This article by Alex Garner, Frontiers’ Editor-at-Large first appeared on the website of FrontiersLA.com here.

I’m sure you’ve seen the sensational headlines, “HIV-Positive Prostitutes Arrested” or, “Greek Panic over HIV-Positive Prostitutes.” 17 female prostitutes in Greece were arrested for having HIV. It’s being covered as a scintillating story full of drama and intrigue. It has all the makings of an 80s miniseries. All that is missing is Phoebe Cates asking, “Which one of you bitches is my mother?” The appropriate title could be, “Sex, Scandal and Stigma.”

The key word is stigma and unfortunately, this is not a TV movie, it’s real life. The rights of these women have been completed disregarded in order to further the narrative of the dangerous and diseased prostitute. Their names and photos were released to the media, in the style of America’s Most Wanted, and Health Minister Loverdos is using language like, “exploded bomb, “ which helps paint them as sinister immigrant prostitute terrorists.

There has been no indication that HIV transmission has occurred and even the Health Minister admits that assigning blame is a bit tricky. He said, “It's not all the fault of the illegally procured woman, it's 50 percent her fault and 50 percent that of the client, perhaps more because he is paying the money."

So as this scandal unfolds it will pull focus from the challenging conditions for those living with HIV and it will keep a frustrated population from focusing on an economic catastrophe.

This incident should provide us with an opportunity to think about what it means to be an HIV-positive prostitute. Here in Los Angeles, there are scores of gay men working as escorts. Many also work in the porn industry. They aren’t “dirty bombs of disease,” they are just gay guys making a buck off their ripped abs, bulging biceps and other ample bulges.

What exactly are the dynamics at play if one is an HIV-positive escort?

A few years ago, a contributing writer to The Infection Monologues in Seattle, wanted to include a story about how his character got infected from an escort. It was the classic example of relinquishing all responsibility and blaming it on the diseased professional. The question I posed to him is still relevant today- “what incentive does an escort have to be honest if he knows he will lose money?”

I don’t mean to say the escorts are all money hungry monsters. They are businessmen who are making a living. If they know that being honest about their HIV status means they will no longer be able to make a living then it’s reasonable to expect that they may not divulge that information.

I don’t believe that HIV-positive escorts are callous and intend to infect their clients so they can make a quick buck. I think it’s important to explore the complex dynamics of sex, money and power that are at play. 

When a man decides to hire an escort he usually has a sense of what he is into and what his boundaries are. He is paying for a service and he establishes the power dynamic. An escort often has their own boundaries but those boundaries might be flexible depending on how much money is being offered and how low their bank account might be.

The scenario could go something like this: A client calls an escort and asks him details about his services. The client says he intends to be very safe and use a condom. He then asks the escort if he is negative or positive. The escort says positive. The client thanks him for his honesty but decides to move onto another escort.

If this happens to the positive escort again, will he be just as honest? If the escort is undetectable and a condom is going to be used, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the escort would lie so that he could make some money.

And what about the client who declined the services of the positive escort? Does he expect every other escort to be as honest? Was he asking because he might really be interested in sex without a condom?

The bottom line here is that sex work is very complicated. Whether they are immigrant prostitutes or Weho escorts, they are real, three-dimensional human beings. They are already working in an industry that is highly stigmatized and add to that a disease that is all about stigma and it makes for a difficult situation.  Not to mention, there are profound differences between the escort from Rentboy and the one on the street corner in front of Shakeys.

Depicting these people as akin to bomb toting terrorists only increases the fear and fuels the stigma. The solution is a sophisticated and nuanced discussion about sex work that acknowledges the rights and the humanity of the workers while understanding the complicated dynamics involved.

Alex Garner says: I invite you to follow me on Twitter and join me on Facebook.

 

This article by  Paul Aguirre-Livingston  first appeared in The GridTO.  Republished with permission.  

This year marks the 31st anniversary of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The issue, we know, is multi-dimensional and complicated. Even within my lifetime, the way we talk about it has changed from fear and self-loathing (riddled with homophobia) to far-reaching global advocacy tinged with optimistic complacency. On Saturday night, the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR) dispatched its Young Professional Council to Airship 37 to host the second annual Our Future Without AIDS fundraiser. The volunteer-based organization was created in 2010 to bridge the gap between seasoned donors and the impressionable, to remind us why we need to keep talking about this, even if it means appealing to the pleasure principle of partying.

“Do you wanna go to the art room and be, like, classy?” asked one guy as he whizzed past us in the drink ticket line. With the event held in a stark white hangar, the young and the philanthropic gathered for modest amusement. Red lanterns were strung from above, with light to match; a good-times vibe all around. It was a fundraising initiative, and a damn good one at that, helmed by a multimedia-art silent auction. (With works starting at $10 and maxing out around $400, the auction would have been especially ideal for first-time buyers. And yet it was a shame to see so few red dots.) All the revelry was accented with photo-booth funz, a cupcake and cookie station, Parts & Labour catering, and a Sade tune or two. (Oh, is that Rick Mercer?) And drinks—another white wine, please—to cushion the reality of what we’re all fighting for: hope.

I regret to wonder how many people in that room whom I know to be straight (or those whom I will unflinchingly assume to identify as so, due to overheard complaints from all the single straight girls about the lack of “hot guys”) have actually had real intersections with experiences surrounding HIV/AIDS. How many of them have had the virus knowingly coursing through the veins of a partner next to them? Or held their friend’s hand after a former partner had finally disclosed to them, after numerous encounters, that he was, in fact, HIV positive? Or worried themselves sick in an anonymous clinic waiting room because what if I contracted the virus and how could I have been so careless? How many of them have actually been tested? Maybe that’s not important. But, also, it is. And regardless of motive and experience, showing up and showing support is indisputably invaluable.

That night alone, it was estimated 1,125 people would die from AIDS. I feel guilty because I keep thinking this is a fashion event and just… thank someone for the signs, for writing the statistics on the walls and flashing them on flat screen televisions: There are 34 million people living with HIV worldwide, and 65,000 of them are in Canada. Still, you can buy a $20 cake pop—or seven—and win a big grand prize. It’s about fundraising, so that’s okay, even if the empty donation cans serve as mere table decorations. And it’s also okay if all you want to do is cry. Cry for the man who cried with you because he couldn’t live with himself if he put you at risk. Cry for those who are having sex right this second because four people under the age of 25 become HIV-positive every minute. Cry because more twentysomethings show up to a condo opening than to this thing.

But what’s the right way to talk about HIV and how do we keep talking about it effectively? What are the issues that surround the realities in a time when, yes, 65,000 Canadians are living with HIV… but how many of those are new infections and how many of those are individuals living longer? It took years to remove the various stigmas from my own thoughts. During my formative online jaunts, I would instantly block/ignore someone who, upon my inquiry, didn’t hesitate to honestly disclose. Somewhere along the way, I changed the way I looked at the situation: What if it was the reverse? Would I want to be loved or feared? Hated or pitied? My fear turned into questions; my questions reinforced the need to be informed and protected. To get tested regularly. To not use infection as yet another reason to divide us.

But when half of our grade nine students incorrectly believe there is a cure for AIDS, are government sexual-education programs failing the very generation CANFAR hopes to reach? Are we sending the right messages when condomless (“bareback”) porn is on the rise? Or are we being hypocrites? And yet one must ultimately account for an element of personal choice and consequence (if it’s laced with honesty), and pass up ascending to a moral high ground. Fact is, there are still glaring holes in the messages sent to men who have sex with men, especially those who might not even identify as gay (those married or on the DL, for example).

Make no mistake: There is no gay/straight divide when it comes to HIV/AIDS. We are all affected. But while the virus may not discriminate, we are not equal. Gay men are still at the highest risk, and that needs to be addressed. Perhaps the way I feel most strongly connected to a proverbial gay ancestry is through the crisis. The epidemic. The fear. The truth. The fact that I’ve been ignorant and unfair and unsure. I’m not shy about admitting that I’m human, that I’m animal. That I’ve been young, and naïve, and made mistakes. That I’ve been repentant. And scared. That I’ve judged and been judged. That I’ve prayed. That I have had unprotected sex a grand total of two times in 12 years and was publicly shamed for admitting so and accused of sending the wrong messages. But no, I’m not stupid. And that’s why we need to remove any sort of lingering feelings of humiliation, and why organizations like CANFAR continue to encourage such discourse.

 Are you still listening?

“You can’t imagine,” says Mark Mahoney, the chair of CANFAR’s Young Professional Council, when he explains that the night will blow their initial goal to raise $40,000 “out of the water.” He’s right. You probably can’t imagine. Medical advancements have shielded me—and the majority of the younger, privileged gay community—from the reality of actually saying goodbye to our friends in rapid succession. But it hasn’t made us immune. And for that, we need to be cognizant. And when you imagine it—because, especially if you’re gay and young and horny and sexually active, you will—let me tell you: The psychological effects will linger. Those thoughts will unwillingly live within the partners you surround yourself with, and reside in the corners of a community that’s more incestuous than we’d all like to admit. Because I remember the message from day one. Because the questions lasts longer than a 30-minute episode of Girls and run deeper than any and every fucking Google search for “the stuff that gets up around the sides of condoms.” (Kudos, though, on condoms.) And just because there is little risk, doesn’t mean there is no risk. And you can do everything in your goddamn power to be as safe as you possibly can, but even then…?

By half past midnight, the mood lightens. People have shown up, bought art. Donated. Gotten drunk. Grabbed free condoms (but why no lube?). Some may rest assured that they’ve done their part for another year, or at least until World AIDS Day in December. Drake and Rihanna’s “Take Care” fills the ever-expanding white space in between: “I’ve loved, and I’ve lost,” is the last thing I hear before wandering back out into the darkness.

Donations to support HIV and AIDS research can be made on CANFAR’s official website.

Contact Paul on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/pliving) and/or his personal website (http://pliving.me).

 

Editor’s note: This article first appeared on the blog of the Positive Women’s Network here.  We had published the Xtra article referred to below, without comment on our part, here. That's not to say we didn't recognize the controversial nature of some of Salerno's remarks relating to funding of women’s programming. So we welcomed this opportunity for a representative of the HIV women’s community to present her views. (Thank you, Janet.)

*Sigh.*

It was disheartening to read a piece on HIV funding that appeared in Xtra a couple of weeks ago. I could understand author Rob Salerno’s take on the challenging process that many HIV service organizations in Ontario faced recently in applying for funding under a tight deadline. Here in BC we faced it too, and there were supportive phone calls and emails back and forth between groups as we all wrote feverishly to meet said deadline. 

What I found disheartening was Salerno’s comment on one successful funding application. Instead of applauding it, he wrote, “ I’m unconvinced that a province-wide wellness retreat for HIV-positive women …. (is) the best use of limited public funding to fight HIV.”

You know, I’ve heard that before.

Positive Women’s Network has been around for over twenty years, and in that time we’ve had people bluntly ask us why we deserve funding. Why should services for women with HIV get money when so many more men are infected? The answer is this - women get HIV, and are doing so in increasing numbers. Their needs, experiences and lives are different than men’s. A sampling could list gender roles, biological vulnerability, women’s roles in their specific cultures, histories of gender-based violence and sexual assault. Women express the need for women-only services, as we heard over and over when we did a retrospective of our work. One type of organization doesn’t fit all.

We offer a range of services that include weekend retreats for women. These retreats provide health education on HIV, treatments and disease progression; leadership development, and peer support. Women tell us we’ve changed their lives and made a death sentence manageable. Some aren’t sure how they would have gone on if it weren’t for our retreats. If that can be offered to women in other parts of the country, bravo, I say.

Salerno despairs the lack of funding that compromises the work of support organizations, and I get that - there isn’t enough money to go around to everyone. Yet he also recognizes that the organization that successfully received funding has a client base that’s over one third women.

We are fortunate at PWN that many organizations and individuals we’ve worked with over two decades have abandoned their skepticism as they’ve seen the women we work with and the work we do.

HIV funding isn’t endless, as anyone who applies for it knows. But are we in this fight together or what? I’ve believed through the work of many that we are, but obviously there are folks who hold a different opinion.

- Janet

This article by Roger Pebody first  appeared on aidsmap. 

The First Study

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) would be an acceptable HIV prevention strategy for large numbers of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men in major UK cities, according to two studies presented to the British HIV Association (BHIVA) conference in Birmingham this week.

The conference also heard details of a small pilot PrEP study, likely to start recruiting later this year.

A cross-sectional survey of 842 HIV-negative gay and bisexual men, recruited at bars, clubs and saunas in London, suggested that half the respondents would be interested in taking PrEP.

Respondents were given information about pre-exposure prophylaxis and asked: “If PrEP were available, how likely is it that you would take a pill (oral dose) on a daily basis to prevent HIV infection?”.

Half said yes, with 16% saying they were likely to take PrEP and 34% saying they were very likely to. Men interested in PrEP were slightly more likely to be under the age of 35 (AOR adjusted odds ratio 1.58), have attended a sexual health clinic in the past year (AOR 1.59) and to have previously taken post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) (AOR 1.96). After statistical adjustment, various measures of risky sex were no longer associated with interest in PrEP.

In this survey, 17 men (2.1% of those answering the question) said that they had previously taken antiretroviral drugs to reduce their risk of HIV infection.

Secondly, clinicians at the Manchester Centre for Sexual Health surveyed HIV-negative men attending their service who reported unprotected receptive anal intercourse. Of the 121 men who responded, 36% said they would be “very willing” to take PrEP while only 14% said they would not take the treatment. Daily dosing was perceived as a better option by four fifths of respondents – just one fifth would prefer taking a dose before sexual activity.

These data confirm and reinforce findings from a study reported in November 2011, which found that half the gay men surveyed would consider taking PrEP. Once again, daily dosing was preferred to taking a dose before sex. In the qualitative data, men commented that sex is often spontaneous and that they felt daily dosing would facilitate adherence.

However these data are all based on giving men a few key facts about PrEP and presenting it as a hypothetical option. In real-life circumstances, where men think more seriously about PrEP as an option and hear friends’ experience of taking it, actual uptake and sustainability may be very different.

While the Manchester respondents largely assured the researchers that they would take all their doses of PrEP and wouldn’t have more risky sex, real-life experience needs to be tested in research.

To this end, the Medical Research Council are seeking funding for a 5000-participant, two-year study which would randomise HIV-negative gay men who report unprotected anal intercourse to either take PrEP (Truvada) and attend motivational interviewing (intervention group) or to be put on a one-year waiting list for PrEP and to have motivational interviewing in the meantime (control group).

For the researchers, it is crucial that this is an open label but randomised study, in which participants know whether they are receiving the actual drug. This unusual research design would, they argue, tell us more about the real-world effectiveness of PrEP than a blinded study as it would take into account the possible impact of participants taking more sexual risks because they felt that PrEP afforded some protection. (Researchers call this ‘risk compensation’ or ‘behavioural disinhibition’).

Rather than test efficacy in artificial conditions, the study would therefore test effectiveness in more realistic UK conditions.

So far, however, the potential funders of this costly study have not been persuaded by this argument and it is unclear whether the study will be able to go ahead.

What will, however, start recruiting later this year is a pilot version of the same study, aiming to include 500 men who attend one of around twelve sexual health clinics.

As well as allowing the researchers to have a dry run of the main trial and identify teething problems with its strategy, it should also provide valuable information on the number of men who actually follow through on a clinician’s offer of PrEP. Data on the characteristics of men who seek PrEP, drop-out rates and risk compensation will also be collected.

The researchers intend to take some of these data back to the main study’s potential funders, in order to support a revised application.

Acceptability of taking HIV treatment for prevention purposes

As well as asking people hypothetical questions about PrEP, researchers have also been asking people waiting for an HIV test result hypothetical questions about treatment as prevention.

Individuals from high-risk groups attending the Jefferiss Wing at St Mary’s Hospital for HIV testing were given an explanatory paragraph about treatment, infectiousness and safer sex. They were then asked: “If you were diagnosed with HIV would you consider taking treatment to reduce the risk of passing on infection (even if you did not need to take treatment for your own health)?”.

Four out of five respondents said ‘yes’. Encouragingly, gay men who reported unprotected anal intercourse in the past three months were more likely than others to be interested in the idea. Less encouragingly, people who had had a sexually transmitted infection or who had previously taken PEP were slightly less likely to say that they would take treatment for prevention.

The researchers suggested that the latter factor may be associated with PEP users’ experience of side-effects. It contrasts with the findings of the London PrEP attitudes study described above which found people who had previously taken PEP more likely to be interested in PrEP.

References

Aghaizu A et al. Who would use PrEP? Predictors of use among MSM in London. 18th Annual Conference of the British HIV Association, Birmingham, abstract O23, 2012. See abstract here.  

Thng C et al. Acceptability of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and associated risk compensation in men who have sex with men (MSM) accessing GU services. 18th Annual Conference of the British HIV Association, Birmingham, abstract P233, 2012. See abstract here.

Jones C et al. Treatment as prevention: the views of high risk patients attending an outpatient GUM clinic. 18th Annual Conference of the British HIV Association, Birmingham, abstract P234, 2012. See abstract here.

This article is copyright © NAM Publications, 2012. All rights reserved

This article  by Ruthann Richter first appeared in the journal of Stanford School of Medicine.

The end of the AIDS epidemic — one of worst pandemics the world has known — is now in sight, given the myriad scientific tools available today, from drug prevention to circumcision and methods to stop transmission from mother to child, Anthony Fauci, MD, the country’s top AIDS scientist, said today at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the 30 years of the epidemic, which first came to light in 1981 in a seemingly innocuous report about a rare pneumonia among gay men, represents one of the “unprecedented success stories of investments in biomedical research.”

Where he once expected his newly diagnosed patients not to live beyond six to eight months, today he can look a 25-year-old, HIV-positive patient in the eye and tell him, “If you start on one pill a day, you will live 50-plus years. There are few successes that can match that,” Fauci told an overflow crowd of 400 at the school’s Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge.

And that has all turned on the stunning progress in both the basic and applied sciences, which in the past two decades has produced more than two dozen approved antiretroviral drugs as well as a wide array of prevention tools that Fauci predicted ultimately will lead to an AIDS-free generation.

“It’s a convergence of scientific accomplishments that have become breathtaking, together with implementation that is unprecedented in U.S. history,” said Fauci, who oversaw vast investments in AIDS research and treatment both through the National Institutes of Health and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the five-year, $15 billion initiative begun under the Bush administration in 2003.

Today, some 34 million people are infected with HIV worldwide, with 2.7 million becoming newly infected in 2010 alone. In the United States, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates some 1.2 million people are living with HIV, with 50,000 new cases diagnosed every year — an “embarrassing number,” Fauci said. Some 20 percent of infected individuals in the United States don’t even realize they are carrying the virus, he said.

Identifying those individuals and getting them into treatment, as well as keeping up with the pace of new infections, are among the major challenges of the campaign to stop the spread of AIDS, he said. For every person who received life-saving, antiretroviral treatment in 2010, two more became infected with the virus. “So you’re losing that game,” he said.

However, a landmark clinical trial, sponsored by the NIH and published in May 2011, could dramatically change that equation. The study, which involved 1,763 couples in nine countries, showed antiretroviral treatment could reduce the risk of heterosexual transmission by 96 percent. Fauci called the results, which Science magazine singled out as the scientific breakthrough of the year, a “real showstopper.”

“Treatment as prevention has a one-two knockout punch,” he said. “It saves the life of the person already affected and has a 96 percent chance of preventing transmission to another person…. We believe this is going to be a major tool for getting the whole level of the virus in the population down.”

Preventing transmission from HIV-positive pregnant women to their newborns is another area in which there has been major progress, Fauci said. With the use of drug intervention, the rate of mother-to-child transmission in the United States has fallen from 10.9 percent in 1997 to near zero today, he said.

The U.S. government and nongovernmental organizations now are aggressively rolling out treatment among pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa, where hundreds of thousands of infants are born HIV-positive every year. Now, Fauci said, “It looks like we can turn off mother-to-child transmission if implemented properly.”

Circumcision, now recommended by the World Health Organization, also is beginning to have an impact on transmission rates, Fauci said. More men have been stepping up to have the procedure following studies in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda, which found it could reduce a man’s risk of HIV infection by up to 60 percent. Since then, male circumcision has been shown to have a 73 percent effectiveness rate in preventing viral acquisition over a five-year period, Fauci said.

“If we had this (result) with a vaccine, I would be in the Rose Garden announcing it,” he said.

Women, too, could benefit from emerging technologies that can block the virus during sexual activity. At the International AIDS Conference in Vienna in 2010, South African researchers announced a stunning result with a vaginal gel, containing an antiretroviral drug, which could be used before sex to reduce a woman’s risk of infection by 39 percent. Since then, researchers have announced the development and large-scale testing of a vaginal ring that could be used just once a month, making it even more appealing to women, Fauci said.

He said effective implementation of new technologies in the real world is always a challenge. People first have to know they are HIV-infected; then they have to be linked to care and stay in treatment. At each step, the numbers drop, so that fewer than one-third of infected people consistently remain in treatment — a phenomenon he called “the implementation gap.”

However, he said experience in some countries, such as Rwanda, have shown that it can be done, as the government’s aggressive program to identify patients and provide free treatment has led to a patient retention rate of 92 percent.

Combining these approaches, he said, will change the path of the epidemic, with a steady decline over the next few decades in the population of those who are infected. And while acknowledging that the virus still at times appears to defy the hopes for a cure and may not be fully eradicated in our lifetimes, Fauci said such measures will bring us closer to his vision of an AIDS-free generation.

 

This editorial by Rob Salerno first appeared in Xtra, Canada’s Gay and Lesbian News source, here.

Two weeks ago, I found myself at the Newmarket Health Centre, where Conservative MP Lois Brown was making an announcement of new funding for the AIDS Committee of York Region (ACYR).

It was a tastefully subdued affair. ACYR’s executive director, Radha Bhardwaj, gave a speech outlining the accomplishments of her organization and some of the unique challenges of providing services for HIV-positive people in the sprawling region north of Toronto that’s home to more than one million people.

Brown spoke eloquently of her own relationship with HIV, forged when her mother, a retired nurse, saw the virus emerging in the region and decided to volunteer with patients many other health professionals refused to treat.

Brown then announced that the agency was receiving $162,400 over two years from the Public Health Agency of Canada’s (PHAC) AIDS Community Action Program (ACAP) to fund a “Community HIV Engagement Program,” which will “increase awareness and visibility of the impact of HIV/AIDS in the region and will improve individual, organizational and community-wide knowledge about HIV prevention and transmission,” according to a government press release.

The announcement noted that a big part of the new program will focus on engaging at-risk populations, including the homeless, drug users, youth and immigrant women. Notably absent from the press conference and briefings was any mention of gay men, who still make up the largest cohort of new HIV diagnoses.

But perhaps that’s not surprising. The epidemic is different in York Region than it is in Toronto, ACYR board chair Marnie Sigmar explained to me. More gay men live in the city or would feel more comfortable accessing services there. In York Region, which has the third-highest number of HIV cases in the GTA after Toronto and Peel, the clientele is noticeably more female and immigrant or ethnic minority.

Sigmar seemed very interested in attempting more outreach to gay men but confessed that she isn’t sure how to do that given there aren’t any gay bars or gay neighbourhoods in the region. She said ACYR would try to reach out on social networking sites and the internet.

Shortly before ACYR received its funding, the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) found out it was losing the funding it had received for years from ACAP to run services for women and Portuguese-speakers.

PHAC had reworked the ACAP funding criteria to limit the number of programs a single agency could receive funding for, specifically to spread the money further outside of Toronto, where many older AIDS service organizations have run multiple programs for years.

Again, that shouldn’t be surprising. Toronto is home to 75 percent of Ontario’s 26,000 estimated HIV patients – almost 20,000 people. For comparison, ACYR estimates its client base in the low hundreds.

This isn’t to denigrate the good work ACYR does. Nor do I think it’s as simple as the Conservatives punishing gay downtown Torontonians for not voting Conservative and rewarding the tiny organizations in Tory-friendly suburban ridings — really, do you think HIV workers are a target Tory demo? Besides, the Tories have a third of Toronto’s ridings now, too.

The changing nature of the epidemic requires flexible and dynamic responses from our government and our service providers, and that can be provided only with stable and predictable long-term funding.

Instead, PHAC left agencies across Ontario dangling for months, then hastily issued a call for funding over the Christmas holidays, leaving organizations with little time to table serious new proposals.

I’m unconvinced that a province-wide wellness retreat for HIV-positive women or services for lusophones are the best use of limited public funding to fight HIV, but by keeping ASOs in the dark and limiting their number of applications, the government hobbled their ability to respond to the epidemic in new and better ways.

The result will likely be increased stresses on AIDS services in Toronto, decreased awareness in the epicentre of the crisis, and a resulting increase in the HIV caseload in Toronto.

PHAC and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq should be ashamed.

See also Xtra’s other articles on this topic

• Federal cuts force ACT to cancel programs 

• Federal HIV/AIDS funding falls short 

(PositiveLite.com Editor’s note; This article mentions the cuts to ACT’s programming. The full extent of cuts to funding of other ASO’s in Toronto and across the country resulting from this last round of PHAC funding requests is not yet known. PHAC will not provide this information. This information is currently being gathered by the HIV community. PositiveLite.com will report this information as soon as it becomes available to us.)