Monday, September 27, marks the third annual National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. It’s a day to “reflect on how profoundly HIV/AIDS has affected gay and bisexual men…and to recognize how much this group has influenced…strategies to prevent and treat the virus,” wrote Anthony Fauci, MD, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, in a statement. Since 1981, more than half a million gay and bisexual men in the United States have been diagnosed with HIV, and more than 300,000 have died. Today, stigma and fear still hamper prevention efforts for gay and bisexual men.

To read Fauci’s statement, click here.