The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Thursday that it will be ending a longstanding blood donation policy that discriminates against gay and bisexual men, as well as some transgender women. Restrictions on those groups have been in place for decades. In 1985, the FDA mandated an “indefinite deferral” of gay and bisexual men giving blood, citing the higher prevalence of HIV… Source Source / Read More: FDA Will Now Allow Blood Donations From Gay, Bisexual Men and Transgender Women
HIV/AIDS
West Virginia Officials Hamper Public Health Measures Amid Local HIV Outbreak
Charleston, West Virginia — Brooke Parker has spent the past two years combing riverside homeless encampments, abandoned houses, and less traveled roads to help contain a lingering HIV outbreak that has disproportionately affected those who live on society’s margins. She shows up to build trust with those she encounters and offers water, condoms, referrals to services, and opportunities to be… Source Source / Read More: West Virginia Officials Hamper Public Health Measures Amid Local HIV Outbreak
Texas Republican Seeks to Limit HIV Medication Access After Winning Abortion Ban
A prominent conservative lawyer who crafted the Texas bounty hunter anti-abortion law that kickstarted the judicial path to overturning Roe v. Wade has filed a new lawsuit aimed at limiting access to preventative HIV medications known as HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. Jonathan Mitchell, a former Republican solicitor general of Texas and now-private lawyer who has spent years seeking to restrict abortion access, same sex marriage and same sex intercourse, argues in his new lawsuit on behalf of Christian clients that free access to PrEP, as mandated under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), is a violation of religious freedoms. The…