HIV a hard life.

Will a once-a-day HIV pill lead to an increase in unprotected sex among people who see it as further evidence that HIV is a treatable disease? "I worry that people will think, HIV is so easy. What's the big deal about taking one pill a day?' says Joel Gallant, associate director of the Johns Hopkins AIDS Service. "We've already heard from some patients that they think it's easier to get HIV and take a couple of pills for it than to try to prevent it. Thales a terrifying idea."

Tom Battipaglia, a 54-year-old gay HIVer in San Francisco, wants to send a message to all HIV-negative people, particularly young adults: HIV treatment, no matter how easy it might seem, is no picnic. "I've had horrible side effects," he says, including diarrhea, cramps, nausea, liver toxicity, sleep disturbances, fat redistribution, and hair loss, to name a few. "If I could wind back the hands of time and do things differently, believe me, I would; I would have practiced safer sex right off the bat. I don't know why anyone would want to risk going through what rye been through."

Many AIDS service organizations are working to carry that message to the community so that new innovations in treatment don't mean new cases of HIV.