June 5 is HIV Long-Term Survivors Day and the 36th anniversary since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control first announced the mysterious illness that was killing young gay men. Today we know HIV doesn’t discriminate and impacts people of all ages, races, sexual orientation and socio-economic backgrounds.

As we reflect on the past 36 years, many people who rallied together and fought against HIV and an indifferent world are still living and surviving with HIV. In fact, today over half of all people living with HIV in the U.S. are over 50. Unfortunately, this generation is confronting new physical and mental health crises. For many long-term survivors, these complexities are even more challenging and daunting than their initial HIV diagnosis.

AIDS Survivors Syndrome, (ASS) describes the spectrum of sustained trauma survivorship. It is psychological state resulting from living through HIV/AIDS pandemic, especially vulnerable are those who became HIV-positive in the 1980s and 1990s, when having HIV was considered a terminal diagnosis. It includes depression, anxiety, and host of other mental and social health factors, impacting treatment adherence, longevity and wellbeing also is a reality for many long-term survivors who are socially isolated after experiencing decades of loss due to close friends and partners dying from AIDS. Older adults with HIV are also more susceptible to conditions like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, liver and kidney failure, and visceral adipose tissue (lipodystrophy).

While advanced treatments are helping people live longer with HIV, their health is declining as a result of the complex interplay of mental and social health. Priority must be given to increased medical and psychosocial research that identifies the factors that are causing older people with HIV to experience poorer health than their negative peers. In addition, person-centered effective and sustained mental health services are needed to help the current and next generation of older adults aging with HIV better manage the stress and trauma.

By 2020, 70 percent of all people living with HIV in the U.S. will be over 50, facing complex health issues without proper support unless our government acts now to increase research and funding that addresses this growing HIV long-term survivors crisis.

Congress is currently reviewing the 2018 budget and we need your help to let the senators and representatives know there is an urgent need for increased research and support for long-term HIV survivors whose escalating needs have been ignored for too long.

Thank you,

Tez Anderson

Lets's Kick ASS—AIDS Survivor Syndrome