Twenty-five years

[eruthros]

Tomorrow, June 5th, 2006, is the 25th anniversary of the first publication about AIDS deaths in the United States. On June 5th, Dr. Michael Gottlieb, an immunologist, wrote up a set of patient histories for the CDC's Morbity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR): "in the period October 1980-May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocytis carinii pneumonia at 3 different hospitals in Los Angeles, California." Later, he said: "I thought this might be bigger than Legionnaire’s disease.” (You can see his write-up of those patients here.)

By the July 4th MMWR, clusters of Kaposi's sarcoma and Pneumocytis carinii pneumonia were being reported in San Francisco and New York. The cluster of Kaposi's sarcoma was also reported in the New York Times in July. The article contained this, now infamous, quote: "Dr. Curran said there was no apparent danger to non homosexuals from contagion. 'The best evidence against contagion', he said, 'is that no cases have been reported to date outside the homosexual community or in women.'" (The article is reprinted at the bottom of this page.)

Previous cases exist: HIV was found in the blood samples of a man from the Congo, taken in 1959. It was found in the tissue samples of a 15-year-old male prostitute who died of Kaposi's sarcoma in 1969. It was found in the tissue samples of a Norwegian sailor and his wife, who died in 1976. Of a Danish surgeon who died in 1977. But the literature of the AIDS epidemic, the AIDS epidemic as a concept, and the beginning of the CDC's public health response to what was later named AIDS, began with that list of five gay men, all previously healthy, all with no "clinically apparent underlying immunodeficiency." (From the editorial note in the MMWR.)

I really, really don't want to cut-tag this list, but I think someone will kill me if I don't, so. Rest in peace:
Grethe Rask (1977)
Klaus Nomi (1983)
Jobriath (1983)
Michel Foucault (1984)
Gaëtan Dugas (1984)
Bobbi Campbell (1984)
Rock Hudson (1985)
Ricky Wilson (1985)
Jerry Smith (1986)
Gia Carangi (1986)
Jeffrey Mylett (1986)
Perry Ellis (1986)
Stephen Stucker (1986)
Michael Bennett (1987)
Liberace (1987)
Arthur Bressan (1987)
Geoffrey Burridge (1987)
Willi Smith (1987)
Colin Higgins (1988)
Leonard Frey (1988)
Sylvester (1988)
Max Robinson (1988)
Leonard Matlovich (1988) -- epitaph: "When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men, and a discharge for loving one."
Bruce Chatwin (1989)
Sighsten Herrgård (1989)
Carlos Almaraz (1989)
Trevor Kent (1989)
Merritt Butrick (1989)
Amanda Blake (1989)
Steve Rubell (1989)
Christopher Bernau (1989)
Alan Bowne (1989)
Robert Mapplethorpe (1989)
Tim Richmond (1989)
Ondrej Nepela (1989)
gawlfor's uncle John (early 1990s)
Keith Haring (1990)
Tom Fogerty (1990)
René Highway (1990)
Vito Russo (1990)
Franklyn Seales (1990)
Bill Sherwood (1990)
Ryan White (1990)
Cazuza (1990)
Ian Charleson (1990)
Howard Ashman (1991)
Freddie Mercury (1991)
Brad Davis (1991)
Robert McCall (1991)
Larry Kert (1991)
Alan Wiggins (1991)
Tony Richardson (1991)
la_rainette reminds us of Hervé Guibert (1991)
Isaac Asimov (1992)
Denholm Elliott (1992)
Anthony Perkins (1992)
Arthur Russell (1992)
Robert Reed (1992)
Peter Allen (1992)
Alison Gertz (1992)
Tina Chow (1992)
James Dressel (1992)
Keith Prentice (1992)
Arthur Ashe (1993)
Michael Callen (1993)
Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev (1993)
David Wojnarowicz (1993)
Emile Ardolino (1993)
Cyril Collard (1993)
Jay Scott (1993)
Tommy Sexton (1993)
Severo Sarduy (1993)
Eve van Grafhorst (1993)
Ray Gillen (1993)
Pedro Zamora (1994)
Elizabeth Glaser (1994)
Derek Jarman (1994)
John Curry (1994)
Randy Shilts (1994)
John Boswell (1994)
Leigh Bowery (1994)
Marlon Riggs (1994)
Felix Partz (1994)
Jorge Zontal (1994)
Dack Rambo (1994)
John Megna (1995)
Antony Hamilton (1995)
Paul Monette (1995)
Essex Hemphill (1995)
Norman Rene (1996)
Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1996)
Lucille Teasdale-Corti (1996)
Mark Simpson (1996)
Fela Anikulapo Kuti (1997)
Jermaine Stewart (1997)
Lonnie Pitchford (1998)
Paddy Chew (1999)
Ofra Haza (2000)
Nkosi Johnson (2001)
Lance Loud (2001)
Robbin Crosby (2002)
Michael Jeter (2003)
Kiki Djan (2004)
Thom Gunn (2004)
Yvonne Vera (2005)
Tory Dent (2005)
Thomas Avena (2005)
LeRoy Whitfield (2005)
Makgatho Mandela (2005)
annexensen's friend Bill (?)


Please feel free to add names in the comments.

And the more than twenty-five million people around the world who have died of complications of AIDS since 1981.

Comments

[gawlfor.livejournal.com]

My uncle, John Lewis (early nineties, can't remember the year)

[eruthros]

Oh, gawlfor, I'm sorry. That must have been really hard. *hugs*

Including.......................................

[annexensen.livejournal.com]

My friend Bill from SF

Re: Including.......................................

[eruthros]

*hugs*

[la-rainette.livejournal.com]

Hervé Guibert (French writer. Died in 1991. He wrote several books - à l'ami qui ne m'a pas sauvé la vie and Le protocole compassionnel about his fight against AIDS, among other things.)

Thank you for posting this.

I can actually still remember the day I heard about AIDS for the first time: it was in an article in Le Monde that my father (who was a doctor) showed me. It was about some sort of "Homosexual Cancer", and the year was 1981. I was in high school.

(Hi, btw.)

[eruthros]

I've added M. Guibert to the list up in the post; I can't believe I forgot him. Especially since I tried to be good about remembering AIDS activists and authors! (I haven't read any of his books, but he did the film La pudeur ou l'impudeur, which I have seen parts of.)

I don't remember when I first heard about AIDS; I was born in 1981, so I grew up with the idea of AIDS. I don't remember hearing about homosexual cancer, or about GRIDS, or about the prevalence of the cancers in the Haitian community. By the time I was aware of it, it was already AIDS, and, though people still called it the gay disease, it was clear that anyone could get it. So in my elementary school we were told not to be "blood brothers" with our friends, and everyone worried about how much to tell us about sex, and people we knew had funerals all through the 80s.

I was worried that this post would be too depressing (I actually ran it by m_shell first), but I decided to post it anyway, and I felt good about posting it. So I'm glad that you appreciated it too.

(And hi back!)