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AIDS Conference Udate

A weakened virus that many consider the best hope for an AIDS vaccine may actually cause the disease it was meant to prevent, researchers said recently at the World AIDS Conference in Geneva, citing tests on adult monkeys. The approach--what scientists call a live attenuated vaccine--initially protects monkeys from getting infected with the simian version of HIV. However, the new work shows that over time the weakened virus can mutate into a lethal form that causes the disease it was meant to prevent.

"To me, this fortifies that we are not ready to go into humans with a live attenuated vaccine," said Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

San Francisco based Vaxgen Inc. recently gained Food and Drug Administration approval to begin testing on humans a possible AIDS vaccine that doesn't contain a live strain of the virus. But Robert Gallo, NO, of the University of Maryland, said that if the live attenuated approach fails, it means AIDS vaccine development is no further ahead than it was in 1984, when little was known about the epidemic's cause. "We have no guarantee that we will ever have a vaccine," he said.

Creating an AIDS vaccine is a top priority of researchers but also an extraordinarily difficult task because the AIDS virus attacks parts of the immune system that are ordinarily called into action by effective vaccines. One idea is to give people a weakened version of HIV, one that would set up a harmless low-grade infection but keep immune defenses on high alert against the real thing. People who carry genetically crippled HIV that arose through random mutations do not seem to get sick. [from The Advocate]

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Internet Debate Expands

The debate about Internet filtering software--which can block youths' access to information about the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community--continues to expand in several states. In New Mexico, U.S. District Judge C. LeRoy Hansen blocked a law, to have taken effect recently, to criminalize Internet expressions of "nudity" or "sexual conduct." In Utah, the State Records Committee ordered the educational computer network to give an Internet activist its censorship logs, which log online sites Utah students have tried to access. Anti-censorship advocates worry that while filtering softwares sporadically block pornography and hate sites, they also can keep Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender youth from critical information and resources. Says Jeff Walsh, editor of Oasis, the online webzine for Gay youth: "There are many online sites that parents might find inappropriate for their child. But the answer is not blocking all sites with sexual content without regard for context." The ACLU has sued to block the new law in New Mexico.

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Heads-Up For Local School Districts

For the first time, the U.S. Department of Education has explicitly extended to Lesbians and Gays Title IX protections against sexual harassment. Prompting the move: openly Gay student Willi Wagner and his parents, who charged that the Fayetteville, Ark., school system did nothing after other students had beaten him. The district agreed to overhaul its policies, train staff and inform them that Lesbian and Gay students are covered under Title IX, which bars sexual harassment. Schools must comply with Title IX to obtain federal funding. At issue, said Kate Frankfurt of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), are student safety and, potentially, a lot of local school district tax money. Courts have awarded significant damages to students targeted for being Gay, she said, including Jamie Nabozny's ground-breaking case, which won the Wisconsin high school alum almost $900,000. Frankfurt said, "The majority of school districts do not have policies in place that specifically mention sexual orientation, like race and gender."

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Supreme Court: ADA Covers HIV

In its first ruling dealing with HIV/AIDS, a divided U.S. Supreme Court narrowly affirmed June 25 that asymptomatic HIV infection constitutes a disability qualifying for the protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA prohibits discrimination based on disabilities not only in public accommodations such as health care providers, but also in employment. The ruling is significant not only for the thousands with HIV, but for people with a range of physical conditions which do not fit the ADA's narrow language of impairment substantially limiting the "major life activities" of "walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, working, and caring for oneself." Writing for the majority in the 5-4 decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the ADA "addresses substantial limitations on major life activities, not utter inabilities," and that "HIV infection satisfies the statutory and regulatory definition of a physical impairment during every stage of the disease. HIV infection, even in the so-called asymptomatic phase, is an impairment which substantially limits the major life activity of reproduction."

In finding HIV to be a disability covered by the ADA, the high court upheld decisions of a trial court and the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in the same case, Bragdon v. Abbott, and also resolved a disparity between that First Circuit decision and another by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had reached the opposite conclusion.

The trial court and the First Circuit had also agreed in this case that Maine dentist Randon Bragdon had violated the ADA in refusing to fill a gumline cavity for HIV+ Sidney Abbott unless she bore the additional expense of his doing so in a hospital setting. The high court chose to return to the First Circuit for reconsideration the question of whether Bragdon was rightfully exercising his professional judgment (the ADA does make allowance for differential treatment for patients who pose a "direct threat to the health or safety of others") or discriminating in violation of the ADA; Kennedy acknowledged in his opinion that, "We do not foreclose the possibility that the Court of Appeals may reach the same conclusion it did earlier," of Bragdon's guilt. Kennedy offered that, "A health care professional who disagrees with the prevailing medical consensus may refute it by citing a credible scientific basis for deviating from the accepted norm," but also said health care providers "had the duty to assess the risk of infection based on the objective, scientific information available to him and others in his profession." The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has yet to report a single case of a dentist getting AIDS from treating an HIV+ patient, and along with the CDC, both the American Dental Association and the American Medical Association believe that "universal precautions" should suffice for dental work.

Kennedy's opinion was joined by the more liberal judges, Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and David Souter, and by swing voter John Paul Stevens. The more conservative members of the panel dissented in part, as expressed in an opinion written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and a separate opinion written by Sandra Day O'Connor. Rehnquist's opinion maintained that the applicability of ADA to people with asymptomatic HIV should be decided on a case-by-case basis. That approach would clearly weaken ADA's power to prevent discrimination. Both Rehnquist's and O'Connor's opinions showed them unconvinced that Abbott had proven HIV substantially limited a "major life activity." It was somewhat ironic that the more anti-abortion element of the court had questioned whether reproduction constituted a "major life activity," as well as questioning whether Abbott's scruples against transmitting the virus to a sex partner or to her child actually constituted a disability or merely a "moral decision."

Among those hailing the decision was one of the ADA's original sponsors, U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA). He said, "This is a triumph of justice for people living with AIDS. The Court's decision breaks through another barrier of discrimination against those who are infected with the HIV virus." He also particularly praised the Boston-based legal group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) and its AIDS Law Project Director attorney Bennet Klein, who have carried Abbott's lawsuit since its inception. Abbott entered Bragdon's office in full knowledge that she might be turned away when she revealed her HIV status, and was aware that a complaint was pending against him by another patient with HIV at the time.

Human Rights Campaign attorney Tony Varona said, "The Court's decision sends a clear signal to health care providers that discrimination against people living with HIV is scientifically unjustified and forbidden under law...the Supreme Court has ensured that all individuals Congress intended to be protected by the ADA are indeed protected from discrimination." Activists had feared that if the Supreme Court ruling had gone differently, it could result in a "two-tiered" health care system that left people with disabilities receiving inferior treatment. Daniel Zingale of the AIDS Action network called the decision "the greatest legal victory since the beginning of the epidemic" for HIV patients. "It sets the foundation for courts to apply the ADA more inclusively in the future," said National Gay and Lesbian Task Force executive director Kerry Lobel.

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GOP Out Of Step
With Mainstream America
On Hormel Nomination

As tensions intensify in the struggle over the confirmation of James Hormel, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) charged the leadership of the Republican Party with being out of step with mainstream America. The Task Force cited its recently released report From Wrongs to Rights, which shows that a large majority of Americans approve the idea of a Gay or Lesbian person serving in the Cabinet and that approximately half of all Americans believe that being Lesbian or Gay should not disqualify someone from being President.

"Opponents of Mr. Hormel's nomination are not only out of step with most Americans, but are deeply insulting to us," said Kerry Lobel, NGLTF executive director. "Polls show that Americans believe that sexual orientation should not disqualify an individual from serving as a cabinet member, or even President. It's high time our Senators act with the same common sense shown by the constituents they purport to represent," added Lobel.

Hormel, a businessman and philanthropist from San Francisco, was nominated last Oct. by President Clinton to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg. Senate Leader Trent Lott has thus far refused to allow a full Senate vote on the confirmation. The Senate Foreign relations committee overwhelmingly approved Hormel's confirmation last November. As pressure mounts in the Senate, it's very possible that a floor vote will be imminent.

"The right wing of the Republican party is getting more vitriolic and anti-Gay as the November election nears. This is clearly not about Mr. Hormel. It's about playing to the most intolerant elements of the party. This is an embarrassment to all Americans - Gay and Straight, Republican and Democrat," said Lobel.

For a copy of From Wrongs to Rights, NGLTF's report documenting trends in public opinion on Gay and Lesbian issues during the last twenty years, contact NGLTF at 202.332.6483 ext. 3303.

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PRIDE: A Tel Aviv Dream

Tel Aviv, Israel saw its first Gay and Lesbian pride parade on June 26, with more than 1,500 marchers and a single large float with dozens of dancers making their way through Tel Aviv in the heat. For leading activist Professor Uzi Even, the parade was "a dream come true," while poet Ilan Scheinfeld was choked up with emotion at an event he could "hardly believe [was] happening." Following the lead-off "dykes on bikes" from Rabin Park and carrying a rainbow flag as wide as the street were Labor Party Members of the Knesset(parliament) Yael Dayan, Elie Goldschmidt and Eitan Cabel, Meretz Party MKs Dedi Zucker, Naomi Hazan and Anat Maor, and Hadash-Balad NM Tamar Gozansky; the Tsomet Party was also represented later at the rally in Independence Park by MK Eliezer Sandberg. Children of Gays and Lesbians were a visible presence, as well as two male rollerskaters dressed only in glittery towels. Naturally the Eurovision Song Contest winner "Diva," recorded by Israeli transsexual Dana International, was the anthem of the march. (Meanwhile, Dana herself was forced June 28 to cancel an appearance on German television after receiving death threats.)

One young woman, who told the Ha'aretz newspaper that she was a Lesbian living in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem, said she felt torn between her two identities when she saw marchers with signs denouncing her co-religionists. But there was considerable rage in May when police closed down the annual national Wigstock AIDS fund-raising event in Independence Park for the observance of the Sabbath, even though the event's organizers (Agudah, the Association of Lesbians, Gay Men and Bisexuals in Israel) had obtained the city's permission in advance to run late. That closure sparked a large spontaneous demonstration, and led the Agudah Board to plan Israel Gay Pride '98 as "a festival celebrating both unity and diversity, as well as pride, for all those opposing the orthodox religious attempt to control our lives." [Newsplanet]

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Gay Taunts Led Teen To Shoot

Michael Carneal says he isn't Gay, but that homophobic harassment contributed to his Dec. 1, 1997 shooting spree that left three of his fellow students dead and five others wounded at Heath High School in West Paducah, KY. The 15-year-old told both prosecution psychiatrist Dr. Diane Schetky and defense psychologist Dr. Dewey Cornell that he was constantly called "gay, faggot, nerd, geek" and other epithets, and that because of the perception that he was Gay, he was also "spat upon, hit, put in headlocks and threatened with violence."

Carneal said the homophobic comments began when he was in eighth grade in 1996 after a gossip column in his middle school newspaper said that "Michael C. and [another male student] have feelings for him," an item no one else connected with the school seems to recall, and continued on an almost daily basis. He claimed that he'd originally thought only to threaten his peers with the guns to stop their taunting, but changed his mind and shot at them instead when he started "thinking about all the things done to me...all the names they called me." He also said he hadn't thought that a .22-caliber handgun could kill anyone. Carneal is scheduled for trial on Oct. 5. [Newsplanet]

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Gay Federal Employees
Caught In Crossfire

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender federal employ ees may be inclined to look for more "welcoming" private sector employment if GOP members of Congress continue to use them as political pawns, warns Len Hirsh of GLOBE, the Lesbian and Gay federal employee group. Republican lawmakers have moved to try to overturn President Clinton's May 28 executive order banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Democratic National Committee has characterized the Republican Party's recent efforts as "Gay bashing." But, Hirsh said, "this could make really good employees of the government look for relief by working for companies that protect their employees by giving them equal rights."

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LLEGO Outraged
By Puerto Rico Day Parade Treatment

Following a number of incidents with the organizers of this year's Puerto Rico Day Parade Committee in Chicago, LLEGO, the national Latino/a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender organization, is demanding a written apology, a lead position in the next parade, and sensitivity trainings for members of the parade committee and staff. LLEGO Executive Director Martin Ornelas-Quintero said, "Several of our encounters with the parade committee and staff were hostile, unsettling and homophobic," and noted that LLEGO was grilled about whether nude or transgender individuals would appear on the float. In addition, parade staff told LLEGO that the event was "a Puerto Rican and not a Gay rally," and staff tried to prevent LLEGO from using Gay pride flags and symbols. [GLAADLines]

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