Looking Back While Looking Ahead

The following article appeared in the Nov/Dec 2010 Issue of HIV Plus Magazine

Marjorie Hill, CEO of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), reflects on the broad strides AIDS science has taken over the past 30 years and looks ahead to what is to come for research, treatment, and, one day, a cure.
By Marjorie Hill, PhD 

World AIDS Day offers all of us the opportunity to remember people who died of AIDS and who are living with HIV and AIDS, and reflect on the work ahead of us in 2011, the 30th year of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Through the challenges in preventing new infections while caring for those living with HIV/AIDS, there have been some great strides made since the onset of the epidemic in the early 1980s. Recently, the United Nations reported that new HIV infections have dropped nearly 20% globally over the last decade. Further, a study by Farnham et al. estimated that HIV prevention programs had averted more than 350,000 new infections in the U.S. between 1991 and 2006. These statistics are testaments to the advancements in HIV prevention methods and strategies that are continuing to be tailored to those most vulnerable to the virus. READ MORE >