Dab Garner has come a long way since first learning of his HIV status. Sometimes, his journey still seems a bit unreal.

“I never dreamed I would be on the cover of magazines, interviewed on radio and television programs, testify to Congress, meet with elected officials, and speak to huge groups of people,” marveled Garner in an interview with The AIDS Beacon.

He probably never imagined his name would become such a symbol of hope, either. As a leading HIV and AIDS activist, Garner travels the country speaking to the…

Despite being homeless and having battled kidney cancer and sickle cell anemia, Kengi Carr, now 41, got the kind of reassurance one could scarcely expect when he was diagnosed with HIV in 2008.

“HIV would be a blessing,” Carr recalls being told at the clinic where he had been tested. Testing positive, they told him, meant eligibility for a whole range of social services. Finally, he was told, “My homelessness would be over. I would have access to medical care, and everything would be taken care of.”

“That couldn’t have…

Kenn Chaplin is a 50 year old Toronto blogger and former radio news reporter who has lived with HIV for over 20 years. He was first diagnosed as HIV-positive in May 1989.

“I think I was kind of numb at first – suspicious that I might be positive, but hardly prepared to be given the news,” he said of his initial diagnosis.

Unfortunately, it was not his family’s first experience with HIV. Chaplin’s brother Craig was also diagnosed as HIV-positive prior to Chaplin.

“I was, and still am, part of…