FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Natalie Shure
natalie.shure@
Treatment Action Group Adds Three New Board Members
Additions Paired with Celebration of 30 Years Since Organization Was Founded
New York, NY, August 18, 2022 –As it celebrates its 30th Anniversary year, Treatment Action Group (TAG) announced the election of David Puente, Michael Montero and Ivy Kwan Arce to its Board of Directors. Board President Rob Lennon said, “We’re thrilled to welcome David, Michael and Ivy to our Board. They bring an impressive array of personal and professional experiences to TAG and will be excellent stewards of the organization’s mission as we enter our fourth decade fighting to ensure that all people living with or impacted by HIV, Tuberculosis, or Hepatitis C receive lifesaving treatment, care, and information.”
David Puente is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and communications consultant who has worked closely with many of the country’s most renowned public institutions, corporations, and public figures, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Wall Street Journal, Anderson Cooper, and Barbara Walters, among others. He also founded the Leo and Angelo Puente Memorial Fund, which honors the lives of his late brothers and awards scholarships to students in Newark, New Jersey. David previously served on the Advisory Board of the Latino Commission on AIDS. Upon his appointment to the board of the Treatment Action Group, David said: “I am eager to contribute to an organization I have admired for so long, whose mission is so essential, and whose important work and exceptional successes have been driven by dogged, courageous, and steadfast activists and leaders in the community.”
Mr. Montero is a licensed social worker focused on the social determinants of health related to HIV/AIDS, sexual health and LGBTQ+ health issues. He has often collaborated in coalition with TAG and other allies, on community mobilization events including National Latino AIDS Awareness Day and on a working group focused on health topics specific to Latino gay, bi and trans men. Mr. Montero is excited to strengthen his ties with an organization that shares his goals and interests and help advance its values: “I am very inspired by the history of TAG and its contributions advancing public health,” he said. “I want to be part of making an impact for disenfranchised groups, and help grow TAG’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to spearhead progress in policy spaces.”
Ms. Kwan Arce is an artist and long-term survivor of HIV who was honored at TAG’s 2021 Research in Action Awards for her years of activism and community organizing. Since becoming an activist with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in the early 1990s, she has been a crusader for visibility, research inclusion and funding for women and Asians and Pacific Islanders living with HIV. She has also served as a member of the New York City HIV and AIDS Planning Council, and ACT UP’s working group on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV. Ms. Kwan Arce also credits TAG’s science-based advocacy with accelerating the development of treatments that made it possible for both her sons to be born without HIV and is joining the board with hopes of transforming other women’s lives too. “TAG saved my life,” she said. “In gratitude, I want to help broaden our reach among women and children globally.”
TAG Executive Director Mark Harrington encouraged TAG’s partners and supporters to join in welcoming these three talented and passionate individuals to the organization. “We are honored to have their perspectives shaping our work, and cannot wait to do great things together,” he said.
About Treatment Action Group
Treatment Action Group (TAG) is an independent, activist, and community-based research and policy think tank committed to racial, gender, and LGBTQ+ equity; social justice; and liberation, fighting to end HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and hepatitis C virus (HCV).
TAG catalyzes open collective action by affected communities, scientists, and policymakers to ensure that all people living with or impacted by HIV, TB, or HCV — especially communities of color and other marginalized communities experiencing inequities — receive life-saving prevention, diagnosis, treatment, care, and information.
We are science-based activists working to expand and accelerate vital research and effective community engagement with research and policy institutions for an end to the HIV, TB, and HCV pandemics.
Learn more about TAG’s mission, vision, and values.