Oriol R. Gutierrez Jr.

The June 2013 issue of POZ magazine is online.

Here's an excerpt from my editor's letter:

The big difference among these flags is that the U.S. flag and the Marine Corps flag when displayed send a message of love of country, but the rainbow flag when it's displayed sends a message of love of self: "You are welcome here." I'll never forget how accepted I felt seeing all the rainbow flags waving at my first LGBT pride parade.

It is this sense of acceptance--or rather, the lack of it--that is so dissonant when it comes to HIV stigma among gay men. An essay by Mark S. King--an AIDS advocate, an author and a blogger living with HIV since 1985--explores why it persists.

Our Q&A with Paul Semugoma, MD, reveals not only a lack of acceptance, but also an abundance of intolerance for LGBT people, especially gay men with HIV, in his native Uganda. Case in point: He hasn't gone home since he came out as gay in a speech in Washington, DC, during the XIX International AIDS Conference last year.

To read my complete letter from the editor, click here.

The April/May 2013 issue of POZ magazine is online.

Here's an excerpt from my editor's letter:

I'm a believer in the phrase "hope springs eternal." How else can we explain the perseverance of people in recovery? Or people with HIV/AIDS who, despite living in a world filled with stigma and other obstacles, find a way to live their lives with dignity and optimism?

Jamar Rogers is an excellent example. The semifinalist from season 2 of The Voice has earned admiration from his fans not only for his singing talent but also for his integrity. After Rogers disclosed on the show that he has HIV, he could have chosen to stop there. But he didn't. Through interviews and public service announcements, he has embraced his role as an openly HIV-positive celebrity.

As influential as HIV has been in his life, Rogers also has been forthright in sharing his substance abuse struggles. Substance abuse fuels HIV rates and is prevalent among people with HIV, but it can be overcome. Click here to read more on how Rogers, Lynn Morrow, Michael Weber and other people living with the virus have found the road to recovery.

To read my complete letter from the editor, click here.

The March 2013 issue of POZ magazine is online.

Here's an excerpt from my editor's letter:

Too many people with HIV/AIDS in the United States are not connected to care. The reasons vary, but they all lead to the same sad result--only a small percentage of HIV-positive people in this country are virally suppressed, which is the ultimate goal of treatment.

Monica Johnson, Donald Head and Lisa Mendez all struggled successfully to get and stay linked to care. Go to page 30 to read how they avoided falling through the cracks and how a collective approach that includes patients, providers and advocates working together can start to repair health care for people with HIV/AIDS nationwide.

To read my complete letter from the editor, click here.

Ed Koch

Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York City, has died. He was 88. The only time I ever met him was at a press conference in the late 1980s. I was an undergrad at New York University studying journalism. He was there to answer questions from the student press.

I never got to ask a question, but I did hear a question that I had never before heard asked of a politician and certainly never heard answered: "Are you gay?" was the question. The answer: "No, next question."

Although Koch said those words with a smirk on his face, his tone was noncombative. He looked at no one in particular as he answered, pointing randomly to the crowd to get a quick question that would change the subject.

What strikes me the most about that moment is that his answer in public never changed. Despite his support for LGBT rights, activists have pointed to his closeted life as one of the reasons he didn't do enough for AIDS. Perhaps Koch was a ninja expert at keeping his heterosexuality in the closet, but I would argue the testimony of countless credible sources that he was gay is overwhelming.

While this is all old news to me, I was struck today by a straight colleague who said casually that he had never even heard of the Koch-is-gay stuff until now. Just goes to show how some issues are more relevant to some of us than others. And there's nothing unusual about that.

That phenomenon explains why many folks, even former adversaries of Koch, praised his accomplishments in the wake of his death while others were disturbed by a seemingly deliberate omission of discussion about his inaction in the early days of the AIDS pandemic.

It's not my style to dance on graves. I don't want my loved ones to be hurt by any dancing on my grave, so on this matter I remain a Golden Rule adherent. That said, I do not consider discussing Koch's inaction on AIDS in and of itself as dancing on his grave.

He was a public figure. As such, scrutiny of his public record isn't personal, it's a matter of public concern. And journalists especially shouldn't shy away from telling the facts of the lives of public people, especially in their obituaries.

The New York Times obituary of Koch originally did just that. The Huffington Post reports that the word "AIDS" was mentioned only once in the first version of the NYT obit, which was 5,500 words long, in a reference to "the scandals and the scourges of crack cocaine, homelessness and AIDS."

A few hours later three paragraphs about his handling of AIDS were added, but the NYT wrote that "hundreds of New Yorkers were desperately ill or dying" in the 1980s when in fact it was tens of thousands. Even in its attempts at correcting the record, the NYT fell short. As of this writing, that incorrect fact has not been updated.

Some activists go as far as to accuse Koch of murder because of his inaction on AIDS, but that is too far for me. Discussing his inaction on AIDS, however, shouldn't be too far for anyone.

As the Twitter hashtag #firstworldproblems underscores, many of the problems we face as people who live in developed countries often seem trivial when compared to those faced by people in developing countries.

That said, our problems are often not so trivial. On the one hand, I'm grateful for having health care insurance that pays for my HIV meds. On the other hand, I'm angry that my insurer forces me to use a specialty mail order pharmacy to provide those HIV meds.

Larry Kramer recently noted his bad experiences with this trend, which is growing in the wrong direction. My opinion is supported by a lawsuit against Blue Cross of California (d.b.a. Anthem Blue Cross) by the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog for just this very thing.

I used to go to a retail pharmacy and be done with it. Now, I have to call every month and be subjected to the most annoying of routines ("that's a tablet to be taken orally" they say and I think "I know, I've taken meds before!"), which wastes 30 minutes that I'll never get back.

Yes, boo-hoo #firstworldproblems and all that. The idiocy of the process is hella horrible, but that's not really the issue (although, as I said, it's hella horrible).

Insurers say it saves them money, but advocates say the savings are at best minimal and at worst a penny wise and a pound foolish. Any tiny savings realized now may be dwarfed by the costs later when patients who are forced to receive their meds this way are harmed in the process. Yes, harmed.

Mix ups in prescriptions, lack of knowledge by service representatives and delays in receiving shipments are just some of the problems with mail order pharmacies that jeopardize health. None of us living with HIV should be subjected to such problems unnecessarily.

The straw that broke my back on this topic happened last week. I was down to a two day supply of meds. I admit that I should've called to refill a day or two earlier, but you know what, I'm human (and you know what, if I could just go to a retail pharmacy, it wouldn't matter).

So, I call. Rush delivery, great. Three days pass, no delivery. I call again Friday night. "It was canceled." WTF? "Rep from wrong department wasn't authorized, so we canceled order." And you were going to tell me when? "Yeah, you should've been called." Yeah.

So, can I get a rush delivery? "No, too late for that." Oh, I see. So fuck me then. When can I get a delivery? "Tuesday." Tuesday? That means being without my meds for at least five days! "Sorry." Yeah.

I spoke to a supervisor to file a formal complaint, although I expect nothing to come from that. I hope that lawsuit in California begins to turn the tide in our favor.

Today was my first doctor's visit of 2013. Flu shot, check. Draw blood, check. Get scripts, check. So far so good. Then the nurse asks, "How old are you again?" I say, "42" (said as if I was asking, not answering, a question).

She says, "I was just checking your chart and you've never had an EKG. I like to have a baseline, especially at your age." The "at your age" stung a bit, but quickly faded. She was right, of course. I am "at your age" and ever increasingly needing to monitor the effects of aging.

Some HIV meds can contribute to cardiovascular disease. The virus has been tied to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, although the reason isn't clear. Add to those factors the risk factors that everyone faces, heart health is not to be taken lightly by those of us living with HIV.

The assistant who administered the EKG made the experience as easy as possible, including a "40-Year-Old Virgin" joke for good measure. "Him screaming 'Kelly Clarkson' was so funny," she said. I agreed.

(You see, they stick little doodads on you for a bunch of wires from the machine that have to be yanked off, and us hairy folks go "Ow!" when that happens, which brings to mind the scene from that movie when Steve Carell is getting his chest hair waxed, but, as they say, I digress.)

Thankfully, all is good with my heart, for now.