Twenty-Nine Years of Women Living With HIV: Past, Present and Future

1987. Thirteen point five percent of NIH money is dedicated to women's health issues. ACT-UP is founded. Women are excluded from HIV trials unless they are on the birth control pill or IUD; no childcare, transportation or GYN care is available. Trial inclusion/exclusion criteria read: "No pregnant women and no non-pregnant women" allowed. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop urges any woman considering pregnancy to be tested for HIV.

Princess Diana opens the first specialist AIDS hospital ward in England. The fact that she did not wear gloves when shaking hands with people with AIDS was widely reported in the press and helped change attitudes towards people with AIDS. Singer Madonna throws her first AIDS benefit concert and later records a song, "In This Life," about friends who had died from the disease. St. Louis University School of Medicine produces Strong Women, Positive Choices, an award-winning documentary on the lives of HIV-positive women.