Today is National Gay Men's HIV/Awareness Day. It doesn't appear that anyone has diaried on this topic yet, so I will take the plunge. As usual this story is personal for me. At age 61, I've now been living with HIV for more than half my life. Many of us who've managed to stay healthy all this time seem to feel, as I do, a certain amount of responsibility; after all, when so many people have been lost, it's incumbent upon us, the survivors, to do what we can.
There is no simple way to present this information, so follow me below the fold and I'll tell you a bit more.
Anti-gay hate groups are fond of promoting the idea that AIDS is a "gay disease." The fact is that the overwhelming proportion of HIV infections and AIDS deaths throughout the world involve people who would identify themselves as heterosexual. The picture of HIV and AIDS in the United States however is different. As recently as 2006 (the most recent year for which I can find information), over half of new HIV infections in the US involved gay or bisexual men. Among all groups at risk of contracting HIV, gay and bisexual men are the only group for which infection rates continue to increase. Every 9 1/2 minutes, someone in the United States becomes HIV-positive, whether they realize it or not. This may not be as bad as it was in the early 1980's when I myself became HIV-positive but it's not nearly good enough.
Awareness of HIV status is the best method for fighting the spread of HIV. According to the National Association of People With AIDS, one in five gay men in major American cities lives with HIV and fully half do not know they are positive. That's a pretty shocking number.
Status awareness and early treatment are the best means we have of combating new infections. The CDC recommends that EVERYONE between the ages of 13 and 64 get tested regularly for HIV. This means getting tested every six months; for gay and bisexual men who are sexually active, and particularly for those who engage in higher risk behaviors, it's better to be tested more frequently. It is widely accepted that early treatment, using medications that reduce viral levels to the undetectable range, makes transmission of HIV (even without condom use) far less likely.
I am proud to live in San Francisco, home of the world's second oldest AIDS advocacy organization, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York City is a few weeks older). The Foundation offers testing at its Castro-based clinic, Magnet, and at its headquarters in downtown San Francisco. Gay Men's Health Crisis also offers free testing at its prevention center on West 29th Street. If you live elsewhere, the federally funded site AIDS.gov includes a locator (also linked on the SFAF and GMHC sites) that allows you to find a place to be tested for HIV no matter where you live.
Those of us, like me, who have been around since the beginning of the epidemic want to do what we can to limit the spread of HIV and AIDS. One of the ways I do this is by participating every year in AIDS/LifeCycle, the largest single AIDS fundraiser in the world. If you'd like to sponsor me you can go to http://www.tofighthiv.org/.... The ride raises money for the LA Gay and Lesbian Center's Jeffrey Goodman Clinic AND for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
Know your status; be honest; be responsible.