President Reagan Introduces Sweeping Tax Cuts, Reducing Funding for Healthcare Programs & Research
President Ronald Reagan's introduction of a tax reduction plan lays the groundwork for a series of budget policies that drastically cut funding for social services programs and medical research. These policies would adversely impact the work of health officials engaged in AIDS research and the wellbeing of millions of people about to receive an HIV diagnosis over the next 20 years.
In his first year of office, President Reagan introduced a series of conservative reforms that prioritized the military over social services (i.e., "welfare programs") and medical research. Reagan reduced taxes through the Economic Recovery Tax Act, and in the years that followed, successfully slashed the budgets of social welfare programs by more than $22 billion, according to history professor Claire Bond Potter.
"Mr. Reagan’s welfare reforms just made the poor poorer," Bond Potter wrote recently in The New York Times. "When a three-year recession hit in 1980, six million more Americans fell into poverty. By 1989, employment recovered, but a weak social safety net meant that workers were an illness or an accident away from hardship."
Under the Reagan administration, public health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suddenly faced drastic budget cuts to their research programs. Such was the situation when, on April 12, 1983, CDC epidemiologist Don Francis raised the issue about the lack of dedicated funding for AIDS research.
"The inadequate funding to date has seriously restricted our work and has presumably deepened the invasion of [AIDS] into the American population," Dr. Francis wrote to his supervisor. "It has sandwiched those responsible for research and control between massive pressure to do what is right and an unmovable wall of inadequate resources."
The Reagan's economic policy was based on the theory of supply-side economics. The fiscal 1982 budget proposed by Reagan represented a reduction of $44 billion (5.7%) in all programs except national defense, according to the Institute for Research on Policy. More than half of the budget reduction came from two areas: income security; and education, training, employment, and other social services.
These components of "Reaganomics" created the perfect storm for the millions of people who would be diagnosed with HIV in the next decade and beyond. By the end of Reagan's first term in office, at least 7,700 people had received an AIDS diagnosis and more than 3,500 had died of the disease.
Due to the lack of attention from the White House, non-profit organizations led by members of the LGBTQ communities in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City and other cities stepped in to provide HIV/AIDS information, support and care. Gay rights activists undertook initiatives promoting education about safer sex and countering discrimination against AIDS. With no treatment available in these early years, friends and family members could only comfort the dying.
April 13, 1982
First Congressional Hearings on AIDS Begin in Hollywood
Congressman Henry Waxman, whose district includes the gay community of West Hollywood, convenes the first congressional hearings on AIDS at the Los Angeles Gay Community Services Center.
“I want to be especially blunt about the political aspects of Kaposi’s sarcoma,” said Rep. Waxman, according to the Washington Blade. “This horrible disease afflicts members of one of the nation’s most stigmatized and discriminated-against minorities…. There is no doubt in my mind that if the same disease had appeared among Americans of Norwegian descent or among tennis players -- rather than among gay males -- the responses of the government and the medical community would have been different.”
Rep. Waxman made an effort to involve the gay community of his district by holding the hearing at the LA Gay Community Services Center (now the Los Angeles LGBT Center). But the media largely overlooked the event, and the coverage that did appear was within the LGBTQ press.
The San Francisco newspaper The Sentinel published a very short blurb three days later, titled “House Holds Cancer Hearings.” The paper would quote an unnamed subcommittee staffer saying the Centers for Disease Control “should not have to nickel and dime" for research funding.
The short article appeared next to a column written by gay nurse Bobbi Campbell, who wrote about going to the Shanti Project to get emotional support for his KS.
Speaking at the hearing, Dr. James Curran, head of the Center for Disease Control’s Task Force on Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections, estimated that tens of thousands of people were already infected by the disease.
On the 40th Anniversary of the CDC's first report on what would become known as AIDS, reporter Karen Ocamb wrote the Washington Blade article "AIDS @40: White House laughs as gays try to save themselves," recalling the House hearing chaired by Rep. Waxman.
"Like so many others in California, lesbian feminist Ivy Bottini had high expectations for the federal government to finally intervene in the growing AIDS crisis after the first congressional committee hearing on the mysterious new disease," Ocamb wrote. "She was upset. Her friend Ken Schnorr had died just before the hearing and Bottini had to explain to Ken’s distraught mother that he had not been abused at the hospital — the purple bruises on his body were KS lesions."
Ocamb goes on to cite perhaps one of the most egregious examples of the Reagan administration’s homophobic callousness toward people with AIDS, which happened just weeks after Reps. Waxman and Phillip Burton (D-San Francisco) introduced a bill to fund AIDS research.
On Oct. 15, 1982, White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes was holding a press conference, during which reporter Lester Kinsolving asked Speakes about the new disease called AIDS. After indicating that he didn't know what AIDS was, Speakes dismisses the question and makes light of it, saying, "I don’t have it. Do you?"
When this response elicits chuckles from the members of the press corps, Speakes continues in this vein ("There has been no personal experience here, Lester") to draw more laughter.
"The exchange goes on like that. For another two years," Ocamb wrote.
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Sources:Washington Blade, "AIDS at 40: White House Laughs as Gays Try to Save Themselves" by Karen Ocamb, June 23, 2021
The Atlantic, "The Heroic Story of How Congress First Confronted AIDS" by Joshua Green, June 8, 2011
September 28, 1982
AIDS Research Bill Introduced (and Dies) in Congress
Congressmen Phillip Burton and Ted Weiss introduce the first legislation for the allocation of funding for AIDS research. Unfortunately, the resolution dies in committee.
It will be almost one year later, in July 1983, when the first dedicated funding for AIDS research and treatment is approved by Congress.
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Source:www.HIV.gov, "A Timeline of HIV and AIDS"
October 15, 1982
Question about AIDS Draws Laughter at White House Briefing
At a White House media briefing, a reporter asks Reagan Administration Press Secretary Larry Speakes: "Does the President have any reaction to the announcement -- from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta -- that AIDS is now an epidemic and has over 600 cases?"
Speakes: "What's AIDS?"
Reporter: “It’s known as the ‘gay plague.’”
Everyone laughs.
“I don’t have it,” Speakes replies. “Do you?”
The transcript of the press briefing, which is in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, is a sharp reminder of how governmental officials and journalists viewed the LGBTQ community.
On Dec. 1, 2015, Vanity Fair debuted a short documentary by Scott Calonico about this now-infamous exchange.
President Reagan would not mention AIDS until 1985, and then it would be in response to a reporter’s question at a press conference. He would not give a major speech about the epidemic until mid-1987 — at which point 20,849 people in the U.S. would already be dead.
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Sources:The Washington Post, "How Attitudes toward AIDS have Changed, in the White House and Beyond" by Juliet Eilperin, December 4, 2013
Washington Blade, "AIDS at 40: White House Laughs as Gays Try to Save Themselves" by Karen Ocamb, June 23, 2021
Vanity Fair, "The Reagan Administration's Unearthed Response to the AIDS Crisis is Chilling" by Richard Lawson, December 1, 2015
February 1983
National AIDS Hotline Opens to High Demand
The U.S. Health & Human Services Department launched the National AIDS Hotline (NAH). and by the end of the first month, it's receiving 8,000-10,000 calls a day.
Operated by the U.S. Public Health Service, the AIDS Hotline responds to public inquiries about the disease, and by July 28, the hotline has to be expanded from three phonelines to eight to accommodate the high volume of calls.
In 1985, HHS transferred the hotline to the Center for Disease Control and eventually services were expanded in October 1987 to become the National AIDS Clearinghouse, with electronic linkage to computerized referral databases.
Spanish-languages services on the hotline were not included until August 1988. A month later, the hotline adopted TTY services for the hearing-impaired.
By February 1991, the total of calls to the hotline in eight years of service was 5 million.
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Source:National AIDS Hotline: HIV and AIDS Information Service through a Toll-Free Telephone System by Robert R. Waller and Lynn W. Lisella (CDC's HIV Public Information and Education Programs, November-December 1991)
March 1983
Young Legislative Aide Steers AIDS Policy in California
Stan Hadden, a 26-year-old aide to the leader of the state senate, leads the effort in Sacramento to establish the California AIDS Advisory Committee and set up a mechanism for funding AIDS education throughout the state.
Hadden would go on to author much of the state’s HIV-related legislation as a staff member of the Office of then-State Senate President Pro Tempore David Roberti.
Most notably, Haddon would shephard the passage of Senate Bill 910, which established the California AIDS Advisory Committee. The bill included an initial appropriation of $500,000, channeled through the Department of Health Services to some of the state's community programs which desperately needed funding.
In spite of the meager amount allocated for the program, the main accomplishment was getting any funding at a time when the state was attempting to address a financial crisis and most health programs were suffering from budget reductions.
"AIDS is a national emergency," Senator Roberti told the media in March 1983 when promoting the merits of SB 910. “It is occurring in epidemic proportions among previously healthy homosexual men, Haitian immigrants, and intravenous drug users, but 6% of those afflcted with the disease are neither homosexuals, IV drug users, Haitians or hemophiliacs.”
At that time, it was unusual for legislators to be educated about HIV. The senator's awareness of the urgent need for AIDS services could be largely attributed to the work and advocacy of his staffer, Hadden, and the location of his district, which was the Hollywood area.
According to Stephen Morin's chapter "AIDS: Public Policy and Mental Health Issues" in the 1986 book What to Do About AIDS, Senator Roberti's legislation, which was researched and drafted by Hadden, was the first significant action that California took in the early days of the AIDS crisis.
"SB 910 required a great deal of advocacy," said Morin, who was an assistant clinical professor at the University of California San Francisco at the time. "In April 1983, on one of my early trips to the state capital to support that bill, I was joined by Gary Walsh, a friend and psychiatric social worker who had been diagnosed with KS in December 1982. Although AIDS had recently been the cover story in Newsweek, more than half of the legislators with whom we met had never heard of AIDS."
Around the same time, the California Assembly pushed forward $2.9 million in additional funding for the University of California to work on AIDS research. Speaker of the Assembly Willie Brown, whose district was located in San Francisco, introduced an allocation to the UC budget after convening with university researchers working on discovering the cause of AIDS.
"Many of the early breakthroughs in research came from the UC system and were funded through this effort," Morin wrote. "The discovery of the retrovirus responsible for simian AIDS, for example, was discovered at UC Davis. Later, in Jay Levy's laboratory at UC San Francisco, a retrovirus responsible for AIDS was isolated."
In 1985, Hadden would be the staffer behind state legislation to bring a coordinated approach to local HIV/AIDS programs and services. California Senate Bill 1251 allocated about $17 million in funding for AIDS healthcare programs in 1986. In addition, the state directed more than $5 mllion of its federal budget toward research projects and epidemiology studies.
Legislative staffers regarded Haddon as the "unofficial AIDS czar” of California. He was one of only a few in Sacramento who were open about their LGBT identity, journalist Karen Ocamb would later write in The Pride. Scores of administrative and political aides to California legislators remained in the closet, fearful that open knowledge of their sexual identity would end their professional careers. Elected officials and potential candidates who identified as LGBT also remained silenced by the very real fear of ruination.
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Sources:Los Angeles Times, "Stan Hadden: Roberti Aide Influenced AIDS Policy," December 26, 1991
What to Do about AIDS: Physicians and Mental Health Professionals Discuss the Issues, editor Leon McKusick (University of California Press, 1986)
California Budget Analysis, 1986-1987, State of California Health and Welfare Budget
The Pride, "California Legislative Caucus Honors LGBT Pioneers" by Karen Ocamb
April 1983
City of San Francisco and Shanti Open AIDS Hospice
The City of San Francisco partners with Shanti Project to open a hospice-type care center for people with AIDS.
In 1983, the AIDS epidemic began to inundate the Shanti Project’s emotional support services program. The organization responded by shifting its focus to exclusively serve people with AIDS (PWAs) and expanding its services to include assistance with everyday chores for debilitated PWAs and the creation of the first residence program in the U.S.
Shanti Project was founded by psychiatrist Dr. Charles Garfield in 1974 to offer peer support services to people with life-threatening illnesses. Shanti trained volunteers to provide dying and chronically ill patients with emotional support.
As Shanti transitioned its services to meet the needs of PWAs, Clifford Morrison was among the volunteers who took part in the volunteer training in December 1982. Morrison was a clinical nurse specialist and founder of the AIDS Ward (Ward 5B) at San Francisco General Hospital, and he immediately knew that Shanti’s emotional care program would fill a large need at Ward 5B.
"I decided we needed to have psychosocial support," Morrison told the San Francisco AIDS Oral History Project in 1995-1996. "The nurses were going to be busy taking care of the physical needs of patients, and I wanted them to have an ability to recognize and deal with the psychosocial issues. But they were not going to be able to handle all of that."
Morrison pitched his idea to Jim Geary, Shanti’s then executive director, and recommended the organization secure the funding for the project from the City of San Francisco's Department of Public Health.
After some negotiating with city hall, the funding was put into place for Shanti to provide a program of volunteer counselors for Ward 5B. The result was a place where PWAs could receive both medical care and emotional support.
"All those things did come together, and we did see the advantages right away of having these resources centralized," Morrison said. "And almost immediately, what we found was that people from within the system -- within the Department of Public Health, within the hospital, from other hospitals -- started calling and coming to us and saying, 'Oh, well, you've developed this approach to care, so how can we do it?'"
When Morrison shared Ward 5B's model of care with healthcare professionals, he often heard excuses why the model wouldn't work at other hospitals. It was just "too unique."
The Ward 5B-Shanti collaboration developed what became to be known as the San Francisco Model of Care, a patient-centered care model that emphasizes interdisciplinary care with a team of doctors, nurses, social workers, case managers, psychiatrists, addiction specialists, nutritionists and so on.
"It wasn't new, I didn't invent it," Morrison said. "It's just maybe I'm one of the first people to pick it all up and put it together and see."
May 18, 1983
Congress Passes Bill with AIDS Research Funding
The U.S. Congress passes the first bill with funding targeted for AIDS research and treatment — $12 million for agencies within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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Sources:www.HIV.gov, "A Timeline of HIV and AIDS"
AIDS United, "Our Timeline: Past and Future"
June 1983
Chicago Hospital Opens Sable/Sherer Clinic for HIV/AIDS
The Sable/Sherer Clinic at Cook County Hospital is created to treat people with HIV/AIDS.
Doctors Renslow Sherer and Ron Sable opened their clinic at Chicago's Cook County Hospital shortly after they encountered their first HIV/AIDS cases.
"I saw my first AIDS patient in 1982 at Cook County Hospital during my second month as a general physician," Dr. Sherer told Windy City Times. "He was a young, gay, African American man who could no longer do his daily six-mile run. At first we weren't exactly sure that it was AIDS, but then he had the Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, and the rest of his symptoms seemed to fit."
At about the same time, his colleague, Dr. Sable, told him about treating two people with AIDS symptoms and that they should start preparing to treat a lot more patients infected by HIV.
When they initially launched the clinic, they didn't refer to it openly as an AIDS clinic. They were concerned that the stigma surrounding AIDS would cause pushback from hospital administrators, others in the medical center and the surrounding community.
Instead, they quietly directed patients with HIV/AIDS symptoms to be treated at the clinic. In their first year together, Drs. Sherer and Sable worked with 141 patients.
The doctors not only co-founded Chicago's first AIDS clinic, but they were also among the founders of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, which raised private funding for the clinic.
In 1993, Dr. Sable announced in a letter he sent to hundreds of friends and colleagues that he was HIV-positive, according to the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. He cut back on most of his organizational activities, and spent more time with his friends and his partner of 12 years, Jose Narvaez.
A large public event was held at the South Shore Cultural Center to celebrate Dr. Sable's lifetime of achievements. He was weak, but managed to attend. He died later that year, and soon after he was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.
"I miss him every day," Dr. Sherer told the Windy City Times. "He was a fabulous person, and if I wanted to go out on a limb, I'd say he was one of the best advocates for LGBT rights that this city has ever seen. He spent half his time treating AIDS patients and the other half standing up for their rights."
In 1998, the Sable/Sherer Clinic would be absorbed into Cook County Hospital's new Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center.
June 17, 1983
NYT Reports on Abandoned Infants with AIDS
Growing numbers of infants infected with AIDS in utero are abandoned in New York City hospitals, according to a New York Times article.
On Page 22, the Times gives its report on the alarming cases of babies and young children who are born with the AIDS virus and subsequently left at New York hospitals. The article carries no byline.
The article also exposes the discrepancy between the total number of pediatric AIDS cases nationwide being reported by the Centers for Disease Control (18) and the numbers of infants and children being treated by doctors in the NY metro area alone (more than 63).
In the article, New York pediatric immunologist Arye Rubinstein, M.D., blamed the CDC's low case number on the federal government's "unduly strict" definition of AIDS. Because of this narrow definition, the CDC counted only children who had a malignancy or opportunistic infections.
Dr. Rubinstein told the Times that he was treating several patients whose symptoms did not fall within the CDC definition but most definitely were indications of infection by the AIDS virus. The article cites Dr. Rubinstein's pediatric AIDS caseload as consisting of 44 patients. James Oleske, M.D, of St. Michael's Hospital and the Newark College of Medicine was cited with a caseload of 18 pediatric patients and six more suspected cases.
In the years to come, Dr. Rubinstein would become very vocal about CDC case totals being undercounted and the need for the CDC to broaden its definition of pediatric AIDS -- and he wasn't the only doctor in the field to do so. Finally in 1985, the CDC would broaden its defnition of AIDS, based on recommendations developed at the Conference of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and the CDC would modify the definition again in 1987 and 1993.
The Times article also chronicled the plight of young children with AIDS who had been abandoned in NYC hospitals. Doctors said the children have been left in hospitals by mothers who had died or are dying of AIDS.
Since the City did not have a place to house parentless AIDS children, they were left in the hospitals that were treating their conditions. The Times reported that the City's welfare agency, Special Services for Children, was seeking foster homes for the children, but no one would take them.
This article was among the first to focus on the heartbreaking situation of the population that would become known as "AIDS babies," children born with the AIDS virus and then orphaned. In the 1980s, most of these children died within two years.
* * * * * *
Sources:The New York Times, "Young Victims of AIDS Suffer its Harsh Stigma," June 17, 1984
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "AIDS: The Early Years and CDC's Response" by Drs. James Curran and Harold Jaffe, October 7, 2011
National Institutes of Health, "Survival of Children with HIV in the United States has Improved Dramatically Since 1990s, New Analysis Shows," December 18, 2009
June 23, 1983
Reagan Staffer Patrick Buchanan Vilifies Gay Men in Op-Ed
Patrick J. Buchanan, President Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter, publishes an op-ed in the New York Post, writing: “The poor homosexuals — they have declared war upon nature, and now nature is extracting an awful retribution.”
In his op-ed in the New York Post, Pat Buchanan echoes the Moral Majority position that the AIDS epidemic was God seeking revenge against gay people.
Buchanan concluded his essay by saying homosexuals should be banned from food-handling jobs, and that the Democratic party’s decision to hold its 1983 convention in San Francisco will endanger delegates and their families.
Visitors to the city, he writes, will be at the mercy of “homosexuals who belong to a community that is a common carrier of dangerous, communicable and sometimes fatal diseases.”
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Source:ThinkProgress, "Flashback -- Buchanan: AIDS is Nature's 'Awful Retribution' Against Homosexuality" by Igor Volsky, May 24, 2011
July 1, 1983
Stanford Blood Bank Begins Screening Donations
Stanford Blood Center institutes the first blood testing program specifically intended to reduce the risk of transfusion transmission of AIDS.
Between July 1983 and June 1985, a total of 33,831 blood donations were screened by Standord. Of those donations, 586 were shown to have low CD4 counts and were discarded as possibly infected.
Stanford retained the serum samples from the 586 donations and years later, when a test became available, screened them specifically for HIV. Dr. Engleman found that 1.9% of these donations were HIV positive -- which translates to approximately 33 HIV-infections that were avoided.
As the first blood bank in the U.S. to screen donated blood for HIV/AIDS indicators, the new policy eliminated donations from people with low CD4 T cells. The loss of CD4 T cells in AIDS is what renders patients susceptible to a wide range of infectious diseases. Thus, the screening was considered a surrogate test, not necessarily identifying the presence of HIV/AIDS but instead identifying indicators of possible HIV/AIDS infection.
The new screening system came about due to an increasing awareness in the San Francisco medical community of AIDS and a skeptical view toward existing blood protection practices. In the spring of 1983, Stanford Hospital treated two patients with AIDS. Both had received transfusions at Bay Area institutions and neither had been identified as being in a high-risk group.
"At this point, my colleagues and I at Stanford Blood Center felt that the presence of the presumed etiologic agent for AIDS in the local blood supply could not be ignored," recalls Ed Engleman, MD, of the Stanford Blood Center. "Because of the potential lethality of this infection, we felt that self-deferral should not be relied upon as the sole means of protecting the blood supply."
The self-deferral practice that Dr. Engleman refers to is the U.S. Public Health Service's then-recommendation of relying on donors to voluntarily identify themselves as a member of a high-risk group. Blood centers around the country commonly implemented the PHS recommendation with an information sheet provided to prospective donors that described AIDS risk groups and requested that donors exclude themselves if they met the definition of risk.
"It was predictable that this approach wouldn’t work very well," says Dr. Engleman. "First, it relied entirely on donor self-deferral. Second, the PHS definition of homosexual AIDS risk behavior was vague, making it possible for a prospective donor with a history of homosexual activity to feel that he personally was not at risk for AIDS and to proceed with blood donation."
Stanford University Blood Bank's screening procedure was costly and had to be performed manually, but Stanford found it relatively easy to implement because it was already conducting immunological research and had access to a flow cytometer and the appropriate laboratory setting.
Around this time, the American Red Cross, American Association of Blood Banks, and the Council of Community Blood Centers released a joint statement estimating the risk of getting AIDS from transfusion as “one in a million.” This was an overly optimistic view, it turned out.
Just a few years later, when the first HIV antibody test was made available in 1985, an estimated one in 700 units of blood donations in U.S. metropolitan areas were found to be infected with HIV. In San Francisco, the frequency was closer to one in 100.
"We estimate that the total number of transfusion-related HIV transmissions that occurred from 1983 to 1985 was at least 10,000-20,000," Dr. Engleman says. "It seems evident that most of these cases could have been avoided had our test been used."
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Source:
August 1, 1983
Congress Holds Hearings on U.S. AIDS Reponse
The Congressional Subcommittee on Government Operations holds hearings to examinethe federal response to AIDS. It would take another four years before the Reagan Administration finally acknowledges the demands of AIDS activists.
At the hearing, members of Congress heard testimony from researchers, heathcare officials, and three AIDS men with AIDS who described their personal experiences.
Here is the testimony of Michael Callen of New York:
(born April 11, 1955, died December 27, 1993)
In December of 1981, I had some blood testing done by my private physician, and those tests indicated that I was immune deficient. In December of 1981, there was very little known about this disease, but there was in the gay press beginning to be reports of increased instances of very unusual diseases, and they outlined some of the symptoms. I was very concerned because I had some of these symptoms — fevers, night sweats, general lymphadenopathy, swelling of the lymph nodes, malaise, fatigue. So I had myself tested and, as I indicated, in December of 1981, I was told I was immune deficient.
The effect of being told that I was immune deficient was devastating. I called my parents and said, “I am going to die.”
I was not hospitalized until the summer of 1982, when I was diagnosed with cryptospordiosis, which is one of the qualifying opportunistic infections, according to the CDC definition of this syndrome.
I was hospitalized for over a week with what is known as the wasting syndrome. It was the lowest point of my life. I was convinced from everything I read and heard that I was going to die.
But I recovered from that specific infection, and I was rehospitalized in the fall of 1982. They suspected pneumocystis pneumonia. I had a bronchoscopy performed and other tests. It turned out to be bronchitis. But my story really illustrates one of the consistent stories for people who have this syndrome. So little is known.
When my doctor indicated to me in December of 1981 that I was immune deficient, I said, “What does that mean?”
And he said, “We don’t know.”
So now a lot of people who are being told they are immune deficient are simply waiting, waiting for the next infection.
Now, I have come to believe that I am going to beat this disease. I no longer think that I am going to die. But it is very difficult when you pick up newspapers or turn on the television, and you hear that no one has fully recovered from this syndrome, and that 80% of those diagnosed with the syndrome are dead after two years.
So I guess that is my story — waiting around for infections, checking myself every morning for Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions and waiting for information about this disease to be forthcoming.
Here is the testimony of Roger Lyon of San Francisco:
(born September 30, 1948, died November 4, 1984)
I was diagnosed with Kaposi sarcoma on February 3 of this year. Prior to that time, I was having absolutely no AIDS-related symptoms whatsoever. On physical exam at that time, three lesions were found internally. Prior to that, I was being treated for an amoebic disorder, no real symptoms of AIDS.
February 3, basically 100, I think more exactly 180 days ago, I became aware I had a life-threatening disease. On February 4, I entered UC, I went to University of California without an appointment, at the suggestion of my doctor, and started what is called their staging process — a battery of tests to determine the extent of this disease.
At that time, I was basically numb. I had no feeling. I was just moving. UC has been — they have been very kind and helpful.
However, it is a matter of day-to-day waiting, waiting for something to happen, living in constant fear that I am going to wake up one morning to find lesions, waking up finding that I have some other opportunistic infection, cryptospordiosis, possibly pneumocystis pneumonia.
At this time, I am basically living in fear of what is to come. Other than that, it is a day-to-day wait-and-see process.
Statement of Anthony "Tony" Ferrara of Washington, DC to Congress(born in 1954, died June 4, 1984
The first idea there was something wrong with me was last summer. I had lymphadenopathy, swollen lymph glands especially around the jaws and throat and under the arms. That continued for a few months, but the whole time I felt quite good. I continued to run and jog, and I experienced no fatigue, no night sweats, no fevers. In fact, in November, I finished the Marine Corps marathon, when I was supposedly very, very ill.
The lymphadenopathy went away. So I thought nothing further of it. But all along, I had been reading about AIDS, and of course, as every conscious gay man should be, was very worried about it.
In February, I saw two small purple lesions, one on the inner aspect of each of my lower thighs, and I knew what they were, or I knew what they could be, and I said I would wait a month, and if they were still there in a month, I would seek treatment or seek a diagnosis. Well, in the beginning of March they were still there.
I belong to the George Washington University HMO. I went there and told them that they really should biopsy one of these lesions to see what it was, gave them my sexual history, and told them that there was a good chance I did have AIDS. They biopsied it, and the diagnosis was Kaposi’s sarcoma. That was March 8.
Obviously, the first day I was very, very upset, and I went into a deep depression for about a month. I came home that night and my significant other held me in his arms, and I said to him, “Why do I feel like Ali McGraw, it is just like a movie, it is really terrible, it is the most horrible thing that ever happened.”
My depression lasted a month, and I decided if there was any chance I was going to get over this, if I had any chance of surviving at all, I would have to have a more positive attitude and just continue on, live my life as best I can, and try not to worry about it too much.
I was very lucky. I had the choice of being treated at GW by a very good cancer specialist there, who instilled a great deal of confidence in me, or I had the choice of being treated at the National Institutes of Health.
I think it was an easy choice, because I think — NIH wanted me, because I was so healthy at that point. I was a good specimen for research I think. And also, I felt that if I have the disease and no one knows anything about it, the best place to be treated would be where they are doing the research.
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Source:
September 30, 1983
First AIDS Discrimination Lawsuit Filed in NYC
After New York City physician Joseph Sonnabend is threatened with eviction from his office building for treating patients with AIDS, the state’s Attorney General and Lambda Legal join together to file the first AIDS discrimination lawsuit.
Dr. Sonnabend and five of his patients sued and won what became one of the first AIDS-related civil rights cases.
With others including AIDS activist Michael Callen, Dr. Sonnabend founded the AIDS Medical Foundation, the first AIDS research group and now known as the Foundation for AIDS Research.
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Source:
October 4, 1983
AIDS Patient Flown from Florida to California & 'Dumped'
A Florida hospital arranged for a private jet to fly a patient with AIDS to San Francisco, where he was left at a local AIDS foundation with $300 cash.
Morgan MacDonald, 27, of Vero Beach, Florida, was brought to San Francisco in a chartered Lear jet after being discharged from Shands Hospital at the University of Florida at Gainesville. MacDonald told Dr. Mervyn Silverman, San Francisco's public health director, that he was transported to California against his will.
Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Florida, spent $7,000 for a private jet to fly MacDonald to San Francisco last week and leave him on a stretcher at the office of a city-funded AIDS foundation. He was immediately transferred to the AIDS ward at San Francisco General Hospital.
Dianne Feinstein, then-Mayor of San Francisco, sent a telegram to Gov. Bob Graham of Florida, asserting that a hospital there dumped an unwanted AIDS patient by having him flown to San Francisco. She called the incident "outrageous and inhumane."
Gov. Graham's press secretary said Florida's Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services would investigate the matter.
Virginia Hunt, Shands' public relations director, defended the hospital's actions, saying MacDonald no longer needed hospital care and the hospital was unable to find a Florida nursing home for him. She contended that the AIDS Foundation in San Francisco agreed to give Mr. MacDonald 30 days' free housing.
But Dr. Silverman said the Florida hospital had made contact with both the City of San Francisco and the AIDS Foundation and ''played us one off against the other.''
Silverman said MacDonald was free to return to Florida, but said his condition was acute and it was essential that he receive proper care.
MacDonald would die 21 days later at San Francisco General Hospital's AIDS Ward. MacDonald was said to have no family. Before his hospitalization, he lived in a religious commune in Florida.
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Source:
December 5, 1983
San Francisco Chronicle Exposes Delay in AIDS Funding
Reporter Randy Shilts of the San Francisco Chronicle writes that federal health officials were forced to pull funding from other projects to support important AIDS research in the spring of 1983 due to the lack of federal funding.
Top officials in the Department of Health and Human Services were pleading for more federal funds from the Reagan administration for AIDS research in early 1983, all while publicly saying that no more money was needed, according to Shilts' reporting in The Chronicle.
Reporting from documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Shilts wrote that the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta ultimately were forced to divert millions of dollars from other important health projects in order to conduct AIDS research.
Dr. James Curran, director of AIDS research at the Atlanta center, said 2,513 cases had been reported to the CDC as of Oct. 17, 1983, and 1,048 people had died, reflecting a fatality rate of 41%.
"It has now reached the point where important AIDS work cannot be undertaken because of the lack of available resources," wrote Edward Brandt, assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, in a May 13, 1983 memo.
In that memo obtained by Shilts, Brandt listed a number of important health areas other than AIDS in which work was "postponed, delayed or severely curtailed" because the center was diverting money to AIDS research.
But according to The Chronicle, Brandt also publicly supported the Reagan administration's position just days before, testifying May 9 to Congress that extra funds to fight AIDS were "unnecessary."
Dr. William Foege of the Centers of Disease Control sent Brandt a 12-page request for funds in early May, but two weeks later, Thomas Donnelly, Assistant Secretary for Legislation, wrote a Senate staff member that "we are not in favor of additional appropriations" for AIDS research. The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Legislation serves as the primary link between the Department of Health and Human Services and Congress.
March 6, 1984
Blood Supply Task Force Opposes Test for Screening Virus
The task force created at the December 1983 FDA/CDC conference with the blood services community issues a report with a majority opinion that opposes the implementation of incorporating hepatitis B anti-core testing into the routine screening of plasma, presenting another roadblock to the protection of the country's blood supply.
The task force reviewed several pilot tests performed at blood banks in areas with donors at high risk for hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc), which appears at the onset of symptoms in acute hepatitis B and persists for life. Scientific data suggested that anti-HBc was found commonly in HIV-infected individuals.
Data showed:
5-18% of blood and plasma donors had a positive test for anti-HBc;
84% of homosexual males tested positive for anti-HBc; and
96% of IV drug users tested positive for anti-HBc.
The discussion at the December BPAC meeting had stipulated that ''cost-benefit analysis and disease prevalence must be considered in the decision regarding whether or not to use the test," However, the task force could not agree upon the true cost of the test, with estimates as low as $2.50 per test for plasma collectors and as high as $12.00 per donation for whole blood collections
Additional costs were the blood that would be discarded and the recruitment of new donors. With the task force unable to agree on the costs and the benefits of using the anti-core test as a surrogate for high-risk donors, the majority decided to oppose the adoption of screening procedures.
October 10, 1984
San Francisco Closes 14 Bathhouses
The City of San Francisco orders 14 bathhouses closed due to reports of high-risk sexual activity occurring in these venues.
"It has been established that the bathhouses contribute to the spread of AIDS and they ought to be closed," Mayor Dianne Feinstein said. Frustrated with gay rights groups that were blocking her two-year campaign to close the bathhouses, Feinstein decided on a different approach: closing them one by one.
Under Mayor Feinstein's direction, the City hired private investigators to go undercover into baths and other venues that were known to serve the gay community and report on anything considered by them to be an unsafe sex act.
The city's Director of Public Health, Dr. Mervyn Silverman, did not approve of these tactics, but when the investigators submitted an 85-page report that listed the types of sexual activity taking place at these venues, he felt compelled to respond, according to Randy Shilts' book And the Band Played On.
At a news conference, Dr. Silverman ordered the closure of baths and several other establishments identified in the report as places where gay men partook in unsafe sex, citing them by name, stating, “These 14 establishments are not fostering gay liberation. They are fostering disease and death.”
Within six hours of the order, two would re-open. An additional 10 re-opened within 24 hours.
The controversy over gay bathhouses and sex clubs and the roles they play in the spread of AIDS was not limited to San Francisco. Every major city with a significant gay population was struggling with this issue. Even within the gay community, members debated each other over which was more important -- public health or gay civil liberties.
But it was in San Francisco where political debates first broke out. New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Seattle and Portland followed, with local policy approaches varying from a citywide closure of all bathhouses to collaborations between health agencies and community members to introduce education and precautions for patrons.
Why were bathhouses the focus of so much intense debate? Because, to the gay community in the 1970s and 1980s, they were places that took decades of social evolution to establish.
"Early American bathhouses evolved out of traditional 1920s and ‘30s Turkish and Russian baths, which offered communal hot tubs and showers to all men," according to Stephan Ferris in Out of the Tubs, and Into the Streets! Tracing the history of bathhouse regulations in San Francisco, CA "Gay bathhouses, in contrast, distinguished themselves from these venues by permitting sex among
members and by offering food, entertainment, and private rooms."
Bathhouses catered to a mixed male clientele, serving those seeking social networking as well as providing a space for anonymous sexual encounters. Membership was driven by a common desire to engage with other members.
"They are not for taking baths," the Washington Post stated in its reporting of "The Bathhouse War." "Some of the houses have steam rooms, or saunas, or more lavish facilities that include jacuzzis and swimming pools, but that is not why men pay their $5 or $10 for a locker or a tiny private room in a dimly lit San Francisco bathhouse. Men use them to meet other men, to engage sometimes in what the clinical language calls 'multiple, anonymous sexual contacts.'"
But for many gay men, the bathhouses of the 1980s represented much more; they were a refuge.
"We were paying money to get in there, and sometimes it was too much, but we weren't paying for sex. We were paying for the territory -- to get in there," San Francisco historian Allan Be'rube' told The Post. "They have a tremendous symbolism."
In 1984, Be'rube' submitted a historical brief to the California Superior Court that provided evidence on the social and cultural importance of bathhouses. He also described the potential role the venues could play to educate the community about AIDS prevention. A year later, when the City of New York was immersed in a similarly stormy debate, Be'rube' updated his legal brief and submitted it to the NY Supreme Court.
Be'rube's defense of the bathhouses stressed the right of gay men “to use them for associational purposes that were sexual as well as social and political.” A version of this historical brief was later published in 1996 in Policing Public Sex, edited by the scholar-activist group Dangerous Bedfellows.
February 6, 1985
No Mention of AIDS in Reagan's State of the Union Address
In his State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan focuses on foreign policy, establishing what comes to be known as the “Reagan Doctrine.” He does not mention AIDS, even though more than 7,000 cases nationwide had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In his State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan talked about the need for the U.S. to provide military support to anti-communist guerrillas and resistance movements in an effort to restrain pro-communist governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America -- what became to be known as the “Reagan Doctrine.” He also spoke about domestic policy but omitted any reference to the new virus that was spreading across the country.
At one point in his speech, President Reagan said, "Mr. Speaker, I know we agree that there must be no forgotten Americans."
And yet, he neglected to mention the thousands of Americans who were living with and dying from AIDS-related illnesses. By the end of that year, the number of AIDS cases would rise dramatically, with more people becoming infected with HIV in 1985 than in all of the four previous years combined. The population groups experiencing the greatest rise in infection were infants, transfusion recipients, IV drug users, and homosexual/bisexual men.
Sources:
U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, January 17, 1986Washington Post, January 16, 1986 editionRonald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum
March 1, 1985
CPAC Member Proposes 'Extermination of Homosexuals'
Talking to reporters covering the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC, anti-gay propagandist Paul Cameron says: "Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals."
Founder of anti-gay hate groups such as the Committee to Oppose Special Rights for Homosexuals, the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality, and the Family Research Institute, Cameron attended the conference of conservative extremists hoping to frighten its members with his ideas about gay men and AIDS.
In the CPAC convention halls, Cameron told anyone who would listen that "it looks as if mosquitoes may be able to transmit AIDS," according to the Associated Press
Cameron presented himself to politicians and media representatives as a man of science, but his biased research and unethical claims had caused the American Psychological Association to expel him as a member in 1984, according to The Pink Community: The Facts by Christina Engela. Still, he managed to insert his homophobic rhetoric into the minds of influential policymakers and judges.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Cameron was conducting "psychological studies" that drew false conclusions about homosexuality, such as that it was a "curable condition" and that it was linked to pedophilia. And this was before the AIDS crisis hit.
Once gay men began dying of AIDS-related illnesses, Cameron doubled down on his anti-gay messaging and fabricated research, claiming that the only way to stop the spread of HIV was to quarantine gay men and criminalize gay sex acts, according to the Associated Press. He also pushed for the closure of all gay bars and baths, and a ban on international travel for all gay men.
For many years, Cameron would find a place for himself amongst the far-Right, pushing outrageously false claims about why gays and lesbians were "unfit parents" and "more likely to molest children" -- falsehoods that some people still believe today.
March 1985
HIV+ Inmates in Alabama Challenge Segregation Policies in Prison
In a legal first, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) files a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Alabama state prisons' policy of segregating HIV-positive prisoners.
In its suit against the State of Alabama's Department of Corrections, the ACLU's National Prison Project charged prison officials with creating a "leper colony" for inmates living with HIV, including those who didn't exhibit any symptoms associated with the disease. The suit was the first involving prisoners as a class, rather than case by case, in a challenge to incarceration policies and procedures regarding HIV-positive inmates.
One of the 139 inmates represented by the ACLU's lawsuit was 30-year-old Carmen Harris, who upon her arrival at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama, received the news that she had tested positive for HIV. Harris told The Washington Post that the prison first put her in solitary confinement and then moved her to the facility's Death Row.
"It was like they were punishing me not for my crime but for my diagnosis," Harris told WaPo.
Another HIV-positive inmate was Michael Marsh, a 40-year-old convict confined to Dorm 7 at the Limestone Correctional Facility in Capshaw, Alabama. Dorm 7 was where Alabama housed the majority of its inmates who were living with HIV, regardless of whether they exhibited any HIV-related symptoms.
"You know the phrase in the Bible about the Valley of the Shadow of Death? That's what this is like,' Marsh told a reporter from The New York Times.
Limestone was a minimum-to-medium security prison, but state officials also transferred into Dorm 7 violent offenders who tested positive for HIV, grouping them with less dangerous inmates. In contrast with Limestone's general population, Dorm 7 inmates were restricted from educational, vocational and recreational activities, including those that would allow them to earn credits toward early release. The very fact of their segregated status made it known to other inmates that they were HIV positive, making impossible any attempt to keep their condition private.
J.D. White, Limestone's warden, defended the segregation policy to the NY Times.
''It boils down to whose civil rights get violated,'' White said. ''Do you violate the rights of 132 people who test positive, or do you violate the rights of the 12,000 who don't?''
The lawsuit was the first of many filed against state prison systems across the U.S., seeking to end discriminatory practices against HIV-positive inmates. This lawsuit would fail, be appealed, and then brought to the U.S. Supreme Court. But in January 2000, the Justices would decline to hear the case.
It would take until 2012 before a federal judge would decide that Alabama's policy of segregating HIV-positive inmates violated the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
More than 2,000 researchers gathered at the conference to share information and assess prospects for controlling the disease, not yet realizing that the worst was yet to come.
The Atlanta conference featured 392 presentations and generated considerable excitement among participants eager to learn about how this new disease was playing out within specific populations in the U.S.
Much of the news was discouraging, however, as presenters introduced new data that showed that many of those dying in 1985 had been infected before 1981, and that within especially vulnerable populations, the epidemic was becoming entrenched.
At a side meeting before the day the conference opened, gay activists protested Reagan administration proposals to implement mandatory HIV testing policies, arguing that this would do little to halt the spread of the disease and would only intensify discrimination against vulnerable groups.
May 10, 1985
San Francisco Commission Releases Report on AIDS Discrimination
Research by the AIDS Discrimination Reporting Project finds that gay men living with AIDS are being terminated from their jobs because of their illness.
The study also finds that some employers are requiring gay men to present medical documentation proving that they do not have the AIDS virus, and that gay men are experiencing verbal harassment that is generated by AIDS paranoia and ignorance.
A coalition effort of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the Shanti Project, and the San Francisco Department of Public Health's Aids Activities Office, the AIDS Discrimination Reporting Project released a report of its study of AIDS-related discrimination complaints. Participants in the survey were largely gay men, some of whom were living with HIV/AIDS and some of whom were not but still experienced AIDS-related discrimination.
"Discrimination ranged from employers requiring a physician's statement denying that an employee had AIDS to actual termination and eviction," the report stated.
The report was authored by Chris van Stone and Jackie Winnow of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.
August 31, 1985
Pentagon Announces Testing of Military Recruits
The Pentagon announces that, beginning October 1, it will begin testing all new military recruits for HIV infection and will reject those who test positive for the virus.
Two Pentagon officials, who spoke to The New York Times on the condition they not be identified, said the new directive was promoted most vigorously by top Army officials, out of concern about the potential high cost of treating soldiers who are found to have the disease. Pentagon officials said about 50 soldiers are being treated in military hospitals for the disease.
The U.S. military does not universally test potential recruits for any other disease or disorder as a condition of enlistment, although new recruits are usually tested for syphilis and German measles soon after they enlist.
The announcement was condemned by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which asserted that the testing would unfairly stigmatize many people who have been exposed to the virus but who do not have the disease.
Timothy Sweeney, executive director of Lambda Legal, also contended that military testing for HIV might become a precedent for AIDS screening in private industry.
In about four years, Newsday will publish a story by Laurie Garrett that states that the DOD's policy of screening recruits and active service members for HIV came at the urging of Major Robert Redfield, of Rockville, Md., chief scientist for the Army’s AIDS research effort
“The reason we have done what we have done is that we think it’s good medicine -- and it’s medicine that might work in the civilian sector, as well,” Maj. Redfield would tell Newsday.
In 2018, President Donald Trump would appoint Redfield to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) would write a letter to President Trump asking him to reconsider the appointment due to Redfield's history of "ethically and morally questionable behavior" as an Army doctor.
September 1985
Inpatient Unit for HIV/AIDS Opens in Chicago
Unit 371 opens in Chicago's Illinois Masonic Hospital and becomes the first inpatient care unit dedicated to HIV/AIDS in the Midwest.
Dr. David Blatt and Dr. David Moore -- known in the Chicago medical community as "the two Davids" -- founded Unit 371. The HIV/AIDS unit became renowned for its compassionate approach to care.
Dr. Moore modeled Unit 371 after San Francisco General Hospital's Unit 5A. During a visit to Unit 5A, he noticed that AIDS patients were “clustered” in one unit of the hospital, which allowed the patients to receive treatment and care from professionals trained in their specialized needs.
Dr. Moore thought this was a novel and efficient approach to HIV/AIDS healthcare, and much better than the standard approach of having to educate healthcare professionals in individual units across the hospital about how to care for AIDS patients.
In October 1982, Dr. Moore was still new to practice when he saw his first patient, a personal friend who had come to him with the symptoms of AIDS. What followed were, in his words, “13 years of slow-motion carnage,” according to Health ENews of Advocate Aurora Health.
A gay man himself, Dr. Moore and his medical and life partner, Dr. Blatt, decided to spearhead what would be the first dedicated AIDS unit in the Midwest.
“It was a different time. There was so much fear then,” Dr. Blatt says. “The news media was calling it the ‘gay cancer’ and there was very little knowledge or education on what it was or how it was transmitted. There was a lot of panic and discrimination.”
Dr. Moore says they felt compelled to do something.
“This was us. This was our community and neighborhood. We were in this risk group. It was affecting our friends, our patients and we needed to take action,” he said.
For Unit 371, Drs. Moore and Blatt also incorporated the policy of San Francisco's Unit 5A of allowing partners, family, and friends unlimited visitation time with patients, according to America 250.
"Within the Illinois Masonic Medical Center, Unit 371 became the preferred unit for HIV-positive patients who did not need to be admitted to the intensive care unit," wrote Jade Ryerson in America 250.
The unit started with 23 beds, with nine rooms dedicated to hospice care. But when the AIDS crisis worsened and the number of patients swelled, many of the single rooms were converted to accommodate two patients. Staff reserved private rooms for patients who were dying or could pass on an infection.
"But what really set Unit 371 apart were the personal relationships between staff and patients," according to Ryerson. "It was common for Unit 371 staff to sit on patients’ beds, offer hugs, joke around, or become friends and socialize outside of the unit. This closeness was especially meaningful for patients who were rejected by family and friends after being diagnosed."
Drs. Blatt and Moore, who met while doing their residencies at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital, continued to oversee Unit 371 for about fifteen years.
Straight from nursing school, M.K. Czerwiec became a Unit 371 nurse in 1994.
"The death rate on Unit 371 was higher than any other hospital unit because, for so long, AIDS was a fast-moving, terminal disease," Czerwiec told Windy City Times in 2011. "In a month, we could lose 30 patients."
In 2017, Czerwiec would publish a graphic novel, Taking Turns, about her experiences working at Unit 371.
September 7, 1985
KGB Telegram Reveals AIDS Disinformation Campaign
The Soviet Union sends a telegram to Bulgarian security officials that references its disinformation campaign purporting the AIDS virus was developed by the U.S. military as a biological weapon.
The KGB, the foreign intelligence agency of the Soviet Union, directed its media channels and the intelligence services of the Soviet bloc to spread the thesis internationally that HIV was genetically engineered by the Pentagon as part of biological weapons research in the U.S. Army’s Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland.
Here is an English translation of an excerpt of the KGB telegram to Bulgarian State Security that was discovered decades later:
We are conducting a series of active measures in connection with the appearance in recent years in the USA of a new and dangerous disease, 'Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome – AIDS,' and its subsequent, largescale spread to other countries, including those in Western Europe. The goal of these measures is to create a favorable opinion for us abroad that this disease is the result of secret experiments with a new type of biological weapon by the secret services of the USA and the Pentagon that spun out of control.
In 2016, Christopher Nehring, an intelligence historian based in Europe, uncovered the KGB telegram from the Bulgarian State Security archives and passed it along to U.S. historian Douglas Selvage.
Selvage recognized the artifact as the earliest conclusive evidence that the Soviets and others were engaged in a international disinformation campaign targeting the U.S. According to Selvage, the confusion and panic around AIDS in the early 1980s made the U.S. a ripe target for disinformation.
"The KGB simply picked up on existing conspiracy theories in the U.S, added a new element that conformed to its disinformation goals (i.e., the exact location of HIV’s construction, Fort Detrick), and spread the resulting conspiracy theory internationally to its own ends," Selvage said in an interview with the MIT Press Reader.
Once the Soviet campaign was underway, it took on a life of its own.
"A cycle of misinformation and disinformation arose in which the KGB cited U.S. conspiracy theories, and U.S. conspiracy theorists, in turn, began to cite texts associated with KGB disinformation," Selvage said
Before long, people around the world came to believe, falsely, that the U.S. government was responsible for AIDS.
"The KGB happily noted that foreign journalists, without any prompting on its part, were also picking up on the claims and reporting them," Selvage said, adding, "Officials from the Reagan Administration were perturbed that Dan Rather reported the Soviets’ accusations about AIDS and Fort Detrick on the CBS Evening News in 1987 without requesting a U.S. government response."
Selvage said that it was very likely that the KGB had initiated the disinformation campaign against the U.S. as early as 1983.
September 17, 1985
President Reagan Finally Mentions 'AIDS' in Public Remarks
President Ronald Reagan mentions AIDS publicly for the first time, calling it “a top priority” and fending off criticism that funding for AIDS research is inadequate.
By the end of 1984, AIDS had already ravaged the United States for a few years, affecting at least 7,700 people and killing more than 3,500. Scientists had identified the virus that caused AIDS and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified all of its major transmission routes.
This is why it is notable that it took until September 1985, four years after the crisis began, for Reagan to first publicly address the subject of AIDS.
Exchanges between the Reagan administration and journalists in the early 1980s demonstrate that Reagan and his staffers didn't take the epidemic very seriously, for which the Reagan administration is still heavily criticized.
Reagan's successors in the White House eventually acted, albeit often very slowly, on the crisis — leading to much more research, programs like the Ryan White CARE Act that connect people to care, and the development of antiretroviral medication that increases the life expectancy of a person living with HIV by decades.
The House Appropriations Committee also urges President Reagan to appoint a coordinator for the AIDS effort, "in other words, an AIDS czar."
"Nine agencies have been engaged in this effort. ... What we need is a well-coordinated, well-planned effort, with one person running the show," said Rep. Silvio Conte, (Mass), the senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee.
The National Institutes of Health would receive $140.6 million, the Centers for Disease Control would receive $45.6 milion and $3.5 million would go to the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration.
During debate on the appropriations bill, the House accepted an amendment by Rep. Robert Dornan (R-Calif.), that would allow the surgeon general to use some funds to close bath houses "that may be responsible for transmitting AIDS."
October 1985
New City of West Hollywood Launches AIDS Response
About one year after West Hollywood is officially incorporated as an independent city, it begins actively addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
HIV/AIDS had a significant impact on the City of West Hollywood due to the disease’s elevated infection rate among gay men, which caused a devastatingly high number of deaths among the city's population.
Following the City of West Hollywood's incorporation as a city on November 29, 1984, elected officials and city staff begin working on a plan to address the epidemic in their own backyard.
In October 1985, the city launches an AIDS awareness campaign, one of the first in the country. The City of West Hollywood also becomes one of the first government entities to create a program for awarding social services grants to local HIV/AIDS organizations. The city’s response to the AIDS crisis would go on to be recognized as a model for other cities, nationally and globally.
Also during its first year of cityhood, West Hollywood would adopt landmark legislation to establish rent control and prohibit the discrimination against people with HIV and AIDS. Today, many of the city’s landmark ordinances have been duplicated and have become mainstream policies nationally and globally.
The Public Health Council resolution went beyond recommendations made by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and State Health Commissioner David Axelrod by defining “high-risk sexual activity” to include oral sex.
Mayor Edward I. Koch announced that the new regulation takes effect immediately and is to be enforced by NYC Health Department inspectors who will enter bathhouses in uniform and undercover.
The National Gay Task Force opposes the regulation, citing discriminatory practices.
“This appears to be an unequal application of law” because many experts say AIDS can be transmitted by heterosexual activity, said Ron Najman, a spokesman for the National Gay Task Force. “They are concentrating on the homosexual aspect.”
October 28, 1985
Michael Felton, Mississippi Teen Who Contracted HIV from Transfusion, Dies
Mississippi teenager Michael Felton, who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion, dies of AIDS-related illnesses. He was 14.
Michael Felton was being treated for hemophilia when he became infected with HIV from contaminated factor VIII blood. Much like Ryan White, his white counterpart in Indiana, Felton wanted to live a normal teenage life -- going to school, hanging with friends, collecting comic books and participating in sports -- but his HIV status came with stigma and discrimination from the local school district.
When Felton was diagnosed with HIV, he was one of only six people in Mississippi with HIV or AIDS, and one out of only 164 children under 13 nationwide, according to Change the Pattern, an initiative of the National AIDS Memorial, Southern AIDS Coalition and Gilead Sciences.
Felton died less than a month before Bolivar County officials were scheduled to meet to decide if the 14-year-old would be allowed to attend his freshman year of high school.
In September 2022, Felton's panel on the National AIDS Memorial Quilt was one of select panels brought to Mississippi for an exhibit honoring Black and Brown lives lost to AIDS. The exhibit, representing the largest display of the Quilt in Mississippi to date, was part of Change the Pattern's program to use the power and beauty of the AIDS Memorial Quilt as a call to action to disrupt systemic issues that impact health equity and continue to disproportionately impact communities of color and marginalized populations.
In Mississippi, new HIV diagnoses have remained high year after year with the state having the sixth-highest rate of HIV in the country.
The LA County Board of Supervisors introduced new county regulations that could put patrols inside bathhouses to ensure that patrons don’t participate in sex acts considered to be unsafe.
“If someone showed me data substantiating a correlation of the spread of this disease and my club, I would deliver the keys to City Hall tomorrow. But so far it’s only been speculation, hysteria and panic, " Silver Lake bath house owner Steve Downard told the Los Angeles Times.
“The sexual activity at the club is the same as at the Biltmore Hotel, but there are no health posters, no monthly health screening and no free condoms at the Biltmore.”
Under the new County rules, unsafe sex is defined as anal and oral intercourse between men, with or without a condom. Clubs with repeated violations could face closure.
The fact that the county rules make no mention of heterosexual acts, which also can spread AIDS, is proof, Downard says, that homophobia, not health concerns, are behind the regulations.
December 13, 1985
France Sues U.S. for Credit for Discovery of AIDS Virus
The Pasteur Institute files a suit against the U.S. Government in the U.S. Court of Claims in Washington, DC., seeking recognition that French researchers were the first to discover the virus that causes AIDS.
The long-simmering transatlantic feud over who will receive royalties on a test for the AIDS virus has erupted into a legal battle, with French scientists seeking recognition in the U.S. courts for their claim that they discovered the virus before their American counterparts.
The Pasteur Institute 's suit also seeks the right to grant permission to sell the blood test without being sued by the U.S. for counterfeiting, and the right to share in royalties collected by the U.S. for sales of blood tests by U.S. licensees.
The French scientists were the first to publish a paper on the virus, said Dr. Robert C. Gallo, the U.S. scientist credited with discovering HIV. But he asserts in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, “I was the first to suggest it was a retrovirus.”
“We had this virus in 1982. We didn’t publish on purpose because we didn’t understand it well enough to stick our necks out. To me, ‘discovery’ is a complicated word. Who first reported discovery of a virus? They did. But if the idea comes first -- that was us."
In July 1994, U.S. health officials would concede for the first time that American researchers used a virus obtained from French competitors to make the first American AIDS test kit. At that time, the U.S. would announce the signing of an agreement that would give the French a bigger share of royalties from worldwide sales of AIDS tests.
The contract would end the long-standing and sometimes acrimonious dispute that strained relations between the two countries.
December 19, 1985
LA Times Poll Indicates Americans Support AIDS Quarantine
An Los Angeles Times poll contends that a majority of Americans favor quarantining people who have AIDS.
The LA Times poll found that more than half of its respondents support quarantining AIDS patients, nearly half would approve of ID cards for those who test positive for AIDS antibodies, more than a third would be willing to pay a one-cent national sales tax to finance greater research, and one in seven would favor such radical action as tattooing those with the disease.
The poll results came from interviews with about 2,300 across the U.S. -- a very small pool of respondents -- yet the announcement of the poll results garnered considerable attention nationwide with little regard to the small number of Americans involved in taking the survey.
In its article about the poll results, the LA Times also stated that most responents were adverse to electing homosexuals to office and were disinclined to support candidates who espoused homosexual causes.
"Even a whisper of suspicion about homosexuality was enough to turn almost 60% of the voters against a candidate for the office of President," stated the LA Times article written by political reporter John Balzar.
"Respondents in the poll were given characteristics of make-believe candidates," Balzar wrote. "When a rumor of homosexuality was included in the descriptions, support for a make-believe candidate dropped from 70% to 11%."
March 18, 1986
National Review Founder William F. Buckley Proposes AIDS Tattoo
William F. Buckley, seen by many as the founder of the modern conservative movement, writes in a New York Times op-ed that people diagnosed with HIV should be tattooed with a warning on their arm and buttocks.
Under the heading “Critical Steps in Combating the AIDS Epidemic,” Buckley writes:
"Everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals."
Buckley, founder of National Review magazine, also proposes that everyone seeking a marriage license must "present himself not only with a Wassermann test but also an AIDS test."
He goes on to write that the couple could marry only after "the intended spouse is advised that her intended husband has AIDS, and agrees to sterilization."
Looking back at this time, Michael Spector would write in The New Yorker in 2021, "Several years into a harrowing epidemic, gay Americans were told that an act of consensual sex could not only infect them with a fatal disease; it could also, at the will of a state, send them to prison. The fears of internment were not easily dismissed as hysteria."
Buckley would later withdraw the proposal, because "it proved socially intolerable."
At the time of his death in early 2008, Buckley would no longer be considered a journalist of any repute, although conservative circles would continue to champion his ideas. When he died, he was working on a book about President Ronald Reagan.
June 28, 1986
WHO Convenes to Review Strategic Plan on HIV/AIDS
The World Health Organization convenes a second meeting of its AIDS task force in Geneva to strategize a global response to the spread of the disease.
With representatives from 27 countries attending, the meeting focused on a review of the Global WHO Strategy for the Prevention and Control of AIDS: Projected Needs for 1986-1987, a proposed plan to address the AIDS crisis on a global scale, according to The Fourth Ten Years of the World Health Organization.
Attendees agreed that AIDS and HIV infection represented a mounting international health problem and neither a vaccine nor a therapy effective against HIV was likely to become available for at least several years. Therefore, a global strategy for AIDS and HIV control was needed, according to the meeting report.
WHO's plan of action, which was based on recommendations from its network of collaborating centers on AIDS, put forth a series of global responsibilities for AIDS prevention and control, as well as activities that individual countries needed to adopt in order for the plan to be effective.
Dr. Halfdan Mahler, WHO's director who had previously dismissed the immense global implications of AIDS, attended the meeting in its entirety, according to the meeting report.
Following this meeting, WHO took concrete steps to strengthen its activities, including a reallocation of financial and personnel resources to support the new strategic plan. The first meeting of WHO's AIDS task force was held on April 21-22, 1986 in Geneva.
June 30, 1986
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Georgia Sodomy Law
Bowers v. Hardwick was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld, in a 5–4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults.
The majority opinion, by Justice Byron White, reasoned that the Constitution did not confer "a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy." A concurring opinion by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger cited the "ancient roots" of prohibitions against homosexual sex, quoting William Blackstone's description of homosexual sex as an "infamous crime against nature," worse than rape, and "a crime not fit to be named."
The case arose on August 3, 1982, when a police officer who had been admitted to the home of Michael Hardwick in Atlanta witnessed him and a male companion in a bedroom engaging in sex. The officer had been executing a warrant for Hardwick’s arrest for failing to appear in court on a charge of public drinking (it was later determined that the warrant was invalid because Hardwick had already paid the $50 fine). The officer promptly arrested both men for violating Georgia’s antisodomy statute.
In its decision, the Court ruled that while the "right to privacy" protects intimate aspects of marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child rearing from state interference, it does not protect gay sodomy because "no connection between family, marriage, or procreation on the one hand and homosexual activity on the other has been demonstrated."
The Supreme Court decision would stand for 17 years until 2003, when Lawrence v. Texas would overturn Bowers.
1986
Cuban Government Imposes Quarantine on HIV-Infected People
Cuba becomes the only country in the world to impose a policy of universal HIV testing and mandated quarantine of all virus carriers.
The Cuban government opened the first of its fourteen sanitariums in Santiago de Las Vegas, located outside the major Cuban city of Havana. It also launched a widespread HIV testing campaign and sent anyone found to be HIV-positive to the sanitarium for life.
By the end of 1988, Cuban authorities would report that 240 people living with HIV -- 171 men and 69 women -- have been quarantined to date in the facility, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In 1988, the LA Times would report on a U.S. delegation invited by the Cuban government to visit the Santiago de Las Vegas quarantine center.
“We were shown groups of nondescript apartments that looked like typical Cuban suburban housing,” said Ronald Bayer, associate professor at Columbia University’s School of Public Health, in an interview with the LA Times. “It was neither barracks-like nor dungeon-like, although I have to assume we were shown the best."
Bayer was one of a team of seven colleagues from Columbia University and the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center who were the first Americans to receive a first-hand glimpse of Cuba's HIV quarantine system. Their host was Cuba’s deputy minister of public health, Hector Terry.
Bayer said he continued to be disturbed by Cuba's policy of forcing HIV-positive people into quarantine.
“Even if it all looked as good as what we saw, it does not resolve the moral justification of incarceration based on supposed future behavior,” said Bayer, a medical ethicist whose specialty was HIV/AIDS healthcare and policy.
At the height of Cuba's quarantine program, around 10,000 people with HIV would be isolated in facilities.
In 1991, Eduardo Martinez tested positive for HIV and was sent to the Santiago de Las Vegas sanitarium. Martinez had been a well-known designer in Cuba, creating costumes for the entertainment industry.
Martinez told NPR reporter Rebecca Sananes what it was like to receive the HIV diagnosis and then be separated from society.
"I didn't want to go, but they would come for you and take you by force," he told NPR.
He said that government officials interrogated the sanitarium patients and urged them reveal their sexual partners, so they too could be tested for HIV and quarantined.
Martinez was housed in one of the few air conditioned residences and he could rely on a steady supply of food, but the isolation from his family, friends and career made him fall into a deep depression. After going on a hunger strike, he was moved to a psychiatric ward for a month.
"It was very sad for me, because I didn't understand why I was infected and why I had to go be interned in that place," he says. "And on top of this, that was killing my career. I was at the top of stardom at that moment."
Eventually, he reconciled himself to his situation, dire as it was, and accepted that the sanitarium would be his entire world for the rest of his life. He created a drag persona, "Samantha," to help him reclaim his passion for fashion design.
"I needed a model in order to continue producing designs, and I just used myself as a model," Martinez said.
He also encouraged his fellow patients to pursue creative self-expression and built a community of artists. Sadly, Martinez was one of the only people from his sanitarium generation to survive to a time when HIV could be effectively managed through treatment.
He told NPR about how he watched many of his friends die as they volunteered as test subjects for potential cures researched by the Cuban government.
With funds to Cuba from the Soviet Union ending with the 1991 fall of the USSR, the ongoing expense to house HIV patients was deemed too costly, and in 1995, Cuba began to allow HIV-positive patients to leave the sanitariums.
Martinez told NPR that he was one of the first patients to be offered his freedom, but the idea of leaving his home of five years scared him. Cuba was experiencing widespread homophobia and poverty, and his life in Santiago de Las Vega was filled with comfort, safety, friendship and creative purpose.
"I refused to leave, because I said I was too committed to the community inside the sanitarium," he said.
But by 1996, he decided to return to Havana, where he built a second career as a drag artist. Martinez produces fashion shows and drag performances at one of Havana's most famous nightclubs, the Tropicana. He said that sometimes, members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba come to see him perform as "Samantha."
October 9, 1986
Violence Against Gays and Lesbians on the Rise
One in every five gay men and one in every 10
lesbians report being physically assaulted because of their sexual orientation, according to an eight-city study of antigay violence conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
In the first Congressional hearing to address anti-gay violence, Kevin Berrill of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (now called the National LGBTQ Task Force) told members of the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice that in addition to battling the AIDS epidemic, the gay community was also contending with rampant and deadly antigay violence.
"There is disturbing evidence that the AIDS and antigay violence epidemics may now be following the same menacing curve," Berrill said. "For inasmuch as AIDS has spread, so has the fear and hatred that spawns violence."
Berrill went on to criticize the federal government for viewing widespread violence against gay men and lesbians as "just a gay problem and therefore not of concern to all society." He bitingly referred to this passive policy as the same one the government has adopted to address HIV and AIDS.
In its study on antigay violence, the Task Force surveyed more than 2,000 community members in eight cities. Berrill also presented data from local governments which confirmed the Task Force's findings. At the time, the federal government did not collect data on violence against LGBTQ community members.
"The toll of antigay violence cannot be measured solely in terms of these statistics," Berrill told the Congress members. "These numbers do not measure the anguish, fear and loss experienced by Dee, who is still recovering from burns caused by acid thrown at her face when she was leaving the Los Angeles Gay Community Center. Or by Robert from New Jersey, where assailants beat him, extinguished cigarettes in his face, and then tied him to the back of a truck, dragging him in tow. Or by the family and friends of Charlie Howard of Maine, who was thrown off a bridge to his death by three teenagers."
Berrill called on Congress to initiate federal studies on antigay violence and pass tougher laws to combat violent crimes targetting gays and lesbians. He also urged the repeal of all sodomy laws (which were still on the books of most states), and called for the passage of legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Also testifying that day was Diana Christensen, executive director of the Community
United Against Violence in San Francisco, who told the subcommittee the following:
"Is the increase in antigay violence an indicator of an AIDS-related backlash? At this point, I believe that AIDS and homosexuality have become synonymous in the American public's mind. For the homophobic mind, AIDS is simply another justification for violence."
David Wertheimer, executive director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (which would become the NYC Anti-Violence Project) also provided the highlights of his 20-page testimonial submitted to the subcommittee. Founded in 1980 to provide support services to lesbian and gay survivors of homophobic violence, the organization became a city-wide, nonprofit service
provider in 1983.
Wertheimer reported that between 1984 and 1985, reported cases of violence "began to mushroom," and the organization's caseload increased 41%. In the current year -- 1986 -- violence was reported even more frequently, with between 40 and 60 new cases each month.
He explained that in the past, cases typically were in the form of antigay and antilesbian verbal harassment in a public place, or in the form of menacing behavior or even assault. A new form of violence had emerged recently, Wertheimer said, one that now represented 28% of the Anti-Violence Project's caseload.
"AIDS-related violence -- that is violence that may begin with verbal and menacing acts that are specifically related to AIDS," he said. "For example, someone might start an attack by saying, 'I hate faggots. You faggots give us AIDS.' Or a lesbian might find notes on her door saying 'Lesbians, dykes, you give us AIDS. Get out of the building.'"
Wertheimer told the Congress members that antigay violence can result in death. The organization reported seven antigay homicides in 1985, and 15 such homicides in the first nine months of 1986.
Also providing testimony was Dr. Gregory M. Herek, assistant professor of psychology at
the City University of New York and a member of the American Psychological Association's Committee on Lesbian and Gay Concerns.
"A growing body of scientific data, including my own empirical research, shows that individuals' irrational fears surrounding AIDS -- such as fear of transmission through casual contact -- are highly
correlated with their level of homophobia," Dr. Herek said. "I interpret this finding to mean that reducing AIDS hysteria requires confronting its roots in homophobia, and that eliminating homophobia will require education about AIDS. Unfortunately, the U.S. Justice Department has sanctioned discrimination based on fears of AIDS-contagion, and has thereby fueled fears about AIDS
and probably contributed to public homophobia."
Rep. Barney Frank (who in 1987 would become the first member of Congress to be openly gay) also spoke for the Congressional record in support of raising awareness about anti-gay violence.
October 1986
U.S. Grant Program Feeds Growing Healthcare Needs
The U.S. launches the AIDS Service Demonstration Grants program, allocating $15.3 million in available funding to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami.
The grant program is run by the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. As the HRSA's first AIDS-specific health initiative, program focused its funding on cities hardest-hit by HIV/AIDS.
In the years to come, the HRSA would create the HIV/AIDS Bureau and develop a comprehensive system of HIV primary medical care, medications, and essential support services for low-income people with HIV.
The HIV/AIDS Bureau will oversee the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and play a critical role in helping diagnose, treat, prevent, and respond as part of the "Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America" initiative.
The report, issued by U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, M.D., also calls for a nationwide education campaign that includes early sex education in schools, increased use of condoms, and voluntary HIV testing.
"By the end of 1991, an estimated 270,000 cases of AIDS will have occurred with 179,000 deaths within the decade since the disease was first recognized," Dr. Koop states in the report's preface.
"In the year 1991, an estimated 145,000 patients with AIDS will need health and supportive services at a total cost of between $8 and $16 billion."
October 29, 1986
Report Calls for Nationwide Education Campaign
The National Academy of Sciences issues a report calling for a “massive media, educational and public health campaign to curb the spread of the HIV infection,” as well as for the creation of a National Commission on AIDS.
The report, titled Confronting AIDS: Directions for Public Health, Health Care, and Research, is issued by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the principal health unit of the NAS. The IOM anticipates that the cost of the public health campaign will reach $2 billion by 1990.
The mission of NAS is to provide scientific advice to the government “whenever called upon” by any government department. The Academy receives no compensation from the government for its services.
February 1, 1987
Global Response Begins with WHO Program
The World Health Organization (WHO) launches the Special Programme on AIDS to serve as the architect and keystone of a global AIDS plan.
The two main functions of WHO's program were: (1) to provide global leadership and ensure international collaboration
and cooperation; and (2) to provide support to national programs to prevent and control AIDS, according to The Fourth Ten Years of the World Health Organization.
WHO established a global commission on AIDS and a management committee to support and guide the program. As part of the new program, a special public information service was launched to satisfy the increasing media interest in HIV/AIDS and to ensure that accurate and timely information was being disseminated to the public.
Specifically, the Special Programme on AIDS sought to:
raise awareness;
formulate evidence-based policies;
provide technical and financial support to countries;
initiate relevant social, behavioral, and biomedical research;
promote participation by nongovernmental organizations; and
champion rights of those living with HIV.
With technical and financial support from WHO, AIDS programs rapidly began to be established in nations throughout the world. WHO puts forth the idea that a global response was vital not only for national interests but also because "ultimately AIDS cannot be stopped in any one country unless it is stopped in all countries."
At the global level, the program was responsible for strategic leadership, developing consensus, coordinating scientific research, exchanging information, assuring technical cooperation and mobilizing and coordinating resources. During 1986 and 1987, a total of 127 countries sought WHO’s collaboration on a national response to AIDS, according to The Fourth Ten Years of the World Health Organization.
Founded in 1948, WHO is the United Nations agency that connects nations to promote health, keep the world safe and serve vulnerable populations. On January 1, 1996, the UN would launch UNAIDS to consolidate its global AIDS response.
March 19, 1987
U.S. Approves AZT, First Medication for AIDS
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the first medication for AIDS -- AZT (zidovudine), an antiretroviral drug initially developed to treat cancer.
FDA directors approved AZT treatment, even though they had serious concerns about the toxicity of the medication.
As the only medication available to treat HIV, AZT became a highly sought-after treatment, albeit one fraught with side effects. Studies showed that AZT therapy could lead to the damage of muscle tissues, including the heart, and also the suppression of the production of red blood cells, neutrophils, and other cells in the bone marrow.
In addition, the side effects of fatigue, malaise, and anemia were common. Many patients taking AZT experienced gastrointestinal intolerance, nausea and vomiting. Rarer side effects included lactic acidosis and hepatic steatosis.
The drug’s approval remains controversial to this day, but now that we are in a world where treatment options are so far advanced, it can be difficult to imagine the sense of urgency permeating the medical community in the 1980s.
Today, if someone is diagnosed with HIV, he or she can choose among more than 40 drugs that can treat the disease. And there is an excellent chance that with the right combination of medications, given at the right time, HIV levels can be reduced and kept so low that the person never gets sick and the virus becomes undetectable.
March 24, 1987
FDA Accelerates Drug Approvals
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issues regulations that expand access to promising new medications that have not yet been approved or licensed by the agency. This accelerates the approval of drugs by two to three years.
In a few months, the FDA would go on to issue treatment IND (investigational new drug) regulations on May 22 to permit new drugs to be used to treat patients before clinical trials are completed where no alternative therapy exists for a "serious disease."
In its explanation of the regulations, the FDA mentions advanced cases of AIDS as the first example of an immediately life-threatening disease, but did not include AIDS in its list of examples of serious diseases. It explained that some diseases, like multiple sclerosis, are not serious at earlier stages, and that the Treatment IND regulations would not apply to drugs intended to treat those earlier stages of disease.
March 31, 1987
American & French Researchers Share Credit for Discovery of Virus
President Ronald Reagan and French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac end an international scientific dispute when they announce that researchers from the two countries will share credit for discovery of the AIDS virus.
The countries agree that patent rights to a blood test that emerged from that discovery will also be shared, with most of the royalties to be donated to a new foundation for AIDS research and education.
This settles a years-long rift between the two countries, each laying claim to the valuable patent for the first HIV-antibody test. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services claimed virologist Robert Gallo first developed the test, while the Pasteur Institute claimed it was French virologist Luc Montagnier.
Gallo had won the prestigious Lasker Award in 1986 for his share of the work (his second Lasker, having won in 1982 for his work on retroviruses).
Years later, the National Institutes of Health would conduct an investigation that proves Gallo and his colleagues first had isolates of HIV with the exception of one sample that originated from the Pasteur Institute's lab (which was requested by the Gallo lab and sent to them from Paris).
Gallo and Montagnier later agree to share the title of co-discovers of the virus and they write several papers together describing their work in Science (Dec. 29, 2002) and the New England Journal of Medicine (Dec. 11, 2003).
However, in 2008 when Stockholm would call with the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, it was only for Luc Montagnier. The scientific world would be shocked to learn that the Nobel Committee was snubbing Gallo’s work, but because those archival records are locked up until 2058, we will not know the precise argument behind this decision for many years.
April 6, 1987
Dr. Koop Focuses on Children with AIDS, Calls for Sex Ed
At a four-day workshop at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop draws attention to the plight of the growing number of children who acquire AIDS from their mothers or through blood transfusions.
The workshop kicks off with a large press conference, where Dr. Koop announces that AIDS is a growing menace to the nation's children and reiterates his call for early sex education as part of the general effort to halt its spread. He recommends that sex education start in kindergarten and include information about AIDS.
''It's the responsibility of parents, and it should begin before children go to school,'' Dr. Koop says.
He mentions that parents are often reluctant to discuss sex with their children, and so the burden falls upon schools, churches and synagogues to teach children and youth about sex and AIDS.
"If parents don't do it, they've abrogated their responsibility and somebody else has to do it," Dr. Koop says.
Dr. Koop's stance for early sex education puts him at odds with some of his fellow conservatives.
The workshop brings together families affected by HIV, leading HIV researchers and clinicians, mental health professionals, public health officials, and representatives from the insurance, legal, and nonprofit organizations.
In the last week, the number of children under 13 years old diagnosed with AIDS reaches 471, double the number of cases reported a year ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In addition, there are 139 cases among teen-agers.
But Dr. Koop says these figures do not include as many as 2,000 children who have some AIDS symptoms but who do not meet the strict Federal definition of the illness, and he says the number of infected children is expected to continue to increase ''dramatically.''
Dr. Koop also notes that a disproportinate number of children infected with AIDS are members of minority groups: about 50% are black and 33% are Hispanic.
''We have, therefore, a segment of society that is very difficult to reach,'' Dr. Koop says.
April 7, 1987
FDA Declares HIV Prevention as Indication for Condoms
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorizes the sale of male condoms to include HIV prevention as an indication for use, marking a major stride in public health communication and safe sex and HIV/AIDS transmission.
AIDS brings condoms back to the forefront for sexually active people of all sexual orientation.
Nevertheless, condom use does not equal 100% protection from HIV, and its effectiveness largely depends on correct and consistent use. Also, some people are allergic to the latex, lubricants, and perfumes.
The FDA also begins to test latex condoms for leaks, resulting in an improvement in the overall quality of condom products.
April 28, 1987
Los Angeles County Creates Commission on AIDS
With the total number of confirmed AIDS cases in Los Angeles County reaching 2,965, the Board of Supervisors vote unanimously to create a 17-member LA County Commission on AIDS to advise on ways the county can combat the epidemic.
The new AIDS Commission would replace the three-year-old AIDS task force formed by Supervisor Ed Edelman and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. The Supervisors said they would appoint to the commission activists in the fight against AIDS as well as county officials.
The unanimous vote by the five-member LA County Board of Supervisors followed an April 14, 1987 editorial by the Los Angeles Timescalling for the supervisors to approve the proposal for a county AIDS commission.
"Such a commission could be of great assistance to the Board of Supervisors in the weeks ahead when major budget decisions and major policy shifts will be before the board," wrote the LA Times editorial board. "And the commission could reassure the community that the AIDS problems in this region are being addressed."
Supervisor Ed Edelman told the Los Angeles Times that the new commission would help to coordinate efforts by various county departments in the local effort to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. At the time, local efforts were concentrated in educational, mental health and hospice programs.
According to the LA Times, the total number of confirmed AIDS cases in Los Angeles County in May 1987 was 2,965, making the county the third most impacted region in the U.S. Only San Francisco and New York had more AIDS cases.
In its editorial, the LA Times criticized LA County for failing to organize "the basic services required to handle the rapidly rising caseload of AIDS patients."
The LA Times pointed out that while in-patient care was available at some of the larger county facilities, there were virtually no home-care, day-care, nursing-facility or hospice programs offered by the county. As time ticked by of the lives of people living with AIDS, the county supervisors were withholding funds from critical programs until there was more state and federal money to supplement the county budget.
"With the advice of the task force, the AIDS Project Los Angeles and other professionals, the supervisors can quickly organize an effective commission to see that not another minute is wasted," the LA Times wrote.
Rabbi Allen Freehling would be the first Chair of the AIDS Commission, and the appointed commissioners would include Rand Schrader, an openly gay Los Angeles Municipal Court judge who would serve as Chair of the Commission from 1989 to 1991.
May 15, 1987
U.S. Bans HIV-Positive Immigrants & Travellers
The U.S. Public Health Service adds HIV as a “dangerous contagious disease” to its immigration and travel exclusion list. The HIV ban will not be lifted until 2010.
"It was not the discovery of HIV alone, but the economic and political climate of the 1980s that led to the introduction of the ban," writes Dr. Susanna E. Winston and Dr. Curt G. Beckwith in AIDS Patient Care STDS.
In the early 1980s, a worldwide economic recession drove immigrants to enter the U.S., fueling American fears of foreigners taking jobs and becoming a burden on the health and welfare systems. This coincided with the explosion of the AIDS epidemic, with fear and misunderstanding about the disease feeding into the growing xenophobia.
It is in this environment that HIV/AIDS is added to the U.S. list of dangerous contagious diseases.
At first, only individuals whose illness advanced to AIDS are excluded from U.S. travel (based on the argument that AIDS affects a person's wage-earning capacity). But then, under pressure to demonstrate efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic, President Reagan moves to require all immigrants be tested for HIV, and that HIV infection (with or without AIDS) be included as a disease of public health significance.
This adds HIV to the list of dangerous diseases that includes leprosy, tuberculosis, syphilis and gonorrhea.
The U.S. starts mandatory AIDS testing of the 500,000 applicants seeking permanent residence. The ban includes travellers from other countries who test positive for HIV.
The ramifications of the HIV immigration and travel ban would come to light both domestically and internationally with the case of Hans Paul Verhoef. While traveling to San Francisco to attend the 1989 National AIDS Forum, Verhoef, an HIV-infected Dutch citizen and rising chair of the Dutch HIV Foundation, would be detained and arrested when Immigration and Naturalization Service agents find AZT in his luggage.
Verhoef's arrest sets off an outcry from the international AIDS community in objection of the ban, with protests and threats of boycotts of the two upcoming international conferences, planned for San Francisco (1990) and Boston (1992). For the 1990 International AIDS Conference (IAS), President George H.W. Bush issues an executive order temporarily waiving the ban for all attendees. But IAS organizers decide to hold no further conferences in the U.S. until the ban is revoked, and the 1992 IAS conference is relocated from Boston to Berlin.
The travel ad immigration ban would be lifted 22 years later, on January 4, 2010. A new federal rule under President Barack Obama's administration would be heralded as a monumental achievement, accomplished through the hard work of advocates.
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In the year:
Lives lost to AIDS
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Figures represent estimated lives lost in the year.
For the years 1982-1986, data is based on estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. For the years 1987-2019, data is based on estimates from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Number of U.S. deaths attributed to HIV infection is in death certificate data (per the NCHS’s Tenth Revision of the ICD [ICD-10] for selecting underlying cause of death).
The first cases of what would become known as AIDS were discovered in Los Angeles in 1981. AIDS would soon become a global epidemic. Since 1981, over 700,000 lives have been lost in the US, and approximately 40 million globally. The World Health Organization recently estimated approximately 38 million people are living with HIV across the world.
Figures represent estimated new diagnoses for the year.
The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) series is prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). For the period 1981-2007, the data for HIV diagnoses is based CDC estimates as reported in the MMWR.
For the period 2008-2019, the data for HIV diagnoses is from National HIV Surveillance System (NHSS).
HIV cases include persons with Stage 3 (AIDS) classification.
