HIV prevention

Since 1983, when Michael Callen and  Richard Berkowitz wrote “How to Have Sex in an Epidemic,” most HIV prevention work has focused on individual behaviors, particularly around sex and drugs.  The prevention symposiums here are exploring many other prevention strategies that need much more research.  The Prevention Justice Alliance is calling attention to the structural drivers of HIV—socio-economic factors like racism, poverty, mass incarceration, homophobia, and homelessness—and showing that to defeat AIDS we must fight for social justice.  And this morning’s discussion of “Biomedical Interventions for HIV Prevention” also made it clear that HIV science can never be separated from social issues.

Biomedical prevention interventions target people who have HIV in order to reduce infectiousness, or people who don’t have HIV to reduce their susceptibility, or both. Monica Ruiz, from George Washington University, reviewed what is being researched now, including cervical barriers, microbicides, vaccines, treating and managing STIs, and post- and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PEP and PREP)—mostly with discouraging results so far.  read more »

How many times have I left the house and gone to the airport or train station to head out to work with dedicated activists - including many who are living with HIV - to put our heads and hearts together to demand changes that we need to overturn this epidemic?

Perhaps too many times. Or not yet enough...

But it's feeling strangely unfamiliar, as this is just my third week back from parental leave - so it's been months since I have been able to throw myself into this work (and sometimes it seems that I've barely been able to leave the house at all!)

I feel so honored to be able to re-emerge in the context of this gathering, where my family will join me in traveling to see you all, and to once again bring the best that we have to offer to our collective strategizing and action-planning that we need.

In preparation for tonight's dinner, I was explaining to my wife that there will be people there who have known me since I was 22 years old, fully two decades ago, as well as newer comrades to this shared struggle against HIV/AIDS. I can't wait to introduce her, and our 4-month-old son, to you all!  read more »