What This Means for You

You remember having read, somewhere, that drinking grapefruit juice when you take your pills increases the potency of those drugs... but you can't remember where you saw that information. Or how much juice it said to drink. Or whether it mentioned if there were any risks involved.

You remember having heard, from someone, that there is a company that is willing to sell life insurance to people living with HIV... but you can't remember who told you. Or where the company is. Or whether you were told that such policies were a good deal or a rip-off.

We understand your dilemma. There's an awful lot of information about HIV out there, and it's not always easy to sort it all out. (For answers to the questions posed above, see the NEWSLINE section in this issue.) Not all of this information is of equal value to all people with HIV, and not all of it is of equal relevance to your particular situation and needs. To help you make sense of this sensory barrage, we have asked the members of our distinguished editorial advisory board -- all of whom are practicing clinicians who specialize in the treatment of people with HIV -- to provide brief commentaries on selected news items in the NEWSLINE section of this and all future issues of AIDS Care.

Their comments appear under the heading WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU. And that is precisely what their comments do: they tell you, in clear, concise language, what impact a recent therapeutic advance, or a piece of pending legislation, or an improved form of barrier protection is likely to have on your day to day life. Our experts will alert you to treatment options that will reduce your risk of developing opportunistic infections, and they will warn you when an old habit or a new fad seems likely to put you at risk.

The editors of AIDS Care recognize that the experts on our advisory board, good as they are, don't have all the answers. In fact, we are the first to admit that the real experts on HIV are the people who have lived with the virus for years. Their collective experience is invaluable to all of us, but especially to those who have only recently been diagnosed and are just beginning to learn how to live with HIV. We therefore created a department we call PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE, to give the real experts on HIV a chance to share their insights, observations, and accumulated wisdom with you.

The first of these highly personal columns is called "How I Learned to Take My Pills." It was written for us by Charles Forester, a longtime resident of San Francisco. Mr. Forester is also a longtime community activist -- which is why he responded, in 1977, when researchers who were developing a vaccine against hepatitis B asked gay men to donate blood. (Knowing that most gay men had been exposed to that strain of the hepatitis virus, the researchers knew that this blood would be high in antibodies to the virus.)

Because he gave blood in 1977, Mr. Forester now knows that he was carrying the virus that long ago. He has lived with HIV for at least 20 years now, and that makes him a real expert on the subject. His thoughts on living with HIV -- and on the paramount importance of compliance -- appear in "How I Learned to Take My Pills."

Paul A. Volberding, M.D., is Editor-in-Chief of AIDS Care and AIDS Program Director at San Francisco General Hospital.