Hooray! Our Government isn't cutting AIDs programs budgets!

 

Hey Folks,

For those of you who are not aware, HIV medication can cost in the thousands on a monthly basis. Many people on a low income cannot afford the treatment even with insurance and a co-pay. My personal co-pay is over $400.00 a month and that is just the HIV meds. 

I thank the baby Jesus that someone in the government listened to our AIDS lobbyists.

Follow the link to read more!

Best in health!

Red

Even though our Government has been on the brink of shutdown, it's nice to know that when they got down to it......they didn't cut us out! The following article was posted on POZ.com. Enjoy!

April 12, 2011  Massive U.S. Budget Cuts to AIDS Programs Rejected; ADAP Funds Increased  U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration have rejected many of the proposed budget cuts to domestic and global HIV/AIDS programs, according to The AIDS Institute. In fact, the final federal spending bill proposes to increase funding to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) by $48 million and rejects a federal and D.C. funding ban on syringe exchange programs. The final bill does cut research funding at the National Institutes of Health by about $300 million and to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by $730 million, in areas to be determined. The Hill also reports that contributions to international institutions (including the United Nations) were cut by $377 million, and two programs under health care reform—Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan and the Free Choice Voucher program—were defunded. Earlier reports from the House Appropriations Committee indicated more than $1 billion in cuts to HIV and disease prevention programs, but according to the AIDS Institute, that was an error.

Article courtesy of POZ.com

http://www.poz.com/articles/AIDS_Funds_Increase_1_20218.shtml

NY TIMES ARTICLE TODAY ....MORE HIV+ TRANSPLANTS AHEAD?

In the New York Times today under the health section, Pam Belluck wrote an article entitled a "New push to let HIV-positive patients except organs that are infected".

This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart having been part of clinical trial at Mount Sinai Medical Center to change the protocol that allows HIV+ patients the ability to receive transplants at all.

Any of you who are reading this know that this blog started out detailing my journey from kidney failure for transplantation and the hurdles that I had to jump over to be a healthy individual living with HIV.

It hasn't been easy, and it was a constant fight. There are some that don't agree with my BLOG and have even reported me to Facebook as being "spammy or abusive" so I can no longer "share" my posts.

There are still difficulties with HIV+ transplantation, but two years and 10 months later I stand as a symbol of how can be when it goes right.

As I stated in my first blog in November 2010, sometimes it's a battle to stay alive while we wait for the people who make the decisions to say, "Hey....I think we can!" Well, much like my journey, it appears that the medical community is deciding to take the next step and I applaud them for that. Previously when someone died of complications due to HIV, whether they were an organ donor or not, the organs were not donated. Nor could an HIV+ person donate an organ to a friend,partner or loved one because of their status. This has eliminated the choice, which I believe to be up to the individual, for hundreds of thousands of men, women and children living with HIV and other serious illness.

In 1988 when many of us infected with HIV were dropping dead from what was then termed G.R. I. D., ( Gay related immuno deficiency, our government passed a law that effectively banned anyone who was HIV+ from donating there organs. Times have change since 1988. This law however has not. There are groups and institutions begining to see that this law needs to be lifted if we are to make very viable advances in those living with HIV.

It is very encouraging that the medical community is moving on and forward.  I may need another transplant in the future and if this trial is a success.......maybe the list won't be 7-10 years like it has been.


Please feel free to read the article. It is a great read and thank Pam.....I appreciate it!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/us/11hiv.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=New%20push%20to%20let&st=cse

Be well, and never give up hope!

Red

Facebook posting led to kidney donation

Roxy Kurze gives husband Jeff a kiss.

By Suzanne Choney
Two men who met briefly a year earlier as salesman and customer became bonded for life because of a wife's Facebook posting seeking a kidney donation for her husband.
Roxy Kurze was desperate to find a kidney donor for her husband Jeff, 35, and posted a notice on Facebook seeking someone willing to do so who had blood type O.
The Michigan couple knew they faced a three- to five-year wait by going the usual route of being on the hospital's waiting list. And Roxy Kurze knew that time was of the essence. Her husband had already suffered a stroke, and dialysis was leaving him physically depleted.
"Wishing a kidney would fall out of the sky so my husband can stop suffering," Roxy Kurze wrote on Facebook. "So if anyone knows of a live donor with type O blood, PLEASE let me know."
Ricky Cisco, 25, didn't know Jeff Kurze by name. But he knew Roxy only slightly, through a work-related Facebook "friending" that might as well have been as distant as Mars. At his computer, on Facebook one day, he saw her posting for a Type O donor and was intrigued. He was Type O.
"It wasn’t until I researched it and realized that every day that I drive to work, I’m risking my life far more than by donating a kidney. That kind of reassured me ... once I found out how safe it was, there really wasn’t any excuse to fall back on."
He contacted Roxy Kurze, and met Jeff — for what turned out to be the second time. Jeff Kurze had sold him a laptop about a year before. And he was stunned that Cisco was willing to donate a kidney, "to step up out of the blue."
"I didn’t believe it. It was hard to breathe. I was in total disbelief that this was happening," said Kurze, who celebrated his fifth wedding anniversary with Roxy last month.
"I always wanted to be a hero, but I’m not very strong," said Cisco, who runs a makeup studio. "I can’t lift anything; I can’t save people in traditional ways. I do have an extra kidney, so it worked out good."
It worked out more than good. On March 30, the kidney transplant was done at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak in the Detroit area. In a video made by the hospital two days before the surgery, Kurze and Cisco recount their story.
The two men are more than Facebook friends now; "We’ve become friends through this and hang out a lot," said Kurze. "We probably see each other once a week."

Congratulations Jeff......Hearing stories like this give us all hope! And thank God for your "Angel".

Red

Landlords Can’t Evict HIV-Positive Tenant, Support Dog

April 6, 2011

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) ordered landlords to pay $25,000 for trying to force HIV-positive tenant Richard M. Blake to get rid of his emotional support dog or move out of his Brighton apartment, The Boston Globe. Blake’s landlords gave him permission to get the dog, but two months later they added a no-pet policy in tenants’ leases. Blake’s doctor recommended a support dog to improve his mental and physical health and overall quality of life while living with HIV. Blake filed a complaint with the MCAD when his landlords wouldn’t accommodate his disability.

Isn't it nice to know that protections still exist and that we little guys win now and then?

Congrats Richard......and your furry friend too!


Red