In This Issue 

Yesterday we marked National HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, a day where we raise awareness around HIV/AIDS (and, more recently, hepatitis) and encourage people to get tested. If you don't know your status, please click here to find out where you can get a free, fast and confidential test.

This July, the Black AIDS Institute will lead a team of journalists and bloggers to attend the International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) in Durban, South Africa, the first time the conference has convened in Africa since it was held in Durban in 2000. This week we lay out all of the pre-conference, conference and post-conference activities the Institute and its BTAN and Black Media Delegations will be participating in.

New research shows that many newly infected HIV patients experience neurological problems, but they tend to be mild and they subside after the person starts taking ARVs. We run two pieces related to the Orlando massacre: one by Yas Ahmed of the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity; the other by openly gay R&B singer/songwriter Frank Ocean. Finally, we continue to publish stories about the opioid epidemic, this week looking at the synthetic, fentanyl, the drug that killed Prince.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill