April 14,2006
Volume 27, Number 8
Serving the Carolinas For Over 25 Years!
LGBT Health Outlook Upbeat
LGBT Health Reps
Optimistic at Spring
Meeting
ByBobRothr V -
Contributing Writer ’
Members of the National
Coalition for LGBT Health were .
upbeat as they met in Washington,
DC on March 19.The just conclud
ed LGBT Health Awareness Week
had generated a record number of
hits on their website, while grow
ing numbers of. programs and
increased funding offer better
ways to serve the community.
"One of the biggest accomplish
ments is that we have maintained
a powerful and legitimate pres
ence in government given the hos
tility and antipathy" toward the
gay community front many mem* .
bers of the Bush administratiarv
said Barbara Warren, director of
planning and research at the LGBT
Community Center in New York
City.
Joel Ginsberg, executive director
of the Gay and Lesbian Medical
Association (GLMA), said they are
working with the Human Rights
Campaign (HRC) and others to
develop a Healthcare Quality
Index that will rate hospitals on
their policies toward GLBT
patients and employees. It is based
upon the survey developed by
HRC for their workplace project
and will be compatible with die
standards of the Joint Commission
on Accreditation of Healthcare
Organizations (JACO).
"It opens die door to issues of
cultural competency" in serving ,
LGBT patients, said Kathleen i
DeBold, executive director of The
Mautner Project for lesbians with
cancer. She said the business'
model is most appropriate for
large institutions like hospitals.
The rating system could later be
adapted and rolled out to other set
tings like community clinics.
Health issues are an increasingly
Joel
Ginsberg
Andrea
Dean Wigder and Joel Ginsberg at the meeting on the National
Coalition for L.GBT Health
important component of the public
debate over LGBT political rights.;.
Hospital visitation and healthcare
are winning elements in die dis
cussion over gay marriage and
domestic partnerships.
HRC lobbyist Dena Wigder said
increased funding for abstinence
only programs of sex education
and HIV prevention "is really, real
ly alarming." She said the newest
restrictions not only require teach
ing that sexual activity should be
only within .marriage, but it must
be defined as a union between a
man and a woman. "It's not about
health, it's about ideology. It's try
ing to make the LGBT community
invisible."
One way mainstream health
advocates are trying to strike back
is with a provision in an appropri
ations bill requiring that "all feder
al funding for sexuality education
programs must be medically accu
rate," Wigder said. About 120 con
gressmen have signed on as
cosponsors. The religious right has
tried to strip out the "peer-review"
language, because much of the
"data" behind their positions
would not survive the peer-review
process of medical journals.
Ginsberg said Den£oaaticmcat
bers of Congress are proposing a
. federal health disparities bill. "It
dcis not address LGBT popula
tions, it addresses all of the other
populations that have demonstrat
ed health disparities—immigrants,
rural populations, women, and
racial and ethnic minorities."
GLMA spoke with Rep Donna
M. Christensen (D-Virgin Islands),
a leader of the Congressional Black
Caucus on health issues. She
added LGBT-indusive language in
the House version of the bill, but it
got dropped in conference with the
Senate. "We don't know exactly
why that happened." Ginsberg
called it "an opportunity for our
community to lobby around that
bill. It's an interesting educational
tool."
The National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force is creating an inventory
and profile of the services, capaci
ty, and funding of as many LGBT
social services and healthcare orga
nizations as possible, said policy
director Eldie Acheson.
They also are working with 7-10
agencies a year "to seek earmarks"
to federal appropriations legisla
tion, seeking to direct funds to
individual LGBT service provider
continued on page 11
By Bob Roehr
Contributing Writer
"There is little formal education about sexu
al minority groups included in medical train-,
ing. As a result otherwise knowledgeable
providers are often uninformed about basic
issues essential to providing high quality care"
to LGBT patients.
That is not news to many in the community,
but the fact that it is being said in foe presti
gious New England Journal of Medicine car
ries more weight. The article "Improving
. Health Care for the Lesbian and Gay
Community" appears in the March 2 edition.
It was written by Harvey J. Makadon, upm
lessor at Harvard Medical School who also is
affiliated with the gay oriented Fenway
Community Health.
4* In the article, he reoouniS how toe decision
to come out to his own physician at die we of
forty nearly two decades ago, was "a huge
issue, and for many people it remains so today.
In places like Boston and San Francisco we
tend not to think about that" he said in this
exclusive interview.
Makadon believes that for many physicians,
it is primarily a lack of education on aspects of
how: the LGBT patient may differ fro hetero
sexual counterparts that leads to less than opti
mal care. He points out a number of those dif
ferences in the article.
Sexually active gay men have a much high
er need to be vaccinated for hepatitis B
because that activity can put them at greater
risk of exposure to me virus. Hepatitis B infec
| tion can lead to serious liver damage,
ffc ' - Many physicians assume that lesbians are at
low or no risk for cenncal cancer and so skimp
on pap smears that screen forearly lesions that
. may develop into cancer In fad, many les
bians have had sex with men early in their
lives, and infection with the sexually transmit
ted human papillomavirus (HFV), which can
. cause cervical cancel is quite common. h can
take decades fof dysplasia and cancer to
ff develop from that exposure^ so screening is
essential
4
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