The federal Department of Health and Human Services' Advisory Committee On Blood Safety and Availability (ACBSA) voted 9 to 6 on June 11th to make no change in the current deferral policy banning men who have sex with another man, even once, since 1977 from ever donating blood.   The Committee in addition proposed a research agenda of studies to be undertaken, both to shed further light on reviews of the several deferral bans, and to undergird these and other efforts to increase the safety of the blood supply. more...

The Department of Health & Human Services, Advisory Committee On Blood Safety and Availability will consider June 11 revision of the current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy recommending that men who have sex with another man (MSM) even one time since 1977 should be deferred indefinitely from donating blood.

In the following joint letter advocacy organizations representing both the Gay & Lesbian Communities and the Plasma User Communities have signed on to demonstrate their past and ongoing ability to work together on issues surrounding the safety of our nation’s blood and the most efficient and effective way to ensure the overall safety of this precious national resource, blood: more...

     On Thursday June 4^th one of the Committee of Ten Thousand’s founders, Jonathan Wadleigh, passed into the spirit world. Jonathan was the last living member of the original New England support group that in 1989 became the Committee of Ten Thousand. Jonathan’s leadership ensured that the Committee of Ten Thousand would become a force in the AIDS and hemophilia communities.

COTT's Rachel Warner Memorial Scholarships are for educational use, from high school through graduate school.  They are for individuals with any bleeding disorder.  Awards are modest, seldom exceeding a thousand dollars. The May 1 deadline each year ensures time for awards and for planning additional resources for the year.

The Committee of Ten Thousand is proud to honor Rachel Warner through this Memorial Scholarship Fund.  The fund awards scholarships to individuals who are committed to pursuing higher education in order to better themselves, thereby enhancing our community.  The is a component of what Rachel believed in, stood for, and tirelessly advocated for: individual and community empowerment. more...

As the 16^th World AIDS conference winds down, I am still attempting to locate the importance of hepatitis C, HCV in the conference proceedings. Given the staggering levels of HCV co-infection in the world’s HIV positive human beings, it is hard to accept so little attention from the organizers of AIDS 2006. One session was devoted to co-infection and, to our surprise; it was not a focus of the activist community at large. Certainly COTT and others organizations were focused on HCV and its impact in the global AIDS community. However the coverage of this important issue was far to light and needs to be raised to a much higher level of global awareness. more...

As the COTT team arrived in Toronto for the 16th World AIDS Conference, Corey Dubin penned the following retrospective on the Conference theme, A Time to Deliver. more...

Committee of Ten Thousand

Advocates for Persons with HIV/AIDS

236 Massachusetts Ave., NE Suite 609 · Washington, DC 20002(800) 488-COTT · (202) 543-0988 · www.cott1.org · cott-dc@earthlink.net

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

The Honorable Michael Enzi, Chair

Health, Education, Labor & Pension Committee

United States Senate

Washington D.C. 20510

The Committee of Ten Thousand would like to express its deep opposition to S. 1955, The Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization Act, on behalf of the HIV and HCV infected hemophilia community. We join the many other groups and individuals who seriously doubt that this bill will accomplish it’s intended goal of offering insurance at a better cost while covering more in need. Our constituency, having lived through the complete failure of the regulation of blood/blood products now has serious concerns that this legislation will cause a loss of benefits critical to our community. The loss of State mandated insurance benefits would force many individuals and families onto government entitlement programs. more...