White House Convenes Summit on AIDS, African-American Men

On Wednesday, the White House convened its first summit on HIV among black men, noting evidence that infections may be on the rise. The meeting brought together policymakers, community and faith leaders to discuss ways to fight HIV/AIDS in this population. Among those taking part was Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention.

The White House Office of National AIDS Policy hosted the meeting, which was held in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. ONAP is in the process of finalizing the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, which is expected to be released in the coming weeks.

African-Americans, who represent about 12 percent of the US population, accounted for 51 percent of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in 2007 in states with long-term, confidential name-based HIV reporting, according to CDC. For black men with HIV/AIDS, the chief mode of infection was sexual contact with other men, followed by injection drug use and high-risk heterosexual contact, CDC says.

As part of the multiyear "Act Against AIDS" initiative, CDC has launched the "Greater Than AIDS" movement to help fight HIV/AIDS' disproportionate impact on the black community. A key part of the national media campaign involves addressing HIV/AIDS stigma among blacks and raising awareness about the disease.

"People react with demonization to black men with AIDS," said Shannon Hader, director of the District of Columbia's HIV/AIDS Administration. "This prevents men from getting involved in the response."

Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute, noted media's impact in helping to fight HIV/AIDS. One billboard placed in a San Francisco neighborhood advertising free HIV testing helped boost screening by 500 percent, Wilson said.

The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.


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Federal Ban on Gay Men's Blood Donation to Be Reconsidered

A lifting of the lifetime ban on blood donations from gay men is being urged by activists, blood organizations, and several US senators in advance of the policy's next federal review.

The US Federal Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability is scheduled to take up the issue when it meets June 10 and 11 in Rockville, Md. The committee advises the US Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Calls for easing the lifetime ban against blood donation by men who have sex with men (MSM) have come from the Human Rights Campaign, the American Red Cross, America's Blood Centers, and AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banks). The first priority of blood donation is safety, the blood groups said in a joint statement, while also asserting that potential donors should be screened more fairly, independent of sexual orientation.

FDA's policy is "outdated," 18 US senators said in a letter to the agency in March. They noted that while gay men have a lifetime exclusion from donating blood, a heterosexual who has had sexual contact with a prostitute can donate blood after a one-year waiting period.

FDA affirmed its policy during reviews in 2000 and 2006. In a statement e-mailed to CNN, FDA defended its current policy as "based on scientific data that show that certain medical, behavioral, and geographic factors are associated with increased risk of transfusion-transmitted diseases."

The hemophilia community, some members of which received HIV-tainted blood products before effective screening techniques were developed, remains wary about a proposed relaxation of the ban.

"We readily recognize the MSM ban is discriminatory, but it's discriminatory for a reason," said World Federation of Hemophilia spokesperson Mark Skinner.

"What we're looking for is a thoughtful review. We're not opposed to the change. We want to understand what additional risk patients might be asked to accept," Skinner said.

The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.


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Adherence to HIV treatment

Treatment with anti-HIV drugs can mean that you live a longer and healthier life. Some doctors are now optimistic that, thanks to such treatment, many patients with HIV will live a near-normal lifespan.

To get the most benefit from your treatment you need to take all (or nearly all) of your medicines at the right time and in the right way. Missing just a few doses a month can mean that your treatment doesn’t work properly.

Adherence is the word that’s used to describe taking your treatment properly. It’s the single most important factor under your control that increases the chances of your HIV treatment working well.

Most people will miss a dose from time to time, and this probably won’t make any difference. A recent study has suggested, however, that missing a single dose can be more problematic for people on a once-a-day drug regimen than for those who take the same drug, but twice a day.

Generally, people find it easier to adhere to treatment with fewer doses, but this may not be the best solution for everyone. Some people have greater problems with adherence. New research has found that solving them isn’t always simple. Nevertheless, it makes good sense to tell a member of your HIV healthcare team if you are having problems taking your medication. There’s a lot of help available, and this could make a big difference to the success of your treatment.

In many cases, adherence problems only become apparent when a person’s viral load increases. Therefore researchers are looking at ways to monitor adherence in ‘real time’.

One method uses wireless technology, which sends a message – using mobile phone networks – to a doctor or researcher each time a patient opens their medicine. It’s called WisePill, and a new study showed that it’s a very accurate way of monitoring adherence.

Other methods of wireless adherence monitoring are also being investigated, and it’s hoped that their use will help people to take their medication regularly and on time.

The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.


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Research from University of Bristol Reveals New Findings on HIV/AIDS

"We examined specific causes of mortality in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-infected patients who initiated antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Europe and North America from 1996 through 2006, and we quantified associations of prognostic factors with cause-specific mortality. We retrospectively classified all deaths among 39,272 patients enrolled in 13 HIV-1 cohorts (154,667 person years of follow-up) into the categories specified in the Cause of Death (CoDe) project protocol," scientists writing in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases report.

"In 1597 (85%) of 1876 deaths, a definitive cause of death could be assigned. Among these, 792 deaths (49.5%) were AIDS related, followed by non-AIDS malignancies (189; 11.8%), non-AIDS infections (131; 8.2%), violence- and/or drug-related causes (124; 7.7%), liver disease (113; 7.0%), and cardiovascular disease (103; 6.5%). Rates of AIDS-related death (hazard ratio [HR] per 100 cell decrease, 1.43; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.34-1.53) and death from renal failure (HR, 1.73; 95% CI, 1.18-2.55) were strongly inversely related to CD4 count at initiation of ART, whereas rates of death attributable to AIDS (HR for viral load <5 vs <= 5 log copies/mL, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.12-1.53), infection (HR, 1.85; 95% CI, 1.25-2.73), cardiovascular (HR, 1.54; 95% CI, 1.05-2.27), and respiratory causes (HR, 3.62; 95% CI, 1.30-10.09) were higher in patients with baseline viral load <5 log copies/mL than in other patients. Rates of each cause of death were higher in patients with pr! esumed transmission via injection drug use than in other patients, with marked increases in rates of liver-related (HR for injection drug use vs non-injection drug use, 6.06; 95% CI, 4.03-9.09) and respiratory tract-related (HR, 4.94; 95% CI, 1.96-12.45) mortality. The proportion of deaths classified as AIDS related decreased with increasing duration of ART," wrote J. Gill and colleagues, University of Bristol.

The researchers concluded: "Important contributors to non-AIDS mortality in treated HIV-1-infected individuals must be addressed if decreases in mortality rates are to continue."

Gill and colleagues published their study in Clinical Infectious Diseases (Causes of Death in HIV-1-Infected Patients Treated with Antiretroviral Therapy, 1996-2006: Collaborative Analysis of 13 HIV Cohort Studies. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2010;50(10):1387-1396).

The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.


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HIV - It's Not Just That 'Gay' Disease

A 20-year veteran of the fight against HIV recently brought her crusade to Milwaukee, sharing the message that anyone is at risk.

"I've had 13-year-old heterosexual girls tell me that they are [HIV] positive," said actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, best known for starring in the 1982 Broadway run of "Dreamgirls."

Ralph's venue in Milwaukee was the city's first "Sisters and Brothers Against HIV" event. HIV/AIDS in the African-American community is a huge issue, she told about 75 people at the city's Martin Luther King Center. "This place should be full of people, because we are dying," Ralph said.

A local health agency, soon to be determined by the Health Department, will work with state officials to address the issue of STDs in Milwaukee.

The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.


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Anti-HIV Drugs Slash Risk of Virus Transmission by 92 Percent

A newly published study's results provide perhaps the strongest evidence to date that the drugs used to treat HIV also prevent its spread. In a trial involving heterosexual couples where one partner was HIV-infected and the other was not, AIDS drugs reduced the risk of viral transmission to the uninfected partner by 92 percent.

In seven African countries, the researchers recruited 3,381 serodiscordant heterosexual couples. During the study, 349 people initiated antiretroviral therapy (ART) at a median CD4 cell count of 198. The other infected participants received a placebo. An ethics committee closely monitored the trial, whose components included a safe-sex training course and routine health checkups. Every three months, the uninfected partners were tested for HIV.

At 24 months, 103 partners who had been HIV-free at baseline had been infected by their partner. Genetic testing was used to confirm whether an infection had originated with the patient's partner or with someone outside the trial. Only one of the 103 genetically linked infections was transmitted by a partner on ART.

The scientists noted that ART may lower - but does not eliminate - the risk of transmission, so safe-sex counseling must remain a part of prevention efforts for serodiscordant couples.

"Low CD4 cell counts and high plasma HIV-1 concentrations might guide use of ART to achieve an HIV-1 prevention benefit," the authors concluded. "Provision of ART to HIV-1 infected patients could be an effective strategy to achieve population-level reductions in HIV-1 transmission."

The full report, "Heterosexual HIV-1 Transmission After Initiation of Antiretroviral Therapy: A Prospective Cohort Analysis," was published in The Lancet (2010; doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60705-2).

The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.


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Illinois Panel Votes for ADAP Waiting List

Illinois' AIDS Drug Assistance Program should close its doors to new applicants to avoid its own "total fiscal collapse," a state advisory panel said on May 21.

"Because the program is deeply underfunded, Illinois must take immediate steps to preserve services for those who rely on ADAP for their lifesaving care," said David Ernesto Munar, a member of the ADAP Medical Issues Advisory Board, which made the recommendation.

Illinois' ADAP, jointly funded by the state and federal governments, adds about 100 people monthly to its rolls. As of April 2010, it served about 4,400 people.

The AIDS Foundation of Chicago, where Munar serves as vice president, called upon state officials to protect funding for both existing and potential ADAP recipients. An annual regimen of HIV treatment can cost up to $20,000, and advocates estimate that an additional $9.68 million is needed is needed in fiscal year 2011 to avoid a waiting list.

"The General Assembly and Gov. Quinn must act [immediately] to avert ADAP waiting lists by allocating sufficient funding for the program," AFC Director of Government Relations John Peller said.

"Two out of three people using Illinois ADAP are African American or Latino. People of color will be most impacted by a closed program and waiting list," said the Rev. Doris Green, AFC's director of correctional health and community affairs.

AFC estimates that the governor's budget, which will be taken up in the near future when the legislature convenes, underfunds HIV services by more than $4 million.

If the committee's recommendations are adopted, Illinois would become the 12th state to institute a waiting list for its ADAP. Across the United States, about 1,000 people are on waiting lists for help from ADAP.

The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.


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