Written by Brian Ackerman for RHRealityCheck.org – Information, news, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

Imagine: The date is Dec. 1, 2031. HIV/AIDS has ravaged the global population for 50 years. It is World AIDS Day again and I sit down in my
futuristic flying chair to draft a blog (an ancient form of personal commentary that only middle-aged people have heard of). The theme of this year’s World AIDS Day is "Victory." Here is my blog from the future:

So we made it. 50 years. Millions of lives lost. Millions more chronically ill. But we made it. The world has fought a 50 year battle with AIDS and finally, with infection rates continuing their 22-year-long plummet around the world, nearly universal access to antiretroviral therapy, and a sustainable global healthcare infrastructure that integrates prevention, treatment, and care services, we can claim victory. Many are saying "I can’t believe it." But I can. And not only can I believe it, I would find it unacceptable to have it any other way.

At this triumphant juncture in human history I think we must reflect on the path we chose to take together to achieve this feat. While the AIDS epidemic began in 1981, before I was even born, the global response to the disease took a dramatic turn 22 years ago, in 2009. Amidst a crisis in the world economy from which we have only recently completely recovered, and amidst a massive power shift in Washington, D.C., the United States charted a new course in the global response with its five-year, $48 billion initiative to end the pandemic.

The Obama Administration and 111th Congress were charged with calculating the sum of these parts: limited financial resources + an explosive global epidemic + donor fatigue for AIDS-specific funding + the largest generation of young people in human history (3 billion people) accounting for 45 percent of new infections annually + over two decades of data collection and a wealth of evidence-based, best practice models for prevention, treatment, and care.

While many said the sum was in fact, a negative one, the U.S. government decided that the knowledge we had about the AIDS epidemic, about how to prevent it, about how to treat it, and about how to care for those affected by it, was enough to outweigh the challenges of the other parts. And it could do such things because the U.S. government remembered that it was good at defying the odds when it employed science, as was the case with that trip to the moon back in 1969.

So what exactly did the U.S. government do in 2009 that changed the course of human history and led us on a path to victory over HIV/AIDS? The list of specific actions could fill a book, but fundamentally, what is now taught in history books as the eight-year "War on Science," came to an end, and science won! The Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator declared that with regards to prevention, it would fund only comprehensive, medically accurate, and evidence-based programs and emphasized that one of the only ways to outsmart HIV was to not be afraid to address socially complex issues of sexuality and reproductive health in a holistic and healthy manner. Congress amended PEPFAR reauthorizing legislation to eliminate the balanced funding requirement for abstinence and be faithful programs and to fund family planning programs within U.S. global AIDS funding.

The largest generation of young people (half the world’s population in 2009) were targeted in these programs and like magic (but better, because it was science), a new generation of sexually educated, informed, and responsible decision-makers came of sexual and reproductive age. Their new world became the one in which we live today, where HIV is no less a reality, but it is a reality that almost everyone on the planet knows how to prevent. Today, using prevention commodities such as male and female condoms during sex is as common as putting on sunscreen before spending a day at the beach or wearing our seatbelts when we fly our futuristic cars (this comparison is particularly apt considering the invention of multicolored seatbelts in 2015 that made them so much more fun to wear!). Even further, young people know how to negotiate safe sex so they are empowered to protect themselves (even if their partner is not as excited about multi-colored commodities).

Thanks to this emphasis on evidence-based prevention programming, we were able to finally catch up with the number of people newly living with HIV and ensure their access to life-extending anti-retroviral therapy and
other holistic interventions. The emphasis on quality prevention programming did not detract from treatment access, but in effect, amplified our ability to ensure that a greater percentage of people living with HIV and AIDS could live long, healthy lives.

Of course the United States did not do this alone. It joined a global majority of donor countries and technical institutions that had been saying the same thing for some time. But it seems that the theme
of World AIDS Day 2008, "Leadership," must have really been effective. The United States dramatically enhanced its own response to the pandemic in 2009 and led the way for a truly sustainable and effective global response, so much so that I can sit here today and claim victory over HIV along with the rest of the world. Looking back, the moon was pretty cool 80 years ago, but I don’t think the world has ever claimed a win as big as this one.

…And we time warp back to the present.

The gross oversimplification of my blog from the future is intended neither to "pit prevention against treatment," nor to place unreasonable pressure on our incoming policy makers. Rather, it outlines a vision of what could be instead of what is, and highlights that we have a choice as a country and as a world, instead of a dilemma. It is no secret that unprotected sex fuels AIDS. Let’s choose to utilize our limited resources as best as possible in the coming years, and only fund comprehensive prevention programs to construct a world in which access to HIV prevention information and commodities is universal, so that universal access to treatment can also become a reality.

I expect nothing less from the incoming Administration and, like others, believe it’s time.

If you are interested in sharing your thoughts about World AIDS Day, join me for Advocates for Youth’s World AIDS Day Blog-a-thon, between December 1-7, 2008 at www.amplifyyourvoice.org/WorldAidsDay