Spoke with my neighbour. A type 2 diabetic on medications and realized even now there is so much ignorance on this subject. I have done extensive research on this subject (was forced 2 after being diagnosed)

Here sharing it with you all. retweet it, it may save someone's life.

I’m deeply saddened to learn that Dr Joseph Sonnabend, one of the most important figures in the history of AIDS, died yesterday. I spent time with him in 2018 for one of the last interviews he ever gave. Let me tell you about this man and what he did:

Sonnabend was one of the first doctors to raise the alarm. In 1979, while running a sexual health clinic in Greenwich Village, he wrote to the NY Health Dept to warn them of the symptoms he was seeing: low white blood cell counts, enlarged lymph nodes. He didn’t get a reply. 2/

So he kept speaking out. When a patient of his developed a very rare cancer – Kaposi’s Sarcoma – he linked up with a dermatologist at NYU who said that over a dozen gay men had it. Sonnabend knew there was something very wrong. He started working at the lab at NYU — for free. 3/

It was soon after this in 1981 that the New York Times famously reported “Rare Cancer Found In 41 Homosexuals”. The next decade would kill most of Sonnabend’s patients and friends — and all of his lovers. What Sonnabend did was to fight for every single of them. 4/

Want to know who was the first to publish advice to wear a condom? That was Sonnabend. In 1983 he co-authored the first safe sex leaflet to fight AIDS: “How To Have Sex In An Epidemic”. 5/

@73inlancs @janethooton_ @ErinInTheMorn @fifi_EY 1/ The 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 government decided pediatric gender care in England would be a monopoly contract (a Labour minister, in 2008), despite all other NHS patients officially being entitled to a choice of providers, & second opinions on diagnoses & treatment, & gave it to GIDS, which has…

@janethooton_ @ErinInTheMorn @fifi_EY 2/…always advocated that trans minors & their families must have no alternative source of care, & subsequent Tory ministers have personally put their signature on renewals of it, and even personally rejected proposals for improvement that have been put forward by NHS England…

@janethooton_ @ErinInTheMorn @fifi_EY 3/…as a result of wider & public consultation. They & their civil servants listen only to GIDS on trans minors - it was GIDS advised against <18s being allowed #GenderRecognition in 2004, & since, on the basis that no one under 18 can be certain of their gender identity, just…

@janethooton_ @ErinInTheMorn @fifi_EY 4/…as many other staff at their trust wrote⬇️ to the press in 2002 (when the first instigator of this case, psychoanalyst Susan Evans was on staff too) that no trans people should be allowed that recognition but needed

@janethooton_ @ErinInTheMorn @fifi_EY 5/…to "cure" us instead. Yet GIDS proved incapable of defending its super-conservative protocol in court - no doubt because GIDS has always expected challenges to be from patients seeking care more like that elsewhere, arrogantly ignoring that services in countries where the…

1/23 We haven't had a lot to celebrate during this pandemic. But achieving the milestone of offering vaccine to the over 70s, health and care workers and the most clinically vulnerable just before target date is a huge cause for celebration, given the scale of the achievement.

2/23 When Margaret Keenan got her first jab in Coventry on December 8th last year, who’d have thought that, by Valentine’s Day, we’d have vaccinated over fourteen million people across the UK in just ten short weeks? Amazing, extraordinary and truly, really, world class!

3/23 I’ve been struck by how much joy and relief has been brought to those doing the vaccinations and those receiving them. A GP told me yesterday that nothing had given him greater pleasure in his long career. And that the patient's relief was sometimes overwhelming.

4/23 It's vital to recognise the extraordinary contribution of the staff and volunteers who have made this happen. One of my close family had their jab yesterday and was in awe of the volunteer standing outside in the freezing cold for a four hour shift meeting and greeting.

5/23 What I wanted to share in this thread was the slightly untold story of some of the extraordinary challenges the NHS has had to overcome to deliver this target. Requiring superhuman effort from NHS leaders and staff, way beyond the call of duty. Five challenges set out below.