When the federal government reported on June 5, 1981, that “5 young men, all active homosexuals” had been diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in Los Angeles, no one yet knew that these were the country’s first reported cases of AIDS. Since then, medicine has come a long way in understanding, treating and even preventing HIV. Following are the key medical advances and failures that have marked the past three decades of the battle against AIDS — milestones that elucidate how much we still need to learn.
AIDS at 30: Medical Milestones in the Battle Against a Modern Plague
<br> Actress Elizabeth Glaser contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion during childbirth <br> (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
In December, the CDC reports that a 20-month-old infant from the San Francisco area developed unexplained cellular immunodeficiency and opportunistic infection. The baby became ill after receiving multiple blood transfusions, including a transfusion of platelets derived from the blood of man subsequently found to have AIDS. The CDC reports:
The etiology of AIDS remains unknown, but its reported occurrence among homosexual men, intravenous drug abusers, and persons with hemophilia A (1) suggests it may be caused by an infectious agent transmitted sexually or through exposure to blood or blood products. If the infant's illness described in this report is AIDS, its occurrence following receipt of blood products from a known AIDS case adds support to the infectious-agent hypothesis.In the same month, the CDC reports six infant deaths from AIDS-associated Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and other mysterious immunodeficiencies. Most are the children of intravenous drug users or prostitutes. Although the child cases are officially classified as "unexplained," this is early evidence that the disease can be transmitted from mother to child. The report notes: "Transmission of an 'AIDS agent' from mother to child, either in utero or shortly after birth, could account for the early onset of immunodeficiency in these infants." "When it began turning up in children and transfusion recipients, that was a turning point in terms of public perception," epidemiologist Harold W. Jaffe of the CDC would later tell Newsweek. "Up until then it was entirely a gay epidemic, and it was easy for the average person to say 'So what?' Now everyone could relate." —Meredith Melnick Next: The AIDS Virus Is Isolated