April 19, 2012

wovenvoices Tonight's the night! Share the life experience of three long-time survivors of HIV/AIDS at a reading of their collective work, entitled "Woven Voices," in the Sinatra Auditorium at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs on Thursday, April 19 at 7:00 PM. The one-hour reading will be followed by a Q&A session. Those considering attending should be aware that some "adult language" will be used throughout the reading. (rv)

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In one week! Thursday, April 26, breakfast, lunch & dinner

dl8 More than 40 area restaurants--a record number!--have signed on to donate 33 -75% of their sales from breakfast, lunch or dinner to Dining Out for Life 2012. So making a springtime donation to client services at Desert AIDS Project is as easy as having breakfast, lunch or dinner--or all three--on the last Thursday in April. D.A.P. hopes this year will top last year's total of more than $100,000 raised. Bank of America returns for its seventh year as Presenting Sponsor. "Our friends at Bank of America have been by our side with Dining Out for Life since 2006," said David Brinkman, CEO of Desert AIDS Project. "This year, we have ten partners that are participating for all meals--with our good friends Harold Matzner and Eric Wadlund at Spencer's donating 75% of the day's sales from all three meals!" This year, "location-aware" features of smart phones will enable people to tap into a list of participating restaurants based on their current location. "Androids and iPhones will let people sort or search alphabetically, by cuisine, or by the amount a restaurant is donating from that one day's sales," noted Brett Klein, Event Manager at D.A.P. Facebook, Foursquare, Yelp and Twitter will help volunteer "restaurant ambassadors" fill their chosen restaurants. In addition, many local restaurants are already using Open Table, an international sponsor for Dining Out for Life and a leading online provider of free, real-time restaurant reservations for diners.

This year's incredible line-up of restaurants includes the best in the desert: Acqua Pazza, Amici Italian, Azul, Benny's Bagels Palm Desert, Billy Reed's, Brushfire Grill, Cello's, Circa 59 @ Riviera Palm Springs, Citron at Viceroy Hotel, Copley's, DiGS Bar, Eddie's Frozen Yogurt, El Mirasol (South), El Mirasol at Los Arboles, Encore Cabaret, Escena chef Lounge & Grill, Espresso Cielo, Guacamoles, Hamburger Mary's, Hunters Nightclub, Il Sogno, Jake's, Johnny Costa's Ristorante, King's Highway at Ace Hotel and Swim Club, Leon's at Desert Princess, LG's Prime Steakhouse Palm Springs, LULU California Bistro, Mirage Bistro at Wally's Desert Turtle, Miro's, Muse Café at Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Greens Café, Peabody's Café, Pinocchio's, Rainbow Bar & Grill, Riccio's Steak and Seafood, Rio Azul Mexican Bar & Grill, Rock Garden Bar & Grill, Roscoe Grill, Spencer's, Sunshine Cafe, Trio, Tropicale, Wang's, Zin American Bistro and Zini Café Med.

Dining Out for Life is a fundraising venture for outstanding HIV/AIDS service organizations and programs throughout the U.S. and Canada. Since 1991, Dining Out has been produced by local HIV/AIDS service organizations, ensuring that funds stay in the community where they are raised. Click here for reservations information. (sb)

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Tuesday, May 1, 6:00 PM

A Positive Life - The Series: HIV & Your Heart - Cardiovascular Health

The next seminar in the Positive Life Series will feature speaker Ruben Gamundi discussing HIV and cardiovascular health. A light supper will be served at 6:00 PM, and the program will begin at 6:30 PM. The location is the Sinatra Auditorium at Desert Regional Medical Center (at the corner of Tachevah and Via Miraleste in Palm Springs), and the event, sponsored by Jewish Family Services of the Desert, is always free. ASL translation will be provided. Questions? Email positivelifeseries@gmail.com, or call 760.566.6POZ (6769). However, YOU DO NOT NEED TO RSVP! The following Positive Life Series seminar will be on Tuesday, June 5th and feature Dr. Rick Loftus. (jl)

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D.A.P. Community Center Events

The D.A.P. Client Community Center hosts regular activities and events every week (listed below). Community Center special events and other activities can be found on the main D.A.P. website. Click here for the complete list of upcoming special events.

Every Thursday, 1:00 PM

Community Center Presents: MOVIE & PIZZA
Thursday, April 26 - Girl, Interrupted (1999)

girlinterrupted This drama is based on writer Susanna Kaysen's account of her 18-month stay at a mental hospital in the 1960s. Starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Brittany Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, Vanessa Redgrave and Jared Leto. Directed by James Mangold. "The crazy thing is, you're not crazy!"

Let's all go to a good flick!

Ongoing Client Community Center activities include:

Support groups
Spiritual Living 101
Hepatitis C Therapy Education
Diabetes Education
Stitch in Time (needlecraft), Wednesdays, 10:00 AM
Community Center Computer Lab
Lending Library
Free films, Thursdays, 1:00 PM

Follow this link to see the recurring activities on the Community Center Calendar.

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D.A.P. & Community News

Frontiers LA donates tickets to D.A.P. for its 30th anniversary party

The LGBT publication Frontiers LA has donated 20 tickets to D.A.P. for its 30th anniversary celebration in West Hollywood, this Sunday, April 22. To win tickets, email info@desertaidsproject.org right away! The first 20 people to email a request will receive the tickets. For 30 years, Frontiers has been a proud voice for the gay community. This Sunday's milestone celebration will honor some of its leading voices, including Lady Gaga, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Lorri Jean, Patrick Rush, and more! The specifics: Sunday, April 22, 2012, 3:00 PM - 8:00 PM at the Eleven Bar & Restaurant, 8811 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood. There will be live performances, celebrity appearances, special giveaways and exciting raffle prizes. Try your luck!

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Inland Empire HIV Planning Council @ D.A.P.

iehpc The next meeting of the Inland Empire HIV Planning Council (IEHPC) will be held in the D.A.P. Library on April 26th from 12:30 PM to 3:30 PM. The IEHPC is the local appointed body that participates in setting priorities, allocating resources, and issuing directives within the terms and conditions of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Part A funding awarded to the Riverside/San Bernardino Counties Transitional Grant Area. The public is welcome to attend and comments may be made at the beginning and end of the meeting/agenda. If you wish to make a public comment, be sure to fill out a speaker form when you arrive at the meeting. The Chair, Henry Nickel, will invite you to submit your comment forms when the meeting begins. Comments are limited to two to three minutes. The IEHPC will hear your comments but it is not typical for them to respond or ask questions. It is also actively recruiting consumer members. To learn more about membership and the IEHPC's work, visit www.iehpc.org. (rv)

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Click to view D.A.P.'s 2012 Spring Progress Report, with great new information about how D.A.P. is positioning itself to play a role in what CEO David Brinkman and we all hope is the final chapter of the devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic. (rv)

HIV & Other Health News

Researchers develop stem cells that attack and destroy HIV

It's very early in the story, but researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) recently made a real breakthrough in developing stem cells that can attack and destroy HIV in mice. They cloned a molecule that controls "killer" T-cells--the white blood cells that recognize and kill HIV-infected cells. The molecule was then injected with human blood stem cells into mice to control those cells for observation. Over a month, researchers found an increase in mouse T-cells needed to fight HIV. The study revealed for the first time that engineered cells were capable of developing and migrating to the organs to fight infection there. "We believe that this study lays the groundwork for the potential use of this type of an approach in combating HIV infection in infected individuals, in hopes of eradicating the virus from the stemcells

body," said lead researcher Scott G. Kitchen. "We believe that this is the first step in developing a more aggressive approach in correcting the defects in the human T-cell responses that allow HIV to persist in infected people." Click here for more information and here for the science and study report itself. (sb)

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More studies to find "hidden" HIV

We all know HIV infects immune system cells and have probably heard of "latent" or "hidden" virus. Some HIV goes into hibernation instead, avoiding the attention of the immune system and of antiretrovirals--"latent infection" and results in reservoirs of undetected HIV tucked away in various parts of the body. Little is known about what might trigger latent virus to become active, but new techniques are being developed. They involve injections or "vaccinations" of experimental drugs designed to boost existing, uninfected immune cells. Progress on this was reported at the recent CROI 2012 Conference. Click here for more on these studies. (sb)

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"PrEP" therapy again under scrutiny--costs cited

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) therapy is under study again by researchers at Stanford University in what might be called a "cost-benefit analysis." The study raised questions about use of Truvada (tenofovir-emtricitabine) which has been shown effective in preventing HIV infection in sexually active gay men. "Promoting PrEP to all men who have sex with men could be prohibitively expensive," said lead researcher Jessie Juusola, a PhD candidate. Truvada's retail price is $26 per pill. Understandably, the study appears to have been a result of escalating costs of healthcare and antiviral drugs. However, it did not conclude that PrEP therapy be abandoned as too costly. "Adopting it for men who have sex with men at high risk of acquiring HIV is an investment with good value that does not break the bank," said Juusola. Click here for the story and draw your own conclusions. (sb)

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One week away: POZ Life Weekend Seminar in Long Beach

pozlife April 28, 2012 is the next POZ Life Weekend Seminar, a free healing and transformational workshop for people with HIV/AIDS and their loved ones. In will include a line up of amazing presenters and topics including Drug Treatment Options, Disclosure, Relationships, Insurance and Public Benefits, Sero-Different Relationships, Nutrition and HIV, Sex and Intimacy, Adherence, Healing Drum Circle, Art Therapy, Clinical Trials, Complementary Therapy, Support Groups and so much more! To register, log onto TheLifeGroupLA.org for an online reservation form and they will contact you to complete your registration. Or call Sunnie Rose at 888.208.8081. The POZ Life Weekend is Re-Affirming Weekend Seminar you will never forget! (jl)

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Advocacy

What if healthcare mandate is overturned?
We've tried to cover the healthcare debate since it began last year, but as we now sit in limbo, waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, it's time consider the "what ifs." Speculation on the Court's decision is of course, all over the map and not surprisingly, highly partisan. But some moderate voices say that even a strikedown may not be a total disaster for healthcare and the president. Click here and here for measured summaries drugcost

from Kaiser Health (remembering it's a huge insurer) and here

for several good links to various opinions. And we have run this link and this one before, but they remain good reference/entry points on all aspects of the status of healthcare reform, especially for those living with HIV/AIDS. (sb)

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Speak out against anti-gay discrimination in the workplace

A google search of "gay man (or woman) fired" will return dozens of stories from all over the country about LGBT individuals losing their livelihoods solely because of sexual orientation, although the reasons given by employers are often tortured into various other "plausible" reasons for dismissal. But some are simply fired outright for being gay. How much progress have we really made? The Human Rights Campaign is trying to kick start the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the U.S. Senate and needs all the voices it can gather. Click here for a link to sign a petition to senators urging this overdue action and see Editor's Corner below. (sb).

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HIV and Aging Survey

A doctoral candidate at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Francisco is looking for volunteers to participate in his research of HIV and Aging. The study is looking at factors that contribute to health-related quality of life in HIV-positive, gay-identified men aged 50 and older. In an effort to understand some of the challenges encountered and the coping mechanisms employed by these individuals, he is looking for volunteer participants to complete a brief, completely anonymous online survey (average time 12 minutes). Your editor just completed the survey and found it essentially painless! Follow this link for more information and this link for access to the survey. (jl)

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Ready for your close-up? HIV-positive men needed for photo shoot

for Positive Frontiers magazine

Positive Frontiers is a new national online HIV magazine for the LGBT community, focusing on lifestyle, art and culture. It is currently looking for HIV positive gay or bisexual men who are open and out about their status to participate in a photo shoot. Previous modeling experience is not required. People of diverse backgrounds, various ages, ethnicities and body types are sought. To submit, please email a clear, recent photo along with name, age, city and how long you have been positive to Alex.Garner@frontiersla.com. (jl) (sb)

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This & That

Earth Day marks forty-two years

earthday1970 In 1970, your editor was in high school and on the debate team. That year's topic: Pollution--true global danger or simply the cost of industrialization and modern lifestyles? Discuss. That was hard to do at the height of hippie culture and student protests against the war in Vietnam, which seemed endless and insoluble. While discord and unrest were rampant, environmental concerns remained just beyond public consciousness. Americans were still driving huge cars with massive V8 engines glugging cheap gasoline. Industry belched out smoke and sludge without fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was accepted as the smell of prosperity. Lake Erie was declared "dead." "Environment" and "ecology" were little-known words. But in 1962, Rachel Carson's bestseller The Silent Spring had begun a trickle of growing environmental awareness. It became the first widely read study of the possible devastating long-term effects if our industrial practices and wastage remained unchecked. The late Senator Gaylord Nelson (pictured below) originated the idea of Earth Day after massive damage done by a huge oil spill off Santa Barbara in 1969. After much wrangling, arm-twisting and difficult organization, April 22, 1970 became the date that 20 million Americans took to streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate and gaylordnelson8 demand a healthy, sustainable environment. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests. Disparate groups that had fought against oil spills, polluting factories, sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, loss of wilderness, and extinction of wildlife became better coordinated. Earth Day 1970 was a very rare political alignment, supported by both Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders--alliances unimaginable today. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts. "It was a gamble," Nelson recalled, "but it worked." For more about Earth Day and its history, click here and here for more about Senator Nelson, who is not as well-remembered as he deserves. (sb)

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Editor's Corner

The unavoidable politics of HIV and LGBT

by Steve Bolerjack

The primary purpose of DAPCAN is to provide information--on D.A.P. activities and resources, healthcare/medical developments and advocacy issues that directly affect our HIV/AIDS community. We try not to be overtly political. However, healthcare and advocacy issues are always fraught with political overtones, sometimes to the extreme, at all government levels. So I believe that as editors and communicators whose audiences are mostly within the HIV/AIDS and LGBT communities, it's appropriate for us to comment occasionally on political matters that have potential to affect us profoundly and perhaps adversely in the end. Right now, two huge issues loom that could do just that: the loss of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the failure of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). The focus now is on constitutionality of the ACA mandate, but just as troubling would be loss of the law's protection eliminating pre-existing conditions as a bar to being insured. That would render many of us uninsurable in an increasingly expensive, chaotic private insurance market. As for ENDA, many living with HIV still are able to work and of course, many are gay. Current protections against discrimination on those bases are scattered and inconsistent by state and local laws at best, hence the need for the federal law. President Obama is in the middle of this as well. Last week, he declined to support an executive order prohibiting discrimination by federal contractors based on sexual orientation or gender, citing his preference to focus on the larger scope of ENDA. I've been generally supportive of the president and while disappointed in his position on this and some other issues, I'll take him at his word about supporting of ENDA. Election-year realities are obvious here.

My main point is that just as many of us did with ACT-UP 25 years ago and with Prop 8 four years ago, we must remain as activist-minded on political issues that affect us as never before. We all may be getting older and living with daily health annoyances, but we can all sign the petitions we include in DAPCAN on these issues, we can still write our elected officials, we can still demonstrate. In 20 years of writing on politics and LGBT matters, I've never advocated that we be one- or two-issue voters. But whatever the issue (especially the two highlighted here), we mustn't let our health woes diminish our participation in the public forum. Sign petitions, write emails and keep educating yourself. Well-informed, articulate anger can be a powerful political voice.

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Quote of the Week

"The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity...that's all there is. That's the whole economy. That's where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world."

--Gaylord Nelson on the relationship between the economy and the environment

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Benefits & Resources Section - Ongoing

Discounts at Revivals!

fashion Revivals stores continue to offer 10% discounts for "seniors"--anyone over 55--every Tuesday. In addition, Revivals offers 50% off men's clothing the first Thursday of each month and 50% off women's clothing on the first Friday of each month. Discounts are available on all donated items but does not include consignment or "new" items. Visit Revivals' website for store locations, hours and other information. (jl)

D.A.P. Resources: website and toll-free number

The Desert AIDS Project toll-free phone number is always available at 866.331.3344, as is the website at www.desertaidsproject.org. (jl)

websitenerd

DAPCAN archives always available online
purplefile

Do you need to take another look at something you read in DAPCAN somewhere only to find that it's long gone from your inbox? You can find past DAPCAN issues online by clicking this link. As always, you can also read the most current edition of DAPCAN on the D.A.P. website by visiting www.desertaidsproject.org/newsletter. (jl)

Medically Indigent Services Program (MISP)

AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP)

For those who qualify, medical care and help paying for your medications are available through the MISP and ADAP programs. You can find out if you qualify by scheduling an appointment by calling the numbers below. You can schedule your MISP and ADAP appointments together for Moreno Valley office ONLY. If you qualify for ADAP only, there is a local ADAP office right here at Desert AIDS Project. Specify the Palm Springs office when you call to make your appointment. Here are the numbers:

877.501.5085 - toll free

951.486.5375 - English

951.486.5400 - Spanish

951.486.4635 - fax

NOTICE: Faxed MISP applications can get lost in the process. Most persons who have faxed their application have had to re-apply later. It's best to apply in person in Moreno Valley, and get a "receipt of application", and use that as proof that you applied to avoid any uninterrupted services with your DAP medical doctor visits. (rv) (jl)

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ADAP may pay Medicare Part D premium

ADAP-eligible clients who have to purchase Part D prescription drug coverage may qualify to have their Part D premium paid by the State of California. Follow this link to the Part D Premium Payment Program Application. You can also call the State of California at 916.449.5900 for more information. (jl)

Call 211 for essential human services in Riverside County

2-1-1 is a toll-free service for residents looking for information about essential human services such as affordable housing, food pantries, help for an aging parent, free or low cost health services, addiction prevention programs, employment, support groups, volunteer opportunities, and 1,700 additional services! (jl)

To contact state and federal officials click on name:

President Barack Obama
Senator Diane Feinstein
Senator Barbara Boxer
Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack
Congressman Jerry Lewis
Governor Jerry Brown
State Senator Bill Emmerson
State Senator Juan Vargas
Assembly member Brian Nestande
Assembly member Manual Perez

Desert AIDS Project - Community Action Newsletter (DAPCAN) presents published material, reprinted with permission, and neither endorses or opposes any material. All information contained in this newsletter, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professional. Always discuss treatment options with a physician who specializes in treating HIV. Publication of the name or likeness of any individual in articles in this newsletter is not to be construed as any indication of the HIV status of such individual. If you do not wish to receive this e-newsletter, please notify us by using the email address below:

For questions, comments, or unsubscribe contact us at: DAPCAN@DesertAIDSProject.org

Additional Contacts/Social Networking