Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
Gave dignity to women with AIDS. It s not surprising that Sr. Jeannette Normandin named the home she founded for women with HIV/AIDS Ruah, the Hebrew word for breath of life. Normandin was a breath of life for the untold numbers of people she touched during a lifetime of ministering to the most vulnerable members of so
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
Led the way on intravenous needle exchange and citywide AIDS education. When Tom Menino was still a district city councilor from Hyde Park, he asked two kids from Harvard Business School to study the rates of HIV infection among Boston residents with those of New Orleans and municipalities in New Jersey. The results we
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
Pushed through groundbreaking policy and legal protections for people with HIV/AIDS. Robert Greenwald s first real job out of Northeastern University School of Law (after a one year clerkship with the Massachusetts Superior Court) was as a clinical instructor/staff attorney with Harvard Law School s Legal Services Cent
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
Brought glitz to the fight against AIDS. In the 1980s, Sunny Joe White was one of Boston s biggest radio personalities. That might not be such a distinction today, with satellite and Internet radio, iTunes, and multiple independent methods of distributing music. But in 1980, when Sunny Joe White left WILD for WXKS (KIS
Massachusetts has a long legacy of innovation and leadership in protecting the health of all our residents, and in particular individuals who are the most vulnerable and face the greatest challenges accessing health care services. Our state s commitment to health care reform is a testament to this value, and we are mak
The Massachusetts Asian & Pacific Islanders for Health s (MAP) Rooted in Acceptance, a free community reception and awards ceremony, will be held on Wednesday, May 19 at the Bombay Club Restaurant (1415 Washington Street). The event will honor renowned South Asian and women s activist Ramani Sripada as she accepts
Eight AIDS activists were arrested May 13 in Manhattan for lying down in Madison Avenue to protest President Barack Obama s alleged broken promises on global AIDS funding. Obama was speaking inside the St. Regis New York hotel at a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. According to Housing Wor
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
Dr. Valerie Stone s Curriculum Vitae is 33 pages long. She s held six faculty academic appointments, five appointments at hospitals and affiliated institutions, and 10 major administrative leadership positions. She s made well over 100 major presentations at national and international conferences and published approxim
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
I need my head examined, says Gary Bailey of his decision to accept the nomination to be president of the International Federation of Social Workers, a 750,000-member organization with representatives from more than 80 countries. He s already an active member (and past president) of the National Association of Social
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
You ve got to keep your goal in mind. If your goal is freedom of speech then you fight for certain things. If your goal is to make money for a cause then you do whatever you can to drive them in the door, says Bernie Toale, one of the founders of the biennial arts auction ARTcetera. Toale is referring to the 1996 ARTc
Seven Massachusetts residents living with HIV/AIDS met members of the Mass. Congressional delegation. Senator Scott Brown personally greeted seven Massachusetts residents living with HIV/AIDS in April when they traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with members of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation during AIDS Watch
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
If Larry Kessler was the soul of the AIDS Action Committee in its early days, then Larry Killian was its brain, says Robert Greenwald, who did legal and policy work for the agency in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The guy was an incredible systems person. He was really, really smart and he put a lot of the structures
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
Andrew Fullem has been immersed in HIV work since graduating from American University in the late 1980s. An epidemiologist by training, he has worked in over 20 countries helping set up clinical trials for treatment of HIV and implementing HIV prevention, treatment, and care programs. He has a lot of stories to tell ab
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
In the early 1980s, Pat Daoust worked as a palliative care nurse for a hospice that served end-stage cancer patients. Her agency received a phone call from the parents of a young gay man dying of AIDS, then known as GRID. Her supervisor denied the request out of concern for the risk of transmission of the disease to em
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
Phil Robinson, a Student Support Coordinator for the Boston Public Schools, has raised many thousands of dollars to end the AIDS epidemic by participating in each and every AIDS Walk Boston, and has empowered thousands along the way to fight AIDS with a methodical, tenacious, stubborn belief that everything is going to
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
Richard Giglio showed up for his first day of work as a volunteer at AIDS Action Committee wearing a pink tutu and leopard print tights. Because he could type, he had been assigned to help Liz Page organize the first AIDS Walk Boston. Page didn t quite know what to make of Giglio s outfit, but she didn t care. She sent
Courtesy of AIDS Walk Boston, Bay Windows Contributor
On July 20, 2001 a battle-weary Belynda Dunn stood at the center of a media scrum in the Boston Living Center. I m glad I m not on one of your TV sets for shooting somebody, she cracked to the reporters that surrounded her, a hint of frustration in her voice. I promise I ll never do anything because you ll track me dow
People living with HIV can face several barriers when they seek to enter other countries as visitors, immigrants, refugees, or for business. Ever since the virus became well known in the early 1980s, countries have been legally shooing away HIV-positive visitors. Seen as a discriminatory practice by many, these laws re
The Fenway Institute hosted a meeting of some of the United States top researchers, key stakeholders, and public health leaders to discuss the current state of knowledge about the sexual health of American men who have sex with men on April 26 and 27. The conference examined a variety of topics connected to rising rate
AIDS Action Committee president and CEO Rebecca Haag was honored with a Positive Leadership Award April 26 on behalf of the National Association of People With AIDS (NAPWA) for her work on national AIDS strategy. Haag s role in spearheading the Coalition for National AIDS Strategy was specifically recognized, along wit
The National Minority AIDS Council, Bay Windows contributor
AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs) across the country are struggling to keep their doors open. Over 750 people in ten states are currently on ADAP waiting lists to access HIV/AIDS drugs, and more states are joining the ranks. This situation will not improve anytime soon -- certainly not till the new Healthcare Refor
Recently there has been a great deal of debate over proposed changes to the law that governs HIV testing in Massachusetts. Under current Massachusetts law, a health care provider is required to obtain written informed consent from any patient prior to testing their blood for HIV. Some members of the HIV/AIDS and health
First the good news: last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) did something that would have been unthinkable a mere 12 months earlier. It analyzed the rates of new HIV and syphilis infections based on population size, with one of the populations being men who have sex with men. Why would this not have happ
Gary K. Daffin & Dr. Stephen Boswell, Bay Windows contributors
The Massachusetts Legislature will soon have an extraordinary opportunity to reform the way our state tests for HIV/AIDS. Legislation currently being considered by the Joint Committee on Public Health will take a number of steps to modernize the Commonwealth s HIV testing law, which has not been updated in over two dec
Half a million people signed a petition that was delivered to Ugandan Parliament Speaker Edward Ssekandi on March 1 opposing the pending bill that would jail gays for life and punish some with the death penalty. The petition campaign was spearheaded by an HIV-positive Anglican priest, Canon Gideon Byamugisha, along wit
The AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts (AAC) announced March 2 that they will merge with fellow non-profit organization Cambridge Cares About AIDS (CCA) beginning July 1. Our discussions have always been motivated by our desire to improve the health outcomes for those that we serve and to be more effective in stopp
It s more than a little hard for most people to believe that federal law today bans gay men from donating blood. But it s true; in fact, any man who has had a sexual relationship with another man, even once, since 1977, is banned -- for life -- from donating blood. It s a cruel reality that I thought warranted a close
The way AIDS Action Committee (AAC) figures it, if there s one place where high-end fashion and nonprofit work ought to meet, it s in the South End. In that light, AAC, a community-based nonprofit health organization dedicated to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS, hopes that union will produce big results at its new stor
Ruah House, a housing program for women affected by HIV/AIDS, has joined the many health and housing services operating under the umbrella of Victory Programs. In working together it became very clear how the goals of Ruah house are directly in line with the mission and philosophy of care at Victory Programs , said Joh
The country will celebrate National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on Feb. 7 with events held across the nation. The theme of this year s Awareness Day is HIV/AIDS Prevention - A Choice and a Lifestyle! Emergency survival backpacks and tents will be collected at the events and delivered to Haiti in honor of Black
Douglas Brooks, vice president of health services for the Justice Resource Institute and longtime HIV/AIDS activist, has been appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA). In his new role, Brooks will work closely with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to provide advice, inf
The Council for Global Equality and the Center for American Progress issued a report Jan. 13 criticizing numerous practices of the President s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a U.S. government program that operates in Botswana , Cambodia , Côte d Ivoire, Ethiopia ,
The AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts is moving their main offices from Downtown Crossing to 75 Amory Street on the Jamaica Plain/Roxbury border on Wednesday, Jan. 13, and will officially begin operations in the renovated building on Tuesday, Jan. 19. After an extensive search for their new home, the AAC selected
The debacle beginning in March 2009 with the loss of confidential patient records on a Red Line train continues in the new year with allegations of harassment against Massachusetts General Hospital staff. Jacob (whose last name has been withheld to protect his privacy) joined in a class action lawsuit against a billing
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