FACT CHECK: No, Pete Buttigieg Did Not Reveal That He Is HIV-Positive
This claim originates from a parody account that Check Your Fact has debunked previously.
Clinton judge rules US military can't say no to HIV-compromised enlistees
A Clinton-appointed federal judge has ruled that the U.S. military cannot bar HIV-positive individuals from enlisting if they've temporarily rendered their viral loads undetectable through the use of costly antiretroviral drugs, which usually require daily use.
Judge Leonie Brikema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia previously handled two consequential cases in which she ruled against certain military service restrictions on HIV-compromised individuals — persons who if left unmedicated could possibly succumb to opportunistic infections and/or infect their comrades.
Citing her own opinions in those cases, Brikema asserted in her Aug. 20 ruling that the Pentagon's "policies prohibiting the accession of asymptomatic HIV-positive individuals with undetectable viral loads into the military are irrational, arbitrary, and capricious."
"Even worse, they contribute to the ongoing stigma surrounding HIV-positive individuals while actively hampering the military's own recruitment goals," continued Brikema.
'HIV is an infectious, incurable, bloodborne disease with several possible ways in which the disease could be transmitted to other service members.'
The lawsuit that precipitated Brikema's ruling was brought on behalf of three HIV-positive individuals and a leftist advocacy group.
The first, Isaiah Wilkins, is an HIV-positive 24-year-old homosexual who receives HIV-related health care from the VA Medical Center in Atlanta, Georgia. He has to take pills to suppress his viral load. Wilkins seeks to enlist in the Army.
According to a 2023 Congressional Research report, the Pentagon's Armed Forces Health Surveillance Division estimated that between January 2017 and June 2022, 1,581 service members were newly diagnosed with HIV.
The second plaintiff is Carol Coe, a 33-year-old transvestite living in Washington, D.C. He contracted HIV while serving in the military, then left the military in 2013 to get a sex change. Coe attempted to re-enlist in 2022 but was unsuccessful on account of his infectious disorder.
The third plaintiff is Natalie Noe, an Australian now living as a permanent resident in California. She was similarly told that her HIV positivity was a negative where recruiters were concerned. To manage her HIV, Noe takes pills daily and is injected with an antiretroviral therapeutic every three to six months.
The trio were joined in their action by Minority Veterans of America — a leftist advocacy group committed to "social and structural change" that has worked to guarantee access to "abortion and contraception, and gender confirmation surgery through VA for veterans."
'We are pleased the court has eliminated the last discriminatory policy that barred people living with HIV from seeking enlistment or appointment to the military.'
The suit was filed against the Department of Defense in November 2022.
According to the original complaint, medical advances in HIV treatments "should have led to an overhaul of military policies related to people living with HIV. Instead, the Department of Defense and the Army — and all military departments — have maintained the bar to enlistment and appointment of people living with HIV."
The suit claimed that policies barring HIV-positive prospects from enlisting violated the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause and the Administrative Procedure Act.
Court documents indicate that the Pentagon argued that:
the military's HIV policies are rationally related to promoting the health and readiness of the armed forces. For example, defendants continue to argue that asymptomatic HIV-positive individuals with undetectable viral loads may not take their daily medications properly, which would result in their viral loads rising; that HIV is an infectious, incurable, bloodborne disease with several possible ways in which the disease could be transmitted to other service members, such as through battlefield blood spatter or transfusions; and that HIV is associated with various comorbidities and side effects that could harm a service member's health.
The Pentagon further suggested that:
- the science is clear about the meaningful risk of infection that comes with blood-to-blood transmission "even for individuals with an undetectable viral load";
- restrictions on HIV-positive enlistees is "rationally related to the goal of ensuring that safe blood supplies are available for use in combat medical care";
- "'deployment may make it more likely that' HIV-positive individuals 'could experience viral rebound' due to the 'increase[d] ... risk that [they] will not maintain strict adherence to their' HIV medications";
- "recruiting HIV-compromised individuals would impose disproportionately higher financial costs on the military compared to individuals without HIV," given antiretroviral therapy costs between $1,800 and $4,500 monthly; and that
- it is rational to preclude incurable disease-compromised persons from joining to "ensur[e] a healthy military."
Brikema, evidently unpersuaded by these arguments, has enjoined the Pentagon from barring HIV-compromised individuals with undetectable viral loads from joining the military.
"We are pleased the court has eliminated the last discriminatory policy that barred people living with HIV from seeking enlistment or appointment to the military," stated Gregory Nevons, senior counsel for Lambda Legal, an outfit that helped file the case. "Americans living with HIV no longer face categorical barriers to service careers — discharge, bans on commissioning, bans on deployment and finally bans on enlisting."
"This is a victory not only for me but for other people living with HIV who want to serve," said plaintiff Isaiah Wilkins.
The Military Times indicated that the Pentagon declined to comment on the ruling.
While HIV-compromised candidates have been given the green light to enlist, the Pentagon still has prohibitions on the recruitment or retention of persons with certain maladies, such as Crohn's disease, kidney abnormalities, asthma, anemia, gout, rheumatoid arthritis, various sleep disorders, and excessive sweating.
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Triple threat: Italian man’s BIZARRE diagnosis after trip to Spain
As the WHO declares monkeypox a global threat in 2024, one story from 2022 is making headlines again.
Two years ago, an Italian man was believed to be the first patient ever diagnosed with monkeypox, COVID-19, and HIV — all at the same time.
While before 2022, it was not believed that COVID-19 and monkeypox infections could occur simultaneously, the man has apparently proven the scientists wrong.
The man reportedly first developed a fever, sore throat, and headaches nine days after returning from a trip to Spain, where he had unprotected sex with other men, and first tested positive for COVID-19 on July 2, 2022.
Within just hours of the positive test, he began developing a rash and painful blisters all over his body before heading to the ER. It was there that he tested positive for monkeypox and learned that he also had HIV.
The 36-year-old’s case is as rare as it is alarming — but Pat Gray of “Pat Gray Unleashed” is far from concerned, at least for himself.
“You might want to, I don’t know, pay attention to your lifestyle a little bit,” Gray says, adding, “HIV and monkeypox are apparently spread in very similar ways.”
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Blaze News investigates: Meet the sex-obsessed, gay 'activist physician' in charge of vaccines, COVID at the CDC
Since at least the COVID-related government shutdowns of 2020, Americans have been keenly aware of the Centers for Disease Control and its role in influencing public health policy, particularly regarding vaccines. However, they may not know that the man currently tasked with overseeing the CDC's immunization services and its coronavirus division, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, is an LGBTQ+ "activist" with a long history of pushing vaccines and drugs to facilitate promiscuous sexual behavior, especially among gay men.
Blaze News took a look into the background of Daskalakis — the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, a subdivision of the CDC — to better understand how a sex-obsessed physician rose to such a position of prominence within a powerful federal agency and to gauge how his work there may be affected by his personal lifestyle choices.
The "media requests" page on the NCIRD website can no longer "be found," so Blaze News reached out to the agency through another email address listed on the site, asking a bevy of specific questions about Daskalakis' beliefs about gender and his approaches to medicine. We never received a response.
'Radical gay doctor': Daskalakis takes on meningitis in NYC
Daskalakis, described in his CDC bio as an "activist physician," reportedly grew up in Arlington, Virginia, in a Greek Orthodox family and attended medical school at New York University. After residency in Boston, he moved back to NYC, where he became known as a "progressive, radical gay doctor" eager to take on infectious diseases known to spread among gay men.
Not only might underage boys have illicitly snuck into these venues otherwise restricted to adults, but even the adults at the clubs and bathhouses may have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
One such disease that ravaged the LGBTQ+ populations in NYC in 2012 and 2013 was meningitis. Ostensibly in an effort to limit the spread of the disease, Daskalakis began going to gay nightclubs and bathhouses and offering meningitis vaccinations to those in attendance. He even occasionally performed those vaccinations while wearing a drag costume — "to take the edge off the injection," NBC News said.
In a feature story on Daskalakis several years ago, the Columbia College Alumni Association, which counted Daskalakis among its membership, called this approach "innovative" and claimed it was "making healthcare accessible and easy for at-risk populations." "Daskalakis is known for ... putting convention aside and going into the community rather than waiting for people to come to him," the association said.
One possible concern with this "innovative" approach, however, is whether the individuals who received a vaccination from Daskalakis under these conditions were in a position to consent to it. Not only might underage boys have illicitly snuck into these venues otherwise restricted to adults, but even the adults at the clubs and bathhouses may have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
In our email to the NCIRD, Blaze News asked what steps Daskalakis took to ensure that his vaccination recipients were of age and sound mind to consent to the injection. Neither the NCIRD nor Dr. Daskalakis responded.
When HIV 'prevention' boosts Big Pharma's bottom line
Another infectious disease known to affect gay men in particular is HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS. Though the scourge of AIDS frequently made headlines in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a time when celebrities proudly wore red ribbons to award shows in support of AIDS research, its popularity as a cause waned by the 2000s.
Rather than attempting to curtail the unsafe behaviors, Daskalakis was, wittingly or unwittingly, facilitating promiscuity within the gay community, all under the guise of sexual 'health.'
Dr. Daskalakis made HIV the focus of his early medical career, which likely began in the late 1990s, when HIV was beginning to fall off the national radar. Daskalakis' CDC bio claims that at the time, he stressed the importance of HIV testing in LGBTQ+ communities as well as "prevention."
Indeed, Daskalakis soon adopted a prevention-minded HIV treatment program known as PrEP, short for pre-exposure prophylaxis. A major component of PrEP, however, usually involves a daily dose of an expensive drug called Truvada.
While state and federal programs may have made Truvada more affordable, PrEP participants must take a dose every single day, which makes them dependent — which is not to say addicted — on a drug made necessary because of unsafe sexual practices. Rather than attempt to curtail the unsafe behaviors, Daskalakis wittingly or unwittingly attempted to inoculate against some of the consequences of those behaviors, thus facilitating promiscuity within the gay community, and all under the guise of sexual "health."
In fairness, it appears that PrEP has helped reduce the rates of HIV infection in places like NYC, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. According to a study cited by NBC News, between 2012 and 2017, new HIV diagnoses in NYC dropped from about 400 for every 1,000,000 people to about 250.
However, PrEP depends largely on individuals consuming Truvada or other antiretroviral drugs, and pharmaceutical companies have since apparently tried to expand the consumer base for these medicines beyond just the LGBTQ community to encourage more drug purchases. NBC News even admitted that the positive results from PrEP prompted the government to set up the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which ultimately "recommended that doctors assess all Americans’ HIV risk ... vastly increasing the number of people recommended to take [Truvada]" (emphasis added).
'Sexual health clinics': Daskalakis revamps NYC's health agency
Because of his work with gay men, Daskalakis was eventually hired to be the assistant commissioner of the Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control at the New York City Health Department around the time that Bill de Blasio was sworn in as mayor in January 2014. Over the next several years, Daskalakis advanced in the agency and seized the opportunity to significantly change its approach to sex and health.
For one thing, Daskalakis rebranded STD clinics to be "sexual health clinics," even though the healthiest form of sexuality is expressed exclusively within a monogamous marriage.
Daskalakis was also involved in devising new sex-related media campaigns in NYC. "Gone were the scare-tactic campaigns of the Bloomberg administration ... . They were replaced by joyful, brightly colored ads that encouraged people to come in for STD testing," NBC News claimed.
Such a description dodges the crudely suggestive nature of these ads, some of which are featured on NYC subways. NBC News shared an image of an ad from 2018 that promoted a casual hookup and included emojis that reference male genitalia and ejaculation. Current NYC ads feature similarly vulgar images through strategic use of fruit.
In 2022, a year or so after Daskalakis left, the city's health department changed its name to NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Though the name suggests the Division of Mental Hygiene encourages clean, wholesome thoughts, it actually "oversees the agency’s work on mental health, alcohol and drug use prevention, care and treatment and children youth and families," according to its website.
'Leadership on health equity': Daskalakis joins the CDC
During his years at the NYC health department, Daskalakis held several titles, including "incident commander" of the "COVID-19 public health emergency" in 2020, a position that increased his public profile considerably. In fact, he actually joined the CDC in December 2020, the tail end of the Trump administration, to be the director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention in the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, though all the while he continued to promote the COVID vaccines.
Then in August 2022, Joe Biden named Daskalakis and Robert Fenton of FEMA to spearhead the effort to combat the so-called monkeypox virus, which spread mainly among gay men. Biden first developed confidence in Fenton and Daskalakis because of their tireless efforts to promote the COVID vaccines for nearly everyone, including babies as young as 6 months old.
"Both played critical roles in making COVID vaccines more accessible for underserved communities and closing the equity gap in adult vaccination rates, through the implementation and execution of FEMA mass vaccination sites in some of the country’s most underserved communities, and working with trusted members of local communities to build vaccine confidence," said a statement from the White House.
Dr. Anthony Fauci — the controversial former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, a subset of the National Institutes of Health — praised the appointment of Daskalakis and Fenton.
"From Bob’s work at FEMA leading COVID-19 mass vaccination efforts and getting vaccines to underserved communities to Demetre’s extensive experience and leadership on health equity and STD and HIV prevention, this team will allow the Biden Administration to further accelerate and strengthen its monkeypox response," Fauci said at the time.
Several months later, Daskalakis and his overtly sexual medical persona went viral on social media after users on the right began sharing a video of him from the HIV Prevention Summit in Las Vegas in 2023. In the video, Daskalakis, wearing a suit as well as some bondage-related accoutrement, struts onto a platform flanked by men in banana-boat-like attire as rainbow-colored lights flash about the stage and Madonna's "Erotica" thunders through the speakers.
"Erotic. Erotic. Put your hands all over my body," the lyrics repeat.
"Our country is run by clowns and pervs," commented popular right-wing X account I Meme Therefore I Am in reference to the video.
If users hoped sharing the video would shame the Biden administration into pulling Daskalakis' appointment, they were wrong. In fact, after Daskalakis' stint with the monkeypox response team, he was promoted to director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, a position that he still holds today.
Among the respiratory disease threats now under Daskalakis' care is COVID, as the NCIRD has an entire subdivision devoted to the coronavirus and "other respiratory viruses."
As NCIRD director, Daskalakis is also tasked with "advancing health equity." Blaze News asked NCIRD to clarify what it means by "health equity" and whether such an approach to treatment privileges the health concerns of certain groups over others. The NCIRD did not respond.
'Satan is waiting': Daskalakis' personal life
The 2023 video of Daskalakis at the HIV prevention convention in Las Vegas does not in any way exaggerate Daskalakis' focus on his gay sexual identity. A quick glance at his personal Instagram account reveals a man obsessed with sex and disturbing — possibly even satanic — imagery.
Most of the images on the account are selfies of himself with no shirt on, exposing his many tattoos, at least one of which includes a pentagram image. In others, he's standing with his legal partner, Michael Macneal.
The reels on the Instagram account are even more unsettling. Several feature drag queens expounding on Daskalakis' many contributions to the trans community. Another post from several years ago features a Macy's ad during June, sometimes referred to as Pride Month. In the ad, Daskalakis and Macneal cuddle and embrace in front of a rainbow-colored star. In one shot, Macneal even licks Daskalakis' face.
"JUST A LITTLE PRIDE WITH MY BOO," reads the attending message from Daskalakis.
Daskalakis has apparently embraced the homosexual lifestyle so completely that he has even disparaged heterosexuality. In a July 2022 post on the platform then known as Twitter, Daskalakis joked: "A white straight cis man comparing sex to bowling tells me so much about straight sex."
Such a joke from a private citizen would hardly be worth mentioning, but Daskalakis has strong influence over national federal policy regarding immunizations. He is also a physician who ought to treat everyone — from promiscuous homosexual men at NYC bathhouses to conservative Christian heterosexual women living in faithful marriages — the same in terms of medicine and bedside manners.
Possible anti-heterosexual biases aside, Daskalakis has evinced a personal outlook that would likely stand in stark contrast to the outlook of average Americans, especially Christians. In 2014, Daskalakis and Macneal partnered with Sarah LaBier to open a spin and yoga studio called Monster Cycle, which may sound rather innocuous but offered a decidedly dark atmosphere and approach to exercise.
One Facebook post from the studio features satanic images, including a pentagram and the number 666. Another offered "free tarot readings." Yet another post promotes a sale of six classes for $66.66. "Satan is waiting," the photo promo reads.
Images from a 2014 New York Post story about the studio likewise show LaBier practicing yoga in front of a pentagram and Macneal atop a spin bike wearing a costume that includes devilish horns.
Despite these images and promotions, LaBier insisted that she and her fellow co-owners were not satanists. "We don’t worship the devil, we’re not Satan followers," she told the Post. "We’re just sort of taking that energy and making it more positive."
When asked about his possible interest in satanism in September 2022, Daskalakis replied, "I wish I were that interesting."
Though the Facebook account for Monster Cycle remains active, the studio may be closed. The most recent Facebook post on the account is from March 2020, and calls to the phone number advertised on it either did not go through at all or were met with a busy signal. A website for the studio is likewise defunct.
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Biden DOJ sues Tennessee over law penalizing prostitutes who knowingly expose others to HIV — claims it's discriminatory
HIV is an incurable auto-immune disease that afflicts roughly 1.2 million Americans, predominantly non-straight men. The Biden Department of Justice wants to eliminate a law in Tennessee that might spare countless more Americans from contracting it.
A year after suing Tennessee over its ban on child sex-changes, the Biden DOJ has sued the state again, this time in hopes of killing a state law that makes prostitution a Class C felony if a person knowingly infected with HIV engages "in sexual activity as a business or is an inmate in a house of prostitution."
The law was reportedly reclassified as a "violent sexual offense" in 2010 due to the grievous, lasting physical harm it can result in. As a result, those so convicted are required to register as sex offenders.
According to the complaint filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, Tennessee and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation "unlawfully discriminate against individuals with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a disability, in their maintenance and enforcement of Tennessee's aggravated prostitution statute."
The lawsuit downplays the risks associated with HIV — a lifelong disease for which antiretroviral therapeutics cost potential sufferers anywhere from $1,800 to $4,500 every month — and takes issue with the requirement that persons convicted of aggravated prostitution must register as sex offenders. After all, this can impact convicts' employment potential and precludes convicts from hanging out alone with children in secluded areas.
The lawsuit cites a nameless black transvestite as a complainant "aggrieved" by the law. He was arrested in 2010 for prostitution "near a church or school" and pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated prostitution, having engaged in sex for money despite knowing he had HIV since 2008.
The transvestite alleges that as a result of the law — contra his conscious decision to sell sex while infected with a debilitating disease — he now has trouble finding employment because of his sex offender listing in the TBI's registry; is precluded from spending time alone with his nephew; and cannot change his name to "match [his] gender identity."
The DOJ claims that the TBI and the State of Tennessee are violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by continuing to enforce the statute.
The aim of the lawsuit is to nullify the law; to remove all relevant convicts from the TBI's sex offender registry; and to shake the state up for damages for "Complainant A and other aggrieved individuals with aggravated prostitution convictions."
"The enforcement of state criminal laws that treat people differently based on HIV status alone and that are not based on actual risks of harm, discriminate against people living with HIV," said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ's so-called Civil Rights Division. "People living with HIV should not be subjected to a different system of justice based on outdated science and misguided assumptions. This lawsuit reflects the Justice Department’s commitment to ensuring that people living with HIV are not targeted because of their disability."
Brandon James Smith, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti's chief of staff, said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press, "We are aware of the DOJ's findings, will give them appropriate consideration, and look forward to finding out more about DOJ's apparent cooperation with local activist organizations and private litigants related to this matter."
Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) suggested the DOJ's lawsuit was evidence that "the fight is not in Washington. The fight is with Washington."
The ACLU and the Transgender Law Center beat the Biden DOJ to the punch on attempting to decriminalize prostitutes' intentional exposure of unsuspecting strangers to HIV. The Hill reported that the radical groups filed the challenge in the U.S. District in Memphis on behalf of four plaintiffs and OUTMemphis in October 2023.
The complaint indicated that there were just over 80 potential super spreaders registered for aggravated prostitution in the state.
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Leftist protesters storm, briefly occupy McCarthy's office on Capitol Hill to make demand about federal program
Capitol Police arrested leftist protesters on Monday who stormed and briefly occupied Speaker Kevin McCarthy's office.
In a statement, Capitol Police confirmed that seven people were arrested after briefly occupying McCarthy's office in the Rayburn House Office Building. They were charged with unlawful entry.
"This morning, multiple individuals were demonstrating inside a House Office Building. After the demonstrators refused to cease demonstrating, USCP then arrested the 4 males and 3 females for Unlawful Entry," the agency said in a statement.
Video of the protesters occupying McCarthy's office was posted to social media. In total, the protest reportedly lasted about 15 minutes.
"Pass PEPFAR now, McCarthy!" the protesters shouted.
— (@)
Among those arrested were Charles King — CEO of Housing Works, a non-profit dedicated to combatting homelessness and HIV/AIDS — and Asia Russell, executive director of Health GAP, an organization that helps HIV-positive individuals afford their medications.
The activist group was demanding the reauthorization of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The program, also known as PEPFAR, was launched in 2003 by then-President George W. Bush and is the largest global health initiative providing funding for the research, treatment, and prevention of HIV and AIDS. The program is credited with saving more than 25 million lives.
However, funding for PEPFAR — about $7 billion per year — will expire at the end of September unless Congress reauthorizes it.
But that reauthorization is jeopardized by Republican lawmakers who want to ensure that PEPFAR money does not fund abortions. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) believes the Biden administration's decision to lift funding restrictions enacted by the Trump administration is allowing PEPFAR funds to end up in the hands of pro-abortion groups.
Republicans want to restore those Trump-era restrictions, which prohibited U.S. funds from supporting abortion overseas.
The Biden administration, of course, denies that funds are being used to support abortion.
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