POZ PLANET
BY TRENTON STRAUBE
Read more about Jimbeau Hinson in the POZ.com interview.
NATIVE TALENTS
COUNTRY REMEDY
This bisexual, HIV-positive Nashville singer offers the best medicine in town.
Knowing that Jimbeau Hinson’s new album follows his journey with HIV, you might expect the title song “Strong Medicine” to be about antiretrovirals. Wrong. “I wrote that in 1984,” recalls the bisexual country-western singer-songwriter. “The only medicine out there at the time was love—it’s still the strongest medicine they got.” The following year, 1985, Hinson, who has penned hits for the likes of the Oak Ridge Boys, tested positive. He and his wife Brenda retreated to their farm outside Nashville and kept his status a secret. That is, until Hinson went into a coma in 1996. He more than recovered: Today, his viral load is undetectable and Brenda remains negative. Realizing that folks are still testing positive, he felt driven to do something about it. Hence the album, which is a collection of songs spanning his experiences—the fear, depression and loss—of surviving the epidemic. “The only way I could deal with it was to turn it into positives, into songs of fortitude,” he says. Indeed, Strong Medicine, with its melting pot of country, rock, gospel and R&B, will get you through whatever ails you.
Promoting PrEP Manhunt searches for the right pitch. Last summer, the FDA approved HIV med Truvada as a pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, in which negative folks take the daily pill to lower their risk. But Truvada maker Gilead Sciences is not advertising it as PrEP. So Manhunt, the popular gay hookup site, took the initiative. Working with the Gladstone Institute’s Robert Grant, MD, and the Fenway Institute, it crafted an email blast to promote PrEP awareness to over 2.5 million Manhunt members on World AIDS Day. The self-funded promo included links to downloadable fact sheets and research, a PrEP video, a Manhunt Cares PrEP page and Positive Frontiers’ “My Life on PrEP” series. The campaign tagline read: “HIV Prevention Pill for Negative Men (and Women Too): A choice when
16 POZ MARCH 2013 poz.com
condoms are in the way or not enough?” The initial reaction was “very positive,” says David Novak, MSW, managing director of the OLB Research Institute at Manhunt Cares. But some gay press, he says, suggested that Manhunt advocated ditching condoms, promoted bad science and received funding to promote Truvada. “None of these statements are true,” Manhunt Cares clarified in an update to its email blast. It also changed the PrEP campaign tagline—the source of much criticism—to read: “HIV Prevention Pill for Negative Men: Another choice for staying HIV free?” Let’s hope these words don’t get in the way of an important message.
Health care providers at the three South Dakota Urban Indian Health (SDUIH) clinics primarily serve Native Americans. It’s a population at heightened risk for HIV, says Tami Hogie-Lorenzen, CNP, adding that many clients “come to SDUIH from the reservations for their HIV care and screening because they worry about confidentiality.” So it’s good news that SDUIH is integrating HIV into its primary care offerings. In fact, the AIDS Education & Training Centers National Center for HIV Care in Minority Communities—a group led by HealthHIV, which trains health centers around the country about HIV care—named SDUIH an HIV Primary Care Health Center of the Month. With the help of HealthHIV, staff at the South Dakota clinics have built up their HIV testing programs, data collection systems, behavioral health intervention services and their ability to medically manage HIV. “Everyone at the health center has made a huge effort to break down barriers, combat stigma and educate themselves about HIV,” says Stephen Perez, RN, a clinical specialist with HealthHIV. Native Americans with HIV see a short time from diagnosis to death from AIDS, explains Hogie-Lorenzen, who is the HIV team leader at SDUIH. “Therefore, our focus is on the need to screen and diagnose clients at an earlier stage of their illness.” It’s a focus and dedication we’d like to see at all clinics nationwide.
(HINSON) COURTESY OF JIMBEAU HINSON/ANGELA TALLEY
South Dakota Urban Indian Health makes HIV a big part of its primary care offerings.
Hot Dates / March 10: National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day