 Hi guys, Raif Derrazy here and I'm excited for this interview today with Josh Hips, my good friend who is in the Air Force and he's going to be updating us on the pending case in the military regarding people who are living with HIV as well as some positive advancements that we've made regarding HIV medication and care within the military. Stick around. Josh, it's been a minute. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm very good. Thank you so much for joining me today to talk about this exciting news. Yeah. Tell me what are your pronouns to start? He, him, they, them. Perfect. Okay, tell us your relation to the military and then tell us your relation to HIV. So I'm an officer in the Air Force. I'm a logistics officer. I'm a first lieutenant. I've been in the Air Force on May 23rd of this year, 2020. One will be three years since I have been active duty. I was diagnosed with HIV on December the 7th of 2018 and since then I've been living my life and just following along as the court case goes through the district of Eastern Virginia. So and what was that court case that was being handled? So it's kind of a multi-faceted court case. But long story short, the Air Force was trying to, at the core, kick people out if they were diagnosed with HIV after being in the military. That was the biggest one, which that changed in 2017 after the Trump administration took office. And then, of course, the other issue is the assessions. Basically, where you are going from like ROTC or the Air Force Academy, West Point or any of the service academies, but specifically the Air Force Academy and the Naval Academy to commission as an officer from there. And then also due to entry requirements barring HIV positive individuals from joining, endless sub-members are not allowed to go through officer training so that they can commission as well. So that's in summation kind of what the court case was hinting on. And so what is the latest development that you've found out? So as you know, last time we talked, they had done an injunction back in February of 2019. Then they were supposed to hear the marriage. So what does that mean, the injunction? That means that the Air Force was not allowed legally because of the court's decision to kick people out. So that was kind of a win. Basically, Judge Brinkima, the presiding judge on the case in the Eastern District of Virginia, stated that she felt that she wanted to grant emergency relief so that those of us pending potential being kicked out wouldn't get kicked out until the merits of the course occurred. We were supposed to hear the merits of that court case that following September. But due to the government appealing the injunction to the circuit court, that was actually heard in September of 2019, specifically on September the 18th of 2019. And then, of course, the decision came out at the end of December of 2019, January 2020, that in a unanimous three decision, two Obama appointees, one Trump appointee, all unanimously decided that the injunction was, in fact, the proper thing to do. And then in September of last year, September of 2020, Judge Brinkima actually heard the oral arguments. And at this point, we are still waiting on her decision whenever that is going to come out. It's been a long, long process. I can tell you that we all feel very comfortable. We all feel very good with what the potential outcome will be, especially considering that Joe Biden and Kamala want to make changes. That was one of their things, going through the primary and then up to the general. Lambda Label actually sent an interview, survey out to all the Democratic nominees, asking them certain questions that were related to HIV care. And one of those things was HIV within the military. And Joe Biden and Kamala Harris stated that both of them were willing to make changes and repealing certain policies within the military that affected HIV members negatively. Some good news that we did see yesterday is as we spoke last time, once you were diagnosed in the Air Force with HIV, you were required to go to SAMHC, the San Antonio Military Medical Center in San Antonio, for a week through initial visit. Then you do a six-month follow-up and then you go on an annual visit. COVID changed that. We just did everything virtually. And yesterday, the decision came down. The policy changed that we no longer need to do the annual visit anymore, that just doing the blood work with your primary doctor and scheduling your one once a year, annual telehealth appointment with someone at San Antonio will be good enough. So that's kind of some nice movement on the issue. Saves you all the travel. One of the other policy things that we're waiting to hear from is the last thing has been in the works for a while. So, when you're diagnosed in the Air Force, one of the, it is the only thing that you're diagnosed with specifically due to readiness. It is an outdated policy that when you are diagnosed, you're squadron commander. So someone who could potentially be echelons above you in rank. In my case, you know, my commander at that point was only several ranks hard to recognize, but still nonetheless, she's a squadron commander. So he or she has to be there with you so that they can issue with the commander's order, which basically states that you understand that if you, you know, come into contact with the EMS personnel, that if you have any sexual partners, they all must be made aware that you have HIV. Doesn't matter. We have to disclose to every single sexual partner. Wow. Correct. Yeah. Doesn't matter. I did not know that. So it unfortunately resides off a, you know, at this point, two decades long stigma that needs to change. They've been working on changing that. I can tell you that Colonel O'Koolidge, the Colonel who's been working this care and who is the mastermind behind getting, he's the doctor, a military doctor who is the mastermind of getting behind, getting the whole world behind starting treatment as soon as possible, rather than waiting for treatment or your levels to get below to a certain point. So he's just incredible. He's the, you know, I don't want to say this, you know, I say this carefully, but he's kind of like the Dr. Fauci within the military when it comes to just revolutionizing and being. I remember you talking about him the last time that we did an interview on this, which was years ago. So he's been working as a policy. Yeah. Recently, I did a doctor's visit vlog where we talked about the new drugs that are long-lasting injectables and you mentioned something about that too related to the military. Share that. Yeah. So, you know, when it comes to the military specifically tri-care, which is our health coverage, they take a while to kind of get started in approving medication. So, Victoria was approved by the FDA in February, I believe, in 2018. The military did not actually approve it to be used until like sometime like September or October of that same year. We know that the FDA has recently approved the Keptegradir for being long-lasting. It's currently working its way through the process. I did get a little more permission from the doctor. Basically, you have to take two pills a day for 30 days to see that your body can handle it. Gotcha. It's the same medication that is the long-lasting, but it's how can your body handle it? How does your body react? Are there any negative side effects? And if so, then, you know, you should be probably should not be on Keptegradir. But it's just, so that's kind of the process that's going to get started. It'll probably start up here in the next several months. What are you taking now, if you don't mind sharing? I'm still on Big Tarby. Okay, me too. But having so the way that military health care works, if you're not in a large medical center or within a large or within a certain radius of a large medical center, then you'll get a referral off base. And so I live in Philadelphia because I'm stationed at Joint Base McGuire in South Jersey. The, my infectious disease doctor is actually at Thomas Jefferson. They're in Center City, just a few blocks from where I live. So he said that as soon as the Veterans Affairs and the Military Tractor System improves its use, then we'll get that conversation going. Well, that's exciting stuff. I'm glad to hear that there's some progress even though it's slow, slow moving. Thank you for sharing that with us. Do you mind coming back again whenever there's more updates? I'd love to have you on. And I'm sure that my viewers will benefit from hearing what you have to say. Yeah, most definitely. Yeah. Okay, great. Guys, thank you so much for watching. It is my intention to continue to do interviews such as this one. So if you found it beneficial, if you enjoyed it, please like, comment below. Subscribe if you haven't already and please share this channel and or this video with your friends, loved ones, if you think it might be beneficial to them. All right. I'll see you soon. Cheers.