riots at New York’s Stonewall Inn that launched the gay rights movement.

“Bud Light stood with the community at a time when many brands did not, and their continued outspoken support sets the bar for other global brands,” Zeke Stokes, GLAAD’s chief programs officer, said in a new release.

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Report: Trump Lawyer Handled A Situation For Jerry Falwell Jr Before 'Game-Changing' Endorsement

Jerry Falwell Jr. (image via Twitter)

Reuters reports that Donald Trump’s ‘fixer,’ Michael Cohen, says he helped evangelist Jerry Falwell Jr. with a “situation” regarding some racy photos.

And shortly thereafter, Falwell surprised the world by endorsing Cohen’s boss for president.

Months before evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.’s game-changing presidential endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016, Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor, Cohen said in a recorded conversation reviewed by Reuters.

Falwell, president of Liberty University, one of the world’s largest Christian universities, said someone had come into possession of what Cohen described as racy “personal” photographs ― the sort that would typically be kept “between husband and wife,” Cohen said in the taped conversation.

According to a source familiar with Cohen’s thinking, the person who possessed the photos destroyed them after Cohen intervened on the Falwells’ behalf.

Now you know why Falwell directed his evangelical flock to support the man who cheated on his wives, cheated the vendors who worked for him, and bragged that he liked to “grab ’em by the p*ssy.”

It will come as no surprise that the Falwells declined to comment for the article.

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NY Times Obtains 10 Years Of Trump Taxes

Donald Trump


The New York Times has reportedly obtained printouts from Donald Trump’s “official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts, with the figures from his federal tax form, the 1040, for the years 1985 to 1994.”

It may come as no surprise that the Donald was not nearly as successful as he has touted for years.

In fact, in the years leading up to his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, which purported Trump to be a self-made billionaire, he was hemorrhaging millions and millions of dollars.

From the New York Times:

The numbers show that in 1985, Mr. Trump reported losses of $46.1 million from his core businesses — largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings. They continued to lose money every year, totaling $1.17 billion in losses for the decade.

In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners. His core business losses in 1990 and 1991 — more than $250 million each year — were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years.

Over all, Mr. Trump lost so much money that he was able to avoid paying income taxes for eight of the 10 years. It is not known whether the I.R.S. later required changes after audits.

The Times goes on to note that one maneuver Trump would use to stay afloat was to acquire company shares with borrowed money, then publicly announce he was considering a takeover. Once the stock price would bump up, he would quietly sell his shares. The Times reports Trump reported $67.3 million in such stock gains from 1986 through 1989. However, savvy stock watchers eventually stopped taking his takeover announcements seriously.

Trump’s lawyer, Charles Harder, said in a statement that the tax information was false but didn’t point out any specific errors, according to the Times. He reportedly told the newspaper that IRS transcripts “are notoriously inaccurate.”

Of course, the good news is Trump’s people can clear up any inaccuracies by providing the actual tax returns which would show the Trumpster to be all that he’s claimed to be all these years, right?

By the way – yes, there’s a Trump tweet for everything. This one from 2012 didn’t age too well, did it?

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McConnell – Mueller Probe “Finally Over,” Pelosi – “Not So Fast”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced from the floor of the U.S. Senate that the Special Counsel’s Russian probe is “finally over.”

The Republican from Kentucky called Mueller’s findings “bad news for the outrage industrial complex but good news for the rest of the country.”

But Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi disagreed saying “that’s just not a fact — the case is not closed.”

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Cuba Cancels Pride Events Due To ‘Uncertainty The Country Is Experiencing’

The Washington Blade is reporting that Cuba’s annual International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia marches – scheduled for May 11 in Havana and May 17 in Camagüey – have been cancelled.

Posted on the Facebook page of the National Center for Sexual Education, which is directed by Mariela Castro, is a statement saying the events were cancelled due to “current uncertainty the country is experiencing.”

The Facebook post goes on to say the Cuban Ministry of Public Health made the decision to cancel the events.

The first Pride parade held in Cuban occurred in 2009.

LGBTQ Cubans were disappointed when marriage equality was removed from a draft of Cuba’s new constitution.

From last year’s Pride event: