38 Years Ago Today ‘The New York Tim’ First Reported On a Rare Gay Cancer Later Known As AIDS - #GAYNRD

Contents:

• REMEMBERG THE EARLY DAYS OF 'GAY CANCER'
• MYSTERY DISEASE KILLS GAY MEN – ARCHIVE, 1981
• GAY HISTORY – JULY 3, 1981: NEW YORK TIM PUBLISH “RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS” [ARTICLE INCLUD]
• GAY HISTORY – MAY 18, 1981: DR. LAWRENCE MASS BE THE FIRST PERSON TO REPORT ABOUT AIDS.
• 38 YEARS AGO TODAY ‘THE NEW YORK TIM’ FIRST REPORTED ON A RARE GAY CANCER LATER KNOWN AS AIDS

REMEMBERG THE EARLY DAYS OF 'GAY CANCER'

Doctors New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 s of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of ncer. But the doctors who have ma the diagnos, mostly New York Cy and the San Francis Bay area, are alertg other physicians who treat large numbers of homosexual men to the problem an effort to help intify more s and to rce the lay offerg chemotherapy sudn appearance of the ncer, lled Kaposi's Sara, has prompted a medil vtigatn that experts say uld have as much scientific as public health importance bee of what may teach about termg the of more mon typ of ncer. But the recent s, doctors at ne medil centers New York and seven hospals California have been diagnosg the ndn among younger men, all of whom said the urse of standard diagnostic terviews that they were homosexual.

Friedman-Kien, the reportg doctors said that most s had volved homosexual men who have had multiple and equent sexual enunters wh different partners, as many as 10 sexual enunters each night up to four tim a of the patients have also been treated for viral fectns such as herp, cytomegalovis and hepatis B as well as parasic fectns such as amebiasis and giardiasis. ''The bt evince agast ntagn, '' he said, ''is that no s have been reported to date outsi the homosexual muny or women. A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 20 of the Natnal edn wh the headle: RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS.

MYSTERY DISEASE KILLS GAY MEN – ARCHIVE, 1981

Rememberg the Early Days of 'Gay Cancer' Commentator Joe Wright spent more than 10 years dog AIDS muny work San Francis. And bee the first people diagnosed wh the new syndrome were gay men, some people started llg the disease Gay Cancer. But lots of people the media and the gay muny still lled Gay Cancer until the later part of 1982.

GAY HISTORY – JULY 3, 1981: NEW YORK TIM PUBLISH “RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS” [ARTICLE INCLUD]

Soon after he was diagnosed wh KS, he spent time troducg himself to men the Kaposi Sara clic wag room, vg them to the Shanti Project Gay Cancer support group. Medilly, Bobbi Campbell knew that his so-lled gay ncer was very different than the kds of ncer that most of his patients the hospal had.

Forty years ago this summer, the first news emerged about rare diseas that were killg gay and bisexual men. They were sexually active gay and bi men, although the paper didn’t e the term “gay” at the time. A month earlier, the CDC newsletter had rried a story about another rare disease, pnmocystis pnmonia, or PCP, seen five gay men Los Angel.

The Los Angel Tim also reported on the pnmonia May the New York Native, a paper geared to the gay muny, had n what’s regnized as the first article on what me to be known as AIDS, wh s medil lumnist, physician Larry Mass, reportg on the PCP verage was largely ut. A CDC spokman quoted by Altman downplayed the possibily of ntagn, as the KS outbreak had been nfed to gay men. Wayne Shanra of the CDC, though, that was sure to stoke fears of both disease and stigma: “The bt we n say is that somehow the pnmonia appears to be related to gay life style.

GAY HISTORY – MAY 18, 1981: DR. LAWRENCE MASS BE THE FIRST PERSON TO REPORT ABOUT AIDS.

And some fely worried that, at a time when gay sex was still crimalized many stat and when few stat or ci banned antigay discrimatn, reports of a new disease found mostly gay men uld lead to further opprsn, even quarante ncentratn rells beg both “very ncerned and very ut.

As the story of the new disease veloped, he ntued verg , strivg to be accurate but not alarmist, he medil experts grouped the outbreaks unr the umbrella of a syndrome they first lled gay-related immune ficiency, but swched to the more ntral acquired immune ficiency syndrome, or AIDS, once beme clear the disease wasn’t nfed to gay and bi men. It wasn’t until 1984 that a recently disvered vis — the human immunoficiency vis, or HIV — would be intified as the e of the news about HIV, there were alternative theori about what ed AIDS; the predomant one the gay muny, Mass says, was that multiple factors were volved — a large number of sexual partners, dg e, poverty. But that didn’t really make sense for other groups, he Mass, the greatt thker of the AIDS epimic is wrer Larry Kramer, one of the men who joed Mass foundg Gay Men’s Health Crisis 1982.

38 YEARS AGO TODAY ‘THE NEW YORK TIM’ FIRST REPORTED ON A RARE GAY CANCER LATER KNOWN AS AIDS

“Mostly, what Larry Kramer did was fely on the right track, ” Mass likewise don’t thk much of the early Tim reportg on AIDS or LGBTQ+ issu general, sayg the paper that era “was hostile still to gays” and “very aquate s verage. ” Altman, he says, was and is “an extremely ser, nscient, and not homophobic reporter.

” Both the media and gay activists were worried about creatg a panic, Kaiser, also a physician, is still workg for the Tim but was not available for an terview for this article.

“The gay muny’s rponse to the AIDS epimic unr Larry Kramer was as glor and heroic as anythg Amerin history, ” he says.