ABSTRACT
On July 3, 1981 on page 20 of the New York Times, an article reported an outbreak of the rare cancer Kaposi’s sarcoma in 41 previously healthy gay men. Nine of the men who had been tested were found to have severe defects in their immune systems. In the same month, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published an article about six gay men in Los Angeles who had died of a rare pneumonia, pneumocistis carinii (PCP). The disease which caused immune deficiencies leading to ‘opportunistic infections’ was labelled AIDS (Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome). On April 27, 1983 NBC Nightly News broadcasted a report that a virus, originally called the Human T-cell Lymphotopic Virus, Type III (HTLV-III) might be responsible for AIDS. Later the virus was known simply as HIV (Human Immuno-deficiency Virus).
