The First Scientific Report on the AIDS Epidemic

This episode delves into the early cases of AIDS, exploring the initial medical responses and the impact on the affected communities.

1. The first recognized cases of AIDS were initially met with confusion and misdiagnosis.
2. The episode underscores the stigma and challenges faced by the gay community during the early years of the epidemic.
3. The shift from GRID to AIDS marked a critical evolution in the medical understanding and public perception of the disease.
4. The episode highlights the crucial role of the Centers for Disease Control in coordinating a national response to the crisis.
5. The public and medical community's slow response to AIDS exacerbated the spread and severity of the epidemic.

1: Initial Cases

This chapter discusses the first observed cases of AIDS and the medical community's confusion and concern. It focuses on patient stories and the symptoms that puzzled doctors. Dr. Jim Groundwater: "He's running out of time."

2: Medical Community's Response

Exploration of how doctors and researchers struggled to connect the dots between various cases across the country. Dr. David Ostro: "A new disease is rearing its head."

3: Public Perception and Stigma

The chapter discusses the stigma surrounding AIDS, particularly within the gay community, and the media's role in shaping public perception. Lindsey Graham: "The first step to treating this new disease will be identifying it."

4: Scientific Advancements and Societal Change

This chapter covers the medical breakthroughs and changing societal attitudes that helped bring the AIDS epidemic under control. Dr. Jim Curran: "Grid is a blood borne disease."

1. Educate yourself and others about the history of AIDS to prevent stigma.
2. Support and advocate for comprehensive sexual health education.
3. Engage in safe sex practices to prevent the spread of HIV.
4. Support organizations that fund AIDS research and treatment.
5. Foster an inclusive environment for all, regardless of health status.

June 5, 1981. The Centers for Disease Control identifies five cases of a rare infection striking gay men in California—a disease that will become known as AIDS.

People

Ken Horne, Dr. Jim Groundwater, Dr. David Ostro, Dr. Jim Curran

Books

Perfume: A Story of a Murder by Patrick Süskind

Content Warnings:

Discussions of illness and death

Speaker A
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Speaker B
Its a little after 11:00 a.m. on December 5, 1980, at St. Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco, California, Doctor Jim Groundwater presses a button to call in his next patient. Ken Horne is the mans name, but Doctor Groundwater has not been looking forward to this appointment. Hes seen Ken a lot over the past few months, and every time hes been stumped by the 37 year olds condition.

The door opens and Ken shuffles in. As Doctor groundwater shakes Ken's hand, he can see that Ken's been crying. Gently, he asks Ken to remove his shirt and step onto the scales. As Ken fumbles with his buttons and removes his shirt, Doctor groundwater tries to hide his shock. Ken is gaunt, far more so than his last appointment.

It's almost like he's wasting away. The scales confirm doctor Groundwater's fears. Ken has lost another seven pounds. And as he steps off the scale, he reels off a list of symptoms that doctor groundwater knows all too well by now, fatigue, diarrhea, nausea, and strange purple lesions on his chest. There is no doubt that Ken is dangerously ill.

But Doctor groundwater cant work out whats causing it. All he can do is keep trying different tests. He explains that hes going to send Ken for a biopsy of his lymph nodes. That might rule out cancer. But doctor groundwater knows that just eliminating possibilities isn't good enough.

He needs to find out what is causing Ken's suffering. And he needs to do it quickly. Because if there's one thing that is clear to doctor groundwater, it's that Ken is running out of time.

Over the months that follow, Ken Horne's condition will only grow worse. But when a crop of similar cases emerges across America, a common thread linking all of them will become apparent, and a deadly new disease will be identified. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, will ravage America and cause more than 40 million deaths around the world. But the fight back will begin when the first scientific report into the outbreak is published on June 5, 1981.

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Speaker B
Uses directed from Noiser and airship im Lindsey Graham and this is history daily history is made every day on this podcast. Every day we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is June 5, 1981, the first scientific report on the AIDS epidemic.

Its the morning of June 5, 1981, in Chicago, Illinois, six months after doctor Jim Groundwater examined a man with a mystery illness in San Francisco. At his kitchen table, medical researcher doctor David Ostro sips from a mug of coffee as he goes through his mail. Its the usual mix of bills and catalogs. He puts the bills to one side and the catalogs in the trash. But then he comes to a thick envelope with a familiar logo on the outside.

He rips it open and slides out a printed booklet, the morbidity and mortality weekly report from the Centers for Disease Control. An update on the Worlds Health news that leans heavily into infectious diseases. David glances over the report's contents. There's new information about recent measles infections and an article on childhood lead poisoning. But David freezes when he spots the headline Pneumocystis pneumonia Los Angeles.

Last week, David attended a conference in San Diego, California, where he heard rumors about an outbreak of an unusual pneumonia. David was intrigued by the case, since it impacted both his professional and personal life, because from what David heard, the outbreak in Los Angeles only affects men who are gay. Men like him, homosexuality became more openly accepted in some parts of the country, and gay communities coalesced in cities like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Young men especially began to let loose and enjoy their newfound freedoms. Having multiple sexual partners became the norm.

But this liberation came with consequences. Sexually transmitted diseases were soon rife in the gay community, and for the past three years, David Ostrow's research has focused on finding a vaccine for hepatitis B, a virus that's endemic among gay men and spread through sexual contact. Now, though, a new disease seems to be rearing its head among the same population. David reads the article in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report several times. It describes how, between October 1980 and May 81, five otherwise healthy gay men in Los Angeles became desperately ill.

Two of them eventually died from what was theorized to be a virulent form of pneumonia. But there's no known link between the five men, apart from their geographical proximity and their sexuality. How they caught the disease is a mystery. David is not the only doctor whose attention is caught by the news of the pneumonia outbreak. It soon becomes clear that the five Los Angeles cases are just the tip of the iceberg, because over the next few days, the phones at the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, ring off the hook.

Doctors from all over the country call in with their own examples of gay men suffering from the same form of pneumonia. Among those callers is San Francisco doctor Jim Groundwater. But he has a different malady he wants to report to the CDC. He has a gay patient who seems to be suffering from Karposi sarcoma, a rare skin cancer that first exhibits itself in purple spots. And doctor Goldman isnt alone in reporting a case of this disease.

Soon, clusters of Karposi sarcoma are identified around the country, and they all seem to be isolated to gay communities apart from medical professionals. These cases of pneumonia and Karposis sarcoma go largely unnoticed. At first, gay newspapers dismiss the CDCs report as little more than anti gay hysteria. The New York Times publishes an article headlined rare cancer seen in 41 homosexuals. But the article is buried in a one column story on page 20 and contains few facts.

The lack of knowledge is hardly surprising. The medical authorities themselves are struggling to identify the diseases that are striking the gay community and how they may be linked. Doctors like Jim Groundwater and David Ostrow just want to help stop the mysterious illnesses spreading and keep people alive longer. But the first step to treating this new disease will be identifying it. And to do that, the medical establishment will need to win the support and.

Speaker A
Trust of a skeptical and increasingly frightened gay community.

Speaker B
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Speaker B
It's March 14, 1982, in Chelsea, an. Up and coming area of New York. City, nine months after the Centers for Disease Control's first report about the new disease stalking America. In a spacious loft apartment, 39 year old doctor Jim Curran rises from his seat, clears his throat, and begins addressing his audience. As a specialist in infectious diseases at the CDC, Jim is used to giving talks at conferences.

But todays audience is different. Jim has come to Chelsea to speak with medical professionals who are themselves gay because he needs their help. Since the release of the CDC report and the article in the New York Times, Jims office has been inundated with reports of similar cases. But the cause for these illnesses still baffles medical professionals. The only headway theyve made so far is discovering that the immune systems of once healthy gay men are all but eradicated when they contract this mystery illness.

As a result, the disease has been given the name gay related immune deficiency, or grid for short. And despite the terrifying lack of solid information, its Jims job as head of the CDC task force to stop this disease spreading further. In the loft apartment, Jim explains to his fellow doctors that he needs to discover as much as he can about this new illness, and for that he needs their cooperation and the cooperation of. The wider gay community. He needs grid patients to come forward and be interviewed despite any shame or embarrassment they may feel.

But Jim also lets the audience in on a secret. Although he has no definitive proof yet, Jim suspects this disease is spread by sexual contact, and if hes right, he thinks grid will ultimately affect straight and gay patients alike. It might be years before a vaccine or effective treatment is found, though, and thats why its so important that Jim speaks with as many people struck with the disease as possible. But not everyone agrees with JimS hypothesis. Fellow doctor Joe Sonneman runs a sexual health clinic in New Yorks Greenwich Village, and hes seen many cases of grid among his patients, too.

Joe is convinced that promiscuity among gay men specifically is the cause of the disease. Joes hypothesis is that repeated exposure to different sexually transmitted diseases in the gay community has somehow compromised their immune systems. And while Joe means well inadvertently, his immune overload model only deepens the growing stigma surrounding grid. Anti gay campaigners are using the disease as so called proof that homosexuality is wrong. And as news of the mystery illness spreads.

There's a surge in hate crime attacks on gay men. But back at the CDC, doctor Jim Curran continues to monitor all new cases. And thanks to his outreach efforts, there are more patients for him to interview than ever. By July 1982, Jim has identified 452 cases of this new disease. And when he starts digging into these patients medical history, he begins to spot some revealing patterns one fifth of grid sufferers identify as exclusively heterosexual.

Jim knows that some of the men might be lying about their sexuality, but even so, the numbers are higher than he expected. But two factors seem to link the patients in this category. Many freely admit that they are, or previously were, intravenous drug users, and a large proportion of the others are from Haiti. But one patient stands out to Jim as especially puzzling, a 62 year old man who is neither gay nor a drug user, nor from Haiti. He does suffer from the bleeding disorder hemophilia, though, and by process of elimination, Jim concludes that the man must have contracted grid through a blood transfusion, a regular treatment he receives for his hemophilia.

Jim has stumbled across an important clue. Grid is a blood borne disease. Within weeks of this discovery, Jim puts in action a plan to slow the spread of grid. Blood donations are halted from any person fitting into whats called the four Haitians, heroin addicts, hemophiliacs and homosexuals, and to spread awareness of the fact that its not just gay men at risk. The name of the disease is also changed.

Gay related immune deficiency is now acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. Jim and his fellow researchers have made a crucial discovery, but their work is only just beginning. Although AIDS has now been identified as a blood borne disease, effective treatments are still years away. And the myth that the disease only strikes gay men will prove stubbornly persistent. Only when medical breakthroughs are accompanied by a change in society's attitudes will the AIDS epidemic finally be brought under control.

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Speaker B
It'S April 20, 1992, at Wembley Stadium in London, England. More than a decade after the first cluster of AIDS cases was reported in America, a large, temporary stage has been built on one end of the sports arena. The pop star George Michaels stands just off stage with a microphone ready. He looks over a sea of happy people. Music thumps, lights sweep over the cheering crowd, and then George bounds out into the spotlight.

George is at Wembley alongside a host of other international stars to pay tribute to Freddie Mercury, the iconic lead singer of the british rock band Queen. Freddie died six months ago, and four years after being diagnosed with AIDS. Now 72,000 people in Wembley Stadium and millions more watching live all around the world have come together to celebrate Freddy's life and music and to raise much needed funds for research into the disease that killed him six years ago, medical researchers identified and officially named the virus that causes AIDS. Their work revealed that the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, can be spread in both contaminated blood and through sexual activity with men or women. What was once dismissed as a disease that only affected the gay community is now widely recognized as a threat to everyone.

But a cure wont be found without yet more research, more money and more awareness.

Thats why fundraisers like tonights tribute concert in London are so important. George Michaels performance is electric, and his rendition of the Queen hit somebody to love becomes instantly iconic. Few watching know the truth behind this emotional performance, though George is secretly gay and his boyfriend has been recently diagnosed as HIV positive, the concert may be a heartening sign of changing attitudes toward those suffering from HIV and AIDS. But the fact that George feels he has to keep his relationship a secret shows how far society still has to go. Throughout the early nineties, more and more money pours in for AIDS research, and soon scientists make some major breakthroughs.

Antiretroviral drugs are found to suppress HIV and prevent many of those infected from ever developing AIDS. These treatments come too late for Ken Horne, who died in 1981. George Michaels boyfriend, who died in 1992, and millions of others liked them. But thanks to these drugs, countless lives have been saved, and even better treatments lie in the future. HIV is no longer a death sentence, and that is the kind of hope that was in short supply when the Centers for Disease Control published the first worrying report about AIDS on June 5, 1981.

Next on History daily, June 6, 1933. The first bucketful of concrete is poured to begin construction of the Hoover Dam.

For noiser and airship, this is History daily. Hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham. Audio editing by Mohammad Shazib Sound Design by Gabriel Gould music by Thrums this episode is written and researched by Owen Paul Nichols. Edited by Scott Reeves managing producer, Emily Burke. Executive producers are William Simpson for airship and Pascal Hughes for R.

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