Regan Hofmann

Normally, I don't encourage inter-AIDS-agency brawls and bets but this one is awesome because either way, people living with HIV win.

Check out the wager between AIDS Action Committee's president and CEO Rebecca Haag and Gay Men's Health Crisis' CEO Marjorie Hill.

Haag's rooting for the Patriots. Hill's pulling for the Giants.

I distinctly remember when Kenneth Cole's "We All Have AIDS" awareness campaign first appeared in 2005. It featured prominent people in the fields of entertainment, politics, culture and science and was designed to illuminate the devastating stigma connected to people living with HIV/AIDS. The tagline was "We All Have AIDS...If One of Us Does." The message was clear: HIV does not discriminate. Therefore, people should not discriminate against people living with HIV.

I remember thinking how desperately I wished I'd understood that better before I contracted HIV. Because it was the thought that HIV couldn't happen to me that let me make a decision that left me vulnerable to the virus.

None of us think terrible things will happen to us, until they do. And when they do, when we get hurt, or sick, or are somehow touched by life's darkness, people (except those who love us unconditionally) often instinctively turn away.

This phenomenon is especially true with HIV/AIDS. The myths, misperception and stigma surrounding the disease cast it in a negative light unlike any other.

I am delighted to announce that POZ has been named an official media partner for this summer's upcoming XIX International AIDS Conference, AIDS2012, scheduled for July 22-27 in Washington, DC.

Here's the formal announcement.

I've attended the International AIDS Conference around the world (Toronto, Sidney, Mexico City, etc.) since coming to POZ six years ago and I am thrilled that POZ (together with our sister brand AIDSmeds.com) will work closely with the AIDS 2012 team to bring you unprecedented coverage for the conference.

We're at a pivotal moment in the fight against AIDS and this new partnership will enable us to give all of you POZ readers a front-row seat and special, inside access to what will certainly be an historic global AIDS meeting. As POZ has done for nearly two decades, we will ensure that your voices and concerns are front and center in discussions and news of treatment, prevention and policy.

"POZ has been a leading resource of important and life-saving information for people living with HIV for nearly two decades," said Dr. Diane Havlir, U.S. Co-Chair of AIDS 2012. "We are especially pleased to have them as an official media partner because this collaboration will help ensure that within the large landscape of conference media coverage, the news and story from AIDS 2012 will be reported from the perspectives of people living with HIV for their peers and allies."

It is such an exciting thing to know that global AIDS leaders and the global AIDS community will come to our nation this year--a thing made possible by the fact that President Obama, his administration and the 111th Congress lifted the ban on people with HIV traveling into the United States.

And we so look forward to taking your messages to our nation's capital for the conference, and giving you the full scoop on the myriad activities inside--and outside--the conference.

Would love to start a conversation with you all about what you want to see and hear...and what you want American and world leaders to know about what's happening with HIV/AIDS in the United States! So post your comments below!

Listen below to my appearance on The Brian Lehrer Show on World AIDS Day 2011. We talk about The POZ 100 : 100 People, Things and Ideas We Love.

Today, the White House announced that President Barack Obama will speak at an event this Thursday, December 1, at George Washington University in Washington, DC. The announcement begs the question of whether or not the president will use the occasion of World AIDS Day to up America's ante in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. If there was ever a time to up our ante...that time is now. The Global Fund just announced that it will not be able to deliver its next round of funding and the UNAIDS report released last week showed an increase in HIV infections around the world. Both of these things come on the heels of scientific discovery that proved we hold in our possession the keys to ending AIDS.

Less money, more people sick, and the know-how to stop AIDS? Seems we need a course correction. It is my great hope that the President announces Thursday that our nation will not relinquish the fight against HIV at this pivotal time in AIDS history. And that if and when he does not back away from the fight, other nations, and Congress, will back him up.

As I talk with people about the need to fund the global AIDS fight, I repeatedly hear two questions: 1) Why would the United States, in a time of economic strife, continue to pour American tax payer dollars into foreign aid? and 2) Doesn't the administration know we have a huge unchecked HIV epidemic stateside?

This blog, I hope, answers both those questions.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They're listed as "unalienable rights" in the United States Declaration of Independence and if I hadn't been born here, they'd be three compelling reasons to pursue the American Dream.

But lately, the American Dream has become a bit of a nightmare.

I won't review the obvious. But what's happening in Washington around the negotiations to reduce the federal deficit, the political gridlock and our economy has a trickle down effect on the work we're doing to protect people with HIV/AIDS. I am deeply concerned that any agreement reached on Capitol Hill about how this country pays its bills (an agreement that needs to have painful reality checks in it to secure the financial future of the United States and have a positive effect on the world's economy) could potentially deal terrible blows to domestic and global AIDS budgets. That is, unless we all do something about it right now. We have a couple of weeks. The Super Committee will (hopefully) put forth a proposal on November 23. That's 40 days. Forty days for us to make sure that AIDS funding is defended.

That's the bad news. We may soon be a world of a lot less money for domestic and global health.

The good news is that after 30 years of waging social and scientific war against HIV, recent breakthroughs show it is possible to start ending AIDS.

New data from U.S.-funded research proves that HIV treatment works as prevention and that if we reallocate the resources we already have to get more people living with HIV into care while strategically applying other tools and fresh, targeted efforts to improve prevention efforts, we can stop HIV from spreading for good. Maybe even in our lifetime. We can't do it alone. The rest of the world has to help. But America has always led a bipartisan charge for fighting AIDS and if we up our ante, others may be more likely to follow. China. India. South Africa. Germany. Russia.

The question is no longer, "Can we end AIDS?" but "Will we end AIDS?" The current POZ cover story--"R.I.P. HIV"--lays out what we need to do it.

So, the bad news is that we may soon have less money. But the good news is we have a really great case to make about why our special interest deserved to be funded. Defending the perimeter of AIDS funding saves lives, saves future health care dollars but most importantly, it can get rid of one of the most horrific scourges on the planet. And secure for everyone who makes it possible a place in the humanitarian history books. Ending AIDS. It is a nice legacy.

If we could end poverty, wouldn't we? If we could stop all future war, wouldn't we? If we could end world hunger, wouldn't we? If we could stop global warming, wouldn't we?

Since we can end AIDS, shouldn't we?

So I ask you: Are you ready to end AIDS?

No.

It means I think grown men in head-to-toe Kevlar-esque suits doing full body slams and taking Gatorade baths is not as impressive to me as Australian rules football or rugby (which I played in college, for purposes of disclosure). And even if I were gay, I might like football--American, Australian Rules or otherwise. Or not...because love, ambivalence or hate of contact sports based on the chasing of pigskin does not a sexual orientation make.

But a new French mobile app sold on Google's Android market called <<Mon fils est-il gay?>> or "Is my son gay?" would like to convince its users that a series of 20 questions (one of which is "Does your son like football?") can establish a male child's sexual orientation.

This is ridiculous.
 
The 20 questions posed by the app are pointless at best--at worst, they reflect an ill-informed, totally non-scientific, insensitive understanding of gay people (especially gay boys). The app asks mothers to consider these questions about their sons:

Does this mean all my well-groomed male friends who refuse to punch people in the face, who read the financial section rather than the sports section, who enjoy a night out on Broadway, who are not ego maniacs and who are manly enough to sing Madonna with me out loud on a road trip are gay? Methinks not.

My last blog, "Not Drinking the PrEP Kool-AIDS" elicited a lot of response. I've read your comments and followed conversations on list serves with great interest and enjoyed talking with many of you about how PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) might best be used to prevent new HIV infections and how its application should fit into the overall mix of tools we will wield to end AIDS.

Thank you for the depth, breadth and passion of your responses. Given the wide-range of your opinions, I hope we can continue the public dialogue to determine the optimal strategy for stopping the pandemic.

So much new scientific data have emerged in the last year--from the CAPRISA 004 results (a study of vaginal microbicides) to the findings of HPTN 052 (noting the impact of treatment as prevention in people with HIV) to the results of multiple PrEP studies (indicating that treatment can serve as prevention in people without the virus when used as a pre-exposure prophylaxis) to advancements in cure research. But the science is only half the battle.

In his opening keynote speech at the International AIDS Conference in Rome, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe called gaps in access to HIV treatment within and between countries and key populations an affront to humanity that can and must be closed by innovations in developing, pricing and delivering treatments and commodities. "History will judge us not by our scientific breakthroughs," he said, "but how we apply them."

Empirical evidence suggests we can end AIDS--maybe even in our lifetimes. Now, we need the right global health strategy to guide the deployment of our wide arsenal of weaponry to prevent the most new infections and save the most lives as quickly as possible with the most efficient use of our resources.

Because what we're doing isn't working well or fast enough, particularly on American soil.

Case in point: New incidence numbers released last Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show an average of 50,000 new infections a year for 2006 to 2009.

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One way to reduce incidence is to provide treatment to more people living with HIV who need it. It saves their lives, keeps children from being orphaned--and potentially stops the spread of the virus. The HPTN 052 study proved that giving treatment to people with HIV can lower their risk of transmitting HIV by 96 percent if their adherence is diligent and their viral load is kept undetectable.

HPTN 052 established significant reduction of risk of transmission of HIV between individuals. Its results did not necessarily prove that these individual benefits would translate to a population level impact. But other studies have shown reducing enough individual viral loads can lower community viral load and if that happens, the rate of new infections can follow suit. We've seen the theory in practice in places like San Francisco, Vancouver and South Africa. It is true that each of those settings offered unique factors that enabled better access to care (for example, in British Columbia, injection drug users were allowed to inject in a government-approved center), but the fact remains: if we can get more pills to more people living with HIV, and they adhere, we could see a dip in incidence.

To test whether there is a correlation between universal access and lower rates of new HIV infections, and to better understand that correlation, more people would need to be on treatment.

Globally, there are 33.3 million people with the virus; 6 million are on antiretroviral therapy (ARVs); 27.3 million can't access care--9 million of them need treatment immediately.

A report published in the March 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases showed that the majority of Americans with HIV are not taking ARVs.

There are almost 90,000 Americans with HIV who need treatment immediately and aren't getting it (349,622 need therapy; 262,217 are on therapy). Eventually, most of the 1.1 million (and counting) Americans with HIV will need care.

Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the University of Washington released data gleaned from two African studies, namely "Partners PrEP" and "TDF2." The studies indicated that antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) taken daily by uninfected individuals--an approach known as PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis--can reduce HIV acquisition through unprotected heterosexual sex by 62-73 percent, according to Partners PrEP, and nearly 63 percent, according to TDF2. The two drugs tested as PrEP were tenofovir (manufactured by Gilead Sciences and sold as Viread) and tenofovir plus emtricitabine (also manufactured by Gilead Sciences and sold as Truvada).

As the news came across the wires, widespread HIV/AIDS community support followed. AVAC, Project Inform, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and many other advocacy groups as well as the leadership of the International AIDS Society heralded the results. Wednesday's PrEP lovefest mirrored the community's reaction to the results of "iPrEx" or the "Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Initiative," supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The iPrEx results established that men who have sex with men and transgender women who take PrEP are, on average, 44 percent less likely to contract HIV; they were 73 percent less likely to do so if they took daily PrEP 90 percent of the time. It was also announced Wednesday that iPrEx will continue a placebo-less extension of the trial to study those who remained negative.

The results of Partners PrEP, TDF2 and iPrEx are critical indications that HIV can be successfully prevented with biomedical intervention--to a degree. But it is important to note PrEP offers various levels of reduced risk of HIV infection that are contingent on adherence. And that a range of 44-73 percent reduction in new HIV infection rates will not result in population level impact on the overall rate of new HIV infections. It's also important to keep in mind that a fourth clinical trial FEM-PrEP, failed to find any benefits among African women at risk for HIV. Therefore, PrEP should not be considered a prevention panacea but rather, a potential harm reduction strategy.

By comparison, consider the results of another recently completed treatment-as-prevention efficacy trial--a trial known as HPTN 052. The results from this trial were so compelling they were released by the HIV Prevention Trials Network in May 2011, years before results had been expected.

Sunday morning marked the 30th anniversary of the first reported cases of a terrible disease--a disease that came to be known as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or "AIDS." I woke with a strange feeling in my heart caused by a mix of three emotions: gratitude that I had survived to see this milestone, sadness for all the loss AIDS has brought to the world and more hope than I'd ever dared allowed myself.

I was torn from slumber by the sound of my Blackberry signaling an incoming email, ironically, from Timothy Brown, a.k.a. "The Berlin Patient"--the first person ever cured of HIV. (He sent a bunch of us an email saying he was ready to up his ante to fight for more funding for AIDS cure research. Which is great, because his face and story have been all over the media lately, including, on the POZ cover.)

I lay in bed, reflecting on the weird irony of that. Here I was, a woman who was told she'd be dead in a year 15 years ago, emailing a man who was told he'd be dead several times over, discussing our next steps fighting the disease that has so far failed to take us out.

It's more probable than ever that we might actually be able to end this bloody pandemic. There has been a lot of encouraging news lately, and I've noticed much cohesion within the global HIV community. It feels like evidence-based science is finally giving us the answers, and therefore the platform, we need to help the world understand that HIV is disease that we can treat--and cure.

I am asked often, by reporters, producers, friends, etc., "What's going on with AIDS? What essential things do I need to know?"