Throughout the world, research has consistently shown that drug criminalization forces people who use drugs away from public health services and into hidden environments where HIV risks become significantly elevated.

It has been my experience that nurses, more than other groups, seek each other out. We travel as a pack whenever possible and see our togetherness as our strength, not our weakness

Ending AIDS is as much a social challenge as a clinical one. One of the clearest lessons of the past three decades is that illiteracy and poverty fuel the spread of HIV and that education can slow it.

Let's not make this day to be a generic World Aids Day, but rather personalize it to be "My World Aids Day." Maybe then we will one day have an AIDS-free generation.