For more than two decades, the International AIDS Conference has taken place every two years in countries around the world with the exception of the United States.

The International AIDS Society does not hold it's conferences in countries that restrict short term entry of people living with HIV/AIDS and/or require prospective HIV-positive visitors to declare their HIV status on visa application forms or other documentation required for entry into the country.

The United States made news around the world in 1989 when Dutch AIDS activist Hans Paul Verhoff was denied entry into the United States because of his HIV status. The ban was codified into as part of the NIH reauthorization in 1993.

But this era has gladly come to an end.

According to a new study, 40% of gay men in New York City, who have had sex with other men, hide their sexual orientation from their doctors.

The study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, and looked at data from 2004 to 2005 from the Centers for Disease Control National HIV Behavioral Survey.

In the survey, 452 people took part, all living in New York City. Men who were at gay bars and clubs were randomly interviewed, and then tested for HIV.

Among gay men, the subject of prostate cancer is complicated by the intersecting stigmata of both cancer and homosexuality. Most people do not want to talk about prostate cancer and most straight people do not want to talk about homosexuality.

It is therefore not surprising that the overwhelming majority of personal and professional publications about prostate cancer are written by, for and about heterosexual men and their female partners. If prostate cancer, in general, is off most people’s radar screen, then gay men with prostate cancer are a truly invisible species.

The Gay Men's Health Summit is a national call to all LGBT/ queer communities and our important allies from across this nation to come together to build a multi-issue, multicultural gay men's health movement focused on long-term strategic goals for gay/bi/queer men's health and wellness. The Summit will cover a full range of health
concerns, ranging from physical and mental health, to social issues, to community building and organizing, and is inclusive of all gay/bi/queer men, including those who identify as transgender or who have transgender histories.

By Jennifer Medvin: Many of us were probably surprised and very upset by the passing of Dana Fairbanks on the L Word. Yes, she was just a fictional character, but the impact allowed the threat of cancer to hit home. The writer's showed that youth, an athletic build and even fame will not stop you from being affected by cancer. No one knows that more than Melissa Etheridge who underwent two cancer surgeries in 2004.

Discovery of a lump can generate fear in a woman. This may strike at the core of a women's self image through the thought of breast cancer, of losing her breast and maybe even losing her life. Women are eight times more likely to die of heart disease than breast cancer and lung cancer kills twice as many women every year than cancer of the breast. But the main reason breast cancer is a woman's worst nightmare is the fact that it kills more women age 35 to 55 than any other disease.

Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation Receives $1 Million Dollar Donation In Honor of "The L Word" Stars Erin Daniels and Leisha Hailey

An anonymous donor has given a $1 million dollar gift to the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation in honor of Erin Daniels and Leisha Hailey, two of the stars of the hit Showtime series, "The L Word," for the realism and truth they brought to a breast cancer storyline that ended with the death of Erin Daniels' character, Dana Fairbanks. This is the largest private donation ever made to the Foundation.

"The donor, who has chosen to remain anonymous, wanted to honor the actresses for their compelling portrayal of a couple dealing with the tragic consequence of breast cancer," says the Foundation's Executive Director Naz Sykes. "Ultimately, she decided the best way to do that was to give a generous donation that would help us advance the work we are doing to end breast cancer in our lifetime."

By Tod Companion

It's a fact of life that sometimes you get down. For many people, this feeling passes with time. For others, it's a constant condition. When your behavior changes because of this feeling, it becomes clinical depression. For many years, there was little outside of therapy that science could do for those suffering from depression. In recent years, however, advances in pharmacology have led to many medications for depression. Unlike Alice in Wonderland, you can't just take a pill, or eat a cookie to affect a change in yourself.

Depression is not just feeling bad. That's a state of mind, but while it can be a symptom of depression, just feeling bad doesn't mean you are clinically depressed. Depression occurs when this sadness lasts for an extended period of time. It's also accompanied by abnormal behaviors - obsessive eating or starving one's self, inability to sleep or sleeping too much. Loss of interest in sex is often a sign of depression. Disinterest in friends, family, career and life in general are also hallmarks of depression. Depression can also be accompanied by obsessive/compulsive behaviors - counting, constant cleaning, excessive ordering and neatness.

National Coalition for LGBT Health
www.lgbthealth.net

Our transwomen's bodies come in all colors, shapes and sizes, and all of us need to take care of them. However, good health care can be hard to get, due to discrimination, lack of medical clinicians who understand our needs, and lack of health insurance coverage. To keep our bodies healthy and whole, we must become informed consumers, educating our health care providers and ourselves.