All donors (no matter their gender or sexual orientation or if they’re donating whole blood or plasma) will now be asked if they have had a new sexual partner in the last 3 months. Those who answer “yes” to either of those questions, they will further be asked if they..Read More
5 young, gay men in Los Angeles present with a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, as well as other conditions that showed weakened immune function. It is not recognized at the time but the underlying factor for the presentation of rare diseases would later come to be known as..Read More
The meeting provided the foundation for Gay Men’s Health Crisis, an organization that was the first community-based AIDS service provider, to be formed in 1982. A Timeline of HIV and AIDS
The report uses the term “acquired immune deficiency syndrome” and includes a footnote stating that it was previously referred to as Kaposi’s sarcoma and “opportunistic infections in previously healthy persons”. A Timeline of HIV and AIDS AIDS: MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS
After it became clear that AIDS was transfusion-transmissible, the Canadian Red Cross advises people in high-risk groups, such as “promiscuous homosexual men”, Haitian immigrants, and drug users, not to donate blood. There is no questionnaire yet with a specific MSM criterion, but pamphlets are given to donors with information about..Read More
The contributions of many different research teams allow for the identification of the cause of AIDS within three years of the first presentation of cases. The Discovery of HIV as the Cause of AIDS
The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test, which detects antibodies and antigens that are produced in the blood in response to HIV, is approved for use when testing donations. However, it was not allowed to be used as a diagnostic tool for those living with the virus as it had a..Read More
As of March 1985, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had granted license to distribute the HIV-antibody test kits and by May, almost all blood and plasma centres in the U.S. were testing donations, leaving Canada several months behind. 1985 Canadian Red Cross begins testing blood donations for HIV Commission..Read More
From the first edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, published in 1952, homosexuality was seen as a mental disorder in need of a cure. By the revised version of the third edition, published in 1987, it was finally dropped entirely, putting an end to the pathologization..Read More