First Cases Recognized

1981: First Cases Recognized

In June, the CDC publishes a report from Los Angeles of five young homosexual men with fatal or life-threatening PCP pneumonia। Almost never seen in people with intact immune systems, PCP turns out to be one of the major "opportunistic infections" that kill people with AIDS. On the Fourth of July, the CDC reports that an unusual skin cancer — Kaposi's sarcoma or KS — is killing young, previously healthy men in New York City and California.

1982

• The CDC calls the new disease acquired immune deficiency syndrome or AIDS. AIDS is seen in people with hemophilia, convincing scientists that the disease is spread by an infectious agent in contaminated blood.
• Gay men form the first AIDS advocacy organizations.