(the following post is cross-posted at Cure This)

World AIDS Day was yesterday, Saturday December 1st, 2007.  Much thanks to the hundreds of organizations and the thousands of people who work day in and day out to garner funds, break down stereotypes, treat medically, and help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS around the world.  And thoughts and empathy to the many many people living with HIV/AIDS.

Susan McCallister at the Hesperian Foundation talks about leadership and responsibility in the movement (after the jump):

As an volunteer for one of Vanderbilt University's HIV vaccine studies, imagine my disappointment after reading that a major vaccine trial that was halted world-wide because the vaccine did not protect users from infection. Disappointment turned to worry as news over the next few days reported that the experimental vaccine may actually raise the risk of infection in volunteers.

I'm sure no one volunteers as a guinea pig for experimental vaccines like this one without a gut-check beforehand. I certainly took one. Unlike medications that treat the medical conditions of test participants, a vaccine must be tested on subjects who are free of the disease.  The first question has to be, "is there a risk of infection?"  Participants were assured that there was no risk of infection because no live virus was used in the vaccine, but realizing that any "experimental" thing is sure to come with very few guarantees, the next question is "are you willing to accept even a limited risk of exposure?" That was a tough question.      

Last year I posted a diary on World AIDS Day asking people if there was interest in Sharing our AIDS Stories.  I started that off telling about my therapist and (I hope) my friend, Kurt Wilhelm (link goes to my nearly abandoned personal blog...there aren't enough hours in a day).

Then I invited people to tell their own stories.  The response was nearly overwhelming.  I endeavored then, as I will today, to read and answer ever post, until I got some helpers towards the end.  At first the majority of comments were by people who talked about their friends or family who had died or who were living with AIDS, but as the day went on, more and more people living with AIDS started telling their stories.

I'm hoping to hear some updates...

Today, December 1, 2007, is World AIDS Day.  Congress will be coming back to Washington "sometime in early December."  They will be asked to increase the U.S. contribution to fighting aids by our current president (OCP).  According to Reuters,

Since 2001, the Administration has delivered more than $129 billion to fight HIV/AIDS both at home and abroad.
. . .  On May 30, 2007, the President announced his proposal to double America's initial $15 billion commitment to fight global HIV/AIDS through PEPFAR. The American people will have committed $48.3 billion over 10 years to fight HIV/AIDS if Congress continues to support the President's plan, including his proposal to provide $30 billion over the next five years.
On World AIDS Day 2007, President Bush again calls on Congress to reauthorize PEPFAR to continue to support those served by the program, and to further expand efforts to build on the program's success.

Did I really see a picture of Bush wearing an AIDS red ribbon (on Friday -- World AIDS Day)?  

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Now that really f***ing pisses me off.  What a hypocrite.  The Bushies have given all the AIDS money to the "faith based" orgs which use it to preach abstinence only and don’t know s*** about AIDS.  Some of the representatives of these groups, new to the public trough, have asked whether they can catch AIDS by meeting with people who have it.  I know this from friends who work in the REAL AIDS service organizations who have had to deal with these Christian crusaders.

And we all know that the hard-core Bushies were glad to see the "high-risk" groups die off.

I read somewhere that some at some point  suggested wearing a blue ribbon as a sign of continuing opposition to the Bushies and all they stand for.  

Let the battle of the ribbons begin!

Guess what?

I hate world AIDS day.

I hate the compression of empathy into a 24 hour period. To really understand AIDS you have to get this simple fact through your skull- there is not a single day that is not 'world fuckin' AIDS day'. If you compartmentalize, taking annual notice December first then slumber on through 'til next December you don't know a damn thing about AIDS.

I hate 'they live as long as you remember them'.

Because my friends are not alive- no matter how much I remember them. That's what AIDS really means, and no amount of the endless wallowing in our second hand 'stories', or 'prayers', etc can ever fix that simple reality- that those we loved are really gone, and are not 'alive'.

I'm sick of it.

I'm sick of the annual ritual- lighting candles and reading names, and all of it.

Tears, and 'prayers' and candle wax mean so little in the face of not just who and what we've lost, but who and what slips through our fingers every minute of every day due to this obscene plague.

Although I realize there are other diaries on this topic, this is one that is of great personal significance to me, so I've taken the opportunity to use it for my first diary.

I wrote this journal about finding out that I was HIV+ almost a year ago.    In some cases I used it as the way to tell loved ones who did not know what was happening to me. Today, being World AIDS Day, it seems like the best day to share it with you.

Read on ...

1.13.2006
San Francisco CA

8:30 am

sometimes you just know how it all turns out.

walking to the doctor’s office i measure my responses to every stride while focusing on working through simmering anxiety and just arriving.  it has been a year.  a lot changes in a year.

when i round the corner onto Hermann Street, spot my pet 1950’s architectural favorite Union of Electrical Workers building, and judge the distance ahead to Steiner Street, i ask myself the following:

what if i am?
what if this time the results are different?
am i ready to accept what comes next?
am i fine with knowing that i’ll never have children of my own?
what will i say to Gene?
what will i tell my friends?
will i break my mother’s heart?

In honor of World AIDS Day, I present to you a poster I created after being informed that someone who I cared about had HIV:

Download a printable PDF, 462kb

And here's where you come in.  In order to complete this poster, I need to fill the ribbon in with faces of the most famous people who have died of AIDS.  I need about thirty photos with birth year and death year.  They should be people who's names will be recognizable to a majority of people for their accomplishments.  The top few in my mind are Ryan White, Freddy Mercury, and Rock Hudson, but I need help compiling more and finding photos and info for those and others.

Today is World AIDS Day, and it's as good a time as any to think about the 40 million people worldwide who are living with HIV. Their numbers are growing daily, fueled by ignorance and prejudice.

Over the years, I've just assumed that, as a species, we were moving toward eliminating or at least reducing the spread of HIV and AIDS. It turns out that I am wrong.

That’s right. Fifty years — and that estimate is on the low end. And here you thought AIDS was "only" twenty-five years old.

In 1986, Dr. A.J. Nahmias, writing in the journal Lancet, reported on testing that had been done on blood samples taken during a 1959 malaria study in Kinshasa, in what was then the Belgian Congo. When those preserved samples were tested in 1986, one sample tested positive for the HIV virus. Other stored blood samples from Central Africans taken in 1960’s and 1970’s tested positive as well.

I have more thoughts on World AIDS Day my post AIDS, Fifty Years Later. And you can read more about how AIDS has impacted the gay communities in America in Opportunistic Infections. There is a lot of misinformation about where AIDS came from -- misinformation that is all too often used against the gay community. I hope these articles can clear some of that up.

In my memory, all the Reagan years have a taint -- a texture almost --of cruelty.  I particularly hate 1982.  In 1982, Nancy hadn't just said "no" yet, and the drug war wasn't officially announced -- but it was on, let me tell you.  The neighborhoods I lived in then were "those" kinds of neighborhoods.  They were full of junkies and in 1979 they were full of ambulances.

By 1982 you only saw coroner's vans.  No one called the police anymore, not with so much brutality and fear.  Reagan's presidency heralded the outdoor overdose, the corpse on the lawn, the curbside hospital drop.

A few minutes is an awfully long time when someone's not breathing.  The time it takes to pause and wonder if it's as bad as all that, if it's worth the risk -- that uncertain minute can make the difference.

So many people died in those minutes.

And that's why I hate 1982.  In 1982, I knew about AIDS.  It was a year of despair, disbelief, hopelessness.  A year holding your breath.  1982 was the life or death minute, stretched to eternity.  

With so much hyperbole in the "War on Terror" rhetoric it is truly frustrating that another war has been forgotten and for the most part dismissed by not only middle America, but also those who espouse progressive values.  The HIV/AIDS pandemic in 2007 will cause ten times more death, destruction, and instability to developing nations than terrorism.  In 2006 the Untied States defense budget topped $500 Billion (Iraq and Afghanistan supplementals added), by contrast the Bush administration is requesting $300 Million to the Global AIDS fund, which is only 0.6% of the defense budget.  

December 1st is the day to honor the memory of all the people we have lost to AIDS and say a prayer in our hearts for those living HIV & AIDS.  The world has lost so many men, women, and children to this horrific disease.  

(This is a repeat of a dairy I posted last year with  the years updated & a link to my WORLD AIDS DAY 12/01/2006 Podcast for this year.)

Strange Math & The Phone Call:

The linked video is the first release of an original Thought Theater video. I thought it would be appropriate to kick off the sites video content with a message on World AIDS day. Perhaps not every reader has lost someone to HIV...but I have lost a number of friends and I think it’s important to be reminded that HIV is currently the number four cause of death and is expected to soon become number three. There has been a lot of progress in controlling the virus but millions are unable to afford the drugs needed to extend their lives.

TWENTY-FIVE years ago, when I was a high school senior, I was sitting in my room and my mother walked in with a newspaper clipping from The New York Times about a new disease called GRID. This was, I read in our family's newspaper of record, a disease that was impacting the gay male community. A few weeks later, she came in with a second article on the same subject. It was a while before the name was changed to AIDS, or any heterosexuals figured out they might have a stake in the issue.

There's a t-shirt in my closet at home, black with white lettering, that bears the words above. It expresses the sentiment that's in my heart today. It's World AIDS Day, and a day on which I can't help thinking about all the people who have been lost; the ones close to me and the people never knew but who meant something to someone.

It was on my mind this morning when I picked my son up and carried him downstairs, and it was on my mind when I kissed him and my husband goodbye and made my way out the door. It wasn't until I was on the train that it truly hit me. I was sitting, reading and listening to music, and the next song that played was Warren Zevon's "Keep Me In Your Heart for a While," written before his own death from lung cancer.