Bruce Richman - #UequalsU Campaign

As founder of Prevention Access Campaign, Bruce Richman launched the Undetectable = Untransmittable (#UequalsU)campaign with a group of HIV activists and the world's leading scientists to ensure the most groundbreaking development in the past twenty years of the epidemic is communicated accurately and meaningfully: people living with HIV who are on treatment and undetectable cannot transmit the virus to others. Undetectable = Untransmittable - the evolution of communications about people living with HIV.

Evolving science and empirical evidence since the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy shows that people living with HIV who are on treatment and undetectable do not transmit HIV to sexual partners. However, this groundbreaking news has been the "big secret" in HIV. Outdated, fear-based, stigmatizing messaging is wasting opportunities to improve the lives of people living with HIV, dismantle HIV stigma, and prevent new transmissions. The large majority of people living with HIV believe they will be "infectious" for the rest of their lives or until there is a cure. A team of HIV activists set out to change that. Working with the lead scientists from the major studies on HIV transmission risk, they created the first global consensus on transmission risk and leveraged that document to secure endorsements and to modernize how risk is communicated by public health departments and major AIDS organizations. The campaign's extensive niche and mainstream media coverage is dismantling HIV stigma by educating the public about #UequalsU. Now the word is getting out, but there is still far more work to be done to ensure equal access to this game-changing information, treatment, and care