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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
NLM Launches “Surviving and Thriving: AIDS, Politics, and Culture”
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/surviving_and_thriving.html
NLM Launches “Surviving and Thriving: AIDS, Politics, and Culture" -Traveling Banner Display and Online Exhibition
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Last reviewed: 17 September 2013
Last updated: 17 September 2013
First published: 16 September 2013
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Berkowitz, two gay men with AIDS
living in New York, wrote How to
Have Sex in an Epidemic: One
Approach. The short manifesto
described ways for men to be
affectionate and sexual while
dramatically lessening the risk of
spreading and contracting AIDS. This
booklet was one of the first times
men were told to use condoms when
having sex with other men.
In April 1984, Dr. Robert Gallo of the
National Cancer Institute at NIH isolated
HTLV-III (human T-lymphotropic virus
III) as the cause of AIDS. Scientists later
determined it was the same virus
identified as LAV (lymphadenopathy-
associated virus) by Dr. Luc Montagnier
and his team at the Pasteur Institute a
year earlier. Despite disagreement over
who made the initial discovery, French
and American researchers eventually
agreed to share the credit. In 1986, the
virus was renamed HIV (human
immunodeficiency virus). Identifying a
viral cause enabled the scientific
community to develop a test for HIV and
better confront AIDS with treatment.
Poster for Department of Health
and Human Services
demonstration designed by ACT
UP/DC Women's Committee, 1990
Courtesy National Library of Medicine
In October 1990, ACT UP descended
upon Washington and the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention in
Atlanta, carrying signs that
demanded the formal definition of
AIDS change to include women.
Excluded from the diagnosis of
having AIDS, women could not
access potentially lifesaving care and
treatment, even as they died of the
disease. By 1992, activists succeeded
in their efforts: women were officially
recognized as people who could have
AIDS.
"Ask for the Test" poster, 2012
Courtesy HAHSTA (HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis,
STD, TB Administration), District of
Columbia Department of Health
In the 21st century, testing for HIV is
the first line of defense in the battle
against AIDS. But when the test was
released in 1985, many people refused
for fear that their names would go on a
registry to deny them health care.
Municipal unions in Washington, DC, are
at the forefront of fighting this persistent
myth and explaining how testing helps
keep people healthy.
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