Through the '90s and even into the very early 21st century, doctors would hold off before starting antiretrovirals. After acute HIV infection (which often causes flu-like symptoms, known as sero-conversion sickness), the body naturally suppresses the HIV infection to manageable levels. So the standard advice was not to medicate yet.

Of course, that meant that most HIV-infected individuals were still contagious. Their viral levels were low, but they weren't so low as to prevent transmission.

Combined with a social stigma that kept people from getting tested, this medical treatment philosophy is a major part of why HIV became as prevalent as it did. I understand why - early drugs like AZT were even harder on the patient's liver than modern drugs. But at best that seems myopic; at worst, it was negligent from a public health perspective.

It is probably a bad thing that, at least in the U.S., we separate the medical field from the public health field so arbitrarily. Maybe -- hopefully -- this development in HIV treatment and the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections will make us rethink this dichotomy.