“There is no excuse scientifically to say we cannot do it,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaking to the media at AIDS 2012, an international AIDS conference, which began here Sunday. “What we need now is the political and organizational will to implement what science has given us.”
The challenges of the AIDS pandemic are great, Fauci said. Worldwide, the disease has claimed more than 30 million lives, and 34 million people today are infected with HIV, the virus that causes the disease. About 2.5 million people worldwide still die each year, Fauci said.
Yet scientists are talking enthusiastically about recent discoveries that, when combined, have the potential to dramatically curtail new infections. Last week, leading researchers called for a new push to cure the disease. In another landmark finding that Fauci described as a “slam-dunk, out of the ballpark,” researchers last year showed that getting an HIV-positive patient’s virus under control makes that person virtually non-contagious.
That suggests that getting proper treatment to more people with HIV — 20% of whom don’t know they are infected — could be a powerful tool to stop the spread of the disease, Fauci said. Most new infections are spread by people who do not realize they have the disease, he said.
Turning the tide “is not going to happen spontaneously,” Fauci said. “It’s going to require purpose and commitment.”
A mantra among AIDS advocates now is “seek, test, treat and retain,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Public health officials want to test undiagnosed patients for HIV, treat their disease and retain them in care.
And while those challenges are daunting, Fauci noted that the USA has always led in the fight against AIDS. The National Institutes of Health has spent $50 billion on AIDS since 1982.
And the USA has succeeded in other difficult circumstances before — such as providing AIDS drugs to Africa. Fauci noted that “naysayers” were doubtful about PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a $15 billion effort launched in 2003 by George W. Bush, after consultation from Fauci.
At that time, only 50,000 people in the developing world had access to anti-retroviral therapy, the drug cocktails credited with transforming AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic disease. Since then, PEPFAR — which received an additional $48 billion in funding in 2008 — has provided AIDS therapy to nearly 4 million people. The program also is credited with preventing HIV infection in 200,000 babies by providing drugs to 660,000 HIV-infected mothers.
PEPFAR must be reauthorized by Congress next year. And while many are focused on cutting the federal budget, Fauci said PEPFAR has always had support from both Republicans and Democrats. “I can’t imagine not authorizing an overwhelming success,” Fauci said.
from USA Today

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – It’s been a momentous year for San Diego’s LGBT community.
City leaders renamed a street in honor of Harvey Milk. A large rainbow flag is now a permanent fixture flying above Hillcrest.
This November, voters will have the opportunity to elect the city’s first openly gay mayor. And active-duty members of the military wore their uniforms for the first time in Saturday’s San Diego LGBT Pride Parade with the government’s blessing.
The loudest cheers from the parade crowd of nearly 200,000 were reserved for them.
The U.S. military contingent included about 40 members — some active, some retired — in their formal uniforms. As they assembled in the staging area, countless spectators took pictures of and with them. Most of the active-duty personnel said they were under orders not to give interviews although photos were fine.
Sean Sala, 27, who left the Navy last year but helped organize the military group, said the significance of this year’s active-duty uniformed participants is bolstered by government approval for the first time.
“I think everybody wants to make it a gay thing, but it’s just an American thing,” he said. “These are people that have laid down their lives for their country, you know, and they deserve recognition for their service regardless of their sexuality.”
The annual parade had its typical revelry with many participants and attendees donning skimpy or flashy outfits befitting of an event that focuses on everyone’s freedom to express themselves.
Heath Mathis, 32, a waiter who lives in North Park, dressed up for the first time this year. He attached angel wings to his back that were striped with rainbow colors.
“It’s the one weekend a year that we can express ourselves and just not worry about what other people think of us,” he said.
Of this year’s advancements for the gay community, the one being met with the least enthusiasm is the opportunity to have the city’s first gay mayor.
Republican City Councilman Carl DeMaio received a lukewarm reception from the crowd as he traveled the parade route. Most parade watchers offered polite applause, but there was a smattering of boos. A few bystanders turned their backs to DeMaio as part of an organized protest.
Petty officer Second Class Sean Sala, right, gives a double thumbs-up to the crowd while marching with the military contingent at San Diego’s LGBT Pride Parade Saturday down University Avenue.
Mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio, right, holds his hands aloft next to partner Johnathan Hale as they walked down sixth avenue in Hillcrest. — John Gastaldo
DeMaio, who is gay, is running against Democratic Rep. Bob Filner to be the next mayor, but DeMaio’s unwillingness to champion social issues has led to frustration among some gay activists.
Before the parade, DeMaio said the source of the opposition is his long-running feud with labor unions over cutting back public employee pensions rather than his stance on gay issues.
“My goal is to be a mayor for all of San Diego and I’m proud to be here in my community and to set a tone of inclusion and a commitment to bring all communities together through my candidacy and, of course, in my administration as San Diego’s next mayor,” he said.
Cody Neilsen, 28, of the College Area, booed as DeMaio and his entourage went by during the parade. He called it traitorous and unforgivable that DeMaio has accepted money from proponents of Proposition 8, a 2008 statewide initiative that banned gay marriage. U-T San Diego Publisher Doug Manchester has contributed to DeMaio’s causes in the past and also helped fund the Proposition 8 campaign. The U-T editorial board has also endorsed DeMaio’s mayoral candidacy.
“What’s more important to me than the fact that he’s gay is that he has integrity enough to represent the gay community as a whole, and I don’t think he does,” Neilsen said. “I would vote for Bob Filner over Carl DeMaio any day because he agrees to represent us as a community.”
The Filner campaign seized on that anger Saturday by passing out rainbow-colored “Filner for Mayor” signs. One of his supporters, while handing out the signs, was overheard telling parade watchers DeMaio “doesn’t support gay rights.”
DeMaio supporters say his detractors fail to acknowledge that as a City Council member he has voted in support of LGBT issues, such as a resolution to urge the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding gay service members, equal benefits for domestic partners of city workers, the street named after Milk and Hillcrest’s pride flag. DeMaio also publicly supports gay marriage.
from The San Diego Union Tribune
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Related Post:

Troops Get OK To March In Gay Pride Parade In Uniform

Tibor Vass & Alice Adams

UNITED KINGDOM -  A hotel receptionist who killed two colleagues and then hid from police inside the bed where he dumped one of the bodies is facing life in prison after being found guilty of their murders.
Attila Ban stabbed Tibor Vass, 20, before murdering Alice Adams, also 20, after participating in a threesome with the pair.
The 32-year-old killer even updated his Facebook status from his hiding place during the early hours of August 10 last year as police searched for clues into the violent deaths of his co-workers, writing: ‘I’d like to wake up from this nightmare.’
A jury at the Old Bailey heard how performing arts student Miss Adams, who had only worked at the hotel as a receptionist for three weeks, was found fully-clothed lying on the floor of Ban’s staff quarters at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel at Heathrow Airport, with a cushion over her face like ‘a discarded rag doll’.
She had been stabbed 22 times on the front and back of her body, penetrating her heart, left lung, spleen, stomach and diaphragm.
Hungarian-born Ban had stabbed Mr Vass twice in the heart and carried his body to a double bed after cutting off the dead man’s t-shirt and boxer shorts, leaving him naked.
The court was told that openly gay Ban had an unrequited crush on fellow Hungarian Mr Vass, becoming agitated in the days before the killings after Mr Vass won a place at a university back in Hungary.
Ban had been jealous about Mr Vass’s relationships, and just days before the killing launched an outburst at his victim during a team building exercise when he took a picture that did not feature Ban, the court heard.
The court heard it was the sight of the pair kissing that drove Ban to murder after the group had played drinking games, took poppers – a well-known sexual stimulant – and toyed with the idea of group sex.
Colleagues discovered the bloodied scene when the three receptionists failed to turn up for work the next morning, summoning police to the flat in New Road, Harlington.
Detectives combed the sealed-off quarters for clues but did not discover Ban, who was named as the hotel’s employee of the year in 2010, until the second day of their investigations.
He was lying on another double bed after attempting to take his own life.
He had tried to slit his wrists with modelling knives and electrocute himself with a hairdryer in the bath.
Officers found that Ban had water and his mobile phone with him and had cut a slit in the divan bed that he hid in so he could observe the investigation.
Prosecutor Richard Whittam QC said: ‘How had he been in the flat unnoticed? There’s been gaps cut in the side that allowed someone to climb inside.
‘So throughout the time of those that had been in the flat dealing with the investigation and removing the bodies, it appears Ban was concealed under the bed, no doubt able to hear everything that was said and sufficient presence of mind to keep himself concealed despite all that that was going on around him in that flat at the time.’
Ban had pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but the jury at the Old Bailey found him guilty of the double murders.
Officers had searched the loft area of the quarters after failing to find bloodied footprints leading away from the crime scene.
Outside court, Detective Inspector John Finch said police had not been negligent for not looking under the bed.
He said: ‘I have looked back at this several times with senior management. It was such a strange and bizarre thing for a person to do. It beggars belief.’
He said crime-scene examiners would lose crucial forensic evidence if they lifted up beds looking for people who were not there.
Mr Finch added: ‘I would not want anyone to do anything differently in the future.’
from The Daily Mail
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