Sara Gifford, left, and Erin Gibson with some of the educational materials they use in running a health program in local prisons.

Photograph by: Darren Stone, Times Colonist, Times Colonist

 

Drugs find their way into prisons, despite all efforts to plug supply lines. And for many inmates, the most dangerous part of life inside is sharing jury-rigged needles.

 

Lack of knowledge, misery and addictions combine in a sometimes lethal mix, but Canadian prisons do not permit distribution of clean needles -- meaning health risks soar for an already at-risk population.

 

However, in Greater Victoria facilities -- William Head Prison, Victoria Youth Custody Services Centre and Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre -- a two-woman team is fighting disease with education.

 

"People are advocating for a needle exchange in prisons, but in the meantime, we are offering six-week courses," said Erin Gibson, manager of harm-reduction services for AIDS Vancouver Island, who teaches the course with health promotions educator Sara Gifford.

 

In addition to HIV and hepatitis C prevention, the sessions deal with topics such as getting tested, living a healthy lifestyle after diagnosis, preventing sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis and problems resulting from steroid use.

 

The wretchedness of prison life can lead to people taking risks, such as sharing needles made out of ballpoint pens or using needles so blunt they rip off chunks of skin, according to Under The Skin, a new report by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, which gives chilling descriptions of diseases spread by makeshift needles.

 

"Life is so desperate in prison that, even if they didn't use until they got there, they start using to forget," Gifford said.

 

"People get to the point that they're willing to take risks," added Gibson.

 

Much of the information involves basic safety, such as ensuring anything that goes in your body during tattooing has not touched someone else's body.

 

"And we identify risks," Gibson said, "whether it's smoking crack, having sex or not sharing nail clippers or razors because of hep C."

 

Gibson and Gifford know those who take the course are a conduit to the larger prison population, so they hand out armfuls of literature. "We've got guys that come and want to take the information because there's new young people on the unit and they don't have that information," Gibson said.

 

"HIV and hep C are preventable inside and outside, and people don't deserve to contract these diseases."

 

The philosophy behind the course is that everyone deserves access to information that will keep them healthy and that more than 90 per cent of those in prison will get out, so it makes more sense to prevent diseases than wait until they spread to family and community members.

 

Similar courses are run at some Canadian prisons, but they are unique internationally, according to AIDS Vancouver Island,

 

However, more than 60 prisons worldwide, in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, have needle-exchange programs, says the HIV-AIDS Legal Network report. In those prisons, there is no evidence needles are used as weapons or that drug use or overdoses increase, it says.

 

The report says rates of HIV and hep C in prison are 10 to 20 times higher than in the regular population.

 

The network was to take its plea for prison needle exchanges before a Commons committee earlier this year, but was bumped off the agenda when parliament was prorogued. The group is seeking a new date but faces opposition from some Conservative MPs, who say sanctioning illegal drug use is not the right way to tackle drugs in prison.

 

Figures from the Correctional Service of Canada estimate at least 11 per cent of prisoners inject drugs, and the Canadian Medical Association has recommended to government that CSC develop and evaluate at least one pilot needle and syringe program in prison.

 

Meanwhile, Gibson and Gifford hope their classes will inspire healthy behaviour. "They may not have a lot of control over their lives, but at least we can talk about what health means for them," Gibson said.

 

jlavoie@tc.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

By Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist March 4, 2010

Cécile Kazatchkine, a policy analyst for the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

(courtesy of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network)

 

As more poz people have been charged with not disclosing their HIV status before having sex, there's a greater need than ever to understand what Canada's criminal law says about HIV disclosure. 

The law says that you are required to disclose your status before engaging in sexual intercourse that represents a "significant risk" of HIV transmission, yet the concept of "significant risk" is very much open to interpretation.

Helping to sort out where we stand are the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and the Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange (CATIE), in partnership with local AIDS service organizations. These groups are co-hosting a series of community forums across the country.

"Significant risk is an imprecise term and creates confusion for HIV-positive people and their sex partners," says Cécile Kazatchkine, a policy analyst for the Legal Network. "For instance, while courts have clearly decided that vaginal or anal sex without a condom poses a significant risk of HIV transmission, it is not clear what other sexual activities can lead to criminal prosecutions and convictions."

The forums are meant to present this information in an accessible way. Lawyer and community advocate Glenn Betteridge, on his second tour of duty, will moderate the forums and help translate the legal jargon. In 2009, the forums were presented in some of the largest Canadian cities, but in 2010 more regional centres were targeted.

"Information [is] wanted in smaller centres and this set of forums is in response to that need," says Kazatchkine. "Our long-term hope is that these community forums together will support a larger community response for containing the use of criminal law in this area."

In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that you could be charged with aggravated assault for failing to disclose your HIV-positive status to a sex partner before having unprotected sex. Since then, an increasing number of HIV-positive people, including many gay men, have been charged and convicted of violent offences ranging from aggravated sexual assault to murder.

It is morally dubious to deliberately expose a sex partner to a potentially lethal virus, but a growing chorus of activists and researchers are saying HIV criminalization is fraught with injustice. They argue variously that criminalization hampers HIV-prevention efforts, fans the flames of HIV stigma, is rooted in misinformation and hysterical fear, puts the responsibility to protect sexual health entirely and unfairly on the shoulders of people living with HIV, turns gay men against each other and serves only to further victimize poz people.

The Legal Network has intervened in appellate court cases around Canada, ensuring that judges and juries are aware of the potential impacts of their decisions.

"Part of the solution lies with developing prosecutorial guidelines to avoid inappropriate and overly broad use of the criminal law," says Kazatchkine. "Such guidelines would help police and Crown prosecutors handle HIV-related criminal complaints in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. They can help ensure cases are informed by current medical and scientific knowledge about HIV and the social contexts of living with HIV."

— with files from Matt Mills

Kevin Allen / National / Monday, March 01, 2010

From: Xtra.ca

Liberals are calling for an investigation into the Harper government's decision to cancel plans for an HIV-vaccine manufacturing facility in Canada.

 

In a statement released on Fri, Feb 19, the government said that no one in Canada was qualified to build the facility, and that there is no longer a need for the facility in Canada.

 

"This entire process has been highly suspicious," says Liberal health critic Carolyn Bennett. "Here we have a government cancelling, and then un-cancelling, and then re-cancelling an $88-million project, with no valid explanation as to why. The government's behaviour cries out for an investigation by Canada's Auditor General or at Parliamentary committees."

 

Bill Gates and Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative in 2007.

 

Liberal public health critic Kirsty Duncan wants to know what will happen to the money set aside for the HIV-vaccine facility. When the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative was announced in 2007, it diverted money from local AIDS organizations.

 

"With or without this facility, we still need funding for HIV/AIDS research, prevention and treatment, while those living with HIV/AIDS still need supports and services," says Duncan. "We need the government's assurances that the dollars budgeted for the vaccine facility will be applied to the fight against HIV/AIDS."

Liberal industry, science and tech critic Marc Garneau slammed the Tories for being "short-sighted" and "partisan."

 

"The government's claim that no one in Canada is qualified to build this facility is beyond belief," says Garneau. "Canada has some of the most leading-edge researchers in the world, and our government should be doing everything it can to keep them here. This facility had the potential to bring us to the cutting edge of AIDS research, drawing in research scientists from around the world, while at the same time creating much-needed jobs. 

 

POSTED BY BrentCreelman AT 1:43 PM

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

From: Xtra.ca

Criminal charges for non- disclosure of HIV infection should not be considered unless the HIV-infected person intended to transmit the virus to another person and succeeded in doing so, according to a coalition of Quebec AIDS service groups.

 

The Coalition des organismes communautaires québécois de lutte contre le Sida will soon ask Quebec's justice minister to include those principles in guidelines for provincial prosecutors in dealing with HIV non-disclosure cases, its executive director, Ken Monteith, said during an AIDS conference in Montreal.

 

"If HIV is not transmitted how can there be (the basis for a criminal) case?" Monteith asked during an interview yesterday.

 

Too many recent criminal prosecutions suggest that "what has been criminalized in Canada is the non-disclosure of your condition," he said.

 

Last year, the murder conviction of Johnson Aziga, of Hamilton, garnered international headlines after a jury convicted him of two counts of first-degree murder. He was found to have intentionally caused the death of two women by having unprotected sex although he knew he was HIV-positive, something he didn't disclose to them.

 

Aziga was also convicted of 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of attempted aggravated sexual assault.

 

Beyond the spotlight of such high-profile non-disclosure cases are HIV-infected people who have disclosed their health status only to be threatened with criminal prosecution by former lovers seeking revenge or more assets following a relationship breakdown, Monteith said.

 

A fear of malicious prosecution will not serve the public health imperative of preventing HIV transmission because people could actively avoid HIV testing, fearing that a positive result would legally compel them to disclose their status, he said.

 

The position adopted by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network "is that there are circumstances in which prosecuting someone for not disclosing HIV status to a sexual partner may be justified," executive director Richard Elliott said.

 

"It does not mean that it is desirable." If people are practising "safer sex," using a condom, for example, they shouldn't be prosecuted. Or, if they have "a sustained, undetectable viral load, the risk of transmission is reduced so dramatically that it does not warrant the application of the criminal law," he said.

 

About 12 years ago, a Supreme Court of Canada ruling said, "if there is a significant risk of transmitting HIV then there is a legal duty to disclose and if you do not disclose, you may be prosecuted," Elliott said.

 

"So the key question is what constitutes a significant risk." That question and others related to HIV-disclosure come amid what the Canadian AIDS Society, the conference host, calls "an-ever evolving epidemic." About 68,000 Canadian are now living with HIV, Monique Doolittle-Romas, the society's executive director said.

 

In Canada, HIV infections are increasingly reported among aboriginal people and women, Doolittle-Romas said.

 

In 2009, just over 35 per cent of the HIV cases reported in Canada were attributed to heterosexual sex, according to the Canadian AIDS Society.

 

lmoore@ thegazette.canwest.com

 

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

By LYNN MOORE, The Gazette March 7, 2010

WELLAND - At least 60 people, many of them students from nearby high schools, are being urged to get HIV and hepatitis blood tests after a tattoo parlour was found using unsanitary equipment.

Niagara’s medical officer of health Dr. Robin Williams wants all clients of Needlez Tattoo, at 16 Thorold Road East in Welland, to immediately get tested for the deadly viruses.

Health officers are also warning everyone who got a tattoo or body part pierced at the parlour not to have unprotected sex or share razors, clippers, toothbrushes or other personal items with others.

Needlez Tattoo, located only blocks from two Welland high schools, did not have a certified autoclave required to sterilize tattoo ink injectors and body piercing needles and other tools.

Health officials are now co-ordinating with Centennial Secondary School and Notre Dame College Catholic high school to communicate the need for students who used the parlour to get tested for HIV and hepatitis B and C.

 

March 05, 2010

Paul Morse
From: Thespec.com website

 

Di Pede honoured for AIDS advocacy. Downtown resident Tony Di Pede was recently named a Casey Award winner for his long-standing work in the fight for equal rights for those living with HIV/AIDS. Photo/COURTESY

 

What began as an impromptu decision to attend a protest at Queen's Park over 20 years ago has turned into a lifetime of advocacy work for downtown Toronto resident Tony Di Pede.

 

Di Pede has become one of the faces of the fight to secure rights for people living with HIV/AIDS. Though he had been diagnosed with HIV himself in 1989, he had never been particularly drawn to community activism.

 

That all changed, however, when he was en route to meeting a client while working in the real estate sector.

 

"I was driving to my meeting when I heard an interview on the radio with a provincial health official at the time who suggested people living with HIV/AIDS should be quarantined," he said. "Then I heard about AIDS Action

 

Now holding a protest at Queen's Park, so I called my client and cancelled my appointment to go to the protest instead."

 

At that first protest, he was both moved by the support shown by those in attendance and encouraged to become more active. To say he followed through would be an understatement.

 

Di Pede was one of the key figures in creating the Toronto People With AIDS Foundation and has since worked with various organizations both close to home and abroad.

 

Through his work, and the work of countless others, what was once a dire situation for people living with HIV/AIDS has become a far easier road to navigate.

 

"Back 20 years ago, AIDS was not what it is today, where we have these cocktails of medications," he said. "I've seen some not very nice things happen to people because of it."

 

Di Pede knows the single biggest challenge for people living with the virus is often access to simple housing. Without a place to call home, many cannot access health care or social programming critical to their ability to maintain themselves.

 

"(Lack of) housing is the barrier to receiving all the other help that's out there," he said. "It's so important that people have a decent, stable place to live so they can take care of themselves and create some stability in their lives."

 

Di Pede was one of the leading lights in creating the Wellesley Central Residence, a complex for those living with HIV/AIDS and seniors, and his efforts in bringing that building to bear resulted in it being named the Tony

 

Di Pede Affordable Housing Complex last year.

 

The road to getting the structure built was not an easy one, however - it took more than a decade and countless hours of planning, petitioning and stumping to finally see it happen.

 

"It took 12 years for 120 people to get housed who are living with HIV/AIDS and seniors," he said. "But I'm particularly happy about that building; I'm overwhelmed with it."

 

Di Pede still serves as chair of the residence. He is also active with the International Council of AIDS Service

 

Organizations (ICASO) where he helps in the fight for civil rights for those living with HIV/AIDS around the world.

 

That work is quite different from the grassroots activism in which he has partaken locally, but it is no less important.

 

"Some of the things you hear and read about just torture your soul," he said. "In so many places, people with HIV and AIDS are the complete lowest part of the totem pole for rights. There's a lot to be done - more than we ever had to do here."

 

Though the work is daunting, Di Pede said the tireless and passionate advocates he has met through ICASO inspire and motivate him.

 

"You see the work they do and it gives you hope that we can make a difference," he said.

 

Di Pede was recently named a Casey Award winner for his long-standing work in the fight for equal rights. The annual awards recognize those who share Casey House founder June Callwood's value of pioneering leadership and compassion.

 

Di Pede and fellow Casey Award winner the AIDS Committee of Toronto will be honoured at Casey House's annual fundraising SnowBall Gala at the Four Seasons Hotel on Saturday, March 6. For tickets or information on the gala, visit www.caseyhouse.com

 

JUSTIN SKINNER

Mar 02, 2010 - 10:30 AM

From: InsideToronto.com website

For three years, New Yorkers Ricardo Companioni and Andrew Grover have been considering Toronto as their new home.

 

Of the many things about Canada that appeal to the American couple, who are both HIV positive, the freedom to wed and access to universal health care are paramount. But the pair has not yet been able to call Canada home.

 

Generally healthy and never hospitalized, the couple are nonetheless expected to have combined prescription drug costs of about $33,500 per year for the next 10 years.

 

It's an expense they have promised to pay themselves if they can't secure employer-based or private drug coverage when in Canada.

 

However, because there is nothing to stop the couple from enrolling in an Ontario drug program meant to help residents offset particularly high prescription costs, Citizenship and Immigration Canada rejected the couple's application for permanent resident status.

 

Mr. Companioni and Mr. Grover were told they would place an "excessive demand" on the health-care system.

 

"It wasn't denied right away. They kept asking us for more and more documents," said Mr. Companioni, a music programmer who applied in the skilled-worker category for immigration.

 

"Tax returns. All of our assets. They even went so far as to make us sign a letter promising not to use their social services. And we had to get this letter notarized. Even after all that, they said no."

 

But at the urging of their lawyer, the couple -- who have amassed a half-million dollars in assets -- appealed the decision in federal court and won the right to have a new immigration officer examine their case.

 

The appeal's argument borrowed from a 2005 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada on an immigration case, which set a precedent for ensuring immigration officers take into account plans made by applicants on how they will contribute to their, or their dependent's, social services costs.

 

The couple's lawyer, Michael Battista, argued this consideration should also be extended to something such as prescription drug costs.

 

The HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic in Ontario also formally intervened in the case on behalf of the couple.

 

Although Citizenship and Immigration then proceeded to file its own appeal, Mr. Battista said he is confident Mr. Companioni and Mr. Grover will eventually become permanent residents.

 

"I am very optimistic about it," he said. "This decision is really part of an evolution of the law with respect to immigration and health costs. It used to be, in my experience, that people with HIV were automatically refused, and, thankfully, we now have a more nuanced approach that actually looks at their capacity to contribute to their health costs."

 

Citizenship and Immigration will not discuss specific immigration cases because of privacy concerns.

Canadian legislation doesn't explicitly deny entry to people with HIV or AIDS, but it does deny applicants who will place "an excessive demand" on health services.

Allison Cross, Canwest News Service 

Published: Monday, March 01, 2010

National Post

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (AHN) - Some went home with gold, some with silver and others with bronze, but the city of Vancouver set its own record for the number of condoms distributed during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, according to Canadian health officials.

 

Over a 17-day period, Vancouver Coastal Health gave out approximately 100,000 condoms-mainly for Winter Olympic and Paralympic athletes and officials, according to reports. The prophylactics were provided by the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control.

 

However, rumors circulated that the initial batch of condoms weren't enough, prompting an emergency shipment of 8,500 additional rubbers from the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research.

 

There was a total 6,500 Olympic and Paralympic participants, averaging 15 condoms per person and copious amounts of sex, joked Clay Adams, Vancouver Coastal Health spokesman.

 

Adams clarified rumors in a statement, saying the condoms were available to just about everyone, according to reports. They were placed in public restrooms, on the cruise ships that housed supporting Olympic personnel and handed out by volunteers.

 

Condoms have been distributed at the Olympic Games since 1992 in Barcelona, Spain. Approximately 40,000 of the original 100,000 were intended for the athletes in the Olympic villages at the 2010 Games, according to reports.

 

The free condom distribution was part of Canada's efforts to educate on HIV and AIDS awareness, reports stated.

 

Although Canada is proud of its efforts, there still is a long way to go, Adams said. The Brazilian city of Rio de Janiero reportedly doled out 35 million condoms during Mardi Gras.

 

Copyright © 2003 - 2010 AHN - All rights reserved.
Redistribution, republication. syndication, rewriting or broadcast is prohibited without the prior written consent of AHN.

March 2, 2010 9:48 a.m. EST

Hansen Sinclair - AHN Reporter

David Berg (left) and Ray Chorney, HIV positive artists from Edmonton, stand next to their artwork at The Paint Spot gallery, 10032 81 Ave., on Monday. (AMBER BRACKEN, Edmonton Sun)

 

Doctors once told David Berg he had six months to live.

 

But 20 years later, the HIV positive Edmonton man is still alive and says the deadly disease motivated him to carry on.

 

“Everyone thinks this disease is a death sentence, but it’s given me life,” said Berg, at the opening of the Living With X exhibit at The Paint Spot Salon Gallery, 10032 81 Ave., on Monday.

 

The 46-year-old and six other men with HIV outlined life with the disease through artwork on public display until April 30.

 

At a Stony Plain retreat centre in September – funded by awareness group HIV Edmonton – the participants traced their bodies on paper and used watercolour and pastels.

 

In Berg’s life-sized painting, he marked the communities where he has lived, groups who have supported him and meaningful messages.

 

Since Berg was diagnosed, the former intravenous opiate drug user has become a volunteer speaker at schools, sharing his experience of life with HIV.

 

“In some ways I was given a gift of learning to live," he said.

 

Another artist, Ray Chorney, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2000, said doing body map artwork helped him understand his life’s journey better.

 

“My life didn’t really start until I was diagnosed. I lived very selfishly.” Chorney, 45, said growing up in the Northwest Territories, he was never educated about HIV.

 

“It was something that happened far away."

 

But today Chorney says he has accepted his disease and is closer than ever with family and friends.

 

“I love my life now. I live it to the max.”

 

About 2,000 people are currently living with HIV in the city, according to HIV Edmonton statistics.

 

The public is invited to attend a free reception March 11 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the gallery to meet the artists and view their work.

 

kristy.brownlee@sunmedia.ca

By KRISTY BROWNLEE, QMI AGENCY

Last Updated: March 1, 2010 5:48pm

Photo by Whitehorse Star

 

The Yukon’s lawmakers sat down with one of the country’s foremost advocates for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS last week to discuss possible changes to the Mandatory Testing and Disclosure Act.

 

The act was first introduced by the Department of Justice late last year. It has been available for public consultation over the past two months.

 

The legislation would give emergency responders, including police, ambulance attendants and Good Samaritans, the power to demand a blood test from someone in the event they come in contact with that person’s bodily fluids while assisting in an emergency.

 

The blood test would have to be ordered by a judge, after hearing the responder’s case.

 

Police organizations, as well as ambulance attendants and firefighters, have come out in support of the act, which already exists in several other parts of the country.

 

Creation of the draft act was supported unanimously by the members of the legislature when it was proposed by then-Liberal MLA Pat Duncan in 2005.

 

But not everyone is a fan of the act.

 

Nurses’ associations have typically remained silent on it, or have said they do not support the law; the Yukon’s nurses’ association has not yet commented publicly on the act.

 

Its most vociferous opponents are civil liberties groups and organizations that support and advocate for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis.

 

Richard Elliot is at the head of one of those organizations. He is the executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and he was in the city last week to speak at a conference on harm reduction in the North, put on by Blood Ties Four Directions.

 

He brought with him a submission to the Department of Justice that described the Mandatory Testing Act as “an unjustified and unnecessary violation of rights.”

 

Last Thursday and Friday, he met with caucus members of the Yukon Liberals and New Democrats, as well as with the deputy minister of Justice, Dennis Cooley.

 

Elliot’s first choice would be to see the act scrapped. However, he included in his submission a list of suggested amendments to the act which, should it pass, would “tighten up” the legislation and mitigate some of the potential rights infringements.

 

It was those amendments that members from the opposition and third party were most interested in.

 

“It was a very informative meeting,“Liberal Leader Arthur Mitchell said after speaking with Elliot.

 

“We ultimately asked him for additional information regarding other jurisdictions, frequency of use, and whether it has changed the outcomes ... if the order was made and whether that has had an effect on the prophylactic decisions made for the people.”

 

According to Elliot, the act is rarely used, primarily because the vast majority, about 98 per cent, of people willingly give a blood sample when requested.

 

As for the use of prophylactics - an aggressive treatment of anti-HIV drugs given to someone who has been exposed to the virus - they must be taken immediately after the incident, and would be useless if administered after the exposed person had gone to court, obtained the order, and the sample was taken, analyzed and returned. Even on the tightest timeline, that process would take weeks, if not months.

 

There is no such treatment for exposure to Hepatitis C, the other prevalent blood-borne illness this act would cover.

 

“I do find interesting the information to date the very, very small number of cases - I think there is only one (in Canada) - of HIV infection in the line of duty,” Elliot said.

 

In that case, the virus was passed on via a needle, from a patient in the late stage of AIDS to a health care worker. It did not occur in an emergency situation.

 

Mitchell said he and his fellow caucus members have not made any final decision on whether they will support the act in the legislature.

 

“We’re still in the information gathering stage,” he said, adding the party will review the results of the public consultation and speak to groups such as the Yukon Medical Association before coming to any conclusions.

NDP Justice critic Steve Cardiff said his meeting with Elliot brought to light substantial concerns about how the act could affect people’s right to privacy, especially in a place like the Yukon.

 

“We live in a fairly small jurisdiction,” he pointed out. “There needs to be some comfort for individuals who are subject to mandatory testing that their privacy is going to be protected and that they won’t suffer stigmatization in their community.”

 

In the draft act, the person who requests the sample would have access to the results.

 

Elliot argues the results should be given exclusively to that person’s doctor, who could then take the necessary steps to assist his or her patient, either with medical treatment or counselling.

 

Cardiff said one thing that was clear in his conversation with Elliot is the need for better education about the actual risk of infection.

 

Outside of unprotected sex and needle-sharing, Elliot’s submission shows, the chance of contracting HIV or Hepatitis is very low.

 

A person with an open wound that is exposed to HIV-infected blood has a one in 300 chance of catching the virus. There is a one in 1000 chance of contracting HIV if the infected blood comes in contact with a person’s mucous membranes. HIV cannot be contracted by skin-to-skin contact.

 

“We need better public education about the types of precautions people can take,” Cardiff said

 

“And as well, we need to provide comfort to people who may have been exposed about what the real risk of exposure is.”

 

The question he was left with, Cardiff said, is: “Will this legislation do more harm than good, and are there better ways to address these problems than passing this legislation?”

 

He said he will be trying to find the answer to that question in the coming weeks in talking to first responders, doctors, nurses and the public.

 

Deputy Justice minister Cooley was not available for comment today on his meeting with Elliot.

 

By Justine Davidson on February 16, 2009 at 5:57 pm

From: Whitehorse Daily Star

 

A top United Nations official has called on the Prime Minister of Canada, as host of this June’s summit of the Group of Eight (G8) leaders, to ensure that the group delivers on its commitment to universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.

 

“As the host, Prime Minister Stephen Harper can set a bold agenda for the summit. The G8 commitment to universal access must be fulfilled,” Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said last week during a global summit on HIV held in Vancouver against the backdrop of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

 

“Imagine if we could harness the shared energy, creativity and goodwill of the Olympic Games for other social goods. What stops us from engendering a similar response to the greatest transnational social challenge of our era – AIDS?

 

“What if we could promise public glory for those individuals, communities and countries that perform best? This is what I imagine the world will feel like when we unite to commemorate the end of the AIDS epidemic,” stated Mr. Sidibé.

 

The UNAIDS chief noted that the global AIDS response is at a “tipping point,” and it is unacceptable that, almost 30 years since the start of the epidemic, over 7,400 people are newly infected with HIV every day, and almost 5,500 people die of AIDS.

 

“With five people newly infected for every two starting treatment, we have yet to break the trajectory of the epidemic,” he said. “Today we are still far from extending treatment to all those that need it. The number of new infections continues to outpace our efforts to stop the spread of HIV.

 

“Clearly, the status quo is failing, and nothing less than a quantum leap is needed to build on the progress made so far and to extend hope to millions of people whose lives depend on it.”

 

Mr. Sidibé added that UNAIDS will convene a forum this year to focus on what it is calling ‘Treatment 2.0’ – the next generation of HIV treatment. “I believe that together we can think outside our traditional viewpoints and come up with a new, comprehensive and sustainable approach to treatment,” he stated.

 

The 26 February meeting was organized by Dr. Julio Montaner, Director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and President of the International AIDS Society.

 

Dr. Montaner described British Columbia’s ambitious $48 million pilot programme to send health-care workers onto the streets of Vancouver to diagnose and treat hard-to-reach populations such as people who inject drugs, using early treatment as an aggressive form of prevention.

 

The programme, called “Seek and Treat,” will improve access to treatment to the populations that are still disproportionately affected by HIV in Vancouver.

 

1 March 2010

From: UM News Centre website

No author cited

By the end of 2008, over 33 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS worldwide. 25 million have died in 30 years due to complications associated with the disease. Despite HIV/AIDS being widespread among various demographic groups worldwide, there continues to be a stigma put on gay men that they are the most infected. The stereotype stems from several hundred gay men in California being the initial group of people diagnosed in the Western world. The stigma and virus quickly spread to epicentres –Toronto, New York, Montreal.

 

“At the time, gay men were singled out as a high risk group,” said Michael Connors Jackman, a PhD candidate in anthropology at York University. Jackman finished his master’s at Memorial University in 2007 with a focus on HIV in Atlantic Canada. His work includes analyzing a political engagement between art and the effects of the disease. “As the epidemic in Canada escalated in the late ’80s and early ’90s, gay men became the central focus of AIDS in various forms of media.” Jackman notes films such as Philadelphia that represent gay men as a group affected by and infected with HIV/AIDS.

 

“For a generation of gay and queer men who have come of age after the emergence of AIDS, the culture of safer sex is part of a parcel of what it means to be sexually active,” he stated. Robert Teixeira, working on his PhD in sociology at York, thinks this prescriptive parcel is detrimental to gay or queer men. Teixeira believes that limiting the way in which a person engages in sexual activity, or frightening gay men into using protection at all costs, “blocks out and occludes the noble and vital pursuit of sexual pleasure, and with it, sexual knowledge.” He notes that the connotations HIV/AIDS brings with it – decline of the human body, illness, carnal vulnerability – are in exact opposition to eroticism which is associated with youth, health, and beauty.

 

It is no wonder that the stigma was immediately associated with a group of individuals that celebrated love and sex without typical social limitations. Homosexual men, or men who have sex with men (MSM), are now hindered by the fear of a disease that represents the opposite of sexual freedom. It also brings complications into the act of non-monogamous sex. “There is a very strong contemporary tendency to believe that we can completely avoid HIV, purge the sexual field of play from this menace, and operate our sexual lives on this wilful blindness,” said Teixeira.

 

“Of course, this manoeuvre depends on a concerted effort to mask and deny the prevalence of HIV in our communities and to conceptualize sex as risk-free endeavour.” To elaborate, in order for gay men to have relatively anonymous sexual encounters, they must either turn a blind eye to the threat of the disease, or must embrace that it exists, instilling fear and altering the sexual experience. For those that still wish to have sex without protection, as a rebellion to sexual barriers, Teixeira notes that there is a frequently asked question of prevention: Do you have HIV? A denial of the existence of the disease, or at the very least a denial that it can be caught by the individual, must be present in order for the person to continue, even if the answer to the above question is no.

 

Aside from the possible health ramifications, this questioning also adds an element of selection that would not be as prevalent were HIV/AIDS not a factor. “[This] carries with it many assumptions, that we can interview and select our sexual partners and exclude those who seem to carry too much risk, and conversely that having sex with an HIV positive person is undesirable in and of itself.” The stigma associated with a person who is HIV positive is certainly one of disease and danger, even though condoms are available for sexual intercourse. A remaining problem from the AIDS epidemic that affected gays in the ’80s and ’90s is that homosexual men are continuously seen in a light of infection. “There still remains a strong sense that gays, because of their sexual activities, are all HIV positive,” said Jackman. “The fact remains that gay men are disproportionately affected by AIDS.”

 

He also brings up the point that the ban on blood and organ donorship, with the latter in effect since early 2008. “The ban on blood from gay men is a homophobic and discriminatory leftover from a time when testing for HIV was impossible,” he said. According to AVERT.org, an international AIDS charity organization, only five to ten per cent of new infections worldwide are due to male-male sex. Approximately 60 per cent of new infections are due to heterosexual sex. Therefore, unjust limitations such as these need to be removed in order to rid the LGBT community of a damaging stigma. “The problem of dealing with stigma is not so much about trying to pretend that gay men are no longer affected by HIV,” said Jackman. The discussion of status disclosure has pros and cons. “While some gay men might want to move forward beyond a stereotype of gays as people with AIDS, I think we need to be careful that this does not further stigmatize those who actually live with the disease.” “The desire to cast off stigma must not come with the unloading of such stigma onto those most directly affected by the illness.”

 

1955 – 1969 A number of deaths occur with unknown causes. Later examination of the preserved blood samples of several of the cases show early development of the disease.

 

1982 Due to clusters of homosexual men in southern California becoming sick with similar symptoms, a sexually-transmitted agent is proposed. The disease is termed GRID, or gay-related immune deficiency. After health officials diagnose more cases – nearly half of which are not homosexual men – the term is changed to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS.

 

1984 Canadian airline steward Gaëtan Dugas dies of what he called “the gay cancer.” Dugas is said to have infected dozens of men over a period of years and is dubbed by many as “Patient Zero.” However, Dugas is only one in a group of men that had travelled to and from Africa, therefore he cannot be the sole contributor for bringing HIV to North America.

 

1986 After several years of determining the etiological identification, the term HIV, human immunodeficiency virus, is used.

 

1987 AZT, the first antiretroviral drug for treating HIV, becomes available to the public.

 

1988 The first World AIDS Day is held on December 1.

 

1991 Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the rock band Queen, dies on November 24, 1991, due to complications with AIDS.

 

1992 Combination drug therapies are developed. These “cocktails” are thought to be more effective against the slow down drug resistance in patients.

 

1995 A new inhibitor, Saquinavir, allows for highly active antiretroviral therapy, lowering AIDS-related deaths significantly in years to come.

 

1997 Approximately 750,000 Americans are estimated to have HIV.

 

2000 The World Health Organization approximates that up to 20 per cent of new HIV infections worldwide are due to inadequately screened blood transfusions.

 

2002 South African health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang promotes natural remedies as treatments for HIV, supporting denialist claims that current Western medicines are toxic. President Thabo Mbeki supports AIDS denialism until his ousting in 2008.

 

2005 Nelson Mandela reveals to the world that his son has died due to complications with AIDS. He makes the information public to attempt to combat the denialism within the government and to encourage more aid from South Africans.

 

2007 One in six infections of HIV have antiretroviral drug-resistance mutations, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

2008 – 2010 New treatments are being explored, including a University of Toronto method in which exhausted immune cells are “rescued” and renewed.

 

March 6, 2010 by James McDonald

From: The Muse website

 

Gardasil, one of two vaccines that fight multiple strains of human papillomavirus (HPV), was approved by Health Canada Feb 23 for use in men. But not all gay men may benefit from, or even have access to, the vaccine, medical experts point out.

And for now, those who want it must be prepared to shell out more than $400.

The vaccine, from pharma giant Merck, has been allowed in Canada for use in women since 2006, based on strong evidence it can prevent cervical and vaginal cancers and pre-cancerous lesions. The new approval, for men and boys aged 9 to 26, comes on the heels of a study presented last month showing about 75 percent effectiveness in preventing anal lesions that can lead to cancer. All study participants were men who had sex with men. (A similar study last year showed the vaccine had an even stronger effect in preventing male genital warts.)

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) in Canada, affecting about 75 percent of sexually active adults. Though infection often clears up on its own, when it persists, certain forms of the virus can cause genital warts — while others lead to anal, genital and oral cancers.

Men who have sex with men are about 17 times more likely to get anal cancer. And poz gay men are at much greater risk of persistent and thus more dangerous HPV infections, says Dr François Coutlée, a Montreal-based researcher and physician who specializes in diagnosing and treating anal conditions in men with HIV.

"Obviously, the men who would benefit the most from the vaccine would be those who have sex with men," says Coutlée, who was involved in the Gardasil anal-cancer study.

But he adds that if mass vaccination is approved by public-health authorities, it would not be based on sexual orientation.

"The ideal age for vaccination is somewhere between 9 and 12, before sexual activity begins."

What about older men — including those who are HIV-positive, who may need protection the most? The evidence of benefit is not there yet (the recent studies involved only HIV-negative men under 26), but Coutlée is optimistic.

"I would be surprised if it didn't have any impact," he says. Gardasil protects against four different HPV strains, he says. "The probability that you have been exposed to all four of these viruses is low."

A Canadian study is currently underway to test the effectiveness of Gardasil in poz women, but there is still no data available for men with HIV.

Dr Benny Chang, a U of T lecturer and physician at Maple Leaf Medical Clinic whose specialties include HIV/AIDS and other STIs, is more cautious. He describes the anal-cancer study as a "small trial" but "very promising." Still, he says the Gardasil indication for young negative men is "very good news," especially because it can help protect women.

"We should be vaccinating all young people between the age of 9 and 26, regardless of sex or sexual orientation because at this age, there is a lower likelihood that they already have HPV infection."

As for poz men — who are more likely than others to get anal cancer from HPV — it may simply be too late for Gardasil to be beneficial. Chang cites the work of infectious-disease expert Jeanne Marrazzo, who says most gay men with HIV already have all of the HPV strains the vaccine guards against. While Gardasil fights four types of HPV, it's no help if you already have them. Coutlée is involved in further studies on the impact of HPV on poz men and will present results at the next international HPV conference this July in Montreal.

If you're an HIV-negative guy under 26, speak to your doctor about Gardasil — but be prepared to open your wallet. Sheila Murphy of Merck's vaccine division says that the Health Canada approval doesn't automatically mean the drug will be covered by provincial health authorities for use in gay and bisexual men.

Merck is not aware of any impending changes to cover costs for men who have sex with men. "Only school-aged girls from ages 9 to 11 have their protection covered by public-health jurisdictions in Canada," notes Murphy. She says the solution is to protest. "The gay community is very good at organizing to ensure that its needs are addressed fairly."

A second anti-HPV vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix, is available in Canada but not yet approved for use in men.

Shawn Syms / Toronto / Tuesday, March 02, 2010

From: Xtra.ca website