FOCUS Oct-05 Hope and Uncertainity

Health Services contracted with the UCSF AIDS Health Project, then less than a year old, to produce a newsletter for mental health providers on AIDS research and counseling. In December 1985, AHP published the first issue of what was then called FOCUS: A Review of AIDS Research. You are reading the 234th issue of FOCUS, which remains one of the longest running AIDS publications in the world. From the beginning, FOCUS took on the challenge of narrating the psychological and social conditions of a biological state. This narrative describes a 20-year journey from uncertainty and fear, to hope and clarity, back and forth, again and again. The trip has required navigating confusion and integrating knowledge; in the end, it has been a story of adaptation. To mark the 20th anniversary of FOCUS, we have put together a retrospective that looks at these key themes through excerpts of more than a dozen articles. These articles represent only a fraction of the almost 1,600 pages that make up the history of FOCUS and only a few of the hundreds of authors whose work deserves attention. We have divided these articles into three areas: HIV prevention, care for people with HIV, and community responses. To supplement these articles, we have included, in sidebars, excerpts of first-person narratives that we have occasionally published.