Dear Friends:

First. Thank you. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude by the support this petition has picked up through your sharing. We've gotten over 25,000 signatures in just one month. If we all continue to add just one friend a day we can achieve that tipping point which shows our elected officials their constituents' voices must be heard in shaping important Health Care Policy that affects all Americans.

I'm  uploading a simple video that explains "Just The Facts" about PrEP, so you can begin spreading the word to friends about something they've probably never heard  but that our congress will be taking up this session. I'd like to bring our petition to the media and also go to DC, myself, to tell my story. PrEP can save so many, the emotional burden of and financial costs/side-effects of HIV disease. If it is used with condoms, the CDC believes it is 100% effective in stopping the spread of the virus that causes AIDS.

It was sheer luck that I didn't seroconvert until 1991 and then bad luck that I seroconverted at that time because of a broken condom. I remember nursing good friends while they died through the 80s. I remember testing positive 3 months after meeting the love of my life and current husband. It was a death sentence for me, then, after testing negative just 3 years before. When Mark told me he'd stay with me, come what may, it was a demonstration of how powerful love in action can be. He saved my life. I remember nursing friends in 92 & 93 while they took drugs that were toxic & only semi-effective-- they didn't do enough to save their young lives. But by 1996, when my viral load had just started to skyrocket, the drugs WERE there for me to take to actually reverse HIV (not cure me) and bring my viral load down to undetectable (where it has stayed for almost 30 years, now). The fact that one of those drugs now PREVENTS, if used prophylactically, the transmission of the virus-- is the result of the medical advances made BECAUSE of the loss of the men & women whose lives WERE NOT saved during the initial AIDS crisis.

We need to educate our fellow citizens now more than ever BECAUSE we all can benefit from the medical advances made since our brothers and sisters, fathers (uncles, sons, daughters, etc.) died. PrEP should be common knowledge and part of national Health Care policy and debate. It should be free for all. It is not a cure, it is not an alternative to safe sex education & practice for STDS-- it is an economically responsible policy to save millions of dollars in costs and unimaginable, emotional stress. People should understand what it is and they should also be made aware that we have thousands of new cases of HIV a year in this country-- mostly in poor communities. Racial & Income inequality, LGBTQ bigotry and the Stigma of HIV all work together to make the most disposed among us the most vulnerable. We can save the lives of "at risk" women & transgender youth but spreading the word. We can do what we couldn't do in 1988.

I'll stop here for now. We need to reach our next target so our congressional leaders can do their job and make health care affordable for ALL Americans. PrEP is supported by the CDC. Let's get congress to make it free for all and let's get the word out. This is not 1988 when I went to 250 funerals. Or 1991 when I thought I had only 6 years, at most, to live with the soul mate I had just met. This is a new era and a new age of HIV/AIDS advocacy. I was at the first ACT UP meeting in NYC. I am a living witness to watching the people I loved die and not be able to do anything about it. I got a second chance. Please help me end the human and financial toll of HIV disease on America by getting one friend to sign this petition.

With love and gratitude, Will Scheffer, long term survivor