A Lifelong Connection
The one predictable thing in life is our interconnectedness. Twenty-five years ago in New York City, I met a gay man with Kaposi's sarcoma. He was an actor in his late 30s, far too young to be so ill. Though our lifestyles were different, we had much in common. We were similar in age, grew up near Detroit, and attended Catholic high schools. This once-vibrant man died of AIDS, before the disease even had a name.
     Twelve years later, I responded to a Navy officer who wrote to me about his daughter, Nina Martinez, who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion shortly after her birth. Today, Nina is majoring in epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH). She also serves as an advocate for HIV prevention and treatment among college students like those at Emory. By sharing her story, she offers hope and encouragement to students who may be HIV-positive. Nina is one of the lucky ones. She is active and healthy thanks to a treatment regimen that includes 3TC, a drug developed by researchers here at Emory.
     Those researchers are part of a massive effort to halt an epidemic that has claimed 25 million lives worldwide since 1981. For nearly a decade, the RSPH has been home to the Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), uniting more than 100 university clinicians and scientists intent on helping those affected by HIV/AIDS.
     In this issue of Public Health, we reflect on the 25th anniversary of AIDS through the eyes of students, faculty, and alumni who have been touched by the disease in some way. I'm reminded of my colleague Jonathan Mann, founder of the World Health Organization's global AIDS program, who died in a plane crash in 1998. As Jonathan said in an address that year, "When the history of AIDS and the global response is written, our most precious contribution may well be that, at a time of plague, we did not flee, we did not hide, we did not separate ourselves."

Sincerely,

James W. Curran
Dean