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National/International News

Nation’s Leading Medical Journal
Refuses Ad from Gay Physicians

San Francisco CA The nation’s most,

widely circulated medical journal has re-
fused to accept an advertisement from a
national gay and lesbian medical so-
ciety, according to the physicians’
group. The San Francisco—based Amer-
ican Association of Physicians for Hu-
man Rights (AAPHR) had attempted to
place a full-page $7,000 ad in the Jou-
mal of the American Medical Associa-
tion (JAMA) warning physicians about
the negative medical consequences of
homophobia. JAMA rejected the ad,
claiming in a written statement that its
content was “political” and “not sci-
entific.”

Noting that JAMA accepted ads this
year from such advertisers as Kelloggs
and McDonald’s, AAPHR Executive Di-
rector Benjamin Schatz, Esq., com-
mented that “Its absurd for a publication
that has accepted ads extolling the
health benefits of Cocoa Crispies and
fast food to reject an ad from a phy-
sician's group as unscientific. The fact
is that our ad was a sober, scientific dis-
cussion of pressing health issues such as
teen suicide, anti-gay violence, sub-
stance abuse and misdiagnoses of gay
patients by poorly informed physicians.”

Schatz also refuted JAMA’s claim that it
accepts only ads that are apolitical, not-
ing that the journal has featured several
ads this year from the Pharmaceutical
Manufacturers Association criticizing
drug price controls and from the mil-
itary, recruiting physicians. “For gay
physicians, excluded by the military's
anti-gav policies, military recruitment
ads in JAMA are intensely political. It
is hypocritical for JAMA to accept ads
from those who discriminate against gay
physicians but to reject ads that attempt
to expose such discrimination.”

Oklahoma physician Larry Prater,
MD, president of AAPHR, noted that
‘The biased rejection by a medical
journal of an ad criticizing homo-
phobia in medicine dramatically un-
derscores the very need for the ad.
The fact is that homophobia is a
health hazard, and all physicians have
an ethical obligation to combat it.
AAPHR will continue to be at the
forefront of these efforts.”

Prater noted that AAPHR is encour-
aging gay and lesbian physicians and
medical students to attend the AMA's
annual meeting in Chicago June 13-15
to show their support for a resolution
opposing sexual orientation-based dis-
crimination by the AMA. Such a res-
olution has previously been rejected
four times by the AMA, but stands
“an excellent chance of passage” ac-
cording to Dr. Prater.

AMA Adds Sexual Orientation to
Non-Discrimination Policy

Chicago, IL After five years of trying,
members of the MAerican Medical
Association (AMA) finally were able
to pass a change to the association’s
bylaws prohibiting discrimination in
membership on the basis of sexual or-
ientation. The change, made by a
voice vote of the 435 member House
of Delegates which is the AMA’s pol-
icy making body, followed debate in
which some doctors argued that the
association would be seen as “endors-
ing homosexual _lifestyles” if it made
the change. (The New York Times)

Domestic Partnership Benefits at
Harvard and MIT

Cambridge, MA Within the last
couple of months two more uni-
versities have joined the growing
number of organizations which pro-
vide health benefits for domestic part-
ners of their employees. Harvard Uni-
versity and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) have
decided to provide the coverage for
same-sex couples in a mutually ex-
clusive relationship. In both cases
coverage is not extended to unmarried
heterosexual couples because they
have the option to marry. At Harvard,
benefits for domestic partners arose as
an issue during contract negotiations
in 1989 with the Harvard Union of
Clerical and Technical Workers. A
committee established by Harvard
President Neil Rudenstine in October
1992 recommended the change saying
it would enhance Harvard’s ability to
attract and retain high quality faculty
and staff, eliminate compensation in-
equities and serve as an important
practical and symbolic acknowledge-
ment of the diversity of the Uni-
versity’s workforce. (Harvard Ga-
zette, Boston Globe)

Lewiston Referendum

Lewiston, ME. In November Lewiston
Maine will vote on a referendum sim-
ilar to the one defeated in Portland
last year. Lewiston, like Portland
passed a civil rights ordinance pro-
tecting lesbians and gays. Last No-
vember an effort to overturn Port-
land's ordinance was defeated. This
November Lewiston will be the test-
ing ground for a possible state-wide
referendum. V

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