Jackie Flynn Mogensen and Sam Van Pykeren

Rebecca Denison expected to have a short life. She’d acquired HIV as a college student in the 1980s, she told the audience at an infectious disease conference in San Francisco earlier this month, and got an official diagnosis in 1990. “Back then,” she said matter-of-factly, “It was understood we were all going to die.” Within six years, that all changed. A new generation of drugs called protease inhibitors, when combined with other drugs, made the virus virtually undetectable in people with HIV, giving them a much greater chance of living to old age. “Your work saved my life,” Denison, now an advocate for HIV-positive women, […]