"It takes a village to heal the wounded—and we have all been wounded; healing and wholeness require resources and relationships beyond the self and beyond closed social silos. Personal survival hinges on a greater social unity and common purpose; what we share in common is far more important than our superficial differences. We can achieve together what we have been unable to achieve alone."

The findings she presented, that HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM) who were virally suppressed had zero risk of transmitting HIV to their partners, provided the most definitive conclusion yet that antiretroviral treatment is an extremely powerful tool in preventing HIV transmission -- and that the concept of U=U (undetectable equals untransmittable) can be applied just as reliably to gay men as to heterosexuals.

For people in recovery, addiction-related stigma can insert itself into all manner of restrictions years into the recovery process. Here is an illustration of such a restriction when Shiv Sharma, a member of the Board of SMART Recovery International (SRI), requested a visa to travel to the SRI board annual meeting in the U.S. (His letter to me is shared here with his permission.)