HIV PEP Use Up 26% in SF; No Sero-Conversions

[Correction: My math was off. The increase is actually 34%.]

Israel Nieves is the San Francisco Department of Public Health's go-to guy for HIV prevention questions including PEP, post exposure prophylaxis, not to be confused with PrEP, pre-exposure prophylaxis. 

PEP is a drug cocktail given to at-risk individuals after they've had barrier-free sex with either a person of unknown HIV status or is poz, or they were stuck with a syringe needle, and should be started as soon as possible after exposure to HIV.

One benefit to PEP instead of PrEP for certain persons is that it's a short-term, one month drug regimen versus a daily dose of PrEP medicines. If your sex life revolves around regular HIV negative partners but one night at a party you hookup with someone outside your sexual network, PEP is better for your prevention needs.

On the other hand, if you're negative and enjoying multiple partners of unknown sero-status or one special dude who's poz, PrEP is what you should be on.

Nieves was asked to explain to me the number of annual PEP starter cocktails distributed by DPH, costs of providing the drugs, followup testing determining if sero-conversion was averted, and budget allocation for PEP promotion. 

Bottom line: PEP use is up 26% since 2012 and no sero-conversions have been recorded. Good HIV news, wouldn't you say? Yes, I do!

Here are the details Nieves provided to me today:

"San Francisco General Hospital Urgent Care Clinic:

"The Urgent Care Clinic at SFGH provided 73 PEP starter packs to clients in 2014.

"Unfortunately, the clinic does not have information about any PEP provided to clients before this time, as there were not systems in place to systematically track this before 2014.

"SFGH does not have a standalone budget for PEP as it is incorporated into our current activities for drug purchasing. Truvada is used for PEP, PrEP and Treatment and we do not see them as different line items. 

"San Francisco City Clinic (SFCC):

2012  - 446 PEP starter packs

2013 – 476 PEP starter packs

2014 – 599 PEP starter packs

"Information prior to 2012 is not available electronically as they used paper charts. There is not separate line item budget for PEP promotional materials.

"We charge a $10.00 flat fee for services at SFCC.  PEP patients who return to SFCC are not charged the fee at their PEP follow-up visit.  No one is turned away if they can not pay the $10 flat fee.

"SFCC recommends that patients have an HIV test after they complete the PEP course. Sometimes they come to SFCC, sometimes they go to their primary medical doctor.    

"SFCC provides 2-day starter packs (48 hrs) and a prescription to the person. 

"They currently purchase Truvada using 340b pricing for approx. 441.25/30 pills; or $14.70/pill (approx. $30.00 for a 2-day starter pack).  

"Prior to 2012, we used combivir for PEP and I don’t know how much we paid for combivir – and it probably changed year to year.

"SFCC does not have any documented cases of patients who were HIV neg at the time of PEP initiation and were HIV positive on a test conducted 1-3 weeks after completing their PEP course."

If you need more info about PEP or other HIV concerns, please contact Nieves directly: israel.nieves@sfgov.org.

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Southern Poverty Law Ctr Breaks $54 Million Budget Barrier

Can anyone tell me when was the last time the very well-compensated executives of the Southern Poverty Law Center addressed the needs of the poor or put a dent in poverty anywhere in the South? Color me not impressed with their endless fear-mongering about hate groups or individuals and ever-expanding list of groups to get nervous about.

The latest IRS 990 filing for the SPLC shows they met their overriding annual goal of raising millions of dollars, this time raking in $54,420,509 during FY 2013. The group has over $340,000,000 in assets resting mainly in banks including accounts in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

Salaries are also quite robust and place these SPLC executives are firmly in the 1%:

Morris Dees:

$365,000

Richard Cohen

$359,000

Wendy Via

$202,000

For the likes of Morris Dee and his colleagues, poverty is a very profitable business and if they spent some of the $340,000,000 in assets and off-shore bank accounts on people living in poverty and economic justice, I'd applaud them.

Let's give these people credit for always posting their latest IRS tax filing on their site within days of submitting it to the Treasury Department. You can read the latest full SPLC filing, sent to the feds on Jan. 27, here.

Catholic Reporter: Gay Kiss-in Outside SF Cathedral on Feb. 21

Hundreds of students at several San Francisco Archdiocese-run schools and their supporters in the gay community staged a vigil in the pouring rain on Friday, Feb. 6 outside St. Mary's Cathedral to protest church leader Salavatore Cordileone's new handbooks for Catholic teachers. The language of the handbooks stigmatizes homosexuals, birth control methods, new fertilization techniques and other modern human advances.

The National Catholic Reporter sent Dan Morris-Young to cover the protest and other aspects of the resultant controversy over Cordileone's latest efforts to take the church back a century or two. At the end of Morris-Young's article, he mentions the Saturday, Feb. 21 actions taking place outside St. Mary's and I'm quite pleased he reports we won't be staging our protest inside the cathedral.

Please join us and stand up to Cordileone and the Catholic Church's hateful policies and beliefs. Here's an except from the National Catholic Reporter article:

"SHCP [Sacred Heart Catholic Prep] junior Morgan Hood and St. Ignatius senior Jasmine Barnard summarized what many of the student protestors said.

"'We have a lot of faculty and students who are part of the LGBQT community, and we don't want them to feel they're not welcome and supported,' Hood said.

"Barnard agreed. 'A bunch of my friends are gay. I have an amazing teacher who changed my life, and she's gay.'

"Billy Bradford traveled from Castro Valley to join the protest. Holding a sign that says, 'Cordileone denies gay families,' he said, 'I'm a gay father with a kid in college. I'm unhappy about what the archbishop's saying about my moral failings and how my family is not a family. [...]

"San Francisco activist and blogger Michael Petrelis announced that a 'kiss-in' protest of what he called Cordileone's 'bigoted remarks and policies' would be held Feb. 21 outside the cathedral to coincide with the archdiocese's annual liturgy to honor married couples."

(Billy Bradford's sign sends a strong message to the San Francisco Archbishop. Credit: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press.)

SF's New Gay Sex Club & Reopening the Bathhouses

This is the most fantastic news for men who enjoy sexual escapades with other dudes in a bricks-and-mortar space that I've heard in a long time.

A new gay male sex club has opened at 442 Natoma in the South of Market district and is a private membership venue. CumUnion parties that were formerly held at the now-closed BrigSF playspace are hosted at the new club. Don't you just love it when such places use their addresses as the name of the business, making it so helpful for folks to remember where the business is located?

We've all heard tales of gay male sex spaces losing business because dudes are using apps and online cruising sites for hookups, and that we supposedly need fewer physical spaces to meet each other and get it on.

Surely there's been a huge migration from bars and clubs to the web for horned homos hunting for sexual fun and love, but do not underestimate or dismiss the large segment of gay men who prefer to do their cruising and playing in bathhouses and clubs.

Speaking of bathhouses, I was at the Tuesday, Feb. 4 meeting of the San Francisco health commission at 101 Grove Street and use public comment to advocate for reopening the bathhouses to feed two birds with one seed.

We need bathhouses as a meeting place for gay men to enjoy each other's company behind closed doors, unlike in sex clubs where all activities must be viewable at all times by the staff, and so that homeless people can have facilities to wash up and maintain hygiene, I told the commission.

Right now, I said, homeless people are suffering from diseases due to lack of showering and if we walked down one block to the main library's restrooms, we'd likely find such folks trying to wash their bodies using the small sinks.

If you've been to the 442 Natoma club, please let me know what you think of the place and best of luck to the owners for a business that thrives.

Castro Plaza's Temporary Closure Starts in Late February

The latest cosmetic changes to the public spaces of the Castro have not decreased the number of homeless folks nor their incidents of abusive behavior in Jane Warner Plaza, and another in a long-series of urgent community meetings was held on February 2 to discuss the situation.

Convened by Andrea Aiello, executive director of the Castro Benefit District, it featured Sup. Wiener and the Mission police station's captain as the main speakers. I wasn't present and am grateful Aiello's posted a three-page report back to the community.

The report is not posted on the CBD site. For a copy send your request to: execdirector@castrocbd.org. Here are some highlights:

- The Department of Public Works is again going to temporarily close Jane Warner Plaza for "minor improvements to the plaza including putting down new coating on the pavement"

- Closure should start the end of February and allegedly will last for two months

- The CBD will again solicit community input about activating the plaza with "positive activities"

- At the end of the latest DPW modification period, the Castro Cares outreach and engagement project targeting the homeless and mentally ill, will be more fully implemented

- A suggestion was made "to create metrics with deadlines" to measure progress and if actions fail to make the plaza safer and inviting to all, then return the space back to vehicular traffic and remove the park

Solutions other than enhanced enforcement from the Mission station included a few startling ideas for the problematic plaza at 17th and Castro Streets:

- Schedule a movie night

- Hold exercise classses

- Move the rainbow flag from Harvey Milk Plaza to Jane Warner Plaza

- Request tour groups to assemble near the street care turnaround instead of under the rainbow flag

It's anyone's guess if and how any of the proposals and concerns expressed at the Feb. 2 forum will bring about a balance of activities in Jane Warner Plaza, a reduction of bad behavior, fewer homeless folks and their dogs, and renew a sense of ownership of the plaza and the Castro from LGBT people who either avoid the area or rarely venture into the gayborhood.

The best thing I can say about the plaza is at least DPW hasn't reinstalled the obtrusive news rack on 17th Street near the Twin Peaks bar. That piece of ugly street furniture always was a hindrance to wheelchair users and public safety.

Public Defender Adachi on SF OCC Transparency

It's certainly laudable that San Francisco's public defender since 2002, Jeff Adachi, has stood up to the police department when necessary and also provided ordinary citizens with generally excellent legal defense resources.

However, I'm quite disappointed he this week garnered tremendous mainstream press and social media attention after an assistant public defender, who was arrested inside a courthouse hallway protecting her client's rights, lodged a complaint and Adachi and his office didn't mention the terrible absence of transparency with our police oversight agency.

Here's the letter I sent to Adachi yesterday:

"As someone who has filed numerous complaints with the Office of Citizens Complaints, I am very familiar with how their process is opaque and lacks transparency. Names of officers facing complaints and findings of investigations are private, with no details released to the public.

"Since the arrest of your deputy public defender Jami Tillotson, I have hoped your office would file a complaint withe OCC and also shed light on the need to bring genuine transparency to their process, investigations and what is made public after complaints are lodged and adjudicated.

"I have not seen statements from you about these transparency concerns and they were omitted from this release. It pleases me to see that Tillotson has posted her complaint online for all to read.

"Let me know if I've missed your statement about the OCC and transparency, or if you'll provide me with such a statement."

Adachi replied:

"There is no other statement we've issued. We'll see how transparent this investigation is."

My attempt at further communication with his office hasn't produced more info.

Adachi is nobody's fool and he certainly is aware of the opacity of the OCC, that hinders many folks from lodging complaints with the oversight agency.

He knows full well at the end of the OCC investigation, a vague statement omitting details and names will be issued with scant transparency. It's not just the lack of transparency at issue here and Adachi's "let's wait" statement, it's also the failure of the OCC to deliver accountability to the public.

The public defender should have used the Tillotson complaint to press for genuine public transparency at the OCC.

Gays to Protest at SF Archbishop's Wedding Mass 

Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activist community of the Bay Area upset over recent bigoted remarks and policies promulgated by San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone will gather outside St. Mary's Cathedral on Saturday, Feb. 21 at 10 am to condemn the homophobia of the Catholic Church.

We are gravely displeased the conservative Cordileone this week implemented morality clauses in a faculty handbook for archdiocesan school teachers that demonizes LGBT people, extramarital sex, masturbation and erotic materials.

The date and time of February 21 at 10 AM for our peaceful picket outside St. Mary's was chosen because that is when Cordileone will be celebrating a mass for heterosexual married couples marking 5-year anniversaries.

On the public sidewalk in front of the cathedral at Geary and Gough Streets, we will express our genuine fabulousness as proud LGBT people, stage a kiss-in, sing our anthem "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and wave an enormous rainbow flag.

All persons unhappy with the San Francisco Archdiocese's discriminatory actions and words are invited to join the protest. More details to be provided later. Please share this info on social media.

(Where did you get those extravagant gloves and do they match your shoes, Salvatore?)

Chinese TV Covers SF Castro & HRC Protest

Three crew members from the People TV news site based in China were in the Castro gayborhood on January 31 preparing a report on the LGBT district.

They came to our protest against the Human Rights Campaign's clothing store, to chat with us about complaints against the organization for failure to address economic disparities for ordinary, low-income gays.

On Monday, the People TV site posted the video story but there was no embed code so I taped it off my monitor. Apologies for the poor quality of the story.

Our fabulous spokeswoman, Melanie Nathan, spoke with the reporters and she is quoted spelling out the LGBTI acronym, clearly stating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex.

I'm pleased our gayborhood is bringing LGBTI visibility to the People TV audience and that the action against the HRC was included. Thanks to the reporters and everyone who showed up for the demonstration.

Chinese TV covers SF Castro & HRC protest: 1/31/2015 from MPetrelis on Vimeo.

National Protests Against HRC's 1% Agenda in NYC, SF & DC

From Park Avenue to Castro Street to Rhode Island Avenue, scores of LGBT and AIDS activists took to the streets on January 31 to send messages to the elitist Human Rights Campaign.

Here in San Francisco, on a gloriously warm and sunny day, about two dozen activists protested for an hour at HRC's souvenir shop on Castro Street.

Global gay advocate Melanie Nathan distributed flyers to passersby explaining our displeasure that the group is too cozy with corporations, ignores LGBT economic justice concerns, and is silent about lack of affordable housing.

The store manager, dressed entirely it seemed in an ensemble of only HRC-designed blue-and-gold clothes, he was quite irritated with our presence and wouldn't engage us in a conversation about our complaints.

We were under the surveillance the entire time by four uniformed officers of the San Francisco police department. When we unfurled an enormous rainbow flag across the length of HRC's store for a few minutes, when no one was entering or leaving the store, the cops got bossy and told us to not block the customers.

Former HRC board member Supervisor Scott Wiener constantly complains the SFPD is allegedly woefully understaffed, but there are always plenty of on-duty officers ready to monitor handfuls of activists as we were reminded yesterday.

One transgender woman smiled for the cameras holding a #BadBadHRC sign that explained why HRC's ratings of businesses is problematic, to say the least.

A homeless transgender woman was among the participants and spoke about her needs for affordable housing in the Mission District, and decent paying job with benefits. She demanded that HRC start addressing the concerns of poor and low-income LGBT folks, especially in the Castro and Mission. She pointed out HRC has an "action center" in Harvey Milk's former camera shop, yet the group takes no action regarding the local economic justice crisis for queers in San Francisco.

We offered sliced bagels, organic apples and sticky pastries to everyone, adding a brunch aspect to our protest. It was also a fun way to engage with passersby, a good number of whom supported us.

About an hour after we wrapped up, activists in Washington, DC, redecorated the entrance of HRC's building on Rhode Island Avenue. They painted a pink slash through the gold bars of HRC's logo, symbolizing their demand for no "pink-washing" of corporations rated by HRC on a severely limited number of equality matters.

Activists also plastered large signs next to the defaced HRC logo listing numerous demands for change at HRC. Cold temps didn't keep them from participating in the national protests on a single day.

Soon after the DC action was concluded, a large number of activists gathered in front of Manhattan's swank Waldorf Hotel in bone-chilling weather. A report from Brandon Cuicchi:

"We had a turn out of approximately 50 people in below-freezing temps.  We kicked things off with a pizza party and rally across the street from the Waldorf.  ACT UP members talked about the invisibility of HIV in HRC's equality index, the homeless youth epidemic, the guidelines barring HIV+ people from organ transplants, and ACT UP's call for HRC's assistance in NY State's Plan to End the AIDS Epidemic. After the rally, protesters marched across the street and picketed the entrance of the Waldorf while surrounded by 20 members of the NYPD and Waldorf security." 

The New Yorkers displayed signs calling HRC to account for the friendly ratings given to military welfare queens, gender pay gapsters, slave laborists and eco-villains, and noting the LGBT 1% dines at the Waldorf Hotel while LGBT youth sleep on the streets.

Many thanks to all who assisted in making January 31 a day of national protest against HRC's elitist approach to LGBT advocacy and sucking up to corporate interests. Read more details and view additional photos at these links:

ACT UP's  Facebook event page; Bill Wilson's photos from San Francisco; Benjamin Shepard's pictures and write-up outta New York; Melanie Nathan's reports and images; and Twitter messages and photos for all of the protests.