Malawi: Manerela+ Condemns Faith Healing - allAfrica.com

Think religious based superstition is harmless?

Malawi Network of Religious Leaders living with or Personally Affected by HIV/AIDS (MANERELA+) has urged churches in the country to stop discouraging people from taking medical drugs.

Programs Manager for Manerela+, Bruce Tushabe told Malawi News Agency (Mana) that some churches have been for some time encouraging people to believe in faith healing instead of taking their medical drugs as prescribed by medical doctors.

"We are facing the challenge of religious practices where some church leaders encourage people living with HIV/AIDS to stop taking Anti Retro Viral (ARV) that help boost the immune system.

"Instead, they are told to believe in faith healing which does not work with the immune system at all," said Tushabe.

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"Whether someone gets healed by faith or not, church leaders are not supposed to tell anyone to stop medication," Banda explained.

Malawi: Manerela+ Condemns Faith Healing - allAfrica.com

Life insurance company denies coverage to man taking Truvada – LGBTQ Nation

As a gay man, the Boston attorney thought he was doing the responsible thing when he asked his doctor to prescribe Truvada, a drug hailed as a way to halt the spread of AIDS. But when he tried to get long-term care insurance, Mutual of Omaha turned him down, saying they do not offer coverage to anyone who takes it.

Now, the man is planning to sue the insurer, alleging he was discriminated against because he is gay. He filed a complaint Wednesday with the Massachusetts Commission Against discrimination, the first step in a lawsuit.

The man, who is identified only as John Doe in the complaint, said he wants to make sure that he and anyone else taking Truvada can get long-term care insurance, which covers daily, extended-care services for people with chronic illnesses or disabilities.

He also wants to ensure that people are not deterred from using Truvada because they fear they will face discrimination.

“I was shocked. I really was,” Doe told The Associated Press in interview at the offices of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, a Boston-based legal group who is representing him. He spoke on condition of anonymity because his complaint contains private medical information.

“I thought maybe they misunderstood me. I’m HIV-negative. I’m not HIV-positive. I was taking Truvada as a prophylactic.”
 
Bennett Klein, director of GLAD’s AIDS Law Project, calls the decision “nonsensical.”

Life insurance company denies coverage to man taking Truvada – LGBTQ Nation

Bring Back Needle-Exchange Funding - Pacific Standard

It was something of a shock when Indiana Governor Mike Pence declared a public health emergency last March—Scott County, in the southern part of the state near the Kentucky border, isn't the kind of place that comes to mind when you think of drug abuse and HIV outbreaks. But by that March, 79 people in the county had tested positive for HIV, a consequence of rampant intravenous drug use in southern Indiana. But it didn't have to be that way, according to a new perspective published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The real culprits, the authors argue, are counterproductive drug policies such as Indiana's ban on needle-exchange programs, and the overuse of prescription painkillers.

"Many observers were surprised" by Pence's declaration, according to authors Steffanie Strathdee and Chris Beyrer. "Other observers, however, had seen it coming." A growing number of people in Scott County, as well as neighboring counties and states, had been using drugs such as the painkiller oxymorphone. But as new policies made those drugs harder to acquire, addicts increasingly turned to alternative injectable drugs, including heroin. And because Indiana makes it hard to get clean needles—using a needle for non-medical purposes is a felony punishable by up to three years in prison—more and more people had to either share or go without a fix.

 

This was a recipe for disaster when it came to HIV and other blood-borne viruses, like hepatitis C. By June 10th of this year, 169 people had tested positive for HIV in southeast Indiana, where Scott County is located, compared with the typical five per year. Eighty percent of those with HIV also tested positive for the hepatitis C virus.

All of this points to the need for an overhaul of some of Indiana's—and the nation's—drug policies, Strathdee and Beyrer argue. First, needle-exchange programs should be the norm. While Pence's order lifted the effective ban on such programs, the reprieve is temporary and only applies to counties undergoing declared public health emergencies, "a requirement that ensures they can only respond to, rather than prevent, new outbreaks." the authors write. That goes for other states—needle-exchange programs are effectively illegal in 24 other states—as well as the federal government. Congress should permanently lift the federal ban prohibiting funding to needle-exchange programs, Strathdee and Beyrer argue.

Bring Back Needle-Exchange Funding - Pacific Standard

David Barton Once Again Claims That The Bible Says There Will Never Be An AIDS Vaccine | Right Wing Watch

Last month, we posted a clip of David Barton asserting that God will never allow scientists to find a vaccine for HIV/AIDS because such a vaccine would eliminate the divine "penalty" for homosexuality, which would contradict the teaching found in Romans 1.

As "evidence" of this position, the Religious Right psuedo-historian and GOP activist claimed that the virus that causes AIDS is constantly mutating, making it impossible to inoculate against. He pointed to news stories about various failures by researchers to successfully test an experimental vaccine as "proof" of his assertion.

As Warren Throckmorton reported at the time, the stories that Barton cited were utterly unrelated and did not prove his point at all,,,

David Barton Once Again Claims That The Bible Says There Will Never Be An AIDS Vaccine | Right Wing Watch