CHRIS BARTLETT
As a long-time AIDS activist, advocate for gay men's health, and proponent of health care access for all, Phildadelphia's Chris Bartlett is struck by the fact that,
26 years into an epidemic, only one technology (latex) is available to protect people from sexually transmitted HIV.He eagerly anticipates the day when gay men and others who are sexually active will have at their disposal the same degree of varied and efficacious prevention technology for HIV that already exists to prevent smokers, for example, from developing tobacco-related disease. He believes that rectal microbicides have the potential to be a powerful and attractive tool in allowing gay men to "have a sex life that is both more exciting and takes full advantage of a range of (perhaps even sexy?) tools available to facilitate hot and healthy sex" and to allay the increasing sense of "condom fatigue" in many gay/MSM communities.
Having been inspired by activist visionaries such as Anna Forbes and Jim Pickett, he seeks to continue advocating for greater rectal microbicide research and development through his work in gay men's leadership development. Chris is also a Radical Faerie and a classical and jazz piano player; he plays once a week at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia.
[*are products being researched that could provide protection against HIV and other STDs in the absence of condoms. they may be formulated as lubes or gels, or maybe even in an enema. rectal microbicides do not exist, yet, but the international rectal microbicide working group - www.IRMWG.org - is a group of advocates, scientists and policy makers who are pressing for their development. many men and women around the world would benefit from safe and effective rectal microbicides.]
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