You did it

Congrats to all those riders and roadies who are finishing up AIDS/LifeCycle 10 today!

I'm looking forward to see if they can beat this:

(Video link)

One man's experience: living with HIV for 30 years

In today's New York Times, Mark Trautwein shares his experience of being infected with HIV for the last 30 years. From the early days of uncertainty, fear, and death and the years of juggling complicated pill regimens, Trautwein has learned some lessons about life:

The dead don’t have problems, so I was grateful for mine. I was alive and my deathly companion less insistent. AIDS and I have been together for almost 30 years now. My relationship with AIDS is one of my most enduring ones, and has both enriched and beggared my life. It robbed me of friends and loved ones, and with them memories we would have had and repositories of my own history. It ended a career I loved. It cost me a marriage. My intimacy with health care in America has been costly and exhausting. I know these are small prices to pay for life.

What I’ve gained is precious. Above all, the constant companionship of plague has taught me that life is about living, not cheating death. Fighting disease is required and struggling with life inevitable. But I accept the outcomes now, whatever they are. My disease does not make me special, nor does my survival make me courageous.

On that day I walked from the hospital knowing I had “it,” I was given a great gift: the realization that we all dangle from that most delicate of threads and that the only way to live a life is to love it.

I haven’t died on schedule, and I’ve been learning not to live life on one either

Thirty years ago...

Tomorrow will mark the 30th anniversary of the first report in the medical literature of the disease that was to become known as AIDS. From the CDC's MMWR Weekly:

In the period October 1980-May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia at 3 different hospitals in Los Angeles, California. Two of the patients died. All 5 patients had laboratory-confirmed previous or current cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and candidal mucosal infection. Case reports of these patients follow.

I was fifteen at the time, still struggling in a small Midwestern town with my conflicted sexuality. It would be four more years before Rock Hudson died of AIDS and brought the disease home to me personally, leading me to slam shut a door I was just on the verge of opening. I remember riding around in my car one warm summer night, taping myself on my cassette recorder: Why did this have to happen now? Just when I was thinking that I could finally express who I am? Will I have to hide forever?

Thirty years. In those three decades I've come out. Demonstrated with ACT-UP and Queer Nation. Had countless friends test positive and several diagnosed with AIDS (though miraculously, only a couple have died). I've walked to raise money. Danced to raise money. Rode to raise money. I've studied the disease in classes. Been tested for it dozens of times. I've seen infection with HIV transition from being a death sentence to something much more manageable... and watched attitudes shift as well. Throughout these years the virus and the disease have been constants in my life as a gay man. Something to be afraid of. Something to fight. Something to assimilate as a fact of life. But it's never over, and each year brings a change in how this disease affects my community and how it affects me.

THE TENTH ANNUAL AIDS/LIFECYCLE begins tomorrow: a couple thousand riders and many hundreds of volunteers making the 545 mile journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I rode that route in 2007, and last year I volunteered for the medical team. I so wish I were going to be there this year!

To all my friends who will be: "Know that you are heroes for countless people. Ride safe and don't forget to use the hand sanitizer. :-) But most of all, when the going gets tough, remember that I love you. I'm so very proud of all that you're doing."

(Click to see a larger image)

And as a reminder of the long road from where this all began to the future we still hope for, here's the "I just wanna be there" scene from 1989's Longtime Companion.

(Video link)

I just wanna be there.

Thoughts on the world: 9/20/2001

I wrote this nine days after 9/11. Between the death of Osama bin Laden and the mood I've been in the past couple of weeks, re-posting it now seems appropriate.

“New” and “changed” are words getting a lot of use these days, as in “we’re living in a new world,” “the U.S. is facing a new kind of enemy,” and “life will forever be changed.” Tonight, though, I’m reminded that, in so many ways, life—and our world—is neither new nor changed.

I read an article this evening about a Neanderthal jawbone that had been recently discovered in France. The jawbone was missing almost all of its teeth and showed considerable bone damage. Because of the lack of teeth, the scientists who found it believe that this individual would have been almost totally unable to chew food and would have had great difficulty surviving independently. Further analysis showed that the jawbone’s owner had lived for at least six months while in this condition, and they concluded that the bone provides the earliest evidence of the human capacity for caring for others—that someone, or some group, was providing this injured or diseased individual with soft food. Perhaps fruit, perhaps food that been chopped or cooked, but likely more food than the individual could have gathered or prepared on his or her own.

Whether or not their theory about this nearly 200,000 year old jawbone is correct, somewhere along the way humans did, in fact, start caring for each other. Perhaps we are touched so much by the efforts of others in New York City, and the willingness of people around the world to give to the relief effort, because caring for one another has such ancient roots. We’ve grown accustomed to rushing through our busy lives and being disappointed by the perceived slights of those around us. And yet when we need each other the most, we’re there; we come through for each other. This past week, whether we looked to our families that we were born with, or the families that we’ve made, we found a depth of love and caring that too often we had forgotten was there. And when we watched those at the epicenter of September 11’s attack, we’re overwhelmed by the selflessness and heroism of those sifting through the rubble in search of survivors—men and women unwilling to abandon those who might still be alive, unwilling to leave behind the bodies of those already dead.

This week is not the first time this summer that I’ve thought about our connection with the past. In July I drove up the coast with a man named Eduardo. We ended up following the Russian River inland, and, stopping in Monte Rio, I was struck by the fact that with all of the technology that we’ve developed and the amusements we’ve built, people still go and simply sit in the water. Maybe the swimmers and bathers were trying to escape from the traffic and computers and phones of daily life. Or maybe when you really get down to it there’s nothing better than just soaking up the sun while staying cool in a river’s slow current. But either way, here they were: young and old; men and women; straight and gay. People enjoying themselves in the most basic way that you could imagine—sitting in the water.

How can we even begin to imagine how many people have done this through the centuries, the millennia? In a way it makes me laugh at the elaborate efforts that we go through to entertain ourselves. But it also comforts me, because it is a tie to our past, to our origins.

Continuity is a great source of security. When I first came out of the closet and began going to gay bars back in 1987, there were several individuals that quickly became fixtures in my world. The first few times I ventured out, I went alone, and it was sometimes scary to walk into that new environment. Somehow it was comforting seeing familiar faces, even when they belonged to people that I never met. There was a beautiful young man named Ronno who entered a wet jockey shorts contest on a Thursday night at the End Up. For two or three years afterward I saw him around town; those being the early years of the AIDS epidemic, seeing the same faces through the months was particularly reassuring. I remember thinking to myself, “As long as Ronno is around, things are okay. Life will be all right.”

As the years passed, I stopped seeing him around San Francisco. Life, somehow, continued. By then I had established a large circle of gay friends, and that familiar but unacquainted face in the crowd was no longer needed for my comfort. Even today, though, I catch myself making eye contact across a dance floor, or on the street, with someone whom I have never met. Sometimes we smile with some strange, shared recognition that we inhabit the same world; it isn’t necessary to connect beyond that.

Connecting without connecting…: another aspect of living in a herd. We’ve lived in groups for as long as we’ve been around as a species; no doubt it is the natural condition for us humans. I suspect that nothing really “new” has happened to us for quite a long time. So what is it for us to be living in a “new” or “changed” world?

When I look around me—and inside myself—the only thing I find that has really changed is… me. This week I feel a little older. I feel a little more for those around me, whether they are next door or across the world. And I feel much more of the desire to give something back to the world. That feeling extends beyond sending money to aid the survivors of those who have fallen; somehow that’s an inadequate response to the magnitude of this. I want to be a better person, mostly in small ways. I’ve found myself waving at firemen and policemen. I’m friendlier with the people who share the routine of my life, whether they are co-workers or salespeople or men and women on the street. My grand plans for my sabbatical have been tempered; maybe I can spend some of that time giving rather than just enjoying. Maybe the opportunity it provides is a chance to share and to learn rather than to just be free from work.

Strangely enough, tonight I found myself feeling happier. It’s been a long road this past year as I’ve learned to be single again; learned to live on my own and for myself, and I know I’m happier for having been successful at that. But I’m also happier this week because I feel more alive. I feel more connected with my friends and family and the others around me. I sense the timelessness of human existence that Walt Whitman spoke of when he asked, “What is it then between us? / What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?” I am reminded of the beauty of people simply living their lives; how the same things—good food, falling in love, the rhythm of music—continue to thrill us. I’m trying to be better and to figure out what I should learn from September 11.

And I know that if I saw Ronno on the street tomorrow, I would stop him and say, “hello.”

AIDS/LifeCycle meets California Gurls

This video gives a great picture of how much fun this year's AIDS/LifeCycle was (and hides quite a bit of the challenge of cycling from San Francisco to Los Angeles :-). Here's ALC's version of Katy Perry & Snoop Dogg's "California Gurls." Enjoy!

(Video link)

AIDS/LifeCycle 9 - an amazing experience

Wow! Last week I was on the medical team for the AIDS/LifeCycle. What an amazing experience! I was a rider on ALC6 in 2007 (recap here), but being a roadie was a completely different challenge.

The medical team was made up of doctors, PAs, RNs, and EMTs who had volunteered a week of their time to support the 1900 cyclists and nearly 550 roadies who made the 545 mile journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Over $10 million was raised to provide services to those living with HIV/AIDS and to prevent new infections.

Like most of the roadie teams, the medical team worked its collective butt off. The base camp medical tent opened at 6am every morning and shut down at 9pm, closing midday only to relocate to the next town on the route. We also staffed lunch and four rest stops along the way and were open overnight for emergencies. On my night shift I didn't get to bed until after 3am and then rose at 5:30am when the team started to show up for the morning rush.

We handled all of the normal things you'd expect on a ride of this kind--dehydration, road rash, saddle sores--along with all of the medical issues that the 2500 participants showed up with on day one. We also had a nasty stomach virus that made the rounds; a large number of folks needing IV fluids during the course of the week as a consequence.

I'm a new EMT, and I learned so much on the LifeCycle. I can't say enough about the providers, nurses, and other EMTs who never hesitated to help me out. Many of them commented during the week: it's amazing what a group of people can accomplish when they're all working together. For me, the most remarkable thing about us was how quickly we coalesced into an effective team. For that I have to credit our medical director, the medical captains, and the charge nurses and pharmacist who led us.

In addition to all the new friends I made, the best part of the week for me was getting to help so many different people. Given the sometimes difficult conditions we were working under, people were so grateful to have us on the ride. It was nice to feel so needed.

Finally, I have to say a big "thank you" to my bff Tommy. It was his idea for us to join the medical team, and working with him for the first time was awesome, even with our little kitty fight on day 6. :-)

AIDS/LifeCycle 9 - Just passed my goal!

Three years ago I rode in the AIDS/LifeCycle: a 545 mile journey on a bicycle from San Francisco to Los Angeles. What an amazing experience. (Recap and pics here and here).

This year I'll be volunteering as a member of the medical team; I got my EMT-Basic certification just in time. So excited to be a part of the ride in this new capacity.

While roadies don't have to raise any money, I set a goal of $2000. And the response to my Mother's Day plea for contributions just put me over the top, woo hoo!

So... I've raised my goal to $2500. :-)

Today's fundraising email:

Hello, again,

In less than a month AIDS/LifeCycle 9 will begin. This month I became certified as an EMT, and I'm proud to be volunteering as a memberof the medical team for this year's ride. I'm writing today to ask for your support in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The 545 mile ride begins June 6th and runs from San Francisco to Los Angeles. AIDS/LifeCycle benefits the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. I was a rider in 2007, and it's truly an experience that I'll remember for a lifetime. It's an opportunity to meet amazing people, and I was repeatedly humbled by how far people would go to make a difference: rising before dawn, cycling up and down hills mile after mile, overcoming what they thought were their limitations, and sharing their stories of living with HIV or of the friends and family members they had lost to the disease.

I've commited to raising $2,000, and I'm writing to ask you to make a contribution in support of the fight against HIV/AIDS. I still have quite a ways to go to meet that goal with only a few weeks left.

One of the most amazing stories I heard on the ride in 2007 was shared by the head of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, Lorri Jean. In the early days of the ride, she was riding in one of the vans that picks up riders who are injured. The van was parked next to a field in the vast Central Valley. Eventually one of the field workers, a migrant laborer, came over and asked what was happening. Lorri explained that the riders were cycling from SF to LA to raise money and awareness about HIV and AIDS. Less than an hour later, the field worker came back with a few dollars in change, money she had collected from the other laborers. That story about giving what you can still gives me the chills. Every dollar really does count.

I have far too many friends who are living with HIV, and every day more people are infected. After living with this epidemic for 20 years, it is easy to forget the impact the disease has had not only in the U.S. but worldwide. The LifeCycle serves not only to raise money but also to raise awareness of the ongoing toll of HIV on our communities.

Your contribution will be used to provide services to those with HIV/AIDS and to fund prevention programs. The SF AIDS Foundation is also actively involved in developing and promoting effective policies at the federal, state, and local levels to support efforts to reduce HIV transmission and provide support and services for those already infected.

To visit my LifeCycle home page which provides more information about the ride and a link to the SF AIDS Foundation, click here. To make a tax-deductible contribution, click here and then on the orange "Donate to Support Michael" button on the right midway down the page.

Every dollar counts; your generosity does matter.

I appreciate your support! Together we will make a difference.

Gratefully,
m

In praise of The Daily Dish

Andrew Sullivan is one of the most prolific bloggers around; he and his team post an amazing number of entries a day. Here are three from today's bunch that remind me of why blogging at its best is a valuable dialogue... and why The Daily Dish is clearly blogging at its best:

• One: A response to Dick Cheney's latest criticism of President Obama, and a comment on the failure of the media to question authority
• Two: A response from a reader which makes the point that in 1958, the financial sector's debt was 6% of GDP. Fifty years later it's 115% of GDP.
• Three: A re-post of a brilliant HIV/AIDS awareness ad.

Obama: travel ban on HIV-positive individuals will end just after the new year begins

While signing a re-authorization of the Ryan White CARE law, President Obama just announced that on Monday his administration will publish finalized new rules which will eliminate the nearly two decades old law that prevented HIV-positive individuals from entering the U.S. The new rule will take effect just after the beginning of the new year.

March on Washington coverage

From the New York Times:

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Sunday that Congress will need to muster the resolve to change the ''don't ask, don't tell policy'' -- a change that the military may be ready for.

''I think it has to be done in the right way, which is to get a buy-in from the military, which I think is now possible,'' said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

Obama's political energies have been focused on two wars, the economic crisis and health care reform, though he pledged ''unwavering'' commitment even as he wrestled with those problems.

March organizer Cleve Jones, creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and a protege of gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk, said he had initially discouraged a rally earlier in the year. But he and others began to worry Obama was backing away from his campaign promises.

''Since we've seen that so many times before, I didn't want it to happen again,'' he said. ''We're not settling. There's no such thing as a fraction of equality.''

Unlike the first march in 1979 and others in 1987, 1993 and 2000 that included celebrity performances and drew as many as 500,000 people, Sunday's event was driven by grassroots efforts and was expected to be more low-key. Washington authorities don't disclose crowd estimates at rallies, though at least several thousand appeared to be in attendance.

And the Los Angeles Times:

The National Equality March snaked past the White House and streamed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol. Demonstrators chanted "Yes we can" in English and Spanish, resurrecting President Obama's campaign slogan, and waved signs and banners.

Organizers said the LGBT community, which encompasses lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgendered people, are not satisfied with a piecemeal approach to gaining civil rights. They are seeking "full federal equality" and singling out issues pertaining to marriage, adoption, military service and the workplace.

Along with video from the AP:

(Video link)

Progress on the HIV vaccine front

Researchers have found a couple of antibodies that protect against a wide variety of HIV strains, raising the possibility that they could be used to design a vaccine that is broadly protective. A lot more work ahead, though, unfortunately.

Highly recommended article on the health/healthcare/health insurance debate

I completely agree with David Brooks' op-ed on what's wrong with the current healthcare reform proposals getting most of the attention in Washington: they don't go far enough. Specifically, they don't address the underlying incentives in our healthcare system that drive the costs up.

Brooks' piece pointed me to "How American Health Care Killed My Father" in this month's The Atlantic. If you're following the healthcare debate, if you're interested in improving healthcare in America, if you're interested in improving the health of Americans... I highly recommend the article.

In the first half, David Goldhill--whose father died after contracting a hospital-acquired infection--deconstructs all of our assumptions about healthcare and health insurance and puts forward a credible explanation for why our current system is so dysfunctional.

I’m a businessman, and in no sense a health-care expert. But the persistence of bad industry practices—from long lines at the doctor’s office to ever-rising prices to astonishing numbers of preventable deaths—seems beyond all normal logic, and must have an underlying cause. There needs to be a business reason why an industry, year in and year out, would be able to get away with poor customer service, unaffordable prices, and uneven results—a reason my father and so many others are unnecessarily killed.

Like every grieving family member, I looked for someone to blame for my father’s death. But my dad’s doctors weren’t incompetent—on the contrary, his hospital physicians were smart, thoughtful, and hard-working. Nor is he dead because of indifferent nursing—without exception, his nurses were dedicated and compassionate. Nor from financial limitations—he was a Medicare patient, and the issue of expense was never once raised. There were no greedy pharmaceutical companies, evil health insurers, or other popular villains in his particular tragedy.

Indeed, I suspect that our collective search for villains—for someone to blame—has distracted us and our political leaders from addressing the fundamental causes of our nation’s health-care crisis. All of the actors in health care—from doctors to insurers to pharmaceutical companies—work in a heavily regulated, massively subsidized industry full of structural distortions. They all want to serve patients well. But they also all behave rationally in response to the economic incentives those distortions create. Accidentally, but relentlessly, America has built a health-care system with incentives that inexorably generate terrible and perverse results. Incentives that emphasize health care over any other aspect of health and well-being. That emphasize treatment over prevention. That disguise true costs. That favor complexity, and discourage transparent competition based on price or quality. That result in a generational pyramid scheme rather than sustainable financing. And that—most important—remove consumers from our irreplaceable role as the ultimate ensurer of value.

I found myself persuaded by just about every point he made. To summarize, here are a few of those main points:

• Healthcare isn't the same thing as health... a variety of factors (medical care, nutrition exercise, our environment, etc.) all impact our health. And health is one of multiple factors that determine our overall happiness and satisfaction with our lives.
• Health insurance isn't the same thing as healthcare. Goldhill emphasizes the fact that health insurance is different from every other kind of insurance: you don't expect to submit a claim for your gas expenditures on your auto insurance or your electric bill on your homeowner's insurance. Health insurance has somehow come to be the principal way we pay for all healthcare expenditures.
• The moral hazard of paying for so few of our medical costs directly leads to distortions in how medical care is priced and consumed.
• We live under the illusion that someone else is paying the bill for our medical care... but there isn't anyone else to pay it. Ultimately we are paying these huge costs ourselves.
• Even with its leverage in setting prices, government has done a poor job of controlling healthcare costs.
• There's little competition in the healthcare industry which results in high costs and high profits. And government regulation has tended to maintain the status quo even as technology and consumers' needs have changed.
• The fact that someone else--an insurance company or the government--is paying the bill results in a strange system where the person receiving medical care isn't the true customer.
• Because of all the structural oddities of our healthcare system, technological advances often increase costs rather than lower them as they do in other industries.

In the second half of the article, Goldhill proposes a plan for making fundamental changes in how we pay for healthcare in America. While I was less persuaded by his specific plan, I do agree that without dealing with these systemic issues, reform is unlikely to produce much in the way of significant savings or healthcare improvements.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN WASHINGTON... the Washington Post reports that Obama will be laying out more specifics next Wednesday and that some Republicans still see a chance for bipartisan reform (as long as the scope is much more limited than what Democrats have proposed).

David Brooks reminded me of why I walked neighborhoods for Obama: some problems are serious enough that only bold solutions will suffice. Healthcare is one such issue; a few Band-Aids aren't going to cure what ails us.

It's about time

The Obama administration has begun the process of lifting the 22 year old ban on HIV positive travelers entering the U.S.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31910664/ns/health-aids/

A rare kudo to George W. Bush on Torqopia

I was pleasantly surprised when he announced his plan to fight AIDS in Africa in his 2003 State of the Union address. A study from Stanford finds that Bush's PEPFAR may have saved a million lives there.

More on antibiotic-resistant bacteria in pork

Nicholas Kristof continues to highlight the problem of antibiotics in animal feed:

We don’t add antibiotics to baby food and Cocoa Puffs so that children get fewer ear infections. That’s because we understand that the overuse of antibiotics is already creating “superbugs” resistant to medication.

Yet we continue to allow agribusiness companies to add antibiotics to animal feed so that piglets stay healthy and don’t get ear infections. Seventy percent of all antibiotics in the United States go to healthy livestock, according to a careful study by the Union of Concerned Scientists — and that’s one reason we’re seeing the rise of pathogens that defy antibiotics....

Unlike Europe and even South Korea, the United States still bows to agribusiness interests by permitting the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal feed. That’s unconscionable.

The peer-reviewed Medical Clinics of North America concluded last year that antibiotics in livestock feed were “a major component” in the rise in antibiotic resistance. The article said that more antibiotics were fed to animals in North Carolina alone than were administered to the nation’s entire human population. [emphasis added]

Methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA) has been showing up in pork in our food supply:

Five out of 90 samples of retail pork in Louisiana tested positive for MRSA — an antibiotic-resistant staph infection — according to a peer-reviewed study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology last year. And a recent study of retail meats in the Washington, D.C., area found MRSA in one pork sample, out of 300, according to Jianghong Meng, the University of Maryland scholar who conducted the study.

Regardless of whether the bacteria came from the pigs or from humans who handled the meat, the results should sound an alarm bell, for MRSA already kills more than 18,000 Americans annually, more than AIDS does.

Worrying signs: passing antibiotic-resistant germs between people and animals

Nicholas Kristof had a piece in the New York Times today about a cluster of methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA) cases in a small farming town in Indiana. The town is surrounded by pig farms, and it looks like people and pigs are passing the germ back and forth.

It's not a new story, though. The Boston Globe reported on the problem a year and a half ago. It's been observed in Europe for even longer.

And earlier this week there was a report of MRSA being passed between an elephant and staff at the San Diego Zoo.

All of this is worrisome for a number of reasons. We feed farm animals a lot of antibiotics, both to keep them from getting sick due to overcrowding and also in low doses as growth factors. That's a practice that is perfectly designed to breed antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. And those strains can be spread to farm workers and possibly to consumers.

It's also worrisome because a number of big killers have made the leap from being animal diseases to becoming human diseases. Think HIV which originated in monkeys.

All the more reason to reform our farm practices, something that Congress is looking at... though they've got a tough job in front of them.

Harvey Milk's last love

Here's a story I've never heard about Harvey Milk, as told by Armistead Maupin in the foreward of a new pictorial history (Milk: A Pictorial History of Harvey Milk). Apparently Harvey met and fell for young Steve Beery in the weeks before his assassination.

Maupin befriended the young man and they were friends for 15 years until Beery's early death due to AIDS.

Maupin has this to say in the wake of the passage of proposition 8 in California:

Maybe that’s why we’re having to learn to kick ass all over again. The generation that knew nothing of Harvey Milk before seeing the movie that bears his name was jolted into a harsh new reality when California voters decided to strip gay people of their right to marry. To us old-timers the argument for Proposition 8 was a blast from the past, a throwback to the evil theocratic Save-the-Children bullshit that Anita Bryant was spewing over thirty years ago. Why, then, was our response so maddeningly weak-kneed and closeted? Why didn’t you see images of gay people in any of our ads—or even the word “gay,” for that matter? Are we that ashamed of ourselves?

The answer is no, thankfully; most of us aren’t. And a growing number of young people have lost patience with the black-tie silent-auction-A-gay complacency of the organizations that claim to be fighting for our rights but don’t want to ruffle feathers. These new kids are friending each other on Facebook (whatever that means) and taking to the streets on their own. My husband and I met a few of them when we picketed the Mormon temple in Oakland last month. They have love in their eyes and fire in their bellies and a commitment to finish this fight once and for all.

Harvey would have loved them.

World AIDS Day (#20)

Today is the 20th World AIDS Day.

President Bush's effort to fund AIDS prevention and relief programs in Africa is one of the few things I am prepared to thank him for.

Obama's remarks here:

(Video link)

Las Vegas rallies for LGBT equality

I just got home from a rally for LGBT equality. While Obama's election was a huge step forward for America, the passage of constitutional amendments barring same-sex marriage in Arizona, California, and Florida were a sign that America's other foot is dragging behind.

The passage of proposition 8 in California was particularly heartbreaking as gays and lesbians there had had the right to legally marry since last May.

A grassroots effort to organize rallies across the nation resulted in the LGBT community in 300 cities standing up for their rights today. Las Vegas' effort, like most nationwide, was put together with just a few days notice.

Our rally was organized by The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada. My friend Randy Reinoso is on the board. After the rally he told me they hoped for a turnout of 300; the actual number was approximately 1500. I lived in San Francisco for 19 years and Portland, Oregon, for four, so I'm used to gay communities that are larger and a bit more active that the one here in Vegas. Today's crowd greatly exceeded my expectations, and driving home I thought about how many people had gathered all across the country today to make a difference for our community.

I came of age as a gay man in the late 80s. It was the era of ACT-UP and Queer Nation. AIDS ravaged our community, and many of those I knew who got sick during the first five or six years that I was out are long since dead.

Compared to the early days of my gay adult life, the last ten years of gay politics have been relatively quiet. We've seemed to focus our energies on just living, having a good time, making money, starting relationships, and starting families. And we've quietly watched state after state pass same-sex marriage bans.

This year, for whatever reason, is different. Times are changing. The crowd was young and old; black and white and latin and Asian; lesbian and gay and bisexual and transgendered and straight; buttoned down and diva'd up. A far wider sample of Las Vegas' largely invisible LGBT population showed up today than experience would have led me to expect.

The rally today was a first step... a mobilization. It wasn't a call to arms; it was a call to love. It was a reminder to talk to our neighbors and friends and co-workers and family members about who we are. It was a community standing up and saying that we aren't going to settle for second class citizenship, and we're going to win recognition of our rights in a loving, peaceful way. Truth and justice are on our side.

Get ready. :-)

I have a couple of short videos. The first is some of Angela Harvey's remarks to the crowd. She was such a powerful speaker I wish that I'd been able to record her whole speech.

(Video link)

And here is a short video of Judge Pro Tem Jennifer Bolton, The Center's Vice President, speaking about the next steps in our campaign for equality. She is introduced by Vivianna, one of their four children. Bolton's wife Vivian and their other children were also at the rally.

(Video link)

HERE ARE SOME PICS, including one of Wanda Sykes who made an unscheduled appearance (and added a little star power... there were a good number of people in the crowd who had their own little starbursts going off when she stepped up to the podium :-).

(Slideshow link)

After the rally, Angela Harvey led us out to Sahara Avenue where we enthusiastically waved our signs at passing traffic.

Today was a beginning... there's much more to come.

(Andrew Sullivan has reports on today's rallies from across the nation at The Daily Dish).

UPDATE: More on the Vegas rally from Vegas Happens Here.

2ND UPDATE: More pics from around the country here.

3RD UPDATE: An article from the New York Times.

The first HIV cure?

A patient who had both leukemia and AIDS now appears to be free of the HIV virus after he received a blood marrow treatment. The critical detail is that his doctors chose a donor who has a specific mutation.

CCR5 is a protein on the surface of our cells; HIV uses it to gain entry into the white blood cells that it attacks. Eventually it kills off enough of these immune cells that the immune system collapses.

Some people have a mutation that causes CCR5 to not be produced. If you inherit this mutation from both parents, your cells will have no CCR5, and such individuals are highly resistant to HIV infection. A significant number of people of European descent (especially Northern European descent) have the mutation.

Since the blood marrow donor had the mutation from both of his parents, the patient's newly constituted immune system was resistant to HIV and may have cleared the virus from his body. It's been undetectable without any antiretroviral treatment for 600 days.

A new drug, Selzentry (maraviroc), is on the market and works by blocking CCR5 on the body's cells, denying HIV entry into those cells. I just wrote a paper for my statistics class about one of the maraviroc trials. The drug looks to be a promising addition to the arsenal of treatments that can hold HIV at bay.

This particular patient's history, however, suggests a more permanent approach. Rather than using a bone marrow transplant, doctors may be able to eliminate HIV from a patient with gene therapy. There's still a long road ahead, but given the difficulty in creating a vaccine, this is a promising discovery.