New York Buyers’ Club Presents:
“Supplements and Other Smart Strategies for Longer Living”
A Free Panel Discussion with Experts on Both Eastern and Western Approaches to Treating HIV
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DATE: Wednesday June 24th, 7:00pm – 10:00pm
PLACE: The Center, 208 West 13th Street, New York City
MORE INFO: www.NewYorkBuyersClub.org/5
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The New York Buyers’ Club (NYBC), a nonprofit nutritional supplements information exchange and purchasing co-op, celebrates its fifth anniversary with a free public forum entitled “Supplements and Other Smart Strategies for Longer Living.” Co-sponsored by Gay City News and POZ magazine, this event promises to be both informative and lively, with panelists including Sunil Pant, the first openly gay Member of Parliament in Nepal and an internationally recognized advocate for people with HIV/AIDS; Tim Horn, President and Editor-in-Chief of AIDSmeds.com; noted NYC physician Paul Bellman, who has specialized in caring for people with HIV since 1986; Ann (“Alex”) Brameier, a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist; and George Carter, Director of the Foundation for Integrative AIDS Research and Treatment Director of NYBC. The forum will be moderated by NYBC President Carola Burroughs, who has worked in the field of HIV education for two decades.
Since its inception in 2004, NYBC has been a source of information on alternative and complementary therapies, especially for people with HIV and/or hepatitis (see its comprehensive website at http://www.NewYorkBuyersClub.org). It has also functioned as a buyers’ co-op, making a unique catalog of supplements available to its US and international membership at very low cost. NYBC endorses a holistic approach to health and healing, embracing both traditional bodies of botanical knowledge and modern evidence-based research findings, and in general stressing the need to integrate diet/nutrition, mental health and physical health, appropriate supplementation and standard pharmaceuticals. Like its predecessor DAAIR (Direct Action Alternative Information Resources), NYBC also believes that everyone has the right to actively engage in researching and understanding their healthcare options, and that we all gain by learning to critically evaluate healthcare information provided by the media, the government, “Big Pharma,” or supplement manufacturers.
After statements from the participants and a moderated panel discussion, the floor will be open for a Q&A session, followed by champagne (or cider) and cupcakes in celebration of New York Buyers’ Club’s fifth anniversary.
Supplements and Other Smart Strategies for Longer Living
Wednesday June 24th, 7:00pm – 10:00pm
The Center, 208 West 13th Street, New York City
http://www.NewYorkBuyersClub.org/5
Meet the Panelists:
Guest of Honor Sunil Babu Pant is the first openly gay Member of the Constituent Assembly (Parliament) of Nepal, and the Founder and Director of the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), a community-based organization that has worked for the rights of sexual minorities and people with HIV since 2001. BDS played an active role in Nepal’s transition from a conservative (and homophobic) monarchy to a federal republic in 2006-7, and subsequently has been successful in several advocacy campaigns, including the effort to legalize gay marriage, making Nepal the first Asian country to do so. Now counting more than 150,000 members, BDS continues to provide care and support to Nepalis with HIV/AIDS, while also working to reduce stigma and discrimination against the Himalayan nation’s sexual minorities. In 2007, BDS received the Felipa de Souza award from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, which called it “one of the most effective human rights groups in the world.”
Paul Curtis Bellman, MD is a physician whose private practice in Greenwich Village, New York, has specialized in caring for HIV-positive patients since 1986. Dr. Bellman is a board certified internist and currently an associate attending in the Department of Medicine at St. Vincent’s Manhattan and a senior lecturer in the Department of Immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. He is a 1982 graduate of the New York University School of Medicine and has been involved in the clinical care of HIV-positive people since the epidemic began. Bellman actively participates in clinical research as well as the clinical practice of HIV medicine.
Ann Brameier, L. Ac. (known by all as Alex) is an herbalist and acupuncturist, licensed in New York since 1992. Certified by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in both acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, she practices an individualized combination of acupuncture, acupressure, tuina and Chinese herbal medicine. Says Brameier: “Combining these modalities can address a myriad of health complaints to achieve a speedier resolution of the patient’s issues than might be achieved by application of only one of these ancient traditions.”
NYBC’s George M. Carter is the Director and Co-Founder of the Foundation for Integrative AIDS Research (FIAR), and has been an AIDS activist for nearly 20 years. His work has focused on research on the use of integrative, traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine therapies for HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C, as well as the pathogenesis of HIV disease. Mr. Carter has attended numerous national and international conferences on HIV/AIDS, and has served as a civil society delegate for UNGASS sessions at the United Nations. Mr Carter serves as Treatment Director for New York Buyers’ Club.
Tim Horn is president and editor-in-chief of AIDSmeds.com. He has worked as a writer, editor and educator for a number of other AIDS organizations, including Physicians’ Research Network (PRN), the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), the AIDS Treatment Data Network, and the PWA Health Group. Tim is a member of the AIDS Treatment Activists Coalition and has also done an extensive amount of HIV education and advocacy-related work in Mexico, where he lived for 18 months, and was a founding board member of Aid for AIDS. He has been living with HIV since 1992.
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