HIV/AIDS
A Timeline: 1981–2011 • Informal distribution of clean syringes begins in Boston and New Haven.
1985
preventing transmission of HIV through sexual contact and blood transfusions.
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Harvard Public Health Review
• First International AIDS Conference held in Atlanta. • First HIV antibody test licensed • AZT, the first drug used to treat by the FDA detects antibodAIDS, begins clinical trials. ies to HIV. Blood banks begin screening the U.S. blood supply. • C. Everett Koop issues “Surgeon General’s Report on • Public Health Service issues first AIDS,” calling for education recommendations for preventand condom use. ing mother-to-child transmission of HIV. • AIDS has now been reported in every region of the world.
• In West Africa, a second type of HIV—HIV-2—is discovered in commercial sex workers. 1987
• First antiretroviral drug—zidovudine, or AZT—approved by FDA. • World Health Organization launches Global Programme on AIDS. • President Reagan makes first public speech about AIDS and launches Presidential Commission on HIV. • Ryan White, a 13-year-old hemophiliac with AIDS, is barred from school in Indiana. • Rock Hudson announces that he has AIDS and dies later this year. 1986
• President Reagan first mentions the word “AIDS” in public.
• FDA sanctions first human testing of candidate vaccine against HIV. • FDA creates new class of experimental drugs, Treatment Investigational New Drugs (INDs), which accelerates drug approval by two to three years.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bettman/Corbis, SSPL/Science Museum
• A major outbreak of AIDS among both men and women in •U .S. Centers for Disease Control central Africa is reported. and Prevention (CDC) reports five cases of rare pneumonia in young gay men in the June 5 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) that later are determined to be AIDS. This marks the official beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. By year’s end, a total of 159 cases of the new disease are recorded in the U.S. • Luc Montagnier and Françoise 1982 Barré-Sinoussi at the Pasteur • CDC formally establishes the Institute in Paris isolate the viterm Acquired Immune Defirus that causes AIDS. They name ciency Syndrome (AIDS), which it lymphadenopathy-associated refers to four “identified risk virus (LAV). factors” of male homosexuality, 1984 intravenous drug abuse, Haitian • Robert Gallo of the National origin, and hemophilia A. Cancer Institute isolates the vi•C ases of AIDS are reported in rus that causes AIDS. He names hemophiliacs, women, infants, it human T-cell lymphotropic and recipients of blood transfuvirus type III (HTLV-III). sions. • Scientists conclude that AIDS • Transmission of an infectious is caused by a new retrovirus, agent through blood and sexual which they later name human contact is strongly suspected. immunodeficiency virus (HIV). • F irst AIDS case reported in • U.S. Department of Health and Africa. Human Services Secretary Mar1983 garet Heckler predicts an AIDS vaccine will be ready for testing • The U.S. Public Health Service within two years. issues recommendations for 1981