HIV/AIDS Part Two – Education in Epidemiology 31
In Africa in the early twentieth century, around 1908, a hunter was killing a chimp when he nicked himself, exchanging some blood. It is estimated this event was the first case of HIV before circulating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1920. Cases continued to spread leading up to the first AIDS death in the US, documented in 1969, meaning that HIV was likely first spread to the country about a decade before. Doctors were baffled by this new disease, but noticed these patients were frequently homosexual men, along with straight intravenous drug users.
The demographic patterns observed for HIV made it easy to ignore. Despite the lack of information on the novel disease, there was very little funding for research, as the stigma against gay men smothered the urgency to address the growing crisis. Many attributed the disease to a divine punishment for homosexuality, shaming people for their sexuality who were actively dying. Politicians would even lobby against HIV/AIDS research funding.
As a result, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) was formed, largely by gay men, to fund research and awareness campaigns. However, in an attempt to limit transmission, the GMHC warned against gay sex, which caused backlash in gay communities, criticizing the restrictions placed against a group already facing so much discrimination.
Meanwhile, by 1983, 1295 Americans had HIV and 492 had already died. At this point, straight people had begun to contract the disease, resulting in an increase in research funding. The CDC found a connection between cases and blood transfusions, but their warnings fell upon deaf ears. While there was no way to screen for HIV in blood samples at the time, some blood banks chose to screen for hepatitis B, as AIDS victims were highly likely to have simultaneous infection for hepatitis B. However, screening was expensive, providing incentive to ignore the connections the CDC found. Despite the 90% infection rate in transfusions with infected blood, it took years for the risk to be taken seriously.
With research finally being done on the virus, Bob Gallo, a member of the National Cancer Institute, was studying HIV when he reviewed a French paper publishing the discovery of this virus they called LAV. Distraught that this new discovery could overshadow his own, Gallo threatened the CDC, withholding funds and refusing to share materials because he thought they worked with the French team. He published his discovery shortly after, a virus he called HTLV-III, with a striking resemblance to LAV. In 1985, HTLV-III was found to be less than 1% different than LAV; in 1991, Gallo admitted to having isolated the sample sent to him by the French researchers (Kolberg). Gallo’s actions slowed down HIV/AIDS research, all in the name of glory.
While research was being halted by Gallo, violence towards gay men is on the rise. It was not until 1985, when movie star Rock Hudson revealed that he had contracted AIDS, that the narrative began to shift. Hudson was met with support and empathy, a major progression in disease representation. He eventually died from the infection, but his role in HIV/AIDS action lives on.
By 1991, 100,000 US citizens are estimated to have died from AIDS. Some treatments have been introduced to the market, but often include gnarly side effects and aren’t entirely effective. It isn’t until 1995, when protease inhibitors were approved to treat AIDS, that a quick and extremely effective response became available. However, this did not mark the end of the virus. In 1997, 20 million HIV cases were active with 6.4 million fatalities worldwide. Today, thousands still die every year in the US, and over 36 million people live with HIV globally. In addition to treatment, PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, can be taken in the form of antiretrovirals to prevent infection by up to 90%.
It’s shocking, especially as someone who has heard of HIV/AIDS but did not live during its most famous years, to discover how recent the history of this disease is. Knowing that AIDS didn’t really become a problem in the US until the 70s is so disorienting because it is portrayed as such a disease of the past. Of course, we have treatments now, but with hundreds of thousands of HIV-related deaths occuring in 2023 alone, this is undeniably a disease of the present. HIV didn’t exist in humans at the beginning of the previous century, but it has left a significant mark on thousands of lives. With the existence of adequate treatments for the disease, we must do better to improve access to them.
One of the interesting things about retroviruses is that they aren’t really curable. Since they insert themselves into your genome, they become a part of you. However, there are gene therapies being researched to remedy this, and you may have heard of a different experiment involving gene editing and HIV… the CRISPR babies?
Turns out HIV infects our cells via a very specific protein receptor that we can live without. The ‘CRISPR babies’ were an experiment in which both copies for the gene for that receptor had been edited so as to prevent the receptor from being produced. There are actually people that have this mutation naturally, who are perfectly healthy and highly resistant to HIV. The issue with the babies, of course, is the ethical implications of human gene editing, along with the possibility of unintended edits being made by the CRISPR Cas9 system, which is relatively new and can make errors.
An additional fun fact, though it’s not so fun: The CDC, trying to track the sources of infection, made maps of networks associated with HIV. They interviewed a man named Gaëtan Dugas, who had a bunch of connections on the map. They labeled him as ‘Patient O,’ because he lived “Outside” of California. At some point this was misread as ‘Patient 0,’ and he was shamed for the rest of his life, blamed for the origins of a disease. He eventually died of AIDS, and today ‘Patient 0’ is used to describe the actual first case of a novel disease.
It was really informative to learn about HIV/AIDS, and I’m always reminded of the value in studying diseases and their history. Stay tuned to learn with me!
Kolberg, Rebecca. “AIDS Researcher Admits HIV Discovered by French – UPI Archives.” UPI, 31 May 1991, http://www.upi.com/Archives/1991/05/31/AIDS-researcher-admits-HIV-discovered-by-French/5792675662400/. Accessed 18 May 2025.
General information on HIV: https://thispodcastwillkillyou.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/TPWKY-Episode-12-HIV_AIDS.pdf
Modern statistics on HIV: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hiv-aids