With presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee refusing to recant his incredibly stupid and frightening 1992 statements, and no progress reducing new HIV infections in the U.S., it’s easy to become discouraged.

But there are some glimmers of hope in the waning days of 2007. Here’s a short list of campaigns, blogs, and inspiring community-organizing efforts worthy of your involvement and support.

AIDSVote.org: Embracing the slogan “our next president must end AIDS,” this portal is chalk full of useful information for AIDS-concerned voters and anyone interested in learning exactly how the next White House occupant can end HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and abroad (yes, we’re hoping the candidates and their cronies actually spend some quality time poking around the site). Huckagate is covered in minute detail in the blog section.

Nationalaidsstrategy.org: Asserting the sad truth that ending HIV/AIDS in the U.S. is actually possible if we tried, this campaign is a rallying cry to change the way the federal government organizes and pursues its anti-AIDS efforts. By setting measurable benchmarks and goals, and held accountable for meeting them, our government can make incremental progress lowering new infections and linking more HIV-positive people to needed healthcare and social services. Log-on and lend your individual or institutional support.

Preventionjustice.org: Recognizing the complex social, political, and environmental factors—like poverty, stigma, and homelessness—that fuel the HIV epidemic in the U.S., this campaign calls for a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention beyond CDC’s myopic portfolio, which over-emphasizes testing expansion and severely insufficient “boxed interventions.”

Hivtestingprinciples.org: Supporting the goal of reaching those with undiagnosed HIV infection, this campaign asserts that HIV testing expansion can occur in ways that protect patients’ informed consent and medical decision-making rights. In addition, this campaign calls on public health officials to involve community stakeholders in HIV testing expansion plans, which must consider a wide array of issues including medical provider education, linkage and access to healthcare and social services, and the needs of individuals who test HIV-negative but remain at high risk for infection. Organizations and physicians are encouraged to endorse the campaign and public health officials are urged to use the 15 guiding principles as a resource to inform their local testing expansion strategies.

Lifelube.org: “Gay, Sexy, and Healthy” is the slogan of this engaging gay men’s sexual health portal addressing the “sticky stuff that keeps gay men together.” The blog offers plenty of eye candy and the day’s most compelling health, cultural, and political topics for community-minded gay men.

Irmwg.org: Home to the International Rectal Microbicide Advocates (IRMA), this portal unapologetically tracks the latest science and policy needed to discover a topical product providing protection against HIV infection for people engaging in anal intercourse. With an estimated half or more of all U.S. HIV infections resulting from unprotected anal intercourse and significant numbers of women and men around the world also contracting HIV from anal sex, such products are desperately needed to end the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

AIDStreatmentaccess.org: Highlighting the desperate need to save the lives of millions of HIV-positive people around the world, the latest report of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition documents both important signs of progress and still acute, unmet needs for state-of-the-art treatment access in some of the most severely poor corners of the world. At the dawn of 2008, tens of millions of people face a certain death unless greater supplies of HIV treatments are made readily available. The report, Missing the Target #5, urges the wealth nations of the globe, international donors, and all national governments to continue to respond to the HIV/AIDS humanitarian crisis. We must continue to demand that all HIV-positive people, wherever they reside, receive access to lifesaving AIDS meds, healthcare, and social services.

ourdignity.org: Not yet launched, this youtube-esque collaborative project of poz.com and the National Association of People with AIDS promises to provide people with HIV new ways to tell their stories—their truths—to the world on a wide array of relevant topics. Stay tuned and happy 2008!

By David Ernesto Munar of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago
on assignment for Windy City Times