POZ PLANET
BY TRENTON STRAUBE
ACT UP New York at Mount Sinai Hospital
FRIEND REQUEST
ON THE MARCH
Two prevention tactics—PEP and PrEP— see on-the-ground action. Post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP, is a way to prevent getting HIV after a possible exposure. It entails taking a regimen of three HIV meds for a month, starting no later than 72 hours after the incident. It’s been standard procedure since 2005, but when a gay man went to the emergency room at New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital seeking PEP, confusion over its availability ensued. Once activist group ACT UP intervened, the man got the meds. On July 17, ACT UP protested outside the hospital to push the city and state health departments to promote the prevention pill and to ensure that all emergency health providers supply PEP. A similar protest August 15 at the health department also demanded the agency release accurate HIV data. Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, is when HIV-negative people take Truvada (emtricitabine/tenofovir) daily to prevent getting the virus. The FDA approved Truvada as PrEP last summer, and now a University of California program is awarding $18 million to three teams studying PrEP—along with testing and linkage to care and treatment, or TLC+— in high-risk youths in Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego, Oakland and East Bay. Participants receive free meds along with counseling and health services. Meanwhile, the HIV Prevention Trials Network is launching the HPTN 073 study to explore whether black men who have sex with men—a population at high risk of HIV—are willing to use PrEP. The study will span three cities and include 225 men.
GET LUCKY
Illinois Lottery game funds state’s HIV fight. It’s an instant winner: The Illinois Lottery launched “Spread the Word,” a $2 instant scratch-off game in which all profits go exclusively to HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. So even if you lose, you win! The only Lottery of its kind in the nation, the game e has raised more than $4.7 million since its first st iteration in 2008. (Illinois ranks fifth for AIDS S cases and seventh for HIV diagnoses; 20,000 0 people live with the virus in Chicago.) What’s s more, the latter game offers a chance to educate and inspire, even with its campaign slogans: “Out of sight, out of mind—who cares if people suffer?…Scratch that, we can do more for HIV.”
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When Dave Watt competed for the Mr. Michigan Leather title in 2008, he wanted to address the issue of HIV stigma. He encouraged folks to not use phrases like “clean” and “DDF UB2.” With the help of his husband, a graphic designer, he came up with a button to get his message out: the “Mr Friendly” (sans period) smiling face, which includes both a positive and a negative sign, each given equal weight. “The symbol,” Watt says, “is designed specifically to not indicate the bearer’s status, but to help initiate a discussion about HIV.” Watt won the Mr. Michigan Leather title, which gave him and Mr Friendly a larger platform to speak. He also began working as a prevention specialist at Community AIDS Resource and Education Services (CARES) in Kalamazoo, which offers case management for people living with the virus in all of southwest Michigan. In 2009, CARES adopted Mr Friendly as a program offering 501(c)3 nonprofit status. Today, Mr Friendly has grown into an international movement, spanning beyond leather, fetish and Pride events. “We have teams of volunteers trained to reduce the stigma of HIV one conversation at a time in over a dozen U.S. cities,” says Watt, who boasts about Team Friendly Atlanta like a proud papa. There are also two Mr Friendly workshops, one about disclosing status and the other about discussing barebacking with friends who choose not to wear condoms. “It’s an important topic,” Watt says of the latter. “The conversation preceding sex ideally needs to be more Dave Watt and than, ‘Are you good? Me too. Mr Friendly at Let’s go.’” Gay Pride this Now that’s some friendly summer in advice we can all use. Manhattan
(PROTEST) ACT UP/DIGITAL ACTIVISM WORKING GROUP/BACILIO MENDEZ II; (WATT) COURTESY OF DAVE WATT/JED RYAN,
Meet the new face of HIV awareness.
Hot Dates / October 5: AIDS Cure Day / Oc
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