Hasta La Gadget!

Some 29.1 million Americans have diabetes, nearly 8 million unaware of their condition. Between 70,000 and 80,000 diabetics become amputees every year from one of the disease’s most nefarious complications: diabetic foot ulcers. As a result of the recent opening to Cuba, these amputees — over half of whom will otherwise die within five years of amputation — may be thrown a lifeline by Cuban innovation.

Because of our estrangement from the Caribbean nation, most may be unaware that its biotech industry is booming, since the 1980s one of the ‘big three’ in the global South (with Brazil and India). Its latest R&D breakthrough is a medication called Heberprot-P, which has already treated 165,000 diabetic-foot patients in 26 countries, reducing relative risk for amputation by 75%. The treatment is in trials in 5 countries and in Europe, where it’s known as Epiprot.** Results on safety and effectiveness have been published in the International Wound Journal,Diabetes Careand MEDICC Review, among others, documenting ten years of clinical experience.

Our California-based nonprofit MEDICC (Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba), took a bipartisan delegation to Havana to see diabetes care and Heberprot-P at work — as it happened, on the eve of the December 17 historic announcement by the U.S. and Cuban governments. The group included Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), chair of the Diabetes Caucus, the largest caucus in Congress with 345 members; more Caucus members; and diabetes experts and patient advocates.

Among them, Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), who said living with her mother’s diabetes brought the disease “up close and personal for me.” She also said her Los Angeles district has more than its share of diabetics: “Since the disease disproportionately hits low-income people of color, now I see it everywhere among my constituents. And I also see too many diabetic-foot amputees.”

Diabetes certainly looms larger and more crippling in Native American, African American and Latino communities, in that order. According to the Alliance to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes at the University of Michigan, Native Americans have the highest diabetes prevalence in the world: 16% of Native Americans and Alaska Natives suffer from the disease. This compared to nearly 13% of African Americans, about 12% of Hispanics, some 8% of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and just 7% of non-Hispanic whites.

To the human health dimension, add the cost to patients and to federal programs, estimated at some $250 billion annually, with diabetic-foot ulcer patients paying double what other diabetics pay for their care. And this does not count the cost of years of the disability itself, associated with lost income and deeper poverty. Quoted in The Washington Post’s special on diabetes, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) says $1 of every $5 U.S. healthcare dollars is spent treating patients with diabetes.

And the disease is indeed epidemic in the USA — growing at alarming rates in most states, and affecting nearly 30 times the people it did in 1958. The most common is type 2 diabetes, with aging, poor diet, physical inactivity, high blood pressure and obesity playing an even bigger part than inherited factors.

So can U.S. doctors prescribe Heberprot-P for their patients? Or has the FDA fast-tracked it for clinical trials as the unique medication it is? Are trials about to start? Can the medication be sold if Heberprot-P proves effective? Well, no, no, no and no.

Because it’s a Cuban product (yet patented in the USA). The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC, charged with enforcing the U.S. embargo on Cuba) denied a license for trials and sales back in 2010. Then, in 2014, the agency licensed clinical trials only, but refused to green-light future sales, even if the FDA approves the medication as safe and effective.

Thus Healiance — a French company’s U.S. subsidiary applying for the two-pronged license — hasn’t enough incentive to risk millions in extensive trials, enlisting patients for a treatment their doctors may never be able to prescribe.

Treasury’s decision was communicated last June, rebuffing a December 2013 letter initiated by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and signed by 111 members of Congress, urging the department to license not only trials for Heberprot-P, but sales as well, if trial outcomes and FDA ruling are positive. “OFAC has granted similar authorizations in the past,” the letter reminded Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, “for example in 2004, OFAC granted [such] a license to a company for a cancer vaccine developed by a Cuban research institute.”

“Having this medication assist with prevention and decreasing the high number of amputations would be a life changer here in our city,” notes Helene Velazquez, the ADA’s Program Director of Mission Delivery in New York.

Says Rep. Bass: “I think it’s a travesty not to provide people access to a one-of-a-kind drug that could spare them such terrible suffering and disability… all because of a political disagreement with Cuba, the country where the medication was developed. Access to this treatment should be the right of American patients.”

Perhaps including patients like Halle Barry, Nick Jonas, Randy Jackson, Salma Hayek, Jay Cutler, Patti LaBelle, Anne Rice, Larry King…and yes, Mike Huckabee…all diabetics.

Will the White House and its new opening towards Cuba prevail upon Treasury to approve the full license for Heberprot-P? To approve others that may land on OFAC’s desk…for monoclonal antibodies targeting lung and childhood brain cancers, or a new dengue or cholera vaccine from Cuba? Or will we keep paying the awful price of politics?

Because Heberprot-P is proof that the U.S. embargo, still to be lifted by an act of Congress, isn’t just hurting Cubans. American lives and limbs are also, quite literally, at stake.

** Data from presentation to Congressional Diabetes Caucus members at Havana’s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, December 15, 2014, by Dr. Verena Mucio.

This post is part of a Huffington Post blog series called “90 Miles: Rethinking the Future of U.S.-Cuba Relations.” The series puts the spotlight on the emerging relations between two long-standing Western Hemisphere foes and will feature pre-eminent thought leaders from the public and private sectors, academia, the NGO community, and prominent observers from both countries. Read all the other posts in the series here.

If you’d like to contribute your own blog on this topic, send a 500-850-word post to impactblogs@huffingtonpost.com (subject line: “90 Miles”).

While packing up my grandfather’s belongings after his death, we found an old Gibson guitar in his closet. Stuck in the strings: a receipt from 1955. The words “promises to pay five dollars a month” were scribbled in faded pencil.

I took that guitar and a dream to Nashville. I also brought a fearless sense of self. The cover art of my first album displayed a photo of me and my drummer holding hands, and our press release introduced me as openly gay. It was 2001, and that was edgy for Nashville.

The local entertainment rag often wrote about us, as well as another local band that everyone in town loved to hate. It sometimes felt as if it was us against that band, and all of Nashville was rooting for us. I remember that summer sitting on the porch of a neighborhood cafe. Summers here are hot and sticky. It’s what makes the South feel slow. If you move too quickly, you might have a heat stroke. That rival band walked up. They had just landed a record deal. Their new jeans were the tightest I’d ever seen, and they had hair extensions. After they walked past us, we died laughing. 

Two years later they were the biggest Southern rock band in the world.

Around that time, my then-roommate was on the production crew for one of the local entertainment media outlets. He started dating a young, pretty and talented new hopeful, and soon she moved in with us. My roommate and I were liberal, pot-smoking atheists. This girl was a good Republican, not used to our strange and heathen ways.

In those days my band was hot shit for what now seems like an hour and a half. Local awards. Comped meals. Tan men in sunglasses on our guest lists. But eventually the phone stopped ringing. I can’t tell you how many times we heard, “It’s great, but we just don’t know what to do with you,” which essentially meant, “Nashville isn’t ready for a gay artist.”

A handsome 1990s-era country superstar and I had a mildly flirty, drunken-gay-bar relationship for a while. His career had stalled in recent years, but he was working on a comeback — a comeback that came with intense label pressure to pretend he was straight. This isn’t a unique Nashville gay-bar conversation. Hang around Church Street on a Saturday night and you’ll learn all kinds of things. It’s a who’s who of the country- and Christian-music industries.

Let me be clear: I love Nashville. For the most part, Nashville has loved me. I’ve had an on-again-off-again love affair with this town for almost two decades. But I do sometimes wonder if things would have played out differently had I also pretended for the public.

My old roommate’s pretty, young and talented girlfriend eventually became a star. Her breakout career is hinged upon being a progressive gay ally — a far cry from her conservative roots. Around here we call it “New Nashville.” I have to believe I was the original forward-thinking gay in her life, but I may never know. Fame has whisked her away.

Nashville seems to be teetering on a sort of gay cultural tipping point, as are many realms that have traditionally been resistant to gay inclusion — like Michael Sam in the NFL or Frank Ocean in hip-hop. As the country-music capital gives an approving nod to a couple of already established gay male artists and major awards to talented female allies, I have to ask: Is Nashville ready for me?

The world has changed. Nashville has changed, and of course, I have changed. But I still have grandpa’s guitar, and I still have the dream.

Watch a mini-documentary about Kevin’s band Indiana Queen and their nearly 20-year journey in Nashville:

The word “queer” is said to be derived from a 16th-century term meaning “eccentric.” It was not until the late 19th century that the term “queer” was used in a derogatory manner to refer to effeminate males.

In the strange wilderness of adolescence, “LGBTQ” does not apply to young minds. We are just an intricate web of youthful androgynous beings trying to understand how we relate to the world and the many cultures around us.

In many subcultures queerness is a taboo subject, and the adversity that queer people have faced throughout history is astonishing. For example, “berdaches,” or “two-spirits,” were a common and regular part of everyday Native American culture, yet they were killed and fed to dogs by “heroes” like Christopher Columbus. Only select groups and religious institutions sought to harm queer persons, very much like today.

In my youth, queer kids were often referred to as effeminate, gay, or cross dressers of sorts. Usually those allegations were followed by words like “faggot,” “fairy,” “nancy,” etc.

The word “queer” is one that still puzzles many minds today, depending on the context, as it is used now as an umbrella term for a staggeringly diverse community, one that becomes more so every day. However, for non-queer persons, one question remains: “When am I allowed to use the word ‘queer’?”

In the ’90s, New York brought the word “queer” back to the mainstream press, this time with a positive edge. Since then, much of our gay subculture has adopted the term as a neighborly and friendly one, often used amongst one another.

At this point, you’re probably wondering, “But Chase, when I’m hanging out with my gay friends, when is it OK to say ‘queer’? I feel like it’s always the wrong time.” Well, reader, let’s try an example. Let’s say Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi invite you over for dinner. Ellen laughs as her hand grazes Portia’s leg, the two clinging to each other across from you on the couch. “So, Ellen, you and Portia are looking mighty queer!” you express gleefully.

Now, let’s stop. “Queer” is an aesthetic, but it is also up to the person it is used toward and how they feel about it. Not everyone accepts the term everywhere, but with the right intention, it could be considered appropriate, generally speaking. However, if you’re not queer, it may not have the same neighborly sense as it would coming from another from within the LGBTQ community. Now, perhaps something along the lines of “Ellen, I love the gritty, queer aesthetic of your space!” is a much more rounded compliment. Notice how it’s not the only subject matter of the compliment, and it’s used in a passive manner. This is more than OK in most situations, but you have to judge the situation.

My band was recently described as a “queer music duo,” and I love it. Many friends asked if I found it offensive, and I giggled. It was used in a positive manner by a neighborly queer journalist. I like calling myself “queer.”

Final verdict: Overall, the word does not carry the same weight as it once did. My advice to you, reader, is to find better language. Challenge yourself to think outside the box. Challenge yourself to rise above doing what’s easy. Being mindful of your queer friends and neighbors may elevate the level of respect they have for you. What the community wants most is to be itself without being chastised. To chastise someone, you have to really think about what you will say to them. It’s all in the intention. If you change your intention, you might even notice a little bit of queerness within yourself. If you can use the word “queer” in a more inclusive way, there is really nothing wrong with it; hooray for you! If you use it in a derogatory manner, shame on you; go polish the pair of metal balls hanging on the back of your pickup, bro. Queer hate is barbaric and Neanderthalesque. Everyone is a little curious sometimes; everyone has experimented and had second thoughts. I guess you could say everyone is a little bit queer. After all, a word is only as hurtful as you want it to be.

Each week HuffPost Gay Voices, in a partnership with blogger Scout, LGBT HealthLink and researcher Michael G. Bare, brings you a round up of some of the biggest LGBT wellness stories from the past seven days. For more LGBT Wellness visit our page dedicated to the topic here.

What do Twitter and the automobile have in common? How about smart phones and vaccinations?

Give up?

They are all global inventions that cross borders for the benefit of all. When it comes to powerful ideas there are no physical boundaries. Nations gather international coalitions to fight terrorism. We rely on groups like Médecins Sans Frontières to fight deadly diseases like Ebola. Google organizes the world’s information across borders. And, we pool resources to move toward a more peaceful, just world. But as global hotel company CEOs, with more than a million rooms in nearly 100 counties, we can attest that travel needs a more global approach.

With aviation experimenting on engines that will fly at speeds of one mile a second, the breathtaking pace at which we will globalize, in terms of both physical and intellectual migration, will increase exponentially in coming years. There are a billion international border crossings every year already. With the rising middle classes of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America eager to travel, the numbers grow at more than five percent annually. Yet, the one surprising realm that remains woefully behind in globalization is travel.

Here, where we should see leadership in global cooperation, we still rely on individual nation-state bureaucracies. We expect visas and state-issued passports to work as well they did before Lindbergh showed the world that we might someday be in New York one day and Paris the next. That was nearly a century ago!

While digital technology and mobile devices have made it easier than ever to plan a trip, book a flight and reserve a hotel room, nations still cling to last century rules and restrictions for visas and passports. To improve safety and security for the millions of people who will want to see the world in the future, we need a global travel strategy. Money crosses borders through agreements between banks that allow travelers to pay with a credit card and withdraw local currency at an ATM. Agreements between telecommunications companies and governments allow travelers to use their mobile device when they leave their country. Shouldn’t we be able to share security and personal data across borders to create a Global Trusted Traveler Card, like a Global Passport?

Based on a personal security evaluation, vetted travelers might pursue education, adventure, social service and commerce. Trade, too, could be better facilitated by a system that recognizes what we in the business community have certainly discovered: that our economies are interconnected and interdependent. International commerce, including the boon of tourism, would further bind nations as trading partners and allies so that we create jobs and prosper together.

We have already witnessed positive steps toward this goal with the recent announcement of the U.S.-China agreement to extend visa validity to 10 years. The European Union has successfully created cross-border visa-free travel and is reviewing further reforms. And, in the past year, African, Latin American and ASEAN nations have signed up for the call to action by the World Economic Forum to create regional visa-free travel. The pay-off, besides traveler convenience, has been substantial. Countries with a robust travel and tourism strategy have witnessed unprecedented job creation and economic development since the great recession.

The key requirements of a global travel strategy are not only maintaining but improving security. The fact is, cross-communications and collaboration in data analysis can not only enhance the freedom to move but also make governments more effective at identifying those who pose a real risk. By pooling resources, we can increase freedom for the vast majority, reduce waste and better identify and monitor threats.

Our world is ready for this. It might be easy to say “not now,” but shouldn’t we be looking for the moonshot idea that will make travel more secure and more accessible? Let’s create a streamlined and vigilant process that achieves our mutual goals. Of course, the particulars, including financing, will need to be negotiated, but frequent travelers from all over the world will be eager to pay for the convenience. It’s time our approach to international travel catches up to other good ideas that have transformed our lives.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and The World Economic Forum to mark the Forum’s Annual Meeting 2015 (in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, Jan. 21-24). The Forum’s Strategic Partner community comprises a select group of leading global companies representing diverse regions and industries that have been selected for their alignment with the Forum’s commitment to improving the state of the world. Read all the posts in the series here.