GOOD NEWS : UPDATE STUDY on PrEP and Bone Density issue .New stop Truvada use in healthy bodies and i use condoms

GOOD NEWS A new scientific trial of truvada use in the PrEP protocol is now been published, The study, we read about it in BETA,   looks at the problem of bone density reduction in young people 25 and under who were in a control study. It reports that  when trucada use is discontinued,  the body, with no other serious health issues,  will revert over time to normal bone density As to how long to return to normal age makes the difference. This is good news. And I believe supports my call for a continuation of funding for SAFE SEX and CONDOM use, Please read and share. Another step in informing a person about all the issues they need to know in deciding yes or no to PrEP. 

here is the report we found in BETA:

PrEP Does Not Appear to Cause Permanent Bone Loss

February 23, 2016, by Emily Newman

BETA is reporting from the 2016 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) this week in Boston—bringing you the latest news, updates, and research on HIV treatment and prevention.

One of the drugs contained in PrEP drug Truvada, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), has been associated with small decreases in bone mineral density. Researchers have raised concerns that PrEP use may prevent peak bone mass formation and increase risk of fractures. At CROI today, results were presented of a study demonstrating that bone mineral density returns to normal levels after people stopped taking PrEP. The implications of this study may be important for providers who counsel clients about the benefits and risks of starting and stopping PrEP.

Dr. Robert Grant (photo: Liz Highleyman)

“Recovery of BMD [bone mineral density] after stopping PrEP has not been fully evaluated,” said Robert M. Grant, MD, the lead investigator of the study of the Gladstone Institutes, the University of California San Francisco and San Francisco AIDS Foundation. “Bone mineral density appears to be a dynamic and regulated process that does return to placebo levels after stopping PrEP.”

The bone mineral density study was conducted with a subset of participants who participated in the oral PrEP iPrEx randomized controlled trial and open-label extension. A total of 498 men and transgender women received bone mineral density scans (DXA scans) of the spine and hip at the iPrEx baseline visit, every 24 weeks during the study, and when they enrolled in the open-label extension portion of the iPrEx trial. The median age of participants was 25 years and 11% identified as transgender.

Among people assigned to take active drug during the randomized controlled portion of the study, the average hip and spine bone mineral density decreased from the time study drug was begun. (Analyses were focused on people in the study who achieved drug levels corresponding to taking at least 2 to 3 tablets of study drug per week.)

“You can see that changes in bone mineral density occurred in both the hip and the spine. They occurred by week 24 and there was no substantial decrement after week 24,” said Grant.

After drug was stopped, and before participants enrolled into the open-label extension portion of the study, bone mineral density in both the hip and the spine increased. People under age 25 experienced a faster return to normal levels than people over age 25.

People under age 25 recovered bone mineral density of the hip and spine by six months after stopping drug. People older than 25 recovered bone mineral density completely in the spine within six months, and completely in the hip by the start of the open-label extension. (The median time between the randomized controlled study and the open-label extension was 1.5 years.)

It is not yet known how a second exposure to PrEP (as in, for example, the open-label extension portion of the iPrEx study) affects bone mineral density. Grant reported that participants in the iPrEx open-label extension did receive DXA scans every 24 weeks, and his team plans to present those results later this year.

Bone loss and gain in hip by age (Photo: BETA)

Bone loss and gain in spine by age (Photo: BETA)

 Source:

Grant, R. and others. Abstract 48LB. Recovery of bone mineral density after stopping oral HIV preexposure prophylaxis. CROI 2016.

ALERT Health Warning ATTENTION Dan Savage, Sean Strub, Brad Hoylman A SERIOUS WARNING : I am disgusted with the power play a few AIDS activists are pulling at this critical moment of the Democratic Primary: Would someone please tell Peter Staley to stop looking at himself in the mirror and look around him ..You had told people that you support Clinton. Please Peter and others realize PrEP is not the central issue to most people in the US ...Sanders statement address the major concerns most AIDS activists have. I have been a AIDS activist since 1981 .. I suggest you stop acting as if you are the star of a dishonest documentary and get your head out of whatever back room it is stuck in. Please tell the truth about your own life .. It could help other people that have your story. As to PrEP: In plain English I think it is nuts to tell healthy bodies to ingest a serious AIDS drug (Truvada) that we know has known and unknown side effects in sick bodies. Yes it does prolong life in people with a terminal disease (AIDS). There is no cure and you know that. I have opposed PrEP because unlike PrEP, condoms worked against all STD transmission.. No glove no love... Surely you remember the ACTUP women's slogan. and now we are getting documented evidence that the $18, 000 a year for a little blue pill that MUST be ingested DAILY already is displaying know side effects in young people, ...

Please stop attacking Sanders .

May I suggest you direct your anger at your friends in the gay porn industry who have been erotizikng unsafe ,unprotected , "raw" sex .Face it, Peter, now that safe sex education has been underfunded and ruled ineffective by the Obama Administration Young gay men are getting their sex education from pornography, barebacking pornography ..Watching actors fueled by truvada and viagra role model gay male se x.. Please think this through We both want to save lives

http://betablog.org/prep-demonstration-project-modest-bone-density-loss-observed-among-young-men/

HEALTH ALERT: PrEP : Do you yourself or do you know someone who is using the PrEP protocol of daily ingestion of a serious AIDS drug (truvada) into their healthy bodies as a possible prophylaxis for HIV transmission in condom free sex? You must have seen the widespread campaign if you live in NY State on public transportation. It is everywhere.

Public transportation is full of large propaganda signage promoting PrEP. You will have to look very hard and very close to the find the small font white typed message saying use condoms to prevent STD infections. Yes truvada does not prevent anything but the possible transmission of HIV only . (92% effective) .

I have been warning about the possible side effects of the prescribing of a serious AIDS drug to HEALTHY people. The side effects are just beginning to roll in. The target population in the experimental trials sponsored by the CDC with the Federal Department of Health and individual State Health Departments and endorsed by State adn City public officials, has been all minority young people 16-23 and individuals participating in same sex sex activity.. Special outreached has been made to know AIDS/Hiv prevention advocates. Do we really want to subject healthy bodies to the kind of lifelong side effects that is revealed in the article? I suspect this is just the beginning of side effects in healthy bodies. Yes truvada works in prolonging life in individuals with a terminal disease . (Note there is no cure for AIDS) Intentions may be good but please think through the consequences of hopping the PrEP express to lifelong side effects in healthy bodies. Use condoms. They work. Be safe and enjoy sex.

jim fouratt'

AIDS activist :

Founded Wipe Out Aids /

HEAL in 1982 , founding member ACT UP

Arrogance on display in report from GAY HISTORY AT 40 conference, New York Dolls and Jim fouratt both distorted by Susan Stryker

Arrogance on display in report from GAY HISTORY AT 40 conference, 

Circulating on the internet and going viral is a report on the Gay History at 40 conference which I attended recently at the New School recently. A report on a particularly panel contains a section which attacks me unfairly and is not factual. For those involved in academia who may have seen or will see this report ( i will not give credence here) I am posting my response. It should also be of interest of any one interested in the current gender discussion: Note the panel it self that is referenced was quite full of interesting papers... but to single me out was reprehensible

A RESPONSE to : Rachel Hope Cleves' report on the Gay History at 40 Conference that includes an attack against me that is not based in fact. She wrote:

....."Not long after Susan Stryker, a trans woman and a founder of the field of trans studies, delivered the keynote address on Thursday morning, Jim Fouratt took the mic to attack her type of work – as he has done at past CLAGS events (recounted by Stryker in her essay “(De)Subjugated Knowledges”). Fourrat’s trolling of Stryker, however, was a sideshow to the main source of tension, directed by older lesbian-feminists against younger trans masculine people.... " Lesbian Histories and Futures: A Dispatch From “Gay American History @ 40” MAY 18, 2016 / RACHEL HOPE CLEVE

Let me explain: I did not attack Susan Stryker.

I asked a question about language use. I referenced Stryker’s keynote address 

( https://youtu.be/y3nI2uKH39Y ) What I asked was about the appropriateness of layering language of today on the recounting of history. I thought at a conference of "queer" historians and academics it was an appropriate subject. I said that the gender language of today is being layered onto historical discourse, when the language being used did not exist in the historical moment under discussion. I also quoted William Burroughs saying "Language is toxic" and said it can have ever changing meaning. That context is important in communication. I was asking that historians respect the language of a period because of the historical context and shared meaning. eg I when Stryker gave a keynote centering around a band I knew personally, the New York Dolls (J. Jack Halberstam Stryker is not !) Stryker kept using “trans this and trans that” to describe gay men who were self admitted drag queens, or straight men wearing what is associated in “heteronormative” culture as female attire. V went so far as to call some of Andy Warhol 'superstars" transsexuals. As someone who was a part of the Warhol world, and actually appeared in a Warhol film and knew the “superstars" personally, I know as fact that not one of them was a transsexual.

While I was asking the question Nan Alamilla Boyd, who was chairing the panel, cut me off, and told to sit down when I brought up the name Stryker. After the session ended and after all the people who wanted to speak to her had finished, I went up to Nan Alamilla Boyd and attempted to engaged her. She refused to talk to me and turned her back on me. In her piece, Cleves accuses me of trolling. Trolling is an ugly, dismissive word, In this incident, not an accurate word choice. She chose it, I believe, to invalidate anything I had to say.

I have found many incidents where Stryker lies or mis-identifies historical events to fit v own agenda. Because I have spoken up and challenged the accuracy of her statements, I have been labeled transphobic and of attacking v. I asked my questions respectfully and expected Stryker to respond in a respectful manner. Instead I have become a public target of Stryker. She has lied about me in print. I have tried in private to bring up these contradictions with Stryker with little success. I have never personally attacked Stryker in public or private. I have been critical of her work. There is a difference. Stryker has targeted me in a number of public events and in her published writing, making up stories and/or getting v facts wrong. My experience with the public Stryker has left me feeling I have been bullied.

I am dismayed by Nan Alamilla Boyd’s behavior toward me, an older gay man who has played a historical role in making visible lesbians and gay men of all gender expressions, and who worked to create both visibility and a more safe world to come out in. By doing so, I lost most of my career, so that people like her could have the jobs they do today.

I do not expect a person to have to agree with me. I have never in any public writing attacked any person who had made an informed choice about what to do with his or her body, It is essential to my feminist understanding of politics that a respectful dialectical discussion of ideas is the proper way to engage in debate, Rachel Hope Cleves’ polemic report is just one more example of how, in my experience, many queer theory academics are dismissive of people who are actual history makers like myself. We are either erased from history, or they refuse to engage us. Neither Rachel Hope Cleves or Nan Alamilla Boyd has ever engaged with me that I am aware of . I would welcome a private or public real time conversation.. Digital discourse on issues such as this do belong in face to face discussion. This discussion in real time can be used in the digital world

Jim Fouratt

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

wish I could have been there ,, but not I am not getting into Raleigh until the 17th for Moog Fest ..I trust everyone one knows the so called, by tabloid journalist and some activist, the "toilet" bill is in actuality a much more insidious and prejudicial bill against all LGBT individuals . HB2 makes legal, discrimination in work place and living environment of any individual who is lesbian and gay regardless of their gender expression. Regulation of toilet and locker room use is a part of the larger discriminatory bill And by its passage increases the possibility of hate crimes  the toilet and locker room issue is simply bait that obscures the real intent of this hateful bill, Sad that far too many people including activists and media took the bait and ignored the true intent of the bill passed. HB2 legalizes discrimination against LGBT people . I support boycotts by superstars ,like Bruce Springsteen and talk backs by local artist and local festival and FYI.. having been raped in a men's locker room I think there has to be a place to discuss the practical practice of a civil right matter, There is a huge difference for me between putting on lipstick in a bathroom nad undressing un a men's locker. Safety does come come first. .. and please note tha allmy clubs had gender neutral bathroom.. what goes on in a stall stays in a stall .. ..i have for years here in NYC uses what ever bathroom became open whenthere was no waiting line to get into either,

Another death in the family makes me think how AIDS still kills and reflecton where we are today in fighting it a critique of PrEP

I am mouring the death of my friend Robert, as are many of my friends.  I trust you know AIDS is still a TERMINAL , incurable disease. People who are long term persons with AIDS die today usually of complications from the medical treatments that have taken to stay alive. There is no cure . Despite the fantasy of some AIDS/HIV activists and the advertising campaigns of Big Pharma. Big Pharma greed is on ample public display in the outrageous prices they charge for life sustaining drugs.These drugs come with positive and negative consequences..The good news is that for many the drugs prolong life , the bad news is theses drugs come with their own baggage. ;

 We now know that premature aging, HIV drug related dementia and a plethora of other organ failure like the heart and the liver are side effects,. Safe sex (condom use) is the best protection if one is concerned about HIV. or other STDs or pregnancy The Obama administration in order to fulfill the Congressional GOP led call that pissed for a financial sequester on all federal sponsored programs ( choosing cuts over raising taxes on the rich and corporations) lead to safe sex education cuts in the Health Department and the CDC. .. Instead the Obama administration partnered up with Big Pharma to push forward a program called PrEP. PrEP is a program that wants to have anyone at risk for HIV infection (the controversy over what that means I will leave aside for the moment ) to take a little blue pill , a serious AIDS drug with know serious side effects on sick bodies and at this stage because of the newest of an experimental program unknown in healthy bodies. The drug is called truvada. At present it costs about $18,000 a year. Even if it was free (and despite whatever propaganda funded by Big Pharma and its partners in government local, state or federal it is NOT free ,, we the taxpayers will pay for it if someone gets it for "free. Big Pharma still will make its profit). 

 "At risk " is defined as anyone (regardless of sexual orientation) sharing semen or sex related body fluids. A special emphasis is placed on passive participation in anal sex (which is a sex act not exclusive to the gay male population) . 

PrEP was launched at the international AIDS conference in DC where I witnessed the cheerleading recruitment launch campaign. I was shocked to realize that forty years of AIDS activists (in NYC ACT UP led by women) demands for safe sex condom use and more that 60 years of women demanding men wear condoms, 

Than I saw the Big Pharma, local, state and federal government were now joined by some AIDS activists and by community AIDS educators who had lost their jobs when Federal funding of safe sex education was cut and when Big Pharma replaced the funding and they got their jobs back with the proviso that their safe sex education was focused on PrEP. (GMHC etc) .Yes after a loud protest across the country condom use was added as a cautionary step .

 But the universal message the public understood despite what ever warning was that if you take a blue pill, you could forget about safe sex, You will not get AIDS. What most users did not understand is a: the drug appears in early studies to prevent transmission of HIV in about 90% of the cases documented .. (Note this number may change in studies ) . the reality is that is not a foolproof HIV prevention method.

Most importantly it does not prevent the transmission of any other STD's What we have seen in the gay controlled section of the porn industry is a avalanche of unsafe sex gay porn. (no condoms). So besides the use of a viagra or it's imitators in young male porn actors who are without physically based erectile dysfunction issues the little pule pill has been added. 

AIDS activist seen incapable of criticizing the gay porn industry ..eg Michael Lucas. 

So now where I live the cases of syphilis among young gay men who go to public health centers is over the top. Unknown is the number of std among gay men who seek private doctor care . Let me say loud and clear as someone who first became active in AIDS/HIV activism in 1982 I think it crazy to ingest a serious AIDS drug with know and unknown side effects in a healthy body. as a prophylaxis. . I would not do it. 

As to others ,because i believe each of us has the right to control our own bodiesI can only suggest that individuals make an INFORMED choice to use truvada or not if they are healthy and not HIV + or have AIDS . , My goal is to make sure that any person confronted with the massive PrEP propaganda recruitment campaign has ALL ht information to make an INFORMED choice. I know that Robert fought for the right to control his own body and respect for his treatment choices. . All of us who loved him I believe are charged to continue that each of us has ALL the information in order OT make an informed choice.. Ione of the saddest aspects of the pro-PrEP campaign by some AIDS activists is to realize that some of the leaders are long ten survivors of AIDS /HIV infection. I appreciate their wanting to end AIDS but reject their willingness become pawns in Big Pharma ever extending web of exploitation of legitimate health concerns for profit.

I share my  grief with all my friends e. Robert was loved by many 

photo: Robert Levithan by Peter Hujar (cc)  

OH BOY ... "Real Girl" DIVAS in DUETS Erin Markey and Emily Bate at Greenwich House !!

OH BOY .. you bet I am going to see these two "real girl " divas battle for the gold ring ... or should I just say .. DUETS is not to be missed ..sisterhood is powerful!  and rumor has it that Barbra knows all about it .. who knows what could happen?

Erin Markey

Erin Markey and Emily Bate continue to explore their onstage vocal chemistry and offstage twenty-four-hour-a-day buddy comedy performance project in a night of duets. Inspired by listening to Barbra Streisand's album Duets on long drives to their shared homeland of Michigan and vocally training to become the red-blooded sopranos they never accepted they always were, Bate and Markey imprint the weird romance of their 15 year long friendship onto the hetero-camp tradition of the duet. Some of the angels guiding their way include Kid Rock, humiliating sex, Linda Ronstadt, Celine Dion, their obsession with their parents, and their own composer selves. They are accompanied by a full band.

                                                                                                                        Emily Bate 

Erin Markey Erin Markey is a New York based artist who makes live performance, video, comedy and music. She was named a "magnetic diva" by the New York Times and a Time Out New York Top Ten Cabaret Performer 2013-2015. Her work has been shown at BAM, Under The Radar Festival (Public Theater), New Museum, PS 122, Bard Spiegeltent, New York Comedy Festival, San Francisco Film Society, and regularly at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater. She is the recipient of a 2014 Franklin Furnace Grant and a 2012 NYFA Cutting Edge Artist Award. She won an Eliot Norton Award for Outstanding Performance in 2013. Her most recent work, A Ride On The Irish Cream, co-composed with Emily Bate and Kenny Mellman premiered at Abrons Arts Center in January 2016 and will tour Winter 2017. She was an artist in residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange and Baryshnikov Arts Center. She is a company member of Obie Award Winning Half Straddle and is performing in and co-composing music for the upcoming Ghost Rings at New York Live Arts in April 2016.

Emily Bate is a singer, composer and harmony fanatic based in Philadelphia. Her current projects include Going Down Mount Moriah, a theater piece based around an 8-voice women's choir; a series of "zingles" (zine + single) combining writing and music; and acoustic chamber-math duo Jonagold. She music directed and starred in the 2016 world premiere of A Ride On The Irish Cream, and co-composed the music with Erin Markey and Kenny Mellman. 

Tickets: $15 (includes free beer all night)

More Erin Markey: http://www.erinmarkey.com/
More Emily Bate: http://emilybate.com/

No Ms Clinton ... this is not how you get my vote. If I lived in West Virginia, Washington State otr California you would NOT get my vote

HILLARY CLINTON with her arrogant dishonest CNN interview with Anderson Cooper.

She and Bernie do not share the same politics ....no matter how she wants to spin it The fact that she has not moved one inch to talk to Sanders supporters shows not only her arrogance but also her blindness . WAKE UP . There is not one poll paid for by Clinton that has put defeating Trump. A number of polls have Sanders beating Trump  why are you talking about novemeber in May? I am concerned with getting Sanders as many delegates as possible for the platfrom fight at the convention As to nomination, despite what Team Hilarey and copoirate media spins it is NOT over .. I talk not out of fear or parionoa ..both emotions are saturating Giani rant. He has been telling us continually he doesn't care about the election and than posts a picture TEAM HILARY has been spreading/ of Sanders suggesting he is madman. Yes he is mad for very good treason. I am too .We wil have time after the converntionto to have a discsuuion on who to vote for in November. watch the whole Cooper/Clinton interview may 4th 2016