World AIDS Day: Keep Fighting

There are approximately 33 million people living with HIV worldwide, and there were 2.5 million new infections in 2007. Access to life-saving medications is often not available to those most effected by the disease, and there is still no cure for HIV disease.

This World AIDS Day Lambda Legal called on all sectors of society — including private businesses, civil society organizations, individuals and governments — to become leaders in the fight against the AIDS epidemic. Help us fight the stigma and discrimination faced by people living with HIV around the world.

The United States continues to have one of the world's largest populations of people living with HIV and the epidemic continues to have an overwhelming impact on gay men, including a disproportionate impact on black gay men. Despite important advances in medical treatment for people living with HIV, not everyone — even in the United States — is able to obtain HIV medications and needed treatment. And people living with HIV, whether receiving medical care or not, continue to face stigma and discrimination in employment, health care, insurance, immigration, parenting and other areas of life.

Lambda Legal recently called on the leaders of our nation's LGBT organizations to join in placing an aggressive response to the HIV epidemic at the center of their agendas. The theme of this year's World AIDS Day, is "Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise — Leadership." Since the earliest years of the epidemic, Lambda Legal has taken a leading role in the courts and the court of public opinion on behalf of people with HIV. This World AIDS Day we affirm our commitment to provide leadership — not only in stopping the epidemic, but also in ending the stigmatization and discrimination against those living with HIV.