While at the 2007 United States Conference on AIDS in Palm Springs, Calif., The Body asked a wide range of HIV educators and advocates to respond to the above question.

You can either read their answers or listen to them. A full sound file is also available of all the answers.

Listen (10.6 min., 4.26MB) Sound files may take time to download.

Larry Bryant, National Field Organizer for Housing Works and the Campaign to End AIDS, Washington, D.C.

Listen (1.2 min., 510KB) Sound files may take time to download.

My one message to pass along to everyone on World AIDS Day would be, honestly, to go home. Go home and don't forget that to people who are living with the disease, who are dying every day, who are sitting in waiting rooms or on waiting lists across the country, AIDS Day is every day.

A lot of times our messages are only resonated on December 1, November 30. Some of our esteemed and popular leaders across the country dust off their speeches to give on that particular day.

So I encourage you to enjoy the celebration -- the remembrance of people who have passed, who are working and who are living HIV positive. But December 2 is still AIDS Day, in the world, and in the country. We need to start thinking between the holidays and the conferences, and be more active locally, and in our communities, on a regular basis -- not just when it says on the calendar to do so.

Kali Lindsey, Program Manager, National Association of People With AIDS, Washington, D.C.

Listen (0.5 min., 257KB) Sound files may take time to download.

The one message that I would pass along is that I think what HIV and AIDS has taught us is that, as a human race, we need to be more open to the complexities of the human personality. We need to appreciate the diversity of those who are not only heterosexual, but also homosexual and transgendered, and those that have different socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as those that come from different cultural backgrounds, because truly appreciating that and understanding this gives us a window into being able to prevent the disease, and also treat it more effectively.

Marie Pierre-Louis, M.D., AIDS Program Director, Haitian Centers Council, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Listen (2 min., 811KB, English) Listen (2 min., 811KB, French) Sound files may take time to download.

If I have one message, it's stop the hatred. Stop the bias, the bigotry on HIV issues. HIV doesn't discriminate, so we should look at everybody as equal. Everybody should understand that, I think. As a Haitian, we really are suffering from this bias, this hatred in this community. We were one of the four Hs at the beginning. The four Hs are: Haitian, heroin user, hemophiliac, homosexual. The four categories of people who can have HIV at the very beginning. We had to fight with the CDC so they could change that four Hs thing.

In the '90s, we got the FDA to come in -- no Haitian could donate blood, because technically we are all infected with HIV. We had to fight to have them stop this. Now there was an article just published by Professor Worobey, like HIV came from Africa to Haiti and one Haitian came to the U.S. with HIV and we have this disaster that we have today. So it's time for words to really stop this, to look at HIV as, as I call it, a social disease. It tells us more about the community where we are living, the society we're living in, than about people.

Kizzy-Kay Graham, Coordinator of Local Tour Outreach at "LIFEbeat: The Music Industry Fights AIDS," New York, N.Y.

Listen (1.4 min., 568KB) Sound files may take time to download.

World AIDS Day is coming up on December 1, and if there's one thing that I could say to everyone in the U.S., it would definitely be to get tested and to know their status. Then, once you get tested, go ahead and encourage your friends, your family members, and everyone you know to get tested. Most definitely, to always protect yourself no matter who it is that you're with or what it is that you're doing. For people who are reluctant to fight for condom use, I always say, "Would you want to convince your boyfriend to raise a child to the age of 18? You want to convince your boyfriend to go get tested for HIV?" Essentially what I'd say is that they have to think about themselves first and foremost, and if your boyfriend or girlfriend or whoever really loved you, then they'd wear a condom, and they'd get tested. No negotiation.

Pamela Decarlo, Dissemination Manager, Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California, San Francisco, Calif.

Listen (0.5 min., 212KB) Sound files may take time to download.

If there were one message I could pass along to everyone in the U.S. about HIV, it would be, "Talk to your partners. Talk to your family. Talk to your children. Talk to your friends." Communication, I think, is one of the most important things we can do to avoid HIV risk.

Beny J. Primm, M.D., Founder and Executive Director of the Addiction Research and Treatment Corporation, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Listen (0.7 min., 296KB) Sound files may take time to download.

I think routine testing ought to be the order of the day. In other words, all of us should be tested, and not just those from 13 to 64 years old, because I'm 79 and I'm still sexually active. I'm almost 80, and I'm engaged, okay? So we need to know our HIV status -- all of us, beyond the age of 64 and certainly, with the slides I saw today, earlier than the age of 13 -- when, by 15, 25 or 30 percent of us have already had oral and vaginal sex, and no telling whether we've had anal sex or not.

D-Rob, Good Samaritan Project, Kansas City, Mo.

Listen (1 min., 428KB) Sound files may take time to download.

HIV is no longer one of those diseases that people should be afraid of. It's no longer a death sentence. People are living with HIV, and have been living with it for years, and are having productive lives with it. If I can just wish one thing for World AIDS Day, that would be that you should encourage your family to get informed, to know about HIV and find out where testing is available.

Patricia Steen, Peer Educator, Truman Medical Centers, Kansas City, Mo.

Listen (0.4 min., 147KB) Sound files may take time to download.

Get tested! Know your status! The implications of not knowing your status are much worse than knowing. You can get treatment, and you can live a long life. Know your status.

Precious Jackson, Director of the Women's Program at the Center for Health Justice, West Hollywood, Calif.

Listen (0.7 min., 284KB) Sound files may take time to download.

My message would be: Know your HIV status and know your partner's HIV status and be willing to go get tested together. If they are not willing to go get tested together, that's a red flag to move along.

Jessica Mardis, AIDS Action in Mississippi, Gulfport, Miss.

Listen (0.25 min., 105KB) Sound files may take time to download.

If on World AIDS Day I could pass along one message about HIV to everybody in the United States, it would be to get tested.

Connie Rocha-Mimoso, Assistant Program Coordinator, HIV/AIDS Prevention and Education, Seven Hills Behavioral Health, New Bedford, Mass.

Listen (0.5 min., 233KB, English) Listen (0.5 min., 233KB, Portuguese) Sound files may take time to download.

One message I would pass along to people is that everybody has a mother, a sister, a nephew, a niece, but most importantly everybody has somebody. So take a stand. Look up high and look at these people and protect yourself.