Obama said during “The Beginning of the End of AIDS,” an online conference organized by ONE International, “a grassroots advocacy and campaigning organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa”:

Today, I’m announcing some new commitments. We’re committing an additional $15 million for the Ryan White program that supports care provided by HIV medical clinics across the country. Let’s keep their doors open so they can keep saving lives. And we’re committing an additional $35 million for state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs. Now, the federal government can’t do this alone. So I’m also calling on state governments, pharmaceutical companies, and private foundations, to do their part to help Americans get access to all the life-saving treatments.

Florida has the longest AIDS Drug Assistance Program waiting list in the United States. According to National Alliance of State and territorial AIDS Directors, “as of November 17, 2011, there were 6,595 individuals” (.pdf) on ADAP “waiting lists in 12 states.” More than 3,200 of those people live in Florida.

ADAP provides life saving medications for the treatment of HIV and AIDS for people who cannot afford to pay because they are unemployed, uninsured or underinsured. States have implemented a variety of cost containment measures that include waiting lists since 2010, when ADAPs began facing an ongoing funding crisis.

“With bipartisan support, we reauthorized the Ryan White CARE Act,” Obama said today. “And, as I signed that bill, I was so proud to also announce that my Administration was ending the ban that prohibited people with HIV from entering America. Because of that step, next year, for the first time in two decades, we will host the International AIDS conference. So we’ve done a lot over the past three years.”

The president added: “We know that treatment is also prevention. And today we’re setting a new target of helping six million people get on treatment by the end of 2013. That’s two million more people than our original goal.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vital Signs November report issued this week indicates that in the U.S. alone “about 1.2 million people are living with HIV” and “about 240,000 don’t know they are infected.”

Vital Signs adds that “each year, about 50,000 people get infected with HIV in the US. Getting an HIV test is the first step to finding out if you have HIV and getting medical care.”

The National HIV/AIDS Strategy, approved in 2010, highlights among other measures the need for increasing access to treatment and focusing on HIV prevention programs.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., spoke at the ONE conference panel, saying HIV/AIDS “is a good example of how government can work with other institutions in society and around the world to be a positive difference maker.”

Rubio added Democrats and Republicans agree that “the U.S. was a great country in the 2oth century” and “some of the debate that’s happening now is whether the United States will remain a great country in the 21st century.”

The senator acknowledged that “we need to recognize that there are still thousands of people in the United States on waiting lists to receive medication, certainly in my home state of Florida that is the case.”

Rubio concluded that the “economy will be even tougher if people around the world are dying, can’t enter the workforce and can’t be our business partners in economic trade and development.”

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., founding co-chair of the first ever congressional HIV/AIDS caucus, highlighted today the need to increase HIV testing at the domestic level, adding, “We need a domestic PEPFAR; that’s what we are working on.”

PEPFAR, the United States President Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, was created to “help save the lives of those suffering from HIV/AIDS around the world.”

Photo: President Barack Obama (Flickr/The White House)

Scott acknowledges in his statement that Florida has the third highest rate of HIV infection in the U.S., “with 135,000 Floridians living with the disease.”

The Florida GLBT Democratic Caucus points out in a written statement that Florida:

• [has] the greatest number of people living with HIV/AIDS incarcerated in a state prison;
• [has] the greatest number of people on a wait list to access HIV-medications through the state’s AIDS Drug  Assistance Program (ADAP)
• [has] a greater number of people living with HIV/AIDS who are victim to HIV-criminalization and being arrested because Florida has laws that are outdated and not based on modern day science;
• falls short in its in HIV/AIDS care, treatment and prevention programs;
• bans evidence-based programs like syringe-exchange programs, despite the fact they are proven to decrease the  number of new HIV and Hepatitis C-infections;
• ignores the realities of LGBT-youth who are most at risk of infection by failing to establish a minimum state standard for sex education, inclusive of LGBT-people;
• fails to have a strategy to effectively reduce the number of HIV-infections, reduce health disparities or improve access to care and health outcomes for People Living with HIV.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said this week “we have the tools to stop HIV from spreading in the individual patient and we have the tools to greatly reduce its spread in communities.”

Frieden added that a recent study shows “that treatment for HIV can prevent spread of HIV to others. For too many years there has been sometimes friction between HIV treatment and HIV prevention, and this study brings home that treatment is prevention, that treatment is essential to prevention.”

A public service announcement launched today by the National Minority AIDS Council and Gilead Science Inc. states: “HIV is not the same epidemic it was 30 years ago, but it is far from over,” telling viewers to “take the 20 minutes to get tested”:

The ADAP Crisis Task Force (PDF) and Gilead Sciences announced today that they reached new terms “that extend additional voluntary discounts and rebates for most Gilead products purchased by state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs).” This at a time when Florida is home to almost 50 percent (more than 3,200 people (PDF)) of all the individuals on AIDS Drug Assistance Program waiting lists in the U.S.

ADAP provides medications for the treatment of HIV and AIDS for people who cannot afford to pay because they are unemployed, uninsured or underinsured. States have implemented a variety of cost containment measures that include waiting lists since 2010, when an ADAPs began facing an ongoing funding crisis.

NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts and its political arm NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts Foundation began investigating Massachusetts CPCs last summer after the state began issuing “Choose Life” license plates, thus creating a new revenue source for CPCs.

According to the resulting report (PDF), undercover, in-person visits were made to 24 of the 30 CPCs operating in Massachusetts; staff researched the centers’ advertising and counseling procedures, as well as where they were getting most of their money. Among the CPCs visited, seven of them were affiliated with two of the country’s largest CPC networks -– Birthright International and Care Net; five belong to the state-wide network Pregnancy Care Center; and four are affiliated with A Woman’s Concern Pregnancy Resource Clinic, the largest CPC network in Massachusetts, which has since 2002 received millions in federal funds to produce an abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education program called “Healthy Futures” (PDF).

What the report aims to prove is that the CPCs’ impact is to “corrupt a pregnant woman’s decision-making process and delay her access to pregnancy-related care, whether she ultimately chooses abortion, adoption, or parenthood.” Much like the 2006 congressional investigation of federally funded pregnancy resource centers (PDF) commissioned by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the Massachusetts report reveals volunteer staff at CPCs often gave women misleading or inaccurate information about pregnancy and abortion. A bulk of NARAL’s findings also deals with how these CPCs are funded and the political ties among their donors.

A snapshot of NARAL’s findings:

• CPCs outnumber women’s health care providers three to one: Western Massachusetts has at least six CPCs but one clinic that provides abortion services; Central Massachusetts has eight CPCs, one abortion clinic; Northeast and Metro Boston has five CPCs, three abortion clinics. ]

• NARAL’s undercover investigators reported that several of the CPCs used tactics to try to delay their decision regarding what to do with their unwanted pregnancies. Examples of such tactics include delaying and rescheduling appointments.

• More than one in four of the CPCs investigated, or 27 percent, told NARAL investigators pretending to be between six and 10 weeks pregnant that 50 percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. Some investigators reported being told variations of “just because you are pregnant, doesn’t mean you’ll stay pregnant.” (According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), among women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is about 15 percent to 20 percent, but the miscarriage rate drops after a baby’s heart beat is detected. NIH also estimates that “up to half of all fertilized eggs die and are lost – aborted — spontaneously, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant.”)

• About 46 percent of the CPC websites link abortion with a risk of future infertility. Nearly one in three of the CPC’s websites stated that women are more likely to have a premature delivery in a future pregnancy if they have had an abortion. One in five CPCs investigated the commonly unaccepted idea that abortion is a direct cause of breast cancer.

• Investigators also reported hearing misleading, inaccurate or unfounded information about the ineffectiveness of contraception.

• Two out of three CPCs visited had a “religious influence,” reported investigators.

• Some of the CPCs investigated have been accused of false advertising about what services they offer. For example, Daybreak Pregnancy Resource Center in Boston have advertised for “abortion services” in online advertising, demonstrated in the report with a screen shot.

• Some of the advice given to NARAL investigators was considered “suspect.” One investigator was told, “You don’t need money to raise a child, just time and love.” Another, who told the CPC that she had been drinking heavily throughout her pregnancy, was told “new studies prove alcohol is not too harmful to a fetus.”

According to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, a “Choose Life” plate initially costs $40; $28 goes to Choose Life (there are additional costs to swap out an existing plate). The Registry of Motor Vehicles distributed approximately 2,000 plates between June 2010 and April 2011, raising approximately $80,000, according to Massachusetts Choose Life.

NARAL also points out that Natick, Mass.-based private charity Gerard Health Foundation privately funded A Woman’s Concern before the organization began receiving federal money. Gerard Health has also funded organizations that head up anti-abortion initiatives such as Focus on the Family and Live Action.

The NARAL Massachusetts report:

Naral Pcm Cpc Report 2011

According to the Journal:

Speaking at the American Public Health Association‘s annual conference, Frieden said, “Teenage pregnancy really is the intergenerational transmission of poverty.” He added that lowering teenage pregnancy rates is “[o]ne of the things we can do that has the biggest impact in societal inequality.”

Other countries have done a better job at reducing teen pregnancy rates, he noted, adding that there are proven strategies for preventing teen pregnancy.

The federal government has been actively funding sex education for young people in Florida, but state policy-makers have turned away millions of dollars that would have gone to sex education in struggling counties.

While the statewide teen pregnancy rate has dropped, a number of counties in Florida are facing a persistent problem with their teen pregnancy rates. Over 60 percent of the counties in Florida with the highest birth rate among teens who are between the ages of 15 and 19 did not manage to decrease their rates in 2009.

Florida was sixth in the nation for teen birth rates in 2009. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area reported the second highest income inequality in the country, according to the most recent U.S. Census.

New Mexico, together with states like Arkansas, Texas, and Mississippi, lead the country in teen pregnancy. According to 2008 figures published by the federal Centers for Disease Control, The Land of Enlightenment trails only Mississippi in teenage births.

Also according to the CDC, 15 percent of New Mexico high school students had four or more sexual partners, based on a nationwide 2009 survey. Only 57 percent of high school students in the state used a condom during their most recent episode of sexual intercourse. Meanwhile, roughly 15 percent of high school-aged females were on birth control, while the national median is nearly 24 percent.

New Mexico students are also behind their national peers in sexual education. The same 2009 CDC survey indicates 77 percent of high school youth were taught about HIV/AIDS in school, compared to the U.S. median of nearly 86 percent.

A chart by the reproductive health research group The Guttmacher Institute demonstrates while sexual and HIV education is mandated in New Mexico, there are no requirements on the lessons being medically accurate or age appropriate.

Teen pregnancy is also costly: with minimal private healthcare options for young girls, the state ends up paying some $590 million on youths giving birth, according to New Mexico Department of Health figures.

“Comprehensive sexual education is one of the strategies that work to reduce teen pregnancies and STIs,” says Sylvia Ruiz, executive director of New Mexico Teen Pregnancy Coalition.

But she also says school-based sexual education is the most controversial.

“We have local school board control in New Mexico, and school boards decide what curricula will be decided on STI,” she told TAI.

Still, other programs outside of the classroom exist to target students and parents on improved sexual education.

The state partnered with Ruiz’ group through a series of community outreach programs to provide a fact-based curriculum for parents and students in Albuquerque. Internal surveys show that 52 percent of teenagers feel their parents would not support their use of birth control while less than 40 percent say they’ve spoken to parents about contraception.

Parents, according to the survey, are hesitant to approach their children, too, with 48 percent  relieved or happy when approached by their children on sexual matters.

The state also takes part in Cuidate, a CDC-sponsored HIV/AIDS outreach initiative targeting Hispanic communities.

“Naturally we want parents to transfer sexual health values to their children,” says Ruiz. “But if your family is poor, struggling with rent and bills, it’s really hard… to retransfer values of reproductive health to kids.”

But the state could use more family-based education, especially in the greater Albuquerque area. Though the major metropolitan region, and Bernalillo County in general, has a lower rate of poverty than the rest of the state, the region beats many counties in the number of STI cases annually. Only four counties have a higher incident rate of Chlamydia, and Bernalillo has the third highest number of Gonorrhea cases, with 687 and 94 incidents per 100,000 people, respectively, reported in 2010.

With the U.S. Conference on AIDS just three days away, A Day with HIV in America, a project of Positively Aware, seeks to bring together a community of folks who live with HIV, to show their diversity and confront HIV stigmas.

Positively Aware is the national magazine of the Test Positive Aware Network, which offers support, services and treatment in the Chicago area to people living with HIV/AIDS.

Jeff Berry, editor in chief of Positively Aware, tells The Florida Independent, “We asked people to take a picture on one single day to express what it means for them to live with HIV,” to help break down barriers for people getting into care, addressing their fear of just talking about HIV, and getting tested.

“Stigma is a little more subtle, but it’s still there,” Berry says, “the stigmatizing effects of treatment are not as pronounced as they were with some of the earlier drugs, but there still is a fear out there for people to even think about getting treatment. I think that’s changed. Treatment has gotten more tolerable, but it still has side effects. Drugs are not benign and are lifelong.”

“I think there is still stigma surrounding HIV in the gay community, because people don’t want to be rejected. There is a long way to go with the social aspects of HIV stigma,” Berry adds.

“I think there is hope that there is going to be a number of tools to lower the rate of infection, and treatment as prevention is one of those [tools], getting people on treatment so their viral load is undetectable so they are less likely to transmit,” Berry tells the Independent.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that ‘we are not going to treat ourselves out of this epidemic.’ I think that is very true; it is not a matter of getting everybody access to treatment. The prevention messages and campaigns we have been using for whatever reason are not working how we would like them to work.”

Berry says that treating everyone is unsustainable. “You see it in Florida with the ADAP waiting list,” he says. “It’s a huge issue. I don’t think it is only going to be just Florida. I think you are going to see more of that unless the government comes up with a huge amount of money, and I don’t think that is going to happen.”

Berry considers that since the target population of the U.S. Conference on AIDS is men who have sex with men, “you’ll see a lot of workshops and presentations geared towards that population. We forget that the greatest number of people living with HIV are men who have sex with men, and the rates of infection among African-American men who have sex with men has skyrocketed.”

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on HIV infection rates from 2006 through 2009 shows an “alarming increase among young, black gay and bisexual men” that requires “urgent action.” That same month the 2011 National HIV Prevention Conference highlighted the need for more HIV prevention efforts for young black men who have sex with men.

Berry adds that going into the election year in 2012, this week’s Conference is “an opportunity for people to start finding ways to work together with one common voice and one common goal because it is really essential that in the next two years we talk with one common voice, and not turn into our current Congress where nothing is getting done because no one can agree on anything.”

The law, if passed, would repeal a one-year-old law that requires schools that teach sexual-health courses to teach both abstinence and contraception. Abstinence-only education was banned while Democrats controlled both state chambers, but in 2010, House and Senate control flipped to the Republicans.

Under Senate Bill 237, schools would be required to teach abstinence is the preferred choice for unmarried students and would have to discuss the socioeconomic benefits of marriage. The bill would allow schools to teach about birth control, but it is not a recommended topic of discussion. The Senate also adopted an amendment preventing schools from discriminating against students based on their race, gender, sexual orientation or if they have disabilities or are already sexually active.

From the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel:

Its chief sponsor, Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), said her proposal would give school districts more of a say in writing their curricula.

“This is about small government at its best,” she said. “This is about local control.”

But Democrats said changing the law could lead to spikes in sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancies.

“What’s before us is whether we want children to learn sex education … from our schools or from a Google search,” said Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee).

Democrats noted Milwaukee’s teen birthrate dropped after the city and the United Way of Greater Milwaukee launched a 2008 program that teaches young people about both abstinence and contraception. The city’s birthrate dropped from 52 per 1,000 teens in 2006 to 35.7 per 1,000 in 2010.

But Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) argued the drop in the city’s teen birthrate was because Milwaukee Public Schools had put more of an emphasis on abstinence.

A federal sex-education bill introduced to Congress on Wednesday, would prohibit federal funding to all programs that enforce abstinence-only instruction without offering students “age-appropriate” information about “life-saving” prevention methods. State schools only offering abstinence-only education would thus be ineligible for federal sex-education dollars.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) introduced House Resolution 3324, or the “Real Education for Healthy Youth Act” into both chambers of Congress on Wednesday. The bill would require student instruction on both abstinence and contraception. Information taught to youth and young adults will have to be “medically accurate and complete,” meaning the information provided to students will have been verified and supported by scientific research. This bill also prevents federally funded programs from withholding “life-saving” information about the efficacy of using condoms and other contraceptives correctly and consistently.

“Research has shown programs that combine information about abstinence and contraception effectively delay the onset of sexual intercourse, reduce the number of sexual partners, and increase contraceptive use among teens,” said Lee in a statement introducing the bill. “These programs also reduce unintended pregnancy and the transmission of STIs, including HIV.”

“Growing up isn’t easy and our kids find themselves in tough situations every day,” said Lautenberg.  “They need all the information to make smart choices and ‘abstinence-only’ programs don’t work.  It’s time to bring sex education up-to-date to reflect the real life situations facing young Americans.”

The “Real Education for Healthy Youth Act” is a follow-up to H.R. 1085, or the “Repealing Ineffective and Incomplete Abstinence-Only Program Funding Act of 2011,” which was introduced by Lee and Lautenberg earlier this year. That bill, which has 44 co-sponsors in the House and 10 in the Senate, would simply eliminate funding for abstinence-only education programs, while the “Real Education” bill goes into great detail about what sex-ed programs will have to address in order to receive federal money.

Specifically, the bill would prevent federal dollars from funding health-education programs that:

• “deliberately withhold life-saving information about HIV”;
• “are medically inaccurate or have been scientifically shown to be ineffective”;
• “promote gender stereotypes”;
• “are insensitive and unresponsive to the needs of sexually active youth or lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender youth”; or
• “are inconsistent with the ethical imperatives of medicine and public health.”

Grant proposals would be evaluated by the the Office of Adolescent Health and would be rewarded to groups proposing “comprehensive sex education,” defined as a program that includes age- and developmentally-appropriate information on a range of topics related to sexuality and human development, including: relationships, decision-making, communication, abstinence, contraception, disease, pregnancy-prevention, gender identity, sexual orientation, dating violence and bullying. All information must be inclusive of lesbian, gay bisexual, transgender and straight people. Sex-education under this bill would be extended to university-age people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would be involved establishing a common set of performance measures to evaluate the effectiveness of grant projects funded through this legislation.

The bill makes note of the “rights of young people to information in order to make healthy and responsible decisions about their sexual health.”

In September, Lee introduced legislation aimed at addressing the ongoing criminalization of persons living with HIV infection. Monica Rodriguez, president and CEO of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS), told The American Independent Lee and Lautenberg’s new bill attempts to address the stigma that many persons infected with HIV face in our society.

“It’s problematic when we put the burden on others and it’s dis-empowering … to HIV-infected or people infected with other sexually transmitted diseases,” said Rodriguez, a sexuality educator. “Good sexuality helps people to understand their responsibility to protect themselves.”

SIECUS is among several reproductive-rights and LGBT-advocacy groups that are supporting the “Real Education” bill, including Advocates for Youth, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL Pro-Chocie America, the Guttmacher Institute, the Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Rodriguez said the bill will likely see opposition from organizations that support and benefit from abstinence-only education funding, but certain provisions, she said, should not be negotiable.

“It is unethical not to provide young people with life saving information” Rodriguez said. “Sexual education needs to be based on science and data and reality as opposed to our fantasy about how we wish the world was. We have issues and this bill attempts to address some of them.”

HB 3027 would amend the state school code and require that each class that teaches sex education and/or discusses sexual intercourse in sixth through 12th grades must include instruction on both abstinence and contraception as preventative methods against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Additionally, the sex-ed instruction would need to be evidenced-based and medically accurate; however, school districts that do not currently provide sex education will not be required to teach it.

In districts that do provide classes or courses on sex ed, teachers will have to teach students abstaining from sexual intercourse ”is a responsible and positive decision and is the only protection that is 100% effective against unwanted teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) when transmitted sexually.” This is a departure from current sex-ed instruction, which emphasizes that “abstinence until marriage” is the “expected norm” and gives no information on contraception.

The Chicago-based Illinois Right to Life is urging state representatives to oppose HB 3027, calling it a “dangerous sex education bill.” The Illinois Family Institute, based in Carol Stream, Ill., has similarly called on all Illinois senators to oppose the bill, because the group says this bill is “yet another attempt by legislator-ideologues to use public money to normalize sexual immorality and perversion by inculcating children and teens with subjectivist, relativist assumptions about sexuality.”

The Lake County Right to Life, based in Grayslake, Ill., recently had an editorial published in the Chicago blog Chicago Now, claiming HB 3027 will promote abortion:

It mandates curriculum promoting abortion, stating that it is legal, safe, and parents don’t have to know about it.

It calls for “medically accurate” sex education, but the curriculum misinforms students by telling them that “morning after pills” don’t cause abortion.

It will force abstinence programs out of the public schools by taking away local control and mandating the teaching of contraception and condoms.

In addition to support from reproductive-rights groups such as Planned Parenthood and National Organization for Women, LGBT-rights and HIV/AIDS activists have also promoted the revised sex-education law. Early this month, the Chicago Urban League hosted a community forum for groups including the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, the Black Women Reproductive Justice and  Chicago Black Gay Men Caucus to promote the bill in light of recent rising cases of STDs among Illinois’ black population.

One of the speakers at the event, dubbed “Stop Transmitting Silence,” was Rush Medical Center’s Dr. Kimberly Smith, who was quoted
href=”http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=34184″>by the Windy City Times saying:

“I think we have to get past all this moral crap, and really focus on the reality: Kids are having sex, and they’re experimenting. We can stem the tide of future [HIV] infections by identifying who’s infected now and making sure they’re on therapy. If you’re on therapy, not only are you living a long life, but you don’t have to worry about passing it on to your partner.”

National Latino AIDS Awareness Day (NLAAD), “held each year in commemoration of the last day of Hispanic Heritage Month, represents a call to action for Hispanics/Latinos to protect their lives and the lives of those they love by getting tested and learning about HIV.”

According to a report (.pdf) issued by the Florida Latino AIDS Advisory Group in May, “the proportion of newly reported HIV cases among adult Hispanics (age 13+) increased from 16% in 2000 to 21% in 2009. In Florida, in 2009, the HIV case rate among adult Hispanic men was 2 times higher than that for white men and 2 times higher for adult Hispanic women than that among white women.”

The Advisory Group, established by Florida’s Bureau of HIV/AIDS, adds that “the survival time from AIDS diagnosis to death significantly shorter for Hispanics than whites. Of the AIDS cases that died in Florida from 2001-2009, whites had a median survival of 63 months compared with blacks who had 44 months and Hispanics who had 47 months.

The AIDS Institute, with offices in Tampa, reports that while Latinos represent 16 percent of the U.S. population, they represented 20 percent of all new HIV infections in 2009, adding that “the rate of HIV infection in 2009 among this population was three times as high as that of whites.”

Daniel Montoya, deputy executive director of the National Minority AIDS Council, said in a written statement that “the health disparities that persist within the Latino community, especially in relation to HIV and AIDS, demand immediate attention.”

Montoya added: “Latinos face significant barriers to accessing quality health care and prevention services, including socio-economic, cultural and linguistic challenges. These barriers are often intensified among undocumented populations.”