Author Archives

Virally Suppressed is a progressive blog and outreach movement centered around matters of HIV & social justice in America and across the globe.

• Void My Bowels & Fill Me With Truth Serum: A Look at Aversion Therapy for Alcohol & Drug Abuse

  By Drew Gibson on March 24, 2014 • ( 3 )

  

  Sometimes I miss it. Not all of it, but some of it. The part of it that made me feel like nothing. Not nothing in an empty way, but nothing in a weightless way, as if the physical properties that… Read More ›

• The New Virally Suppressed — It’s Time to Rake Some Muck

  By Drew Gibson on March 23, 2014 • ( 0 )

  

  For many of us who come to find that our lives have become defined by the pursuit of some social good or the eradication of its attendant evil, it is possible to trace back the origins of our passions to… Read More ›

• Tell “The Progressive”: West Virginia’s Story Will Be Heard

  By Drew Gibson on March 20, 2014 • ( 0 )

  

  My latest article on the water crisis in West Virginia, “Trust is Not a Word We Use Around Here,” (has been seen by thousands of people on my blog, Virally Suppressed and on DailyKos as part of the Community Spotlight… Read More ›

• Trust is Not a Word We Use Around Here: Life in Chemical Valley During West Virginia’s Water Crisis

  By Drew Gibson on March 17, 2014 • ( 4 )

  

  Ask a random West Virginian over the age of 55 who the greatest President of their lifetime was and I’d bet you whatever money I had in my wallet that they’d tell you it was Jack Kennedy. Hell, ask their… Read More ›

• Massive Amounts of Coal Slurry Spill into West Virginia Creek, Surprising No One

  By Drew Gibson on February 11, 2014 • ( 0 )

  

  After Freedom Industries so kindly donated 10,000 gallons of Crude MCHM and PPH into the Elk River last month, tainting the water supply for more than 300,000 West Virginians, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin made it perfectly clear that the coal… Read More ›

• In Most States, Schools Have Snow Days. In West Virginia, Schools Have Chemical Leak Days

  By Drew Gibson on February 7, 2014 • ( 1 )

  

  Sunday will mark the one month anniversary of the day that the first reports began trickling in that a small chemical company called Freedom Industries had let between 2,000 and 5,000 gallons of a relatively unknown chemical used in coal… Read More ›

• The Coal Ash Cup Runneth Over…Into Appalachia’s Water Supply

  By Drew Gibson on February 5, 2014 • ( 1 )

  

  This past Sunday, as the nation was sitting down to watch the Super Bowl and all of its attendant pomp and circumstance, a massive environmental disaster was taking place near Eden, NC, a small town that sits on the banks… Read More ›

• A Tale of Two Senators: Rockefeller, Manchin & The West Virginia Chemical Spill

  By Drew Gibson on February 4, 2014 • ( 0 )

  

  When it came out last week that an environmental scientist from Marshall University had found abnormal levels of Formaldehyde in a local water sample, I pretty much lost it. I suppose if I had received this news in a vacuum… Read More ›

• West Virginia Chemical Spill Week 4: Problems Remain But So Do We

  By Drew Gibson on February 3, 2014 • ( 2 )

  

  Anyone who has been following these diaries might remember that I had pledged to eat 1 of the evil laxative Haribo Sugarless Gummi Bears for every $5 that was donated to help the West Virginia Clean Water Hub, The Keeper… Read More ›

• Anatomy of a Crisis: Joe Manchin and The West Virginia Chemical Spill

  By Drew Gibson on January 26, 2014 • ( 0 )

  

  It was over 177 years ago that Daniel Webster, the longstanding Senator from Massachusetts and perhaps the greatest orator our Nation’s legislative branch has ever known, appeared in the small town of Madison, Indiana to give a speech concerning the… Read More ›