Tuesday, February 16, 2016
“Governor Cuomo continues to provide globally unprecedented leadership with New York State’s plan to end AIDS as an epidemic by the year 2020,” said Treatment Action Group executive director Mark Harrington. “With today’s announcement that he will submit legislation allowing minors to consent to receive antiretroviral therapy (ART) or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to treat or prevent HIV infection, New York State moves closer to achieving an AIDS-free generation in this decade. Treatment Action Group salutes the governor’s sustained leadership in these efforts and calls on state legislators to rapidly and unanimously pass this lifesaving, infection-averting legislation to end AIDS and HIV acquisition among our state’s youth.”
Harrington added, “This legislation is necessary to ensure that minors can get high-quality, scientifically proven HIV preventive and therapeutic medications without fear of exposing their HIV status or sexual activity in domestic settings that may subject them to stigma or even violence. This is a vulnerable population, in which rates of new HIV infections are still too high, and this law will serve to reduce new infections and treat existing ones while protecting minors from stigma and discrimination.”
Harrington served on the governor’s Ending the Epidemic Task Force, which created the recommendations in the governor’s Blueprint to End AIDS as an Epidemic by 2020 (available here: http://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/aids/ending_the_epidemic/docs/blueprint.pdf) and serves on the Ending the Epidemic Subcommittee of the New York State AIDS Advisory Council.
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More information on the state’s Ending the Epidemic campaign can be found here: http://etedashboardny.org/. The governor’s announcement appears here:
http://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-proposal-increasing-access-hiv-treatment-teens, and is more fully discussed in this article from today’s New York Times:
Treatment Action Group is an independent AIDS research and policy think tank fighting for better treatment, a vaccine, and a cure for AIDS.
TAG works to ensure that all people with HIV receive lifesaving treatment, care, and information.
We are science-based treatment activists working to expand and accelerate vital research and effective community engagement with research and policy institutions.
TAG catalyzes open collective action by all affected communities, scientists, and policy makers to end AIDS.