HEALTH
Cuomo, de Blasio Step Up on Plan to End AIDS Governor pledges $200 million in next state budget; mayor expands services to all with HIV
DONNA ACETO
Mayor Bill de Blasio, at the Apollo Theater Wo rld AIDS Day event, endorses HASA For All.
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
S
peaking at a World AIDS Day event, Mayor Bill de Blasio endorsed HASA For All, city legislation that would expand eligibility for rental assistance, food stamps, and other benefits for people with HIV. “We believe that no New Yorker with HIV
should have to choose between medication and food or medication and rent,” the mayor told the crowd that packed the Apollo Theater in Harlem for the December 1 event. Currently, the HIV/ AIDS Services Administration (HASA), which is a unit of the city’s Human Resources Administration (HRA), only provides benefits to city residents who have symptomatic HIV illness or an AIDS diagnosis. With the advent of powerful anti-HIV drugs, it has become increasingly rare for a person with HIV to progress to symptomatic illness or an AIDS diagnoses. This has meant that poor people who are HIV-positive do not qualify for HASA and it has led to some people with HIV skipping treatment until they are sick enough to qualify for HASA assistance, advocates say. The mayor said a change was required. “How about we try something different, how about HASA For All?,” he said to loud and sustained applause from the crowd. AIDS groups have sought HASA For All since 2007, when it was first introduced in the City Council. Seen as too expensive and just another government entitlement, it was opposed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and then-City Coun-
cil Speaker Christine Quinn, an out lesbian who represented Chelsea. The legislation was reintroduced this year by Corey Johnson, the openly gay and HIV-positive City Council member who represents what was Quinn‘s district. The bill has 36 co-sponsors in the 51-member Council, up from seven at the start of the year. The mayor’s endorsement was expected. The City Council has been discussing the legislation since the start of the year. Dan Tietz, HRA’s chief special services officer, endorsed the legislation at an October 14 City Council hearing, a move that was most likely endorsed by the de Blasio administration. City Hall and the Cuomo administration are still negotiating the city/ state split to fund the expanded benefits. It is anticipated that the expansion will cost $99 million a year after it is fully implemented on July 1, 2017, the start of the city’s fiscal year. HASA currently serves roughly 32,000 people with AIDS and another 10,700 of their family members. HASA For All would add an estimated 7,300 new clients by 2020.
c
STEP UP, continued on p.13
Despite Officials’ Embrace, Skepticism Remains on Ending AIDS Plan City health commissioner, leading vaccine advocates voice questions whether PrEP is enough BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
12
DONNA ACETO
A
World AIDS Day event featured some skepticism about central components of the Plan to End AIDS, which aims to reduce the number of new HIV infections in New York State from the current roughly 3,000 a year to 750 annually by 2020. “The thing that concerns me most is the issue of adherence,” said Dr. Mary Bassett, the city’s health commissioner, referring to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which involves the use of anti-HIV drugs by HIV-negative people to keep them uninfected. Bassett’s comments came at a December 1 event held at the Housing Works Bookstore Café on Crosby Street in Manhattan. Notably, she was joined on the panel by Charles King, the chief executive of Housing Works, an AIDS group, who is credited with
The December 1 panel at the Housing Works Bookstore Café included (l. to r.) “CBS Sunday Morning” contributor Mo Rocca, Dr. Mary Bassett, Dr. Mark Feinberg, Charles King, Gay Men’s Health Crisis executive director Kelsey Louie, and Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union.
developing the plan along with Mark Harrington, the executive director of the Treatment Action Group (TAG). King has been the plan’s leading champion. While the plan relies on providing a range of services to HIV-positive and HIV-negative people, at its core, it uses anti-HIV drugs to cut new HIV infections. Along with PrEP, the plan relies on post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), anti-HIV drugs used by people with a recent exposure to the virus to keep them uninfected,
and treatment as prevention (TasP), which treats HIV-positive people with anti-HIV drugs so they are no longer infectious. All three drug regimens are highly effective when taken correctly, and the science says the plan should work. But it is a very ambitious plan and the first of its kind. While various types of prophylaxis that pre-date PrEP and PEP have been used before, Gay City News could not find a single example of any form of prophylaxis
being used on the scale envisioned in the Plan to End AIDS. Only one infectious disease, smallpox, has been eradicated and that was done with a vaccine. Vaccines and cures have significantly reduced the incidence of other infectious diseases. TasP has worked well against some infections, such as tuberculosis, in some places. Bassett’s concerns about PrEP adherence, concer ns she has
c
SKEPTICISM, continued on p.13
December 10 - 23, 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc