ACT UP Succeeds in Getting Department of Health to Support Anti-HIV Programs

By Raillan Brooks

Last week the Voice reported that ACT UP, one the nation's leading HIV/AIDS activist organizations, was protesting in front of New York's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in Queens over its lousy data collection and even lousier education initiatives about disease treatment. It appears that the protest has had an effect: DOHMH has promised to ramp up its campaign to education people about prevention medications.

"The Health Department plans to expand information about biomedical HIV prevention interventions for at-risk populations, as well as information for clinical providers both on its website and in a format that can be disseminated easily by funded sites," said a department spokesperson to Out.

DOHMH explains that its reticence over providing better access to pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis was over the drugs' potential for abuse--people using the drugs in place of, not with, other lines of defense. (Though I don't know many people would prefer taking a monthlong course of drugs that attack your bone marrow and induce such terrible nausea that they often have to prescribe special medication, as a first resort in dealing with HIV).

For many the fear of the HIV pandemic of the 1980s and 1990s has ebbed just enough that unprotected sex--and HIV infection--is on the rise again.

Read more at http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/08/act_up_succeeds.php