National
Will Obama speak at Int’l AIDS conference?
President hasn’t yet responded to invitation to attend
Advocates are calling on President Obama to deliver remarks on combatting the HIV/AIDS epidemic at the upcoming International AIDS Conference in Washington, noting the White House hasn’t yet to responded to an invitation for him to speak at the event.
Those calling on Obama to speak at the 19th International AIDS Conference for 2012 — which will take place in D.C. starting the week of July 22 — say the president should take the opportunity to highlight his administration’s work to combat the disease.
Whether the president will make an appearance remains in question. Adina Ellis, a spokesperson for the conference, said Obama has been officially invited to speak at and said the White House has acknowledged the invitation, but as of Monday conference officials “still have not received confirmation” on whether he’ll attend.
Carl Schmid, deputy executive director of the AIDS Institute, said he wants the president to take the opportunity to speak and “announce to the world that we are going to begin to end AIDS” and the ways in which that will happen.
“I think it would be very important for the president of the United States … to make a strong announcement that it is the policy of the United States that we’re going to end AIDS in the United States, and this is what I’m going to do to do it,” Schmid said. “We are looking for his strong affirmation. This is the place to do it; the eyes of the world are looking at this International AIDS conference.”
Schmid acknowledged the president has “a lot of competing interests” for his time.
“I don’t see why there should be any reluctance for them to attend,” Schmid said. “I think most people are expecting him and wanting him to attend, and I think it would be not a good sign if he did not come.”
The conference is taking place within the United States for the first time since 1990 thanks in part to the work of the Obama administration. The lifting of the HIV travel ban, which previously had prevented foreign nationals with HIV from coming into the United States, enabled international participants who may have HIV to come into the United States for the conference.
Brian Hujdich, executive director of the AIDS non-profit HealthHIV, said he wants Obama to speak at the conference to discuss ways in which health care reform will help HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment now that the Supreme Court has upheld the law’s constitutionality.
“I think the president could speak very meaningfully to what access to health insurance really means to people with HIV, including preventing HIV by having prevention programs and testing efforts in primary care settings, so that we can be both helping prevent HIV as well as ensuring the best quality care for all those with HIV,” Hujdich said.
Hujdich said he doesn’t know why Obama has yet to accept the invitation, but would be “shocked” if the president didn’t attend and speculated the administration was waiting for the Supreme Court ruling on health care “so the messaging and communication on [health care reform] implementation would be enhanced” before confirming attendance.
Last week, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said under questioning from the Washington Blade that he has no updates on Obama’s schedule when asked if the president would speak at the conference in D.C.
“I appreciate the question, but I do not have a scheduling update for you,” Carney said.
High-ranking members of the Obama administration are slated to address the conference, including Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and Eric Goosby, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. Other high-profile speakers include former President Bill Clinton, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and singer Elton John, who founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
Despite general praise for his work on HIV/AIDS, Obama’s record isn’t without criticism, particularly in the global fight against the epidemic — an area where some critics have questioned whether former President George W. Bush accomplished more than his successor.
In his budget request for fiscal year 2013, Obama bumped up domestic spending for HIV/AIDS work, including a $102 million increase in funds for the Ryan White AIDS Drug Assistance Program from the previous year’s allocation of $1 billion. But the request cut the administration’s signature program in the global AIDS fight, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, by more than a half billion dollars, or almost 13 percent.
Bush established PEPFAR to provide anti-retroviral treatment to people with AIDS overseas. The HIV Medicine Association criticized the cut when the request was made public, saying the amount allocated “falls short” of support needed, although the White House contended at the time the administration was doing more with less funding and the cost of providing treatment for AIDS patients has fallen 50 percent since 2008.
Carney denied any connection between the cut in PEPFAR funds and any apparent hesitation in accepting the invitation to speak at the conference out of fear the president wouldn’t be well-received by global AIDS activists during his speech as a result of these cuts.
“Again, you’re connecting things, and I just don’t have an update for you on the president’s schedule,” Carney said.
Hujdich, who’s been at each conference since their start in Amsterdam 20 years ago, said attendees may take the opportunity to push Obama to do more in the global AIDS effort because the purpose of the conference is to mobilize people, including the president, to act — even though the president’s record on HIV/AIDS is considered substantial.
“I’m sure there will be some that will feel the need to criticize the president and be negative, but I firmly believe that would be a minority of the attendees,” Hujdich said.”That would come with the territory, but I still believe, all things considered, he is well regarded by the HIV community domestically and internationally.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled the name of Brian Hujdich and called HealthHIV an AIDS research organization. The Blade regrets the error.
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant
A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources
Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
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Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
