How often can you say such a thing about a politician? I don’t mean declaring a commitment to end HIV; that plenty of politicians have done; I mean actually marshaling the means to do so, even if it might ruffle a few old feathers. This is fantastic news:
On Sunday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced an ambitious goal: Ending the AIDS epidemic in New York State by 2020… To that
end, he has embraced a new and controversial treatment for people at risk of contracting H.I.V.
He wants to put more H.I.V.-negative people on Truvada, a drug originally developed to treat those who already have the virus, and which the F.D.A. approved in 2012 as protection against new infections.
Why fantastic? Because it’s precisely the political commitment that we need if we are to overcome the psychological baggage from the past and end HIV in the gay community in our lifetime. It truly is now a possible goal – if we combine aggressive treatment for viral suppression for the HIV-positive and block the virus’s inroads with Truvada for the HIV-negative. The Dish has made this case for a few years now – for the full argument, check out the archived thread here.
The NYT piece is also well-worth reading for a superb example of sharp reporting on this issue that would not make any gay person wince and yet make this debate accessible to all. That’s not easy – and maybe it has taken a new generation of gay journalists to bring it to a new level of sophistication and nuance. Congrats, Josh. And congrats, Cuomo. I sure can’t imagine a Clinton doing this, can you?
The Dish 