Featured Items:
Events:
The History of HIV and AIDS
HIV and AIDS appeared in the late 1970s when doctors began to see an increasing number of patients with an unusual strain of pneumonia and rare cancers. Some noticed the disease appeared most often in men who had sex with men and began calling it Gay-Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or GRID. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was isolated in 1983 by Luc Montagnier at the French Institute Pasteur. This virus was called Lymphadenopathy-Associated Virus. Not long after, Robert Gallo of the U.S. National Cancer Institute discovered a related virus he called HTLV-3.
AIDS was clinically identified in 1983, but medical experts believe the syndrome existed for many years before it was recognized, evidenced by clusters of people infected with what may have been AIDS in a number of places in southern and eastern Africa.
Initial Perceptions within the United States
When the first cases of AIDS were reported in the United States, some of the best medical minds went to work on the problem. After a period of time, blood supplies were tested and purged of potentially infected blood. “At-risk” populations were urged to seek HIV testing. Because the homosexual community was originally the hardest hit, this well-educated and well-resourced segment of the