1996: protease inhibitors were confusing

For my zine, I wrote this; although my life changed in other ways shortly afterwards, and somehow that also meant that I stopped publishing my zine. Those were in the days before blogs, children; in the days of photocopiers when self-published writers had to go to the Leather Tongue video store and drop off five copies of the zine for the magazine rack, in hopes that there might be only two when they returned a month later.Not long after this I ended up going to work for an HIV vaccine research group, which restored my sense of urgency. It also stalled the question ofdoctor or account planner (see previous 1996 post); then I learned immunology, did some needle exchange, and with much more excitement and no inertia, I decided to become a doctor.October 14, 1996At my job [at an HIV prevention agency in San Francisco] another person has quit; everyone seems disspirited and low. To some extent, that ’s because of the particular politics of the agency: personnel absences, departures, events, personality changes, etc. But I’ve been wondering, on my return, whether there’s something deeper. The advent of the new drug treatments, and the incredible promise of the protease inhibitors, may have subliminally actually depressed people.The idea that we are an important lifesaving effort is slowly losing focus; if people are staying alive with HIV, then we are disease prevention specialists, not the first line of defense in a community under siege. In itself, that would be great news...
Source: hemodynamics - Category: American Health Tags: community organizing epidemic phase HIV HIV prevention protease inhibitors urgency zines Source Type: blogs