HIV Frontlines

Tony Miles, Ph.D., is a psychologist and long-time HIV educator. Since 2000, he has been building an extraordinary digital library of first-person stories from people living with HIV. The collection, called The Positive Project, now includes interviews with more than 100 HIV-positive people from all walks of life. The interviews cover a wide range of topics, including stigma, coping with an HIV diagnosis, taking medications and dating. These clips have been used throughout the United States as invaluable resources for HIV education and awareness. In this interview, with talk with Dr. Miles about the project.

In 2004, a single e-mail changed the course of Dr. Kathryn Anastos' life -- and in so doing, may have helped saved the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of women and children in Rwanda. The e-mail came from a Rwandan activist group for women and children who were victims of the genocidal civil war that tore the country apart in 1994. Hundreds of thousands of women were raped during the genocide, and as Dr. Anastos recalls, the activist group "had just learned that the *perpetrators* of their rapes ... were being treated -- with state of the art, triple antiretroviral therapy." Outraged, Dr. Anastos and two other women from the United States decided to make a difference: They founded clinics in Rwanda that, with help from the Rwandan government and local staff, provide treatment and care to Rwandan women and their children. In this one-on-one interview, Dr. Anastos tells her story.

You're in a porn shop -- but you're not there to buy Blazing Saddles: Hardcore Version. You're there to meet up with a man you don't even know, and the two of you plan to have sex like bunnies back where nobody can see. Except there's someone who knows what you're up to! A man passes by, hands you some condoms, and teaches you about HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Brian Datcher is that man: An HIV educator who is HIV-positive himself, Datcher's job is one that few people even know exists, but it's a critical part of efforts to stop the spread of HIV in the United States. Read or listen to this eye-opening interview with Datcher in TheBody.com's newest podcast series, HIV Frontlines.

HIV clinician and researcher Benjamin Young, M.D., Ph.D., recently returned from St. Petersburg, Russia, where he has been helping train health care providers. In this interview, Dr. Young explains the trials and tribulations that come with trying to help ramp up HIV care in a city where HIV is rapidly spreading and the health care system is struggling to keep pace. He also discusses about the impact of his work abroad on his own clinical practice in Denver, and discusses the challenges an English-speaking physician faces when he tries to train health workers who speak a language in which he hasn't the slightest idea how to communicate.

Dr. Young, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of Colorado and a consultant physician for Denver ID Consultants at Rose Medical Center in Denver, Colo., is actively involved in educating health care professionals and community groups throughout the world on HIV-related subjects. He has devoted the past two years to training HIV physicians in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.