Community Leaders Speak Out On World AIDS Day: James Marsden, Matthew Shepard Foundation

James Marsden

Jason Marsden, Executive Director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, "World AIDS Day 2012 would also have been Matthew Shepard's 36th birthday, had we not lost him to one of America's most notorious anti-gay hate crimes in Laramie, Wyoming in October 1998.

So much has changed both for the LGBT and Allied community, and in the fight against HIV, in these last 14 years. But the awareness and re-dedication of purpose that World AIDS Day brings about each year remains as important as it was back then.

Prevention, including regular testing and safer sex, continues to be the cornerstone of the progress that's been made. Broader social and political attention to Americans' health-care needs will also surely improve overall community health. But like most things, it will take focused, long-term public attention from millions of us as individuals to put the HIV epidemic and its tragic consequences fully in the rear-view mirror." 

World AIDS Day is held on 1 December each year and is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died. World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day and the first one was held in 1988.