We ARE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT: IDEAS for PROTEST Political Funeral A Performance Protest

ARTIST ALERT: find your way to make a statement ..here is one powerful statement as relevant today as it was in 1994.. PLEASE STEP UP your flash lights are need to light up the caves of real fear of the DTs regime . The treat to kill Affordable Health Care and medicaid ... will cause suffering

Jack Shamblin writes "Political funerals were public processions of AIDS victims held by ACT UP during the early 90's. Artist Tim Bailey's march resulted in a riot with his AIDS ridden corpse being dumped on the White House Lawn. That was his original wishes but ACT UP hadn't planned on carrying it out. They told him they loved him to much to do such a thing. The police and White House security cards tried to prevent the legal and peaceful procession. Their interference resulted in a heroic uproar by activists. Theodora Skipitares' asked me to write and perform a piece inspired by this account. It was part of her play, Under The Knife, The History of Medicine and was performed at La MaMa Annex at various runs from '94 -'96. To create the piece, I imagined what Tim might have said had he awaken from the dead for just five minutes."

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

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)  

Dear HIV - people: Is PrEP worth the risk or cost?

PrEP :Is it worth the risk or cost ?

Please dear HIV - people (meaning healthy) , male and female do NOT take the PrEP bait we are being bombarded by almost everywhere, The drug you will be  taking you will be required to take daily is called Truvada, a serious AIDS drug given to people with AIDS to prolong life in those diagnosed with a still fatal disease. Truvada is known to have serious ide effects. It is unknow ast this ealry stage if it has unknown side effects in HIV- individuals. If it works it will only block the possible transmission of HIV . It will not have any effect on any other STD transmission. Practice safe sex. Use condoms , Safe sex works and has a higher chance of blocking the transmission of HIV and any other std including syphilis. Truvada costs approximately $18,000 dollars for most people a month. Its use has been know to encourage a false sense of it's ok to have unprotected sex. Syphilis is out of control in the predominantly gay Chelsea neighborhood of NYC Wear a condom, have your partner wear condom if he refuse. Well as the Act Up women historically chanted:  No Glove No Love,

Also beware of men saying they are cured of being HIV + and today are "undetectable" . The science is not clear on what that means ..and HIV has a history of hiding in the body. If you are HIV- don't risk it..

Say No to Truvada and PrEP and YES to safe sex and pleasure ..

Be Safe

Jim Fouratt
AIDS activist since 1982

MARK YOUR CALENDARS.... September 10th 20115 Important cultural. political and artist Hunter Reynolds with an overview of his important work . DO not miss this one . I still have reeling in my memory bank his powerful history lesson taught in blood stain newsprint at Participant. He currently has a photo documentation of a roving performance piece dealing with gender expression at the peak of the AIDS crsis. It is a t the Bureau of General Services, Queer Dividison located inside the Center at 208b West 13 st NYC .

Join

Survival AIDS Medication Reminder

Thursday, September 10 at 6:00pm

PPOW Gallery in New York, New York

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.