Tag Archives: Bret Camp

Camp to become AHF Texas regional director

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Bret Camp in the Bret Camp Dental Suite at Nelson-Tebedo Clinic

Bret Camp is leaving Resource Center Dallas to become Texas regional director of AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

“I will dearly miss Resource Center,” he said. “It’s meant a lot to me over the last 17 years.”

Last year, Camp left RCD to deal with B-cell lymphoma, an aggressive form of cancer. After more than six months of treatment, he returned to work with a clean bill of health as the center’s health services director.

During his absence, a new dental suite was outfitted and named for him at Nelson-Tebedo Clinic on Cedar Springs Road.

Last month, AHF opened its first Texas clinic at AIDS Outreach Center in Fort Worth. Camp will work out of the office at Medical City Dallas where a second area clinic is planned. The nonprofit organization is looking to expand into Austin and San Antonio and possibly Houston in the near future.

Camp said what attracted him to AHF was how client-centered the agency is.

“AHF provides cutting-edge medicine and advocacy regardless of ability to pay,” he said.

AHF is expected to open a clinic at Medical City to serve a Far North Dallas area that currently has no AIDS services and is one of the city’s hard hit areas with new cases of HIV.

 

—  David Taffet

Aerial mosquito spraying could pose risks to people with HIV/AIDS

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People with HIV/AIDS are at greater risk of developing severe complications from West Nile Virus, which has led to 10 deaths in Dallas County this summer. But people with HIV/AIDS could also face greater risk from exposure to the chemicals used in aerial spraying to combat the virus.

“The same people they’re trying to protect are the same people who are sensitive to the chemicals being dropped,” said Bret Camp, health services director for Resource Center Dallas.

One open letter signed by 26 doctors and other experts in 2001 said the chemical agents used in aerial spraying contain neurotoxins and can be dangerous to the treated area. The letter, distributed by groups opposed to mosquito spraying in New York City, specifically listed “immunosuppressed individuals, such as patients with AIDS and cancer,” among those who may be especially vulnerable.

“INDISCRIMINATE AND UNNECESSARY SPRAYING OF ‘FRIENDLY FIRE’ PESTICIDES, ESPECIALLY IN HEAVILY POPULATED URBAN AREAS, IS FAR MORE DANGEROUS TO HUMAN HEALTH AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT THAN WEST NILE VIRUS,” the letter states. “THE HEALTH OF MANY PEOPLE IS DETERIORATING AND WILL FURTHER DETERIORATE, SOMETIMES SERIOUSLY, AS A RESULT OF EXPOSURE TO ‘FRIENDLY FIRE PESTICIDES’ USED IN THE CHEMICAL WAR AGAINST MOSQUITOES. THOSE WHO ARE ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE INCLUDE CHILDREN, THE OFFSPRING OF PREGNANT WOMEN, CHEMICALLY SENSITIVE OR IMMUNO-SUPPRESSED INDIVIDUALS, SUCH AS PATIENTS WITH AIDS AND CANCER, AND THOSE SUFFERING WITH ASTHMA AND OTHER ALLERGIES.”

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—  admin

New dental suite dedicated at Nelson Tebedo is named for Camp

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Bret Camp, former associate executive director for health and medical services for Resource Center Dallas, checks out the Nelson-Tebedo Clinic’s new dental suite, named in his honor on Friday, Dec. 16.

RCD’S Executive Director and CEO Cece Cox and members of the Resource Center staff gathered at the clinic for the dedication ceremony, as did Camp, who retired last summer due to health issues. The new facility and staffing was paid for by a grant from United Way. Cox said that the added chair is expected to cut waiting time for appointments from four months to less than four weeks and increase the number of clients served by 175 people to 1,155.

Camp said he completed chemotherapy treatment recently, has been given a good prognosis and is feeling strong and healthy.

—  David Taffet

RCD to begin Saturday HIV testing program

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STD testing will be offered during new testing hours including free syphilis screening

DAVID TAFFET  |  Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com

Through a partnership with the Texas Department of State Health Services, Resource Center Dallas will begin HIV and STD testing on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. beginning May 21, RCD officials announced this week

Testing will be offered at the Nelson-Tebedo Community Clinic, 4012 Cedar Springs Road.

A rapid test will offer HIV results within 20 minutes. That will be confirmed through a Nucleic Acid Amplification Testing that can detect HIV as soon as 14 days after infection. The rapid test window of detection is about three months after infection.

Last year, 30 NAAT tests given at Nelson-Tebedo confirmed HIV that rapid testing did not detect. That was out of about 3,000 tests given in 2010, or 1 percent.

Bret Camp, associate executive director for health and medical services at Resource Center Dallas, said results from the NAAT test take a week and so does testing for other STDs.

Testing for syphilis is free but there is a fee for other STD tests which include chlamydia, gonorrhea and human papillomavirus. Confidential HIV testing is free. Anonymous testing through a unique identifier is at a small charge.

All results are given in person.

Although walk-ins for Saturday testing are accepted, Camp said that appointments are encouraged.

“By adding these Saturday testing hours, it will now be more convenient than ever to take charge of your health,” Camp said.

—  John Wright

WATCH: ‘It Gets Better’ — even in Texas

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Looks like some local folks are among those who’ve put together videos for writer Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project on YouTube. The project, launched in response to the recent rash of suicides by gay teens, is aimed at LGBT youth and features adults explaining that no matter how bad things may seem, they really do get better. Those who’ve recorded messages for the project include Resource Center Dallas’ Rafael McDonnell and Bret Camp, and the Rev. Stephen Sprinkle of Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth. Do you know of other local folks who’ve recorded these? If so, feel free to put the link in the comments.

—  John Wright

Jesse Garcia and Bret Camp would really like you to fill out and return your Census form

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Later today, the U.S. Census Bureau will unveil six public service announcements, the first-ever such videos focused on encouraging the LGBT community to fill out and mail back their forms. One of the six leaders featured in the videos is Jesse Garcia, president of Dallas’ gay LULAC Council (above). The Census Bureau has also posted several other videos on its Web site that were filmed at Creating Change in Dallas in early March, including one featuring Bret Camp, associate executive director of Resource Center Dallas (below). There’ll be press conference in New York later today to unveil the videos, which will be shown on Logo beginning today. You can watch a live stream of the press conference at 1 p.m. Dallas time by going here. For more info on the Census and the LGBT community, go here.

—  John Wright