Project Inform Perspective e-News

SAN FRANCISCO COMMUNITY EVENTS Opening Benefit Premiere of We Were Here. A benefit for Project Inform. Castro Theater, Friday, February 25th, 6pm. Report Back from CROI 2011 March 23, 68:30pm Genentech Hall, UCSF 600 16th St, San Francisco FEBRUARY 23, 2011 P.I. Perspective e-News Finding health care; preparing for the future In the late 80s and 90s, accessing health benefits was fairly direct as most individuals automatically qualified for disability benefits. We now see an unprecedented number of individuals unable to find needed benefits due to their inability to meet outdated disability standards. Two promising drugs for hepatitis C arrive in 2011 Two new drugs to treat hepatitis C have been submitted to the FDAfor approval as well as requests for expedited reviews. The approvals will hopefully happen by mid-summer. "Berlin Patient" continues to point to an HIV cure In 2007, an HIV-positive man from the US faced a leukemiadiagnosis while living in Berlin. He underwent a bone marrow transplant to try to cure his leukema as well as HIV. New treatment for excess gut fat approved In November 2010, a new drug called tesamorelin (Egrifta) was approved by the FDA to treat exess gut fat in HIV-positive people. Health care reform provides quality care,but needs our support Health care reform was signed into law March 2010. However this historic expansion is now under serious attack by those who would roll it back by taking advantage of misunderstandings and negative propaganda about reform. National ADAP crisis continues The AIDS Drug Assistance Program provides prescription assistance to 165,000 low-income individuals living with HIV. ADAP is now in the most serious crisis since its inception with over 6,000 individuals on waiting lists for their life-saving medications in 10 states. Interim PrEP Guidelines announced by CDC Following on the footsteps of the iPrEx study data released late last year, the CDC issued their guidlines January 2011 for using PrEP in high-risk gay men. The new Guidlines are found here. Project Inform's publication on PrEP can be found here and in Spanish here. NEW PUBLICATIONS FROM PROJECT INFORM Tesamorelin and excess deep belly fat Project Inform Perspective #51