-
UCLA’s Michael Gottlieb, MD, and others author the first report identifying the appearance of diseases that would later become known as AIDS. -
A disease in which there is a severe loss of the body's cellular immunity, greatly lowering the resistance to infection and malignancy.
-
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention forms a Task Force on Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections. -
UCSF faculty physicians open the country’s first outpatient AIDS clinic, Ward 86 in January, and inpatient Ward 5B in July, at SFGH. -
13-year-old hemophiliac from Indiana, becomes infected with HIV from a contaminated blood treatment. -
San Francisco AIDS Foundation organizes the San Francisco AIDS Walk to raise funds for patient care, research and education. UCSF participates in the walk from the start. -
A brochure titled “Understanding AIDS” is mailed to every household in the U.S. -
WHO declares first World AIDS Day on December 1, which continues today. -
UCSF’s Paul Volberding, MD, finds that HIV-infected patients without symptoms of AIDS could have those symptoms delayed if they took the drug AZT. -
AIDS activists come out to protest about AIDS drugs, including demonstrating on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. -
Ryan White dies of AIDS at age 18 – a month before his high school graduation. -
Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the rock band Queen, dies of AIDS. -
AIDS becomes leading cause of death for all Americans ages 25 to 44. -
receives the first bone-marrow transplant from baboon cells that were transplanted with the hope that the primate’s natural AIDS resistance would boost his immune system. -
CDC reports that more than 562,000 people have died of AIDS in the U.S. since 1981. -
UCSF commemorates 40 years of AIDS with a special town hall on June 4.