How panic, confusion and prejudice followed a mysterious and deadly virus that swept around the world
In 1981, five healthy gay men, all between the ages of 29 and 35 and all within the area of Los Angeles, were treated for Pneumocystis Pneumonia. This was highly unusual. PCP is a rare infection, typically only seen in patients with immune deficiency. But such was its severity that two of the five would never leave the hospital. On 5 June, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report covered the cases and concerns were quickly raised about the possibility of a deadly affliction striking down gay men. By 1986, both the virus and the immune deficiency condition it caused had been named; HIV and AIDS. It would take 15 years for effective treatment to be developed and by 1990 more than 100,000 people in the United States alone had died. What’s more, the stigma associated with the illness led to a wave of homophobia and a lack of understanding that remains to this day.
THE PANDEMIC BEGINS
Following the MMWR report’s publication and an outbreak of a similarly rare form of cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma, in New York, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began to investigate. At the time, few facts were known and the popular notion was that the condition only affected gay men. This conviction led to the coining of the term GRID or ‘Gay-Related Immune Deficiency’ to describe the condition.
Already, news of the affliction was circulating among the United States queer communities. In August of 1981, the playwright and author Larry Kramer (who later dramatised his experience in The Normal Heart) arranged a meeting of 80 gay men in his New York apartment. Here Dr Alvin E Friedman-Kien, who alongside Dr Linda Laubenstein had written the paper on the outbreak of Kaposi’s sarcoma, gave a presentation outlining his fears.
Andy Humm, an attendee of the event, explained in a retrospective article for Philadelphia Gay News that the origins of the illness were still unknown and as such there was much speculation. “We knew the gay patients were immunosuppressed but not why,” he began. “Recreational drug use? Multiple STIs from multiple partners? There was even speculation about a viral agent.” By the meeting’s end a total of $6,635 had been raised and was used to found Gay Men’s Health Crisis, an organisation designed to provide support and to fund research. In September 1982, the CDC gave a name to the mysterious affliction: AIDS.
By 1983 AIDS was sweeping across the country. At that year’s National Aids Forum, 11 gay men living with the condition outlined a list of principles that they hoped the healthcare professionals present would adopt. They stated how they were not to be called ‘victims’ but instead were to be referred to as ‘people with AIDS’ and demanded an equal opinion on their own h
