There's isn't any way to discuss HIV Long Term Survivor Awareness Day (#HLTSAD) this year (Friday, June 5) without discussing racial disparities. For that matter, we should "lead with race," as NMAC's slogan goes, from this moment forward. I'm going to try better in that regard. I'll let me video message speak for itself. Here [...]
Credit: Isaac Hale, Star Tribune There is a fact I have always wanted to argue. I thought I was different from those other white men. If you just had let me explain, just let me tell you about me, me, me, then you would surely see the real truth for yourself, proven by [...]
To commemorate HIV Vaccine Advocacy Day in Nigeria on Monday, May 18, I recorded a brief video as part of an awareness project for the New Vaccine and Microbicide Advocacy Society. My message was simple. Vaccines take time, factual science, and patience. I will never forget listening to HHS Secretary Margaret Heckler in 1984, right [...]
Drs. Judy Mikovitz and Deborah Birx Hucksters and charlatans know their cue: their traveling salvation shows typically arrive when we are at the nexus of public panic and willful ignorance. It should have come as no surprise, then, to find Dr. Judy Mikovitz' dusty wagon come creaking into sight this week with its [...]
The first time it happened, a couple of weeks ago, I was waking up from a nap. My eyes were moist. The dream began to fade but the emotion lingered, and so did the central image. Mom was standing in the kitchen, looking at me fondly, saying something reassuring. It doesn’t matter what. It was [...]
I really needed to get out of the house and escape COVID isolation, it’s as simple as that. So, I took a little drive around the neighborhood to give my car a spin. It’s been parked for more than a week. Do you know the Toni Tennille albums, recorded post-Captain? She sings old standards, and [...]
There are trials by fire, and then there are trials by wildfire. Nursing student Brian Thomas never imagined his on-the-job education would transform into fighting on the very front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, or that he would be forced to take extreme safety precautions each time he arrived home from his internship at a [...]
The flyer was in my mailbox, folded and placed by an unknown neighbor. “NEED CORONAVIRUS HELP?” it read, explaining a local “Self-Quarantine Response Team” was here to support those “with compromised immune systems, those in quarantine – or even those who must work or have kids or feel isolated due to social distancing. Please retain [...]
Alon Reininger Contact Press Images People ask me if our lives today feel like the early years of HIV/AIDS, and I want to scream. There is no comparison. Just stop. No one cared about people dying of AIDS in the early years of the pandemic. The stock market didn’t budge. The President didn’t [...]
(This essay appeared in the Jan/Feb 2020 issue of POZ Magazine. It plays off the fact that it was written in advance of publication, in late 2019, and how fast-paced the downfall of our democracy news cycle can be. One thing is certain: my Trump Trauma remains, and I intend to do something about it [...]
