VICE: The Truvada Revolution

VICE has launched a three-part series titled The Truvada Revolution. 

A drug called Truvada is the first the FDA-approved means of preventing HIV infection. If an HIV-negative person takes the pill every day, they're nearly 99 percent protected from contracting the virus. Controversy continues to surround the broad uptake of Truvada, but the landscape of safer sex and HIV-prevention changes fundamentally from this point forward—particularly within the gay male community, the population hardest hit by HIV in America. In this episode of VICE Reports, VICE explores the future of the Truvada and its revolutionary impact on ending HIV/AIDS.

Near the end of the clip below, AIDS Healthcare Foundation head and anti-PrEP activist Michael Weinstein talks about his campaign against the use of Truvada as a daily HIV preventive. See Part 2 and Part 3. The series was produced and directed by my pal (and JMG reader) Eric Leven.

Former Staffers Accuse AIDS Healthcare Foundation Of Massive Kickback Scheme

According to a press release published by lawyers representing former AIDS Healthcare Foundation staffers, the combative organization has engaged in a massive patient referral kickback scheme that has defrauded the federal government to the tune of $20M a year. The press release begins:

Three former managers of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Inc. (AHF) have filed Federal and Florida State Whistleblower Act claims against the nation's largest supplier of HIV/AIDS medical care for illegal patient referral kickbacks. AHF is charged with defrauding Federal healthcare programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Health and Human Services HIV/AIDS grant programs of at least $20 million a year in false claims since 2010. Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC represents the plaintiffs.

Filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on April 3 under the Federal False Claims Act and Florida False Claims Act, the complaint is based on the personal knowledge and documentation of Whistleblowers Jack Carrel of Louisiana, Mauricio Ferrer of Florida, and Shawn Loftis of New York. All held management positions at AHF prior to their jobs being terminated– despite having federal protection under the False Claims Act – after they notified their supervisors about the company's unlawful practices.

According to the complaint, AHF conducted an organization-wide criminal effort across at least 12 states, including Florida, that boosted funding from federal healthcare programs by generating HIV/AIDS referrals to the company's various service centers. AHF did this by unlawfully paying referral incentives to employees and patients in violation of the anti-kickback statute.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation operates a chain of HIV/AIDS specialty pharmacies and thrift shops. They are perhaps best known for their aggressive advertising campaign against the use of Truvada as a daily HIV preventive and for their campaign to force the use of condoms in porn productions. Hit the link, there's much more in the press release. (Via Towleroad)

UPDATE: AIDS Healthcare Foundation head Michael Weinstein responds via email.

“With more than sixty percent of the 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States currently not in regular medical care and treatment, it remains core to AHF’s mission to try and reduce that number. Not only has AIDS Healthcare Foundation done nothing wrong, our pro-active approach to finding and linking HIV-positive individuals to lifesaving care and treatment is critical to stopping HIV in this country. The fact that the Federal Government and the State of Florida have each already formally declined to intervene in the legal action brought on behalf of three former AHF employees speaks volumes about the merits of this case. Small incentives for linking and retaining people in care are mainstays of public health interventions—including by many CDC projects. We look forward to the opportunity to rebut these baseless charges in court.”

Short Film on PrEP: Unwrapping Truvada

Featuring Dan Savage, Cleve Jones, San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener, and AIDS Healthcare Foundation head Michael Weinstein.

(Tipped by JMG reader Eric)

CALIFORNIA: AIDS Group Launches Ballot Measure On Condoms In Porn Mandate

Via press release from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation:

As part of its ongoing campaign to improve and strengthen state law on the use of condoms in adult films produced in California in an effort to reduce the spread of STDs, including HIV, safer sex advocates from AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) as well as from FAIR (For Adult Industry Responsibility), the formal campaign committee that will shepherd signature gathering for the ballot initiative process, today submitted the official text of a 2016 California statewide ballot initiative for (proposed) title and summary as a prelude to signature gathering. Plans for the proposed initiative—a statewide California law that will require condom use in all adult films shot anywhere in the state—were previously announced by the group in November. The measure will be formally known as “The California Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act.”

Los Angeles County already requires condom use in all porn productions after voters approved an AHF-backed bill in 2012. Since then local permit applications for porn shoots have declined by 90%.

CALIFORNIA: Health Officials Issue Alert After HIV Transmission During Porn Shoot

Via the Associated Press:

California public health officials have issued an alert after finding "very strong evidence" that an adult film actor became infected with HIV as a result of unprotected sex on an out-of-state film shoot. The Department of Public Health said Monday that the male actor tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS after engaging in unprotected sex with several other male actors during two separate film shoots. He had tested negative before the shoot. "During the second film shoot, he had symptoms of a viral infection," the alert states. "The actor went to a clinic and had another blood test that showed he had recently become infected with HIV." One actor from the second shoot has since tested positive for HIV. According to the health department, lab results indicate the first actor who tested positive "probably transmitted" HIV to the second.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, backers of a Los Angeles County law that mandates the use of condoms in all porn productions, reacts via press release:

“This is not AHF or supporters of condoms claiming that an HIV transmission occurred on the set of an adult film. This is California’s Department of Public Health and OSHA Occupational Health officials who vetted the performers’ blood samples with the CDC and concluded after genetic sequencing that this HIV infection occurred on set,” said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF). “For years adult film producers have claimed that performers who have tested HIV-positive while working in the industry did not contract HIV in the industry, but became infected through exposure in their personal lives outside and away from adult film sets. This new case puts truth to the lie that the industry has promoted year-after-year, years that sadly saw several additional performers infected while working in the porn industry.”

The number of permits for porn shoots in Los Angeles County have declined by 90% since the condom law went into effect in 2013. The AHF has vowed to place the issue to a statewide referendum after a bill to widen the Los Angeles County law failed to advance in the California legislature. The AHF has also published numerous ads in the national press denouncing the use of Truvada as a daily HIV preventive.

LOS ANGELES: Ninth Circuit Court Upholds Law Mandating Condoms In Porn

Via the Associated Press:

A Los Angeles County ordinance requiring actors in pornographic films to use condoms does not violate the porn industry's First Amendment rights of free expression, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. The decision from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the industry's contention that having actors use condoms would interfere with a film's fantasy element by subjecting viewers to real-word concerns like pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. For the First Amendment argument to apply, the court ruled, there would have to be a great likelihood that a film's audience would understand that intended message. "Here, we agree with the district court that, whatever unique message plaintiffs might intend to convey by depicting condomless sex, it is unlikely that viewers of adult films will understand that message," said Judge Susan P. Graber, writing for the panel's majority.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation head Michael Weinstein called the ruling a "total vindication." The AHF was the bill's primary backer. A similar bill to implement the rule statewide died last year in a state Senate committee. Weinstein has vowed to place the issue to a public ballot if the bill is not resurrected.

New Anti-PrEP Ad From AIDS Healthcare

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation continues its campaign against PrEP and Truvada today with the above open letter to the CDC which is being published in major newspapers. Writing for the New York Times, Josh Barro notes that the AHF is fighting this battle alone:

“There’s no large controversy; there is one loud voice,” said Charles King, the president of the H.I.V. nonprofit Housing Works and a co-chairman of an anti-H.I.V. task force appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York. Mr. King called the A.H.F. ad “a direct attack on New York State’s efforts to end AIDS as an epidemic.” The growing pro-PrEP chorus includes government bodies like the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; various state and local health departments, including in New York and San Francisco; and most H.I.V.-related nonprofits that have taken a stance. Mr. Cuomo has made PrEP one of three planks in his anti-AIDS plan.

Mr. Weinstein’s vociferous opposition to PrEP has made him perhaps the most hated man in the AIDS business. “I consider him a menace to H.I.V. prevention,” said Peter Staley, a veteran activist who also serves on the Cuomo task force. James Loduca, the vice president for public affairs at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, compared him to a “climate-change denialist.” For his part, Mr. Weinstein insists he’s not really alone. He says “a majority” of H.I.V. experts he speaks with privately agree with his view that PrEP is an ineffective public health intervention, but they do not want to talk publicly.

Embiggen the image to read the text.

Human Rights Campaign Endorses PrEP

Via the Associated Press:

The largest U.S. gay-rights organization Saturday endorsed efforts to promote the use of a once-a-day pill to prevent HIV infection and called on insurers to provide more generous coverage of the drug. Some doctors have been reluctant to prescribe the drug, Truvada, on the premise that it might encourage high-risk, unprotected sexual behavior. However, its preventive use has been endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and many HIV/AIDS advocacy groups

The Human Rights Campaign, which recently has been focusing its gay-rights advocacy on same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination issues, joined those ranks with the release of a policy paper strongly supporting the preventive use of Truvada. It depicted the drug as "a critically important tool" in combatting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. "HRC does not take this position lightly," the policy paper said. "We recognize there is still ongoing debate ... and that there are those out there who will disagree with our stance."

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation denounced HRC's move and said that it plans to expand its anti-PrEP media campaign.

NYC Takes PrEP Campaign To Grindr

The New York City Department of Health has launched a PrEP campaign on Grindr, Scruff, and social media sites. And of course, the ever combative AIDS Healthcare Foundation is furious.

A stigma persists that Truvada is a "party pill" -- an attitude shared by some doctors who scold patients about their sexual practices and won't prescribe it, said Anthony Hayes, a spokesman for the Gay Men's Health Crisis, which backs PrEP. The journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that 74 percent of surveyed clinicians back PrEP, yet only 9 percent had prescribed it. Enter Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the health department's new assistant commissioner for HIV/AIDS control and prevention. Previously a top AIDS doctor at Mount Sinai Hospital, he is a self-described "gay health warrior." "There's not a lot of doctors who can say, 'I've done thousands of HIV [blood] tests with my hands in dark sex clubs,' " he said. "I have done that."

The city is spending about $500,000 to encourage PrEP, with outreach to doctors and ads on Facebook, Twitter and hookup apps like Grindr and Scruff. Says one ad: "Share the Night, Not HIV." Among those in Daskalakis' focus: young black and Latino men, who studies find at higher risk because of the amount of the virus in the population and health care disparities. The city's PrEP push is misguided, said Michael Weinstein, head of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which serves 200,000 patients globally. "The first order of business in medical ethics is 'do no harm,' and what the New York City Health Department's doing is doing harm, because there are people who are going to take this drug intermittently, who are going to think they're protected, who are going to not be protected," Weinstein said.

Fairly strict adherence to daily dosing is critical to maintaining Truvada's effectiveness as a preventive.

Billboards Of The Day

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation took a break a from its battle against Truvada to announce the above billboards over I-95 in downtown Miami.

“This series of billboards aims to fight HIV stigma as well as to provide a beacon of emotional light for those living with HIV who hold deep spiritual beliefs,” said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “The simple images feature one person – in these new Miami boards, Hydeia Broadbent on one version, and AHF advocate Stone on the other – wearing a red T-shirt that unabashedly identifies them as HIV-positive. Each stands between headline text which makes the billboard read ‘God Loves HIV+ Me’. These messages can offer a reminder of the comfort of faith to a newly diagnosed person in the United States as well as help those who may not be able to readily see the breadth of God’s love understand that no one – especially those living with health conditions – are excluded from it. However they speak to each individual, these powerful messages are sure to inspire thought-provoking dialogue about faith and HIV.”

AHF Launches Anti-PrEP Ad Campaign

The combative and controversial AIDS Healthcare Foundation is launching a print ad campaign against the use of Truvada as a daily HIV preventive. Via press release:

AHF’s ‘PrEP Facts’ ad campaign educating the public about adherence issues and PrEP initially started running this week in a few newspapers, magazines and online outlets in California and will continue and expand to six outlets in California and five news outlets in South Florida over the next week. AHF’s campaign also comes on the heels of recent—and what AHF believes are misguided—recommendations by both the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) for the widespread scale up and implementation of the problematic HIV prevention strategy.

“The eight major studies show the scientific data do not support the large-scale use of Truvada as a community-wide public health intervention to prevent transmission of HIV,” said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “Medication adherence is the primary problem: Even in carefully monitored clinical trials, in which people were counseled monthly, had blood samples drawn and were even paid to participate, many study participants simply did NOT take Truvada every day as prescribed. As such, we want the public to know that the government-sanctioned widespread scale up of PrEP appears to be a public health disaster in the making.”

The ads will run in numerous LGBT, mainstream, and alternative papers including Frontiers, South Florida Gay News, Los Angeles Daily News, Miami New Times, Hotspots, Oakland Post, and Florida Agenda.

CALIFORNIA: Senate Shelves Bill To Mandate Condom Use In Porn Statewide

In November 2012, Los Angeles County voters approved a bill that mandates the use of condoms in all local porn productions. The bill's passage resulted in a 90% decline in porn production permit applications in the county. Yesterday the California state Senate killed a bill that would have expanded that mandate statewide.

The measure, set aside by the Senate Appropriations Committee today, would have required the filmmakers to produce documentation showing condoms were used if a complaint was filed with the state. The appropriations panel’s decision came the same day that the committee boosted a proposed tax credit for Hollywood studios to $400 million a year, four times the current level, to stem the flight of film and TV production to other states. “It is unfortunate that some legislators don’t believe that protection should include keeping California actors safe while they are at work,” said Assemblyman Isadore Hall, a Los Angeles Democrat and the bill’s sponsor. The U.S. adult film industry produces 4,000 to 11,000 films a year, employing as many as 1,500 workers in Los Angeles, according to a legislative analysis. The films generate $9 billion to $13 billion a year in gross revenue, according to the report.

The bill had the backing of the controversial AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which also vigorously opposes the use of Truvada as a daily HIV preventive.

LOS ANGELES: Porn Shoot Permits Drop 90% After Condom Use Mandate

In November 2012, Los Angeles County voters approved a bill that mandates the use of condoms in all porn video shoots. The Associated Press reports today that local applications for porn filming permits dropped by more than 90% last year. But that doesn't mean that condom-less filming isn't still taking place.

So where are those hundreds of films available for instant download on the Internet coming from? Many are still coming from right here, say industry officials, acknowledging that when Los Angeles County voters cracked down on filmmakers in November 2012 with an ordinance requiring that actors use condoms, quite a few filmmakers went underground. "A lot are simply shooting in out-of-the-way places where they won't be caught," says Mark Kernes, senior editor at Adult Video News, which tracks industry trends. "Normally it's in people's homes who are willing to rent them out for a day. Sometimes it's out in the woods. There are vacation cabins far away from anything that you can shoot a movie at."

Others have traveled outside of Los Angeles County, either to neighboring counties or sometimes even out of state. Diane Duke, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, an industry advocacy group, said she knows of a handful that have moved to Las Vegas, although none want to be mentioned by name for fear of bringing condom activists after them. Although a few porn producers do require that actors use condoms, the majority do not, saying fans have made it clear they don't want to see them. Wherever the filmmakers are working now, only 20 have applied for permits so far this year, according to Film LA, which issues them. Last year 40 adult filmmakers took out permits, compared with 485 in 2012, the last year before the ordinance took effect.

RELATED: The Los Angeles County ordinance was spearheaded by the combative and controversial AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Today the AHF issued a press release declaring that it has filed an OSHA complaint against a San Francisco-based porn company that is filming in Nevada.

“Under the guise of his various Kink and Kink.com, adult film businesses and brands, owner Peter Acworth, thinks he and his companies can simply ignore the Federal OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens Standard with regard to required condom use in his adult film productions shot in Nevada. This new complaint in Nevada is based on the simple fact that they cannot hide from federal law there, or anywhere in the U.S.,” said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “When we first proposed the Los Angeles City bill, the industry said they’d film in other L.A. cities. When we proposed Measure B for L.A. County, the industry said they’d film in other counties. And when we proposed AB 1576, the industry said they’d film outside of California. Here, Mr. Acworth will no doubt find out that both Nevada and Federal OSHA statutes apply as well. Are workers in Nevada any less entitled to protection from harm than those in California?”

ALSO RELATED: This week the AHF sued the city of San Francisco for blocking its plans to open a pharmacy in the Castro. According to the AHF, local AIDS activists are behind the denial because they are furious with the AHF for opposing the use of Truvada as a daily HIV preventive.

"At the behest of San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener, The City rammed through, at lightning speed, an interim zoning law specifically targeting AIDS Healthcare Foundation," claimed Laura Boudreau, chief of operations for AHF. "The clear and sole purpose of that action was to discourage the organization from relocating and opening a nonprofit safety-net clinic and pharmacy in the Castro." But City Attorney spokesman Matt Dorsey called the civil rights violation charge "absurd." "AHF is asking the court to find a constitutional right to build whatever it wants wherever it wants, and that's just not something courts have allowed," Dorsey said.

Boudreau claims the motivation for The City's actions came from the foundation's position on PrEP -- an HIV treatment drug which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others have advocated for as a preventative tool, but which the group opposes as a widespread HIV prevention tool, arguing its efficacy is debatable. While a local HIV activist said the AHF's position on HIV prevention is not popular among many in San Francisco, he and Wiener point out that the main issue with the group, which has 33 locations nationwide, is that it operates a chain. The city's formula retail rules define chain stores as any with 11 or more locations. "AHF tried to game our formula retail law by tweaking its name and then claiming it wasn't actually formula retail," Wiener said. "Under AHF's approach, any chain store could come into San Francisco, tweak its name, and claim that it isn't formula retail."

CALIFORNIA: Assembly Approves Bill Mandating Condom Use In Porn Shoots

Via the Associated Press:

Porn performers in California must wear condoms during film shoots and their employers must provide regular testing under a bill that passed the state Assembly on Tuesday. The bill, AB1576 by Assemblyman Isadore Hall, D-Compton, advanced to the Senate on a 41-12 vote, the minimum number of votes needed. The bill follows a similar mandate in Los Angeles County, approved by voters in 2012. Hall said his bill is a workplace-safety measure to curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, citing recent industry-imposed moratoriums on adult film shoots after actors were diagnosed. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a sponsor of the bill, says it would pursue film producers who leave California, with a much-debated argument that porn shoots are technically illegal in most states. Last fall, the group filed a complaint about an adult film made in Florida, where California porn makers outsourced unprotected sex scenes.

Porn performers largely oppose the bill, saying its provisions violate their medical privacy.

CALIFORNIA: Assembly To Hear Bill Mandating Condom Use In Porn

The California Assembly will today hear AB1576, a bill that mandates condom use in all porn productions statewide. A similar law was approved by Los Angeles County in 2012. The bill is sponsored by Assembly member Isadora Hall, who is a Baptist minister. Its chief proponent outside the legislature is the combative Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has made headlines recently for its opposition to Truvada as an HIV preventive.

AB1576 is being opposed by the porn industry and sex workers, the latter of whom have private concerns. From the libertarian Reason:

The bill also mandates that porn production companies keep confidential employee health records indefinitely, use "plastic and other disposable materials" to clean sets, and provide all employees with a safety training program. It does not "require condoms, barriers, or other personal protective equipment to be visible in the final product of an adult film." In other words, there's little way for California officials to monitor or enforce adherence to the condom rule aside from sporadic checks on porn production studios. The bill also seems packed with enough random regulatory requirements to allow health officials to selectively make life miserable for any adult film company they feel like harassing.

The Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club has issued a statement against AB1576:

"We are disappointed that proponents of this bill have worked to actively silence the viewpoints of sex workers from this process. If this legislation were truly aimed at creating a safer work environment workers would have been brought to the table to discuss their safety needs and make suggestions about how to best address them. Proponents of AB 1576 have attempted to silence, shame and bully sex workers and in doing so have shown that their agenda clearly isn’t about the health of these workers, it’s about a moral campaign against their industry."

The Transgender Law Center expresses similar sentiment:

"Transgender communities remain some of the most impacted by HIV and face remarkably high rates of discrimination in education and employment. While Transgender Law Center appreciates the intentions behind AB 1576, we are concerned that harsh penalties will drive big production studios out of California and small studios underground. This would result in lost economic opportunities for many in the adult film industry, both in front of and behind the cameras, inadvertently causing more harms to performers that this bill intended to protect."

Female porn performers have posted the below clip.

More On #TruvadaWhore

The Associated Press has published a lengthy examination of the use of Truvada as a daily HIV preventive, which is opposed by some activists and the often combative AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

It's the Truvada conundrum: A drug hailed as a lifesaver for many people infected by HIV is at the heart of a rancorous debate among gay men, AIDS activists and health professionals over its potential for protecting uninfected men who engage in gay sex without using condoms. Many doctors and activists see immense promise for such preventive use of Truvada, and are campaigning hard to raise awareness of it as a crucial step toward reducing new HIV infections, which now total about 50,000 a year in the U.S. Recent efforts range from think-tank forums and informational websites to a festive event at a New York City bar featuring popular drag queens. Yet others — despite mounting evidence of Truvada's effectiveness — say such efforts are reckless, tempting some condom users to abandon that layer of protection and exposing them to an array of other sexually transmitted infections aside from HIV. "If something comes along that's better than condoms, I'm all for it, but Truvada is not that," said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "Let's be honest: It's a party drug."

Truvada costs about $13K a year and its use as a preventive is covered by most insurance plans. Hit the link for much more from the AP.

Matt Barber's Site: AIDS Patients Should Sue Groups That Promote Safer Sex

In a post on Matt Barber's website, infamous anti-Kinsey activist Judith Reisman today declares that AIDS patients should file a class action lawsuit against "condom pushers" because the FDA has never approved condom use for anal sex.

The reality is that condoms are manufactured and approved every day for natural, vaginal sex, not anal “sex.” They are not effectively designed to protect from disease those people who engage in sodomy. Such a lawsuit should target the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Planned Parenthood and a myriad of teachers and school systems, too many to count, that have taught that anal “sex” (traditionally termed “sodomy” or “buggery” under British-based legal codes) as not so different than natural coitus. The result of a class action suit should be the requirement of a label, a la cigarette packs, that states: “This condom has never been approved by the FDA for penile/anal intercourse.” Due to the lies that have told, people who practiced sodomy are under the tragically mistaken notion that a condom is effective protection from disease. Those who have believed this lie and have contracted AIDS or an STD (and the loved ones of those who’ve lost their lives) have a cause of legal action.

Reisman's post comes in support of crackpot Hawaii state Rep. Bob "Crazy Eyes II" McDermott, who is leading a campaign against sex education in public schools.

RELATED: Last month Men's Journal reported that a Los Angeles-based company founded by an HIV+ gay man is working to get FDA approval for an condom that would be marketed for anal use.

NEW YORK: State Endorses Truvada For Daily Use As HIV Preventive

The New York state Department of Health has officially endorsed daily use of the Gilead medication Truvada for the prevention of HIV infection.

After months of anticipation, the Health Department's AIDS Institute released thorough clinical guidelines for pre-exposure prophylaxis, commonly known as PrEP, which is a daily dose of HIV medication that people who are HIV-negative but at-risk of contracting the virus can take to drastically reduce their chance of infection. The drug, known by its prescription name Truvada, can reduce the chance of infection by as much as 73 percent, according to studies funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. However, the AIDS Institute stressed that PrEP alone was not enough to prevent new infections. "PrEP should not be offered as a sole intervention for HIV prevention. PrEP should only be prescribed as part of a comprehensive prevention plan," the report says.

Preventive use of Truvada, while supported by most HIV/AIDS groups including ACT UP and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, remains controversial. In particular, the Los Angeles based AIDS Healthcare Foundation has long battled against the preventive use of Truvada. In July 2012, when the drug was first approved for daily preventive use, the AHF accused both Gilead and the FDA of "negligence bordering the equivalence of malpractice which will sadly result in new infections, drug resistance and serious side effects among many, many people." Last August the AHF declared victory in their Freedom of Information Act request which sought proof that Gilead colluded with the FDA on "what to say to get their unfavorable drug trial results spun in such a way that the FDA deemed them sufficient to approve the drug."

Truvada retails at an annual cost of up to $14,000 and its use as a preventive is not yet covered by all insurance plans. Today's guideline from the state recommends that AIDS groups focus on identifying the most high-risk persons who would benefit from its daily use.

NYC Radio Star Cuts Sexual Health PSA After Trans Prostitute Revelation

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation writes:

In the PSA, which dropped today, Cee calls last week’s declaration “the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life,” but that it was time in both his personal and professional life to be honest about his sexual identity. He said everyone should be proud and honest about who they truly are – citing shocking statistics of HIV and STD rates among youth, black, and Latino populations that arise from deception – and declared the new sexual revolution to be one of both freedom of self and sexual health as a birthright, mirroring AHF’s new Sexual Revolution 2.0 campaign. He also directed viewers to seek STD testing and treatment through the Foundation’s freestdcheck.org website.

The path to Cee’s declaration about receiving fellatio from trans women involved a bust by a male undercover police officer dressed as a transsexual prostitute, followed by a former sexual partner’s releasing an audio recording of the DJ soliciting a transgender woman for oral sex. Cee initially quit his job at HOT 97, but was encouraged to return by station program director Ebro Darden, to whom Cee emotionally opened up on air about his sexual identity last week. The declaration lit up the Twittersphere over the weekend, and where some showed homophobic anger or blasé indifference, there was also a multitude of supportive Tweets indicating a preliminary shift in the previously unquestioned homophobic mentality permeating hip hop fans.

Free Meningitis Vaccinations In LA

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has announced that they will offer free meningitis vaccinations to gay men in the Los Angeles area. Via press release:

In response to cases of bacterial meningitis among men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) that has affected men in Los Angeles and New York, AIDS Healthcare Foundation will offer free meningitis vaccines starting Monday, April 15th at its AHF Pharmacy locations in West Hollywood (8212 Santa Monica Blvd.) and Hollywood (6210 Sunset Blvd.) and its AHF Hollywood Men’s Wellness Center (1300 N. Vermont Ave.) to anyone who thinks that they are at risk or have had exposure. The vaccine protocol involves one dose for HIV negative individuals, and one plus a booster at eight weeks for HIV positive people.