In This Issue

On October 24th, in Baltimore, the Black AIDS Institute and the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will cosponsor the H& Health and Hip Hop Conference, a free, men-only event, where young men can discuss sex, sexuality and sexual health and develop "responsible sexual swag". The daylong event is intended to confront rising HIV rates among young Black men, including gay and bisexual, or same-gender-loving, men attending HBCUs. In this issue, we run the first in a series about the conference by introducing you to H&'s keynote speaker, HIV/AIDS activist William Brawner.

Next, the CDC supports the WHO's new Early Release HIV Treatment and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) guidelines that will significantly increase the number of people eligible for anti-retroviral treatments and expand access to a powerful tool for preventing HIV among high-risk negatives.

Last year, HIV activist Matthew Murguia wrote an article for the HHS Office of Minority Health on the difficulties gay men and lesbians often have accessing quality health care. Here, he updates that conversation to describe the difficulty he had accessing PrEP.

New research shows that transgender adults who experience greater amounts of discrimination are more likely to smoke cigarettes, abuse alcohol and drugs and attempt suicide. Our friends at the National Library of Medicine report.

Finally, as Medicaid expansion continues, community health centers have become the largest primary-care system for low-income patients. Kaiser Health News reports on states' efforts to absorb large numbers of new patients.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill