Ken Mayer, MD

One of the first rectal safety studies of a microbicide set to launch at Fenway in early 2010

The news out of Thailand in September 2009 regarding progress in HIV vaccine development has provided a desperately needed boost to the field of HIV prevention.   The news from Thailand arrives just as a recent success has been reported in the microbicide field.

In February 2009, it was reported that one of the leading vaginal microbicide candidates, Pro 2000, had a limited protective effect.  When viewed in tandem, these two successes are poised to energize the entire field, which includes not only vaccines but also vaginal and rectal microbicides and oral prophylaxis (PEP and PrEP).  

As microbicide research moves forward, additional data needs to be collected looking at safety, acceptability and efficacy.  The Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) is leading this research with a series of studies.  One of these studies, MTN-007, is set to launch at Fenway Health in the spring of 2010.  Read more.

Aimee Van Wagenen, PhD

The Massachusetts LGBT Aging Needs Assessment (MLANA) Coalition

MLANA’s Mission: To assess the health, service, care and support needs of older LGBT people in Massachusetts and develop services that better meet the needs of this population.

All people face challenges to health and well-being as they age.  As LGBT people, we will likely encounter challenges that are unique to our status as sexual or gender minorities, as ageism and heterosexism intersect to form a double burden in our lives.  We will face stigmas related to our age and our sexual and gender identities; we are also likely to face unique challenges related to housing, physical and mental health, caregiving and receiving, and in our relationships with health care and social service providers. On the other hand, we are likely to draw on sources of strength and resilience that are distinctive to our personal and LGBT community histories of struggle.  Read more.

Harvey Makadon, MD

Ask the Experts About LGBT Health: A New Addition to Fenway’s Online Resources

Do you have questions that you’d like answered by a doctor with expertise in LGBT health and medicine?  The Fenway Institute, through a donation from ExpertViewpoint LLC, and funding from Pfizer, Inc, has launched Ask the Experts About LGBT Health, an online Q&A that allows users to submit questions to Drs. Harvey Makadon and Patricia Raney from Fenway Health.

Launched in August 2009, the service provides detailed answers to questions on different topics in LGBT health, and maintains an archive of past questions and answers for easy browsing.  Topics covered so far include Pap smears for men, breast cancer, and STD testing for bisexual women. For each topic there is an accompanying fact sheet that can be downloaded and distributed in hospitals, medical offices, and other healthcare settings.  Ask the Experts is a logical extension of Fenway’s commitment to educating providers and consumers about health issues that impact the LGBT community.  By offering a service like this on the Internet, we are able to reach people across the country and even the world.  Read more.

Jon Vincent 

 Alex Solange 

Fenway Health’s T-Supper Club: Support and Understanding from Within

Within the broad palate of Boston’s inhabitants are a vibrant culture of “gender non-traditionalists.”  This diverse group has a range of lifestyles, needs, and viewpoints.  Some of them might call themselves transgender, transsexual or gender queer.  Some might be cross-dressers, drag kings, drag queens, transvestites, trannys, pangender, bigender, ambigender, non-gendered, agender, gender fluid or intergender.   Some of these people might be men who were classified as female at birth.  Some might be women who were regarded as male when they were children.  Some might have no gender, some might be intersex with the physical characteristics of both male and female.  The individuals within this “metapopulation” have needs as varied as their gender identity and personalities. What these people have in common is that they are who they say they are, and that isn’t as simple as “I am a man and I was born a man,” or “I’m a woman and I was born a woman.”  These folks work to be as who they are on the inside.  Sometimes that means making the outside image match the inside identity.  For some, this is called “transition.”  Transition can happen through dress, cosmetics and mannerisms.  It also may take medical interventions in the form of surgery and hormones.  Sometimes, transitioning can simply mean staking claim to one’s gender identity and living as you identify.  Some people in this population don’t transition at all.  The simply are.  Read more.

Judy Bradford, PhD

Healthy People 2020
Healthy People, the nation’s program for health promotion and disease prevention, is organized and facilitated through the Office of the Surgeon General.  Leading health indicators and priorities for public health initiatives are set for each coming decade, with Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) scheduled to be unveiled in early 2010.  Scientific experts, educators and advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender health, including Fenway Health management and staff, were very active in the development of Healthy People 2010 (HP2010).  This work resulted in the first-ever inclusion of “persons defined by sexual orientation” as a health disparities population in a Federal policy program for public health.  Fenway convened meetings that supported dissemination of existing science to support these efforts, lead to the creation of the National Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health, and provided leadership for writing the Healthy People 2010 Companion Document for LGBT Health, sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration of the US Department of Health and Human Services.  Read more.