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A new Hepatitis C drug regimen has been given a breakthrough therapy designation by the Food and Drug Administration, putting it on the fast track for potential approval in the United States.  Such a designation from the FDA expedites development and review of drugs for serious or life-threatening conditions.  It requires preliminary clinical proof that the drug may provide "substantial improvement" over therapies currently on the market.  The FDA's distinction is a result of clinical trials involving patients infected with a particular strain of Hepatitis C, an infectious disease that mostly affects the liver and can ultimately lead to liver failure, cancer and other life-threatening complications.  As we know too well, Hep C has a high rate of coinfection with HIV.  The trials showed good response rates to the combination therapy and are currently in the third phase.  Patients are treated for 12 to 24 weeks and will be followed for nearly a year after treatment ends.  Read more here. (jl) (sb)

On DOMA, Prop 8, and immigration reform

By Andrew Vincent Alder

We are now a month or so away from the Supreme Court's decision on the two same-sex marriage cases argued before the nine justices last March.  One case will determine whether California's Prop 8 will survive, the other will determine the fate of one specific section of DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act signed into law by President Clinton in 1996.  As we await those two major legal decisions, we have also been treated this week to the spectacle of the Congress doing what it so well knows how to do, the throwing of the LGBT community under the bus.  As  I predicted in a previous column, the Senate dropped any pretense of trying to protect same-sex couples such that gay U.S. citizens will not be able to sponsor for citizenship their foreign-born partners or spouses, in contrast with non-gay U.S. citizens who may routinely do so.  While this development regarding immigration reform was not unexpected, it once again lays bare the fiction that the LGBT community can look to Democrats to protect our interests.  Several Democratic senators did mourn the death of the amendment to offer equal rights in the immigration context, but it was abundantly clear that their determination to abandon LGBT folk was not a tough decision. I bring both of these issues up in this week's column because I find it ironic, indeed almost amusing, how the Congress and the Supreme Court, are effectively painting themselves into a corner.   Whatever the Court decides next month in the Perry case (the Prop 8 case from California) and the accompanying DOMA case, the fact remains that the immigration issue and the balance of DOMA (which will be unaffected by any decision the Supremes hand down in June) are on an inevitable collision course, one that will doubtless wind up back in the Supreme Court very soon.  Consider:  If gay Americans cannot sponsor foreign-born spouses into this country, even if married in states which allow it, they are by definition not equal to straight Americans who can, without question, sponsor their foreign-born spouses into the country.  That is, in essence, a manufactured equal protection case that will, once again, force the Supreme Court, and the country, into facing the question that politicians and jurists and institutions clearly do not want to confront head on:  Are LGBT Americans truly equal to those citizens who are not LGBT?  That question has never been framed so directly, and the actions of Congress ensure that it will continue to be asked even more directly.  How this question is ultimately answered, and it will be, shall speak volumes about the reality of the American dream and our place within it. (rv)

Editor's note: Andrew Vincent Alder is our new DAPCAN legal editor. He will write, with some regular frequency, about issues related to the law and HIV/AIDS, and the law and the LGBT community. Andrew practices law in Palm Springs and can be reached by email: andrewvincentalder@gmail.com. The opinions expressed herein are Andrew Vincent Alder's and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of D.A.P.'s board, staff, or other volunteers

Editor's comment: Click to read a related Salon.com story titled How policy nihilists in the Senate doomed LGBT immigrants

The LGBT Community Center of the Desert is continuing its comprehensive LGBT Health Needs Survey of the Coachella Valley through the end of this month.  In partnership with a local health research company, the Health Assessment Resource Center (HARC), the Center has designed an online survey to assess the health needs of the local LGBT community.  Information obtained from this survey will help The Center design programs and services to better meet your specific needs, and obtain additional funding to provide new programs and services.  Click here for all the information you need to take the survey.   Your editors took it and found it painless!  It's all online, completely anonymous, takes approximately 20 minutes and is ultimately for your own benefit!  (jl) (sb) 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently launched its newly designed HIV website.  With more than 8 million page views in 2012, the CDC site is one of the most-visited HIV websites on the Internet.  Because so many people depend on CDC for the latest HIV science and public health information, as well as for campaign and educational materials, policies, and guidelines, the site was redesigned to give various audiences a more intuitive and useful way to find relevant, personal and useful information.  Be aware that the site is somewhat front-heavy on HIV prevention but has portals to many other types of information.  Click through sub-sections for more on living with HIV, treatments, etc.  Click www.cdc.gov/hiv to experience the new site. (jl) (sb)