[Viva] [athenanetwork] Fwd: [HEALTHGAP] Call to action: sign on to stop USG discrimination against PLHIV

Wed May 16 09:31:25 PDT 2018

I can't either, will look further and check Twitter. Thanks Peg😄🙏💕
On Wed, May 16, 2018, 7:58 AM Pegfrank <pegfrank at telus.net> wrote:

> I can’t see where to sign or write regarding this Peace Corps dismissal,
> but am happy to discover https://www.healthgap.org/. If you can isolate
> the link to signing any petition I am in! Love-peg
>
> On May 15, 2018, at 11:02 AM, shelly tognazzini <shetognazzini at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> See below 🤗
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Teresia Otieno <coordinator-na at iamicw.org>
> Date: Tue, May 15, 2018, 10:59 AM
> Subject: Fwd: [athenanetwork] Fwd: [HEALTHGAP] Call to action: sign on to
> stop USG discrimination against PLHIV
> To:
>
>
>
> Consider to sign on.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: 'E. Tyler Crone' tyler.crone at gmail.com [athenanetwork] <
> athenanetwork at yahoogroups.com>
> Date: 15 May 2018 at 08:34
> Subject: [athenanetwork] Fwd: [HEALTHGAP] Call to action: sign on to stop
> USG discrimination against PLHIV
> To: "Athenanetwork at Yahoogroups.Com <Athenanetwork at yahoogroups.com>" <
> athenanetwork at yahoogroups.com>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Erica Lessem <erica.lessem at treatmentactiongroup.org>
> Date: Tue, May 15, 2018 at 8:29 AM
> Subject: [HEALTHGAP] Call to action: sign on to stop USG discrimination
> against PLHIV
> To: tb-roundtable at googlegroups.com, Union Civil Society <
> union-civil-society at googlegroups.com>, global_tb_activists <
> Global_TB_Activists at googlegroups.com>, TB Civil Society <
> tb-civil-society at googlegroups.com>, Health Gap <
> healthgap at lists.critpath.org>, tb at lists.coregroup.org,
> tbhiv at googlegroups.com
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> Buzzfeed has just released an article on the discriminatory dismissal of
> U.S. Peace Corps volunteers, including my stellar colleague Jeremiah
> Johnson, for testing positive for HIV.
>
> <https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeed.com%2Fazeenghorayshi%2Fpeace-corps-hiv-prep>
>
> <https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeed.com%2Fazeenghorayshi%2Fpeace-corps-hiv-prep&media=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.buzzfeed.com%2Fbuzzfeed-static%2Fstatic%2F2018-05%2F15%2F10%2Fcampaign_images%2Fbuzzfeed-prod-web-04%2Fthese-gay-men-were-fired-from-the-peace-corps-aft-2-24084-1526394856-0_dblbig.jpg&description=These+Gay+Men+Were+Fired+From+The+Peace+Corps+After+They+Tested+Positive+For+HIV>
>
> <https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeed.com%2Fazeenghorayshi%2Fpeace-corps-hiv-prep&text=These+Gay+Men+Were+Fired+From+The+Peace+Corps+After+They+Tested+Positive+For+HIV&via=azeen>
>
> <?subject=These+Gay+Men+Were+Fired+From+The+Peace+Corps+After+They+Tested+Positive+For+HIV&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeed.com%2Fazeenghorayshi%2Fpeace-corps-hiv-prep%0A%0AGet+the+BuzzFeed+App:+https://bzfd.it/bfmobileapps>
>
> <https://www.tumblr.com/widgets/share/tool?&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeed.com%2Fazeenghorayshi%2Fpeace-corps-hiv-prep>
>
> Romany Tin started feeling feverish and tired this January, six months
> into his dream job teaching English at a rural Cambodian high school as a
> volunteer for the Peace Corps. After a battery of blood tests two days
> later, he got the news: He had HIV and would be flown to Washington, DC,
> for treatment.
>
> “At first I was just shocked,” Tin told BuzzFeed News. But after reading
> about how HIV medications had advanced, allowing infected people to live
> normal lives, “my mindset was literally just, *I want to make sure I can
> come back*.”
>
> But that wouldn’t be possible.
>
> Despite effective treatment — within a month, medication had slashed the
> amount of HIV in his blood to an undetectable level — the Peace Corps
> notified Tin that because of his new HIV diagnosis, his assignment in
> Cambodia had been terminated.
>
> In a March 8 letter about Tin’s case reviewed by BuzzFeed News, the Peace
> Corps said that “medical separation” was appropriate. His stipend would be
> cut off, and he would have to wait three to six months — time he’d need to
> make sure his new treatment was working well, the letter argued — before
> reapplying for a post in a different country with better medical resources.
> In person, Tin recalled, his Peace Corps health worker told him that
> Cambodia was not on an approved list of countries where people with HIV
> could serve.
>
> “They’re such a progressive organization, but their stigma and knowledge
> of HIV and how to treat it is very backwards,” said Tin, whose story was
> first reported by Them
> <https://www.them.us/story/peace-corps-volunteer-terminated-for-contracting-hiv>.
> “I feel very mistreated. I feel angry.”
>
> Tin is one of at least two gay men ousted from the Peace Corps this year
> after testing positive for HIV. Two other gay men who used to work for the
> program told BuzzFeed News that Peace Corps doctors denied their requests
> for PrEP, the daily pill that protects against HIV infection, because their
> sexual behavior was deemed not risky enough. And when one of those men
> managed to get a second request for PrEP approved, he was then threatened
> with dismissal for exactly the behavior that made him eligible for the
> drug: having unprotected sex.
>
> The Peace Corps is a federal program launched 57 years ago by President
> John F. Kennedy to create a civilian army spreading American values in poor
> areas of the world. Like the US military
> <http://www.hivequal.org/homepage/hiv-and-the-military>, it has
> repeatedly come under fire for its policies on the sexual health and safety
> of its servicemembers. In 2014, for example, a new law forced the Peace
> Corps to lift its 35-year ban on federal abortion assistance
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2014/12/18/spending-bill-lifts-ban-on-abortions-for-peace-corps-volunteers/?noredirect=on>
> for volunteers. The year before that, a different law overturned its ban on pregnant
> volunteers
> <https://rewire.news/article/2013/12/19/peace-corps-ends-discriminatory-pregnancy-policy/>.
> In 2011, yet another law required the organization to address its long
> track record of mishandling sexual assault cases
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/peace-corps-chief-expresses-regret-for-sexual-assaults-experienced-by-young-volunteers/2011/05/11/AFjrCitG_story.html?utm_term=.c10334b2551b>
> .
>
> And in 2008, Jeremiah Johnson, a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine, had his
> service terminated after testing positive for HIV. The ACLU
> <https://www.aclu.org/cases/hiv-advocacy-behalf-peace-corps-volunteer?redirect=cpredirect/34948>
> took up Johnson’s case, claiming that the Peace Corps was discriminating
> against people with disabilities. In response, the organization implemented
> a new policy to not automatically terminate HIV-positive volunteers but to
> instead assess them on a case-by-case basis.
>
> As for the two men booted this year, the Peace Corps told BuzzFeed News
> that, “The health, safety and security of Volunteers are Peace Corps’ top
> priorities.” Its 7,000-plus volunteers work in 65 countries around the
> world, but there are only 18 where it can “provide appropriate medical
> support” to those with HIV, a spokesperson said by email.
>
> In addition to concerns about volunteers’ health, the Peace Corps also
> must consider local legal restrictions around HIV status that could
> endanger the safety of volunteers or people they work with. In some
> countries
> <https://www.scribd.com/doc/312008825/Advancing-HIV-Justice-2-Building-momentum-in-global-advocacy-against-HIV-criminalisation>,
> for example, it’s illegal for people with HIV to have sex without condoms,
> or to keep their HIV status secret from their sexual partners.
>
> “The agency considers factors including access to reliable specialists and
> trusted laboratories as well as a country’s legal climate when placing
> HIV-positive Volunteers,” the spokesperson said.
>
> Still, legal experts and HIV advocates say that the Peace Corps’ medical
> separation policy may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act as well
> as HIV-specific anti-discrimination laws.
>
> “The paternalistic response that it is in their ‘best interests’ does not
> change the stark fact of discrimination,” Lawrence Gostin, a professor of
> global health law at Georgetown University, told BuzzFeed News by email.
>
> Forced medical separations also ignore the effectiveness of current
> treatments, HIV advocates say.
>
> “We are concerned that the Peace Corps’ policy pertaining to volunteers
> diagnosed with HIV is arbitrary, not grounded in evidence, and being
> implemented without critical attention to the wellbeing of the volunteers,”
> said the Treatment Action Group, a think tank that has been advocating on
> Tin’s behalf, in an open letter
> <http://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/content/sign-letter-advocacy-end-peace-corps-hiv-dismissals>
> to the Peace Corps last week.
>
> “In practice,” the TAG letter added, “these policies mean that volunteers
> who make the health-conscious decision to get tested for HIV — a practice
> the Peace Corps should encourage — are, in effect, punished if they test
> positive.”
> ------------------------------
>
> A second gay man who was terminated from his post after getting HIV had
> been teaching high school students in Southeast Asia. (Because of privacy
> concerns, BuzzFeed News is using the first initial of his middle name, M.,
> and not disclosing the country of his assignment.)
>
> M. joined the Peace Corps in March of last year. In a sexual health
> training session, he said he asked whether he could get PrEP and was told
> Peace Corps doctors would not prescribe the medication unless he had
> already had unprotected sex in the country. He hadn’t.
>
> In March of this year, M. got his blood tested for another medical issue
> and was surprised to find out he was HIV-positive.
>
> His doctor told him that because of the country’s restrictive laws against
> people with HIV, he would be putting its Peace Corps program at risk of
> being shut down if he stayed at his post. So M. flew back to his host
> family for a week to say his goodbyes. “We didn’t know what to do but cry,”
> he said.
>
> Once back in DC, M. was told by the Peace Corps that he could not go back
> to that country, that he would be put on forced leave without his stipend,
> and that he’d have to wait three to six months before re-applying to serve.
> He was devastated, he said, to be forced out of his adopted country, and
> furious that the Peace Corps doctors had not encouraged him to take PrEP
> when he’d expressed interest in the drug.
>
> Like Tin, M. received a letter from the Peace Corps stating that the
> termination was to ensure his safety. “This condition limits your ability
> to perform your Volunteer assignment and has the very real potential for
> further aggravation during the remainder of your Peace Corps service,” the
> letter stated. He was medically separated this month.
>
> Two former Peace Corps members told BuzzFeed News that they were denied
> PrEP while serving in Ukraine, which has one of the highest rates of new
> HIV diagnoses
> <http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/355570/20171127-Annual_HIV_Report.pdf>
> in Europe.
>
> After 32-year-old Jeremiah arrived in 2015, he saw a Peace Corps doctor in
> Chernihiv and asked about how to get access to PrEP. The doctor seemed
> generally uncomfortable discussing gay sexual health, Jeremiah recalled,
> and was confused about what the drug was. (BuzzFeed News is withholding
> Jeremiah’s last name to protect his identity.)
>
> The doctor eventually asked him to fill out a form, based on the Centers
> for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2014 guidance
> <https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pdf/prepprovidersupplement2014.pdf> around
> evaluating risk of HIV exposure. A few weeks later, according to emails
> reviewed by BuzzFeed News, the Peace Corps denied his request for PrEP,
> saying his answers on the form showed that his sexual behavior was not
> risky enough to merit a prescription. Jeremiah was stunned.
>
> “I was sexually active and was going to a country where they had the
> highest prevalence of HIV infection in Europe,” Jeremiah said. “It was
> definitely something I felt I needed.”
>
> Months later, he visited a different Peace Corps doctor in Ukraine and
> made a second request for PrEP. When filling out the form this time, “I
> lied and said I was engaging in risky behavior,” Jeremiah said.
>
> His request was approved — but before getting the drugs, he had to listen
> to his doctor read a statement out loud. The letter, Jeremiah recalled,
> stated that he was violating his Peace Corps contract by engaging in sexual
> behavior that put himself or others at risk. And if he continued this
> behavior, the doctor said, he could face dismissal. (The Peace Corps did
> not answer questions about whether volunteers are contractually obligated
> to use condoms. Instead the spokesperson wrote: “Peace Corps Volunteers are
> expected to comply with both Peace Corps’ medical policies and the
> instructions of Peace Corps Medical Officers regarding the prevention and
> treatment of illness and injury.”)
>
> Jeremiah began taking the drugs and finished his service at the end of
> last year. “I think LGBT health in the Peace Corps is almost nonexistent,”
> he said. “It just isn’t there.”
>
> James Fishon had a similar experience in the summer of 2017. He was
> working in a Ukrainian village near the border with Belarus, focusing on
> programs for kids with HIV.
>
> At the medical office in Kiev for a routine medical check, Fishon asked
> the doctors about PrEP. Initially, as with Jeremiah, the doctor said he
> didn’t know what PrEP was, and then gave him a form to fill out. Fishon
> stated that he was a man who had sex with men, and that in the last year he
> had had sex without condoms and had contracted a sexually transmitted
> infection — all factors that make PrEP strongly recommended by the CDC.
>
> When asked if he had yet had sex in Ukraine, he said no — and that answer
> prompted the Peace Corps to deny his request. A doctor at Peace Corps
> headquarters wrote an email to Fishon saying his “current sexual activity
> does not meet criteria” and advised him to “use condoms every time you have
> sex.”
>
> Three months later, after filing three complaints with the Peace Corps
> about potential safety risks in his village, Fishon was attacked in the
> street by two men who knew he was gay and working on LGBT issues. After the
> attack, he left.
>
> “I am so disappointed in the Peace Corps because I feel like they dropped
> the ball every step of the way,” Fishon said. “They talk about being an
> organization that wants to be diverse and inclusive — and they like that on
> the surface — but the fact of the matter is they don’t have the structure
> in place to protect those people.”
>
> On Feb. 22 of this year, hoping to go back to his work in Cambodia, Tin
> appealed his termination. He argued that his viral count in two recent lab
> tests was undetectable, that Cambodia has the medical infrastructure to
> support the regular bloodwork he needs, and that his meds could be shipped
> in from the US.
>
> “Please don’t judge me hastily because of my diagnosis and take into
> consideration everything that I have mentioned into the kindness of all of
> your hearts,” his letter concluded. “I really wish to continue my service
> without any interruption.”
>
> On March 1, the health coordinator in DC told Tin that his appeal had been
> reviewed by the Medical Review Board and had been denied. On March 8, Tin
> was officially terminated.
>
> He’s now back in his hometown in Southern California, figuring out what
> he’ll do next.
>
> “I feel completely healthy, mentally and physically. They know that,” Tin
> said. “I could have returned to service.”
>
>
>
>
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>
> --
>
> *E. Tyler Crone, MPH, JD*
> Executive Director, ATHENA Initiative
> Co-Founder, ATHENA Network
> http://www.athenanetwork.org
>
> Phone: +1-206-697-4789
> Skype: tyler.crone
> Email: tyler at athenanetwork.org <tyler at athenanetwork..org>
> Follow us @ETCrone and @NetworkATHENA
>
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