This episode is audio from the Community Forum on HIV Care & Prevention featuring candidates for New York's 12th Congressional District, co-sponsored by the Engelberg Center, PrEP4All, and the Save HIV Funding Campaign. It was recorded on May 14, 2026.
In response to rising HIV cases in New York City, PrEP4All and the Save HIV Funding Campaign will convene a Community Forum in partnership with NYU Law’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy. Once a national leader in ending the HIV epidemic, New York now faces stalled progress and increasing diagnoses — particularly in communities long disproportionately impacted — making this a critical moment for renewed urgency and leadership.
This Town Hall will bring together candidates for New York’s 12th Congressional District, alongside public health leaders and advocates, for a solutions-driven conversation on expanding PrEP access and strengthening prevention infrastructure. Designed as a high-visibility platform, the forum aims to drive concrete policy commitments and public accountability at a pivotal moment for HIV prevention.
Candidates in attendance will include,
Note: The event will be conducted in a strictly nonpartisan manner, with no endorsement of candidates or political parties
Announcer 0:01
Welcome to Engelberg Center Live, a collection of audio from events held by the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy at NYU Law. This episode is audio from the Community Forum on HIV Care and Prevention, featuring candidates for New York's 12th congressional district, co-sponsored by the Engelberg Center, PrEP4All and the Save HIV funding campaign. It was recorded on May 14, 2026
Christopher Morten 0:31
Hi everyone, and welcome. I'm Chris Morton. I'm an associate professor of law at NYU and an affiliate of NYU Law's Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy, as well as director of NYU Science Health and Information Clinic. As a co-host of today's event, NYU Engelberg Center is a leading interdisciplinary center for research and discussion of the laws and policies that govern innovation, including the law and policy of pharma and other medical technologies. A special thanks to Engelberg Center Executive Director Michael Weinberg and the team at the Engelberg for their important work. You can learn more about NYU Engelberg at NYU Engelberg, that's E N G E L B E R g.org and briefly, I must share that views expressed today do not necessarily reflect the views of NYU, NYU Law, the Engelberg Center, if any, nor should this event be construed as an endorsement of any candidate or a political party. This event is designed to be a nonpartisan issue-focused discussion of HIV treatment and prevention and public health infrastructure and access to care to ensure compliance and maintain the integrity of the forum. All candidates are asked to engage today only in their capacity as public leaders and policy thinkers, and not as candidates for office, although we've gathered candidates who are actively running for Congress in a key district in New York. Indeed, the basis of this event is that NY 12 is truly key to the overall response to HIV in the United States. The goal today, though, is to foster a substantive solutions-driven conversation grounded in public interest without reference to campaigns or electoral activity. So, a gentle reminder to our candidates. Okay, now to introduce the Save HIV funding campaign and Prep for All. I've been very proud to represent PrEP for All pro bono for many years now, through my clinic, first at Columbia and now at NYU, Preferrel has led the fight for universal access to HIV prevention via a national PrEP program for UN and underinsured populations, and in response to massive proposed cuts to federal HIV funding, Preferrel has also co-founded the Save HIV Funding campaign, along with AVAC and the HIV Medicine Association, they've driven a national movement that has successfully fought back against three and a half billion dollars in proposed cuts. So, I'm honored to introduce Jeremiah Johnson, Executive Director of Prep for All, who will moderate today's community forum. Jeremiah, I So
Jeremiah Johnson 3:23
thank you so much, Chris, to the Ingleberg Center for everything around this. This was actually an idea between Chris and I a few months ago via a discussion, and so I'm so pleased to see it come together, and incredibly grateful to all of our panelists for showing up, and for everyone here for being a part of this timely conversation. Thanks to our colleagues at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. We know that this is a truly timely conversation. We know that through their 2024 HIV surveillance that our progress toward ending HIV as an epidemic has stalled. We have seen a 5.4% increase in new diagnoses, that's the fourth year in a row of increases after years of declines prior to that. We have seen a 17% increase in the estimated number of new HIV infections in the city, and all of this is happening at a moment when we know that federal policymakers are calling for massive, devastating cuts to HIV funding across the board for care, treatment, HIV prevention. This is something that is deeply concerning to so many of us in this room, who are so bought into this field, and so today we are looking to our panelists and to all of you to be here and focus on solutions and on how we can help New York and the nation reinvest in an HIV response that saves lives and saves resources. Services, a few quick notes. This conversation is being filmed, so if any of the attendees don't want to be on camera, I invite you to sit behind those cameras, and then you won't be on, not directly behind, I think they wouldn't like that, but you know, in the chairs toward the back, and as mentioned before, this event is designed to be a nonpartisan issue-focused discussion on HIV treatment and prevention, bringing together candidates running for New York's 12th district in compliance again with 501 c3 rules. All candidates running were invited, and the following candidates regretfully declined due to scheduling conflicts: Jack Schlossberg, Micah Lasher, and Caroline Schinkel, the following candidates did not respond to our request: Amy Jordan, Lucian Weinrich, and Jamie Floyd. Also, I will just note that George Conway sends his regrets. He had a family matter come up, and he is not able to attend today, though he has asked to meet with Prep for all in the Save HIV funding campaign for a discussion later on on how that he can be of service on this issue. Jack Schlossberg sent the following statement in his absence: the Trump administration is dismantling the public health infrastructure that protects us all, and we are seeing the repercussions of this disinvestment. We must continue the fight to protect access to HIV treatment, prevention, and PrEP, like all of you do on a daily basis. This work would not be possible without your dedication, and I look forward to fighting this fight with you. So, now let me welcome our panelists this morning. There are seven of you, so we've cut down your bios just a little bit. I hope that you'll forgive us for that, but we're incredibly grateful to have all of you here, and it's been wonderful meeting so many of you this morning. So we'll begin with Alex Boris, a New York State Assembly member, whose work on AI safety and public policy reflects a broader commitment to protecting communities and strengthening the systems that impact everyday life. We have Chris Deep, a software engineer and community advocate, focused on making New York more affordable and expanding access to essential services like health care, housing, and education. Laura Dunn is an award-winning civil rights attorney and former public school teacher who has built her career advocating for women, girls, immigrants, and the LGBTQ communities across the courtroom, classroom, and Capitol Hill, bringing a powerful mix of legal expertise, working-class values, and bipartisan experience. Dr. Wilnada Negron is a policy leader and social entrepreneur who has spent more than two decades working at the intersection of labor, technology, public safety, and health to build systems that better serve people. Page turn. Pause. Karen Ortiz is an attorney and former federal judge who has stood up for civil rights and continues to advocate for LGBTQ communities and equitable treatment within government systems. Dr.
Jeremiah Johnson 8:08
Nina Schwalb joins us as a global public health leader who has spent her career expanding access to life-saving care, lowering the cost of essential medicines, and delivering healthcare solutions at scale around the world, and finally, Patrick Timmons, a long time is a longtime Manhattan attorney, educator, and public servant, who has dedicated his career to advocating for working people and strengthening trust in the justice system. Thank you all so much for joining us. We have a few opening questions that I will provide to you, and we're very eager to hear your expertise and your thoughts in terms of all of this. We do hope to have, toward the end of the conversation, some time for question and answer from the audience. So, I do invite you to be somewhat concise of your responses with seven panelists, just so we can hear from all of you as much as possible. I will also just say that, you know, I'm excited for all of you who are in the room. Save HIV funding and PrEP for all are also connected to a national network of hundreds of advocates that meet week after week, and they've expressed so much excitement for all of you to be here, such gratitude to see all of you here prioritizing this as an issue, and so I know this is going to mean a lot for them today as well. So let's get started with some of those questions. And the first question I have for you is, from your perspective as a public leader, what compels your engagement on HIV prevention care and funding at this moment, and how does this issue intersect with your broader approach to public health and health equity in New York City? And anyone is free to start. I will say that there are three mics amongst you, so this is also going to be a collaborative project amongst all of you to share those mics as well. Okay, please start.
Karen Ortiz 10:04
There we go. First of all, I'm humbled to be amongst all of you. Truly, I sort of.. I entered this space really early on. I grew up working in my father's, my family's pharmacy in Brooklyn, and I remember when the first HIV drugs, the first iteration arrived, and my father actually dispensing those and personally delivering them to one particular person in particular, whose name and story I remember, and it's the names and stories that have the most impact in my mind. We can have great legislation, but without human connection and talking to each other, you know, it's hard to convince some, some folks to get on board. So that's sort of where I enter. I'm also here to learn this isn't my regular wheelhouse, and I'm so grateful for organizations that invite leaders to learn and share, so I'll leave it at that.
Jeremiah Johnson 11:13
Thank you so much.
Nina Schwalbe 11:15
Great, thank you so much for inviting me here. Just a huge shout out to prep for all for your recent letter on the preventive task force, and how we need real expertise in that, and your dogged pursuit of Gilead's price gouging. American taxpayers fund the science, Gilead gets the patent, and we get the bill. So, thank you for that. So, I'm an L, LGBTQ plus, just want to shout that out, but you know, for me, and what got me into this, and why I've always been it, is we have the solutions, but we don't have the political will, and we need the political will to make it happen. What we have right now in New York City, around the country, and around the world, but particularly here in New York, is a health equity crisis. We know that new HIV diagnosis is really among our black and brown New Yorkers, who are 50% of the city's population, and most of those people who report new infections also don't have health insurance. Unmet need is absolutely staggering, the number of people that could benefit from PrEP, and don't one in four have access, that is ridiculous, and as you mentioned, we just have a staggering crisis in new infections, all solvable. So that's what brings me here.
Jeremiah Johnson 12:32
Thank you so much, Nina. And I'm glad our work on Gilead has gotten some attention, so appreciate that.
Wilneida Negron 12:39
Yeah, hello everyone, it's good to be here with you. For me, this issue really intersects with the work and my personal life as well, and I look at, look at it, two things that draw me in are sort of the market question, which is where a lot of my work has been in the past 10 years, and the community access question, so it's a question of access at the market and at the community, and just really quickly, the market shapes the access, and it thinks it's things like patents, it's administrative burdens, is the fragmented health care system that we have, and then we have community access, and actually on that other access, a market access, how it weaves into my personal is that my I've had to navigate my mother's end of life care, and it's amazing the fragmentation that happens, the more vulnerable that you get, it becomes a patchwork of community services that fill the gap of what Medicare and other traditional things don't come in, and if you add in not having funds, not having housing, not having all of these other supports, it becomes impossible. And I've had to help my dad navigate that. And then, funny enough, my dad is also traveling to Dominican Republic in two weeks to get medical work there, and so you think we have the scientific, the discoveries are there. If you want to bring AI, AI is going to speed up those discoveries. So, the question is not what is there, is a question of the access. And then you know, zeroing down into the community, I began my career very quickly as a crisis counselor and as a therapist, and I was not - my office was not in Midtown. My office was a rotation of food pantries, basement of churches throughout Queens. I was in libraries, I was in senior centers, basically for me to reach the people that I need to help that are the most marginalized. I could not be in an office, I had to be embedded in the community, and so the market access point and the community access, the community embeddedness are really the things that drive my work, and it's really what brought me to this conversation, because I think this. Work is about that.
Jeremiah Johnson 15:02
Thank you so much, Laura.
Laura Dunn 15:04
So, I was raised an evangelical pastor's daughter, and it was a very conservative Christian upbringing, but I was in Madison, Wisconsin, which is one of the most liberal cities in the entire country, and so, as someone who grew up and came out as queer. I know what it's like to have everything ostracized about you, your lifestyle, what makes you happy, what brings you joy, the people you love, and it's deeply painful. And you may hear that emotion in my voice. Apologies, I haven't slept a lot recently, so I'll try to hold it together for you. So this is something I feel strongly about. I also do anti-sexual violence advocacy. I've been a lawyer, I've held perpetrators and enablers accountable in the amount of people that have been affected because of an assault. Abuse is staggering, and I've also been a public school teacher with people exploring their sexuality, being in those teen years and having dire consequences right away, because they didn't have the education, they didn't have the access. I taught in New Orleans, I was prohibited from even directing my children to Planned Parenthood. I would have gone to jail. So I am very alarmed by the way our culture, our society, our government is approaching HIV and AIDS prevention. We should all be committed to this, and everyone should have the lifestyle that they want that brings them joy without facing consequences that are preventable and treatable.
Jeremiah Johnson 16:35
Thank you so much for that, Alex.
Alex Bores 16:38
Thank you for having me. It's great to be back at the LGBTQ center, you have such wonderful programming throughout the year, and it's great to be here with you, Jeremiah, and prep for all the work that you have done, the advocacy have done for years that has us hopefully very close to fulfilling the goal of your name and making sure it's accessible to all. I'm here, I'm fighting for this because it's a moral issue, we have the drugs, we have the ability to make this disease completely manageable, to make everyone undetectable, and to not do everything needed in order to make that a reality is a moral failing on our country. We need Medicare for all. We need everyone to have access to all of health care, and I will fight for that as hard as I can from day one. And also, I mean, this is a particular issue where we just need a national prep program, and I'm very proud to have called for that in my LGBTQ framework, which was released a month ago, of having that a strong plank of having prep available for absolutely everyone, but beyond that, beyond it being a moral requirement broadly, there's also a community that right now is under attack by the current federal administration, where they are cutting back resources both for Americans and abroad, I mean, PEPFAR was the best thing George W. Bush ever did, and to see it torn apart by this administration is shocking. And so we need people in office that are not just fighters, you need to be a fighter, and that needs to be a basic, but, but also know how to get things done, and how to maneuver within the system in order to get real results for people, and I've been proud in the state assembly to pass 32 bills in my time there, which is about the same amount that Congress as a whole passed in 2023 and to be ranked by the Center for Effective Lawmaking as the most effective new legislator from New York City. I've known how to work in a legislature to get real results there, and this will be a priority for me to get done in my first term in Congress.
Jeremiah Johnson 18:51
Thanks, Alex. Patrick,
Patrick Timmins 18:52
everyone, my name is Patrick.
Jeremiah Johnson 18:56
Oh, I'm not sure if that's working. Let's switch that up. Thank you, Dr. Negro. Hi,
Patrick Timmins 19:01
everyone. My name is Patrick Timmons. I've been.. I was born in Washington Heights. My family, eight kids, grew up in Inwood, and my grandparents from Ireland lived in Hell's Kitchen. The reason I'm here today, or a strong reason, is that in 1986 we'll go back 40 years, I was the manager of a 17 bed shelter for men and a 10 stall public shower in the Bowery when it was the Bowery, and during that time period I would open the door for the public shower at 6am and there would be 60 men up the street on Bleecker waiting, and in among those 60 men, there would generally be six or seven men that had the lesions, that had the marks, that had the carpuzi sarcomas, and they were really trying to stand up and stay. Up to get to that shower, which was the best part of their day, and I was very conscious of that, mainly because I had two Franciscan brothers that helped me, so when somebody failed in that line, fall fell in that line, they were taken care of, so that we could get them down to the shower, give them a towel, razor, and soap, and have them have the best part of their day, and from there I learned a lot about AIDS. It was, it was starting to be full blown 81 I think it began the first diagnosis, or the epidemiology showed it, so I stayed in touch with that, that vision that I had, and that desire, that eagerness, and that curiosity to want to know more and try to help more has ever been present. My wife is an actress. She's ran in many circles where we've gone to people in her profession that have died. So I look forward to learning a lot today. I look learning, I look forward to maybe advocating some policies, and I thank you for this time.
Jeremiah Johnson 21:02
Thank you so much, Patrick and Chris.
Chris Diep 21:11
Thanks for having me. My name is Chris Diep. Yeah, I'll try to keep this brief, since there's so many of us. Someone I'm close with, they haven't came out to their family, but I talked to them, and I try to help them, and I like to be someone who is the voice for the voiceless, and try to speak up for them when they don't feel comfortable for it, and I'm a software engineer, so the way I approach helping people is a lot of times people don't know the right words. My someone I'm close with doesn't know the right words, they sometimes use casual words that might not be appropriate for places, but I take that and translate it in my brain and try to make sure that whatever we do can help at the end of the day for anyone who needs help, they might not have the right words or don't know how to talk to a doctor, but I want to make sure that at the end of the day, like it's something they're satisfied with, and it doesn't take, you know, a lot of effort on their part to, you know, talk to doctors. I'm an engineer, so sometimes I notice I have to put in some effort to translate my brain sometimes to people. Yeah, so thanks for having me. I'm grateful to be here, and hope to learn more. And I hope that was brief.
Jeremiah Johnson 22:52
That was a very effective thank you, Chris. And thank you all for those introductory remarks. You know, this is such an impressive group of people with so many wonderful accomplishments and such a dedication to public service, and so we're grateful to have your comments from that perspective today. You know, you may all happen to be candidates as well, but we're very happy to have you talking from that breadth of experience, so you know, moving into some of the policy conversations, some of you are jumping into it already. I think I think a few of you have a few thoughts on this already. But our next question is that the Save HIV funding campaign has spent years raising concerns about proposed cuts and federal support for HIV care, prevention, housing, and treatment infrastructure. It is worth noting that 87% of the New York City Health Department's $225 million annual funding for HIV, STIs, and viral hepatitis efforts comes from federal funding resources. Public health leaders are warning that sustained disinvestment could lead to a resurgence of the epidemic, rising healthcare costs, and preventable AIDS-related deaths. So that's the prep. The prompt, the question based on your experiences as policymakers and community leaders, How does federal HIV funding benefit New Yorkers, and what would happen if that funding went away,
Nina Schwalbe 24:27
it's incredible to me that we're having this conversation in 2026 and we actually have to talk about HIV prevention and treatment as something that just shouldn't be available to everyone, and you know, our federal government, this is when it wasn't just Bush's PEPFAR program, our federal government has played a key role, and I saw that play the other day. I don't know if any of you saw it, Fauci versus Kramer. Did anybody go to that at NYU? Amazing to think about the conversations that we had back then that we now have to have again. So, as I'm sure everybody in this room knows, we receive critical support from the. Federal government, the Ryan White Funding Act, the CDC, which also not only provides surveillance, but also these key surveys, and again I'm talking to a room of people that know this, but surveys that are able for us to track and monitor progress, the HOPWA program, $40 million annually to New York City, needle exchange programs as well, so the list goes on and on about how our federal government supports us as it should with our taxpayer dollars. So this crisis is, we don't need to look at a model. I'm an epidemiologist, and often we're like, well, what does the model say? But we don't have to look at our models, we just have to look at our neighbors. This isn't this is an evidence-based thing that black and brown people in our city are going to die, costs are going to skyrocket, and we're going to go back to the future. We have 41,000 prep recipients in New York, and that's not enough. We already know that's not enough. We have predictions from AMFAR. I don't know if there's any in the room from AMFAR, but 143,000 new infections, and 127,000 AIDS-related deaths. And we know that by cutting early intervention programs and HIV testing, you know, we don't need to look at models to see that this is going to lead to death, immediate death. One thing I want to say also about this movement and the PREP for all movement that is so critical for me. Is gosh, prep was so amazing. We could just live body positive with prep. We didn't have to worry about it. I mean, art was one thing, and those things where you had to have conversations about your status. I mean, as public health people, we still.. I mean, that's just not a conversation anymore, thanks to prep. And the fight is not over. I just want to draw attention, and I hope we come back to it. There's.. I don't want to talk too long, and I could really go super nerd on this, but I do hope we come back to Lena Kapave and Merck, and the pricing on those two products at some point. And I'll leave that as a teaser.
Jeremiah Johnson 26:58
We'll see how the conversation goes, but I love a nerd, so thank you so much for that. Who would like to go next? Can we get a get some paper towels up here?
Chris Diep 27:08
Should I?
Jeremiah Johnson 27:10
This is what we call rapid response, it's practice. So
Chris Diep 27:15
the questions about federal funding getting cut and how that affects New Yorkers.
Jeremiah Johnson 27:19
Yes, yes. Sorry,
Chris Diep 27:20
anyways. anyways, yeah, so if federal funding is cut, I'm seeing I'm talking to a lot of people, and there's a lot of rising costs, and it's going to be a burden on people if they don't have the right access, or you know the things they need to live, and it's going to affect New Yorkers in that if they're, if you're focused on the necessities, you can't really pursue things you want out of life, you know, your hopes and dreams, and this shouldn't be an issue, we shouldn't have to, you know, choose to cut this, like we can be smart about our budget. There are a lot of resources that we can use. I'm a bias towards technology, and there are smarter ways to go about this, and I really don't want to get upset right now, so yes, so rising costs is the main concern I would have for, you know, this, our, you know, New Yorkers.
Jeremiah Johnson 28:32
Thank you so much, Chris. Yeah, these are very effective federal programs, and affordability is a huge issue. Who wanted to go next, Dr. Negro.
Wilneida Negron 28:42
Yeah, I would add to what's been said already. I don't think probably more public education can be done to just educate everyday New Yorkers about how much this federal funding has been interwoven into our public health at the community level, this this is funding that fills fiscal and health care gaps, and not only in the medication and the medical care, but also in the preventative spaces, which is things like housing, affordable housing, things like transportation access, things like we do help financial assistance with helping to pay for some of the costs that are not covered, and so I, one, I wonder how much the average person that may not be in tune to these conversations realize that so much of the funding is is already interwoven, and the loss of that means the loss, the breakdown of public health care at different communities throughout New York, and the last thing that I'll say that was kind of touched upon already was that for me it's a question of. What kind of public leadership do we want to support and get behind for the next 10 to 21st century, and that is, do we want to move towards working in the upstream, and that is supporting science, supporting research, and relationships that are doing advancing the work in our building preventative, or do we want to move downstream, which is where we seem to be, where we're, we are reactive costs, you know, health, the healthcare costs for health needs of the communities do not disappear, so if you don't, if you're not acting upstream, you are then reactive and operating downstream, and that if you've done the cost analysis, there the costs, the emergency care, the additional federal funding that's needed to do the stop gap is can be double or triple doing the preventative, and so I think it's like for all of you to really think about how can you get behind the leaders and the policies that are really, really pushing for the upstream public leadership that we need, not only on this issue, but also just on public health more broadly?
Jeremiah Johnson 31:12
Thank you so much, Alex.
Alex Bores 31:15
I think a wonderful thing about a forum like this is we're probably all going to agree on on almost everything here, and a lot has been covered. This funding, if cut, will kill New Yorkers. We shouldn't sugarcoat that, and the additional sort of cruelty on top of it is the Trump administration will often say, well, we're just passing it to the cities and the states to step in, but they're cutting so much of every part of our budget that the city and states are trying to figure out we still don't have a state budget, as we're working to figure out how we deal with all of the cuts everywhere that is coming from this administration, and so we'll try to backfill as much as we can, and also the, it's like they've pulled out the plug of a bathtub, everything is going down, and so this is a cruel policy. It is an unnecessary cut to have these, and if you were to put all of that to the side and just think fiscally, it also makes no sense, because as people get sick, they need more services, they need more help. This doesn't even save money in the long run, it's just sending a message of cruelty to a community that is already being so targeted.
Jeremiah Johnson 32:33
Thank you so much, Alex Patrick Laura, which wouldn't..
Laura Dunn 32:38
so we don't have a wellness system in this country, we have a system that benefits of us being and staying sick, and we know this. We know that there are big pharma companies that could cure certain diseases, but don't put out those medications, don't invest in them. Instead, they want you on a medication for the rest of your life, because then you're a return customer, and they get more profit. I oppose healthcare being for profit. Period. It should be a public good, and when we have it as a public good, we stop having these ridiculous debates about the quality of people's lives, the worthiness of their treatment. It just becomes a norm. And so, to echo what I've heard before, we have a choice of leadership coming before us, and I think the establishment, no matter how you want to categorize it, has failed us. They have allowed those corporations to become their donors and their allies, and you and I suffer as a result. So, I agree that you should be following the money and see where it goes, because the money that should be going towards treatment or going into political campaigns that will not have your best interest, and when that changes, everything changes. So people that will fight for you because we're on the ground with you.
Jeremiah Johnson 33:52
Thank you so much, Laura. I feel like there's a Bermuda Triangle thing over in this chair. I don't know.
Patrick Timmins 33:59
In addition to being a lawyer for all these years, I've been teaching at John Jay for 22 years, and have encountered a lot of issues with students dealing with their health care, their parents' health care, and it's almost a constant thing. People think because you're a lawyer, you have the answer, you have the solution, and you can provide kind of results the next day, and AIDS and HIV has come up very often, and I think I like what Laura just said, the worthiness, the worthiness of this type of care, and I also believe that there's an invisibility problem, there's an invisibility problem right now, I would say Gen Z and millennials, just based on my teaching, for the most part, are oblivious. Basically, I know that the Doge cut back to the New York City Health Department $40 million when they had that little spree for four or five months, so. Healthcare has to be number one in terms of my advocacy and everyone else's advocacy, because, like I said, when something's invisible, it needs to be visible, and it needs to be visible across all generations.
Jeremiah Johnson 35:15
Thank you so much, Patrick Karen. Did you
Karen Ortiz 35:22
I thank you, and I appreciate the comments. I think we are, we are all on the same team here. New York is ground zero. I mean, black and brown people are the canary in the coal mines, trans people are the canaries in the coal mine, and we have to be more proactive, I mean, Project 2025 was out there, and it, it talked about all of this, about stripping all of our rights, not just our rights to medications that are life saving, so, and you know, in my, my career, I've been pretty, pretty siloed, pretty quiet, did my work quietly, I would say, but when Doge came through, I was like, oh hell no, and I'm a Doge whistle whistleblower, so I think that our leaders, we need to, we need to get bolder, we can, we can have good legislation and good intentions about funding all these necessary programs, but we also, as has been Laura just said, we need to be, and Patrick too, I think all of us, we need to be fighters, and we need to be uncomfortable, we need to get uncomfortable as leaders and take, take a posture like act up, you know, we just, we need to move, move differently, and one of the things I've been focusing on is making friends across the country, leader leaders and emerging leaders across the country to get them on board with funding for medications for being sort of a block against, I'm going to be speaking frankly against the bullshit, and you know, this is something it's way outside of my comfort zone as a former administrative judge. You know, there was a certain, you know, way I needed to act, and now I'm like set free and forget about it, you know. So I think, and I'm just so happy that we're unified here, but we need to get loud and nasty, because that's how they are, loud and nasty. I mean, last time I saw Nina, I think we were at a die-in five years ago, I would never, you know, thought to, thought to do that. So, yeah, I'll leave, I'll leave it at that. I'm just, I think that, though, this is a wonderful team. It's like Avengers assembled on this issue, and I'm so proud to be a part of it.
Jeremiah Johnson 37:48
Thank you so much for all those comments, and thank you for the shout out to Act Up. I do want to say that we have a couple of Act Up members in the audience here today. I know so many thanks for being here. The first meetings for Act Up happened in this very building, you know. So, this is a, this is a place of real history around all of that. And just, thank you all for centering equity and the communities that are impacted. I always share when I'm in this role that I was diagnosed myself with HIV back in 2008 you know, and so centering us as human beings and peers in the fight with you, I know means a lot and speaks to everybody in the room. Also, say very much appreciate the conversations about affordability and what this means for communities. CDC estimates are that every new HIV infection can lead to $500,000 or more in lifetime medical expenses, so when we're talking about upstream versus downstream, you know, I recall there being something about an ounce of prevention, something, something, so I think it's very relevant in this case. So we have two more questions, we're doing great on time, so thank you for being so mindful of all of that, and one is on prep and one is on global health, so if you have background and things to say, feel free. You don't all have to answer all of these questions, you know. We do want to be able to get to the audience questions as well. But in New York City, 86% of new HIV diagnoses are among black and Latino communities, much as what Nina was referring to, in terms of statistics and the inequities, and nearly half of people newly diagnosed who the New York City Health Department interviewed reported that they lacked insurance coverage. I believe there was also a figure of 37% with housing insecurity as well in that same group. So, from a policy standpoint, What are the most critical actions needed to expand equitable access to prep and protect coverage for those already insured? Obviously, an important question for prep for all. Go ahead, Karen.
Karen Ortiz 39:53
I strongly support Medicare for all without restrictions. I also think for Social Security to. Disability, which intersects, you know, a lot of, a lot of folks on disability are do fall into those categories, that there can be very immediate changes made to the regulations to make it easier for folks to, to, to get their medical needs met without it affecting their ability to collect or the amount they collect, so that's sort of a more discreet issue, more in my wheelhouse, but I'd love to hear what the rest have to say.
Jeremiah Johnson 40:33
Thank you, Alex.
Alex Bores 40:34
Investments like Medicare for all funding for a national prep program help everyone, and also investments in community-based organizations, organizations that are embedded in particular communities, whether that's geography, whether that's demographics, whether that's background, can build trust in a way that broad government programs don't always do, and those investments that government can make in nonprofits can help to ensure that people have the chance to talk to someone that they trust and that can get access to information that otherwise they might feel like isn't for them, because there has been a history of so many government programs that, despite saying they're universal, implicitly weren't for some in the community, and then to your question on housing insecurity and on all of the factors around it, if you don't or not are housing insecure, that is getting in the way of your medical care, that's getting in the way of your treatments, and so the investments that we make as a society in housing, whether that's broadly expanding the amount of housing to bring down the cost, whether that's tenant protections and right to counsel and other aspects, making sure that people, whether that's direct investments, I would say also in shelters, and while we're building more housing and shelters that are specific for certain communities, making sure that everyone has a bed, ultimately has secure housing is an integral part of the fight to ensure that everyone has access to medical care as well.
Jeremiah Johnson 42:05
Thank you so much. And just briefly, I'll say thank you for the shout out for a national prep program. Prep for all was actually founded on a calling for a national prep program for un and underinsured populations back in 2018 and we're continuing to drive that forward. Laura,
Laura Dunn 42:21
so I spoke a little bit about our unhealth system, and something that's also happening, if you're paying attention to the health market, is there's consolidation, so the same people are buying up more hospitals, private equity is behind it, they're gutting hospitals, they're leaving rural communities without facilities, and we're seeing just a devastation, and it will become a national crisis if it isn't already, which I think there's argument that it is. So, I would love to see a government-funded program that starts thinking about ways to be in the community and of the community to provide health care. So, we know barbershops, for example, have experimented with mental health support reaching the community in that way, we know K through 12 schools, churches, other community organizations are places people turn when they're short on food, when they're short on resources they need for daily life. So I would love to not only break up the monopolies that exist, but to start to think about community-focused grant programs, so that a place like this, the center, can become a hub. It already is for so many resources, but I want that to become a norm, that you can get health care on your block, in your neighborhood, in the street, rather than constantly going to these predatory institutions, where you don't know if your insurance even covers the doctor, and you have an extra fee for the facility. I also plan to crack down on medical fraud. We know that things are being overcharged because no one's paying attention. There's no watchdog, there's no guard at the gate, and so they're exploiting our systems. So, I think when we really reform our health care system, we're going to have the access we need, but it requires people to step up and call out the corruption that's happening at the top.
Jeremiah Johnson 44:02
Thank you so much. Would anyone else like to go on this? Chris,
Chris Diep 44:07
yeah, so I want to. I agree that our health care system is not working for us. I would like to expand health savings accounts, that way money can go directly to people and they can see how much they have to afford these, these things that we need. Also, I would like to see subsidies go to the hospitals, you know, the people there who take care of people, doctors and nurses. It, it there, I'm sure, like, we disagree on the specifics here, but up here, but you know, we care about taking care of the people who are affected, and I would like to see, also, you know, New York has a leadership role, and I would like to see us implement a. Model that works well, and then other parts of the country can copy us, and like I would like to see more telehealth. I know this is New York, and we're not rural, but people in rural places don't have access to knowledgeable people, and want to make sure that we help them too, and you know, we need to start with ourselves, and then figure out what works, and then we can, you know, help others.
Jeremiah Johnson 45:32
Thank you, Chris. Go ahead, I was just gonna..
Wilneida Negron 45:36
I kind of talked about this already in the beginning, but yeah, there is the market in the community section. I think we're all naming sort of the things that can happen. I would like to see legislation that protects patents stronger for that have been funded through public research and that go to a public good not being used by corporations for their private gain, so there's things that can be done there, both on a regulatory and legislative level. There's also Medicare for all, is a powerful framework that I would get behind, but I also feel like there needs to be a sort of bottom-up response to sort of make that legislation actually have true impact, and a lot of that would be investment. I would love to see sort of data and public regional data and public health consortiums that are taking, because again, communities are on the front lines, like doing all that stop gap and filling all the gaps and doing a lot with very little, and so the way that we can have, if we are able to pass Medicare for all, have true real life impact on day one is that we start really pushing to invest in communities and taking that community fragmentation and being a force multiplier, and that that might be again in the forms of data consortiums or regional health consortiums, and investing in those in creating those hubs across the state, and also nationally, and so, yeah, so legislative solutions, regulatory litigation, clearly, like Nina probably would love to get into that. I know you all have been leading on, but also I just want to emphasize none of this is possible without strengthening really the groups and services that are on the ground.
Jeremiah Johnson 47:35
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Nina Schwalbe 47:36
I have a couple of specific legislation that I would like to see passed on day one. The Access and Coverage Act is one which mandates no-cost prep coverage across all insurance plans with no prior authorizations, no cost sharing, and no discrimination. And then the Prep Assistance Program Act, which fills the gap for the uninsured. 123, Next, expand Medicaid drug pricing authority for negotiations on federally funded medicines, we have yes to go, which in my world is called Lena Kapavere, same thing, $28,000 a year, you know how much it actually costs, $25 a year at scale, that's just bs. Then similarly, there's a new monthly Merck pill, and for people that are sometimes injections can be hard, also because you have to go to the doctor to take them. So, a monthly pill, although it may sound more problematic because it's monthly, puts power in control of people who actually take them without the stigma. Because I think we also have to remember that it's a lot of reason why people don't get access to care is because they don't have access to care, so something like having a monthly pill that you can take at home is, and that's what we see in abortion as well, and I'm sure you followed the mifepristone debates. Okay, next is expanding the federally qualified health center. We talked about being in this incredible building, which is where Callan Lord started, which was the now is an FQHC, which really treats the LGBTQ plus population. If we were running for office, and I were to be elected to Congress, one of the things that I would put forward, just hypothetically, completely hypothetical, is the National American Health Security Act, which would lower the cost of drugs, increase access to primary providers through expansion of FQHCs, and both protect and expand Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. And the last thing I want to talk about is CDC funding. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that can be done at the state level, and then there's stuff - we cross borders, we are a country, and it's not efficient to have every state do it on its own. mr. Trump, basically, and mr. Kennedy, my favorite politician, you know, cut basically cut the HIV prevention division and eliminated surveillance and testing and testing grants, and all these surveys. There's a really good metric that's used to track how we're doing on PrEP, and now we can't track it anymore. So I think restoring the CDC is also critical. One thing I'd also like to shout out on is this idea that passing legislation is the be all and end all. It's great to pass legislation, but what we saw from this administration is legislation was passed and the money wasn't spent. And I'm part of a coalition, maybe the same one, that meets every Thursday at 9o'clock It's called the Change Coalition, and what we saw on day one was they weren't spending the money, and we have that across the federal government. There is federal money, it was rescinded, which is another word for stolen, and isn't being spent. So legislation is great, but unless Congress follows that dollar and makes sure that the administration spends that that money, it's just all bunks, just a piece of paper.
Jeremiah Johnson 50:47
Thank you so much. Definitely, ditto on a lot of that, Patrick.
Patrick Timmins 50:52
One of the, one of the great words that came out of the last year is affordability. We need to use that word a lot, I'll thank Mayor Mamdani for that word, and it's a word that has to be on the tip of our tongues. Affordability has changed thinking, and so as we think about what we need to do next, I have said that Medicare needs to include dental and vision Medicaid, which most HIV people are on, that needs to include free medication just across the board. Why is anybody paying for any type of HIV medication? It shouldn't be happening, and with our affordability movement, our advocacy for that, it needs to include public education, like I said before, invisible invisibility doesn't help anyone, and it needs to monitor all the federal programs and the state programs, and we need to feel like we're all together, we everyone is in this, and if we think that way, good things will happen, and the best laws come out of bipartisan laws. So we can hope for that, and we can hope to be the best advocates we can be.
Jeremiah Johnson 52:13
Thank you so much for all of those thoughtful comments. And I will just say, you know, in our work in with researchers, community members, different service providers. They touched on many of the things that you talked about, which is that for prep users, many of them said to us it's a lot of work for a condition that I don't have. We know that for preventive services that we have to really make it truly accessible, and so I really appreciate the comments on things like barbershops, you know, and one of our pillars of a national prep program is to take prep to where people are, and so that that network expansion, telehealth, another one, Chris, those affordability issues, the cost and coverage issues have to be, you know, managed. We've been calling for a federal prep pass that would streamline and ensure that access is easy and intuitive for community members without cost, and then better awareness, as well as you were just talking about, so you know, really appreciate all of your thoughts on that, and it really seems to align with a lot of what we've been talking about. I do have a fourth question, but given just some of the timing, I want to do a little management. We need to get one of the microphones to the middle stand, if someone can help out with that. Thank you. Tony, Tony is wearing many hats today. If anyone in the audience would like to ask a question, go ahead and you can line up there, and then as I ask the fourth question, that'll just sort of help us manage time for everybody, but I do want to make sure while people are contemplating questions and lining up there that we do talk about global health, and a couple of you have brought up global health is an important topic. This is obviously something of extreme importance for many in HIV-affected communities, and amongst advocates, global HIV programs funded by PEPFAR have been estimated to save over 25 million lives and prevented millions of new HIV transmissions, but recent changes have led to dramatic declines in testing and prep uptake through that program. Why should shifts in global HIV funding matter to communities here in New York?
Nina Schwalbe 54:34
Yeah, this one I feel like I need to, like, literally stand up. This just makes me so mad, because we've just killed people for no reason at all, and some of us on this room were on calls where, when they did those cuts to PEPFAR, and it's not only PEPFAR, it's also the Global Fund. So, I want to talk about the Global Fund also. We spoke to advocates around the world who are literally locked out of their clinics because the people. Weren't getting their salaries to open up the clinics with the HIV medications. These are our brothers and sisters, both in spirit and literally. We're a diaspora community, we're a big New York with relatives all over the world, and you know this is just people. It's not that people will die, it's that people are dying, and the thing about PrEP that is the craziest part of this is that the conditionalities they put on prep, I think that was what made many of us fall out of our chairs, was, and maybe people in the room know it, but they were only giving prep really to pregnant moms. If you're in a discordant couple right now, and you're you cannot get access to prep, I mean, it's insane if you identify as an LGBTQ plus any sort of diversity population, you cannot get access to prep because of the conditionalities now placed on a program, so there's so much that needs to be done in PEFFAR, and one of the things around it is that it's not the same PEPFAR, so we can't say yay, yay, yay, PEPFAR was saved, because it's a different PEPFAR. It's a PEPFAR that does not provide access to treatment for discordant couples. It's a PEPFAR that does not give LGBTQ plus self-identified populations any access to care. We're already seeing those effects skyrocket. The other thing is something called the expanded Mexico City policy and what that policy did was for many of you that know it's like the Hyde Amendment basically for people that work domestically, so federal funding can't fund programs that are related to abortion. Well, the Trump administration has expanded that to say that if you serve DEI you can't provide access to services, so it's a massive mess. The other thing that's a big mess that I think people don't pay enough attention to, or we need to pay more attention to, is the global research infrastructure. So, a lot of the medicines that we have benefited from here, and everybody's benefited from around the world, like we talked about this new Gilead-tested people around the world. Gilead is now not giving those same people access to drugs. There's a new Merck, this monthly pill that Merck is testing, which is being tested around the world. Those clinical trials have stopped, so there are so many ways that we benefit from the federal funding. And then there's also the Global Fund, and I'm really proud to have been on the first board of the Global Fund, which started in 2000 and was basically, I like to describe Global Fund and Gabby as like Sam's Clubs for for treatment. Basically, they said, look, if we take the most vulnerable in the world and we pull procurement, we can get better prices on on MDR TB drugs, on MDR TB, TB, the leading killer of people with HIV around the world, we can get better prices on vaccine, and we've seen it work, and that benefits us too, because we can show that it works. I stood up to Merck and lowered the cost of cervical cancer vaccines by 65% It is possible with the data and the data that Prep for All is doing. So, anyway, I'm highly passionate about this issue, and I'm glad you brought it up. Thanks.
Jeremiah Johnson 58:03
Thank you so much. Would anyone else like to comment?
Karen Ortiz 58:11
I love when Nina schools us, but you know this is really personal for me, because as a Puerto Rican, you know, the US came in and did all kinds of tests on Puerto Rican women, and, and it was horrible, and they've continued to deprive the island of a lot of basic needs, and I won't go into it, because that's not the exact forum, but it's really personal, we are, you know, our bar, our borders are artificial. Okay, they are. They're man-made borders, and we are one. We are a people, and someone being deprived of PEPFAR or drugs that they need to live in South Africa, it does affect me. So, I take it very personally. But I thank you, Nina, for like laying down the facts. I'll bring the emotion, you lay down the facts, and that's that's all I have to say on that.
Jeremiah Johnson 59:10
Thank you. And as we pass the mic, just again, a reminder, if anyone has a question, feel free to step up to the mic, and happy to hear from you, Alex. I'm wondering if there's a
Alex Bores 59:25
perfect literal musical chairs. This is good. Thank you. You know, prep for all is the name because it benefits when everyone has access, and that doesn't mean just everyone who's American, it matters that we are helping to provide lifesaving medication to entire communities, first and foremost, because they are people, but second of all, because we live in a global community, and what happens abroad affects us here as well, when there are surge. Of infection, people travel globally, that affects us here as well. If we are discriminating in who we give access to and asking a bunch of questions in order to limit both the providers that we will fund, but also the people and who's eligible for it. First of all, it's less effective than if everyone has access to it, and second of all, people that even under your new criteria should qualify don't end up getting it, because you ask all of these questions, you make it harder for it, and so it hurts everyone when we're discriminating against anyone in having this access, and let alone aspects like if you are providing it broadly, you have economies of scale, you can negotiate even further to reduce prices for everyone in aspects like that. It's the simple moral responsibility that we have to everyone that, again, it's directly hurting us to not have the global community support in that way. It's hurting the reputation of the United States to be pulling back from what was our greatest, probably piece of soft diplomacy and greatest bit of generating goodwill, and it ultimately hurts us as well. So this turn inward is not only wrong, but it's also just directly counterintuitive and directly harming America itself.
Jeremiah Johnson 1:01:26
Thank you so much, Laura or Chris.
Chris Diep 1:01:30
Yeah, I'll join this later. Beautiful cheers. Okay,
Jeremiah Johnson 1:01:37
that's scheduled after this question.
Chris Diep 1:01:40
Yeah, okay, I agree with Karen, urban borders are manmade, and I do see that things are difficult now, but you know we're all united here, and for this prep for all, and you know we want to solve this problem together, and I can see that you know in about maybe a couple of years that we can work together and this could be a unifying cause for humanity that we can, you know, put our money towards opportunity versus hurting people, destruction and might have to start now. Diplomacy would be the best route, and you know we have to fight sometimes, but just personal thing I learned from martial arts, just you need to take a breath, and it's kind of a chill fighting if you, you know, you want to think smart.
Jeremiah Johnson 1:02:48
Thank you so much, Chris Laura.
Laura Dunn 1:02:51
So, I'm deeply concerned with the lack of funding by the current administration of the United Nations, the divestment in that program, and overall this trend away from who are our true allies and have historically been our allies and cozying up to our enemies and I believe that this isn't being done by accident and I think the anecdote is what we've all been talking about we have to lean into the global community that we are part of and we have lost our standing in the world, so part of that is doing what's right at home first, which would be cleaning out our government of corruption, and that's not just the executive branch, although that's where you got to start, that is congressional term limits, it's getting money out of politics, it is ending insider trading, it's ethical standards for our Supreme Court, and term limits there as well. We need to catch up to elsewhere in the world that have put in these protections, and that has allowed them to then have better social programs, to then have better medical access, because they aren't fighting their own leaders for resources and funding. So I view this as all related, and something I'm deeply concerned about, that is both global and local at the same time, is the lack of funding going to universities and colleges. We are falling behind in innovation in the world. We attract talent from all over the world with our research grants, with our educational institutions. We've made the next cures together here in this country, and we're going to lose that, and it's under the guise of saving money, but you know that money didn't go back into health care, into the community, it went into the pockets of those who are supposed to be public servants. So all of this is related in my mind, and I would love for us to be a global ally and restore our standing as a global leader.
Jeremiah Johnson 1:04:40
Thank you so much, and thank you for bringing up research funding. You know that is something that advocates are very concerned about, and it's a true loss when NIH is defunded and HIV research is defunded. Everyone in America has benefited from research in HIV that has built a platform for. We can deal with other infectious diseases that affect our communities, so thank you for bringing that up, Dr. Negro.
Wilneida Negron 1:05:07
Yeah, I know we're at time, but I was just going to repeat it. What I mentioned at the story I mentioned in the beginning, we have world-class medicine research health facilities here, and I know that I've helped my parents get most of their medication from Canadian online pharmacies, and my dad, like I mentioned, is traveling to Dominican Republic, a country that is considered by most people a third world country, and he'll get his medical procedure there because it's a lot cheaper, and so we are a global community. I don't think my story is a strange one. Sadly, I think we have an access problem, and I think the access problem, and then the reducing of eligibility that that was named by Nina and Alex, is deeply concerning, and we need to uphold this as one of the best bipartisan public health accomplishments of the US, and we need to be proud about that, and stand for it, and, and do that in solidarity, because we, as Americans, are traveling all over the world for our medicine and our health care, and we need, we can't do it alone. Clearly,
Jeremiah Johnson 1:06:24
thank you so much. And finally, Patrick,
Patrick Timmins 1:06:27
I'll just conclude I agree with a lot of what's have been said, and it's great to hear it. The one thing I would say, obviously, global health care is a moral issue. To create a moral issue, there's got to be a lot of advocacy, and the one thing I would also say to include, and that is private, private funding, private help. I happen to be connected with the Franciscan and the Jesuit communities, they are missionaries in a lot of parts of the of the world, and they do good work. They don't get involved with the governments, they do their own work. So, I would hope that as we push forward for this moral issue, that we can also look at nongovernmental bodies who are doing so much good work. Thank you.
Jeremiah Johnson 1:07:18
Thank you so much. We are at 1130 Jay, one quick question
Chris Diep 1:07:25
right now. The situation that we're in as a country, and because of that, as a world, is because of an extraordinary failure on the left of Democrats to a failure of imagination, a failure to pay attention to what Project 2025 was written in Project 2025 even though that was released in the spring of 2023 So, what I'm interested in is, what is the prescription to avoid this happening again? What, what you know, because elections are every four presidential elections are every four years, and it's a lot easier to destroy a hotel room than it is to fix the hotel room after it's been destroyed, so you know what. What's the prescription for getting out of this and staying out of this?
Laura Dunn 1:08:16
I'm going to give a biased answer. You have to start thinking. Oh, do you want to go first, Alex? Because you're sure. Okay, I think we've invested so much in a party system, and I actually think that's part of the problem. It's not about parties, it's about people. It has been the whole time, and the more that parties keep consolidating power and money and resources, I truly, truly, at my core, believe that some parties think they can benefit by leaving disasters, by leaving a crisis, by fundraising off of it over and over, and exhausting you until you give up and stop paying attention, which is even better for them, because then they can put whoever they want for it. So I would really just encourage people to look beyond the traditional establishment to look at the funding sources coming in to the candidates that are running, and to make critical calls. You can't get millions of dollars in a political race without making a compromise somewhere. It's just the facts, and there are those of us who are bravely putting together campaigns without millions, and that's how much we care. We want to be in this community, and we don't want to be compromised at the same time. So, keep an open mind. I think that's something that New York can lead on, and really show the nation on. And we did with our mayor, do it in other races too.
Alex Bores 1:09:38
Alex, thank you for letting me go. And then, apologies that I have to run, but thank you for hosting this fantastic forum, and also thank you to all my fellow candidates for being in. It's been a wonderful conversation. There was a meme when Trump ran the first time about how Democrats were taking him literally but not seriously, and Republicans were taking him seriously but not literally. I think with Project 2025 If we had to do both, take it literally and seriously, and there was a failure to do that, despite having already lost once to him, and that's unforgivable. There were people that were loudly talking about Project 2025 There's an organization, Disrupt Project 2025 that I helped to support as well, and but not enough people were getting the message out, and not enough people were doing it in a way that was consumable and taken seriously. When you're faced with a hundreds and hundreds of page document, people's eyes glaze over, but when you talk about the specific impacts on communities, that makes a big difference. And so we need people who are willing to dive in and have those conversations and engage with what it is we also need to seriously reform the electoral system itself, it seems passe to say it, but campaign finance reform, banning partisan gerrymandering, actually taking a look at going to a national popular vote as the states have gone through a compact to move in that direction to really shift it so that the people have more say and not the way that everyone knows how to calculate and divide things up now, and I'll just add one small piece on that, because everything I've said has been said before, and Democrats have fought for it before, but I think one thing that we have missed as a part of it is the role that technology plays in expanding our divisions and in making it harder for Democrats, in particular, to get our message out, in that our democracy was not healthy when Donald Trump was elected the first time, he's now the biggest cause of our fallback, but he's also a symptom, and part of that was social media that the algorithms would constantly show you either just your side, which you agree with, or the absolute worst version of the other side, which would enrage you, but then you didn't actually know what they were really hearing and what was convincing to them, and it puts you in a bad place to have real conversations that could sway a voter and bring someone over to your side. And we need to take a real hard look at the role that social media, that artificial intelligence is playing in specifically targeting voters, and how Republicans have been far, far more advanced at using that. Now, granted, I don't think anyone should, I should think we should be improving the rules and cracking down on data brokers and all of that, but we are missing an expertise and a willingness among Democrats to look at the new media ecosystems, look at how people are really getting their information, and to deeply engage with the tactics where it makes sense and it's the right thing to do, or to regulate it to make sure that we have better results for everyone, so lots that we have to do, and I think that's one that people are not talking enough about.
Jeremiah Johnson 1:12:46
Thank you so much.
Alex Bores 1:12:47
Thank you so much. Sorry that I have to run home.
Jeremiah Johnson 1:12:49
No, I appreciate that. And we are, we do have to, unfortunately, leave the room by noon, so if there are any brief final thoughts, please. And then we'll wrap it up.
Chris Diep 1:13:01
Okay, I'll be brief. We can use technology to outsmart them. I mean, he's a simple man, erratic, but yeah, I could go into detail a little bit afterwards if you want, and I really think that, you know, like you said, every four years is going to switch. That's why I support more of health savings accounts, money going directly, and you own it, versus relying on a government that can cut off SNAP benefits, things like that. And I really trust, you know, more local governments, you know, our state, our mayor, that's more of a direct feedback loop. Sorry, that sounded too technical. That's more of, like, you know, human to human interaction, like you could reach out to someone who lives in the same place. Yeah, that's brief. Brick,
Jeremiah Johnson 1:13:55
thank you so much, Chris. I appreciate that. Any final brief thoughts,
Wilneida Negron 1:14:03
I guess. In conclusion, as someone who began my career deeply, deeply embedded in communities, and who, as my career expanded, moved into policymaking at still very bottom up, very grassroots focused policy making. I can tell you that, hypothetically, if I were to run for office, I would not do it in the current system that we have right now. It would, I would have to compromise my commitment to public service, to centering communities, and to centering people, and the complexity that that brings, because clearly, for any of us in any large groups, we don't all agree, and so democracy is extremely. Very hard work, and it's not easy, and sometimes it's easier to just bypass that than the what can be noisy and messy, but I'm committed to that hard work. I've been committed to that hard work for all of my life, and I wouldn't be able to do it, and so I would say in the current system, and so I would say, you know, support politicians that are committed to doing a lot of what Laura has spoken about, and start to look for politicians or candidates that give you that commitment and that have that political imagination, because they're not constrained by whatever commitments they're making behind the scenes for various political and fundraising reasons, and so I applaud that question. I think that one is center to really a lot of the challenges in this country, and in this particular conversation. Did you? Yeah,
Nina Schwalbe 1:16:02
somebody the other day I was talking, and I was talking about in the sort of royal way, and I said, "Oh, that sounds super weird, and they said, "No, no, it's okay, your pronouns are we, us, okay? I like that, but if we want to change Washington, we have to change the type of people that we send to Washington, and I am very proud to be here with this group of people, because we are the underdogs in this race, and you know why we're the underdogs, we're the underdogs because we are not backed by billionaires, we are not celebrities, and we're not part of the democratic machine. It's fine to hear candidates talk about targeting by the algorithm, but if any of you are on Facebook, we're not targeting our Facebook is organic growth. The candidate who just left, mr. Boras, and I think it's fair because he just left. I get targeted with his ads every time I turn on any type of social media, so I wish some of the candidates speaking out there would lead by example. Another candidate has said, as part of his campaign, we need a Democratic Project 2025 We absolutely do not need a Democratic Project 2025 It was done by a bunch of white dudes in a think tank in Washington with no community engagement. That is the last thing that we need. So, if we want to change the Democratic Party, we need to send technocrats who know their stuff, who can follow the dollars, who know the details of the plans, and who've worked in real systems. I think none of us are career politicians, and that is something I am super proud of. So, let's change the type of people we send to DC.
Jeremiah Johnson 1:17:34
Thank you. Do we, Karen and Patrick, brief last thoughts, and then we'll wrap up.
Karen Ortiz 1:17:43
My last thoughts are that these movements, these changes are community-led, and that elected officials should be led by the community's wishes and informed by the community, and this is where the real conversations happen, we can talk about online all you want, but the most impactful, important conversations all across the board, not just about HIV prep and the LGBTQ community that's under attack. All the conversations I've had that have been most impactful have been in-person conversations or Zooms, and you know, I got some advice when I first spoke out about the anti-trans executive orders, which got me fired by the Trump administration, best termination ever, and I got some advice from a longtime union organizer, and they said go desk to desk, person to person, and it's such simple advice, but it's really true, because that's how you, that's actually how you find out what's truly going on on the street, what people really need, what people's challenges really are. I mean, I've heard some surprising things, and I'm like, oh, okay, it's because I was having that one on one conversation, but and then that also extends to being in Washington. I don't understand. I've done my share of lobbying on my own. I kind of go rogue and do my own thing, but you don't see colleagues going into each other's offices, so there's like that, that culture of that community culture, being on the street talking one on one, doesn't exist there, and that needs to change, but, but honestly, like, no, no politician, no elected leader should be put on a pedestal. They work for you, for us, and they need to be reminded of that all the time.
Jeremiah Johnson 1:19:35
Thank you, Patrick. Final word, thank you,
Patrick Timmins 1:19:41
Jeremiah, and everyone here, and I'm happy to be here. I would just say that as we look at this political season, this race in CD 12 is wide open. You're hearing about two or three or four alleged front runners, they all agree. With each other, look into all of us. We've been held back from being in forums. That's why I'm so grateful for this, and we need to understand that what the media says means nothing. You have to do your own research here, and welcome anybody to check my website, Patrick Timmons. And last thing I would say is I ran last June. I was the lone Democratic opponent to Alvin Bragg. I had $18,000 and I got 70,000 votes in Manhattan, 52,000 in this congressional district. So be open and listen to all, and I think we can have a new era in Congress. I hope so. Thank you.
Jeremiah Johnson 1:20:42
Thank you so much. Just a quick round of applause for our panelists. Thank you for being here, and I will just say, you know, again, I think for the coalition, the broader coalition that we represent, that this has meant so much. I hear differences in details, differences in priorities. Obviously, there are a lot of approaches to tackling these conversations, and you've brought so much into the room, but the thing that is clear to me is that this is a priority that still matters, that we still have a dream of ending HIV as an epidemic for every community that every person living with HIV can live with dignity and with full health, and that is clear here today, and that it is still achievable if we just prioritize both the human aspect of it, which is a no brainer, and the affordability aspect that's come up over and over again, that at the end of the day, those health care expenses, they don't go away, they still manifest if you address it sooner, then it's going to be much cheaper. So I'm incredibly grateful for that. I also just want to say, Karen, thank you for bringing up the importance of the trans community. I want to mention this community lost a tremendous hero this week, Kiara St James, who just an amazing advocate, and so I just want to bring her into this space and her memory. So I just really appreciate you bringing that up. I will just say one last time, because I think we veered and swerved a little bit on that last question, you know, the viewpoints, and particularly anything around any campaigns that is not NYU or PrEP for alls or Save HIV fundings sort of viewpoints, but we are grateful to everything that you have brought today around your experience as policymakers and leaders in the community. I will just invite everybody. If you're not familiar with Prep for All, please follow us on social media, or you can go to Prep, the number for all.org and go to our website and sign up for our eblasts. There's also a Save HIV funding website, Save HIV funding.org There are a lot of great resources on there for everyone who's trying to push back on proposed federal cuts. And with that, thank you so much for joining us today. The
Announcer 1:23:18
Engelberg Center Live Podcast is a production of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy at NYU Law, and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Our theme music is by Jessica Batke and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.