National
AIDS 2012: Laura Bush stresses women pivotal in fight against AIDS
Former First Lady and Aung San Suu Kyi address International AIDS Conference
Former First Lady Laura Bush at AIDS 2012 (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Former First Lady Laura Bush stressed on Thursday that women continue to play a crucial role in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
“When you look around the world, you see that women are in the forefront of life changing progress,” she said during her speech at the International AIDS Conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. “Women have been central in the fight against AIDS.”
Bush cited a woman with HIV whom she met with her husband, former President George W. Bush, in Africa last December that had been shunned by her family after her husband passed away. A faith-based organization subsequently taught her how to make purses from recycle materials. And she now supports her children and the family that had once ostracized her. “Her story is a powerful testament to why we must do more to promote the good health of women everywhere,” said the former First Lady. “The health of women affects families, communities and whole countries. Healthy mothers make healthy families.”
Bush also referenced her mother-in-law, former First Lady Barbara Bush, as someone who helped change attitudes about HIV in this country. She noted that the former First Lady held babies and hugged people with AIDS and met with families of those who had lost loved ones to the epidemic at a time when stigma against those with the virus was rampant. Barbara Bush also visited the AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall.
“Her graceful example challenged all Americans to confront HIV/AIDS with care and compassion, rather than fear and judgment,” said Laura Bush.
She further categorized the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that her husband announced during his 2003 State of the Union address as a blueprint to fight other global epidemics. PEPFAR committed $15 billion over five years to fund HIV prevention efforts, anti-retroviral drugs for those living with the virus and programs for children orphaned by AIDS.
Laura Bush stressed that both she and her husband have seen “first-hand the devastating toll of AIDS” during several trips they made to Africa during and after his presidency. She further recalled a young girl wearing a lavender dress that she and her daughter Barbara met at a Botswanan pediatric clinic a few months after the then-president announced PEPFAR.
“This precious little child lay on an examining table so frail and sick; her mother’s last hope was to make her beautiful,” said Laura Bush, who visited the same facility three weeks ago. “Today with access to anti-retrovirals, that little girl would have another chance at life.”
Statistics continue to show that women and girls remain disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS.
UNAIDS noted that 1.3 million women and girls became HIV-positive last year. The agency further reported that 63 percent of those between 15-24 living with the virus are young women — and 60 percent of those with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are women and girls.
Laura Bush noted that rates of cervical cancer are nearly five times higher among women with HIV. The George W. Bush Institute, PEPFAR, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and UNAIDS last September pledged at least $75 million over five years to fight cervical and breast cancer among those with the virus through the “Pink Ribbon, Red Ribbon” initiative that Zambian First Lady Christine Kaseba and other female African leaders have endorsed. The former First Lady said more than 14,000 Zambian women have received these screenings – and nearly 40 percent of them live with HIV. Nearly a third of them tested positive for pre-cancerous or cancerous cervical cells. Of those, more than 80 percent were able to receive immediate treatment.
“In our fight against AIDS, we’ve learned that any measure of success requires sustained leadership at every level,” said Laura Bush. “By working together, we can give hope to mothers and fathers, to sisters and brothers, to wives and husbands and sons and daughters so they and their families can live full and productive lives.”
Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi also spoke about the need to end stigma against those with HIV.
“Our people need to understand what HIV really is. We need to understand that this is not something that we need to be afraid of, that people who have contracted HIV need not to be discriminated against, that they’re not a danger to society at large,” she told AIDS 2012 delegates in a videotaped message. “Once this message has gotten through, we will be able to base activities on the natural compassion of human beings and of course as the great majority of people in Burma are Buddhist, there’s a special emphasis on the value of compassion. Based on this and based on wide community education, I hope that we will be able to become one of those innovative societies where we approach a problem as human beings — as intelligent, caring human beings. In this way, we will be able to handle not just the issue of AIDS and new ideas, but issues related to those who are subjected to particular suffering and particular discrimination.”
CARE President Dr. Helene Gayle noted that Suu Kyi, who won a seat in the Burmese Parliament in April, delivered a video address at the 2000 International AIDS Conference in South Africa. The Nobel Peace Prize recipient, who remained under house arrest for the better part of two decades until late 2010, held her first public event after the country’s rulers released her at an HIV/AIDS center.
“This was a powerful message to her people and to those living with HIV that their champion was again free and was going to work hard to improve their situation,” said Gayle. “She is a global icon for democracy and human rights and she is also in her dignified and quiet way a powerful AIDS advocate.”
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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