Photographed Exclusively for A&U by Timothy J. Haines

The night before I met Gregory Jbara at his Los Angeles home, he sent this e-mail: “I’m going to be running around doing errands in the morning so you don’t need to get here any sooner than noon. Chances are when you arrive there will be a crew of lawn guys dragging greenery out of the backyard. So parking in the driveway might not be possible. Just park wherever you can on the street and come in thru the side door (on your left as you face the house). Bring socks you like as we are a shoes-off in the house kinda family. Also, if you’re in the mood for caffeine, you might want to bring as we may only have some green tea in the house. Looking forward to tomorrow!”

Greg’s casualness and neighborly attitude was no surprise, as for months we’ve been corresponding and getting to know one another. (I discover later that his friendly and caring behavior is genuine and purely who Greg is, not just a cover to impress a journalist.) We were unable to set an interview date, mostly due to his hectic schedule. When we first began communicating, he was performing on Broadway, playing Billy’s father in Billy Elliot, for which he won a Tony Award. Greg originated the role and departed the company in September 2011 after three years. The show closed four months later in January 2012. After Billy, he landed the role of Garrett Moore in the Tom Selleck TV series Blue Bloods, which is also produced in New York. It makes it rather difficult to have a family life with a wife and two young boys, but Greg manages very well thank-you-very-much.

He’s an old hand at juggling show biz, landing his first TV spot on Newhart in 1987, and the following year on Broadway in Serious Money, performing opposite Alec Baldwin and Kate Nelligan. And like any skilled character actor, his roles vary greatly, making it tricky to tag him from one production to another. For example, Greg played Billy Flynn in the Broadway revival of Chicago, he was a pre-op transsexual lesbian in the film Jeffrey, he became Mel Gibson in Epic Movie, and was the closeted “Squash Bernstein” in Broadway’s Victor/Victoria. Greg has lent his rich voice to Family Guy twice, and he’s even played Frankenstein, which marked his off-Broadway debut.

I was fortunate to see Greg on Broadway in Billy Elliot. His riveting performance as Jackie Elliot was captivating enough, but then in the midst of the curtain call, Greg stepped forward. Dressed in his character’s mustard hued miner’s outfit and white tutu—yes, a tutu!—and a beaming smile, with one of the small kids from the cast perched on his shoulders, Greg said, “I’m sorry to interrupt this wonderful standing ovation; however, I want to tell you all about an organization that is near to my heart.” He forged ahead into a two to three minute touching monologue—all while the audience remained standing—about the important work of Broadway Cares. He concluded with, “Please, as you leave the theater, there will be people holding red buckets to drop your donation.” With applause, the curtain dropped and Greg immediately positioned himself at the exit doors carrying his little red bucket.

“When my wife, Julie, used to come to visit me in New York,” Greg notes, “she’d say, ‘When’s Broadway Bares? We’re getting a babysitter and you’re taking me! I want to see all that meat out there….’” He smiles, looking like a cuddly Yogi Bear. Greg is leaning against the stove in their remodeled kitchen. He’s decked out and dapper in dark blue jeans, white T-shirt, and wrapped in a Calphalon white and Polo green-striped apron, as if ready for a backyard barbeque. He has just proudly given me a tour of their newly revamped 1923 home, a modest dwelling located in a suburban area, which includes two toilets in the master bedroom sitting across from one another. You read that correctly—two toilets in one bathroom. “We won’t compete for the seat,” declared Greg with an enthusiastic grin. While Julie, a body talk practitioner, conducts a meeting in the converted garage cum office, Greg prepares tonight’s supper for the family. He’s also preparing iced green tea for his guest.

“With Broadway Bares, you know, it’s people getting into as little clothing as possible, and I think you do catch the occasional nipple,” he says with a taunting tone, “but it’s the ultimate striptease. Every hot dancer that’s on Broadway and some of the wackiest comedians who you don’t want to see with their clothes off, will go out and give it their all. Each number is a vignette, and has a story and a theme. Jerry Mitchell, who originally founded Broadway Bares, still oversees each production,” Greg points out. “It’s also an opportunity for the up and coming choreographers who were dancers on Broadway to create and stage these vignettes. It serves a lot of people in a lot of great ways. But ultimately it makes….” He halts, searching for a word then utters, “stupid [amount]…you know….hundreds of thousands of dollars.” He shakes his head with pleasing admiration.

Though a seasoned pro, playing Jackie Elliot was a challenge for Greg. “I didn’t sing and dance like the others,” he admits, putting groceries away from Trader Joe’s. “When I first got the job and we were in rehearsals, I was concerned that I wouldn’t have the chops to do that show eight times a week—on two levels. One,

Jbara and his sons

His second concern was feeling confident enough to ride the emotional rollercoaster of Jackie Elliot. Fortunately during rehearsals he learned new techniques and ultimately mastered the feat of the psychological game: If he tried not to force it, all the emotional pieces would come.

“Honestly, in Billy Elliot, er, in the last two Broadway shows [Dirty Rotten Scoundrels], I think I had the easiest job out of anybody in those casts. The men’s ensemble lost weight. They couldn’t keep pounds on. I didn’t break a sweat and I gained twenty pounds during those three years doing the show. What’s that tell ya?” he says with a smirk, slightly leaning into the new light green tile counter that’s graced with a vase bursting with fresh sunny daisies. (Prior to that increase of weight, in preparation for the Billy call back audition, over a three month period, Greg gained twenty pounds, too.) By the time the show opened, Greg knew exactly what was needed and how to pace himself. “I could show up on occasion with a hangover or I could show up sick because I knew I was going to take this journey as an actor where this character goes from the abyss to this newfound love for a child. For me, at the end of the show, I wanted to keep going. I could go to work exhausted and know that three hours later I was going to be completely rejuvenated. It’s also part of the fact that it’s a good show,” he emphasizes with conviction and passion. “It’s so well constructed; it’s such a beautiful story. It didn’t matter where the audience was, you knew at the end of three hours we were all going to go to that phenomenal place that the show takes you to—and we do it together.” Indeed, by the end, it’s like lightning in a bottle for everyone in the audience to share a triumphant toast. (The musical is touring around the country and currently in Los Angeles at The Pantages Theatre through mid-May).

When Greg accepted his Tony Award he dedicated it to four people. Two of them were instrumental in his career; both died of AIDS. One was his agent, Brian Reardon, and the other was James Raitt, the creator of Forever Plaid, an off-Broadway musical revue reminiscent of the guy groups in the fifties. “Brian literally championed me into the cast of Damn Yankees, my first big Broadway musical,” explains Greg, where at one point in the production he played alongside Jerry Lewis.

Gregory Jbara plays DCPI Garrett Moore on CBS’s Blue Bloods. Photo by Heather Wines/© 2012 CBS Broadcasting inc., All rights reserved

Greg opens the freezer, retrieves ice cubes, and slings them into a giant glass pitcher, merging them with the ten brewing tea bags that are draped over the side. “Try some colon-cleansing green tea!” he offers, sounding like Martha Stewart, as he plops a straw in each of our glasses.

In addition to his regular donations to AIDS charities, Greg is also involved with March of Dimes and The National High School Musical Theatre Awards. “My brother, Dan, has done the AIDS LifeCycle, so we have lived vicariously through his journey. We would take our kids and meet him at the end of the ride.” He crosses his arms, resting his back against the kitchen counter, the sunlight streaming through the window. “I don’t know if you know this, but ten percent of Broadway Cares’ profits (of Billy Elliot) went to Place 2 Be. It’s an organization that provides aid for the children of mining families in Easington, the town in England where the play is set.” (The company of Billy Elliot raised more than $1 million for Broadway Cares during its run and $100,000 of that was donated to Place 2 Be.)

Greg’s natural state is to help others. “If anybody asks, I always say ‘Yes,’ unless it’s a hardship,” he clarifies. “I don’t care what it is. If someone needs a letter of recommendation, I’ll do it. When I was [living] in New York I probably went to twenty different schools during the course of my time there, and talked to kids saying, ‘I’m from a podunk town in the middle of nowhere in Michigan, I have a wife and kids [he and “Jules,” as he calls her, have been married for fifteen years], I live modestly, but I actually make a living as an artist.’” He pulls a crock pot out from the upper cupboard, to prep for tonight’s stew. “So many kids these days just don’t have a sense that they can do whatever they want to do, if they work hard. So many kids go, ‘Is it possible?’” He takes a moment as he rinses a pan, then peers over his shoulder. “If I can encourage a kid to go, ‘Yeah man, if he can do it, I can do it.’”

Greg’s kids, Aidan and Zach, seven and ten, respectively, are presently at school. Though I realize it may be a bit premature, I ask, ‘How will you broach the subject of HIV with your sons?’ “I already have,” he asserts, with the tone and expression of, “Doesn’t everyone?!” “When I was a kid it was [about] venereal warts or herpes, but now you can conceivably die if you are not careful and responsible!” he states, his bold brown eyes bugged. “[I told my boys], ‘when you do have sex with your partner,’” he interrupts himself, explaining—“we are not boy-girl at all in this house. I have two gay siblings, a sister and a brother…and the jury’s still out on me ….” (Greg works in these perky quips all during our chat, darting them with such a straight face that it takes a moment to register.) “I tell my boys ‘you will need protection.’ They know to use protection. My wife physically did the condom bit on the banana. Then she showed them the difference between a balloon and a condom. ‘Here’s a balloon. Blow it up. Great. Here’s a condom.’ She blows it up. ‘See they’re different. This goes on your dick; these are for parties.’”

Greg continues. “They understand it the best they can. When we explain it, it’s overly simplified so they can wrap their young brains around it. ‘When daddy puts his penis in mommy’s vagina there’s a baby.’ They know that but all the real details they don’t know [like] what a really good orgasm works like…‘Don’t be selfish [because] foreplay is very important’…‘[Sex in the] morning is great…,’” he facetiously rattles off, in an authoritative pitch sporting a devilish grin, “You know, all the vital stuff….” Now he takes a serious turn. “They’ll figure out all that stuff down the road, but right now, when they come to us with a question, we go, let’s deal with it.” Greg looks up toward the ceiling for a moment. “We’re also saying [to them], ‘Your job is not to reeducate everybody at school. This is for you; to help you understand. When you hear the stuff, we just want you to know what it really is instead of going, ‘Well, what is that?’”

From Broadway to the family way, after several years of living away from home, Greg is back into the swing of daddyhood. Now it’s time for Greg to pick up his boys from school. Before escorting me to the door, he confides, “I have many friends who are living with HIV and are doing very well. I also have friends who go in and out of remission.” He strikes that familiar faraway, pensive, almost boyish look, one which I recently saw on an episode of Nurse Jackie, where he plays the tender father of a young man who has just died. Greg concludes. “These people are my heroes. They’re such role models for my sons—because they choose to live their lives.”

Makeup by Angela Wang.

Thanks to Jason Giangiobbe for assisting in the photo shoot.

Dann Dulin is Senior Editor of A&U.

May 2012

By all accounts, adding the new direct-acting antiretrovirals (DAA) boceprevir (Victrelis) or telaprevir (Incivek) to the standard regimen of pegylated interferon plus ribavirin can shorten treatment regimens and increase the likelihood that a patient with chronic hepatitis C (HCV) will become completely free of the virus. But there are side effects, including a greater chance of anemia. More troubling for those coinfected with HIV and HCV, there is a warning that they should be more carefully monitored when taking the new DDAs for hepatitis along with ritonavir for HIV.

According to a review by Christophe Hézode from Hôpital Henri Mondor in Paris, which appears in the February 2012 supplemental issue of Liver International, most side effects associated with the new DDAs are only mild to moderate, and should not be reasons to discontinue the regimen, researchers said.
Right now only boceprevir and telaprevir are approved for use in combination with pegylated interferon plus ribavirin, older treatments for HCV that have well-known and sometimes debilitating side effects.

In clinical trials for the new drugs, Hézode and his team saw an increase in the frequency and severity of anemia. It is well-known that ribavirin itself can cause hemolytic anemia (red blood cell destruction). But researchers found that boceprevir and telaprevir both appear to worsen anemia by contributing to bone marrow suppression. Half of the people taking boceprevir and about forty percent of those taking telaprevir in clinical trials developed anemia, compared with about twenty percent of those taking pegylated interferon/ribavirin alone.

The researchers pointed to two possible approaches for managing anemia: reducing the dose of ribavirin and using erythropoietin (Epogen or Procrit) to stimulate red blood cell production. But there are possible issues with both of these approaches: Adding a fourth drug is likely to be more challenging in the case of boceprevir, which is typically taken for twenty-four to forty-four weeks, compared with twelve weeks for telaprevir. In addition, older studies have shown that using less ribavirin with pegylated interferon raises the risk of post-treatment relapse. More research is needed to clarify the impact of ribavirin dose reduction and erythropoietin use on the safety and efficacy of combination therapy with the new DAAs, Hézode concluded.

Less serious symptoms included dry skin and eczema. In clinical trials, fifty-five percent of patients using telaprevir triple therapy developed a rash compared with about thirty-three percent of those using pegylated interferon/ribavirin. These rashes were mild-to-moderate in more than ninety percent of cases and involved less than thirty percent of total skin area, according to Hézode. Approximately five percent of rashes were severe, and a few cases were classified as severe adverse reactions, which could be life-threatening if not promptly recognized. Some people taking boceprevir in Phase III trials experienced nausea, diarrhea, and unusual and unpleasant taste changes. Patients taking telaprevir in trials also had a greater likelihood of nausea and diarrhea, as well as “anal discomfort and rectal burning.” Hézode wrote that in almost all cases, these symptoms alone should not require discontinuation of treatment.

Drug interactions: a possible concern for HIV patients
Hézode pointed to recent warnings by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Merck that boceprevir could lower concentrations of ritonavir-boosted HIV protease inhibitors to ineffective levels. In a February 6, 2012, letter to healthcare professionals, Merck said:

“Health care providers who might have initiated Victrelis in combination with PR in HIV-HCV coinfected patients on fully suppressive antiretroviral therapy containing a ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitor should discuss these findings with those patients, and closely monitor those patients for HCV treatment response and for potential HCV and HIV virologic rebound.”

In other words, be vigilant about monitoring and informing patients. A&U will continue to follow the developments as more information is available.

Larry Buhl is a freelance journalist and screenwriter living in Los Angeles.

April 2012

When Commercial Interests Cloud AIDS Research, Who Wins & Who Loses?

The AIDS establishment see themselves as the good guys. And they see “denialists” as the bad guys. According to establishment defender Nicoli Nattrass in a recent issue of The Scientist, “denialism” even includes “the conspiratorial argument that…HIV science has been corrupted by commercial interests.”

So corruption is just a conspiracy fantasy? Hardly. In the decade-plus that I’ve been writing this column, “corruption by commercial interests” has surged as science’s number-one real-life problem. Many observers point to the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act as one factor—it allowed university researchers to start patenting and profiting from their work. The AIDS epidemic came along just in time for its scientists to ride that new wave of money. Today there are still some people with scientific integrity and humanitarian passion who labor in the vineyards out there. In my opinion, these are the real good guys. Those who skew the science for gain are the bad guys.

The science world insisted that it could police its own through rigorous peer review. But big business, big academia, and big government found ways of getting around the self-policing. It wasn’t long before major publishers started releasing investigative books that exposed the growing politics, greed, and chilling disregard for public safety behind research and marketing in some areas. Example: Thomas J. Moore’s Deadly Medicine (Simon & Schuster, 1995) chronicles the boondoggling around 3M’s Tambocor. This blockbuster heart drug was approved by the FDA though its potentially lethal effect was already noted during clinical trials. Today the author, a senior research fellow at George Washington University, calls it “America’s worst drug disaster,” and estimates Tambocor’s victims in the tens of thousands. Yet Tambocor is still sold today.

A more recent exposé is David Healy’s Pharmageddon, published in 2012 by University of California Press. Formerly secretary for the British Association of Pharmapsychology, Healy was one of the first to call attention to how the public was kept ignorant of the suicide-inducing side effect of many antidepressant drugs like Prozac.

The AIDS establishment tries to give the impression that HIV research has kept itself pure as the driven snow. In fact, HIV science got off to a rocky start with the 1990s Gallo scandal. John Crewdson’s Science Fictions (Little, Brown, 2002) is a chronicle of Robert Gallo’s being investigated by the Office of Research Integrity for the crime of “scientific misconduct.” Gallo had allegedly falsified research and stolen credit as HIV’s discoverer. In 1995 the ORI dropped charges, admitting that its definition of “scientific misconduct” wasn’t tight enough for successful prosecution. But Gallo’s actions cost him his NIH job and the Nobel Prize.

As development of AIDS drugs got under way, Bruce Nussbaum broke into print with his Good Intentions: How big business and the medical establishment are corrupting the fight against AIDS (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990). A senior writer at Business Week, Nussbaum told the not-very-inspiring story of how AZT was steamrolled into place as the first drug of choice, despite early concerns about its toxicity.

About this time, some of the heavyweight peer-reviewed science publications started feeling queasy about “conflict of interest,” which can also be prosecuted as a federal crime. Growing numbers of scientists were taking money from pharmaceutical companies, for consultancies or ghostwriting articles—to the point where their views or research might be tweaked in Big Pharma’s favor.

First to speak out was the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. In 1990, NEJM adopted a policy that (in their words) “prohibited editorialists and authors of review articles from having any financial connection with a company that benefits from a drug or device discussed in the editorial or review article.” “In our view,” NEJM said, “the increasing involvement of researchers in commercial activities makes this policy all the more important.”

But by 2000, it was getting hard to find authors who were free of interest. The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Marcia Angell, felt compelled to publish a now-historic editorial titled “Is Academic Medicine for Sale?” Eventually she left the magazine and became a voice on medical research ethics, writing her own book exposés. Today Angell has this damning comment: “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion.”

Today, more and more, science publications retract a peer-reviewed article, once they learn of a problem with it. According to a study done by Journal of Medical Ethics, the years 2001–06 saw a 500 percent increase in retractions, while 2006–11 saw another increase of 159 percent. World of Psychology said, “Of the 742 papers that were withdrawn from 2000 to 2010, the analysis found that 73.5 percent were retracted simply for error, but 26.6 percent were retracted for fraud.”

ORI did tighten their ability to prosecute. “Scientific misconduct” is actually punishable by federal prison if the offense is glaring enough. Other offenses by science, like conflict of interest, can be prosecuted directly by federal prosecutors outside of ORI. But do any of these real-life bad guys ever wind up behind bars? In 1999, when VaxGen was trying to get its AIDSVAX vaccine research financed, the company got a little help from a friend inside the CDC. VaxGen founder Don Francis, who once worked at the CDC, connected with Dr. William Heyward, head of the agency’s HIV-vaccine unit. Heyward hyped AIDSVAX to his colleagues so well that the agency coughed up an $8-million grant. Heyward also touted AIDSVAX to the media, giving VaxGen’s stock a boost on the market. Shortly after the grant, Dr. Heyward left CDC to be VaxGen vice president. Eventually House investigators learned that Heyward’s job deal had been struck before he started lobbying for VaxGen. Federal prosecutors charged Heyward with violation of criminal anti-graft laws applying to public service. But the doctor got off with no prison time and a $32,500 fine. And the AIDS vaccine turned out to be a flop.

ORI’s Web page reveals that most researchers charged under their regulations are found not guilty. Or they are let off with administrative actions like a fine. So far, only one researcher—yes, just one—has actually gone to prison for scientific misconduct involving research fraud. The U.S. now has over two million people behind bars—and that total even includes a few Wall Streeters who committed banking and mortgage fraud. My conclusion: It’s easier to jail a crooked banker than a crooked scientist.

Government inaction has also helped scientists avoid full transparency. In 2005, the Associated Press learned that, five years earlier, the Department of Health and Human Services had quietly started requiring NIH scientists to disclose their financial interests to people whom they were soliciting for clinical trials. In other words, those who were risking their bodies for research had a right to know if the researchers stood to make money off that risk. However, NIH had quietly failed to put the HHS policy into effect—which meant that ninety-one of their scientists, including Anthony Fauci himself, were still receiving their royalties in official secrecy. Fauci was getting large checks from his patent on interleukin-2, subject of one of the largest AIDS research projects at that time. The AP’s hot ray of sunshine forced NIH to scramble around and put the policy into effect.

The AP had harsh words. It said: “Self-regulation and peer review have proven about as reliable at ensuring ethical and scientific integrity as expecting the Mafia to vouch for the honesty of one of its own.”

What does this real-life “corruption of commercial interests” do to the morale of those men and women living with AIDS who commit to treatment with whatever ARVs and treatment modes have made it to market? The ones who stake their lives on assumptions that they’ve been told the truth about HIV science? They’ll have to pin their hopes on whatever good guys are left in the multi-bazillion-dollar biomedical business.

Further reading:
NEJM: “Is Academic Medicine for Sale?”
www.smokescam.com/marciaeditorial.htm

ORI case summaries: 1994–present
http://ori.hhs.gov/case_summary

Author of fiction bestsellers and provocative commentary, Patricia Nell Warren has her writings archived at www.patricianellwarren.com. Reach her by e-mail at patriciawarren@aol.com.

Copyright © 2012 by Patricia Nell Warren. All rights reserved.

April 2012

Peer education in Botswana. Photo by Brad Allgood

Lending a profound weight to the central question of the importance of promoting sexual abstinence, Mumbi explains that the group’s message includes an acknowledgment that HIV/AIDS is a real problem that young people need to face, and that “if we abstain we’re being smarter, not just trusting our lives to a piece of plastic. We’re smarter than that.”

In the documentary, Dr. Edward Green, former director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard School of Public Health, comments on the inevitable debate between right and left politics in the U.S.: religious conservatives promoting abstinence and liberals in favor of promoting sexual freedom. He states that it’s wrong, in the context of global AIDS, to impose our Western context, our Western ideology on other countries and advocate sexual freedom over public health.

V. Anderson: Does promoting sexual abstinence mean something different in Botswana than in the U.S.?
Suzanne Taylor: The arguments that were being laid forth by the kids for abstinence wouldn’t have the same impact [in the U.S.] because the death rate isn’t as high….They were like, “this is difficult, but true,” if you abstain from something then you’re not putting yourself in this danger zone. It’s just that the danger zone looks different in these different countries.

Why would safe sex with condoms not work as a prevention method in a place like Botswana, where free condom distribution and free HIV testing and medication are available?
Education’s been difficult. Access has been probably less consistent than you want for someone that’s consistently relying on a healthcare facility that may or may not have them in stock, or that the condoms have been damaged through travel or through heat in the Kalahari desert in Botswana for example….The government helps provide [ARVs] for free for all the citizens, which is amazing and good, but you’re still relying a lot on Western drug companies and on a lot of outside funding.

The documentary touches on the idea that many of the local “witch/traditional doctors” believe that they can cure HIV. How prevalent is this belief, and is there a conflict between older and younger generations on this?
It was tough for me to gauge…in a very modern culture with all the access to information that students do have, there’s this fear and just kind of respect that’s built into the system because these people have traditionally held the power and information.

At times, Innocent, Kez, Mumbi and the rest of the rally group appear to be in over their heads. When they’re not performing abstinence-promoting skits for the high school students, they meet with them one on one, and are faced with a wide range of very serious problems that the students confide in them. For the viewer, it’s questionable whether the rally group members have adequate training to handle this type of counseling. But, it is evident that the high school students look up to them. Taylor provides an explanation: “I think [the government was] desperate for a way to reach out to the students and happy for these college students’ influence. It’s a very difficult thing, to become a college student in Botswana. You have to be at the top of your class.”

Perhaps the most progress that the group members make is in their own self-awareness. By giving counseling, they counsel themselves. In the end, they impact themselves in the ways that they seek to impact others. One of the members decides to take an HIV test for the first time. Innocent becomes more mature and responsible about the impact that he can have on his country.

Face the Nation’s motto is “reaching Botswana through Christ,” but the rally group does not seem to place an emphasis on religion in the context of abstinence. Did you omit that aspect on purpose?
I thought what was more interesting, because I think a lot of films have been done about different religious groups that kind of can be more polarizing—I wanted to do something a little bit different. I wanted to not make a film that was going to be for Christians, or to anger people who didn’t like Christians…that’s an important part of who they are, and certainly their mission statement, but for me as a filmmaker, I came at it from a public health angle.

In your opinion, is sexual abstinence primarily a practical solution or religious solution?
I think for a lot of people they would say that my faith enables me to make this tough decision, it gives me the moral compass to stand strong, it helps me with

Director Suzanne Taylor. Photo by Katarina Price

Taylor goes on to say that “This is for Muslims, this is for Atheists, we’re going in and telling people how to save their lives, and we’re not forcing anybody to convert or to choose our particular faith or a faith…ultimately in Botswana in particular this is a very, very practical thing and that’s why the government thinks it’s of value, that’s why the government lets us go in to public schools and teach this….”

When asked about the overall objective of the documentary, Taylor says, “I hope it’s a discussion point.” She also said the documentary was edited for a U.S. audience, and she hopes that it will “inspire people in the States that don’t know about HIV/AIDS issues but also maybe that are younger and aspiring to take some sort of community action like this.”

The documentary’s key expert, Dr. Green, publicly agreed with Pope Benedict’s 2009 statement regarding condom use in Africa. Coproducer and writer of the documentary, and also the founder of Citygate Films, the company releasing the documentary, Carolyn McCulley authored Radical Womanhood, a book that is self-described as “exposing the anti-God agenda of the three waves of feminism to date and presenting the pro-woman truth of the Scriptures.”

However, regardless of the radical perspectives of the key players, the viewer is left examining the dire health situation that Botswana faces through the eyes of a group of college students coming to terms with themselves and the state of their country. The viewer may wonder whether sexual abstinence without association to religion, although a desperate and potentially unrealistic measure, may work for some in a place that, according to the documentary, has the second highest AIDS rate in the world.

The film is available on-line through a program called “Watch the Film, Save a Life,” where
the cost of viewing the documentary is an $8 donation to Partners to the World, the parent organization of Face the Nation. Log on to theroadweknow.com/savealife.

V. Anderson holds an MFA in Film from New York University. She has worked in India, the Caribbean, and the U.S., and is currently based in New York City.

April 2012

Los Olivos, CA

Photo by Damien Miller

La Cienega is also a character in the new touring musical, Bring It On—and she’s superbly brought to life by the breakout actor Gregory Haney. Yes, La Cienega is a transgender female and this boy “tears it up!”—as is indicated by the thunderous applause and shrieks during his standing ovation. An athlete who hails from Arizona, Gregory has appeared on Broadway in Tarzan the Musical and Memphis the Musical, and he’s toured in Wicked and Cats. During his time on the Great White Way he carried the signature little red bucket after performances to collect donations for Broadway Cares and has also participated in Broadway Bares as well. Gregory also teaches contemporary jazz at dance studios across the U.S.A.

After seeing this bouncy, gleeful Broadway-bound show I tracked Gregory down and found out he was kicking back for a few days in between his tour here in the panoramic valley of Santa Ynez. And staying at Fess Parker’s Inn (Fess was the star of the legendary TV series, Daniel Boone) is the fringe on top. Cozy, comfy, and captivating, the newly renovated Inn is an intimate and stately retreat. After prearranging our meeting, and after my seminar this morning with Pacific Pride Foundation in Santa Barbara, Gregory and I “dish it up” together on this fine sunny-with-a-nip-in-the-air afternoon at Petros, the Inn’s superior restaurant.

Ruby Comer: When I’m in this area I always feel aligned…you know, centered and calm. [He nods.] On the contrary, when I think of the epidemic I get riled. Can you give me just one word when you think of HIV/AIDS?
Gregory Haney: Misunderstood.

How so?
By that I mean…there is a misunderstanding about how much the virus affects people’s lives.

Ah, you betcha. Say, when did you first hear the words, “HIV/AIDS”?
It was in grade school during sex education, Ruby.

Were you taught HIV prevention in your Arizona high school?
I went to Peoria High School, where there wasn’t sex education class, but, being in the theater department, it was a topic we discussed since our favorite musical was RENT.

Land sake’s alive, what a brilliant show. Have you ever dated anyone who was HIV-positive and, if so, were there any challenges involved?
I haven’t dated anyone positive, but I think that the only challenge would be the normal highs and lows of any relationship. [He scans the restaurant briefly mesmerized by the glowing fireplace.] I think if both parties are well educated there shouldn’t be any problem.

Education is undeniably the key. Are you currently in a relationship, Gregory?
I am currently…[He pauses, his expressive eyes beam, and his voice raises as he shouts]…single!

Hmm, sounds like you’re advertising! [He grins mischievously.] Have you always used a condom while playing, my sugar pie honeybunch?

Haney as La Cienega in the musical, Bring It On. Photo by Craig Schwartz

Thank you for your involvement with Broadway Cares.
[He shakes his head side to side] I am not an active volunteer with the AIDS community. I’ve done a few things with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, but, sadly, I haven’t gone outside of Equity to help with the fight.

I have a feeling that in the future you will. It seems you are quite busy just being on the road these days. Will you be with Bring It On for the entire run until June?
I will and I’m hoping Broadway is in our future. Who doesn’t like tumbling men, bitchy cheerleaders, hip-hop Motown songs, a cute but evil sophomore blonde girl, and a beautiful transgender high schooler? I’m in!

Who did you pattern the sassy, strong La Cienega after?
I think La Cienega is a combination of the many strong African-American women in my life. She’s definitely a pivotal character. Being different is hard enough, but throw in being transgender in high school and you can only imagine. In today’s society people still look at being transgendered as negative, and to that I highly disagree. To live your life as your true self is something amazing, and I commend all of the transgender community for living their life one hundred percent.

Gregory, will you address the issue of HIV infection on the rise in….
[He interrupts] I think first, prevention education is a must in all communities be it gay or straight. Secondly, I think education on dealing with the infection is equally important. Also, testing yourself even if you haven’t been exposed is a necessity. Know your status! And I’m not talking about Facebook. [He shoots me a weary look.]

Fess Parker Wine Country Inn and Spa. Photo Courtesy Fess Parker

My dear, in my crystal ball I see that you will. Was there one particular show that inspired you to become an actor, Mr. G?
I was a sophomore in high school and the touring company of Fame was playing at the Gammage Auditorium. At intermission I looked at my dad and told him that this is what I wanted to do. His reply was, “I can see you doing it.”

Ruby Comer is an independent journalist from the Midwest who is happy to call Hollywood her home away from home. Reach her by e-mail at MsRubyComer@aol.com.

Gugu. Photo by Kisty Stephens

A connection: Why? I don’t know, I just feel a pull; a pull towards South Africa. Never have I even wanted to go to “that” place. “That” place is dry, barren, rugged, dangerous, and full of not only HIV but full-blown AIDS. Something has changed. Now I won’t discount the thought of such a journey, although my part in all of this quite possibly will remain on the U.S. home front, acting as the yellow pages…a construction worker laying foundations and roadways…a beacon home to where the heart is for the girl in the red sweater.

Gugu is her name. At this point in time, she is translucent…surreal…maybe even a little ghost-like since all I know of her is from the pictures and stories shared with me. I dream of touching her dark skin…her tiny slender arm…holding her close, kissing her forehead and welcoming her to her new home. She has become, for me, an angel…my South African angel.

As I pick up the phone, calling people whom I don’t even know but who have been dropped into my path on this, the Gugu sojourn, I feel my tiny angel on my shoulder…watching….waiting. She knows that we want her. She knows that we are working to bring her to her new home and she knows she is loved. What else she knows or thinks, I simply do not know. I want to know…to learn…to loosely stitch her into my heart and mind.

Every day my heart opens up for Gugu and spills out. Every night I hold my little one close to refill the chasm created by that slow leak. It wraps around us both…to bond…to heal…to connect…to keep him from ever feeling the way she always feels. I hold onto the moment where that will forever change and I let it serve as my catalyst. Not only is she my South African angel, she is my dragonfly warrior. Forced to reside in the present moment by her lot in life, but she remains a warrior who fights to stay strong and open to love.

A number of years back, my dear friend Kisty went to South Africa for an internship. Here she met this tiny beautiful soul and there was an instant connection between the two. Thanks to a horse wreck that left Kisty with a broken pelvis and without the ability to return to the U.S., they had in-depth time to get to know each other.

Gugu filled Kisty with a renewed sense of wonder and hope along with a greater appreciation for her own life. Upon her return to home, Kisty started looking into what it would take to adopt the South African Angel who touched her life and her heart. It’s been a long road and Gugu will turn ten this year. Kisty has suffered much, learned much, and is now ready, willing and determined to find a way to make this work and to give Gugu the life that most of us would want for any child. My role will be as godmother…hmmm…maybe fairy godmother is a more appropriate term.

Dedication, hope, faith, friendship, courage…the ingredients required for the very real possibility of this turning into a happy ending. Here’s to finding ways to make things happen instead of finding great excuses to not. Here’s to helping those who are presently HIV-free remain so and to lessening the pain of all who have felt the scorch from the far-reaching flames of this insidious virus. Here’s to bringing the girl in the red sweater home.

D.L. Ransom is a freelance writer with a graduate degree in psychology. She works for the underdog to diminish the scars inflicted by life’s challenges.

April 2012

A New Book Celebrates the Art and Life of AIDS Acivist Keith Haring
by Lester Strong

Stop AIDS, 1989, print, size variable. Courtesy The Keith Haring Foundation. Copyright © Estate of Keith Haring.

By the mid to late 1980s, Haring was world famous, his art and he himself in demand not just in the United States, but in Europe and Japan. He was hobnobbing with the art and entertainment elite—Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leo Castelli, William Burroughs, Yoko Ono, Madonna, Grace Jones, Brooke Shields, to name a few—and collaborating with many of them on various projects.

Then, in 1988, Haring was diagnosed HIV-positive, and two years later, on February 16, 1990, he died at the age of thirty-one from complications caused by AIDS.

Eighteen years after his death, Haring’s art and meteoric rise from street and graffiti artist to international art celebrity are appropriately enough being celebrated in a spectacular volume titled Keith Haring, just released by Rizzoli. Over 500 pages of images by Haring, photos of family, friends, lovers, colleagues, and Haring himself at work on his art, accompanied by text from his journals and commentary by those who knew him well—the book is a lavish tribute to an artist who made a lasting impact not just on the art world, but on the world of AIDS activism as well.

As the book makes clear, from his art school days in Pittsburgh and New York City on, Haring was a nonstop worker, producing thousands of images over the years in media ranging from drawings and paintings to prints, sculptures, posters, billboards, collages, inside and outside wall murals, buttons, T-shirts, and other decorated apparel, body painting, automobile painting, even performance pieces and videos. He was a tireless promoter of himself and his art, but also of

Invitation for Exhibition at Westbeth Painters’ Space, New York, February 1981. © Estate of Keith Haring, from Keith Haring, Rizzoli New York, 2008. This ink-on-paper flyer shows versions of Haring’s Radiant Baby (top) and Dog (bottom) designs.

A main aim of Haring’s art from the start was accessibility. In a Preface to the Rizzoli book, Haring’s friend, the art dealer, curator, and writer Jeffrey Deitch, makes this point by quoting from Haring’s journals:

The public has a right to art.
The public is being ignored by most contemporary artists.
Art is for everybody.
I am interested in making art to be experienced and explored by as many individuals as possible with as many different individual ideas about the given piece with no final meaning attached.

To do so, Haring developed a style that another art dealer and friend, Martin Blinder, described as “easy, tough, gritty, fun, and almost anything you want it to be.” Haring’s work grabs one’s attention because it’s irreverent, witty, colorful, energetic, and above all suggestive; it invites viewers to participate in teasing out its meaning rather than clubbing them over the head with a didactic message.

His artistic approach to AIDS and AIDS activism embodied all these traits. For example, in 1985 he produced Untitled, a large oil/acrylic painting on canvas that at first glance looks like little more than a maze. To be sure, it’s more colorful than the maze-like games one sees in newspapers or magazines, but it hardly seems like a comment on AIDS. Nevertheless, listen to Haring’s own description of the piece, quoted in the book:

There was an AIDS painting—a ten-by-ten-foot yellow painting of this horrible sort of marked man, with this sort of tag around his neck and this red X on the tag and this sort of decaying body turning into flying skulls and a really horrific monster.

Untitled, 1985, acrylic and oil on canvas, 120 by 120 inches (394.8 by 304.8 cm). © Estate of Keith Haring, from Keith Haring, Rizzoli New York, 2008

Even in the art Haring created expressing AIDS activism messages directly—“silence=death,” “safe sex”—the images are playful, fun to look at, and, when reproduced on clothing or buttons, fun to wear.

AIDS did not define the breadth of Haring’s career. But as a gay artist who came to prominence during the early years of the epidemic and whose own life was cut painfully short by the disease, AIDS was an integral part of his personal and artistic experience. How did it affect his work? When contacted for comments on Haring for this article, one of his closest friends, the artist Kenny Scharf, stated: “AIDS affected his art in many ways. One was the subject matter of AIDS itself that he would focus on. Also, the need to produce was heightened by the inevitability of a shortened life—time was of the essence!”

Haring himself said much the same thing in a 1989 interview with David Sheff, published in Rolling Stone magazine and reproduced in the Rizzoli book, where he explained what facing death at an early age meant to him:

Part of the reason that I’m not having trouble facing the reality of death is that it’s not a limitation, in a way. It could have happened any time, and it is going to happen sometime….Everything I do now is a chance to put a—a crown on the whole thing. It adds another kind of intensity to the work that I do now; it’s one of the good things to come from being sick….That’s the point that I’m at now, not knowing where it stops but knowing how important it is to do it now.

When Kenny Scharf was asked what his friendship with Haring meant to him as a person and an artist, he answered: “It’s almost indescribable how much our friendship meant to me. I loved him very much and I miss him daily. He was an inspiration to me as an artist. I learned a lot from him, not only by witnessing his boundless energy, deft hand, and exciting and relevant storytelling, but also by a healthy dose of competition we engaged in.”

Poster for ACT UP, 1989, painting. Courtesy The Keith Haring Foundation. Copyright © Estate of Keith Haring.

One of Haring’s most iconic images was his “Radiant Baby,” the radiance intended by Haring to suggest the power of art, of birth, of life lived fully and exuberantly. In a way, Haring could be called a “radiant artist,” and the Rizzoli book is certainly a fitting testimonial to the legacy he left us all.

For more information on Keith Haring and his art, visit the Keith Haring Foundation Web site at www.haring.com.

Lester Strong is Special Projects Editor of A&U.

October 2008

Photo by Don Harris © Don Harris Photographics, LLC. All rights reserved

—With + love,
HIV-Negative Woman

Dear HIV-Negative Woman,

Okay, there are so many things that I could tell you. But in my opinion he sounds like he is depressed. After finding out that I was HIV-positive the same thing happened to me. I started going out without my friends and I started doing a lot of things that I wouldn’t normally do. I started partying late, drinking a lot and doing drugs.

Then I met someone who helped me. He looked at my apartment, looked at me and held me. He told me, “Let it out,” and then I cried. Now I’m not saying that you should do this with David but what I will say is that, if you really want to help you have to love him, and, now that the simple part is out of the way, check him! It is time to not let him get away with anything. Evaluate the situation and try to be there for him. He might want to go into counseling as well. Sometimes we can admit things to strangers more easily than we can admit things to friends and family. HIV is a tough cookie to swallow—when some of us are diagnosed we become instantly depressed and HIV feeds on that depression. We should never go down without a fight. I say this because I most definitely will not and neither should David. Try to pull him out of his rut. Love him and then show him.

Dear Justin,

I’ve decided to stop taking my meds. They make me tired all the time and I don’t like what they’ve done to my cholesterol or skin. I have been watching one of your videos on Justin’s HIV Journal and I see that you were going through the same thing. Do you have any advice for me?

—Divo

Divo,
You bet I do. This matter I take rather seriously. Take supplements to help level your cholesterol and watch what you eat as it also contributes to skin care as well.

Now, let’s talk about you wanting to stop taking your meds. It’s your choice, but be aware of the consequences. You’re going to leave yourself open to more infections because HIV disrupts your immune system and the meds that you’re taking are not only helping to stop HIV from becoming unmanageable they are also helping your body to keep fighting against other infections. Like cancer. Your body fights off cancer cells every day; when someone has HIV the body starts concentrating on HIV but has to have enough T-cells to fight against the cancer as well.

Analyze why you wish to stop taking meds. My friend Joshua just died on the 19th of March because he stopped taking his meds. He got sick and he passed away. His name goes on a list of so many others that I have known and I’m only thirty-two.

All in all, stay on your meds.

Justin B. Terry-Smith has been fighting the good fight since 1999. He’s garnered recognition and awards for his work, but he’s more concerned about looking for new ways to transform society for the better than resting on his laurels. He started up in gay rights and HIV activism in 2005, published an HIV-themed children’s book, I Have A Secret (Creative House Press) in 2011, and created his own award-winning video blog called, “Justin’s HIV Journal” (justinshivjournal.blogspot.com). Now, with this column, Justin has found a way to give voice to the issues that people write to him about. Visit his main Web site at www.justinbsmith.com. He welcomes your questions at jsmithco98@hotmail.com.

April 2012

Newly acquired by Galen from Gilead Sciences, DaunoXome (daunorubicin citrate liposome injection) is an anthracycline chemotherapy agent indicated for advanced HIV-associated Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS). First approved in the United States in 1996, DaunoXome is only recently back on the market.

Associated with the human herpes virus 8, KS is a common malignancy affecting the skin and internal organs. It is the most prevalent HIV-associated malignancy worldwide, affecting up to twenty percent of people with AIDS who are not on antiretrovirals. The cancer mostly affects men.

In the early days of the pandemic the red and purple patches on the skin, one of the symptoms of KS, became perhaps the best known of all the AIDS-defining illnesses. KS became less common in the nineties in developed countries as improved AIDS treatments became available. KS is re-emerging aggressively, however, and treatments are needed. In a September 2007 article published in the International Journal of Nanomedicine, Christin E. Petre and Dirk P. Dittmer state: “Yet, even today, less than 50% of all KS patients in the US, i.e., with ready access to HAART, reach the 5-year survival mark. The outlook is even worse for the growing number of African American KS patients.”

For some patients, treatment with HAART and its effects on the immune system keep KS from developing or at bay. Those patients fall into the first of two broad categories of AIDS-related Kaposi’s sarcoma patients, says oncologist Anil Tulpule, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, at the Norris Cancer Center in Los Angeles. He explains: “When we first see a patient, if the patient has lesions only on the skin and fewer than ten to twenty lesions, with no associated edema or swelling and [with no] lymph node, lung, or GI tract involvement (those are the extra skin involvements), they fall into a category called limited disease and these are patients whom we can just treat with HAART. And their disease either stabilizes or even responds.”

He explains the other category: “If the patients have any one of the following: more than twenty lesions, or if the disease grows at a pace of more than ten new skin lesions per month, or if they have gastrointestinal, lung, or lymph node involvement, or if their skin lesions are associated with edema—these are the patients classified as having disseminated disease. And unfortunately this cannot be controlled with HAART alone. So these are the patients who need chemotherapy and DaunoXome is a first-line chemotherapy drug for these patients.”

DaunoXome has a delivery system different than other conventional anthracyclines. Encapsulated in a protective coating called a liposome, the drug molecules remain in the body longer, and thus more of the treatment is delivered to cancer cells. “The first treatment for KS was a combination of doxorubicin, bleomycin, and vincristine—we used to call it the ABV combination. This combination was restrictive by the side effects of each drug,” says Dr. Tulpule. “ABV combination in a Phase III study was compared to DaunoXome as a single agent. This study was published in 1996. The conclusion was that the efficacy of DaunoXome as a single agent was comparable to the ABV combination. So it was like using one drug instead of three drugs with comparative efficacy.”

DaunoXome can also produce negative side effects, including a decrease in the production of blood cells, resulting in a suppressed immune system and an increased susceptibility to infections, and cardiac toxicity and congestive heart failure, among others.

In conclusion, Dr. Tulpule commented on the need for DaunoXome in resource-limited settings. “What has happened in the past is DaunoXome has been the first-line treatment for patients who need chemotherapy and Taxol is traditionally the second-line agent for people who fail DaunoXome or Doxil, another liposomal anthracycline. DaunoXome has not been available for a couple of years now. Recently Doxil was not available; I’ve heard that is also being made available now. What has happened is we have had to treat these patients with Taxol, which we would have otherwise reserved as a second-line. So what I am saying is that we’ve had to burn our bridge, so to speak…So, yes, there has been a void which we would love to be filled.”

Chael Needle wrote about education and advocacy Web site, HIVHealthReform.org in the February issue.

April 2012

Read My Lips, (men), 1988

An incendiary statement: implicit in O’Connor’s assertion was more than simple ignorance, or willful distortion of the effect of public health; his attack on advances toward safe sex and efforts to provide safe needle exchanges also reiterated the misconception that HIV/AIDS was an indictment of character rather than a pandemic. His implication that “good medicine” could be found by exercising abstinence or denying one’s sexual orientation was more than damaging—it was deadly. In a time when AIDS was misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and rapidly spreading, discouraging condom use essentially ensured a higher rate of transmission. O’Connor’s explicit choice of words—his decision to embed “truth” in a subjective context—was a manipulation not unfamiliar to those working in the field of AIDS activism, but his position of power allowed a wide reach and undoubtedly affected the attitudes of many. O’Connor understood the impact of language, and of its reliable second life via media dissemination, and capitalized on it.

But he wasn’t the only one: Even as O’Connor made a mockery of medical science and social progress, NYC activist art collective Gran Fury was challenging the institutional suggestion that health belonged in the private sector, or that morality transcended sexuality. The members of Gran Fury (named after the car the NYPD used as unmarked vehicles) countered messages like O’Connor’s by creating art posters and billboards displaying positive images and texts of homosexuality and safe sex. By using the streets as a means of communication, and by mimicking the language of advertising, Gran Fury insisted that conversations about AIDS take place in public—both by reclaiming public spaces and by engaging in a dialogue with citizens and the media. Straightforward, evocative statements like “Read My Lips: Kissing Doesn’t Kill (Greed and Indifference Do)” and “Men Use Condoms or Beat It” provided an opportunity for open idea exchange and raised vital questions among the uninformed—many of whom believed that AIDS was contagious and could be caught by a kiss. The Reagan administration made little effort to combat the many rumors that abounded about AIDS in the 1980s, so it was up to activists and volunteer health professionals to set the record straight. Gran Fury was a major part of this public-image transformation.

This month, 80WSE Galleries, in partnership with NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, presents “Gran Fury: Read My Lips,”

Four Questions, 1993

The show itself is a vibrant mix of reproductions of Gran Fury work and contextual media that put nascent AIDS activism in conversation with the social and political machinations of the 1980s and 1990s (including a massive image of Cardinal O’Connor superimposed with the opening words of this article). Housed in an intimate space at Washington Square Park, the show retains its shock value, despite the passage of two decades. One piece, which depicts four written questions against a white background, has lost none of its emotional punch: Do you resent people with AIDS? Do you trust HIV-negatives? Have you given up hope for a cure? When was the last time you cried? These simple sentences—more impactful as questions than declarations—leave the reader with the responsibility of providing the answers, of filling in the white space.

Women Don’t Get AIDS, 1991, bus shelter sign

Men Use Condoms or Beat It, 1988, silkscreen on crack & peel sticker, 7 by 8 inches, in situ

It’s astonishing, though not unbelievable, for those paying attention to the so-called culture wars, that the current Pope continues to promote abstinence, not contraception or education, to combat sexually transmitted disease. Twenty-five years after the members of Gran Fury galvanized a cultural and political attitude toward action and acceptance, the world again needs an infusion of reactive energy. Perhaps more importantly, though, and as the diffuse OWS movement exemplifies, the untapped reserves of action need direction. The importance of this retrospective may lie less in its reintroduction to an art world that has long since accepted its place in a different political economy, and more in its ability to provide an example of how stagnant large-scale citizen response to AIDS has become. Devastating statistics are still released—for example, data presented in March 2012 from a Johns Hopkins University study announced that African-American women in Baltimore, New York, and other cities are infected at a rate five times higher than the national average—to little collective outrage. The potent triad of government, pharmaceutical companies, and cultural affluence is an effective distraction and convincing advertiser of its message. It seems the most ubiquitous line from Gran Fury’s campaign remains its most apt: “Corporate Greed, Government Inaction, and Public Indifference Makes AIDS a Political Crisis.”

For more information about 80wse’s upcoming shows, visit http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/80wse/.

Angela Leroux-Lindsey is a Manhattan-based freelance writer.