good morning. welcome to viewpoint. i'm pat lawson muse. lace up your sneakers and get ready to walk and run. it's a run to end hiv. that's what they will do on october 25th to raise funds to fight hiv around aids. our guest is don blanchen and nick goredean is here. let's talk about the new name. >> absolutely. >> you've changed your name. >> we've changed our name to reflect more of the hope and

optimism of fighting hiv in this area. that hope and optimism comes from really one of the biggest changes, which is treatment as prevention. we'll spend more time talking with you, justin and nick can help with that. but it's really to get people to understand that people can live happy and healthy lives with hiv if they stay in care and we have more tools to prevent infections. that's the most important thing we can do on saturday, october 25. come out and walk or run with us. register, donate, and we obviously love to have you and the nbc 4 family out with us. >> we partner with you for many years. >> you've been great partners. >> in this effort. let's talk about what's new. there's new data that shows a drop in the number of people with hiv who actually progress to aids. justin, talk about that. >> correct. so really importantly, there are less people being infected with hiv. so we had a 42% drop in the last

five years since 2008 in new infections. 2012 is the latest data we have. there's a 30% drop in that same time period of people progressing to an aids diagnosis. so people are living healthier, longer. that means that we have more people living in d.c. with hiv. it's because they're living longer and healthier lives. one of the reasons the walk is so important is we have more work to do. >> are there any populations where you're seeing an increase in the numbers? >> yes. more broadly, at least probably about one in five people in d.c. and across the country don't know they have hiv. and that's really important. >> and that's been a persistent problem? >> it's been a persistent problem. that 15 to 20% of people who don't know they have hiv are

responsible for about half of the new infections of hiv. if you have people in non-care, non-treatment, they're more likely to infect somebody. communities of colors, especially black communities are hugely disproportionately infected with hiv. 92% of all women living in d.c. with hiv are black. that's an extraordinary number. the one demographic in the country of increasing rates of infection are young, gay, black men. so communities of color, because of the social determine nants they live with, less access to high-quality preventive medical care, those stack up against and cause health disparities just like with hiv. >> nick, can you reflect a little on that? what's the mind-set, the

culture. have people become so much more comfortable and confident in the treatments that have been available that they've relaxed? >> one is there's still a stigma with getting tested and also being proactive in terms of one's health, teparticularly in the african-american culture. one is to create a culture of no judgment. it's okay to get tested and if you're uncertain, unsure. those are one of the ways we're working to proactively address the concerns. >> one of the biggest new things is this preventive drug, the prep. tell us about this. this is brand new. >> yes. it's farley nirly new. they approved a drug called

truvada, but research showed that hiv negative people can take this and prevents hiv from becoming an infection in their body if they're exposed. and it actually works extraordinarily well, if the person actually takes the pill. so much like women have a pill to prevent pregnancy, if they don't take that pill, it doesn't work, right? so if you're adherent to truvada, the data says it's 95% to 100% effective. that's an extraordinary breakthrough. condoms have shown 75% to 80% effectiveness. >> prior to this, the only other method for prevention has been condoms and and stinance? >> correct. and we've had to rely on human

behavior for 30-some years, and that's a really hard thing to change. to have a medical intervention is keeping people from being at risk is amazing. >> we'll talk more about that and about the walk. stay with us.

welcome back. we're talking about the aids walk coming up on october 25th here in the nation's capital, the walk to end hiv. and we ended the last segment talking about this new prevention treatment. it's prep. truvada. nick, you've been taking this medication for the past three years? >> yes, i have. about three years ago i learned that i could have been exposed to hiv and felt, how could this happened to me? i was smart. but in the process, i realized that that experience was not unique to myself. and some habits are hard to

break. i could continue down this path or i could take advantage of access to keep people hiv negative. and as of today i'm still hiv negative. >> so it has worked for you. >> it has worked for me. >> how do you know whether you should take the drug? >> this is like most health decisions. you need to make an informed decision after getting advice from your health practitioner about what you can and can't do. and for some people, and nick's a great example. it's a really good tool. it's a tool in addition to condom use and it will be really effective and highly effective. and we hope to see nick 25 to 50 years from now still hiv negative. for those who don't take pills every day and have life issues that pose a challenge, this may not be the right regimen.

for some people there may be issues where there may be nominal side effects with the medications and it may not be right for them. it's about a person making an informed choice. >> it's not a cure. >> it's not a cure. it's a prevention method. >> are there any concerns that once people know that there's a pill they can take every day that will prevent hiv infection that it will change what you've worked so many years to try to instill in the minds of most americans and most people in this area that, you know, you've got to practice safe habits and be aware that you are at risk? >> just a really good question that is a logical progression of the discussion. so what we've found in the several research studies that have been looking at this method is that individuals that probably were, are good candidates for this were probably not in medical care.

they weren't seeing a doctor. they weren't seeing health professionals. so this is a way that these individuals cannot only get access to a prevention method for hiv but get access to health care, holistic, primary health care. and when that happens and you start having conversations with your doctor and the nurse and the health educator, then you learn things about how you can make better, healthy choices for yourself in the future. so many studies have shown increased condom use and decreased number of partners of the individuals that came into these studies. in other words, being in health care, talking to your provider is a healthy thing to do. >> what about access to the drug? is it widely available? >> most insurances, public and private cover it. so that makes it really readily accessible to patients. and, you know, the real challenge is making sure we get information to those patients.

some of the public discourse about this really has gone back and forth of do we have a pill, and then we'll see lower condom use, and higher stds and sexually transmitted diseases. so there's this either/or proposition, and it's really an additive issue where we're still going to encourage people to practice safe sex and where it's appropriate for people to take truvada. >> so there's, it's approved, and it's available. you can call your doctor's office and say i'd like to try this drug or discuss it. >> that's correct. but many doctors across the country are not up to speed with the latest research around hiv prevention, so they hmay not be comfortable with this. so it's really places like whitman-walker that are providing the most prescriptions. we hope that becomes a broader

issue. >> how has taking the drug impacted the way you think and the way you conduct your own life. >> it's impacted me tremendously. i think being on the front edge of being on the research it probed me to take different actions and approach that my health does matter and there are people remaining hiv negative with this and using condoms. it's helped me tremendously, and as a result, i am helping to spread this message that we can be on the path to help end hiv, particularly within the communities of colored. >> we'll be right back. stay with us.

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welcome back to our conversation about the walk to end hiv which takes place on the 25th of this month.

and don, you changed the name. what you're really doing is changing the conversation, aren't you? >> we sure are. when people think about aids, they think about death and dying, lack of treatment, lack of testing and really, quite frankly, a lot of fear. you hear nick's story and oth s others' it's about hope and optimism. we don't have a cure or vaccine yet but more tools like prep that are going to keep people happy and healthy. we want to use this year's walk to enforce that message to say, you know what, there are positive steps you can do every day to treat yourself with respect and love and make sure you take care of the partners and people you care about in your life. >> you generally have a really good turnout of thousands of folks? >> yeah. 7,000 to 10,000 folks usually. it's a big party on saturday, a beautiful fall day. it's a great deal of fun.

>> we're talking a 5k. >> walk and run. >> i like to walk. some like to run. >> some will do both. freedom plaza. >> it's a beautiful walk through downtown d.c. you can actually sleep in if you want, as long as you raise some money for us. we're happy with that, too. >> where do the funds that you raise generally go? >> the money goes to support the hiv programs, not only with whitman-walker, but more than a dozen community groups that we work with that helps bring people into care, which means helping them get tested, helping them find transportation. so we rely on those community groups to make sure that we can keep people healthy. so those moneys raised goes to our hiv programs. when you support us, you're supporting the community at large. >> we've been listing the

website at commercial breaks so people know where to get more information. is there a cost associated with registration? d can you run and walk for free? >> that would go against the idea that this is a fundraiser. the registration fee is $25. you can find that out online. we take credit cards. you'll see all the major credit cards on the website. and beyond registering, though, which we love the fact that others will join us, is really the fact that we want you to raise money in the fight against hiv. so if we only raise $25 for every individual, we probably would need 50,000 people there to actually make our fund-raising goal, so you lyreay have to think about we're not asking you to just come out and walk and run, help us fight hiv. >> people can donate even after the walk? >> they can. and in fact, my fund page, i need some help. i haven't met my goal.

you can donate to me at the whitman-walker team. >> you can donate to justin goforth, too. >> we have a little friendly competition going here. that's how this work. >> so on the walk to fund hiv.org page every individual that is registered has their own page, you can customize, send out e-mails from that page. connect to facebook from that page. it's made up to be real easy and have a lot of tools to help you ask your friends for money. >> so far we have justin versus don. >> i can't tell you what my page is, because i can't be there on saturday. you can join my page, if you are part of those groups that cannot be there, help me represent. >> you have to search our names. >> we're getting into the game too, because nbc 4 has a page. >> awesome. >> so we'll have to log on and support all of you, i guess,

huh? >> absolutely. >> well, it is, justin, as you said, an opportunity to sade wo. and isn't that part of the healing process and the bonding that needs to take place, as you work to fight -- >> absolutely. i've been doing this work since the late 1980s when the epidemic was in the worst that it ever was. and anything like this, i was around aids at the time, was a very somber occasion, and this is a change in the conversation. this is a way for the community to understand that we are making progress. and that there's a lot of hope, and that we can have a lot of fun while we do this. but that means the good work we've done means there's a lot more people living with hiv now. i can't stress enough how much that means we need the community support. >> all right. we are encouraging the community to support you, and we'll be back to continue our discussion

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welcome back. as we continue and conclude our discussion about the aids walk, october 25th, justin, how close would you say we are to the day when there's an aids-free generation? >> i think there's some really important and realistic discussions in several large urban areas in the health departments around having an aids-free generation by even like the year 2020, as soon as that. i think those are aggressive, but actually fairly realistic. getting to the point that we have zero new hiv infections, we have the science to stop new hiv infections. the community really needs to

change the conversation around this. so get tested. if you have hiv you can live healthy. and the treatment's manageable. if you're hiv negative, we have ways to help you stay hiv negative. >> one thing i'd like to see us do away with is stigma. it's lack of conversations between partners, a lack of knowledge about your health status, fear that you're going to be seen going into a particular health setting or being seen by a family, friend or neighbor at a mobile testing van. and it's all the elements around i'm really worried that somebody's going to judge me. that's true for not just hiv but other parts of our life. we've got to do a better job. the science is there, the real question is how do you eliminate stigma around hiv. >> nick, what would you like viewers to take away from this

conversation? >> we cannot correct what we cannot confront. it's important to confront the stigma and get tested. it is a serious illness but a manageable condition. and if people take the tools that are available to them to get tested we can be on a better path to ending hiv. >> from your perspective, justin? >> donate money to the walk to end hiv. we really need your help. we still have an epidemic in d.c. i'm glad we're here to talk about the hope and progress, but we have a lot of work to do. >> and in terms of public relations, public information, how are we doing with it? how are schools doing with it? how are non-profits doing with it? because the more you talk about it and the more information is disseminated the more success you have. >> it's a really important observation, pat.

youth don't think about aids. youth don't know aids. they know hiv. they know stis, but they didn't live through the '80s and '90s, and some of us on this panel are old enough to have gone through that. youth see this differently, and so the real challenge is meeting them. now what's been great is the curriculum around youth is so much better. we do things in schools, non-profits that are reaching out to at-risk youths. so we're more robust. and the real issue for us is, it's adults that are contributing as much as it is to youth. and we're fostering an environment for stigma, and we have to look in the mirror and change that. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> good luck with the walk. >> thank you. >> see you on the 25th. and thank you. that's viewpoint. i'm pat lawson muse.

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breaking news out of texas. within the past half hour we have learned a health care worker tested positive for ebola. the worker is from the same texas health presbyterian hospital in dallas where doctors treated the first man to die and be diagnosed for ebola in the u.s. >> that's right. the texas department of state health services confirmed the preliminary test. the cdc in atlanta will conduct another test. now people who had contact with the health care worker are being monitored. thomas duncan contracted ebola in west africa. of course, he died last week. that's a story we'll stay on top of for you this morning. good morning and welcoming to "news 4