HIV Frontlines

Since graduating college in the late '80s, Monique Howard has been working in the HIV/AIDS field. From examining specimens in a lab to implementing HIV risk reduction programming at Beth Israel Hospital to earning a graduate degree in human sexuality, her work has been grounded in understanding how HIV/AIDS impacts women. Now, Howard is the executive director of the New Jersey Women and AIDS Network (NJWAN) in New Brunswick, N.J. She talks with us about her work with NJWAN and the needs of women in the state of New Jersey and across the country.

For the past 20-plus years, Gary Paul Wright has dedicated his life to fighting the AIDS epidemic in New York City. Wright, one of the founders of the House of Latex, worked for Gay Men's Health Crisis and New York City's Department of Education before starting his own organization, the African American Office of Gay Concerns (AAOGC), in Newark, N.J. Wright talks with us about AAOGC, its Status Is Everything HIV prevention campaign and the needs of LGBT African Americans and Latinos in Newark.

Debbie Hagins, M.D., is a very busy woman: Her HIV/AIDS clinic serves nearly 1,000 people in Georgia. But that doesn't stop her from giving her cell phone number to her patients, and even going to their houses to make sure they take their HIV medications. Because many of her patients are struggling financially, this kind of dedication can make a huge difference.

When most people think of the island of Jamaica, they likely think of white-sand beaches, sunny skies and lilting accents. But as poet Kwame Dawes and MAC AIDS Fund Director Nancy Mahon explain in our latest edition of HIV Frontlines, Jamaica has deep underlying problems -- and HIV/AIDS is one of them.

"Yes, babies are pretty, but they grow up to have sex ... and to potentially expose themselves to HIV," says HIV advocate Kai Chandler. Part of Chandler's work at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia involves getting preteens and teens tested for HIV, as well as talking to them about some pretty heavy issues -- sexual risk, partner negotiation and healthy relationships -- while they're still young enough for prevention messages to have the greatest impact. In this interview, Chandler explains how this job gets done -- and what else is going on in Philadelphia, a vibrant center of HIV/AIDS activism.

"I have to have an army of people helping me educate," says Vanessa Austin, HIV services outreach coordinator at Harlem Hospital Center in New York City. For Austin, the key to reaching the most people with her HIV advocacy work is training people to become "information warriors" who then spread messages about HIV prevention and testing to their peers. "We have to let them pass the information the way they're passing this virus," she says. Austin gives an exciting snapshot of her vital work in this interview with TheBody.com.

When we finally turn the tide against HIV among African Americans, it'll be thanks to people like Audria Russell. She's the HIV program coordinator at the nonprofit organization Women in Need in New York City. She's in charge of a support group that educates and empowers girls between the ages of 10 and 13.

"It was a very eerie, depressing, anxiety-provoking period," recalls Anthony Fauci, M.D. "The very darkest years of my professional career." Dr. Fauci is recounting the early 1980s, when, as an infectious disease doc working for the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Maryland, he watched helplessly as people showed up at his hospital with a mysterious -- and almost always fatal -- illness. That illness, of course, was AIDS. From the very beginning of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci has played a critical role in helping doctors and researchers better understand HIV disease. In the latest edition of our HIV Frontlines podcast series, Dr. Fauci looks back over more than 25 years spent fighting HIV.

When Mark King was 20, he moved to West Hollywood. It was the early 1980s, and King was set on pursuing his acting career and soaking up the gay scene. He never expected to find himself in the middle of the darkest time in the U.S. HIV epidemic, caring for close friends as they became sick and died, while struggling with his own diagnosis. In this powerful, emotional interview with The Body, King recounts the tremendous courage of people who fought through the epidemic in those early years.

When Gil Robertson's brother Jeffrey tested positive in 1982, their family defied the norms of the time and immediately surrounded Jeffrey with love and support. Inspired by his family's experience, Robertson began gathering stories from dozens of African Americans about how HIV had altered their lives. The result is Not in My Family: AIDS in the African-American Community. In this interview with TheBody.com, Robertson discusses the anthology, which contains essays by leaders such as the Reverend Al Sharpton and entertainers like Mo'Nique, as well as activists, artists, and HIV-positive people and their relatives.