Category: Uncategorized

National Native HIV Awareness Day is March 20
From time to time, we will feature voices from outside NMAC to talk about their communities and their work. This week, in honor of National Native HIV Awareness Day, we’re proud to spotlight Shana Christensen, a member of the Kiowa tribe in Oklahoma and a long-term HIV survivor and advocate.

There is a saying in Lakota that I really love: “Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ.” It means “All my Relations.” I’m not Lakota. We don’t have that saying in Kiowa, which is the tribe I hail from. Nevertheless, It’s always struck a chord with me. When I think about all the other Natives who are living with HIV, they feel like my family, even if I haven’t met them yet. Native Americans represent some two percent of the US population, yet in many areas of the country, our HIV rates as a race are super high, above whites and in some places, second highest.

> Read more from Shana                                                                                                                       Photo by Jeremy Charles

Want to Submit an Abstract for USCA? Join our         Re-Scheduled Webinar March 20
As some of you know, we had some technical difficulties with our March 7 webinar on submitting an abstract for USCA. We’ve worked to iron those problems out and have re-scheduled the webinar for Tuesday, March 20, at 3:00 PM EST. Join us and find out more about this process. And, once again, our apologies for the difficulties to all of those who joined us on March 7.
 > Register now!

Join Us for “Women and HIV in the South” Webinar March 21
Register now for the latest webinar in our Community Spotlight Series on March 21 at 3:00 PM EST. Gina Brown, Community Organizer for the Southern AIDS Coalition, will join us to talk about Women and HIV in the South.
> Register now!

One Week Left to Join NMAC’s Constituent Advisory Panels
Next Friday, March 23, is the deadline to apply to join NMAC’s Constituent Advisory Panels (CAPs). CAPs will advise NMAC on workshops, institutes, plenaries, and scholarship decisions for the 2018 USCA and Summit.
> For more information and to apply for CAP membership, visit our website.

NMAC Spotlight: Treatment

NMAC’s Treatment Division leads with race by asserting the unique needs of communities of color through its programs, advocacy, and policy work and NMAC’s conferences. Our programs expand our HIV health literacy agenda with an acute focus on biomedical prevention, effective treatment options, cure advocacy, and healthcare access and engagement activities in communities of color. Our advocacy and policy work leverages our collective strength as a community to protect healthcare reform and the gains we made towards ending the epidemic due to the Affordable Care Act as well as to fund critical HIV programs that help us end the epidemic. Our conferences work facilitates the sharing of research, data, smart policies, and community-informed best practices. To find out more about Treatment, please visit our website.

Treatment had a very successful 2017 and has big plans for 2018. Read more on our website.

Who’s in the Treatment Division?

          
Moises Agosto-Rosario     Matthew Rose
Treatment Director             Policy and Advocacy Manager
(202) 836-3669                  (202) 834-1472

         
Fernando De Hoyos           Sable K. Nelson
Treatment Coordinator       Policy Analyst
(202) 836-2226                   (202) 997-0951

Guest Voice: David Harvey, Executive Director of the National Coalition of STD Directors

From time to time, NMAC will include voices from outside our organization to present different views, research studies, or other commentary. This week, we’re pleased to feature David Harvey, Executive Director of the National Coalition of STD Directors.

Paul Kawata recently wrote that he is willing to live with the “trade-off” of increasing STDs if it means we can end the HIV epidemic. I thank Paul for publicly raising what so many have raised in private – but I think this is the wrong framing of the issue. I argue that we cannot end HIV without acknowledging an inconvenient truth: the HIV and STD epidemics are inextricably linked and without combatting both, we won’t end HIV.
(click here to read David’s full statement)

Mark Your Calendars! USCA Sept. 6-9

Please mark your calendar for the 2018 United States Conference on AIDS to be held September 6-9 in Orlando, Florida. NMAC initially moved USCA to Orlando to support a city that was devastated by the massacre at Pulse Nightclub. It was a tragic and unthinkable loss of life and, like the HIV epidemic, it left behind a community that was both broken and committed to rebuilding. Two years later, what are the lessons the HIV community can learn from this adversity? How do we honor this unspeakable loss while the rest of the world moves on to other issues?

Read more about USCA 2018 here

A Challenging Road Ahead

We have a lot of work ahead of us in 2018. We hope you’ll join us to resist efforts to harm, marginalize, and stigmatize the HIV community and all communities at risk for HIV. Keep watching here and on our website to see how you can help!

Nation’s Leading HIV & STD Organizations Oppose Formation of New “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division” at HHS

Washington, DC — AIDS United, NASTAD, the National Coalition of STD Directors, NMAC, and The AIDS Institute, jointly condemned the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announcement today of the formation of a new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division (CRFD) in the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The CRFD will be tasked with “restor[ing] federal enforcement of our nation’s laws that protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom.” To those of us who work to promote the health of LGBTQ people, those living with HIV, including people of color, and other marginalized communities, we recognize this as dog-whistle politics and an attempt at state-sanctioned discrimination. The Trump administration is extending federal, legal cover to providers who can potentially deny medical care for transgender individuals, women, or same-sex couples, including the full range of reproductive health services and any other procedure an employee or licensed health facility may object to, on so-called “moral” grounds. The new division will invite health professionals to misinterpret and ignore current legal and medical standards, putting the health and safety of patients at risk.

In its announcement of the office, HHS spokesperson OCR Director Roger Severino offered the false choice that “no one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by one’s deepest moral or religious convictions.” However, we contend that no one should be denied medical care because their doctor or provider objects to their sexual orientation, gender identity, or reproductive autonomy. LGBTQ and other minority and marginalized communities, especially those living with HIV, already face discrimination and significant barriers to accessing critical prevention and care services.

The Office of Civil Rights should focus its efforts on ensuring access to care, particularly for communities who suffer devastating health disparities because of the discrimination they face. In its denial of the experience of those whose very lives are endangered by provider discrimination, the CRFD makes a mockery of the Office of Civil Rights and we urge the administration to reverse course.

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AIDS United (AU), NASTAD, the National Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD), NMAC, and The AIDS Institute (TAI) are national non-partisan, non-profit organizations focused on ending HIV, STDs and Viral Hepatitis in the U.S. They have been working in partnership to identify and share resources to sustain successes and progress we have made in HIV. STD, and hepatitis prevention, care and treatment in the United States.

NMAC Recognizes National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day
                 

NMAC joins in the observance of the annual National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day (NHAAD) today September 18, 2017. Every year, the NHAAD focuses on the challenging issues facing the aging population with regards to HIV prevention, testing, care and treatment.

Based on statistics from the CDC people aged 50 and older accounted for about one half (45%) of the estimated 1.2 million people living with HIV infection in the United States. Among persons aged 50 to 54, the estimated rate (per 100,000) of HIV diagnoses by race/ethnicity was 59.3% among African Americans/blacks, 23.3% among Hispanics/Latinos, and 8.7% among whites. Of the 6,721 deaths related to HIV in 2014, 2,588 (39%) were among people aged 55 and older. The statistics demonstrate that there is a need, now more than ever, to reach out to the 50+ HIV positive men and women of color in the United States.

Those PLWHIV that are 50 years or olderface increased isolation and of those aging people of color, not only face this isolation but increased stigma, lack of access to care, poverty, and racism. Furthermore, when people living with HIV have achieved viral suppression and HIV is well-controlled, there is a need to be educated about other aging-related conditions. People that age with HIV face comorbidities for which they are in greater risk such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders, osteoporosis, and certain cancers. They also need to be aware of interactions between medications used to treat HIV and those used to treat age-related conditions. That’s why NMAC created the HIV 50+ Strong & Healthy program. HIV 50+ Strong and Healthy seeks to mobilize, engage, and educate people living with HIV who are over the age of 50 on the impact of HIV has on aging people of color.

At the 2017 United States Conference on AIDS (USCA), NMAC had the honor to sponsor 50 extraordinary community advocates that were HIV+ and over 50 years old. Their presence raised awareness about the impact HIV has on the aging population that today currently makes up nearly half of all those living with HIV and in 2020 could represent more than 70% of new HIV diagnoses. For the sponsored advocates, USCA was a coming home experience to network with the community they thought once abandoned them. NMAC is committed to mobilizing the HIV 50+ community, engaging them in building community, and becoming peer educators and advocates. Their resiliency and wisdom is necessary to end the HIV epidemic.  Please read below to see what one of our scholars, Roy Ferguson, shared on Facebook about his experience in the 50+ Strong and Healthy program.

Roy Ferguson / NMAC’s HIV 50+ Strong & Healthy Scholar Brookfield, IL
“Am home now and winding down from the US Conference on Aids. Was an amazing 6 days. On Wednesday did legislative visits to Sen Dick Durbin’s office, meet with Tammy Duckworth’s Legislative Assistant, Luis Gutierrez’s Legislative Assistant and a personal meeting with Jan Schakowsky (ok may have misspelled her name). Three and a half days of workshops on HIV and Aging.
On Sunday I got a new t-shirt that I proudly wore all day at Washington DC sights and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This image is from being at the memorial. The shirt really sums up who I am today.”

Moisés Agosto-Rosario

Embargoed for Release: Thursday, September 7, 2017, 9:00 a.m. ET

Contacts:

Chip Lewis, 202.213.8939, clewis@nmac.org                                                                                                Richard Sorian, 202.215-9256, rsorian@aidsunited.org

$1 MILLION IN FUNDING TO HELP HIV ORGANIZATIONS IMPACTED BY HURRICANES HARVEY AND IRMA ANNOUNCED AT USCA

Sept. 7, 2017 – A $1 million fund to help HIV organizations impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma was announced today at the opening of the 21st annual U.S. Conference on AIDS in Washington, DC. The $1 million is being donated by Gilead Sciences.

The announcement was made at the USCA’s opening plenary as the conference honored those working in communities devastated by the hurricane. Delegates from the affected regions were on stage for the announcement. Grants from these funds are being coordinated by AIDS United in collaboration with NMAC.

“Gilead’s generous contribution will make a tremendous difference for people living with HIV and for organizations serving them that were ravaged by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma,” said NMAC Executive Director Paul Kawata. “We must make sure that we reach the organizations most in need as rapidly as possible.”

AIDS United will support the administration of the funds as part of the rapid response arm of its new Southern HIV Impact Fund. NMAC will appoint an HIV Hurricane Relief Advisory Panel made up of local community leaders to identify local needs and priorities to support AIDS United grantmaking.

“There is no greater emergency than the devastation of these powerful hurricanes,” said AIDS United CEO Jesse Milan Jr. “We are thankful this rapid grantmaking process is in place and thrilled that Gilead is making available up to $1 million to support relief efforts for the HIV community.”

In addition to the $1 million donation by Gilead Sciences, AIDS United has allocated $150,000 from the Southern HIV Impact Fund. AIDS United today released a request for applications for organizations in the affected communities. The awards will be made on a rolling basis.

“With hurricane-impacted regions facing a long recovery process, it is more important than ever that the critical services provided by HIV organizations in these areas continue to reach those in need,” said Gregg H. Alton, Executive Vice President, Corporate and Medical Affairs, Gilead Sciences. “Gilead, AIDS United, and NMAC are committed to supporting their efforts to restore and maintain programs.”

The U.S. South is an epicenter of the HIV epidemic in the U.S. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than half of new AIDS diagnoses and deaths occurred in the south. In 2015, Florida ranked first among states in terms of new diagnoses, Texas ranked third, and Louisiana ranked 11^th.

“Hurricane Harvey adds a heightened sense of urgency to the organizations serving people living with HIV/AIDS,” said John Barnes, executive director of Funders Concerned About AIDS, which brought together Gilead Sciences and other partners to create the Southern HIV Impact Fund. “We are calling on organizations across the country to join Gilead Sciences and others in supporting the work that must be done to reverse these troubling trends.”

Organizations, businesses and individuals can make donations to the AIDS United Southern HIV Impact Fund at here.

NMAC leads with race to urgently fight for health equity and racial justice to end the HIV epidemic in America. Since 1987, NMAC has advanced our mission through a variety of programs and services, including: a public policy education program, national and regional training conferences, a treatment and research program, numerous electronic and print materials, and a website: https://www.nmac.org/. NMAC also serves as an association of AIDS service organizations, providing valuable information to community-based organizations, hospitals, clinics, and other groups assisting individuals and families affected by the HIV epidemic.

AIDS United’s mission is to end the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. through strategic grant-making, capacity building, formative research and policy. AIDS United works to ensure access to life-saving HIV/AIDS care and prevention services and to advance sound HIV/AIDS-related policy for U.S. populations and communities most impacted by the epidemic. To date, our strategic grant-making initiatives have directly funded more than $104 million to local communities, and have leveraged more than $117 million in additional investments for programs that include, but are not limited to HIV prevention, access to care, capacity building, harm reduction and advocacy. aidsunited.org.

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By Matthew Rose · NMAC Policy and Advocacy Manager

In recent years our movement has seen tangible progress and scientific breakthroughs that are building real pathways that will help end the HIV epidemic. However, NMAC knows that more must be done to educate and engage all communities in order to eliminate systemic barriers and establish best practices for enrolling people of color onPrEP.

Data shows that in the United States people of color, particularly MSM of color, make-up the majority of people living with HIV and account for the majority of new HIV infections annually. Unfortunately, PrEP is not reaching these communities despite the fact that they need it the most. As a result, NMAC is taking steps to make sure that important tools in the HIV prevention toolkit are made more accessible.

Thanks to special funding from Gilead, NMAC has created PrEP Working Groups in five key southern cites to identify ways community organizations can maximize PrEP services for people of color.  Based upon data collected through assessments conducted by both community partners in local cities and NMAC’s own national survey of PrEP navigator programs, we have established blueprint plans that will outline best practices meant to ensure these programs better reach people of color.

NMAC’s intention in targeting these five southern cities is to engage local leaders who live in communities hardest hit by HIV. Because we believe that we cannot achieve success without engaging all members of the communities: we will engage Black and Latinx MSM college students and collaborate with local CBOs, university health & counseling centers, AIDS education & training Centers, health clinics, city health departments, and LGBTQ associations to identify barriers and determine best practices to reaching these communities.

At our 2017 Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit NMAC will sponsor a Learning Collaborative for leaders from cities with pre-established PrEP Working Groups and those members of our own PrEP Working Groups. This LC will allow navigators to share plans, exchange ideas, and learn about best practices that have worked in addressing the epidemic within their own communities. Based upon the data collected and feedback received from these working groups, NMAC will publish a blueprint guide specifically focused on Best Practices for Reaching People of Color to be launched at the 22^nd USCA in 2018.

Yours in the Struggle,

Matthew Rose
Policy and Advocacy Manager

HIV Vaccine Research: A Marathon Not a Sprint

Today NMAC recognizes HIV Vaccine Awareness Day. While a HIV vaccine has not yet been discovered, we acknowledge the tremendous progress that has been made in HIV prevention research and look forward to ending the epidemic once and for all.
By Matthew Rose · NMAC Policy and Advocacy Manager

As I reflect on HIV vaccine research I am reminded about running a marathon. In the same ways marathon runners commit to the grueling training, the hard work, and the non-stop commitment towards a single goal, they know that the sweet reward of crossing the finish line will be worth all the struggles, aches, and pain.

The search for a vaccine for HIV has been a 30-year-long marathon. While we have maintained a sense of urgency in the fight against HIV, we have always known that this process would be a long-term endeavor. Vaccines are some of the most cost-effective prevention strategies. They were essential in eradicating diseases like smallpox, and in bringing other diseases like measles and polio under control. We know that HIV, like many other diseases that have taken decades for a vaccine to be developed, will not go away easily.

Yet while no fully licensed preventive HIV vaccine exists, tremendous progress has been made in the realm of HIV research. Scientists continue to push the envelope of creating a fully realized HIV vaccine, and because of many of their developments we have discovered pathways that have led to breakthroughs in creating vaccines for other infectious diseases such as Zika and Ebola.

By teaching the immune system to create responses that prevent HIV from establishing itself in the body, a HIV vaccine will be a prevention option that meets the needs of many communities most vulnerable to HIV; which, in the US, has disproportionately been people of color and women.

We are reaching a new mile marker in this race of a lifetime. For the first time in over a decade, two vaccine trials and another vaccine-related approach are either in  or simultaneously moving into efficacy trials. The first, a vaccine trial known as HVTN 702, kicked off in South Africa last October.  The other vaccine trial, will test a ‘mosaic’ candidate and starts in sub-Saharan Africa in the coming months. Finally, the antibody-mediated prevention study (the AMP study) is already underway in the Americas, Europe, and Africa. While these trials will only show results in the next several years, their prospects and the scientific findings are exciting. Most importantly, they represent a continued endurance on this long, hard road to discover what might be a large-scale game changer in the way we handle this enduring epidemic.

If the HIV epidemic has taught us anything, it is that we need multiple ways to fight the virus. People need options that fit into their lives and the way they live, so that HIV does not have to be a constant worry. Existing HIV prevention and treatment strategies are essential, yet there are many whose lives make it hard for them to use or access these methods; we owe it to them to establish a battery of additional options, including a vaccine. So we will continue until the finish line in the race that is the quest for an HIV vaccine. On the way we will continue to discover things that help fight for our better future: a world that gives all people hope… and options.

Yours in the Struggle,

Matthew Rose
Policy and Advocacy Manager

For more on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, visit: http://www.avac.org/hvad, and follow the hashtag #HIVvaccineAware