An excerpt of Positively Negative: Love, Pregnancy, and Science’s Surprising Victory Over HIV, which follows two straight couples in which the man has HIV in their 14-year conception journey. Using clinical trials, interviews with couples and researchers, and data on HIV transmission, I lay out how we got to the point we’re at today with an HIV virus that can be tamed, and what that means for couples looking to have unprotected sex in the service of conception. This excerpt in particular lays out the legal and medical barriers the couples faced, the history of stigma and fear that led to those barriers, and how public policy, health policy and the failure of science to translate from the lab to the clinic impacts two couple’s lives.
