HIV and Disability Law

“The FY09 Omnibus Appropriations bill is a mixed bag for domestic HIV/AIDS”, commented Carl Schmid, Director of Federal Affairs for The AIDS Institute. “While we are pleased to see some increased funding for care and treatment in the Ryan White HIV Program, we are very disappointed that Congress is flat funding domestic HIV prevention at [...]

 College-aged minorities living in Chicago do not trust the HIV/AIDS prevention messages being presented to them and are less likely to seek treatment as a result, according to a study to be released next week at the Illinois Youth and HIV/AIDS Forum, the Chi-Town Daily News reports. The study — which Chicago-based not-for-profit Children’s Place [...]

The Boston Globe reports that President Obama today named the person who will coordinate federal efforts on HIV/AIDS.
Jeffrey S. Crowley, MPH, Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute, will be director of the Office of National AIDS Policy.
“Jeffrey Crowley brings the experience and expertise that will help our nation address the ongoing HIV/AIDS [...]

GlaxoSmithKline’s recent announcement that it plans to reduce drug prices in some low-income countries and share information on patented drugs is “welcome” but not a “radical departure from standard fare,” Tido von Schoen-Angerer — director of Medecins Sans Frontieres’ Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines — writes in an opinion piece in London’s Guardian. According [...]

The international AIDS community is buzzing with anxiety over
unconfirmed reports that the Obama administration may hold down
American financing for international AIDS programs that need
greatly increased support,” a New York Times editorial says,
adding “We hope that the new budget blueprint to be released
this week will leave enough room to grant these and other vital
health programs the [...]

Many people living with AIDS are thriving under the care of their expert physicians. As medicine evolves and specialists gain more experience, the profoundly disabled patient becomes more rare. Still, every person processes the infection and the medications individually, and some do reach the point of inability to work. We see this [...]

The California AIDS Healthcare Foundation is suing the California State Department of Health Care Services, alleging the agency did not follow federal and state law in its contracting process for the provision of health care services for Medi-Cal recipients living with AIDS. The Los Angeles-based nonprofit contends the legal action is necessary because of what [...]

Gene therapy is an exciting area which aims to create a one-off treatment for HIV, avoiding the need for people to take daily medication. The therapy is in its early days in research terms, so is a long way from being on the market. A new study “has shown some promising
results, which definitely warrant [...]

Overpayment notices arrive like incoming missiles, shattering the fragile stasis of the lives of disability paymnet recipients. Frequently there are errors in the notices, many caused by Social Secuity itself. A common situation is one where the client has reported income and Social Security has failed to record it. Often a skilled advocate can challenge [...]

Today Lambda Legal and the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW) announced the filing of a federal lawsuit today in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin on behalf of Melody Rose, a 35-year-old Wisconsin woman who was denied surgery to remove her gallbladder because she has HIV.
“Discrimination in healthcare remains a [...]