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REPORT: Thousands Attend Opening of US Conference on AIDS 2011

The first in a series on the US Conference on AIDS for the Black AIDS Institute. It's being syndicated across Black-owned and HIV/AIDS news media. The conference sponsored by the National Minority AIDS Council is the largest HIV/AIDS gathering in the nation.

The target population of USCA 2011 was gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM). Black MSM continue to suffer most in the domestic epidemic. New HIV infections among Black MSM ages 13-29 rose an alarming 48 percent between 2006 and 2009, reports the CDC.

The opening plenary featured David Furnish, chair of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, as its keynote speaker. The plenary was moderated by CNN anchor Don Lemon--probably the nation's highest-profile Black gay man--and featured Arizona State Senator Jack Jackson, former Project Runway contestant Mondo Guerra and BeiBei Ye, director of the Zhixing Guangzhou LGBT Center in China.

The rising number of new HIV infections among Black MSM youths "has been the case for the last few years, but I'm very glad to see that it's getting some attention," said Isaiah Webster III, director of capacity building at the Washington, D.C.-based Metro TeenAIDS. "It's not often you see that in a conference plenary."

Read the full report HERE.

VIDEO: Activists Disrupt USCA to Protest Gilead's Atripla Pricing

CHICAGO: Several dozen HIV/AIDS advocates peacefully disrupted the U.S. Conference on AIDS (USCA) only minutes after it officially opened Thursday morning. The action was targeted at pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences and its controversial pricing of the anti-retroviral medication Atripla.

The group encircled Gilead's conference booths with a red ribbon, wore masks of Gilead CEO John C. Martin, held signs that read "Occupy Gilead" and chanted "Gilead is the 1%." Gilead is a lead sponsor of  USCA 2011.

"The exhibit hall was only open a half hour and [the] action began around Gilead and their pricing," Amanda Lugg Director of Advocacy & Mobilization of the New York City-based African Services Committee told R20.  "I was very pleased to see that."

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than 9,000 people across the U.S. are on waiting lists for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, the federal/state program that helps low-income, people living with HIV/AIDS pay for their expensive medications. Despite this fact, the cost of Atripla went up by 5.1 percent, while Truvada and Emtriva increased by 7.9 percent. The oft-prescribed Atripla is at the top of the unaffordable list, priced at $10,000 per patient per year.

Gilead's Truvada, which recently made news in studies for post- and pre-exposure prophylaxis, can cost up to $14,000 per year.

Gilead is maintaining a price freeze for drugs going toward ADAP but the general price increase is expected to "increase costs to Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies."

The recession has forced a number of states to slash funding to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. Those in the program are disproportionately Black, Latino, gay/bisexual men and women. In 2010, at least a dozen states closed enrollment in ADAP.

NOTE: Gilead Sciences occasionally advertises on R20.

Watch videos of the protest AFTER THE JUMP ...