Stephen Gendin

Stephen Gendin

Stephen Gendin
Born (1966-02-20)February 20, 1966
Ypsilanti, Michigan
Died July 19, 2000(2000-07-19) (aged 34)
New York City, United States
Alma mater Brown University
Known for AIDS activism
Notable work I was a teenage HIV prevention activist

Stephen Gendin (February 20, 1966 – July 19, 2000) was a prominent AIDS activists in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, whose advocacy is credited for having promoted constructive changes in government policy that would improve the lives of HIV-positive people.[1] Gendin was involved with ACT UP, ActUp/RI, Sex Panic!, Community Prescription Service, POZ Magazine, and the Radical Faeries.[2] Gendin, whom himself was HIV-positive, dedicated the last fifteen years of his life to help care for those also living with HIV/AIDS.[1] He was a founder and the chief executive of the Community Prescription Service, a mail-order pharmacy service that also distributes information designed to help people with HIV and AIDS.[1]

Early life

Gendin was raised in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he learned that he was HIV positive as a first-year student in 1985. He aggressively experimented with new medications for HIV and maintained a healthy and active lifestyle for many years until his death.

AIDS Activism

Gendin, despite not having a medical degree, had already been recognized as a genius and was offered membership into Mensa.[3] After learning at age 19 that he was infected with HIV, Gendin quickly became at least as well informed about the latest HIV medical research as many leading HIV specialists, and remained so until his death. Gendin understood (as few others do to this day) that HIV diagnostic tests detect not the HIV virus but HIV's human antibodies, which do not exist in sufficient quantity for a "positive" HIV test result until between two and twenty-four weeks after HIV infection.[4][5][6] During this immensely variable "window period," people infected with HIV test "negative" because they have very few antibodies fighting the virus, as a direct consequence of which they also have very high levels of HIV in their bodies. These recently infected persons are usually unaware that they are infected at all, and firmly though wrongly believe that recent "HIV-negative" test results "prove" that they are not infected and cannot infect others.[7][8]

During his lifetime, Gendin was largely ignored in warning about the high risk of transmission from persons testing negative during this time period which researchers have dubbed the "window period". Medical science has since confirmed that those recently infected with HIV, who still test "HIV-negative," are most highly contagious for HIV, because of their much higher HIV viral levels compared to persons outside the "window period," The latter group's "positive" HIV test results indicate that HIV antibodies are suppressing (though never eliminating) HIV levels in their bodies, therefore reducing their infectiousness, reduced still further when patients commence antiretroviral treatment.[7][9]

Columns

Gendin also became regular columnist for the magazine POZ. In the column, he discussed in graphic detail the toll AIDS took on his body, his fantasies of political assassination and his deeply conflicted feelings of guilt and pleasure from having unprotected sex.[1] Although the latter article incited outrage among many gay men at the time,[1] after his death, many recognized that his controversial disclosures provoked life-saving awareness among gay men of the risks involved in increasingly widespread but rarely discussed practices of unprotected intercourse, especially among persons who incorrectly presumed (as many still do) that a "negative" HIV test result demonstrated the absence of infection when tested.[3]

Death and legacy

Gendin died July 19, 2000, from AIDS-induced lymphoma at the age of 34.[10] In the summer of 2000, Gendin's death was eulogized in a widely-reprinted speech by Larry Kramer.[11] The chemotherapy he was receiving to treat the disease put him into cardiac arrest.[12] His activism was pivotal in reforming the FDA drug approval process to expedite HIV and AIDS patients' access to more effective anti-retroviral treatments.[3] Because of his efforts, some people living with HIV today believe Gendin was a "superhero".[3][3]

Publications

Book Chapter

  • "I Was a Teenage HIV Prevention Activist"[13]

POZ Magazine Articles

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Obituary: Stephen Gendin, 34, Advocate And Writer for AIDS Causes". The New York Times. July 22, 2000. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
  2. 1 2 Gendin, Stephen; McDowell, Kyle (November 1999), "Both Sides Now", POZ, retrieved 26 March 2010
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Remembering Stephen Gendin". Youtube.com. poz10110's channel. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
  4. ↑ "HIV Test Window Periods". San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
  5. ↑ "Testing Makes Us Stronger". US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
  6. ↑ "Testing for HIV Antibodies". Fact Sheet 1 HIV/AIDS: The Infection. World Health Organization. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
  7. 1 2 "The Window Period". Fast Facts. Action for AIDS. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
  8. ↑ "HIV/AIDS Fact Sheets". Fact Sheet No. 360, Updated June 2013. World Health Organization. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
  9. ↑ "HIV Test Window Periods". HIV Info: Testing. San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
  10. ↑ Lugliani, Greg (2000-09-01). "In Memoriam: Stephen Gendin: Activist and Writer Dies of AIDS at Age 34". The Body: The Complete HIV/AIDS Resource. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  11. ↑ Kramer, Larry (2000-10-01). "Be Very Afraid". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  12. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/22/nyregion/stephen-gendin-34-advocate-and-writer-for-aids-causes.html
  13. ↑ Dangerous Bedfellows (1996). Policing Public Sex. Boston: South End Press. pp. 105–114. ISBN 0-89608-549-X.
  14. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1996-11-01). "Jesse Helms Must Die". POZ Magazine.
  15. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1997-05-01). "Riding Bareback". POZ Magazine.
  16. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1997-06-01). "Membership has its Privileges". POZ Magazine.
  17. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1998-02-01). "At the End of my Rope". POZ Magazine.
  18. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1998-07-01). "AIDS is Over". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  19. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1998-08-01). "You Can't Take it with You". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  20. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1998-09-01). "Confessions of a Jerk". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  21. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1998-11-01). "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  22. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1998-12-01). "How Am I?". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  23. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1999-01-01). "Bad News Bear". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  24. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1999-02-01). "They Shoot Barebackers, Don't They?". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  25. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (1999-04-01). "The Seven Year Itch". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  26. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (2000-04-01). "On the Runs". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  27. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (2000-07-01). "The Lost Day". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  28. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (2000-08-01). "The Hole Truth". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
  29. ↑ Gendin, Stephen (2000-10-01). "Last Word". POZ Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-02.
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