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No World AIDS Day in the US
There was a time, when to hear the words “your test results came back positive for HIV” meant “you are going to die – soon.” In the western world, those days are part of the history of the AIDS pandemic, a history so recent that many of us alive today living with HIV can recall…
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Breakthrough
There are two fronts in the global fright against HIV and AIDS. Obviously, treating those infected is one. But equally important is preventing new infections. Since the early part of the last decade we have had the “preventative” drug regimen known as PrEP or “pre-exposure prophylaxis.” PrEP refers to medication used by an HIV-negative person…
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Desert Migration
As a 27-year survivor of HIV/AIDS, I remain particularly tuned-in to advancements in the treatment of the disease. Obviously, in all those years, a cure has remained elusive. But huge, almost miraculous, strides have been made rendering it a chronic, manageable disease. I remember the early days of the three-drug regimen which consisted of a…
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The City and the Pillar
Gore Vidal was 21 (photo at left) when he published his first novel, Williwaw, in 1946. He was an out gay man at a time when to be openly gay was fraught with genuine peril – both professionally and personally – though he believed that all humans are naturally bisexual, and this natural inclination is…
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The Myth of Patient 0
On June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report in their Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) entitled “Pneumocystis Pneumonia—Los Angeles,” describing five cases of a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), in five young, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. Two of the men had died. Click…
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Boys Town
It rained all day. Rain in Los Angeles makes the city feel clean. The smog disappears; the dust is washed off windowsills and handrails. There’s a distinctive smell in the air after a Los Angeles rain: it’s called petrichor, from the Greek words petra (meaning stone), and ichor (from Greek mythology, referring to the fluid that flows like blood in…
Your mileage may vary.