If you're HIV-negative, and think you might have come in contact with HIV (condom break, condomless sex, needle stick, etc.), you might consider getting on PEP (Post-Exposure Prophylaxis). PEP can lower your chances of getting infected with HIV. How does it work? After a possible exposure to HIV, you take a 28-day course of HIV medication to decrease the chance that the virus will settle in your body.
Read on for more info: Feelin' Peppy
Recently in HIV Category
That Little Pill
Posted by Project NEON on August 20, 2015 2:46 PMDespite Chaotic Lifestyles, You Can Be an Adherence All-Star
Posted by Project NEON on July 6, 2015 11:47 AMBy Diane Peters, From Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange
Posted on thebody.com
Summer 2015
"My doctor says I'm her star patient," Dwight Barker brags. He's got a right to: He takes his HIV meds like clockwork and his viral load has been undetectable for almost three years. "No matter what, I take my pills every day. It helps that as soon as I open my eyes I can see the pill bottles on my night table and I take them before I get out of bed."
Reaching star status has not been easy for Barker, who's 46. He was diagnosed with HIV in 2010, but suspects he contracted the virus the previous summer when he was living in Vancouver and injecting drugs.
Barker eventually moved to the Edmonton area to get away from the Vancouver drug scene but he started using again. During a five-month relapse, he was unable to take his HIV meds for 12 days straight because someone stole his pills and he couldn't get to a doctor for a new prescription. But he was lucky: His high CD4 count and low viral load remained unchanged.
Read the full article here: Despite Chaotic Lifestyles, You Can Be an Adherence All-Star
http://www.thebody.com/content/76021/despite-chaotic-lifestyles-you-can-be-an-adherence.html?ap=2004
SOURCE: thebody.com
Washington State's Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Drug Assistance Program (PrEP DAP)
Posted by Project NEON on June 15, 2015 9:41 AMDid you know Washington State has a program to help you pay for PrEP (HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis)?? Guys who are HIV-negative and at high risk for getting HIV can take PrEP. How does it work? You take a pill once a day, every day, to lower your risk of getting HIV.
The pill contains HIV medicines that prevent HIV from making copies of itself when it gets in the body. Studies show that PrEP can reduce your chances of catching HIV, however, taking PrEP does not guarantee that you won't get HIV.
Click the link to find out more about PrEP DAP : http://www.doh.wa.gov/YouandYourFamily/IllnessandDisease/HIVAIDS/HIVCareClientServices/PrEPDAP
Check out Dr. Dick's article That Little Pill, for more info about PrEP.
http://projectneon.org/learn/drdick/hiv/that-little-pill/
Poz or not, lots of guys may think about the word UNDETECTABLE when hooking up. What does it really mean?
Find out here: Undetectable
http://projectneon.org/learn/drdick/hiv/undetectable/
Tenofovir Gets a Tune-up
Posted by Project NEON on December 2, 2014 2:45 PMIt's Time for Tenofovir 2.0
By Benjamin Ryan for POZ.com, December 1, 2014
One of the most important drugs in the HIV arsenal is getting a tune-up.
Tenofovir (Viread), one of the most widely prescribed antiretrovirals (ARVs) and the bedrock of first-line HIV therapy, is getting an upgrade. On November 6, Gilead Sciences, which manufactures the drug, applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval of a single-pill combination regimen with the same components as Stribild (elvitegravir/cobicistat/tenofovir/emtricitabine), only with a retooled version of tenofovir. The upgraded tenofovir offers various benefits over the traditional take on the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI), and appears poised to make various already highly tolerable HIV regimens even more so.
Read the full article here: It's Time for Tenofovir 2.0
http://www.poz.com/articles/TAF_TDF_Gilead_401_26504.shtml?utm_source=newsletter12_2&utm;_medium=TJI1&utm;_campaign=treatment
SOURCE: POZ.com
Pill to Prevent H.I.V. Gets a Prominent Backer: Andrew Cuomo
Posted by Project NEON on July 3, 2014 10:49 AMPosted on The New York Times 7/3/14, written by Josh Barro
On Sunday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced an ambitious goal: Ending the AIDS epidemic in New York State by 2020.
Governor Cuomo does not mean he expects the state to find a cure; he wants to cut new infections so drastically that the number of New Yorkers living with H.I.V. goes into decline. He has set a goal of 750 new infections in 2020, down from about 3,000 in 2013 and 14,000 at the epidemic's peak in 1993.
To that end, he has embraced a new and controversial treatment for people at risk of contracting H.I.V. He wants to put more H.I.V.-negative people on Truvada, a drug originally developed to treat those who already have the virus, and which the F.D.A. approved in 2012 as protection against new infections.
This strategy, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), is one of three planks in Governor Cuomo's broad plan to cut H.I.V. infections, and the most novel one. The other two (testing more people and getting those who test positive to see doctors; getting H.I.V.-positive people to stay in treatment and on medication) are strategies that New York and other states have pursued for decades with varying degrees of success.
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/04/upshot/pill-to-prevent-hiv-gets-a-prominent-backer-andrew-cuomo.html?rref=upshot
For Some, H.I.V. Is Embraced, Not Avoided
Posted by Project NEON on December 6, 2013 11:55 AMFor Some, H.I.V. Is Embraced, Not Avoided
By TIM DEAN, Posted on nytimes.com, NOVEMBER 28, 2013
Not everyone is terrified of H.I.V. During the 1980s, we came to believe that getting infected with H.I.V. was the worst thing that could happen to you -- worse even than cancer. People with AIDS appeared to die rapidly and horribly; not only that, they were regarded as socially dead from the moment they received an H.I.V.-positive diagnosis. The association with sex, particularly gay sex, loaded H.I.V./AIDS with more stigma than almost any contemporary illness.
But now North American gay men have been living with the
virus in our communities -- and in many of our bodies -- for decades. Even before
effective antiretroviral medications became available, we learned that HIV is
not the most dreadful thing to befall a person. As one gay man put it, "I've
had many worse things happen to me than being infected with H.I.V.; most of
them resulted from long-term relationships, which our society regards with
benevolence." Scott O'Hara, who wrote these words, was one of the first to
advocate unprotected anal sex between men, otherwise known as barebacking. Here
he suggests that a long-term relationship with H.I.V. might be less toxic or
debilitating than a long-term relationship with certain other people.
Read
on: For Some, H.I.V. is Embraced, Not Avoided
Source: www.nytimes.com
FORGET THEM NOT
Posted by Project NEON on December 2, 2013 2:31 PMFORGET THEM NOT
Written by Bobby Miller, 1995
So much time has passed since the first one left, since the first sign of pain
and still no gaining on this disease.
So many stars have fallen and lost their places, their faces forgotten for now
and yet somehow there must be a way
to restore them to minds memory. Everybody has a friend
that has come to the same end as the rest, it seems that the best have been taken. Where have they all gone?
So many have left this world
where we've danced and partied and twirled
and still here we go on
thinking only briefly now and then of their absence. but I can hear so many familiar voices
calling out to me " Forget me not,
please don't forget me , forget me not"
And when I try I can remember.
I can remember Cookie and her sly knowing laugh with burbered fingers typing out tomorrow.
And I can remember Antonio and his girls
drawn in ink as glamorous as they could ever be. And I can remember Costas with his lazy crazy dolls doing a dance in my mind.
And I can remember Andy giggling like a school girl over the pretty boys standing in line to meet him.

And I can remember sweet happy Divine
doing a disco march in time,
and Generro Palermo doing a Vivianne Westwood tango, and little Scott Fritz throwing some fierce fits, and I can remember Candy Darling dashing down Broadway to Dr. Starlings for her shots,
and I can remember Jackie shouting at the taxi
that she was a woman not a man, yes I can.
And I remember Chrysis giving the real girls
some realness with a pout while she whipped it out. I can remember John Sex entering a scene
when he was long and lean and just a little bit mean and I can remember Klaus with face so white
and clothes so tight that people actually stopped and stared in fright.
I can remember Howie at many a door cold shouldering many more than than he'd let in.
And I can remember Halston and Victor
and Eric and Eddie
and Steve and Huck
and oh so many more.
I can remember them all one by one if I try.
And no matter the pain or pride or fear that's inside we must help to keep their memories alive
because they were here
and they were all wonderful and unique.
So before you go to bed tonight say hi up there and promise to forget them not.
Bobby Miller ©1995
Congratulations Aleks!
Posted by Project NEON on November 22, 2013 10:37 AMCongratulations to NEON's Program Coordinator Aleks Martin! Aleks is the recipient of the 3rd Annual Dr. Bob Wood Award for Excellence in HIV Prevention. Thank you for dedicating 10 years to the NEON program. Your work is invaluable!