Holiday Shopping with a Conscience

This holiday season, consider gifts from Until There’s A Cure — your purchases and donations help us to fund vaccine research, care services, prevention education, and advocacy efforts for those living with HIV and AIDS throughout the year.

Some of our Partners have included UTAC gifts on their own gift guides — check out amfAR and GMHC, for just a couple of examples!

Also: news of early results of a new vaccine trial from UTAC Partner, IAVI, here.

-Until There’s A Cure

Sports and HIV/AIDS?

Some news from around the world on how sports can be used to raise awareness of the dangers of HIV and AIDS:

United States Curling Raises Awareness and Funds for Central Coast HIV/AIDS Services

FIFA Takes on HIV/AIDS as a World Cup Issue with “football for Hope”

And the MLB thanks Until There’s A Cure and other organizations for their help in raising awareness and funds to combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases in communities across the U.S.

-Until There’s A Cure

Today is World AIDS Day

…and it seems like everyone is getting involed: Google, Facebook, Twitter, and many other companies are promoting AIDS awareness and fundraising. How are you making a difference? Let us know in the comments or send an email!

-Until There’s A Cure!

New Products from Until There’s A Cure!

We have several new items for the Holiday 2009 season — all of them reasonably priced and wonderful options for gift-giving to the important people in your lives.

World AIDS Day is December 1st — are you ready? Show your support with our limited edition World AIDS Day T-shirt. Call 1.800.88.UNTIL to order!

Our 2010 Calendar features our iconic celebrity public service advertisements — at just $15, it’s a great way to show your support while you stay organized! Learn more here.

Our new red AIDS ribbon Key Chain is an easy way to help us “unlock” a cure for HIV/AIDS — just $5, made in the USA, and lead-free, this key chain makes a great stocking stuffer! Learn more here.

Until There’s A Cure: The Cookbook! Enjoy some of our “family” recipes and support the fight against HIV/AIDS with this fantastic cookbook featuring recipes from UTAC’s supporters and staff. At $20, it makes a wonderful addition to your collection, or a meaningful gift for someone else. Learn more here.

-Until There’s A Cure

Help UTAC in Chase Community Giving!

You can help Until There’s A Cure to win prizes [up to $1 million!] from Chase — just visit the Chase Community Giving page for Until There’s A Cure to vote! There is NO DONATION required; the charities with the most votes will win huge donations from Chase.

Thank you for your support!

-Until There’s A Cure

Leading Cause of Death for Women? HIV/AIDS.

View this clip from GRITtv on the disparity between women as healthcare providers and healthcare recipients.

The Nation

-Until There’s A Cure

News Roundup

Here are just a few quick updates in the world of HIV/AIDS!

The National Association of People With AIDS lauds the House of Representatives passing their version of health care reform on Saturday evening. The bill includes several provisions important to people living with HIV/AIDS. For more information on the NAPWA response, please see their blog.

Dr. Helene Gayle has accepted a position as Chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS — please read a discussion of the announcement and Dr. Gayle’s work in the Chicago Tribune.

San Francisco is attempting to track HIV in the city in a new way: by monitoring viral loads throughout the city, rather than just noting infection. See more about the effort as well as a map of viral loads in the New York Times.

Candice Wiggins, of the Minnesota Lynx and an ambassador for Until There’s A Cure, has an interview with StyleBakery Teen, where she discusses a new Nike partnership as well as her involvement with the UTAC Foundation. To read the interview, please see StyleBakery Teen.

-Until There’s A Cure

How Do We Get from Here to There?

One of the biggest challenges when looking at HIV/AIDS is knowing that there are concrete steps to be taken to change behaviors and effect reductions in infection rates, while simultaneously knowing that achieving those behavior changes is extremely difficult. PEPFAR, which is heralded nearly universally as a major success in the global effort to put people infected with HIV on effective treatment regimens, has been criticized in parallel for neglecting the issue of new infections. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropic organization, is attempting to take that disparity and correct it.

The Gates Foundation has launched an initiative to study behavior among at-risk populations, with the hopes of learning what behaviors can be adjusted, and ultimately to reduce the risk of HIV infection. To read more about the initiative, please see this article from the Brookings Institution.

-Until There’s A Cure

America’s Giving Challenge Ends Friday at 3 PM!

The Case Foundation, Causes, and PARADE Magazine’s month-long project to inspire charitable giving is coming to a close. The last day to make donations is this Friday, November 6th. America’s Giving Challenge is an effort to publicize small, continued giving to charities all across the country and around the world. The goal of the event isn’t to amass the most money for a cause — although, that’s a great goal as well! — but rather to encourage supporters to give small amounts and to give them often. Each participant can donate once per day to a cause, and each individual donation is counted.

Until There’s A Cure needs your support in America’s Giving Challenge — can you join us and make a donation of just $10 to help fight the spread of HIV and AIDS? Please visit http://causes.com/UNTIL to join our efforts — let’s work together to End AIDS.

-Until There’s A Cure

News Roundup: Ending the HIV Travel Ban, Funding Stem Cell Research at UCLA, and More

From the NYTimes: On Friday, President Obama announced that he would be signing legislation to end the 22-year travel ban the United States has maintained against HIV-positive individuals, and “a rule canceling the ban would be published on Monday and would take effect after a routine 60-day waiting period.” The President’s enactment of this campaign promise is a completion of a process begun by George W. Bush, but never completed.

Aside from the restriction of travel limitations, the ban’s end will have other important consequences. Foreigners applying for U.S. residency will no longer need to take an HIV test as part of their application process. International AIDS conferences will be possible within the United States. Since the ban’s enactment, “no major international conference on the AIDS epidemic has been held in the United States since 1990.”

For more information, please the New York Times, the Washington Post, or Fox News articles.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a body established in 2004 to oversee the state’s constitutionally-mandated stem cell research efforts, awarded over $49 million in grants to three researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Broad Stem Cell Research Center. To learn more, please see the article in the LA Headlines Examiner.

Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa, has taken a vocal stand in the fight against HIV/AIDS in his country — marking a strong departure from the administration of Thabo Mbeki, who questioned the efficacy of HIV medications as well as the link between HIV infection and the development of AIDS. The new Zuma administration — both government and health ministry — is actively encouraging South Africans to be tested for HIV, to know their status, and to take steps to protect themselves from infection or to seek treatment if they are HIV-positive. For more information on the Zuma efforts to publicize correct and reliable information on HIV/AIDS, please see the New York Times article.

-Until There’s A Cure