HIV

Patient, who had AIDS, died without being able to say goodbye to partner. Partner denied opportunity to tell hospital about patient's treatment wishes Shock Trauma Center violated national hospital accreditation standards classifying partner as family. There was even a health care power of attorney designating relationship between the men. Case shows importance of legalizing same-sex marriage, says Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which filed today's suit.

(NEW YORK, February 13, 2002) —Lambda Legal, on behalf of the American Public Health Association, the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease, and several hepatitis-C education associations, is asking the United States Supreme Court to reject an employer’s argument that, under the ADA, it can fire a healthy worker with signs of liver disease because it considers chemical exposure on the job dangerous to his future health.

(NEW YORK, November 29, 2001) — In its sixth annual World AIDS Day report card Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund highlights HIV prevention efforts, and flunks the Bush Administration for its just-say-no approach to sex education for young people at risk of infection.

Surgeon General David Satcher earned an “A” for his political courage in calling for thorough and medically accurate sexual health education with his “Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior” issued earlier this year.

(New York, Monday, November 25, 2002) - Saying that so-called “abstinence-only” programs are “nothing short of a public health hazard for our nation’s youth,” Lambda Legal today asked Miss America 2003, Erika Harold, to clarify her views supporting abstinence education and requested information from the Miss America Organization on three presentations about abstinence that Harold made to school students in recent days.

(NEW YORK, June 28) —Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and other community organizations issued a joint statement Thursday supporting the Bronx Lesbian and Gay Health Consortium and its attempts to promote potentially life-saving health care in the Bronx community. The statement calls for the immediate return of Consortium advertisements that were yanked this week from Bronx bus shelters.

(ATLANTA, June 5, 2001) — Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Tuesday welcomed Hector Vargas as its new regional director in Atlanta, where the legislative lawyer and organizer will advance civil rights efforts on behalf of lesbians, gay men, and people with HIV and AIDS in the South.

Vargas returns to Georgia, his former home, to oversee Lambda’s Southern Regional Office and outreach efforts there and in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

(ATLANTA, May 16, 2001) — Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund is urging a federal court in Atlanta to rule that a dental hygienist’s employer violated his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act by firing him after learning he has HIV.