Pride Toronto rejects comments by guest on Rob and Doug Ford radio show

7 May, 2011 (Toronto) – Yesterday, a guest on (Toronto Mayor) Rob and (Toronto City Councillor) Doug Ford’s radio show made comments that promote and rekindle old prejudices that the LGBTTIQQ2SA* communities have fought for decades to combat.

After good-faith efforts to acquaint the Fords with our communities, Pride Toronto is disappointed that these homophobic comments were aired unchallenged. These comments demonstrate the continued need for Pride as a celebration of our communities and cultures, and a space for proud expression of who we are.

Planning is well underway for a successful 2012 Pride Toronto Festival, which celebrates the history, courage, diversity and future of Toronto’s LGBTTIQQ2SA communities. This goal is clearly as important today as it has ever been.

Toronto residents deserve confirmation that their elected officials likewise support acceptance and celebration of our communities, and in particular do not cling to past negative stereotypes about LGBTTIQQ2SA people or people living with HIV/AIDS.

Moreover, Pride Toronto stands in solidarity with people living with HIV/AIDS against bigotry and intolerance directed at them, and calls upon our elected officials to do the same.

About Pride Toronto

Pride Toronto is the not-for-profit organization that hosts Pride Week, an annual event in downtown Toronto during the last week of June. Pride Week is one of the premier arts and cultural festivals in Canada. It is also one of the largest Pride celebrations in the world with an estimated attendance of over 1.2 million people. It celebrates the history, courage, diversity and future of Toronto's LGBTTIQQ2SA* communities.

  * Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer/Questioning, 2 Spirited, Allies

Totally outRIGHT

Dec 1. World AIDS Day

Community Carnation Memorial -                                              

Join us at The 519, December 1, 5:45pm 

In the early days of PWA, staff sent floral arrangements to the funerals of clients who died. As more and more people continued to die, including staff and volunteers, PWA could no longer afford to send arrangements and instead sent one black rose with a card saying "We understand".

This powerful symbol and message inspired the staff and Board of PWA to build on this history and create a new tradition for World AIDS Day to remember the forgotten and honor the courage of so many infected and affected in the AIDS community. Since World AIDS Day 2007, PWA staff, volunteers and clients have brought a black rose and red carnations to the AIDS Memorial at Cawthra Park.

In 2008, the AIDS Vigil Committee approached PWA to ask about partnering together to make this a larger community event thus beginning the current annual Community Carnation Memorial where community members share personal stories to reconfirm the powerful message "We understand".

HIV: Quest For A Cure

HIV: Quest For A Cure

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Obama lifts ban on US entry for those with HIV

President Barack Obama said Friday the U.S. will overturn a 22-year-old travel and immigration ban against people with HIV early next year.

The order will be finalized on Monday, Obama said, completing a process begun during the Bush administration.
The U.S. has been among a dozen countries that bar entry to travelers with visas or anyone seeking a green card based on their HIV status.
"If we want to be the global leader in combatting HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it," Obama said at the White House before signing a bill to extend the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program. Begun in 1990, the program provides medical care, medication and support services to about half a million people, most of them low-income.
Read the full story

HIV vaccine 'reduces infection'

An experimental HIV vaccine has for the first time cut the risk of infection, researchers say.

The vaccine - a combination of two earlier experimental vaccines - was given to 16,000 people in Thailand, in the largest ever such vaccine trial.

Researchers found that it reduced by nearly a third the risk of contracting HIV, the virus that leads to Aids.

It has been hailed as a significant, scientific breakthrough, but a global vaccine is still some way off.

Full story at BBC News

This is encouraging news!

New HIV strain discovered

A new strain of the virus that causes AIDS has been discovered in a woman from the African nation of Cameroon.

It differs from the three known strains of human immunodeficiency virus and appears to be closely related to a form of simian virus recently discovered in wild gorillas, researchers report in Monday's edition of the journal Nature Medicine.

The finding "highlights the continuing need to watch closely for the emergence for new HIV variants, particularly in western central Africa," said the researchers, led by Jean-Christophe Plantier of the University of Rouen, France.

The three previously known HIV strains are related to the simian virus that occurs in chimpanzees.

The most likely explanation for the new find is gorilla-to-human transmission, Plantier's team said. But they added they cannot rule out the possibility that the new strain started in chimpanzees and moved into gorillas and then humans, or moved directly from chimpanzees to both gorillas and humans.

Full Story at thestar.com

AIDS Memorial Cawthra Park, Church St. Toronto, ON

 

More information on the AIDS Memorial can be found at the 519 Community Centre site. The 519 maintains and adds names to the memorial.

The Pope Vs. Condoms

The following is an email I received from Avaaz.org. Please take a moment to sign the petition. Thank you

This week, on his first visit to Africa, Pope Benedict said that "[AIDS] cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems". The Pope's statement is at odds with the research on AIDS prevention, and a setback to decades of hard work on AIDS education and awareness.
With powerful moral influence over more than 1.1 billion Catholics in the world, and 22 million HIV positive Africans, these words could dramatically affect the AIDS pandemic and put millions of lives at risk. Worldwide concern is starting to show results and a willingness by the Vatican to revise the statement - sign our urgent petition asking the Pope to take care not to undermine proven AIDS prevention strategies: http://www.avaaz.org/en/pope_benedict_petition
The personal beliefs of Catholics and all people should be respected, and the Pope does advocate for other AIDS prevention methods such as abstinence and fidelity that can be effective when combined with condom use.
The Catholic Church engages in a vast amount of social service work, including the care of those living with AIDS. But the Pope's claim that condom distribution is not an effective AIDS prevention mechanism is not supported by research. It's untrue, and if it diminishes condom use, it will be deadly.
The fact is, HIV and AIDS are prevented by condom use. There is no easy solution to the spread of this tragic disease, but condoms and education are the best known prevention combination and have not been found to increase risky sexual behaviour. That is why even priests and nuns working in Africa have questioned the Pope's statements.
We may not be able to ask the Catholic Church to change its broader position, but we are asking the Pope to stop actively speaking out against prevention strategies that work. It's important that people of all beliefs, especially Catholics, call on the Pope to exercise care in his leadership on this issue.
Sign below then spread the word to your friends and family - this petition could actually save lives: http://www.avaaz.org/en/pope_benedict_petition 25 million people worldwide have already died of AIDS, and 12 million children have been left without parents. If enough of us join this outcry, we will win an important battle in the struggle for a world without AIDS.

Leading HIV/AIDS researcher accuses Prime Minister of Genocide.

A leading HIV/AIDS researcher is accusing the Harper government of "genocide" for allegedly ignoring scientific evidence supporting Vancouver's controversial supervised drug injection site.
Dr. Julio Montaner, president of the International AIDS Society, accused the Conservatives of neglecting the needs of drug addicts and endangering their lives during a news conference Monday morning, held to mark the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Downtown Eastside facility called Insite.
"When you neglect purposely a percentage of the population that can be defined on the basis of a particular characteristic, that's genocide. And I will tell you that is exactly what they are doing," Montaner said.

Read the full story here.