Tag: HIV/AIDS

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News Round-Up: July 21, 2017

Nyle DiMarco via Instagram

Some news items you may have missed:

• America’s Next Top Model/Dancing with the Stars champ Nyle DiMarco asks, “Will you be my beach?”

• Researchers are looking at a two-step “shock and kill” approach to cure HIV with a cancer drug that appears to bring dormant virus cells out of hiding.

• Donald Trump apparently thinks health care premiums cost about $15 a month. #seriously

• Allentown becomes the 3rd city in Pennsylvania to ban so-called “ex-gay” conversion therapy torture.

• Donald Trump says he enjoyed sitting next to the First Lady of Japan even though she doesn’t know english. Or does she? She sure seems to know english here.

• Head into the weekend with some 80s color and light from Harper Starling’s “Disco Mirror Dream:”

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Podcast: RuPaul Sashays To Hollywood Walk Of Fame, Virginia Could Elect 1st Trans Lawmaker

In this week’s LGBT news on The Randy Report podcast:

• Virginia could elect the country’s first out transgender legislator this fall

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs “license to discriminate” bill into law

• Military chiefs have asked for a six month delay in recruiting transgender recruits

• Six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS resign saying that President Trump “doesn’t care about HIV”

• Broadway Bares takes this year’s edition of the scintillating charity event back to college raising over $1.5 million in one night

• And RuPaul gets to sashay his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report

 I’d like to invite all my readers to head over to iTunes and hit the Subscribe button on my page on iTunes, and then every time I upload a new podcast it will be sent directly to you for your listening ease 🙂

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Six Resign From Presidential HIV/AIDS Council Because Trump “Doesn’t Care”

Six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS have resigned, saying that President Trump has no strategy to address AIDS, and doesn’t seem to care about HIV.

Via The Hill:

Scott Schoettes, Lucy Bradley-Springer, Gina Brown, Ulysses Burley III, Michelle Ogle and Grissel Granados publicly announced their resignations in a joint letter published in Newsweek titled, “Trump doesn’t care about HIV. We’re outta here.”

The group said that the administration “has no strategy” to address HIV/AIDS, doesn’t consult experts when working on policy and “pushes legislation that will harm people living with HIV and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease.”

“As advocates for people living with HIV, we have dedicated our lives to combating this disease and no longer feel we can do so effectively within the confines of an advisory body to a president who simply does not care,” they wrote.

The group noted that Trump took down the Office of National AIDS Policy website when he took office and hasn’t appointed anyone to lead the White House Office of National AIDS Policy.

They also said that the GOP’s ObamaCare repeal bill will dramatically hurt those with HIV/AIDS, making it the “final straw for us — more like a two-by-four than a straw” in deciding to leave the council.

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NYC: Broadway Bares 2017 This Sunday

One of the hottest tickets of the year in New York City, Broadway Bares is this Sunday.

Via press release:

Broadway Bares: Strip U will feature more than 150 of the hottest male and female dancers in New York City sharing their hearts and well-toned bodies with an energetic crowd of thousands. The 90-minute show features Broadway’s most talented movers and shakers in a highly choreographed, highly produced spectacular.

Here’s a link for tix.

Check out a ‘first look’ below as well as a little info about why something so fun can do so much good.

Who’s going? 😉

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Music Video: Sia “Free Me” (Feat. Zoe Saldana & Julianna Moore)

Sia dropped the powerful music video for her song “Free Me,” this week.

Actress Julianne Moore narrates as Zoe Saldana is featured as a woman learning she is HIV+ in a doctor’s office.

As with many of Sia’s videos, the video features moving interpretive dance by longtime Sia collaborator, Ryan Heffington. The piano-led ballad incorporates soaring orchestral passages, and emotionally raw lyrics:

Free me, free me
From this pain I’ve been running from
I’m tired and I’m free falling
Free me, free me
From this shame I’ve been running from
I’m lost and I am calling you.

Hilton Dresden writes for OUT:

“The HIV/AIDS epidemic is one that can affect anyone, particularly child-bearing women around the globe,” said Sia in a statement. “I’ve proudly joined forces with the Abzyme Research Foundation and the #endHIV Campaign for the release of my song, ‘Free Me,’ to help raise funds and awareness for a potential breakthrough cure of the epidemic.”

#EndHIV is an initiative of the Abzyme Research Foundation, which believes they’ve discovered a cure for AIDS through the use of an antibody, called an abzyme “Our immediate goal is to raise the funds needed to commercially manufacture the vaccine to FDA standards and to gain FDA approval for a human clinical trial,” says the Foundation on their site.

Sia’s new “Free Me” video concludes with a sobering statistic: HIV is the number one killer of women of reproductive age around the world.

One hundred percent of proceeds for the single will benefit the #endHIV campaign.

Watch below.

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FDA Approves First Generic Of Truvada

From Drug Store News:

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced its approval of Teva’s abbreviated new drug application the first generic of Gilead’s Truvada (emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil).

The drug is indicated both as a treatment for HIV-1 in combination with other antiretroviral drugs and for pre-exposure prophylaxis to prevent sexually acquired HIV infection in combination with safer sex practices.

What’s not clear at this point is whether Gilead will continue their medication assistance program, which provides PrEP for a large number of individuals who don’t have insurance, once this gets approved.

According to reports, Truvada ranks 17th in the top 20 meds in the U.S.

(h/t Randy Report reader Aaron)

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Podcast: OutGames Cancel At Last Minute, Luxembourg’s First Gentleman Represents, New Music From Eli Lieb

In this week’s podcast:

• Survivor’s of Chechnya’s “gay purge” describe the physical and mental torture they endured in their country’s gay concentration camps

• Two gay men were whipped with canes in front of thousands in Indonesia for the crime of having consensual gay sex in private

• The Trump administration’s proposed cuts to global health funding could lead to the deaths of over one million people around the world fighting HIV/AIDS

• Luxembourg’s First Gentleman represents at the NATO Summit, but the White House forgets

• The 2017 World OutGames cancelled only 24 hours before the opening ceremonies

• New music from acclaimed out singer/songwriter, Eli Lieb.

All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report.

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#FlashBackFriday – The Red Dress Event

Yours truly back in 2007 for the Red Dress Event in Las Vegas

I stumbled across this pic from the Annual Red Dress Event here in Las Vegas when I was invited to be a part of a photoshoot for the fundraiser back in 2007.

Who am I to turn down a photoshoot in a red dress? 😉

The annual charity event is organized by the Sin City Sisters is dedicated to creating HIV/AIDS awareness and visibility and raising funds to assist HIV+ people in Southern Nevada with their medications. All attendees are required to wear a red dress/skirt/kilt/toga/whatever in order to get in to show unity in our community.

The Sin Sity Sisters have been a non-profit organization for over eleven years. They exist as “an order of 21st century nuns dedicated to the promulgation of omniversal joy and the expiation of stigmatic guilt.”

Our ministry is one of public manifestation and habitual perpetration. We work to raise money for our Sisters AIDS Drug Assistance Program (SADAP). We advocate for queer rights and visibility and conduct safer sex outreach. We work to affirm the value and beauty of all persons and particularly within the queer community. We strive diligently to keep our sense of humor, never taking ourselves so seriously that we forget to have fun.

The annual event benefits SADAP which assists individuals in the community regardless of race, age or gender.

The program has distributed over $600,000 in medication assistance since 2006 helping hundreds of HIV+ in Southern Nevada.

Good work, sisters!

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President George W. Bush Pens Public Appeal To Trump: Leave HIV/AIDS Program Budget Intact

President George W. Bush

President George W. Bush pens public appeal to the Trump administration to leave the budget for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) intact.

Last month, Trump proposed cutting $300 million from Bush’s extremely successful program that battles HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Here’s just an excerpt from Bush’s op-ed published by the Washington Post:

As the executive and legislative branches review the federal budget, they will have vigorous debates about how best to spend taxpayers’ money — and they should. Some will argue that we have enough problems at home and shouldn’t spend money overseas. I argue that we shouldn’t spend money on programs that don’t work, whether at home or abroad.

But they should fully fund programs that have proven to be efficient, effective and results-oriented. Saving nearly 12 million lives is proof that PEPFAR works, and I urge our government to fully fund it. We are on the verge of an AIDS-free generation, but the people of Africa still need our help. The American people deserve credit for this tremendous success and should keep going until the job is done.

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News Round-Up: March 31, 2017

Colton Haynes as “Daddy Warbucks” and Kathy Griffin as “Grannie”

Some news items you may have missed:

• Find out what happens when “Annie” hangs out too long at the orphanage in this parody “Grannie” of the hit musical. The clip stars Kathy Griffin as the aged orphan, plus it gives you a reason to finally call Colton Haynes “Daddy.”

• The NCAA will announce next week if North Carolina’s fake repeal of HB2 will actual help the state’s standing in terms of booking any championship games in the next five years.

• The Trump administration’s new budget seeks to cut $342 million in HIV/AIDS research and prevention programs. #ThanksTrump

• Congressional Democrats are demanding the next Census include questions on sexual orientation. That data is vitally needed to help policymakers understand the needs of the LGBT community.

• New survey by GLAAD indicates 25% of non-LGBTQ Americans are “uncomfortable” seeing an LGBTQ co-worker’s wedding picture on their desk.

• Trumpeter, singer, producer, and dancer Spencer Ludwig wants you to get “Diggy” this weekend. Watch the grooving video below: