Portrait of the AIDS Generation:
Angelica Tome, left, who is HIV Negative, with her mother Patti Radigan, a long term HIV survivor, in San Francisco, CA
A documentary photo essay about the men and women who are ‘Long Term HIV Survivors’ in the San Francisco Bay Area - people who want their stories of strength and perseverance told and who are part of a supportive and loving community.
They have lived with the virus since the early days of the AIDS pandemic and today they comprise more than 55% of the people living with HIV in the USA. They are ‘The AIDS Generation,’ diagnosed with HIV during the 1981-1996, a 15-year period before the advent of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) - medications that are used to treat HIV.
‘Long Term HIV Survivors’ bore the brunt of the AIDS pandemic from the very first and today people over the age of 50 comprise the largest segment of people living with HIV.
They are the ones who suffered the first diagnoses and the unmitigated fear of catching the disease or spreading the disease; they were the ones who buried their friends after watching them slowly disintegrate with some of them losing their entire social circle; they are the ones who put their bodies on the line as unpaid guinea pigs for pharmaceutical companies; they are the ones who submitted to the first toxic trials and research programs; and they are the ones still living with PTSD from the early and horrendous days of this pandemic.
Now they are in their 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and beyond, living lives they never expected to have, lives that have been riddled with isolation and loneliness and with the high expenses of medications and healthcare visits, declining physical health, untreated substance abuse and mental health problems.