Over the years, HIV/AIDS activists and their allies have been pioneers in creating new frontiers in the medical establishment. Through their efforts, the FDA drug approval procedures were reformed so promising new therapies could reach desperate patients quicker.

Over the years, HIV/AIDS activists and their allies have been pioneers in creating new frontiers in the medical establishment. Through their efforts, the FDA drug approval procedures were reformed so promising new therapies could reach desperate patients quicker.

At 60, the mind was sharp but the body complained. The legs were willing to make all the right moves but the muscles gave out too early.

Pharmaceutical companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new HIV/AIDS treatments not out of altruism but because they can make up those research costs in sales.

As a spiritual person, nature for me has always been a healing place. Going back all the way to my childhood on the farm, the fields and forests were places of adventure and self-discovery. Animals were companions and friends, and the world moved at a slower, more rational pace than the bustling cities where I'd resided my adult life.

I often laugh and say I should go down to the Department of the Interior and register as an endangered species. I'm a gay man over 60 and I'm alive.

I'd come to the country to do my Thoreau bit, so I needed an office that looked out onto the woods for inspiration. I converted one of the bedrooms into my workspace and through its windows watched the wildlife appear each morning with the sunrise. Many were the days I would sit in wonder, coffee in hand, for hours.