Editor's Note

This issue of BETA marks the magazine's 20^th anniversary.

In the summer of 1988, the lead article in the very first issue opened with a one-word title: "AZT." Since then, BETA has covered the development, progress, and demise or approval of hundreds of experimental drugs and treatments for HIV, related conditions, and prevention.

But despite dramatic changes in HIV research, the magazine has remained true to the statement of purpose articulated in that first issue:

"BETA reviews available scientific data on AIDS treatments as well as anecdotal information provided by physicians, researchers, people with AIDS and [AIDS-related conditions], and individuals infected with HIV"

Over the past two decades, BETA has continued to be defined by this statement of purpose, recognizing the value not only of data gathered from research studies but also the vast experience and knowledge accumulated by people living with HIV, and their communities.

Who Better, Then, to Help Shape BETA's Future?

This milestone issue asks you, the reader, to lend your own expertise to the magazine. In the anonymous BETA Reader survey, available here, you will find questions about your interests, the issues that affect your health and well-being, and your opinions about what BETA is doing right—and what it could be doing better. The few moments you take to complete the online questionnaire will make a huge contribution to the magazine, and to BETA's community of readers.

Also in this issue, Liz Highleyman addresses two timely and important topics: when to start anti-HIV treatment, and what to start with. A feature article by psychotherapists Gaetano Vaccaro and Joni Lavick discusses the well-researched connections between HIV and physical, emotional, or sexual trauma, and describes numerous treatment options that have offered relief to their own HIV positive clients. And in the "Women and HIV" column, Naina Khanna of WORLD talks about the new National Positive Women's Network, a support and leadership organization that recognizes HIV positive women as the "experts in their own lives."

Readers will also find an article on what counts as "evidence" in evidence-based HIV prevention, and how that evidence is used—or not—in prevention programs. As authors Judith D. Auerbach and William Smith explain, HIV prevention might be better served by a notion of evidence that goes beyond the results of scientific studies to include "the knowledge gained from the lived experience of individuals and communities affected by HIV/AIDS."

This kind of community-derived knowledge has informed BETA's news coverage from the start, when many people's survival depended on educating one another. With your help, BETA will build on its 20-year history by continuing to cover the HIV prevention and treatment research news that is most relevant to your health and quality of life, and by sharing strategies—tested in doctor's offices, homes, neighborhoods, and community organizations—for living well with HIV.

All the best,