ACRIA is committed to furthering sensible, science-based public policy, and ensuring adequate resources to bring an end to the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. and around the world. Since it is important to speak knowledgeably and act from experience, ACRIA’s policy and advocacy work largely stems from our research and education efforts. The treatments we have played a role in developing are useless if people with HIV do not have access to them.

The research we have done to better understand the characteristics and needs of people with, and at risk for, HIV is most valuable when it informs those who make policy and funding decisions. Likewise, the health literacy education, technical assistance, and capacity building services we provide are beneficial only in the context of a society that provides its citizens with ongoing health care and the services they need to live long and productive lives.

For example, the activism of many – including ACRIA’s founders – led to the passage of the $2 billion Ryan White CARE Act in the 1980s, and more recently the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). As we near the end of the third decade of this epidemic, new treatments with fewer side effects and easier dosing (many studied at ACRIA) have dramatically lowered death rates. But the virus has not been eradicated. In fact, the epidemic is growing and aging in the U.S. and around the world.

For better or worse, the health and services system is no longer responding to an emergency. Rather, it has become an indispensable part of the lives of millions of people with HIV – a group that will get larger and older with every day that passes without a cure. Our research tells us that many of those lives will be wholly dependent on an already frayed safety net.

ACRIA speaks out on issues that are informed by our work. We regularly join in collaborative efforts to initiate change, and spearhead those efforts when our expertise is needed. ACRIA was founded with the stated intent of conducting research and delivering education that actually benefits and improves the lives of people with HIV. Targeted advocacy is often needed to make that happen.

AIDS Community Research Initiative of America Joins Lambda Legal in Support of Affordable Care Act

U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument at the end of March

New York, New York, March 15, 2012

Today, AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA) joined over 130 HIV and health care advocacy organizations by endorsing Lambda Legal’s friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as the ACA.  

“Upholding the ACA is vital in our fight to end the AIDS epidemic and to ensure adequate HIV prevention, and access to care and treatment,” said Daniel Tietz, ACRIA’s Executive Director.  “It is difficult to imagine that we can end AIDS in our lifetime, an aim about which President Obama so eloquently spoke on World AIDS Day last December, without the expansion of health insurance coverage brought about by the ACA.”

In March of 2010, the ACA was signed into law, reforming aspects of the private health insurance industry and expanding access to health insurance for millions of Americans. The constitutionality of the law was immediately challenged in federal court in multiple jurisdictions. In January, 2012 Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief highlighting the crucial link between the ACA and the ability to curtail the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic. The United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in several cases challenging the constitutionality of the law the week of March 26, 2012.

ACRIA has joined Lambda Legal in supporting the federal government’s position that the ACA’s minimum coverage requirement (also known as the individual mandate) is constitutional under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause.

“The list of supporters for our brief urging the Court to uphold the ACA continues to grow because of the law’s enormous potential to impact the domestic AIDS epidemic,” said Scott Schoettes, HIV Project Director for Lambda Legal. “By signing on to the statement of support, organizations across the nation have affirmed the demonstrable effect the ACA will have on reducing rates of transmission and increasing prevention education, early detection, and access to quality care for everyone living with HIV.”

When the ACA was enacted, only 17% of Americans with HIV had private health insurance. In the individual insurance market, people living with HIV are generally considered “uninsurable” and are routinely rejected when they apply for coverage because they have a pre-existing condition. Even when these individuals find an insurance company to cover them, most states have no rating limits, allowing insurers to charge prohibitively expensive premiums. The ACA is designed to address this problem by eliminating pre-existing condition exclusions and requiring that everyone acquire health insurance.  

To read the complete list of organizations that have signed the statement of support, visit:

http://lambdalegal.org/in-court/legal-docs/dept-of-hhs_us_20120315_statement-of-support

Lambda Legal’s HIV Project Director, Scott Schoettes, and Director of Constitutional Litigation, Susan Sommer, are joined as counsel on the brief by Ropes & Gray LLP attorneys Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, Bradley Grossman, Brendon Carrington, and Jacob Heller.

The following organizations are listed as signatories in the amicus brief filed at the U.S. Supreme Court: AIDS United, Asian and Pacific-Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (APICHA), Black AIDS Institute, Center for HIV Law and Policy, Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA), HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA), HIV Prevention Justice Alliance (HIV PJA), Latino Commission on AIDS, National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA), National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), National Native American AIDS Prevention Center (NNAAPC), U.S. Positive Women’s Network/WORLD, and Treatment Access Expansion Project (TAEP).

The case is Dep’t of HHS v. Florida. See our case page at:

www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/cases/dept-of-hhs-v-florida

To read the brief visit:

www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/legal-docs/dept-of-hhs_us_20120113_brief-for-amici-curiae

Dear Borough President Stringer:

I write to urge you to stand as the first elected official to strongly and publicly endorse the proposed AIDS Memorial Park and Learning Center in the triangle bounded by Seventh Avenue, West 12th Street and Greenwich Avenue.  ACRIA is very pleased that Community Board 2 has endorsed the proposal.  As the ULURP process moves forward, your unequivocal support for the park AND the learning center is vital. 

In our experience in delivering HIV-related education to health and services providers and those with and at risk of HIV here in New York City and beyond, we know how great the need is for a public learning center that teaches the facts on HIV and the history of this ongoing epidemic.  And with knowledge we each will have what we need to do our part to end this epidemic. 

I strongly urge you to come out in support of the AIDS Memorial Park and Learning Center.  In so doing you will mark New York as a leader, in yet another way, in fighting to end of AIDS.

Thank you for your support!

Daniel Tietz
Executive Director

The National Academy on an Aging Society has issued a new report, Integrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Older Adults into Aging Policy and Practice, containing an article by Daniel Tietz of ACRIA and Nathan Schaeffer of GMHC.

Click here to download a PDF of the report.

ACRIA supports the inclusion of routine HIV screening as part of the Essential Benefits Package to be required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Click here to download a pdf of a letter to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, co-signed by 54 members of Congress.

ACRIA joins with organizations across the U.S. in support of a quick review of recent studies of Pre-exposure Prophylaxis.

HIV/AIDS Organizations Tell FDA and Gilead Sciences: Don’t Delay HIV Prevention for Gay and Bisexual Men and Transgender Women

Contact:
Kay Marshall, kay@avac.org, +1-347-249-6375
Robert Reinhard, rjreinhard@gmail.com, +1-415-570-1010

New York, NY — Thirteen prominent U.S. HIV/AIDS organizations have issued an open letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Gilead Sciences calling for prompt regulatory review of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention in gay and bisexual men and transgender women (men who have sex with men, or MSM). The letter urges FDA and Gilead to start the review process that could allow safe and appropriate approved PrEP use as a public health intervention, and not to delay review because of distinct questions about the safety and efficacy of PrEP in heterosexual populations. The letter is available online here.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, is a new HIV prevention method in which an uninfected person takes a daily HIV medication to reduce HIV infection risk. Data from an international study released in November, 2010 called iPrEx found that men and transgender women who have sex with men who received a daily single-tablet dose of the HIV drugs tenofovir and emtricitabine along with condoms and safe sex counseling had an average of 42% fewer HIV infections than those who received condoms and counseling alone.

Advocates assert that the need for new HIV prevention strategies for MSM is urgent. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that MSM account for more than half of all new HIV infections in the United States. CDC logged an estimated 34% increase in HIV infections in young gay men between 2006 and 2009, and a 48% HIV increase among young black/African American gay men over the same period.

“We desperately need new strategies and tools to reduce the rapidly increasing rates of HIV infection in black gay and bisexual men,” said Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute. “We’ve had evidence of PrEP’s effectiveness in MSM for almost a year now. It’s time to use every tool at our disposal to reduce the 50,000 new HIV infections that occur each year in this country. Prompt FDA review will help ensure that appropriate guidelines for PrEP use are established that can reduce HIV infections and safeguard public health.”

Data on PrEP in heterosexuals raise important but unique questions that may require further study. Two major trials in Africa found that PrEP reduces HIV infection risk in heterosexual men and women substantially. But two other studies present conflicting information about how PrEP works in heterosexuals. Critical and necessary efforts to understand how PrEP interacts with hormonal contraception, or how PrEP may impact pregnancy, however, should not delay access to a potentially lifesaving form of HIV prevention for MSM.

Before the results of the heterosexual PrEP studies were announced, the FDA and Gilead Sciences, the maker of the drugs, were reported to be ready to move quickly to consider approval of PrEP for those MSM who could benefit from the approach. Recent signs indicate, however, that FDA review of PrEP for this population may not start until the agency acquires more data on PrEP among heterosexuals—despite the urgent need for new HIV prevention strategies for MSM, and the fact that PrEP data in MSM were announced nearly one year ago.

“The FDA and Gilead Sciences should move quickly to ensure a thorough review of PrEP for MSM now, while they both work simultaneously and swiftly to thoroughly address questions and concerns about PrEP among heterosexual populations,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC “Prompt FDA review of PrEP in MSM is the right thing to do for public health. In the midst of a growing HIV epidemic, HIV prevention delayed is HIV prevention denied.”

ACRIA staff are taking part in New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s “I Talk About HIV Because” campaign to raise public awareness about HIV. The goal is to create an open and honest conversation about AIDS to help prevent new infections and reduce the stigma those living with HIV can face.

Lisa Frederick

Mark Brennan

Yuriy Akulov, MD, PhD