|
A cross-section of articles we've read this week about HIV/AIDS, STIs and a wide cross-section of structural and systemic factors impacting HIV/AIDS in Black communities.
Prevention
Providers Have Mixed Feelings About Prescribing HIV Prevention
Many health care providers across the United States may be reluctant to prescribe an increasingly important prevention approach to some of their patients who are at substantial ongoing risk for HIV. The quarterly HIV Specialist magazine of the American Academy of HIV Medicine published these survey results: "Providers' Perspectives on Prescribing Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV Prevention."
Six in Ten US HIV Infections Are Transmitted by People Who Know They Have HIV But are Not in Care
People in medical care only transmit one in twelve cases
Science
Antibody Holds Promise as Weapon Against HIV
Treatment would complement existing medications, researchers say
Treatment
PrEP and Drug Resistance: Cause for Concern?
With a continually increasing number of people beginning to take the drug Truvada as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV, some have raised concerns that this might lead to more opportunities for drug resistant strains of HIV to develop. Drug resistance that develops while a person is on PrEP would limit treatment options for those who subsequently become-or are unknowingly-infected with a drug-resistant strain. A recent study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases tempers concern over drug-resistance caused by PrEP, with evidence that worrisome mutations-while discovered-appear to be rare.
Miscellaneous
#BlackLivesMatter -- A Challenge to the Medical and Public Health Communities
Two weeks after a Staten Island grand jury decided not to indict the police officer involved in the death of a black man, Eric Garner, I delivered a lecture on the potential for partnership between academia and health departments to advance health equity. Afterward, a group of medical students approached me to ask what they could do in response to what they saw as an unjust decision and in support of the larger social movement spreading across the United States under the banner #BlackLivesMatter. They had staged "white coat die-ins" but felt that they should do more. I wondered whether others in the medical community would agree that we have a particular responsibility to engage with this agenda.
Gay Student to Miss Prom After Louisiana School Says No Tux
A gay student in Louisiana has decided to miss her senior prom this year after her high school told her she can't wear a tuxedo.
President Obama Commutes Prison Sentences of 22 Drug Offenders
President Obama has long been criticized for his stingy use of his pardon and commutation power. But on Tuesday, Obama commuted the sentences of 22 people serving time in federal prison, doubling the total number of people he has commuted since taking office in 2008. Those whose sentences were commuted were serving sentences "under an outdated sentencing regime," according to a White House statement.
Transgender Inmate's Hormone Treatment Lawsuit Gets Justice Dept. Backing
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department put the nation's prisons and jails on notice on Friday that it regarded blanket policies prohibiting new hormone treatment for transgender inmates to be unconstitutional.
Transgender Woman Cites Attacks and Abuse in Men's Prison
ROME, Ga. - Before she fell on hard times and got into trouble with the law, Ashley Diamond had a wardrobe of wigs named after her favorite divas. "Darling, hand me Aretha" or Mariah or Madonna, she would say to her younger sister when they glammed up to go out on the town.
A World Shared With H.I.V.
The grayest heads among us still think of AIDS as a terrible new disease. But younger adults have never known a world without it, and many of the youngest think of it only as an annoying condition you take a pill for. They know nothing of the anguish and heroism that once surrounded the word "AIDS."
| 
