LGBTQ news and entertainment
From Michael Henry, this is a video about talking about HIV.
Do you ever talk about HIV? When’s the last time you got tested? Is PrEP expensive?
The answers to those questions may not be included, but this video is about TALKING about HIV.
Henry does suggest going here for info about HIV.
Watch the quick vid below.
In this week’s The Randy Report podcast:
• The LGBTQ community got a one-two punch this week as the Trump administration goes after transgender protections in the workplace as well as giving a license to discriminate against LGBTs via “religious freedoms”
• California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation into law bringing outdated HIV laws in line with new science
• We remember one of the gay victims of the Las Vegas shooting massacre
• A new poll shows, for the first time, majorities in both political parties believe homosexuality should be accepted
• Ricky Martin wants to share his upcoming wedding with the world
• For the first time, a rainbow Pride flag will fly permanently over federal land
All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report
Remember you can subscribe to The Randy Report podcast on iTunes for free here and every new episode will be sent to you automatically.
Whether for workout listening or while driving to work, this news magazine podcast is a great way to catch up on LGBT news in only 15 minutes 🙂
Excellent news from the United Kingdom where HIV diagnoses among gay and bisexual men dropped a whopping 21% in 2016 compared to the previous year.
In London alone, the decline was even bigger with 29% fewer diagnoses.
From The Advocate:
Public Health England, which tracked the numbers, called it the “most exciting development in the UK HIV epidemic in 20 years,” reports the Daily Mail.
In fact, according to PHE’s Dr. Valerie Delpech, “It is the first time since the beginning of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s that we have observed a decline in new HIV diagnoses among gay and bisexual men.”
Researchers point to pre-exposure prophylaxis — a daily dose of medication that has a success rate of up to 99 percent in preventing HIV — as a likely reason for this plunge.
Truvada, the only drug approved for use as PrEP, can be costly. But NHS England, which oversees the budgeting of the country’s Department of Health, began funding the use of Truvada as PrEP last August, after a ruling from England’s High Court mandated that it do so.
France’s submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, BPM (Beats Per Minute) takes an unflinching look at ACT UP Paris in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and we get the first American trailer today.
Clip description:
In Paris in the early 1990s, a group of activists goes to battle for those stricken with HIV/AIDS, taking on sluggish government agencies and major pharmaceutical companies in bold, invasive actions. The organization is ACT UP, and its members, many of them gay and HIV-positive, embrace their mission with a literal life-or-death urgency.
Amid rallies, protests, fierce debates and ecstatic dance parties, the newcomer Nathan falls in love with Sean, the group’s radical firebrand, and their passion sparks against the shadow of mortality as the activists fight for a breakthrough.
Variety raved about the film:
What does it take to fight a pandemic? Knowledge, courage and resilience, certainly, but also rough-and-tumble argument, a range of friendships both consoling and abrasive, a healthy sense of gallows humor and soul-sustaining supplies of loud music and louder sex.
French writer-director Robin Campillo understands all of this in “BPM (Beats Per Minute),” his sprawling, thrilling, finally heart-bursting group portrait of Parisian AIDS activists in the early 1990s. A rare and invaluable non-American view of the global health crisis that decimated, among others, the gay community in the looming shadow of the 21st century, Campillo’s unabashedly untidy film stands as a hot-blooded counter to the more polite strain of political engagement present in such prestige AIDS dramas as “Philadelphia” and “Dallas Buyers Club.”
Candidly queer in its perspective and unafraid of eroticism in the face of tragedy, this robust Cannes competition entry is nonetheless emotionally immediate enough to break out of the LGBT niche.
Watch the trailer below.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued a statement, finally agreeing with major HIV organizations, that says when an HIV+ person’s viral load is undetectable, there’s virtually zero chance of transmission of the virus to an uninfected person.
Scientific advances have shown that antiretroviral therapy (ART) preserves the health of people living with HIV.
We also have strong evidence of the prevention effectiveness of ART. When ART results in viral suppression, defined as less than 200 copies/ml or undetectable levels, it prevents sexual HIV transmission.
Across three different studies, including thousands of couples and many thousand acts of sex without a condom or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), no HIV transmissions to an HIV-negative partner were observed when the HIV-positive person was virally suppressed.
This means that people who take ART daily as prescribed and achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to an HIV-negative partner.
HIV experts cheered the announcement.
From HIV Plus Magazine:
That is a remarkable statement, as Bruce Richman, executive director of UequalsU.org and the Prevention Access Campaign tells us. “This is the moment we have been waiting for! The CDC agreed today there is ‘effectively no risk’ of sexually transmitting HIV when on treatment and undetectable.”
Now, Richman adds, “It’s time to make history and share this news!” He calls on other HIV and LGBT organizations to join “nearly 400 organizations from 56 countries that have signed on as part of a growing and vibrant U=U Community Partner network. Resources on U=U messaging in the U.S. and around the world as well as the related issues of unequal access, social determinants of health, and HIV criminalization are on our website.”
And in related news, Alexander Cheves over at The Advocate has a snappy piece titled “27 Reasons You Should Date an HIV+ Man Right Now.”
Thanks to the Bill Gates Foundation, African nations will soon get life-saving HIV medications at a cost of only $75 a year per patient!
Via The Guardian:
Makers of generic AIDS drugs will start churning out millions of pills for Africa containing a state-of-the-art medicine widely used in rich countries, after securing a multi-million dollar guarantee that caps prices at just $75 per patient a year.
Global health experts hope the deal will help address two looming problems in the HIV epidemic – the rising threat of resistance developing to standard AIDS drugs, and the need for more investment in manufacturing capacity.
Bill Gates’ charitable foundation will guarantee minimum sales volumes of the new combination pills using dolutegravir, a so-called integrase inhibitor that avoids the drug resistance that often develops with older treatments.
In return the drugmakers, India-based Mylan Laboratories (MYL.O) and Aurobindo Pharma (ARBN.NS), will agree the maximum price of about $75 per patient for a year’s supply – less than the list price for one day’s supply of a dolutegravir combination in the United States.
The BBC is reporting that scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the pharmaceutical company Sanofi have developed an antibody that attacks 99% of HIV strains and can prevent infection in primates.
There are plans to begin human trials in 2018 to see if it can prevent or treat infections.
As we’ve known for years, a big challenge in defeating HIV has been the virus’ ability to mutate and change its appearance.
But for a small number of patients, years of infection can lead to the development of “broadly neutralizing antibodies” that have the ability to kill large swaths of HIV strains.
Researchers have utilized 3 broadly neutralizing antibodies into one “tri-specific antibody” as an approach to treating HIV or perhaps preventing infection in the first place.
Dr Gary Nabel, the chief scientific officer at Sanofi and one of the report authors, told the BBC News website: “They are more potent and have greater breadth than any single naturally occurring antibody that’s been discovered.”
The best naturally occurring antibodies will target 90% of HIV strains.
“We’re getting 99% coverage, and getting coverage at very low concentrations of the antibody,” said Dr Nabel.
Experiments on 24 monkeys showed none of those given the tri-specific antibody developed an infection when they were later injected with the virus.
Dr Nabel said: “It was quite an impressive degree of protection.”
(tipped by TRR reader Chad)
Is this the first southern “World Wrestling-inspired” HIV prevention public service announcement?
The good folks at Thrive Alabama admit not every approach to talking about HIV is for every community. Instead of a “sexy” PrEP video, Thrive Alabama took a more home-grown tone to setting folks straight about HIV, stigma, and prevention.
The video pits bad guys HIV and Stigma against do-gooders Prevention and PrEP.
It’s interesting to note that the video doesn’t feature any stereotypical “gay” men in the video. Mark Moore, director of development and marketing, said that was a conscious choice. “We have a lot of people here who are ‘men who have sex with men’ but who do not identify as gay or just don’t do labels,” Mark told Queerty.
Watch the lighthearted but still informative PSA below.
In this week’s podcast:
• A new study shows hiv+ men who take antiretroviral medication on a regular basis have pretty much zero chance of spreading the infection to others
• President Trump gets plenty of pushback on his proposed transgender military service ban
• Out singer/songwriter Wrabel releases powerful anthem of personal empowerment and community, “The Village,” in response to Trump’s trans military ban
• Convicted Philly gay basher Kathryn Knott now says she was acting in self-defense when she shattered the jaw of a gay man in 2014
All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report.
Results of a new large-scale study of gay men presented this week at the 9th International AIDS Conference on HIV Science in Paris shows HIV+ people taking regular antiretroviral medication have “pretty much” a zero chance of infecting others during either gay or straight sex.
From the Washington Blade:
In the largest-ever trial on HIV transmission risk among gay men, Australian researchers explored the sex lives and HIV rates of more than 350 homosexual couples where one person is HIV positive. The couples were from Brazil, Thailand and Australia, CNN reports.
Each couple reported their sexual activity when visiting clinics involved in the trial and HIV-negative partners were regularly tested to diagnose any new infections, CNN reports. The couples participating reported having sex almost 17,000 times without condoms between them over four years, and none of those times resulted in new infections.
”There was not a single linked HIV infection in these couples,” said Andrew Grulich, professor of epidemiology at the University of New South Wales in Australia, who led the study. “Nobody became infected from their partner,” CNN quoted him as having said.