EDGE New York City

A new era - one of sudden, dramatic medical success - shepherded into the world new battle-lines etched geographically as well as economically. From the perspective of post-1995 AIDS, even those who still work with patients are surprised at how distant the early days seem. The new medicine was the primary victory to many; to others, the emergence of solidarity in the GLBT community was equally historic.

"They stood up and demanded treatment, demanded that something be done," Goldman summarizes. "Gay men said, ’I want the treatment now; even if you hate me, I want it. I’m a human being and I deserve it.’ That was a stunning moment in history. And it shocked people. They had to deal with gay men being truly visible for the first time."

The fallout was quick, particularly once the entertainment industry began documenting the ongoing decimation of the gay community. As Tony Kushner’s apocalyptic "Angels in America" swept Broadway in 1993, MTV was featuring the first HIV-positive participant on its popular "The Real World" show. Organizations benefiting medical research, AIDS hospices and support groups placed their donation baskets conspicuously in heterosexual America. The country responded en masse to a disease rapidly spreading beyond sexual borders; and as it broke through those borders, gays stumbled further into the light.

"My brother has been dead ten years," Goldman says. "If I told him back then that gay marriage would be on the agenda in 2006, he’d have flipped. We have gay role models now. It’s a new world, and whether we like to acknowledge it or not, it’s because this horrific disease did such a good job humanizing the gay community."

A scant six years after the availability of the drugs, both the number of HIV-positive individuals who proceeded to an AIDS diagnosis and the number of AIDS-related recorded deaths had dropped to roughly half of what they had been at their peak in 1994. The popular reduction of HIV to a "manageable condition" akin to diabetes has led inexorably to renewed apathy - and lately, drastic cuts to funding for those researching the disease and supporting its victims.

"This disease has killed more than 25 million people in the world, including more than 500,000 Americans," reminds Kevin Fenton, MD, PhD, Director of CDC’s National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention. "In the last decade, major advances have prolonged and improved the lives of many. But living with HIV infection is not easy."

Haight fell victim to the new apathy, and now underscores Fenton’s message.

"I was deathly ill in June 2000," he recounts. "A few people recommended that I go get tested, and I was diagnosed shortly after that. I was 23 at the time."

Haight, now 29, admits to being promiscuous in his early twenties; he does not know who infected him, and he claims he doesn’t care.

"I wasn’t all that surprised. I was kind of upset, as anyone in that situation would be. I wanted to go home and sleep, and I slept for like a week."

Haight entered care quickly, and after attempting a few regimens that produced intolerable side effects - fat deposits and intense sickness among them - settled on a plan that has slowly been reduced to two pills a day, with mild diarrhea its only major by-product.

"It’s just part of my life," he says with a shrug. "I’m not so upset about it anymore. You can live with this - I work a normal job, and I have normal friends."

Nevertheless, the potential for trouble looms despite the incredible medical gains. The virus in the last five years has mutated, spawning off derivatives increasingly immune to established treatments. So far, medical science has kept pace.

"We always have new treatments coming," Goldman states. "HIV is very different from other diseases; we approve drugs in this country very quickly, which is great - but in many cases we don’t discover the side effects until years later, and that can create complications for those living with HIV."

And while the most afflicted community in the early years - American white males - began benefiting from the new drugs, the disease quietly attacked on a new front.

Next: New lines of battle»