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Nation needs a healthy response to the HIV epidemic

18 Jul 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

One of the mysterious passersby enjoying Abraham’s hospitality in this Sunday’s first reading says, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son.” Transmission of HIV to newborns is but one example of many threats to public health posed by the virus. On Tuesday the Obama administration unveiled the first-ever coordinated national strategy to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic by reducing HIV infections and HIV-related health disparities, increasing care quality, and expanding access to services. Each year about 56,000 people in the United States are infected with HIV, a rate that has remained unchanged for about a decade. Nationwide about 1.1 million Americans are living with HIV. The new strategy aims to reduce new HIV infections by 25 percent over the next five years. The report tries to revive the sense of urgency that gripped the nation in the first years after discovery of the virus that causes AIDS. “Public attention to the HIV epidemic has waned,” the report said. “Because HIV is treatable, many people now think that it is no longer a public health emergency.” “We’ve been keeping pace when we should be gaining ground,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a White House event to announce the new plan. Among the other main points of the strategy: focusing HIV prevention efforts on the highest-risk populations, which include gay and bisexual men as well as African Americans; increasing access to care, with the goal of getting 85 percent of patients into treatment within three months of being diagnosed with HIV infection; and increasing public education about HIV, even in communities with low infection rates. “Countless Americans have devoted their lives to fighting the HIV epidemic, and thanks to their tireless work we’ve made real inroads,” President Obama stated in a letter accompanying the report. “Health care and other services providers have taught us how to provide quality services in diverse settings and develop medical homes for people with HIV. This moment represents an opportunity for the nation. Now is the time to build on and refocus our existing efforts to deliver better results for the American people.” Source: Articles by the Associated Press, the New York Times, Healthday.com, and Astrid Fiano for DOTmed.com

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Pope’s condom comment creates controversy

28 Nov 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

With the hour of salvation nearing, the reading from the Letter to the Romans this Sunday suggests we should “make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” An excerpt from a book-length interview with Pope Benedict XVI has created a stir this week with publication of comments that appeared to nuance, if not shift, the Vatican’s blanket opposition to condom use. On Saturday the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano published excerpts of Light of the World, a lengthy interview between Benedict and German journalist Peter Seewald. In one excerpt Benedict says that there may be certain situations in which the use of a condom might be appropriate to lessen the risk of transmission of HIV infection. Benedict's comments have drawn tremendous attention, in part because he's received criticism in the past for upholding the Catholic Church's anti-condom stance even in the face of the worldwide AIDS epidemic. On his way to hard-hit Africa last year, for example, the pope said that condom use did not prevent the spread of AIDS; only fidelity and abstinence did. In the excerpt from Light of the World, Benedict is quoted saying that condoms were not a "real or moral solution” to the AIDS epidemic, adding that that “can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.” But he added that “there may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility.” The pope also referred the need to reduce “the risk of infection” as a factor to be considered. AIDS activists called the pope’s comments a breakthrough, while some members of the church hierarchy and Catholic commentators said the pope's remarks have been misconstrued. The Vatican played down Benedict’s words, or at least contextualized them, noting that the pope was not changing church doctrine banning contraception or justifying condom use but only acknowledging it as a lesser evil than spreading a life-threatening illness. Source: Articles by Alex Eichler for The Atlantic Wire, Jeannine Nuss for Associated Press, Rachel Donadio and Laurie Goodstein for the New York Times, Father Raymond J. de Souza for NationalPost.com (Canada), the USCCB Media Blog, and Telegraph.co.uk

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Smithsonian exhibit draws fire--or just a lot of smoke?

05 Dec 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Sunday gospel describes John the Baptist’s dramatic appearance in the desert clothed in camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey. Such untamed earthiness, however, is often unwelcome. This past Tuesday a short graphic video depicting ants crawling over a crucifix that was part of an exhibit at the National Potrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum was removed after complaints from conservative lawmakers and organizations, including the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Exhibit cocurator David Ward said that the video, which also includes other graphic imagery, was made in 1987 to explore the social response to AIDS through the years. "That it is violent, disturbing, and hallucinatory precisely replicates the impact of the disease itself on people and a society that could barely comprehend its magnitude," he said. "I regret that some reports about the exhibit have created an impression that the video is intentionally sacrilegious," Martin Sullivan, the museum's director, said. "In fact, the artist's intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim. It was not the museum's intention to offend. We are removing the video today." Some critics feel the controversy was manufactured. “The irony is that [the video is part of a long] tradition of using images of Christ to speak about the suffering of all mankind,” writes art critic Blake Gopnick, who points out that “17th-century sculptures in the National Gallery's recent show of Spanish sacred art could not have been more gory or distressing.” In an irony of the calendar, the museum pulled the video on the eve of World AIDS Day, December 1. The day is designed to raise awareness of the health epidemic. An estimated 33.3 million people worldwide had AIDS in 2009, as compared to 26.2 million a decade earlier. Source: Articles by Jacqueline Trecott and Blake Gopnick for the Washington Post, Nina Madell for the New York Daily News, and William Browning for Yahoo News

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Can “super drug” do double-duty?

08 May 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In the first reading this Sunday from the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Peter reminds the people that Jesus was commended to them by God “with mighty deeds, wonders, and signs.” In recent decades medical science has accomplished a few mighty deeds and wonders of its own. Now studies suggest a new “super drug” could end up fighting both HIV and malaria, which together kill nearly 3 million people annually. HIV “protease inhibitors” are drugs designed to prevent HIV from constructing its proteins correctly and have been used widely in HIV treatment the past decade. “They have completely changed the face of HIV treatment in recent years. People who take these drugs don't die of AIDS anymore," said Photini Sinnis, head of the Medical Parasitology Laboratory at the New York University Langone Medical Center. Over the past few years, however, research groups, including Sinnis', have noticed a surprising positive side effect of the HIV-specific protease inhibitors: "We're finding that the drugs have anti-malaria properties," Sinnis said. Researchers believe that HIV protease inhibitors shut down protease present in the malaria parasite just as they do to protease in HIV. No human trials have been conducted yet, but initial positive results in mice have HIV researchers advocating the exclusive use of protease inhibitors for HIV treatment in Africa. "In Africa, where HIV and malaria overlap a lot, the HIV drugs we use should be the protease inhibitors," Sinnis said. "Then they would have the added benefit of inhibiting malaria infection." At the moment, protease inhibitors are more toxic than many of the drugs used to combat malaria by itself and so wouldn't be given to a person only to treat malaria. But if protease inhibitors can be adjusted to be less toxic, they could be viable as stand-alone malaria medicine. And if that happens it will be a welcome weapon against the disease. Because malaria rapidly evolves immunity to anti-malaria drugs, new ones are desperately needed. Source: An article by Natalie Wolchover for LiveScience

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The age of virtual mourning dawns

10 Jun 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In sharing his final Passover meal with his disciples, as recounted in this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus was preparing them for his approaching death and offering words, gestures, and symbols that would sustain them in the difficult time ahead. Twenty centuries later technology has dramatically altered how people grieve and memorialize the dead. In this new era the bereaved readily share their sorrow via Facebook comments, light virtual candles on memorial websites, upload video tributes to YouTube, and extend sympathies via online funeral guest books.“It would be naive to assume that technology would leave the ‘death sector’ unaffected,” said Ari Zoldan, CEO of wireless-products provider Quantum Networks. “Technology has pervaded all aspects of our lives, and the honoring of our dearly departed is no exception.”Observers offer many examples of the emerging world of virtual grieving, such as streaming video of funeral services and mourners applying adhesive-backed barcodes or "QR code" chips to tombstones so visitors can pull up photos and videos with a scan of a smartphone. Those who want help remembering a yahrtzeit—the anniversary of a death in the Jewish faith—can sign up to get email reminders from websites such as ShivaConnect.com.The new mourning rituals come as society increasingly embraces all things digital. Nearly half of Americans own smartphones, according to the Pew Research Center. One in five own a tablet, up from one in 10 last year. Eight in 10 are on the Internet—and two-thirds of online users tap into social-media sites.“People are getting much more comfortable with multimedia,” said Elaine C. Haney, CEO of Tributes.com, an online publisher of local and national obituaries. “It's become simple for people of just about any age to use.”While the digital tools may be new, they still soothe age-old emotions, said Therese A. Rando, author of How to Go on Living When Someone You Love Dies. “Throughout history, we've memorialized people we've loved and lost,” she said. “These are not new needs. These are new ways of meeting the old needs.” Source: An article by Laura Petrecca for USA TODAY

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Aid needed to stop AIDS

29 Jul 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Lord “answers all our needs” and satisfies “the desire of every living thing,” the psalmist testifies this Sunday. Those gathered in Washington, D.C. this week at the world’s largest AIDS conference sounded the alarm that answering the needs of those living with HIV requires a sustained commitment from the world community. There is no cure or vaccine against HIV yet, but scientists say they have the tools to finally stem the spread of this intractable virus—largely by using treatment not only to save patients but to make them less infectious, too. The challenge, however, that more than 20,000 scientists, doctors, people living with HIV, and policy-makers grappled with this week at the International AIDS Conference is how to make this promising science a practical reality. With HIV increasingly an epidemic of the poor and the marginalized, they asked, will countries find the will to invest in the most vulnerable?Women in particular are at risk. Already they make up half the world's HIV infections, and adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable in the hardest-hit parts of the world. Protecting them requires addressing the poverty, violence, and discrimination that too many women experience around the world, said UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Geeta Rao Gupta."These adolescent girls and young women, our sisters and daughters, represent an unfinished agenda in the AIDS response," Gupta told the gathering, echoing what has become a recurring theme of the meeting since U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared Monday that gender equity is crucial to protecting women. "Women need and deserve a voice in the decisions that affect their lives," Clinton said.The AIDS conference hasn't been held in the U.S. since 1990 in protest of the longtime ban on people with the virus entering the country. The Obama administration lifted the travel restriction in 2010. Sources: Articles by Lauran Neergaard for the Associated Press, Voice of America, and Huffington Post

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Baby cured of HIV infection, doctors claim

10 Mar 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday’s second reading assures us that “whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away.” Something new has apparently occurred when after early intensive treatment with antiviral drugs a baby born with HIV two years ago in rural Mississippi has been cured, doctors announced Sunday.The startling development, while still being analyzed, could change how infected newborns are treated and sharply reduce the number of children living around the world with the virus that causes AIDS.The child was treated aggressively with antiretroviral drugs starting around 30 hours after birth, something that is not usually done. If further study shows this process works in other babies, it will almost certainly be recommended globally. The United Nations estimates that 330,000 babies were newly infected in 2011, the most recent year for which there is data, and that more than three million children globally are living with HIV.There may be something different about babies’ immune systems that made the cure possible, said Dr. Joseph McCune of the University of California, San Francisco. One hypothesis is that the drugs killed off the virus before it could establish a hidden reservoir in the baby. One reason people cannot be cured now is that the virus hides in a dormant state, out of reach of existing drugs. When drug therapy is stopped, the virus can emerge from hiding.Homily hint: A “seamless garment” ethics of life speaks of protecting life “from womb to tomb.” Certainly ensuring that all pregnant mothers have adequate and affordable prenatal care comes into play in such an ethics. Are families in your community able to receive the care they need? If not, might members of the faith community advocate on their behalf? Sources: Articles by Andre Pollack and Donald G. McNeil, Jr. for theNew York Times and Ron Winslow for the Wall Street Journal

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