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Biden rounds out team to take on HIV/AIDS domestically, globally

Experts say ‘too soon’ to assess domestic efforts

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Biden names a global AIDS coordinator and new PACHA members

With the goal of beating HIV by 2025 domestically and a pledge for a renewed effort to fight the disease globally, President Biden has put in place officials charged with making that happen.

The White House kicked off the week with the announcement that John Nkengasong, who has served as a top official on global health at the Centers for Disease Control, would be nominated as ambassador-at-large and coordinator of U.S. government activities to combat HIV/AIDS globally at the State Department.

Meanwhile, leadership within the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, otherwise known as PACHA, was restructured in August as the Biden administration has continued the Ending the HIV Epidemic plan health officials started in the Trump administration.

Carl Schmid, who served as co-chair of PACHA during the Trump years, no longer holds that position, and has been replaced by Marlene McNeese, a woman of color and deputy assistant director of the Houston Health Department. John Wiesman, former secretary of health for Washington State, will continue to serve as co-chair.

McNeese is among eight new members of PACHA. The others are:

  • Guillermo Chacón, president of the Latino Commission on AIDS;
  • Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative at the Human Rights Campaign;
  • Raniyah Copeland, CEO of the Black AIDS Institute;
  • Leo Moore, medical director for clinic services at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health;
  • Kayla Quimbley, national youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day ambassador for Advocates for Youth;
  • Adrian Shanker, founder and executive director of Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center; and
  • Darrell Wheeler, senior vice president for academic affairs at Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y.

The changes underscore the new approach to HIV/AIDS Biden promised during his presidential campaign. Among them is beating HIV/AIDS domestically by 2025, which is five years earlier than the plan under the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative that began in the Trump administration. Whether or not Biden will meet that ambitious goal remains to be seen.

Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, hailed the nomination of Nkengasong to the global AIDS position upon news of the announcement.

“John Nkengasong’s vast experience in combatting HIV, combined with his position as Africa’s leading disease expert fighting Ebola, COVID-19 and more, position him extremely well to guide the United States’ global contribution towards ending the AIDS pandemic,” Byanyima said. “Today, the HIV and COVID-19 pandemics are colliding in communities throughout the world, and the threat of a resurgent AIDS pandemic is very real. We need the kind of bold thinking and commitment he has brought throughout his career.”

While the global AIDS appointment will have a role in international programs, such as PEPFAR and U.S. participation in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria, the PACHA appointments will focus on both domestic and global perspectives.

Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, said despite the change in leadership he will maintain his role as head of the subcommittee on the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative.

“It’s good,” Schmid said.”They appointed a lot of African-American community, Latino community [members] and they said they’ll rotate co-chairs,” Schmid said. “I think it’s good that they put on new blood, and new leadership.”

Schmid has been a vocal skeptic about Biden being able to meet his goal to beat HIV by 2025 — as opposed to the 2030 target set by the previous administration — but said the realignment in PACHA was “not at all” related to that.

“I think I was replaced because the Biden administration wanted the leadership of PACHA to be more representative of the current epidemic in the United States,” Schmid said.

Schmid, however, refused to back down from his prediction that Biden won’t be able to make his 2025 goal a reality.

“I think you will find wide agreement within the HIV community that it is not feasible to end HIV by 2025,” Schmid said. “There is just too much work to do and change to happen.”

The new appointments will add to the cadre of Biden appointees engaged on HIV/AIDS, including Harold Phillips, who was appointed in June to lead the White House Office of National AIDS Policy after that position remained vacant for the entirety of the Trump administration.

‘Too early’ to gauge effort to beat HIV domestically

The focus of the appointees on the domestic front will be the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, a plan heavily focused on PrEP as a means of preventing HIV in an effort to reduce new incidents of infections by 90 percent within 10 years. The program was launched in 2019.

Although Congress has appropriated money for the initiative, and just last week, the Department of Health & Human Services distributed $48 million to HRSA centers as part of the effort, experts say not enough data is available to tell to whether or not the program has been effective.

Jennifer Kates, senior vice president and director of global health & HIV policy at Kaiser Family Foundation, said data isn’t yet available on whether new incidents of HIV are reduced because the latest data is from fiscal year 2019.

“From the perspective of the timeline of the goals of the initiative, it’s too early, we wouldn’t know that anyway, but just even given the context and what’s happened since it started, I just don’t know how you’d evaluate it,” Kates said. “What I do believe is important though, is the idea of dedicated new funding. It was the first new funding provided to HIV for years that’s been channeled to local jurisdictions [and] has the potential to catalyze new and better responses, but we don’t know yet that’s happened.”

The coronavirus pandemic, which has been the top priority for health officials around the world, is also obfuscating any potential assessment of the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative.

Daniel Bruner, senior director of policy at the D.C.-based Whitman-Walker Institute, said the coronavirus has “dramatically impacted medical care,” including HIV/AIDS efforts.

“The pandemic has also necessitated substantial shifts in federal, state, and local resources into COVID prevention, diagnosis and treatment,” Bruner said. “Therefore, it is premature to draw any conclusions about the EHE initiative’s effectiveness. The federal government has emphasized its continuing commitment to the EHE initiative, and Whitman-Walker also remains committed to that work.”

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World Pride 2025

D.C. liquor board extends drinking hours for WorldPride

Gay bars, other liquor-serving establishments can stay open 24 hours

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Venus Valhalla performs at Pitchers. Liquor-serving establishments in D.C. will be able to remain open for 24 hours during WorldPride. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

D.C.’s Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Board, which regulates liquor sales for the city’s bars, restaurants, nightclubs, and other establishments licensed to serve alcoholic beverages, has approved extended hours for alcohol service and sales during the days when most WorldPride events will be held in the nation’s capital.

In a May 2 announcement, the Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration, which works with the board, said the extended liquor serving and sales hours for WorldPride will take place beginning Friday, May 30, through 4 a.m. Monday, June 9.

Although the official schedule for WorldPride events shows the events will take place May 17-June 8, most of the large events, including a two-day Pride street festival, parade, and concert, were expected to take place between May 30 and June 8.

According to the ABCA announcement and an ABCA spokesperson, liquor servicing establishments with the appropriate license can stay open for 24 hours and serve alcoholic beverages from 6 a.m. through the day and evening until 4 a.m., with no liquor sales allowed from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. during the May 30-June 9 period.

The ABCA announcement says liquor serving establishments must apply for the extended hours option and pay a $100 registration fee by a deadline on May 27.

Sources familiar with the liquor board have said the board has for many years approved the extension of liquor serving and sales hours for important events and for certain holidays such as New Year’s Eve.

At the time it approved the extended hours for WorldPride the liquor board also approved extended hours during the time when games for a World Cup soccer tournament will be held in the city on June 18, June 22, and June 26.

It couldn’t immediately be determined how many of D.C.’s 22 LGBTQ bars plan to apply for the extended drinking hours. David Perruzza, owner of the Adams Morgan gay bar Pitchers and its adjoining lesbian bar A League of Her Own, said he will apply for the 4 a.m. extended hours option but he does not intend to keep the two bars open for the full 23 hours.

Under the city’s current alcoholic beverage regulations, licensed liquor serving establishments may serve alcoholic beverages until 2 a.m. on weekdays and 3 a.m. on weekends.

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The Vatican

Executive director of LGBTQ Catholic group to travel to Rome for conclave

Marianne Duddy-Burke met Pope Francis in 2023

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DignityUSA Executive Director Marianne Duddy-Burke, middle, greets Pope Francis in 2023. (Photo courtesy of Marianne Duddy-Burke)

The executive director of a group that represents LGBTQ Catholics will travel to Rome next week for the papal conclave that starts on May 7.

DignityUSA Executive Director Marianne Duddy-Burke on Thursday told the Washington Blade she will arrive in Rome on May 6. Duddy-Burke said she plans to spend time in St. Peter’s Square “and have conversations with people.”

“I will wear Dignity insignia, have rainbow flags,” she said.

Pope Francis died on April 21. His funeral took place five days later.

The Vatican’s tone on LGBTQ and intersex issues softened under the Argentine-born pope’s papacy, even though church teachings on homosexuality did not change.

Francis, among other things, described laws that criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations as “unjust” and supported civil unions for gays and lesbians. Transgender people were among those who greeted Francis’s coffin at Rome’s St. Mary Major Basilica before his burial on April 26.

Duddy-Burke and two others from the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics met with Francis in October 2023 during a meeting that focused on the Catholic Church’s future. Duddy-Burke noted Francis “invited” her and her colleagues as his “special guests for the audience and then had a conversation with him afterwards.”

“For me the sort of visibility that he (Francis) brought to our community and to our concerns feels irreversible,” said Duddy-Burke. “He empowered so many people and so many new ministries.”

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu — the archbishop of Kinshasa in Congo who has described homosexuality as an “abomination” — is among the cardinals who are reportedly in the running to succeed Francis.

“I really don’t know,” said Duddy-Burke when the Blade asked her who the next pope will be. “Of course, I am hoping and praying hard that it will be someone who will continue to lead the church on responsiveness of human need and greater inclusivity.”

“What happens in that room is such a mystery,” she added.

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World Pride 2025

Episcopal bishop to speak at WorldPride human rights conference

Trump demanded apology from Mariann Edgar Budde over post-Inauguration sermon

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The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde. (Screen capture via PBS NewsHour/YouTube)

The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde is among those who are scheduled to speak at the WorldPride 2025 Human Rights Conference that will take place from June 4-6.

Budde, who is the bishop of the Diocese of Washington, in January urged President Donald Trump “to have mercy” on LGBTQ people, immigrants, and others “who are scared right now” during a post-Inauguration service that he and Vice President JD Vance attended at the Washington National Cathedral. Trump criticized Budde’s comments and demanded an apology.

The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde speaks at the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 21, 2025. (PBS NewsHour clip)

A press release the Washington Blade received notes Icelandic Industries Minister Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, UK Black Pride founder Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, and Bob the Drag Queen are among those who are also expected to participate in the conference.

The conference will take place at the JW Marriott (1331 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.) and registration is open here.

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