viral levels compared to persons outside the window period. The latter group's positive HIV test results indicate that HIV antibodies are suppressing (though never eliminating) HIV levels in their bodies, therefore reducing their infectiousness, which is reduced still further when they commence antiretroviral treatment. Journalism Gendin was a regular contributor to the magazine POZ. He used his column to discuss in graphic detail the toll that AIDS took on his body, as well as sharing his fantasies of political assassination and the deeply conflicted feelings of guilt and pleasure that he experienced after having unprotected sex. Although his confession of his sometimes reckless behavior caused outrage among many gay men at the time, after his death, many recognized that his controversial disclosures provoked life-saving awareness among gay men of the risks involved in increasingly widespread but rarely discussed practices of unprotected intercourse. Death and legacy Gendin died on July 19, 2000, at the age of 34, from AIDS-induced lymphoma. In the summer of 2000, he was eulogized in a widely reprinted speech by Larry Kramer. The chemotherapy he was receiving to treat the disease put him into cardiac arrest. His activism was pivotal in reforming the FDA drug approval process to expedite HIV and AIDS patients' access to more effective anti-retroviral treatments. Because of his efforts, some people living with HIV today believe that Gendin was a "superhero". Publications Book Chapter POZ Magazine Articles References External links Stephen Gendin Papers (MS 1963). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. 1966 births 2000 deaths HIV/AIDS activists AIDS-related deaths in New York (state) American activists Brown University alumni American gay writers LGBT people from Michigan Radical Faeries members 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers 20th-century LGBT people