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POSITIVELY AWARE HIV TREATMENT, PREVENTION AND HEALTH FROM TPAN MARCH+APRIL 2021 READY TO RIDEYOUR TRAVEL COMPANION FOR THE MOST COMMONLY PRESCRIBED MEDICATIONS FOR TREATING HIV BETTER THAN A FOLDOUT MAP Our HIV drug pullout chart 25 YEARS HIV DRUG GUIDE A HEALTHIER LIFE CAN START WATCH “HIV: It’s Called WITH HIV TREATMENT. Treatment as Prevention“ Learn about Treatment as Prevention (TasP) and It’s important to start HIV treatment as soon see how staying on treatment can help protect you as possible and stick with it. When you do, and the people you care about. START it helps stop the damage HIV causes. Plus, doctors and scientists have found that it YouTube.com/ HIV TREATMENT. HelpStopTheVirus can help reduce the risk of some infections, certain cancers, and even AIDS. TREATMENT HELPS PREVENT THE SPREAD OF HIV. STOPPING THE VIRUS If you’re living with HIV, a major goal is to get your viral load to undetectable. This means that there is so little virus in the blood that a test CAN START WITH YOU. can’t measure it. How can you get to and stay undetectable? By taking HIV treatment every day. Watch videos, share information, and Current research shows that getting to and see how we can all help stop the virus. staying undetectable prevents the spread of HelpStopTheVirus.com HIV to others through sex. YouTube.com/HelpStopTheVirus HELP PROTECT YOUR HEALTH. There is no cure for HIV, but fi nd out how treatment TALK TO YOUR helps make it possible to live a healthier life. HEALTHCARE PROVIDER. Have an open conversation. There’s no cure for HIV, but when you work together it helps your healthcare provider fi nd the treatment that’s right for you. GILEAD and the GILEAD Logo are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc. All other marks are SEE INSIDE the property of their respective owners. © 2020 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. UNBC7277 08/20 A HEALTHIER LIFE CAN START WATCH “HIV: It’s Called WITH HIV TREATMENT. Treatment as Prevention“ Learn about Treatment as Prevention (TasP) and It’s important to start HIV treatment as soon see how staying on treatment can help protect you as possible and stick with it. When you do, and the people you care about. START it helps stop the damage HIV causes. Plus, doctors and scientists have found that it YouTube.com/ HIV TREATMENT. HelpStopTheVirus can help reduce the risk of some infections, certain cancers, and even AIDS. TREATMENT HELPS PREVENT THE SPREAD OF HIV. STOPPING THE VIRUS If you’re living with HIV, a major goal is to get your viral load to undetectable. This means that there is so little virus in the blood that a test CAN START WITH YOU. can’t measure it. How can you get to and stay undetectable? By taking HIV treatment every day. Watch videos, share information, and Current research shows that getting to and see how we can all help stop the virus. staying undetectable prevents the spread of HelpStopTheVirus.com HIV to others through sex. YouTube.com/HelpStopTheVirus HELP PROTECT YOUR HEALTH. There is no cure for HIV, but fi nd out how treatment TALK TO YOUR helps make it possible to live a healthier life. HEALTHCARE PROVIDER. Have an open conversation. There’s no cure for HIV, but when you work together it helps your healthcare provider fi nd the treatment that’s right for you. GILEAD and the GILEAD Logo are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc. All other marks are SEE INSIDE the property of their respective owners. © 2020 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. UNBC7277 08/20 25 POSITIVELY AWARE 2021 HIV DRUG GUIDE YEARS CONTRIBUTORS THE PHARMACIST THE DOCTOR THE ACTIVIST THE ASSOCIATE EDITOR THE EDUCATOR Eric K. Farmer, PharmD, Melanie Thompson, MD’s Bridgette Picou is a Enid Vázquez has been Carla Blieden, PharmD, BCPS, AAHIVP, is an career of over three licensed vocational nurse Associate Editor of MPH, AAHIVP, completed HIV clinical pharmacist decades has focused on currently working in both POSITIVELY AWARE her Doctor of Pharmacy, at the Indiana University ending the HIV pandemic, the HIV and home health ever since she joined Master of Public Health, Health LifeCare Clinic including conducting fronts. She helps student the magazine in 1995. and PGY1 Residency at at Methodist Hospital clinical research for HIV nurses understand She earned her B.A. in the University of Southern in Indianapolis, one of treatment and prevention, the importance of journalism from the California. She is certified the largest providers advising on HIV policy at compassionate and University of Wisconsin- as an HIV pharmacist of HIV medical services the local and national level, informed care to the Madison. She interned and has worked as the in the state of Indiana. developing national and health and mental well- at The Chicago Reporter clinical pharmacist at He provides pharmacy international HIV treat- being of people living and was a cub reporter the Maternal, Child, and services that include ment and care guidelines, a positive life. With an for The Hartford Courant, Adolescent/Adult Center, medication adherence and providing medical emphasis on women’s the oldest continuously a family-centered HIV counseling and patient care for people with HIV. voices and needs, her published newspaper clinic in Los Angeles, for education, drug Between 1988 and 2020, goal is to be a light for in the United States. over a decade. She works information services, she conducted over 400 everyone struggling Her freelance work has directly with patients medication procurement, studies in the areas of HIV with HIV and navigating appeared in publications focusing on adherence to medication therapy treatment, prevention and a new life process after around the country. She HIV medication, managing management, and diagnostics; viral hepatitis diagnosis. Focusing on became interested in other chronic diseases, medical care coordination treatment and diagnostics; blogging, educating, health reporting because and analyzing HIV services. He is on the and sexually transmitted and speaking at various of the importance it has medication resistance. Board of Directors for infection diagnostics as conferences, Bridgette on people’s lives. It is a Dr. Blieden has been the American Academy of Principal Investigator hopes that by normalizing privilege to work on behalf working closely with HIV Medicine and serves of the AIDS Research the image of what HIV of people living with City of Los Angeles as clinical faculty for the Consortium of Atlanta looks like, the stigma HIV/AIDS, Enid says. officials and the Los Midwest AIDS Training (ARCA). She saw her first and fear can be reduced She believes that HIV is as Angeles Fire Department and Education Center. Dr. patient with HIV in 1982 or eliminated. Quality of much a condition fueled on deployment of the Farmer graduated from and has cared for thou- life is important to her as by societal discrimination influenza and COVID Butler University with his sands of people with HIV in well as the idea of thriving as it is by a virus. As such, vaccinations. Dr. Blieden Doctor of Pharmacy in Atlanta since that time. rather than just surviving. it makes her reporting is Assistant Professor 2007. He then completed She currently socio-political as well of Clinical Pharmacy an ASHP-accredited co-chairs the HIV as medical. She enjoys and Director of Student PGY1 pharmacy Medicine Association reporting on medical Outreach and Community residency at Eskenazi (HIVMA) HIV Primary updates and making Health at the USC Health in Indianapolis, Care Guidance Panel that them relatable to readers’ School of Pharmacy. and subsequently an recently published its lives. Enid has a special She reviewed the DHHS ASHP-accredited PGY2 2020 recommendations interest in sexual violence guidelines for this guide. HIV specialty pharmacy for the clinical care of and sexual freedom, and residency at the Center people with HIV in Clinical in serving the sex trade for HIV/AIDS Care and Infectious Diseases in worker and transgender Research at Boston November. communities. Medical Center. Dr. Thompson’s passion is to contribute to an end to the HIV epidemic through patient-centered medical care, prevention and treatment research, and evidence-based guidelines and policy with a focus on health inequities. FARMER AND VÁZQUEZ: JOHN GRESS BLIEDEN: • ISAAC MORA PHOTO • COURTESY OF BRIDGETTE PICOU 2 MARCH+APRIL 2021 positivelyaware.com/subscribe FRONT COVER BACKSTORY Embrace the journey BY RICK GUASCO It started with a Ford Mustang convertible that Nathan Townsend had rented for the weekend to NATHAN TOWNSEND celebrate his birthday. The theme for the 25th annual POSITIVELY AWARE HIV Drug Guide was Road Trip, and the timing couldn’t have been better for the cover photo shoot. Life is often described my partner of several years. as a journey. A road trip is a When we got our results, journey, not unlike living with his was negative and mine HIV. You can be as prepared was positive. I really credit as possible—road map (or his response as the reason map app) in hand, your route my response wasn’t trau- charted, suitcase packed, gas matic. He simply said, ‘I tank topped off—but a road guess we will have to start trip is often about encoun- using condoms now.’ So, I tering the unexpected. The did not experience loss or sudden flat tire, getting lost— rejection through diagno- and loss of signal, discover- sis; I experienced love and ing new sights, sharing new acceptance.” experiences, and meeting As a witness to the new people along the way. AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s, “the TOWNSEND, 67, was diag- incredible wave of death nosed with HIV in October in the ’80s passed me by.