Act Up protests at Kristen Gillibrand fundraiser hosted by Big Pharm's Pfizer CEO

This is what I did yesterday. I joined in ACT UP's demo. Kristen Gillibrand talks about courage in all her campaign activity. I would like to ask her : "just how much courage does it take to say NO! to big pharma money?  Why did she agree to have a private raiser at $2500 a ticket spnsored by the CEO of Pfizer?   It's not what politicians say, its what they do that matters.

GAYS against GUNS vs the PINK PISTOL movement. Where I stand with support material video and primt

I don't support the Pink Pistols . It is simply nuts to enourage the average gay or lesbian person of any gender expression to carry their own gun unless orgnized as a Williams Boroughs fantasy group with out real weapons. Homophobia breeds anger, Anger breeds hate, Hate breeds fear and rage . Fear and rage and the NRA puts guns into people's hands . people with guns shot and kill and wound people. No I do not think Pink Pistols advocacy of arming one's self with assault weapons accomplishes anything but to give new meaning to straight acting. Self defense yes but not by arming people average people Please read

READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS 

/gays-guns-vs-pink-pistols-two-views-gun-control-debate/#.V3yqyCgdhx8.facebook
READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS 

PINK PISTOLS? 

Please listen closely to a libertarian public access television discussion with a dangerous (my opinion)  self appointed "gay /queer "  spokesperson for Pink Pistols in NYC.. This interview was conducted before Orlando and before he joined the new ACT UP as an HIV + activist .. note what he says about government involvement ..and now he s receives assistance with medication etc. 

I have had personal experience with ADEMAJ. We  have very different positions on PrEP (giving hiv- individuals serious AIDS drugs with serious side effects on a daily basis at  a cost of $18,000 (mostly paid by US government with taxpayer's money. As an HIV- person who has lived through the plague years/ I think it simply crazy to say that safe sex does not work. I know personally safe sex works   I met ADEMAJ at the new ACT UP meeting where a discussion of how ACT UP had failed and safe sex doesn't work was being held. (It does for me and many of my friends) . In talking with him , he told me he does not wear condoms because he thinks his HIV is undetectable, I asked if his health care provider supported  his refusal to wear condoms . He refused to answer.  He told me he feels no obligation to tell sexual partners that he is HIV+ , He told me he will have sex with any man or woman who is "hot." . At the time of this encounter he clearly looked to me as if he was on a multiple drug regimen which could be shedding in his semen  Later encounters were scary, He was so angry with me that he would scream in his now over steroid body, "I am going to destroy your reputation!"He told me would organized a group to ruin my reputation. I did not know at the time he was a gun advocate, He told me he would  destroy me. I do not want this person with the amount of rage he has directed at me. I did wonder to myself if he had Aids/HIV medication related dementia When he was screaming at me about destroying me I thought he might lose control . His apparent, to me,  issues with masculinity and wanting to act straight I have seen it other gay men i... but it was the first time i had encountered it  from a  person who vowed to destroy me who isa member of the PINK PISTOLS

GAYS against GUNS vs the PINK PISTOL movement. Where I stand with support material video and primt

I don't support the Pink Pistols . It is simply nuts to enourage the average gay or lesbian person of any gender expression to carry their own gun unless orgnized as a Williams Boroughs fantasy group with out real weapons. Homophobia breeds anger, Anger breeds hate, Hate breeds fear and rage . Fear and rage and the NRA puts guns into people's hands . people with guns shot and kill and wound people. No I do not think Pink Pistols advocacy of arming one's self with assault weapons accomplishes anything but to give new meaning to straight acting. Self defense yes but not by arming people average people Please read

READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS 

/gays-guns-vs-pink-pistols-two-views-gun-control-debate/#.V3yqyCgdhx8.facebook
READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS READ THIS 

PINK PISTOLS? 

Please listen closely to a libertarian public access televison discussion with a dangerous (my opinion)  self appointed "gay /queer "  spokesperson for Pink Pistols in NYC.. This interview was condicted before Orlando and before he joined the new ACT UP as an HIV + activist .. note what he says about government involvement ..ansd now he s receives assistance with medication etc. 

I have had personal experience with ADEMAJ. We  have very different positions on PrEP (giving hiv- individuals serious AIDS drugs with serious side effects on a daily basis at  a cost of $18,000 (mostly paid by US government with taxpayer's money. As an HIV- person who has lived through the plague years/ I think it simply crazy to say that safe sex does not work. I know personally safe sex works   I met ADEMAJ at the new ACT UP meeting where a discussion of how ACT UP had failed and safe sex doesn't work was being held. (It does for me and many of my friends) . In talking with him , he told me he does not wear condoms because he thinks his HIV is undetectable, I asked if his health care provider supported  his refusal to wear condoms . He refused to answer.  He told me he feels no obligation to tell sexual partners that he is HIV+ , He told me he will have sex with any man or woman who is "hot." . At the time of this encounter he clearly looked to me as if he was on a multiple drug regimen which could be shedding in his semen  Later encounters were scary, He was so angry with me that he would scream in his now over steroid body, "I am going to destroy your reptutation!"He told me would organized a group to ruin my reputation. I did not know at the time he was a gun advocate, He told me he would  destroy me. I do not want this person with the amount of rage he has directed at me. I did wonder to myself if he had Aids/HIV medication related dementia When he was screaming at me about destroying me I thought he might lose control . His apparent, to me,  issues with masculinity and wanting to act straight I have seen it other gay men i... but it was the first time i had encountered it  from a  person who vowed to destroy me who isa member of the PINK PISTOLS

GAYS against GUNS vs the PINK PISTOL movement. Where I stand with support material video and primt

I don't support the PINK PISTOLS  It is simply nuts to enourage the average gay or lesbian person of any gender expression to carry their own gun unless orgnized as a Williams Boroughs fantasy group with out real weapons. Homophobia breeds anger, Anger breeds hate, Hate breeds fear and rage . Fear and rage and the NRA puts guns into people's hands . people with guns shot and kill and wound people. No I do not think Pink Pistols advocacy of arming one's self with assault weapons accomplishes anything but to give new meaning to straight acting. Self defense yes but not by arming people average people Please read.

READ THIS ARTICAL 

/gays-guns-vs-pink-pistols-two-views-gun-control-debate/#.V3yqyCgdhx8.facebook

PINK PISTOLS? 

Please listen closely to a libertarian public access televison discussion with a dangerous (my opinion)  self appointed "gay /queer "  spokesperson for Pink Pistols in NYC.. This interview was condicted before Orlando and before he joined the new ACT UP as an HIV + activist .. note what he says about government involvement ..ansd now he s receives assistance with medication etc. 

I have had personal experience with ADEMAJ. We  have very different positions on PrEP (giving hiv- individuals serious AIDS drugs with serious side effects on a daily basis at  a cost of $18,000 (mostly paid by US government with taxpayer's money. As an HIV- person who has lived through the plague years/ I think it simply crazy to say that safe sex does not work. I know personally safe sex works   I met ADEMAJ at the new ACT UP meeting where a discussion of how ACT UP had failed and safe sex doesn't work was being held. (It does for me and many of my friends) . In talking with him , he told me he does not wear condoms because he thinks his HIV is undetectable, I asked if his health care provider supported  his refusal to wear condoms . He refused to answer.  He told me he feels no obligation to tell sexual partners that he is HIV+ , He told me he will have sex with any man or woman who is "hot." . At the time of this encounter he clearly looked to me as if he was on a multiple drug regimen which could be shedding in his semen  Later encounters were scary, He was so angry with me that he would scream in his now over steroid body, "I am going to destroy your reptutation!"He told me would organized a group to ruin my reputation. I did not know at the time he was a gun advocate, He told me he would  destroy me. I do not want this person with the amount of rage he has directed at me. I did wonder to myself if he had Aids/HIV medication related dementia When he was screaming at me about destroying me I thought he might lose control . His apparent, to me,  issues with masculinity and wanting to act straight I have seen it other gay men i... but it was the first time i had encountered it  from a  person who vowed to destroy me who isa member of the PINK PISTOLS

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)  

Hunter Reynolds / Patina Du Prey's Memorial Dress

Today is World Aids Day.. a time to remember those lost, celebrate those living with Aids and HIV+ , endorse all methods of healing that brings hope to any individual, support the fight to heal the body and psychic and end AIDS, raise questions about interventions  to keep people alive including the promotion of an intervention that undermines 50 years of women fighting for men to wear condoms and 30 years of ACT UP  and Michael Callen  founded People With AIDS Coalition  generated safe sex education, A commitment to  younger people  to reveal in a personal way what the dark years of the AIDS pandemic did to the imagination, creativity and life choices of all of us alive who lived through it and in the fight  to live today whether diagnosed or disease free,  For me after 33 years of AIDS activism starting with the founding of Wipe Out AIDS/HEAL (1981)  with my friend Gene Fedorko to today, I have finally gotten in touch with the repressed  feelings of loss and powerlessness to save people I loved and others, it has been a year of becoming spontaneously  weepy, coming  out of nowhere and becoming conscious of individuals gone.  Today I am conscious of not only commitment but also allowing grief to be felt. Doing so refreshes finding a path to finding hope and bringing continued commitment to truth telling and healthy life sustaining personal practice. Theory can always be debated but it should never prevent cooperation among activist in a commitment to saving life my own and others,

Throughout the day I will be posting WORLD AIDS DAY memorabilia  starting with Hunter Reynolds, and artist and long term survival of AIDS iconic art piece Patina Du Prey's Memorial Dress  that meshes activism and beauty and makes impossible not to see how each supports the other.  Click on the image and go to his art piece .. In your face tragic and  a beautiful  expression of gay spirit, a queer manifestation of an artist's resistance and a personal commitment to life.

OXYCONTIN and TRUVADA: why Big Pharma put$ profit above health consequences of their drugs. Making money my dear is what Matters !

NO GLOVE NO LOVE and next up TRUVADA, the little daily blue pill in PrEP trials .. and did you know that that among the biggest stock holders in Truvada is Donald Rumsfeld? Make sure all your HIV- friends think through about putting a serious AIDS drug with all its known side effects into their bodies so they can have unsafe, "raw" sex. Make sure they know all the known, let alone, the unknown side effects on HIV+ bodies, let alone what long term effect will be by the use on HIV- bodies. That this need to take an expensive drug does NOT protect against any other STD except the possibility of HIV transmission. It will put billions of dollars of profit into the pockets of share holders .

Women who have sex with men for over 45 years had advocated for health reasons not just limited to that of pregnancy for men wear condoms."No glove No Love " ...and now people with AIDS and HIV+ activist and some public heath officials and some MDs are campaigning to undermine their message by promoting PrEP. The issue of heterosexual couples who want children who have rejected adoption where one partner is HIV+ or has AIDS and a partner who is HIV- is a serious question and needs to be addressed separately Same sex couples with mixed HIV conditions do not make babies in anal intercourse.No Glove No love. The current public campaign promoting PrEP by the State and City Health Departments to me verges on criminal misinformation because it promotes PrEP without any mention of the harmful side effects or cost to the individual or the public. And who is funding this campaign? We know that when the federal government withdrew funding for safe sex education from AIDS related service agencies PHARMA stepped in and replaced the funding by funding Prep education programs in those same agencies and saved jobs and, I suggest, put lives at risk. , And no matter how you feel about PrEP, please Make sure people know that so called HIV+ individuals who say their viral load is "undetectable" and want to have unprotected sex with you are living in a scientifically controversial world. Don't have anal or vaginal sex with out a condom

NO GLOVE NO LOVE remember the Tuskegee trials ...guess who is targeted this time?

ALERT: What side effects can Truvada cause?Truvada can cause serious, life-threatening side effects. :

1: These include lactic acidosis (
2: New or worsening kidney problems, including kidney failure.
3: Bone problems (bone pain, softening, or thinning [osteopenia]).
4: Immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS), a condition that sometimes occurs when the immune system begins to recover after treatment with an HIV medicine. As the immune system gets stronger, it may have an increased response to a previously hidden infection. Tell your health care provider if you start having new symptoms after starting your HIV medicine.
4: Changes in body fat (lipodystrophy).
Tell your health care provider if you have any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away.These are not all the possible side effects of Truvada. To learn more about possible side effects of Truvada, read the drug label or package insert or talk to your health care provider or pharmacist.The AIDSinfo fact sheet on HIV Medicines and Side Effects also includes information that may apply to Truvada.You can report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088 (1-800-332-1088) or online athttps://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/.

Or as was written in BlackgirlDangerous Blog

one side effects that you will not be told : (from blackgirldangerous blog)
Truvada, a pre-exposure prophylactic (PrEP) that prevents the transmission of HIV. Essentially, you take this pill every day to prevent contracting the virus and developing the highly-manageable chronic illness. .......have gotten a few of the facts wrong: . .....why Truvada is more effective than other, less costly and less extreme alternatives. .....makes the assumption that HIV/AIDS is somehow a gay issue, and it is not...... fails to discuss the systemic complications of treating gay identities as “high-risk” chronic conditions that require being indentured to the medical industrial complex. .....writes, “Truvada has virtually no side effects,” he is wrong. The Truvada website’s Patient Assistance Page identifies lactic acidosis as a potential side effect of taking the drug; this side effect is potentially life-threatening and serious even when it doesn’t result in death. Lactic acidosis is when your body tissue and blood becomes too acidic and has a lactate build up. In the past the FDA has withdrawn drugs (such as phenformin) for the potential development of this condition. I think this is not only misleading, but unethical to suggest that a drug that is potentially life-threatening has “virtually no side effects.” Especially when other drugs have been taken off shelves for the same side effect.... the popular argument that Truvada lowers condom use and asserts that Truvada is an effective prevention tool. While I am willing to accept Stern’s claim that Truvada is more than 99 percent effective, I wonder if he knows the same is true for condom use (a much less expensive form of prevention). What is especially interesting to me is this focus on sex in the context of HIV. In particular, the focus on the sex being had by gay men. The fact that (it) seems to think this pill is accessible enough to suggest all gay men take it only leads me to question how much (is) understood (about the intersection of) poverty, race, and structural barriers.

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And the FDA just approved this very addictive drug for children as young as 11 years old. Joy. Get them hooked when they're young.