My City Councilperson gets arrested in DC after joining people with pre-existing conditions fighting against TRUMPCARE

This is my City Councilperson, Corey Johnson.  He ran as an HIV+ candidate,  He won. Before being elected Johnson did depend on Medicaid/Medicare for his health care. Now as an elected official in NYC he has health care. Johnson knows well that many people like himself,  HIV+ l and others including those with a medical disability will under the proposed TRUMPCARE lose their health benefits if passed. So Johnson went to DC and joined 375 other citizens with pre-existing conditions and they together sat in at Senator's offices. Johnson was in the group blocking the entrance to Senator Mitch McConnell's office.

He repeatedly shouted "My name is Corey Johnson. I am gay. I am sober and clean, I am HIV+. I have a pre-existing health.condition. I have health insurance today, but I stand with all those who have a preexisting condition on Medicare and Medicaid.  He continued: "These people will lose their health insurance if this TRUMPCARE passes."Gorey Johnson was arrested, handcuffed and sent to a DC jail.

Watch the live stream and hear Corey Johnson explain why he was willing to be arrested in the fight to defeat TRUMPCARE

COREY JOHNSON ARREST and he tells us why in handcuffs 

Quite frankly I am proud of him.  Yes, I do wonder why State Assemblymember Deborah Glick, the out lesbian and women's health advocate and State Senator Brad Hoylman have not been seen in DC putting their bodies and prestige with the demonstrators trying to stop the repeal of the Affordable Healthcare Act. Why they were not representing seniors like me who need health benefits.  Why are they not publicly supporting the call for Single Payer Health Care (Medicaid for All) as the best way to correct problems that do exist with the current Affordable Healthcare Act?

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Tim Murphy reads from his new book CHRISTODORA at Housing Works Bookstore

Meet one of my children I m most proud of   TIM MURPHY Journalist and activist Tim Murphy celebrates the release of his new work of fiction CHRISTODORA , The backward/forward model captures what is was like living in NYC at the height of the AIDS pandemic. Murphy active in the current Gays Against Guns movement was a wonder to see and hear , Openly moved by the packed room of who is who in the Aids/HIV activist movement . Charles King founder of Housing Works and Sarah Schulman author (Gentrification of the Mind and 13 other narrative and fact based book as well as ACT UP founding memebr ) were there to honor Murphy and listen to the post -reading conversation between Murphy an

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)