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Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation • International News
Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report Summarizes Media Coverage of 25th Anniversary of First AIDS Diagnosis

June 5, 2006

On June 5, 1981, CDC in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published a report on the appearance of a rare strain of pneumonia in five men who had sex with men in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reports. One month later, 26 cases of Kaposi's sarcoma, another rare disease that later would become associated with AIDS-related illnesses, were found among MSM in California and New York state, the Times reports. The new disease was labeled "gay men's cancer," but similar infections soon were found in hemophiliacs and people who had received blood transfusions (Brink, Los Angeles Times, 6/5). French and American researchers in 1983 discovered that the infection, now called AIDS, was caused by a virus known as HIV (Maugh/Chong, Los Angeles Times, 6/5). "So now we fast forward 25 years and we see that what people were somewhat skeptical about ... has exploded into one of the most devastating pandemics in the history of civilization," Anthony Fauci, director of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said (McAlary, VOA news, 6/2). Twenty five years after the first cases were diagnosed, AIDS-related illnesses now are the No. 1 cause of death worldwide among people ages 15 to 59, the Miami Herald reports (Brackett, Miami Herald, 6/5). According to UNAIDS, about 40 million people worldwide are HIV-positive (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 5/31). In the U.S., one million people are HIV-positive, and 40,000 new cases are expected to be diagnosed this year, CDC reports (Brink, Los Angeles Times, 6/5). More than 500,000 people in the U.S. have died of AIDS-related causes since 1981 (Maugh/Chong, Los Angeles Times, 6/5). The following is a list of some of the newspaper and media sources that covered "AIDS at 25."

Associated Press

Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baltimore Sun
BBC News
Bergen Record
Boston Globe
Boston Herald
Columbia State
Economist
Houston Chronicle
Long Island Newsday
Los Angeles Times
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
New York Daily News
New York Times
Philadelphia Inquirer
Religion News Service
Reuters Health
San Francisco Chronicle
St. Petersburg Times
USA Today
Washington Times

Broadcast Programs Report on 25th Anniversary of First AIDS Diagnosis


OnlineIn addition, Frank Beadle de Palomo, senior vice president and director of the AED Center on AIDS and Community Health, is scheduled to answer questions in a washingtonpost.com online chat on Monday at 1 p.m. ET. A transcript of the chat will be available online.

NIH on Monday also will webcast a special event: "25 Years of AIDS Research at NIH," which will include comments from Piot, several NIH researchers -- including NIH director Elias Zerhouni and Fauci -- and Robert Bazell, NBC News chief science and health correspondent. NIH also will premiere the documentary "America and AIDS: a 25-Year Perspective" by Staffan Hildebrand of the Face of AIDS Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. A link to the webcast can be found here. NIH also has launched a website dedicated to 25 years of AIDS (NIH release, 6/1).

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Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/hiv. The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of the Kaiser Family Foundation, by The Advisory Board Company. © 2006 by The Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

See Also
Index of Articles From Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Diseases (WORLD)
Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Diseases (WORLD)
HIV Is a Magnifying Glass


This article was provided by Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. It is a part of the publication Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report.