Recent draft legislation that would require the state government in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to publish an online list of HIV-positive people has spurred concern among some HIV/AIDS advocates in the country, who contend that such action could be detrimental and discriminatory, London’s Guardian reports. The draft bill, sponsored by member of parliament Jorge Babu, also proposes requiring that all HIV-positive people carry identification, saying that people who contract HIV “take on different characteristics to the rest (of society), requiring different treatment.” Babu during his introduction of the bill said the measure would help protect medical workers from contracting HIV while administering treatment. “All professionals involved in attending (patients) have the constitutional right to know if they are treating an HIV-positive patient,” the bill says.

According to William Amaral, a leading HIV/AIDS advocate in Brazil, identifying HIV-positive people could expose them to danger, including death threats or murder. “The bill puts people’s lives at risk,” Amaral said, adding that people with HIV sometimes are expelled from their homes. Roberto Pereira — leader of an HIV/AIDS support group in Rio de Janeiro — said that the “bill is misled and profoundly discriminatory.” He added that it also “injures the basic principles of human rights.” According to Pereira, Brazilian society cannot afford to ignore such “prejudiced” ideas (Phillips, Guardian, 5/1).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Some HIV-positive people in Wales are being denied medical treatment for common illnesses, Olwen Williams, a physician specializing in sexually transmitted infections, said recently, BBC News reports. Williams noted that primary care physicians often refer HIV-positive people to hospitals or HIV specialists for common conditions, such as colds.

The British Medical Association denied that physicians are discriminating against people living with HIV/AIDS and said that some physicians might be more cautious in referring HIV-positive people to specialists. However, Williams said that HIV-positive people are experiencing “very subtle” discrimination, adding that they might disclose their HIV status to a provider and be told they need to visit their HIV specialist. “If I was someone with cancer and I went to a [PCP] with common cold and I was told, ‘Sorry, I can’t deal with that’ because I’ve got cancer I’d be so amazed — that’s what our patients our experiencing,” Williams said, adding that such practices “den[y]” care to HIV-positive people “at a point where they actually need it.” Williams added, “My concern here is that we’ve still got fear and prejudice and ignorance that’s actually driving discrimination and stigma in Wales. And I think this is something major that we have to tackle.”

Andrew Dearden, chair of the British Medical Association’s Welsh council, said it is “unprofessional and unethical” for physicians to discriminate because of an illness. Dearden added that some physicians might not feel they have adequate training to treat some conditions. “Remember that doctors always refer patients to other doctors … when they feel there’s a need for extra information, diagnosis, tests or treatment,” Dearden said. A recent study found that about half of HIV-positive people in the United Kingdom had experience discrimination from a health worker in the previous year, according to a spokesperson from the Terrence Higgins Trust (BBC News, 5/1).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

New Jersey’s Bergen County Department of Health Services plans to close the county’s Counseling Center in Hackensack, which has operated for 20 years and is the only clinic in the county that provides no-cost HIV testing, NorthJersey.com reports. According to NorthJersey.com, the closing could put $4 million in federal funding that Bergen and Passaic counties receive through Ryan White Program grants at risk.

According to people familiar with the center, closing the Bergen clinic will pose challenges for people without health insurance and could strain programs that provide similar services in nearby counties. Catherine Correa, director of the Ryan White Grants Division of the Paterson Department of Human Services, said last week that she is “in total disbelief this is happening.” Correa added, “There will be a gap in services, and we will be out of compliance” with the requirements of the federal grant money. According to Correa — who is responsible for securing federal HIV funding for Bergen and Passaic counties — Bergen’s health department is “absolutely putting the money in jeopardy” by closing the center.

According to Brian Hague, Bergen county spokesperson, the county decided to close the center because of budgetary constraints. Hague explained that new state funding requirements would have required the center to remain open on nights and weekends, which would have incurred substantial costs for the county. In addition, in order to receive $100,000 from the state for the center, Bergen County would have to contribute the same amount in matching funds. However, Hague said closing the clinic would not threaten federal funding because the county would still provide “public outreach and public education” on HIV. Hague said that as long as officials “fulfill that requirement,” the closing will not “have any bearing on the federal grant.” He added that the county’s freeholder board and County Executive Dennis McNerney have not made a final decision about whether to close the clinic.

According to Hague, the North Hudson Community Action Corporation, which has a site in Hackensack, will provide HIV screening to those normally served by the Bergen counseling center if the clinic closes. However, Valerie Shedlock, coordinator of the North Hudson program, said her facility currently does not offer no-cost HIV screening and has no definite plans to offer such services at its Hackensack site in the future. In addition, Correa said that replacing the Bergen center with the North Hudson service would not bring Bergen County into compliance with federal funding requirements, which mandate that services be maintained by the governments receiving funding and not by private entities. “North Hudson is not public. It is not a government agency,” Correa said. According to Tara Balsley, HHS spokesperson, in order to continue receiving Ryan White grant money, recipients also must sustain their own funding for services at a level equal to or more than what they contributed in the year prior to receiving the grant (Gartland, NorthJersey.com, 4/30).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Two promising young physicians have been awarded this year’s Minority Clinical Fellowship Awards by the HIV Medicine Association. The program offers leading African American and Latino physicians the opportunity to receive a year of dedicated clinical training in HIV medicine in hospitals and clinics with large minority HIV patient populations.

This year’s recipients, Carolina Abuelo, MD, at the Miriam Hospital in Rhode Island and Oni Blackstock, MD, at the Harlem Hospital in New York were each selected to receive awards funding a year of HIV clinical training and education. For both, working with minority HIV/AIDS patients is the result of a desire to provide quality HIV care to the disproportionately affected African American and Latino populations.

While African Americans and Latinos account for 67 percent of AIDS cases in the United States, there is a dearth of African-American and Latino physicians in this field of care, as is true in medicine generally. The Minority Clinical Fellowship program was created to help reverse this health crisis and increase the number of minority clinicians committed to caring for those who have the disease.

“We’re delighted that an outstanding pool of candidates resulted in the selection of two very dedicated individuals,” said HIVMA Board of Directors Chair Arlene Bardeguez, MD, MPH. “It is critical that there be a continuous influx of new clinicians to the field of HIV medicine. These fellowships have allowed us to recognize these talented young physicians whose work and dedication to work with the underserved population already impresses, and promises more to come.”

The HIVMA Minority Clinical Fellowship recipients will begin their one-year fellowships in July. The fellowships provide each recipient a stipend plus benefits for one year as well as financial support for the fellow’s mentor.

Dr. Abuelo, who has completed her residency in internal medicine, will focus on HIV care for patients seen in the Miriam Hospital Immunology Clinic in Rhode Island. The clinic services a large patient population that is over 50 percent African American and Latino. She will receive mentoring and clinical instruction from Susan Cu-Uvin, MD and Timothy Flanigan, MD.

Dr. Blackstock is finishing her chief residency at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, which serves a population that is primarily made up of African American and Latino patients. She will complete her fellowship with mentoring and clinical instruction from Vel Sivapalan, MD.

HIVMA received support for the fellowships from Bristol Myers-Squibb, Gilead Sciences, Pfizer, and Tibotec Therapeutics.

About The HIVMA Minority Clinical Fellowship Recipients

Carolina Abuelo, MD

“People with HIV teach me so much, not only about the lives of others but my own life as well,” says Dr. Carolina Abuelo, a primary care physician in Boston.

Dr. Abuelo, who has had both HIV research and clinical experience and will complete her fellowship training at Brown University, finds that there is more to the field that just medicine. “We all need to hear now and then that we are doing a good job, especially someone who has to manage a chronic and stigmatizing disease on a daily basis,” says Dr. Abuelo. “Often the therapeutic value of my relationship with a patient has more to do with an approach that is personal, cultural, and nurturing rather than simply transferring rote clinical knowledge.”

After completing her residency training in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Dr. Abuelo used her Spanish language and cultural skills as an internist at the South End Community Health Center, where most of her patients were from the Dominican Republic. As she explains, “The HIVMA Minority Clinical Fellowship offers the cornerstone of my training: an opportunity to focus on HIV care for the many minority patients seen in the Miriam Hospital Immunology Clinic. It will allow me to move towards my ultimate professional goal of working with HIV-positive Latino patients in a clinical setting.”

Oni Blackstock, MD

As a resident at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, Dr. Oni Blackstock was witness to the devastation caused by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. “I saw firsthand the destructive effects of the epidemic, especially on the health of African American and Latino populations in the borough. As an African American physician, I feel an especially personal commitment to working towards decreasing the incidence of HIV/AIDS given its proportionally higher incidence in African American communities.”

As a part of her training at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Blackstock had the opportunity to travel to Ghana and see firsthand the overwhelming social and economic toll of the epidemic. During her residency in the Bronx, Dr. Blackstock cared for HIV-positive patients at various stages of the disease, including those with end-stage AIDS. Comparing these two experiences, it became clear to her that this disease knows no economic barriers. “It was a wake-up call for me that in a country such as ours with immense medical resources, we are not immune to the devastatingly widespread effects of HIV.”

“I consider providing competent, high-quality care to people living with HIV/AIDS an integral aspect of helping to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic,” says Dr. Blackstock. “Ultimately, this fellowship will allow me to work both within and beyond the walls of a primary care office, and help me to positively impact the community more directly.”

HIVMA is the professional home for more than 3,600 physicians, scientists and other health care professionals dedicated to the field of HIV/AIDS. Nested within the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), HIVMA promotes quality in HIV care and advocates policies that ensure a comprehensive and humane response to the AIDS pandemic informed by science and social justice. IDSA is a professional society representing more than 8,600 physicians and scientists who specialize in infectious diseases. For more information, visit our websites: www.hivma.org and http://www.idsociety.org.

Source
HIVMA

California Assembly member Tom Ammiano (D) has proposed a resolution (AJR 13) to lift an FDA ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men, Capitol Weekly reports. Ammiano said the ban “assumes if you are heterosexual that you would not have the same exposure” to HIV as MSM. He added that the ban still exists because of the slow bureaucratic process required to lift it. According to Capitol Weekly, the resolution would address MSM and not injection drug users, who are restricted from donating blood after using injection drugs one time.

The American Red Cross, the American Association for Blood Banks and America’s Blood Centers have urged FDA to lift the ban, according to Capitol Weekly. The Red Cross earlier this month reported that there was a 30% shortage in donations. According to Capitol Weekly, about 5% of the U.S. population, or 15 million people, donates blood annually (Chernyavsky, Capitol Weekly, 4/30).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.