Americans it became the symbol of AIDS activism

Many of the placards used in ACT-UP's demonstrations carried the graphic emblem "SILENCE=DEATH". Created in 1987 by a group of gay men calling themselves the Silence=Death project, the emblem was leant to ACT-UP and for many Americans it became the symbol of AIDS activism.¹³

One ACT-UP committee used the emblem in a window display called "Let the Record Show" at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; afterwards they regrouped as Gran Fury:¹⁴

"a band of individuals united in anger and dedicated to exploiting the power of art to end the AIDS crisis"¹⁵

Over the next few years Gran Fury produced many high profile public projects including the art banner announcing "Kissing doesn't kill: Greed and indifference do" and the poster "AIDS: 1 in 61" about babies born HIV positive in New York City.¹⁶

On the other side of the world, in Australia, the Grim Reaper education campaign was launched, with television images of death mowing down a range of victims in a bowling alley. Although widely criticised at the time, the advertisements did succeed in ensuring widespread discussion of AIDS.¹⁷

The Australian AIDS commercial from 1987.

"A bowling alley of death, haunted by decomposing grim reaper bowling over men, pregnant women, babies and crying children was featured on national television last night as the part of a $3 million AIDS education campaign, The 60-second commercial featuring the grim reaper, a macabre and dramatic rotten corpse with scythe in one hand and bowling ball in the other, is spearheading efforts by the National Advisory Committee on AIDS to educate Australians about the incurable disease."¹⁸

On 31st March, at a ceremony at the White House attended by President Reagan, it was announced that an agreement had been reached regarding ownership of the HIV antibody test patent. The Pasteur Institute agreed that it would end its legal challenge, and would share the profits from the test with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.¹⁹ Although the agreement officially resolved the question of who had invented the HIV antibody test, it did not address the question of who had discovered HIV and identified it as the cause of AIDS. It was generally agreed that:

"historians can decide who found the AIDS virus first."²⁰

But to many people it appears clear that HIV was isolated in Paris a year before it was isolated in the USA.²¹

The following day President Reagan made his first major speech on AIDS, when he addressed the Philadelphia College of Physicians. Reagan advocated a modest federal role in AIDS education, having told reporters the previous day that he favoured teaching pupils about AIDS,

Poster "Kissing doesn't Kill: Greed and indifference do" Gran Fury collection

"as long as they teach that one of the answers to it is abstinence - if you say it's not how you do it, but that you don't do it."²²

In England the first specialist AIDS hospital ward was opened by Princess Diana. The fact that she did not wear gloves when shaking hands with people with AIDS was widely reported in the press.

"she shook my hand without her gloves on. That proves you can't get AIDS from normal social contact."²³

The WHO Global Programme on AIDS had developed a Global AIDS Strategy, which was approved by the World Health Assembly in May. The Global AIDS Strategy established the objectives and principles of local, national and international action to prevent and control HIV/AIDS, and it included the need for every country to have a "supportive and non-discriminatory social environment".²⁴