Sean Hosein

Sean Hosein honoured with award for decades of leadership in social justice for the HIV/AIDS community

Sean Hosein is being recognized with The Casey Award for decades of leadership in social justice for the HIV/AIDS community by bringing information and education to people living with and working in HIV.

For more than 40 years Sean has made an indelible and lasting contribution to the HIV/AIDS community. He is a self-taught knowledge translation expert, who shares what he learns to help people make informed decisions alongside their care providers. Sean started reading medical journals about the little known disease AIDS at the beginning of the HIV epidemic, inspired by his friends and housemates who became early AIDS activists. He taught himself the basics of immunology and in 1985 published his first article about HIV in Rites, Canada’s first national lesbian and gay magazine.

As the pace of research increased, Sean worked to make it more accessible, publishing in early editions of Xtra magazine, being instrumental in the production of the first Treatment AIDS broadsheet in 1988 listing a range of experimental treatments, and self-publishing his summarized research findings.

This is how he became the creator, researcher and writer of TreatmentUpdate, first published in 1989 in collaboration with AIDS Action Now!, and which became known internationally as a reliable, accurate and unbiased source of HIV treatment information. These efforts lead to the creation of CATIE, a community-based information source on HIV/AIDS, in 1990. Sean became a member of its inaugural board, and then the organization’s science and medicine editor.

Over the years he has connected with renowned HIV researchers around the world, trained and supported the knowledge acquisition of hundreds of people living with HIV, their caregivers and those working in the field, including frontline service providers.

Casey House extends warm congratulations to Sean Hosein for his dedication to communication and learning.