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| The 80's History Project Human Interest The HIV/AIDS Crisis On June 5, 1981, the CDC published a report written by Dr. Michael Gottlieb of the UCLA Medical Center on a mysterious outbreak of a rare form of pneumonia among gay men. The article described "...the possibility of a cellular-immune dysfunction related to a common exposure that predisposes inidiiduals to opportunistic infections." His findings would be hauntingly prescient, but somewhat inadequate to describe the epidemic that followed. That same year, gay men who are seriously ill or have died begin to be linked to this new "syndrome." By 1982, the emerging health threat has been given a name, Aquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome...AIDS. The disease was also found in several hemophiliacs, evidently infected by the frequent blood transfusions they required. The following year, the San Francisco Department of Health issued the first brochure on AIDS, warning that the nations blood supply may be compromised. In 1984, scientists identified the culprit of the mounting epidemic, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV. By 1985, AIDS had spread to 51 countries around the world. The first AIDS conference is held in Atlanta, to try to find new ways to confront the challenge that AIDS presented to the health care community. Also in 1985, the first celebrity to to publicly affirm having AIDS, Rock Hudson, dies. National and world health authorities began to seriously organize themselves against the AIDS crisis in the last half of the decade. In 1986, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended distributing free sterile needles to drug addicts to prevent the spread of the disease by contaminated needles. The U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, called for a greater public health response and sex education efforts. In 1987, the FDA approved the first drug to fight HIV, and President Reagan gave the first ever presidential speech of AIDS. In the late 80's, the fight against AIDS finally gained momentum. The WHO institutes an annual "World AIDS Day", beginning on December 1, 1988. Surgeon General Koop proclaims an awareness campaign to send an AIDS information pamphlet to every American household, and the FDA announced a new "fast-track" process to appove new AIDS drugs more quickly. By the close of the decade, the worldwide AIDS epidemic showed no signs of abatement, but improved awareness made AIDS everyone's concern, not just a problem that only afflicted certain segments of the population. |