In this episode Ernest Hopkins, the Foundation's Director of Federal Affairs, talks about the reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act. On the eve of the White House signing ceremony, Ernest reveals the importance of providing life-sustaining care for people living with HIV and AIDS through Ryan White as health care reform makes its way through Congress.

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Ernest Hopkins is responsible for implementing the San Francisco AIDS Foundation's federal policy advocacy agenda. He is a well-known HIV/AIDS advocate and was instrumental in the passage of the current Ryan White CARE Act. Mr. Hopkins has led the advocacy efforts of the CAEAR Coalition and the National AIDS Housing Coalition and is a founder of the National Black Gay Men’s Advocacy Coalition.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

Recent results from a study trial in Thailand provide the first glimpse of hope that we may someday have a vaccine that protects people from HIV infection. In this episode, Mitchell Warren, Executive Director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, reviews these new scientific findings with the Foundation's Erik Ireland and explains what the results mean…and what they don't.

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Mitchell Warren is the Executive Director of AVAC, an international non-governmental organization that uses public education, policy analysis, advocacy and community mobilization to accelerate the ethical development and global delivery of AIDS vaccines and other HIV prevention options. He previously served as Senior Director for Vaccine Preparedness at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). Warren spent six years at Population Services International (PSI) designing and implementing social marketing, communications and health promotion activities, including five years running PSI's project in South Africa. He has a B.A. in English and History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied health policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health.

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The Foundation partners with many organizations to reduce new HIV infections and increase access to care for people living with HIV. In this episode, Dana Van Gorder, Executive Director of Project Inform, discusses HIV treatment as HIV prevention, PrEP and the importance of the National HIV/AIDS Treatment and Information Hotline.

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Dana Van Gorder is the Executive Director of Project Inform, a national non-profit agency assisting in the development of treatments for HIV infection, providing treatment information to HIV-positive individuals, engaging in advocacy to meet the health care needs of low-income HIV-positive people, and advocating for bio-medical prevention strategies. Prior to this position, Dana was the Director of State & Local Policy for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. In that role, he developed and monitored legislation and advocated for funding to assure the highest possible response to the epidemic in California and Sacramento. Dana served as the Coordinator of Lesbian & Gay Health Services for the San Francisco Department of Public Health and is a former legislative aide to two members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors - Harry Britt and Carole Migden.

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One of the least understood areas of HIV research is the ongoing hunt for a vaccine to prevent infection. In this episode, Jen Sarché of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, answers questions about the 505 Study, a new HIV vaccine trial being conducted by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network at the National Institutes of Health. San Francisco is one of ten nationwide sites for the 505 Study, designed to increase our understanding of the T-cell's response to infection. Jen will work with partners across the region—including the San Francisco AIDS Foundation—to raise understanding about HIV vaccines and how individuals can get involved in the search.

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Jennifer Sarché, MPH, is the San Francisco Department of Public Health's Director of Community Programs in the HIV Research Section. She has seven years of experience in engaging communities in HIV prevention research including pre-exposure prophylaxis, and behavioral interventions. Currently, Jen manages the recruitment teams for various prevention studies and is actively involved with the creation of ad campaigns and communications strategies targeted to communities most vulnerable to infection throughout he Bay Area.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

In this episode, Steve Gibson, director of Magnet, the Foundation's gay men's health center in the Castro, discusses his upcoming presentation at the 2009 National HIV Prevention Conference. Magnet is on the forefront of RNA testing for HIV in a community setting, helping locate cases of acute HIV infection among gay men in San Francisco and moving the Foundation closer to a goal of having every San Francisco resident between the ages of 13 and 65 know their current HIV status by 2015. Steve shares some of the information that this unique perspective is revealing.

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Steve Gibson has been director of Magnet since he helped launch it six years ago. Prior to joining Magnet, he worked for nearly 11 years at the STOP AIDS Project. Gibson earned his MSW at St. Louis University where he specialized in Community Organizing and Social Justice.

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While signing the state budget, Governor Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto power to slash an additional $52 million in funding for HIV/AIDS programs. That cut, which eliminates all state support for HIV testing, prevention and care, came on top of the more than $30 million already agreed to by the Legislature in order to balance the budget. In this episode, Courtney Mulhern-Pearson – the Foundation’s Legislative and Policy Associate – gives us an update on the governor's last-minute HIV budget cuts and efforts underway to reverse them.

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Courtney Mulhern-Pearson is responsible for monitoring, analysis and advocacy on a range of HIV-related public policy initiatives at the federal, state and local levels of government. Prior to joining the Foundation, Mulhern-Pearson worked for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where she led outreach efforts on the Medicare part D drug benefit targeting HIV providers. She received her Masters in Public Health with an emphasis on Health Policy and Management from the University of California, Berkeley.

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In this episode Dale Gluth, the HIV Counseling Testing & Linkages Manager at Magnet, discusses sexual harm reduction and how it factors into a comprehensive strategy for combating new HIV infections in San Francisco. Located in the heart of San Francisco's Castro district, Magnet offers free sexual health services including HIV and STD testing for gay and bisexual men.

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Magnet, developed by community leaders and activists, provides sexually transmitted infection services -- including HIV testing and screening -- to the Castro, the neighborhood which continues to have the greatest concentration of new HIV infections in San Francisco, along with a space for gay men to socialize.

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In this episode Ernest Hopkins, the Foundation's Director of Federal Affairs, talks about the Obama administration's progress on the National AIDS Strategy, the recent White House reception with LGBT leaders on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and the progress being made toward lifting the US ban on HIV-positive foreign travelers.

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Ernest Hopkins is responsible for implementing the San Francisco AIDS Foundation's federal policy advocacy agenda. He is a well-known HIV/AIDS advocate and was instrumental in the passage of the current Ryan White CARE Act. Mr. Hopkins has led the advocacy efforts of the CAEAR Coalition and the National AIDS Housing Coalition and is a founder of the National Black Gay Men’s Advocacy Coalition.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

HIV/AIDS services in California narrowly escaped draconian cuts in the first budget the governor sent to the State legislature. The San Francisco AIDS Foundation and peer organizations all over the State went to work immediately to fight cuts to prevention, HIV testing, surveillance and treatment for more than 35,000 Californians. In this episode of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation podcast, Peter Taback shares details of the current budget compromise and reminds us that basic advocacy tools are still effective.

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Peter Taback is Vice President for Communications and Marketing at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, responsible for cultivating external audiences to understand and support the Foundation's mission, access the Foundation's array of services, and increase awareness about HIV/AIDS in the Bay Area and globally. Peter previously served as Director of Communications at amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, in New York and is a founding member of the Caucus for Evidence-Based Prevention.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

In this episode, a discussion about the revised California state budget with Courtney Mulhern-Pearson, the Foundation's Legislative and Policy Associate. Governor Schwarzenegger's current buget revision cuts all state funding for HIV prevention and education. Find out what effects this may have and what can be done to help restore the funding.

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Courtney Mulhern-Pearson is responsible for monitoring, analysis and advocacy on a range of HIV-related public policy initiatives at the federal, state and local levels of government. Prior to joining the Foundation, Mulhern-Pearson worked for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where she led outreach efforts on the Medicare part D drug benefit targeting HIV providers. She received her Masters in Public Health with an emphasis on Health Policy and Management from the University of California, Berkeley.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

In this episode, we'll hear an edited excerpt from our recent HIVision forum entitled “Is HIV Treatment HIV Prevention?” An audience member asked our panel about possible disparities in access to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP). We'll hear Dr. Robert Grant's answer explaining the relationship between biomedical HIV prevention and issues of social justice and stigma.

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HIVision is an ongoing forum series bringing research and evidence to bear on timely policy and programmatic issues. As thinking on HIV/AIDS continues to evolve, HIVision provides a safe venue to engage the community on potentially controversial topics. For the full audio recording of this HIVision forum and downloads of the supporting documents, please visit our web site at http://www.sfaf.org/hivision.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

In this episode, a discussion with Moupali Das-Douglas, M.D., M.P.H. She is the Director of the Research Unit of the HIV Prevention Section at the San Francisco Dept. of Public Health and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Division of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Diseases at UCSF. We'll be talking about her research on community HIV viral load and why just getting people on HIV meds isn't enough. Even in San Francisco, health disparities often related to factors including race, poverty and homelessness contribute to much higher viral load in some communities.

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Dr. Das-Douglas is an internist and infectious diseases/HIV specialist at Ward 86 and at San Francisco General Hospital. Her research interests are best described as the evaluation of public health interventions to prevent HIV acquisition and transmission. She has developed a novel population-based biomarker, community viral load, to measure the success of both HIV prevention and treatment interventions within a particular community. She is currently studying whether differences in community viral load predict disparities in HIV incidence among different neighborhoods in San Francisco. She is applying advanced geospatial analytic methods to better understand the structural factors that affect the geography of HIV transmission.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

In this episode, a discussion with Reilly O'Neal, editor of BETA, the Foundation's Bulletin of Experimental Treatments for AIDS. Recent studies offer evidence and raise questions about the role of antiretroviral medications in curbing the spread of HIV. Questions such as "Are HIV-positive people who take antiretroviral drugs less likely to transmit the virus?" Find out what's being done to answer these questions and the relationship between HIV treatment and HIV prevention.

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You can join the discussion on these issues at our HIVision forum in San Francisco on Wednesday, April 29th entitled "Is HIV Treatment HIV Prevention?" For more information or to RSVP for this event, visit the HIVision page on sfaf.org.

Prior to joining the Foundation, O'Neal was the managing editor of Studies in Comparative International Development, a quarterly journal exploring political, social, and economic issues—including drug patenting laws—in developing countries. She holds a master's degree in biomedical anthropology.

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In this episode, Dr. Bob Grant, Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and an investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology, discusses the PrEP Initiative study. These trials are trying to determine whether HIV medications given to HIV negative people at higher risk of infection will help reduce the amount new infections.

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Dr. Grant will be a speaker at our HIVision forum in San Francisco on Wednesday, April 29th entitled "Is HIV Treatment HIV Prevention?" For more information or to RSVP for this event, visit http://www.sfaf.org/hivision.

Dr. Bob Grant has 26 years of experience with AIDS research and clinical care. He is currently the protocol chair for the PREP Initiative study, a global clinical trial of PrEP among men and MTF transsexual people who also receive standard prevention care. The study is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health with co-funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The study is enrolling in the United States, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, South Africa, and Thailand.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

In this episode, Dr. Marsha Martin, the Director of Get Screened Oakland, discusses why everyone should get an HIV test. Nationally, one in four people who are HIV positive do not know it. One of the strategic goals of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation is to have every San Francisco resident between 13 to 64 know their current HIV status by 2015.

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Dr. Marsha Martin was the architect of the first city-wide testing program in Washington DC. She was also the special assistant on HIV/AIDS policy to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Donna Shalala under President Clinton. Before joining HHS, Martin was the coordinator for homeless veterans' initiatives at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as the executive director of the Federal Interagency Council on the Homeless at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Martin earned her BA in psychology and Masters of Social Work from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, and her Doctorate in Social Work from Columbia University, New York, New York.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

In this episode, a discussion with Dr. Jae Sevelius, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies. Dr. Sevelius recently completed a study on transgender men who have sex with men which sheds light on high-risk behaviors in a community that is difficult to reach. We'll talk about why we may see a rise in HIV prevalence among these men in the near future and what can be done to prevent it. For additional information, read the San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s HIV Evidence Report on factors that contribute to disproportionate HIV prevalence in the transgender population.

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Dr. Sevelius is the Principal Investigator of an NIH/NIMH-funded project to develop a culturally specific HIV prevention intervention for transgender women and the Co-Principal Investigator of the Transitions Project, which provides capacity building assistance and technical assistance to community based organizations to promote knowledgeable, sensitive, and effective HIV/AIDS prevention for transgender communities of color and transgenders living with HIV. She is also Co-Principal Investigator of the Center of Excellence for Transgender HIV Prevention, a statewide effort to provide leadership, capacity building, professional training, policy advocacy, research development, and resources to increase access to culturally competent HIV prevention services for transgender people in California.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

In this episode, Courtney Mulhearn-Pearson, the Foundation's Policy and Legislative Associate, explains about how California's current phlebotomy laws may be hampering efforts to increase HIV testing in the state and what the Foundation is doing to help to change this. In 1999, California required anyone doing finger-prick blood testing to obtain a limited phlebotomy certificate.

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Courtney Mulhern-Pearson is responsible for monitoring, analysis and advocacy on a range of HIV-related public policy initiatives at the federal, state and local levels of government. Prior to joining the Foundation, Mulhern-Pearson worked for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where she led outreach efforts on the Medicare part D drug benefit targeting HIV providers. She received her Masters in Public Health with an emphasis on Health Policy and Management from the University of California, Berkeley.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

In this episode, a discussion with Dr. Robert Fullilove, the Associate Dean for Community and Minority Affairs and Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. February 7, 2009 will mark the ninth National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Dr. Fullilove talks about the progress being made in HIV prevention for African Americans and where programs are still falling short.

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Robert E. Fullilove, EdD currently co-directs the Community Research Group at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University along with his wife, Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD. They are also co-directors of a degree program in Urbanism and the Built Environment in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

In this episode, Dr. Kathleen Clanon will be discussing the best ways for people with HIV and their health care providers to make the most of their time together. Dr. Clanon is an internist specializing in the care of people with HIV and she practices at Alameda County Medical Center in Oakland, where she is also the Medical Director of HIV Services.

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Dr. Clanon co-wrote an article for the upcoming Winter 2009 issue of BETA, the Foundation's Bulletin of Experimental Treatments for AIDS, entitled "Making the Most Out of Your Medical Visits." In addition to taking care of patients and directing HIV programs, Dr. Clanon works as a teacher and is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at UCSF and director of the East Bay AIDS Education and Training Center.

If you'd like to be notified when new issues of BETA become available, sign up for the BETA email list in the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Action Center at action.sfaf.org. To read the current issue of BETA online or browse the archive of past issues, visit sfaf.org/beta. For a free subscription to the print edition, call 415-487-8060 or email your request to beta@sfaf.org.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.

In this episode, a discussion with Mark Cloutier, the Foundation's Chief Executive Officer. We'll take a look ahead and find out what effects the incoming Obama administration may have on the fight against HIV/AIDS here in the United States in 2009.

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In addition to more than 20 years of public policy and legislative affairs work in the health arena in San Francisco, Sacramento and Washington, D.C., Mark Cloutier has extensive training and experience as a bioethicist.  He has consulted with a wide array of health care organizations in the public and private sectors to address ethical issues in service delivery systems, pricing structures, benefits coverage and application of medical technology.

To listen to our podcast on your computer or mp3 player, download this episode of the SFAF Podcast. If you need podcast help or would like to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another program, please visit our podcast help page.