lint Hopkins and his husband, Joel Hockman, own Pucci’s Pharmacy in Sacramento, but you might not always find them there.
“We’re in a bit of a unique situation, because we’re LGBT and part of the community that is at highest risk,” says Hockman, COO of Pucci’s.
Hopkins and his team are trying to eliminate these barriers.
After procuring doses from the Sacramento public health department, they started offering monkeypox vaccines not only at their pharmacy, but also at popular LGBTQ bars in the area and at a weekly social gathering of at the home of friends; at the first such get-together, 75 people got vaccinated.
“Nobody has looked out for the community like they have, and they’re doing it just because they’re a part of our community,” Russell says.
In 2016, Hopkins and Hockman purchased the business from Tom Nelson, who was one of the few pharmacists in the area filling prescriptions for new anti-HIV medications during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, which became life-changing therapies for people living with HIV.
Hopkins’ and Hockman are serving as examples, however, for other communities and even the federal government.
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