Project Inform’s Director of Research Advocacy, David Evans, has issued a new call to action on his blog at POZ.com asking everyone, from the top leaders in the HIV community to the average everyday person living with HIV, to ensure that we provide accurate information to people newly diagnosed with the virus about their treatment options.Â
This pledge he’s asking people to take was prompted due to the reactions he saw to a recent revision to the U.S. Federal HIV Treatment Guidelines, particularly around the question of when to start treatment.
 The new Guidelines encourage providers to offer HIV treatment—along with information about risks and benefits—to all people with HIV no matter their CD4 count. The Guidelines also ask providers to talk to their sexually active patients about how being on HIV treatment, and having an undetectable viral load, can make it a lot harder for them to pass on HIV to their sex partners.Â
Some have argued that this goes too far—that we don’t know for sure whether early treatment is actually better for people and that asking people to be on treatment only for the sake of preventing HIV transmission is a lot to ask.
Unfortunately, as Evans recounts in his blog post, we’re doing such an abysmal job of both educating people about their treatment options and in supporting people to be on treatment, even in those with low CD4 counts, that he is calling for a revolution in how doctors and others should talk about the guidelines and treatment.