World AIDS Day: 40 Years of Progress

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This June, the world marked 40 years since the first cases of what later became known as AIDS were officially reported. In the summer of 1981, five previously healthy men in Los Angeles presented with cases of a rare lung disease and other unusual infections, suggesting immune system weakness. A cluster of similar cases in New York and elsewhere in California were documented shortly thereafter. Fast forward to 2021: The Department of Health and Human Services released its National Strategic Plan to end the epidemic in the United States. Over the course of 40 years, additional government agencies and global public health bodies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization, launched their own research and investigations into the causes, control, and cure for the virus that causes AIDS.

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the release of the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) that first documented what later become known as the AIDS epidemic and to observe World AIDS Day, the American Bar Association (ABA) will present HIV/AIDS at 40: Perspectives on the Struggle. This free, non-CLE webinar will take place on December 1, 2021, at 3:00pm CST and will offer “a retrospective on the legal, social, and medical struggles and successes associated with HIV/AIDS over the last 40 years.”

The ABA also offers an HIV/AIDS Webinar Series “to identify and address legal policy issues affecting or affected by the epidemic domestically and internationally, with a view to ensuring the rights of all concerned are respected and protected.”

HIV and AIDS Legal Resources

  • The Center for HIV Law & Policy: CHLP fights stigma and discrimination at the intersection of HIV, race, health status, disability, class, sexuality, and gender identity and expression, with a focus on criminal and public health systems.

  • HIV Criminalization in the United States: TEXAS: For detail on Texas statutes and case law, read this except from the CHLP’s compendium of HIV- and STI-related criminal law and civil laws relating to public health control measures.

  • Vivent Health: Legal Services: Vivent Health provides access to a team of attorneys who can help people living with HIV who have experienced discrimination in employment, housing, health care, health insurance, or government assistance such as SSI. Additional services include estate planning, landlord and tenant dispute resolution, and preparation of advance directives.

  • Legal Hospice of Texas: Since 1989, Legal Hospice of Texas has been providing timely and compassionate legal services, at no cost, to low income individuals with terminal illnesses or HIV disease. Services provided include estate planning, debt counseling, social security counseling and appeals, health insurance navigation, employment discrimination, and landlord/tenant dispute resolution.

Past, Present, and Future

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  • CDC Museum: Reflections on 40 Years of HIV: This exhibition explores the CDC’s early response to the HIV epidemic from the earliest CDC investigation to the implementation of prevention strategies, including HIV testing and targeted public health messaging, as well as guidelines for teaching tolerance and compassion for people who are HIV positive.

  • National Institutes of Health: Reflect, Recommit, Reenergize, Reengage – Four for Forty: On June 5th, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of AIDS Research (OAR) joined colleagues around the world to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the landmark CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) that first recognized the syndrome of diseases later named AIDS. OAR has conducted a communications campaign that will continue through NIH’s World AIDS Day on December 1, 2021, to recognize the milestones achieved through science and pay tribute to more than 32 million people who have died from AIDS-related illness globally (including 700,000 Americans), and support the goal of Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. (EHE) and worldwide.

  • The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR): The Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Global Health Diplomacy leads, manages, and oversees the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Through PEPFAR, the U.S. government has invested over $85 billion in the global HIV/AIDS response, the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in history, saving over 20 million lives, preventing millions of HIV infections, and accelerating progress toward controlling the global HIV/AIDS epidemic in more than 50 countries.

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