CE: Survival amid the thorns: Progress and pitfalls in today's HIV care

In the past 2 decades, the unprecedented advances in research and pharmaceutical therapy have been able to preserve the health and extend the lives of patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Success in treatment has dramatically redefined a positive health outcome of HIV from not dying in the early 1990s to living with undetectable viral load today in 2006. The once-common shocking and tragic stories of young lives being struck down in their prime are now rare, and HIV has slowly slipped from the headlines into the fabric of our normal life. Comforted by the Sunday supplement articles, television interviews, or books showcasing HIV survivors as successful, active, and able to live productive lives and by the news reports of ever-growing number of effective pharmaceutical marvels, the presence of HIV seems to be no longer a threatening health crisis for most people.