D.C. HIV/AIDS Rate Still At Epidemic Levels

By Jess Mahanes, Washington CityPaper

A new D.C. Department of Health report out this week found the number of new HIV/AIDS cases reported in the District has fallen by half, the second straight year in which there were fewer new HIV/AIDS diagnoses than the year before. But D.C. still has enough cases of the disease to qualify as an epidemic under the World Health Organization’s definition.

The report shows that in 2009, 3.2 percent of Washingtonians over the age of 12 were living with HIV/AIDS, which is an infection rate higher than in many developing nations (the WHO says anything greater than 1 percent is an epidemic). That’s about 16,721 people.

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Thirty Years of HIV/AIDS: A New Challenge Is on the Horizon

Ed. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.

by: Dr. Ron Simmons, Washington, DC

When I reflect on the 30th anniversary of the HIV epidemic, I am simply amazed. Amazed that I am still alive after living with AIDS for over 20 years and that there is an effective treatment for HIV that is one pill a day. I remember the early days of AIDS, there was no name for it—only fear. Doctors were afraid to touch you. Nurses were afraid to feed you. And your friends that tried to give you encouragement to not feel hopeless, died themselves from the disease. Today HIV/AIDS is a preventable and treatable disease. There is a lot least stigma and fear. The President of the United States speaks openly and affirmatively about ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In many jurisdictions, government funded programs provide a safety net of health care and support for people with the disease. So much has changed in 30 years, yet new challenges appear on the horizon.

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HIV Profile: Calvin Gerald of Washington, DC

Calvin Gerald (Blade photo by Michael Key)

When Calvin Gerald was growing up in Saint Stephen, S.C., he rarely associated HIV/AIDS with gay sex. It wasn’t discussed among his family and he viewed condom use as a mostly straight practice.

Even his two uncles who died of AIDS contracted it through drug use.

“My whole thing was naiveté and ignorance,” the 32-year-old gay HIV activist says. “It was just never discussed and if it was, it was in a negative context.”   READ MORE HERE

30 Years Is Enuf

This report by the Black AIDS Institute marks the 30^th anniversary of the first official report on the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Over three decades, AIDS has radically altered our world, reshaping entire regions of the world, changing people’s relationship with their own sexuality, dramatically accelerating social and cultural change, and producing some of the most important scientific advances of the last century.

No single report can possibly address all the various ramifications of the epidemic’s first 30 years, and this one certainly does not attempt to do so. Rather, this report aims to provide a degree of context to our understanding of the epidemic, using the 30^thanniversary as an opportunity to reflect on what we have experienced and to understand both the challenges and the opportunities that will face us in the future.  READ MORE HERE:

AIDS at 30: Medical Milestones in the Battle Against a Modern Plague

When the federal government reported on June 5, 1981, that “5 young men, all active homosexuals” had been diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in Los Angeles, no one yet knew that these were the country’s first reported cases of AIDS. Since then, medicine has come a long way in understanding, treating and even preventing HIV. Following are the key medical advances and failures that have marked the past three decades of the battle against AIDS — milestones that elucidate how much we still need to learn.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/03/aids-at-30-medical-milestones-in-the-battle-against-a-modern-plague/#ixzz1OVio9EpL

AIDS in the ’90s: ‘I wasn’t going to die miserably’

HIV Survivor         

On June 5, 1981, the virus that would become known as HIV was mentioned for the first time in a medical publication. As we approach that anniversary, CNNHealth takes a look at 30 years of the epidemic that changed the world, through the eyes of people who’ve lived it.

Washington (CNN) – She sat in a small exam room, down a hallway that gets even longer when she remembers it. That was where doctors told Linda Scruggs, 13 weeks pregnant, that she had tested positive for HIV.

“They told me that I had the option of terminating the pregnancy to prolong my health, and they offered me, with the termination, five years to live,” recalls Scruggs. “If I did not terminate this baby, probably me and the baby both would be dead within three years.”

That year, 1990, marked Scruggs’ 25th birthday and her status as one of an estimated 1 million people in the United States infected with HIV.   READ MORE HERE

The Root: Good News In AIDS, HIV Research

by ROD MCCULLOM

Enlargedem10/iStockphoto.comNew research on AIDS and HIV vaccines has yielded positive results.

 Rod McCullom, a writer and television news producer, blogs on black gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender news and pop culture. This article was originally published by the Black AIDS Weekly, a publication of the Black AIDS Institute think tank.

This month has seen a flurry of activity around new and exciting potential HIV-vaccine concepts.

In Kenya, clinical trials began on two promisingnew designs for preventive HIV vaccines. In South Africa, researchers launched clinical trials for a therapeutic vaccine intended to strengthen the immune systems of people living with HIV/AIDS. And scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine announced their biggest research gift ever: $23.4 million to continue the university’s decades-long work on an HIV/AIDS vaccine from a consortium led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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30 years of AIDS moments to remember

Thirty years ago, the CDC published its first mention of the HIV virus. In honor of that anniversary we take a look back at the most important moments in AIDS history.

Click through the timeline to see the people and events who will forever live in our memories. The graph underneath shows the trends of HIV/AIDS-related deaths, HIV diagnosis and the prevalence of those living with HIV or AIDS during this time period

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H.I.V. S O S

Treatment as prevention.

That’s the way scientists describe a striking and incredibly encouraging new finding of a large clinical trial released on Thursday that found that H.I.V.-infected people who took antiretroviral drugs were 96 percent less likely to pass on the disease than those who didn’t.

This is an extraordinary finding, coming in the year of the 30th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic in America.

READ MORE OF CHARLES M. BLOW’S COMMENTARY NOW

WNBA Star Drives The Hole And Shoots For A Cure To AIDS

Candice Wiggins has already made history with professional women’s basketball, but that’s only her half of her story.

In high school she was listed as the best shooting guard in the nation and won a scholarship to Stanford to play volleyball and basketball, an amazing feat, but not the whole story.

She chose Stanford over Duke. Now that’s the whole story. (Just kidding.)

She became the all-time leading scorer in Stanford women’s basketball history. And she continued to make history with her professional career with the WNBA team, the Minnesota Lynx.

But that’s still not the whole story.

What separates her from other athletes is her commitment to something bigger than herself. As a 3-year-old little girl, she didn’t understand why her father, Alan Wiggins, a professional baseball player for the Baltimore Orioles and then the San Diego Padres, had to be away from her so often. She later learned that her father was in the hospital, dying from a disease that in the early ‘90s, no one wanted to talk about. As a heavy drug user he had contracted AIDS during a time when medicine and awareness were scarce and stigma ran rampant. Some of the same issues prevail today concerning the disease.

READ MORE OF CANDICE WIGGIN’S STORY HERE