Recognising the important role that the media plays in communicating to the public what exactly it means to live with HIV today, NAT has produced a guide for journalists which will help journalists and editors report HIV issues responsibly. This practical guide gives people working in the media up-to-date information on HIV and sources of further information to help ensure that your reporting is accurate and non-stigmatising.

These guidelines are supported by the National Union of Journalists, the Press Complaints Commission and the Society of Editors.

Understanding the advance in knowledge and treatment around HIV is vital to reporting accurately about HIV.  Accurate reporting benefits public health, dispels myths, undermines prejudice and increases understanding. It contributes positively to the way HIV is addressed around the world.

‘At The Sun we pride ourselves on getting the facts right and staying up to date. This can be a challenge in sensitive areas like HIV.  NAT’s guidelines for journalists are very useful, really simple to work with and lay out all the facts reporters need.’

Graham Dudman, Managing Editor, The Sun

“While public and media understanding of HIV and AIDS has improved, it remains vital that the press takes particular care when reporting on these issues - both by being accurate and by respecting the privacy of those who live with either condition.  The PCC has a clear role to play in resolving complaints, upholding and improving standards, and providing a public service to those who have concerns about the press.”

Stephen Abell, Director, Press Complaints Commission

from NAT’s website

Get your copy now

Guidelines for Reporting HIV can be downloaded from NAT’s website here.

In response to the health and social harms of illegal drugs, a large international drug prohibition regime has been developed under the umbrella of the United Nations.¹ Decades of research provide a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the global “War on Drugs” and, as thousands of individuals gather in Vienna at the XVIII International AIDS Conference, the international scientific community calls for an acknowledgement of the limits and harms of drug prohibition, and for drug policy reform to remove barriers to effective HIV prevention, treatment and care.

The evidence that law enforcement has failed to prevent the availability of illegal drugs, in communities where there is demand, is now unambiguous.^{2, 3}Over the last several decades, national and international drug surveillance systems have demonstrated a general pattern of falling drug prices and increasing drug purity—despite massive investments in drug law enforcement.^3,4

Furthermore, there is no evidence that increasing the ferocity of law enforcement meaningfully reduces the prevalence of drug use.⁵ The data also clearly demonstrate that the number of countries in which people inject illegal drugs is growing, with women and children becoming increasingly affected.⁶ Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, injection drug use accounts for approximately one in three new cases of HIV.^{7, 8} In some areas where HIV is spreading most rapidly, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, HIV prevalence can be as high as 70% among people who inject drugs, and in some areas more than 80% of all HIV cases are among this group.⁸

In the context of overwhelming evidence that drug law enforcement has failed to achieve its stated objectives, it is important that its harmful consequences be acknowledged and addressed. These consequences include but are not limited to:

• HIV epidemics fuelled by the criminalisation of people who use illicit drugs and by prohibitions on the provision of sterile needles and opioid substitution treatment.^{9, 10}
• HIV outbreaks among incarcerated and institutionalised drug users as a result of punitive laws and policies and a lack of HIV prevention services in these settings.^11-13
• The undermining of public health systems when law enforcement drives drug users away from prevention and care services and into environments where the risk of infectious disease transmission (e.g., HIV, hepatitis C & B, and tuberculosis) and other harms is increased.^14-16
• A crisis in criminal justice systems as a result of record incarceration rates in a number of nations.^{17, 18} This has negatively affected the social functioning of entire communities. While racial disparities in incarceration rates for drug offences are evident in countries all over the world, the impact has been particularly severe in the US, where approximately one in nine African-American males in the age group 20 to 34 is incarcerated on any given day, primarily as a result of drug law enforcement.¹⁹
• Stigma towards people who use illicit drugs, which reinforces the political popularity of criminalising drug users and undermines HIV prevention and other health promotion efforts.^{20, 21}
• Severe human rights violations, including torture, forced labour, inhuman and degrading treatment, and execution of drug offenders in a number of countries.^{22, 23}
• A massive illicit market worth an estimated annual value of US$320 billion.⁴ These profits remain entirely outside the control of government. They fuel crime, violence and corruption in countless urban communities and have destabilised entire countries, such as Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan.⁴
• Billions of tax dollars wasted on a “War on Drugs” approach to drug control that does not achieve its stated objectives and, instead, directly or indirectly contributes to the above harms.²⁴

Unfortunately, evidence of the failure of drug prohibition to achieve its stated goals, as well as the severe negative consequences of these policies, is often denied by those with vested interests in maintaining the status quo.²⁵This has created confusion among the public and has cost countless lives. Governments and international organisations have ethical and legal obligations to respond to this crisis and must seek to enact alternative evidence-based strategies that can effectively reduce the harms of drugs without creating harms of their own. We, the undersigned, call on governments and international organisations, including the United Nations, to:

• Undertake a transparent review of the effectiveness of current drug policies.
• Implement and evaluate a science-based public health approach to address the individual and community harms stemming from illicit drug use.
• Decriminalise drug users, scale up evidence-based drug dependence treatment options and abolish ineffective compulsory drug treatment centres that violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.²⁶
• Unequivocally endorse and scale up funding for the implementation of the comprehensive package of HIV interventions spelled out in the WHO, UNODC and UNAIDS Target Setting Guide.²⁷
• Meaningfully involve members of the affected community in developing, monitoring and implementing services and policies that affect their lives.

We further call upon the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, to urgently implement measures to ensure that the United Nations system—including the International Narcotics Control Board—speaks with one voice to support the decriminalisation of drug users and the implementation of evidence-based approaches to drug control.²⁸

Basing drug policies on scientific evidence will not eliminate drug use or the problems stemming from drug injecting. However, reorienting drug policies towards evidence-based approaches that respect, protect and fulfil human rights has the potential to reduce harms deriving from current policies and would allow for the redirection of the vast financial resources towards where they are needed most: implementing and evaluating evidence-based prevention, regulatory, treatment and harm reduction interventions.

If you support this, please sign the declaration here.

What’s the issue?

AHPN believes that there is a clear contradiction between the UK’s policy aim of universal access to HIV treatment for all those who need it by 2010 and the deportation of people living with HIV who are on treatment to countries where treatment is not readily available or affordable. The withdrawal of treatment increases the body’s vulnerability to opportunistic infection and will result in drastically shortened life expectancy.

AHPN believes that there are strong public health arguments for allowing a concession.  Those awaiting removal may go underground and fail to keep appointments resulting in an increased risk of opportunistic infection with the need for emergency treatment and an increased risk of onward transmission.  The Department of Health has valued the prevention of one single onward transmission as between £0.5 and £1 million in terms of individual health benefits and treatment costs.

What are AHPN doing?

In commemoration of World AIDS day 2008 the AHPN organised an advocacy day that highlighted the Destination Unknown campaign in a visual way with digital stories and a photo exhibition (you can view the digital stories online at www.panos.org.uk/?lid=27158. The event hosted a diverse panel of speakers including leading experts in the HIV sector, clinicians, politicians and people living with HIV. MPs and their representatives met with constituents to discuss the barriers faced by people living with HIV in the UK and those who live in fear of removal to countries where adequate care may be absent. The event and campaign also received excellent media coverage in national and international media.

The Destination Unknown campaign has been and still is  touring the UK with the help of our member organisations. First stop on this tour was Edinburgh World Justice Festival on 25th May 2009. AHPN, Impact AIDS, HIV Scotland and Waverly Care collectively raises awareness about the campaign and the experiences informing it. Scotland has so far contributed collected around 500 signatures for Destination Unknown.

Let’s make Northern Ireland contribute many signatures too!

What can  you do?

Join AHPN in handing out campaign tools, collecting signatures and raising awareness of the issue!
Take bold action! The AHPN’s ‘Destination Unknown’ Campaign is calling on the Home Office to delay the deportation of people living with HIV, who are on treatment, from the United Kingdom until HIV treatment becomes more widely available and accessible.

You can support the campaign by signing AHPN’s online petition www.gopetition.com/petitions/access-to-lifesaving-hiv-treatment/sign.html

New treatments keep people with HIV alive longer but they age faster, Terrence Higgins Trust and Age UK study shows.

Ground-breaking new research has shown that as the average age of people living with HIV in Britain rises they are facing huge financial and social problems related to their condition.

Produced jointly by the Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) and Age UK, the first national study of its kind looked at the implications of the illness on people over 50, many of whom expected to have died sooner after being diagnosed back in the 1990s before effective treatment was available. Today, someone diagnosed with HIV in their 30s can expect to live into their 70s, with proper treatment.

Read full article by Tracy McVeigh on the Observer website.

Using easysearch for your internet searching will help us raise vital funds to help people living with HIV in Northern Ireland

Are you one of the 6.4m people that use a search engine every day? Did you know you can raise money for The HIV Support Centre while you search?

http://hivsc.easysearch.org.uk combines the results of several search engines such as Yahoo!, Bing and Ask to ensure you can always find what you’re looking for. But the fantastic thing is that EVERY TIME you search, half a penny is raised for The HIV Support Centre. Search just 15 times a day and you can raise around £25 a year for us.

See what people are saying about easysearch

“easysearch is a great idea and just as good as Google for the results! I’ve recommended it to my friends and I think this site is the best around as it does something for people. Well done!”

“What a fantastic idea! I was using Google anyway but this way I get to raise money for my good cause every time I search…brilliant! I’ve made easysearch my homepage!”

So the next time you need to find something online, please use http://hivsc.easysearch.org.uk and raise money for The HIV Support Centre with every search you make.

Monday, 2 August 2010, from 6.30pm
at The HIV Support Centre.

For more information,
please contact Rory on 028 9024 9268
or rory@thehivsupportcentre.org.uk

Drop in will resume on a new evening beginning on Thursday 5 August 2010, running from 5.30 to 9.30 p.m.

Thursday evening is late night shopping in Belfast city centre - so if you’re in town - feel free to drop in.

Not only are raising money for The HIV Support Centre, but we are helping the enviornment at the same time as 100% of the phone collected will be diverted from landfill where they cause serious environmental damage.

If you would like to take part, please send your phones to us, marked for the attention of Michael.

European Man-for-Man Internet Sex Survey 2010

Sigma Research has just launched EMIS - the European gay and bisexual men’s sex survey which incorporates the UKs Gay Men’s Sex Survey also known as Vital Statistics. The survey will be available to complete in 25 languages, until 31st August 2010.

The overall funding for EMIS comes from the European Commission. With a target sample of at least 60,000 gay men and bisexual men EMIS will be the largest survey of this population ever undertaken anywhere in the world. Researchers and gay and HIV organisations from 31 European countries are working together to ensure EMIS is a success.

The questionnaire is about sex, health and relationships. It is anonymous, safe, and relatively short (it takes about 15-25 minutes to complete). Taking part might mean men find out something new and the information they provide will help health promoters to better meet the needs of gay men and bisexual men. A high response rate will also help us send a signal to governments that HIV and sexual health are still very important.

In the UK, EMIS is part-funded by Terrence Higgins Trust on behalf of CHAPS. CHAPS is the national HIV prevention programme funded by the English Department of Health.  In the UK many of the CHAPS partners and more than 50 of the largest and most important gay and HIV  organisations are working with Sigma Research to promote the survey.

Sigma Research have no influence on the results of the survey – but men would do by taking part. We believe it will help gay and bisexual men across Europe to improve their sex lives and reduce the harm that can come from them, including reducing new HIV infections. As soon as the results are available, we will let you know.

Please pass the details of the survey onto as many gay and bisexual men you know who live in the UK.

Take the survey today by clicking here.