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Dating apps rarely encourage deep and meaningful communication but they are a minefield for people living with HIV as a series of real messages sent to gay men on Grindr reveals. The hurtful texts have been read out by HIV-positive men to highlight stigma, misunderstanding and ignorance around the virus. The messages, which include 'You're a walking disease, mate' and 'Sluts like you deserve it,' were sent to Grindr users and the Gay Men's Health Charity (GMFA) asked a group of HIV-positive models to read them out and react. ...

The ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and environmentalist group Earthjustice have partnered to put on Facebook Live’s first-ever tel-a-thon as counter-programming to Friday’s presidential inauguration. Dubbed the “Love-a-thon,” the event will be held from 12:30 p.m. ET until 3:30 p.m. ET and will feature a variety of celebrities, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jane Fonda, and Judd Apatow. A press release for the Love-a-thon said that the fundraising efforts are necessary as the next four years will bring “significant challenges” to these organizations. “Each of these organizations helps our most marginalized communities and protects our democratic norms and civil liberties every day through their...

IT shouldn’t be a big deal that I gave blood this week, but it is. To do it, I had to give up all forms of sex for a year. The reason: I’m gay. With what we know today about the disease, it’s a stupid reason. In 1985, in the early days of the AIDS crisis, the United States Food and Drug Administration recommended that men who had sex with other men be prohibited from donating blood indefinitely. This policy made sense at the time. In the decades since, the nation has made enormous progress against the virus. What was...

New stats show alarming rise in drug abuse, HIV/AIDS infections ATLANTA — Fulton County’s rate of opioid overdose deaths was more than double the national average in 2014, newly released figures show. And the county — which contains most of the city of Atlanta as well as some of Georgia’s most affluent suburbs — had a higher rate of HIV diagnoses than all but one of 28 large cities studied, according to statistics released last week by the Big Cities Health Coalition project. Fulton’s data were used because the county, not the city, collects the area’s health information, which is...

...since the election, Clinton’s weight appears to have taken another dip, and those close to the former prez are allegedly concerned that something else might be going on. Back when Bill Clinton was in the White House, Clinton was said to promote a wild atmosphere, with trips to McDonalds while he was out with the Secret Service dressed to jog. And earlier this year, a former Secret Service agent wrote a book telling tales from the Clinton White House, says the Inquisitr. The book alleges that Clinton carried on affairs with several women, including Eleanor Mondale, daughter of the former...

Washington spent more than $1 billion telling people in 14 African countries not to have sex before they get married. It didn’t work Over the past 15 years the U.S. has spent $1.4 billion promoting abstinence before marriage as a way of preventing HIV in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately, according to the most comprehensive, independent study conducted to date of the effort, the money was pretty much wasted. A rigorous comparison of national data from countries that received abstinence funding under the 2003 U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) with those that had not showed no...

Palestinians will soon get a chance to glimpse the small bedroom where their longtime leader Yasser Arafat spent his final years. The 5-square meter (54-square-foot) room is the centerpiece of the new Arafat Museum, which opens to the public on Thursday to coincide with the 12th anniversary of Arafat’s death. […] Arafat spent most of the last three years of his life in this bedroom on the ground floor of his Ramallah headquarters, known as the Muqata. Israel confined him to the building on Dec. 8, 2001, accusing him of masterminding a violent uprising at the time. He remained holed...

The alleged “Patient Zero” of the American AIDS epidemic — a French Canadian flight attendant named Gaétan Dugas, who died of AIDS in 1984 — was exonerated last week. Genetic sequencing of blood samples stored since the 1970s showed that the strain infecting him had circulated among gay men in New York for several years before he arrived here in 1974. Therefore, although he had hundreds of sexual partners in several cities, he did not introduce the virus to North America; he was a victim before he was a vector. The revelation, some AIDS experts said, proved that the epidemic’s...

In an effort to begin the process of rectifying health-related issues that disproportionately affect the LGBTQ community, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced on Thursday they will formally designate "sexual and gender minorities (SGMs) as a health disparity population for NIH research." "Mounting evidence indicates that SGM populations have less access to health care and higher burdens of certain diseases, such as depression, cancer, and HIV/AIDS. But the extent and causes of health disparities are not fully understood, and research on how to close these gaps is lacking," Eliseo Pérez-Stable M.D., director of the National Institute on Minority Health...

Robert Sepúlveda Jr embraced one of his suitors on Wednesday's episode of Finding Prince Charming after he confessed to being HIV-positive. The all-gay dating show featured the six remaining contestants hosting a masquerade party where they were asked to reveal a secret. Eric Leonardos, a 35-year-old celebrity hairstylist based in Los Angeles, was last to remove his mask, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes before making his confession.

It had all the trappings of a typical beauty contest: Contestants in evening gowns strutting before the judges, a talent portion, and of course, a sparkly tiara for the winning lady. But the third annual Y+ Beauty pageant held in Kampala, Uganda, this past weekend also had some unusual features. All of the more than 150 competitors were HIV positive — the Y+ stands for "young person living with HIV/AIDS."

Hillary Clinton is HIV positive, according to a shock claim by a Washington D.C. call-girl who says she was diagnosed with the virus after a pay for play fling with former President Bill Clinton in April of last year. “Bill Clinton visited me one night when he was in town, and he left me with more than a cash payment,” said Mandy Cloud, the pseudonym the former D.C. call-girl chose for her book set to be published next month. Cloud says she worked as a high-end call-girl in the world’s most powerful city for 14 years, and claims she went...

Police stumbled upon a bomb-making factory Sunday in the home of a Columbia professor who specializes in the spread of infectious disease - and are investigating whether he and his roommate have terror ties. Cops evacuated the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood around the Remsen St. home of Michael Clatts, a medical anthropologist, after finding seven pipe bombs fitted with fuses in his flat, police sources said. The frightening cache was discovered almost by accident - Ivaylo Ivanov, the man living with Clatts, accidentally shot off the tip of his left index finger and sought police help in the street about 1:15...

Former President Bill Clinton and his Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) distributed “watered-down” HIV/AIDs drugs to patients in sub-Saharan Africa, and “likely increased” the risks of morbidity and mortality, according to a draft congressional report obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The congressional report, titled,“The Clinton Foundation and The India Success Story,” was initiated by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican and vice-chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The CHAI program to help AIDS victims is considered one of the Clinton Foundation’s most important contributions and is probably its best known initiative.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday that a record $12.9 billion has been raised for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria over the next three years. Trudeau made the announcement on the second and final day of an international donors’ meeting as Microsoft founder Bill Gates, U2 frontman Bono, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and others gathered in Montréal to determine how to replenish the major global health fund that combats AIDS and two of the world’s other leading killers in low-income countries. …

South Africa said Thursday it will now provide free treatment to all people infected with HIV, regardless of the condition of their immune system. The country leads the world in infections. Before the announcement by the country’s health department, people were eligible for free treatment based on a certain measure of their white blood cells, which fight infection. […] The change is based on World Health Organization guidelines adopted in late 2015 after it was found that treating those with HIV as early as possible improves their health and prolongs their life. …

Although homosexual men are a tiny sliver of the U.S. population, they account for the majority of all Americans living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced. Men who have sex with men (MSM) are two percent of the population but make up 55 percent of people who were HIV-positive in 2013, according to a CDC fact sheet released last Wednesday. More than nine out of 10 new HIV diagnoses (92 percent) come from young gay and bisexual MSM, ages 13 to 24. If these trends continue, one of every...

When they decided to print special collectors’ covers for the magazine’s September issue, all about “icons of change”, the publishers of Elle knew immediately who the stars should be: the actors Kristen Stewart and Amandla Stenberg, both of whom have made headlines for their refusal to conform to traditional notions of sexuality; the singer Zayn Malik, who walked away from One Direction, the biggest pop band in the world, at the height of its fame; and the transgender model Hari Nef. Nef’s cover is arguably the most radical of the four. It marks the first time a transgender woman has...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration opened the door on Tuesday to a change in its blood donor deferral recommendations, which currently prohibit donations from gay men for a year following their last sexual encounter in order to reduce the risk of transmitting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In December the FDA overturned a 30-year ban on all blood donations from men who have sex with men, saying the change was based on science showing an indefinite ban was not necessary to prevent transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus. The FDA is now signaling it may go further. Gay...

Grindr, the gay dating app, is an effective way to get gay black and Hispanic men to try home H.I.V. self-testing kits, according to a recent study. The small study was confined to Los Angeles, and fewer than 400 test kits were distributed, but the idea has broader potential. Grindr is used by at least five million men in 192 countries, according to its developer. In the United States, young gay black and Hispanic men are the groups most likely to be infected with H.I.V. and the least likely to be tested for it, because they often lack health insurance...