SCENES FROM TIRED OF HONORING THE BNAB THE WAY LONG-TERM REVOLUTION THINGS ARE SURVIVORS POSITIVELY AWARE COMMEMORATING 30 YEARS PUBLISHED BY TPAN JAN+FEB 2020 BORN FREE Lynnea Lawson was born with HIV, and gave birth to a daughter who is HIV-negative POSITIVELY AWARE Jeff Berry EDITOR-IN-CHIEF @PAeditor Enid Vázquez ASSOCIATE EDITOR @enidvazquezpa Andrew Reynolds HEPATITIS C EDITOR @AndrewKnowsHepC Rick Guasco CREATIVE DIRECTOR @rickguasco PROOFREADER Jason Lancaster INTERN Julie Taddeo PHOTOGRAPHERS David Franco John Gress Chris Knight ADVERTISING MANAGER Lorraine Hayes [email protected] DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Denise Crouch [email protected] SUBSCRIBE OR ORDER COPIES positivelyaware.com/subscribe LIVE LIFE POSITIVELY AWARE. FOR 30 YEARS, PUBLISHED BY 5537 N. BROADWAY CHICAGO, IL 60640-1405 (773) 989-9400 FAX: (773) 989-9494 [email protected] positivelyaware.com @PosAware TPAN was founded in 1987 in Chicago as Test Positive Aware Network, when 17 individuals living with HIV gathered in a living room to share information and support in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. POSITIVELY AWARE is the expression of TPAN’s mission to share accurate, reliable, and timely treatment information with anyone affected by HIV. BE GREEN. SHARE OR RECYCLE THIS MAGAZINE. 2 JAN+FEB 2020 | POSITIVELYAWARE.COM + VOLUMEJAN 30 NUMBER 1 positivelyaware.comFEB 2020 @posaware EVERY ISSUE 22 PrEP BATTLES FOR THE VAGINA 4 Research for cisgender women and THE CONVERSATION adolescent girls is underway to help A reader’s “Note to My Younger Self.’ determine vaginal protection with Descovy for PrEP. 5 BY ENID VÁZQUEZ EDITOR’S NOTE CONFERENCE UPDATE A chronicle of the epidemic, THE LIVER MEETING 30 years in the making. 26 FOCUSING ON THE TARGET 7 Viral hepatitis treatment access, BRIEFLY elimination, and patient and Dolutegravir and pregnancy. Home provider advocacy. testing yields results. New drug, BY ANDREW REYNOLDS fostemsavir, is on the way. Tesamorelin reverses nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Plus, updates on drug labels, guidelines, 32 and hepatitis treatment. SCENES FROM THE bNAb REVOLUTION An update on research for prevention, 31 treatment, and cure using broadly THE CATEGORY IS... neutralizing antibodies. Has living with HIV affected your desire BY RICHARD JEFFERYS to have a family? 37 44 LONG-ACTING AND VACCINE POSITIVELY AGING RESEARCH MOVES FORWARD CONNECTING PAST TO FUTURE New options for prevention and Long-term survivors share their treatment. stories and discuss strategies for BY LIZ BARR the coming year. BY JD DAVIDS THIRTYTHIRTY YEARS YEARS OF OF LIVING PA30 POSITIVELYPOSITIVELY AWARE AWARE THIS ISSUE 38 HOPE AND REDEMPTION 14 Q&A with Celeste Watkins-Hayes. BORN FREE Lynnea Lawson was born with HIV, 40 and gave birth to a daughter who CAMP HUMOR, 1993 is HIV-negative. Turning to a camp sensibility to promote BY MICHELLE SIMEK condom use at the height of the AIDS PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID FRANCO epidemic. 20 42 TWIN EPIDEMICS TIRED OF THE WAY THINGS ARE Vertical transmission of hepatitis C Former associate editor KEITH R. GREEN and syphilis: What you need to know. notes that while much in the world of BY ANDREW REYNOLDS HIV/AIDS has changed since another editor’s passing, a lot has not. Plus, a 2001 Editor’s Note from the late PA editor Charles E. Clifton. ON THE COVER AND ON THIS SPREAD: LYNNEA LAWSON AND DAUGHTER NAE’LYN BY LOS ANGELES-BASED PHOTOGRAPHER DAVID FRANCO. POSITIVELYAWARE.COM | JAN+FEB 2020 3 THE CONVERSATION A reader’s own ‘Note to my younger self’ HAVE JUST received my copy psychologist I had been seeing over the next few weeks. I’m of the September + October regularly for mental health. hepatitis C free, as I went through I 2019 issue. Like I do with every “Now, Michael, we have some 48 weeks of pegylated interferon issue, I always go to the Editor’s news that may cause a great deal (an old form of treatment). Note first. This one put tears in of alarm and anxiety. We are sorry, I have a court hearing that I my eyes. “Note to my younger but your blood tests came back hope will get me treatment via the self”—wow, if only I could have positive. You have hepatitis C and Maryland Department of Health been able to do that! HIV,” they said. and Mental Hygiene. The Third I have struggled with alcohol July 2005 was when my world Circuit Court judge for Baltimore JOIN IN THE and drug use since I was 13, caved in on me, Jeff. You said that County, Nancy M. Purpura, under- CONVERSATION which is also when I drank my yours came “crashing down around stands that I need help. I suffer first beer and smoked my first you” and that you felt “alone and from PTSD, anxiety, and depres- [email protected] joint. Little did I know then that I full of shame”—just as I do! sion, so I want to get mental would later become an alcoholic I read your note over and over health treatment. I am hoping to @posaware and drug addict, live in and out of and it took me back to nearly 15 get into a long term inpatient pro- jail (mostly in), and become HIV years ago. I was already feeling gram that treats dual diagnoses. POSITIVELY AWARE and hepatitis C positive—at the alone and shameful for the thefts, As you say and have said, Jeff, 5537 N. same time! All of the hurt, all of now feeling even more alone, with “Hope has sustained me this far, BROADWAY ST. the pain, all because of drinking the shame continuing to amplify. and so it will continue to do so.” CHICAGO, IL and drug use. If I were able to go I couldn’t help recalling how I I will never, ever give up hope. 60640-1405 back, I need not to tell you what I was molested as a young boy, Hope is all that I have. ALL LETTERS, would have said to that kid. Since considering the prostitution I was Jeff, thank you for being the EMAIL, ONLINE 1990, I have only lived about three involved in, reflecting on the men inspiration in my life, as I’m sure POSTS, ETC. years on the street (closest I’ve I had been with while incarcer- you are in many. Together, we can are treated as come to having a home). Now, I ated, and thinking about my drug continue on with our fight. letters to the editor unless just turned 53 and will have been use with needles. Just a flood of —MICHAEL BARNHOUSE otherwise in prison most of my adult life. thoughts of everything I did and HAGERSTOWN, MARYLAND instructed. I was tested in in 2005 everything that was done to me. We reserve the because of a rash that I devel- I was so overwhelmed with EDITOR JEFF BERRY RESPONDS: right to edit for length, style, oped. The skin irritation began in these erupting thoughts, memo- I’m glad to hear you are doing so or clarity. Let the summer, so my cellmate and I ries, flashing faces, places, and well, Michael, and honored to be a us know if you thought it must have been a heat- everything in between, I felt source of inspiration for you. Most prefer not to have rash. Turns out that the rash was shame, embarrassment, insecu- now agree that viral load suppres- your name or city mentioned. actually shingles. The nurse put rity, and humiliation. I became so sion is a more important marker me on quarantine and said that very isolated and hurt, even angry. than T cell function, so I wouldn’t it usually occurs when there is a The doctors told me that I worry too much about the fluc- GET YOUR breakdown in the immune system. needed treatment right away. My tuation, especially with such high SUBSCRIPTION So there I was in prison, alone in CD4 was 209 (borderline), and my numbers. It sounds like you are OR ORDER a cell, with nothing and no one, viral load was over a million. They getting good medical care, not BULK COPIES thinking, “What the ----?” said that starting HIV treatment everyone in your situation does. I After a couple of weeks, I was was the first priority; hepatitis C hope that you are able to get into escorted to the dispensary. I could wait a little while. the long-term inpatient program, was pushing 40 and scared and I was put on Sustiva and and continue to keep hope alive. nervous as hell. The possibility of Truvada for 10 years. I then getting hepatitis C and HIV never switched to Atripla, a single, daily crossed my mind. I was thinking it pill. I now take Triumeq, a differ- CORRECTION might have been skin cancer. ent single and daily pill. My viral IN “THE FUTURE IS ALREADY Scan this QR code with your smart- I was taken to a room with a load has been undetectable since HERE” in the November + phone, or go to big table and five people dressed 2008—took three years. My CD4 December issue, a reference to positivelyaware. in white medical scrubs were has been rising, but it fluctuates. cabotegravir long-acting plus com/subscribe crowded around it. Now I’m It has been as high as 1,407; rilpvivirine long-acting had really freaking out. Two doctors however, last check was only 986, raltegravir incorrectly listed in I had never seen before were and before that it was 1,113. Every place of rilpivirine. POSITIVELY accompanied by two nurses from 90 days I have my blood drawn; AWARE regrets the error. the jail, and with them was the hopefully, I will see better results © 2020 POSITIVELY AWARE (ISSN: 1523-2883) is published bi-monthly by Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN), 5537 N.