Emily Land MD

Although AIDS conferences have previously tackled the issue of racial disparities in HIV, conversations often stop with data and urgent calls to reach “key populations” or “those most at risk for HIV,” coded language oftentimes referring to Black, brown, Latinx and Indigenous people of color in the U.S.   Now, conversations about racism and racial justice in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and others are permeating the largest international conference on HIV and AIDS–AIDS 2020–held virtually the week of July 6, 2020. Researchers, practitioners, and activists are discussing systemic bias in public health and […]

In a recently published report in JAIDS, Willi McFarland, MD, PhD and colleagues describe HIV seroconversion trends among trans women in San Francisco from 2017 – 2019 collected in the TransNational Study. Young trans women (aged 18 – 24) had a significantly higher HIV incidence, as did Latinx trans women and trans women of color.  “Perhaps the most disheartening finding is the elevated HIV incidence among young trans women,” the authors said. “The nearly four-fold higher incidence among transgender youth predicts a continuing high burden of infection for years to come.”  “San Francisco is a small city with a lot of […]

Cannabis use may be associated with less HIV-related cognitive impairment, suggests new research from Caitlin Wei-Ming Watson and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego. The study, which included about 1,000 adults with varying histories of cannabis use, found lower rates of difficulties with learning and verbal fluency in people living with HIV who used cannabis. There were no differences in cognitive impairment between HIV-negative cannabis users and non-users, which suggests that cannabis may prevent neurocognitive impairment from HIV. “Recent research shows that cannabinoids have anti-inflammatory properties,” said Watson. “We hypothesized that some degree of cannabis exposure may be protective […]

In a recent article published in AJPH, researchers from the Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health at New York University promote and share startling data about the impact of HIV on Latinx communities in the U.S., pointing to a neglected and accelerating public health crisis. “The sustained, widening, and largely unrecognized HIV disparity among US Hispanics/Latinos is a pressing public health emergency,” the authors wrote.   “When we think about the Latino/Hispanic community, I think there’s a tendency for things to go unrecognized,” said Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, PhD, MPH, LCSW, ANP-BC, AAHIVS, the lead author. “Latino/Hispanic HIV incidence has been going up […]

Historically, HIV treatments have included three or more medications (oftentimes combined in one pill) to keep HIV suppressed and help people living with HIV reach and maintain undetectable viral loads. In the spring of 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the complete regimen combo pill Dovato (dolutegravir + lamivudine), manufactured by ViiV Healthcare, giving clinicians for the first time a two-drug option to treat individuals just beginning HIV treatment. Now, recently updated U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) HIV treatment recommendations list a two-drug regimen (dolutegravir + lamivudine) as a first-line recommended therapy. But, Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, from Zuckerberg San Francisco […]

“Linkage to care” is a well-spoken mantra in the field of HIV: Make sure that people who are living with HIV are seeing an HIV care provider and have access to HIV medications. As simple as it may seem, the changing nature of San Francisco’s HIV epidemic means that more and more people are not accessing—or are not able to access—HIV prevention or care from traditional medical clinics. HIV providers and frontline staff must confront the challenge of bringing HIV care to people—beyond simply linking people to care.   “Access to HIV care is so much more than making sure a person has […]

A new cure strategy designed to harness the power of the immune system to achieve HIV remission in people living with HIV will begin at the University of California, San Francisco in 2020. The study was described and announced at the amfAR 2019 HIV Cure Summit held on November 21, 2019. “This is kind of an unprecedented human clinical trial, putting together a lot of things that we think will optimally stimulate the immune system,” said Rachel Rutishauser, MD, PhD, from UCSF and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. “The main clinical outcome will be to understand the proportion of people who […]