With Antiretroviral Drugs (ARVs), Does HIV Still Matter?
From his HIV diagnosis in 1985 until his death in April of 2009, Cass Mann was one of the world’s longest-term HIV-positive survivors. He founded Positively Healthy, the UK’s only HIV/AIDS charity staffed exclusively by openly gay men, which provided HIV services including education, support, and peer counselling. These videos now archive his wisdom and insight for future generations. Here he talks about why HIV is still dangerous, and safer sex is still vital, even in the age of antiretroviral medications (ARV) and highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Today, HIV positive people are treated with a combination of multiple ARVs/HAARTs. Selecting a combination of ARVs/HAARTs for a particular patient is a process of identifying a combination of ARVs/HAARTs that will effectively treat that patient’s strain(s) of HIV and that they can also tolerate. ARVs/HAARTs can have serious side effects. In many cases, people can’t tolerate the side effects of an ARV/HAART, so they’re unable to
