Health
D.C. prepares to host Int’l AIDS Conference
Event expected to draw more than 30,000 to city from July 22-27
Julie Scofield, executive director of the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (Blade photo by Michael Key)
The International AIDS Conference is expected to draw more than 30,000 people from around the world to D.C. July 22-27.
Former President Bill Clinton, former first lady Laura Bush, Bill Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Eric Goosby, “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg and singer Elton John are among those who are scheduled to speak at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The White House has yet to confirm whether President Obama will attend; California Rep. Barbara Lee and Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS, are among those who are scheduled to speak at the opening session on July 22. The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington is also slated to perform.
“We are gathering at a defining moment in the AIDS epidemic where the science tells us we can turn the tide on HIV,” said Dr. Elly Katabira, president of the International AIDS Society who serves as the conference’s international chair, and Dr. Diane Havlir of the University of California-San Francisco, who is the U.S. co-chair of AIDS 2012, in a statement that officially welcomed delegates to the nation’s capital. “Scientific advances are also propelling towards the efforts to find a cure and vaccine for HIV. AIDS 2012 will unite science, community and leadership from around the globe to develop strategies and mobilize support for translating new evidence into meaningful action that reflects HIV’s complex web of social, human rights and political issues.”
The conference — the theme of which is “Turning the Tide Together” — will feature a number of workshops and other events that will specifically discuss the epidemic’s impact among men who have sex with men and other LGBT communities. These will include networking spaces in the Global Village that will allow LGBT people and MSM to share strategies to more effectively respond to HIV and advocate on behalf of those living with the virus. “The Lancet” will also present a symposium on the epidemic’s impact among MSM on July 24.
Debbie McMillan of Transgender Health Empowerment will be among the panelists on a July 26 plenary that will examine the virus’ effects on at-risk populations. A symposium on the same day will discuss the future of HIV prevention and related health and human rights issues among gay, transgender and MSM communities.
The Blade is also an official media sponsor of the conference and will host a photo exhibit chronicling AIDS in Washington in the Global Village, which is open to the public.
A call to action
The International AIDS Society and the University of California-San Francisco on Tuesday unveiled a nine-point plan designed to further combat the global epidemic.
The “Washington, D.C., Declaration” specifically calls for an end to stigma, discrimination and human rights abuses against people with the virus and those who remain at-risk for HIV. It backs what it describes as evidence-based prevention, treatment and care that respects the human rights of “those at greatest risk and in greatest need.” The declaration further stresses the need for accelerated research on new HIV prevention initiatives, treatments and a vaccine.
UNAIDS noted in its 2010 report that an estimated 33.3 million people around the world live with HIV. The agency further reported that the number of new infections has fallen 19 percent since 1999. UNAIDS also found that 5.2 million of the estimated 15 million people with the virus in developing countries who need antiretroviral treatment receive it.
“In a scenario unthinkable just a few years ago, we now have the knowledge to begin to end AIDS in our lifetimes,” said Katabira, professor of medicine at Uganda’s Makerere University. “Yet, at this moment of extraordinary scientific progress and potential, the global response to AIDS faces crippling financial challenges that threaten past success and future progress. Through this declaration, we stand together to call on world leaders across all sectors to provide increased resources, visionary leadership and a full-fledged commitment to seize the opportunity before us.”
This year marks the first time since 1990 that the International AIDS Conference has taken place in the United States—President Obama in 2009 completed the process that lifted the ban on people with HIV from entering the country. City officials and HIV/AIDS service providers alike plan to use the biennial gathering to highlight local efforts to combat the epidemic.
D.C. Officials, HIV/AIDS groups seek presence at conference
The Department of Health’s HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, Sexually Transmitted Disease and Tuberculosis Administration will present 15 scientific abstracts on the epidemic during the conference. The D.C. Center for AIDS Research, the body that coordinates HIV/AIDS-specific research in Washington, will highlight city-based research in a Global Village session. Mayor Vincent Gray is among those who will speak at a Memorial AIDS Quilt ceremony on July 22.
“It’s appropriate that AIDS 2012 is taking place in the District, its first return to the U.S. in 22 years, as the District has in so many ways been the face of our nation’s epidemic,” said D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At Large.) “From years of an inadequate and failed response to now, an increasingly effective and aggressive one, the District embodies the varied and diverse experience our nation has endured with the deadly disease. AIDS2012 will be a fantastic opportunity for the District to showcase its innovative prevention and treatment programs for the best and brightest in the field. The District stands as an example of what can occur when data-driven, evidence-based policies are put in place.”
Whitman-Walker Health will hold a forum on the state of the epidemic at the Lisner Auditorium, where the city’s first AIDS forum took place in 1983, on July 24. Metro Teen AIDS and Us Helping Us have also scheduled a series of events to coincide with the conference. Organizers have also organized tours of Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive, Food and Friends, La Clinica del Pueblo and other D.C. HIV/AIDS service organizations for delegates.
“We are pleased and honored to have the International AIDS Conference come to D.C.,” Dr. Ray Martins, chief medical officer at Whitman-Walker, told the Blade. “The conference gives the world a chance to learn more about the state of HIV/AIDS in the District of Columbia, but also the breadth of the response to the epidemic locally. It will allow us to highlight the tremendous efforts made by outreach workers and volunteers as well as health care providers and our elected officials.”
A number of gatherings, panels and other events will also take place throughout the city in the days leading up to the conference. These include the Gay Men’s Health Summit at George Washington University and the Global Forum on MSM and HIV on July 21, a panel on stigma in transgender and other HIV-vulnerable communities at the Human Rights Campaign on July 21 and Youth Force’s annual conference at Gallaudet University in Northeast Washington from July 17-19 and the International Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Personally Affected by HIV/AIDS’ conference at Howard University from July 17-19.
“It’s really an incredible event, so I’m glad it’s coming back here,” Ron Simmons, president of Us Helping Us, told the Blade. “With the eyes of the world focused on you, this is the time to take advantage of it.”
Calls to bolster response to domestic epidemic
HIV/AIDS activists also plan to use the conference to urge lawmakers in this country and around the world to reaffirm their commitment to ending the epidemic.
Policy makers also plan to urge Congress to adequately fund policies they say effectively combat the domestic epidemic.
“When people think of AIDS today, most probably don’t realize that AIDS is still really in a crisis mode in our country,” said Carl Schmid, deputy executive director at the AIDS Institute, during a press conference at the National Press Club in D.C. on Tuesday. He noted that 20 percent of the 1.2 million Americans with HIV today do not know their status. Schmid also pointed to roughly 50,000 new diagnoses each year. “Many, including our youth, have become complacent. With nearly 40 percent of new infections occurring in those under age 29 and with more HIV in our country than ever before, it is imperative that we raise our country’s consciousness.”
President Obama in 2010 unveiled a National HIV/AIDS Strategy that seeks to reduce rates of HIV and HIV-related health disparities and increase access to care for people with the virus.
Julie Scofield, executive director of the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, applauded the Obama administration for what she described during the National Press Club press conference as its ongoing commitment to fight the domestic epidemic. She stressed, however, that federal funding has not kept pace with the needs of those with HIV.
“It has always been important to acknowledge from the very beginning of this fight that the goals of the strategy cannot be achieved without significant increases in funding for critical domestic HIV/AIDS discretionary programs,” said Scofield.
Health
United States Conference on HIV/AIDS grapples with federal budget cuts
Annual gathering is largest of its kind in the country
Advocates, public health experts, and healthcare providers gathered for the United States Conference on HIV/AIDS on Sept. 17 in Anaheim, Calif.
The conference is the largest of its kind in the nation and came amid a wave of new challenges for HIV research and treatment. Since the beginning of the second Trump-Vance administration, federal spending cuts have targeted HIV/AIDS programs, including the gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development and proposed cuts to PEPFAR, which supports HIV testing and treatment globally, in 2025.
Last year, Congress maintained funding for HIV programs after proposed cuts faced opposition from advocacy groups and bipartisan criticism. Yet, this year Congress has proposed similar cuts to many of the same programs, which would cut nearly one billion dollars in HIV funding. The majority of the cuts would impact HIV prevention and outreach, which includes ending nearly all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention HIV prevention activities.
“If we continue down this path,” said Jeremiah Johnson, the executive director of PrEP4ALL, an advocacy group that supports expanding access to HIV prevention. “We’re going to see more people falling off treatment. We’re going to see more wait lists. That’s going to lead to more people dying from AIDS-related complications.”
Cuts and challenges
The funding cuts loomed over the conference and inspired protest from activists.
On the first day of USCHA, activists with Save HIV Funding organized a mock funeral outside the convention center. Advocates living with HIV wrote eulogies for themselves, meant to show the consequences of diminished access to treatment. Then activists marched through the conference carrying fake coffins.
Johnson, who helped organize the protest, said that “the Trump administration has eviscerated global aid … and the fears that many of us are just talking about hypothetically for ourselves at the moment are already happening [internationally]. And so we wanted to place that front and center at this conference.”
The attacks on funding for HIV research and outreach come at a complicated time for the movement to end the AIDS epidemic. While options for prevention and treatment have never been more accessible, such as PrEP and antiretroviral therapy, there have been some concerning upticks in infections, particularly among communities of color.
Southern states account for the majority of new HIV infections in the country, despite making up only 38 percent of the population. And these infections impact disproportionately Black and Latino communities. According to the CDC, even as overall HIV infections decreased from 2018 to 2022, diagnoses of HIV among Latinos grew by 17 percent, with a majority of this increase happening in the South.
Stigma is still the biggest barrier for people seeking out HIV treatment, said Guillermo Chacón, president of the Latino Commission on AIDS.
“The progress that we [made] in the past two years has been demolished,” he said.
Chacón blames the federal government for stigmatizing HIV treatment by using harmful rhetoric about queer people.
“The level of homophobia and transphobia right now is even higher because it has been used as a political message to create fear and division in our country,” he said.
Chacón believes that research and outreach must be done to reverse the rising HIV infections among Latinos. However, this is exactly the type of research that the Trump-Vance administration is targeting most intensely. Research into “health disparities” — why some health problems impact certain communities more than others — has been heavily criticized by the White House, along with other research that it considers “woke” and claims is not supported by science.
Impact felt at conference
The opening plenary for the conference addressed some of the funding challenges the movement was facing but tried to shift the focus to the victories the movement has seen over the years. Speakers highlighted historic successful activist campaigns like ACT UP, and recent improvements in medical care and access to treatment.
Randevyn Pierre, head of U.S. external affairs at ViiV Healthcare, the sponsor of the plenary, took the stage to celebrate the success of the U = U campaign (undetectable viral load =
untransmittable HIV virus), and ViiV’s investment of $33 million in HIV community organizations across the U.S. This comes as the Trump-Vance administration has made moves to end direct funding of community-based organizations, opting to give the funding to state healthcare agencies.
The speakers at the conference discussed reducing stigma for those living with HIV and the joy of living authentically. They also emphasized the diverse groups of people that are impacted by HIV and how they can come together to fight for a cure. Longtime AIDS activist Rae Lewis Thorton exclaimed, “When they tell me there’s a cure to HIV, I’m gonna take off my 4-inch heels and put on gold slippers,” to applause from the audience.
The opening plenary also featured song and dance from a variety of artists, many of whom spoke about how HIV has impacted their own lives and how advocacy has uplifted their spirits. However, the joyous atmosphere at the conference would not last.
On the final day of USCHA, Geri Donenberg, the associate director of AIDS research at the National Institutes of Health, took the stage to address the conference.
As she spoke, phones began to buzz around the room with breaking news: the Trump-Vance administration was drafting an executive order to create an external board to oversee NIH grants and screen them for political content. NMAC CEO Harold Philips took the stage after Donenberg to address the crowd. “It’s up to us,” Philips said, “to hold NIH accountable.” He added that HIV advocates “have supporters inside NIH who are struggling and working to do the right thing. We have to have their back.”
Chants of “stand up, fight back, fight AIDS” erupted from the crowd as Philips spoke. “We do have to fight back. We do have to continue to fight,” Philips replied.
Caleb Kaufman is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
Health
AIDS Healthcare Foundation announces 3 million people globally in its care
Los Angeles-based group lauded ‘historic milestone’
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit group founded in 1987 that has become the world’s largest HIV/AIDS organization, has announced it has three million people in care around the world.
In a statement released on May 26, the organization, known worldwide as AHF, said the latest accomplishment reflects its global commitment to HIV prevention, care, and treatment. It says the accomplishment comes at a time when AHF marks the 25th anniversary of its first global programs launched in South Africa and Uganda in early 2001.
The statement says the three million people in care milestone also comes while the group approaches the 40th anniversary of its founding in 1987.
“Today, AHF provides lifesaving services in 50 countries across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe, supporting millions of people living with HIV through a network of 1,056 global clinics, 79 healthcare centers in the U.S., 67 pharmacies, 96 wellness centers, 26 Out of the Closet thrift stores, outreach programs, and community partnerships,” the statement says.
“This accomplishment is far more than a number — it represents 3 million individuals whose lives have been touched by compassion, commitment, and the belief that healthcare is a human right,” Condessa M. Curley, the AHF board chair, said in a statement. “We extend our deepest gratitude to every member of the AHF team whose dedication made this milestone possible,” Curley said.
The AHF website notes the organization was founded in 1987 in Los Angeles as a network of hospices committed to “fighting for the living and caring for the dying” at a time when there was no effective treatment for HIV/AIDS. A statement on the website says since that time AHF has greatly expanded, converting its hospices into healthcare centers “and building a new paradigm for HIV care both in the United States and around the world.”
The statement adds, “Under the leadership of president and co-founder Michael Weinstein, AHF has grown from a group of friends dedicated to creating dignified hospice care to the largest AIDS organization in the world.” It says Weinstein “has been at the forefront of creating cutting-edge healthcare and advocacy programs and continues to drive the organization forward with the aim of saving more lives around the world.”
The statement announcing the milestone has also come at a time when more than 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV, “while hundreds of thousands continue to die annually from AIDS-related illnesses despite the availability of effective treatment.”
It says AHF’s response has included an expansion of its prevention and public health programs worldwide. In 2025 alone, according to the statement, AHF and its affiliated programs provided nearly five million free HIV tests globally and distributed more than 54 million free condoms, “underscoring the organization’s continued emphasis on both prevention and treatment.”
In D.C. AHF operates health care centers at 1701 K St., N.W., Ste. 400 [202-293-8680], 650 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E., Ste. 310 [202-350-5000], and 1647 Benning Road, N.E., Ste. 300 [202-350-5000].
Cannabis Culture
LGBTQ people, weed, and mental health: what you need to know
Community uses marijuana at much higher rates than general population
Uncloseted Media published this story on May 7.
By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON | In 2025, the global cannabis market size was valued at nearly $103 billion. By 2034, that number is expected to explode by roughly 1,400 percent to more than $1.43 trillion.
In short, as an increasing number of countries legalize marijuana use, everyone is starting to consume a lot more weed. And LGBTQ people tend to use cannabis at much higher rates than the general population. One study found that 55 percent of lesbian and 45 percent of gay young adults use marijuana, compared to about 33 percent and 37 percent, respectively, of their straight counterparts.
As LGBTQ people face a mental health crisis, the mainstream stereotypes that depict weed as an antidote for anxiety, panic and depression aren’t painting the full picture. And that could be exacerbating the mental health struggles so many queer people, and especially youth, face.
Here’s what the research demonstrates about marijuana and its effects on mental health:
- Multiple studies suggest a link between marijuana use and an increased risk of mental health disorders, including schizophrenia, depression and anxiety in individuals who are genetically predisposed.
- One study found that daily marijuana use, especially among younger people, makes some individuals seven times more likely to develop psychosis.
The increase in higher-potency strains of marijuana could pose unknown risks. In 1995, the average content of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in confiscated marijuana was less than 4 percent. In 2022, it was more than 16 percent. Researchers don’t know the full extent of the impact that these higher concentrations can have on mental health and especially on younger people whose brains are still developing.
- A systematic review of studies published between 2013 and 2025 found damning results for the mental health of young cannabis users:
They were 51 percent more likely to experience depression, 58 percent more likely to experience anxiety, between 50 and 65 percent more likely to experience suicidal ideation and 80 to 87 percent more likely to have attempted suicide.
- While the above stats paint a grim picture, there is also some research that suggests benefits of cannabis use:
- A 2025 systematic review found that “medicinal” weed showed some efficacy in relieving withdrawal symptoms of opioid use disorder. THC use has been associated with improvement of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, bipolar symptoms and sleep quality.
- Other studies found that THC administered in a controlled setting was associated with a decrease of symptoms and adverse effects for a range of mental health disorders, including schizophrenia, psychotic symptoms, and anorexia nervosa.
Beyond what we pulled from academia, there is an astounding lack of information about the interplay between weed and mental health. As we dive deeper into Mental Health Awareness Month, I hope advocacy organizations, influencers and news outlets ramp up their coverage of this important topic that affects the countless LGBTQ weed smokers, many of whom are already struggling.
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