The official focus of the National HIV Prevention Conference, held Dec. 2-5 in Atlanta, was newly published research on HIV prevention, but the data that generated the most buzz at the conference was not anything on the official program. Days before the conference the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post ran art
A year into Gov. Deval Patrick s tenure in the corner office HIV/AIDS advocates say the administration, bolstered by the appointment of John Auerbach as commissioner of the Department of Public Health (DPH), has begun to reverse the damage done to the state s HIV prevention efforts under Patrick s predecessor, Mitt Rom
Above + Beyond: Our Community Responds to HIV/AIDS, The History Project s acclaimed exhibit documenting the LGBT community s response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the Boston area, has been retooled for the web. Its official launch will coincide with World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. I think it s totally amazing what we were able
After a three-year absence one of Boston s signature events for people living with HIV/AIDS, the Boston Living Center s Celebration of Life Thanksgiving Dinner, returns this month to the Hynes Convention Center. From its founding in 1993 through 2003 the dinner provided people living with HIV/AIDS the chance to come to
AIDS Action Committee presented its second annual Commitment to Action Awards Nov. 8 at its annual meeting, honoring people and organizations that have distinguished themselves over the past year in working to end the AIDS epidemic. One of the recipients was a group of black state lawmakers who publicly took HIV tests
Community Servings, which delivers meals to people who are homebound due to HIV/AIDS or other life-threatening illnesses, exceeded the $4 million fundraising goal for its capital campaign, but it came down to the wire. David Waters, executive director of Community Servings, said the Kresge Foundation offered a $400,000
The HIV/AIDS advocacy organization Search for a Cure will hold its third annual New England Conference on HIV Treatment and Prevention Nov. 10 at the Department of Public Health s State Laboratory in Jamaica Plain. The conference will feature a presentation about the latest research on prevention and treatment by Dr. E
The anti-hunger organization Project Bread announced Oct. 25 that it had distributed more than $800,000 to 116 emergency food programs in the Metro Boston area, and three of those programs work to provide meals to people who are homebound due to HIV/AIDS. Project Bread distributed $15,000 to Community Servings, $8500 t
Last week the Legislature s Joint Committee on Public Health heard testimony on House Bill 2209, a bill that would repeal the legal requirement on medical providers to get written informed consent from patients before testing them for HIV (see State Hears Testimony On AIDS Bills, Sept. 27). The bill, which is supported
The Legislature s Joint Committee on Public Health heard testimony on a handful of bills Sept. 26 that could dramatically alter the state s regulations around HIV testing and the use of personal health information about HIV/AIDS patients by public health agencies in Massachusetts. One of the bills, drafted and supporte
The Boston Athletic Association, which organizes the Boston Marathon, selected the Boston Living Center as one of its 24 official charities for the next three years, making it the only HIV/AIDS charity selected for the program. Nate Stell, development coordinator for the Living Center, said participating in the program
JRI Health received 98 new vouchers for Section 8 housing to be given to individuals or families with a person who is disabled due to HIV/AIDS. The vouchers will allow low-income households to rent apartments at greatly reduced rents, and Sue Buoncuore, director of JRI s assisted living program, said the vouchers will
A week after 100 organizations issued a public call to the 2008 presidential candidates to put forward comprehensive plans to end the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic, the John Edwards campaign released just such a plan Sept. 24. Rebecca Haag, executive director of both the AIDS Action Committee (AAC) of Massachusetts and th
It s no secret that gay and bisexual men make up a sizable segment of the condom-buying population; since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, condoms have been the premiere tool, so to speak, in the gay and bi male s safer sex arsenal. But for gay and bi men browsing the condom rack at the local pharmacy, the packaging
The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) of Boston will mark its 35th anniversary Sept. 16 with a barbecue and potluck celebration followed by a special worship service that evening. The congregation, which holds its worship services at Boston s Old West Church, was founded when the LGBT-focused denomination, the United
Wainwright Bank CEO Robert Glassman received a Distinguished Social Entrepreneurial Leadership Award from the Grand Circle Corporation and the Lewis Family Foundation at the Corporate Philanthropy Summit Sept. 6, and as part of that award Wainwright Bank received $100,000 to be split evenly between a charity of the ban
The Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) defended its Are you using? public awareness campaign, which featured billboards and MBTA ads promoting condom use to prevent the spread of HIV, against charges by a Dorchester Catholic school that the placement of one of the billboards near the school was inappropriate. The c
Krzysztof Krakowiak was inspired to do the Harbor to the Bay ride this year after getting involved with Positive Pedalers. Photo: AIDS Action Right now, nearly 250 cyclists are training for the annual Harbor to the Bay HIV/AIDS benefit bike ride, a 128-mile journey from Boston to Provincetown on Sept. 15 aimed at raisi
Last month Fenway Community Health s New Champions, a federally funded program working to combat crystal meth addiction, launched its second major phase, debuting its Resist Meth ad campaign and holding its second training for men to learn how to do outreach in the community and talk about meth use and addiction. New C
Calling HIV/AIDS in America a black disease, Phill Wilson, the founder and executive director of the L.A.-based Black AIDS Institute, called on participants in a small march and rally in Dorchester on July 14 to help end the epidemic in the black community within five years. Wilson, an openly gay black man who has been
The adjoining bedrooms at Joelyn s Family Home, which are painted in warm shades of green, yellow and orange, are still empty. Multi-colored striped bedspreads have yet to be ruffled by sleepy mothers and restless children. The pristine walls of the playroom, outfitted with a toy kitchen set, a gargantuan beanbag and k
Carol Goodenow, director of coordinated school health education for the Department of Education (DOE), led a presentation at the state s Department of Public Health (DPH) headquarters June 19 about health risks faced by LGBT youth. About 40 people attended the press conference, which by itself demonstrated the dramatic
On June 8, the morning of the launch of JRI Health s new ad campaign drawing attention to the lives of gay men in Boston s black communities, JRI Health executive director Douglas Brooks got the chance to see the impact of the new campaign firsthand. Riding up Columbus Avenue on the 22 bus into Egleston Square, Brooks
Fenway Community Health s New Champions, a peer education program designed to show the gay male community the dangers of crystal methamphetamine, launched a new ad campaign June 11 that New Champions program manager Jed Barnum hopes will make gay men feel empowered to fight the epidemic of meth use in the community. Th
In the formal conference room, draped with Harvard s signature crimson, medical students and professors gathered to discuss the disease that no one wants to talk about: AIDS. There is a crisis and that crisis has yet to be truly addressed, said moderator Stella Safo, a first-year medical student at Harvard and a member
The Gay Officers Action League of New England (GOAL-NE) will host the 11th annual International Conference of Gay and Lesbian Criminal Justice Professionals from June 12-17. This year s conference will be held in Providence Rhode Island, drawing an expected 150 attendees, and GOAL-NE founding member Sgt. Preston Horton
Discussion of gay Nazis, Holocaust denial and AIDS popped up repeatedly during a State House hearing May 29 before the legislature s joint committee on education. The hearing attracted approximately 150 people, an usually large number for a workday afternoon - nevermind the Tuesday after Memorial Day weekend. Most were
Since 1994, Boston s Sydney Borum Health Center, located on Boylston Street at the edge of the Boston Common, has provided medical services to youth who have nowhere else to turn, and many of them are LGBT-identified. Some of them come because they feel uncomfortable talking about their sexuality to their family physic
The Senate Ways and Means Committee released its Fiscal Year 2008 (FY08) budget recommendations May 16, and the budget includes substantially more funding for the state s HIV/AIDS programs than the proposal released by the House last month. The Senate increased the HIV/AIDS budget line item by about $550,000, bringing
Two days before the 18th annual Bayard Rustin Community Breakfast, which honors the work of people of color to end the AIDS epidemic and celebrates the legacy of legendary Civil Rights Movement activist Bayard Rustin, the committee that organizes the event received some bad news: Phill Wilson, president of the Black AI
Gov. Deval Patrick on April 19 named HIV specialist and AIDS Action Committee board president Michael Wong as one of his 12 new appointees to the state s Public Health Council, which serves as the policy arm of the Department of Public Health (DPH). Wong, who is an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical Sch
Jessica Flaherty, program director for the Boston Alliance of Gay and Lesbian Youth (BAGLY), assigned what she expected would be a relatively easy task to the BAGLY youth during one of the organization s recent sexuality education programs: Draw the sexual anatomy of the male and female body. She was shocked to find th
When Jean Flatley McGuire stepped down as head of the Mass. Department of Public Health s (DPH) HIV/AIDS Bureau back in 2003 she assumed that her days in state government were over, at least for the foreseeable future. She left DPH frustrated over the administration s lack of transparency under then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a
Constance Santiago is a mother, grandmother and a woman who was diagnosed HIV positive in 1989. A resident of Central Massachusetts, Santiago credited the mental health and other client services she s received through AIDS Project Worcester with helping her to come to terms with her HIV status. It s enabled me to be ab
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.