POSITIVE LIVING BC eNews 59
Welcome to the POSITIVE LIVING BC eNews
This weekly resource is committed to providing our HIV-positive community with relevant, newsworthy and meaningful information.
- Madonna Tickets!
- Scotiabank AIDS WALK for LIFE Kick-Off T Dance
BC HIV news
- Unique Vancouver clinic provides comfort to HIV/AIDS patients
- Fired for being HIV-positive?
- Groups urge BC premier to launch public inquiry on Integrated Case Management system
Canada HIV news
- Silencing Voices: Canadian Government Refuses Funding for AIDS Advocacy
- John Plater, man who fought for tainted blood victims, dead at 45
- Fearing advocacy, Ottawa rejects HIV/AIDS funding proposals
- Lounging in hell
International HIV news
- How to Fight HIV Criminalization in Courts of Law and Public Opinion
- The Pope drops Catholic ban on condoms in historic shift
- Aussie Olympian reveals HIV status
Announcing Scotiabank AIDS WALK for LIFE raffle tickets!
For just $10.00, you get a chance to be entered into a raffle draw and win some fantastic prizes including:
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2 tickets to a Madonna concert in September. Strike a Pose & Express Yourself!
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2 tickets to Ballet BC’s “In/Verse”.
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OR 1 Household Membership to Vancouver Art Gallery
To get your tickets, contact Miranda Leffler at 604 893 2242 or mirandal@positivelivingbc.org.
We’re selling tickets at Positive Living BC Fund Development.
Watch for news coming soon on where else you can get raffle tickets!
Total value of prizes: $980
Price of tickets: $10
Location, date, and time of draw: September 23rd 2012, 5:00pm @ The Junction (1138 Davie Street, Vancouver, BC)
Statement of Restriction of Play and Conflict of Interest Information: Must be 19+, Staff of Positive Living can’t purchase tickets
Tickets may be sold and purchased only in British Columbia
Ticket purchasers must be 19 years of age or older. If a winning ticket bears a minor’s name, the prize will be lawfully delivered on behalf of the minor to the minor’s parent, legal guardian, or trustee.
Scotiabank AIDS WALK for LIFE Kick Off T-Dance
Sunday, August 26th, 2012
Roundhouse Community Centre
With
DJ NICK BERTOSSI
DJ ADAM DREADDY
Tickets $10.00 available at Little Sisters or get them from Miranda Leffler at Positive Living BC Fund Development Department.
Unique Vancouver clinic provides comfort to HIV/AIDS patients
VIDEO
Fired for being HIV-positive?
The BC Human Rights Tribunal has agreed to hear a complaint from a gay, HIV-positive man who believes he was fired by a subsidiary of communications giant Bell Canada because he has HIV.
Groups urge BC premier to launch public inquiry on Integrated Case Management system
B.C.'s Freedom of Information and Privacy Association and other non-profit groups and privacy advocates have written a letter to Premier Christy Clark urging she create a public inquiry into the flawed computer system that is putting children at risk according to the province's independent Representative for Children and Youth.
Silencing Voices: Canadian Government Refuses Funding for AIDS Advocacy
Slowly but surely the Harper government is shutting down agencies and silencing the voices of those that disagree with them. After shutting down programs and shutting scientists up, they are now going after charities and interest groups.
First they put new tax rules in place in their omnibus budget bill that reduces the amount Canadians can donate to charities that are considered too politically active and allowing the minister to withhold tax receipts if he or she decides the charity is doing too much political work.
John Plater, man who fought for tainted blood victims, dead at 45
John Plater, the man who fought to get compensation for people infected in Canada’s tainted blood scandal, died on Saturday.
He was 45.
Plater, a lawyer, died of complications from the HIV and hepatitis C he contracted from tainted blood in the 1980s.
Fearing advocacy, Ottawa rejects HIV/AIDS funding proposals
Health Canada has turned down funding for an HIV/AIDS charity for fear it might result in advocacy – an indication of a growing tendency within the Conservative government to steer clear of groups pushing causes out of step with its policies.
The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, whose mission is to promote the human rights of people living with or at risk of contracting the virus, has received a significant portion of its funding from Ottawa over its 20-year existence.
Lounging in hell
Finally, after a double decade of drag-racing dust mites on the window sill, I’m feeling a bit of breeze blow through the Big House. Like most breezes, this one has as much to do with hot air as cold.
How to Fight HIV Criminalization in Courts of Law and Public Opinion
As the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) in Washington, DC, presented hopes of achieving an AIDS-free generation, some advocates focused attention on a major obstacle to this goal: the criminalization of people living with or at high risk for HIV. At a symposia session on July 23, speakers from Jamaica, South Africa, the United States and Egypt mapped out ways to oppose such laws, using litigation, diplomacy and community mobilization. Discriminatory laws, they said, marginalize, isolate and punish the people most at risk for HIV or already living with the virus, preventing programs and strategies from effectively stemming the epidemic.
The Pope drops Catholic ban on condoms in historic shift
After decades of fierce opposition to the use of all contraception, the Pontiff has ended the Church’s absolute ban on the use of condoms.
He said it was acceptable to use a prophylactic when the sole intention was to “reduce the risk of infection” from Aids.
While he restated the Catholic Church’s staunch objections to contraception because it believes that it interferes with the creation of life, he argued that using a condom to preserve life and avoid death could be a responsible act – even outside marriage.
Asked whether “the Catholic Church is not fundamentally against the use of condoms,” he replied: “It of course does not see it as a real and moral solution. In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality.”
Aussie Olympian reveals HIV status
Gay Australian Olympian Ji Wallace has publicly revealed his HIV status in a letter sent to the Star Observer.
Wallace, a trampolinist who won a silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, said he was inspired to make the public admission about his diagnosis after seeing an interview given by US diver Greg Louganis about his battle with HIV and being a gay Olympian.
“I have been contemplating writing this for a while,” Wallace said.
