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First Encounters
Drs. Lee Hall (left) and Anthony S. Fauci (right) examine participant in an early AIDS study.What does a new and deadly epidemic look like? The first two AIDS patients admitted to the NIH research hospital arrived six months apart–in June 1981 and in January 1982–but many more filled beds soon thereafter. In the early years, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recalls, it “was like living in an intensive care unit all day long.” The patients were very sick, and despite the best efforts of NIH’s dedicated doctors and nurses, most patients eventually died. There was much to learn about the new disease and much to learn about the community hard-hit by the first wave of the epidemic, gay men. NIH physician-scientists, intellectually and emotionally challenged by this disease that ravaged the immune system, spent long hours conducting studies to better understand the illness and devise ways to treat it. Nurses took on new roles, gathering data for the studies and educating their colleagues nationwide. Everyone agreed that the best way to protect themselves against the unknown disease was by sharing information as soon as it became available. The NIH health care team wanted to make a difference in the lives of their patients and, through their research, to all AIDS patients worldwide.
Health-care worker takes pulse of early NIH AIDS patient. …I would talk to them [the patients] about …“What do you want nurses to think about when they take care of you?” They would say, “The most important thing that you can do is not to judge me.” Dr. Christine Grady - link to sounf track X-ray shows infection with Pneumocystis carinii (typed in italics) in an immune-deficient patient studied at NIH.
It was mind-boggling, looking at how immunodeficient these patients were… Dr. H. Clifford Lane - link to sound track
…we received a referral to the NIH, in June of 1981, of a patient D who…turned out to be the first patient seen at NIH with AIDS. - link to sound track Dr. Thomas Waldmann
The purple lesions of Kaposi's sarcoma, an unusual kind of cancer to be seen in young men, were common among the cases of immune deficiency reported in 1981.
Letter from the U.S. Assistant Surgeon General requests the National Cancer Institute to collaborate with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in studies of Kaposi's sarcoma in the first cadre of immune-suppressed homosexual men reported to CDC.
I don’t remember the exact date when the first [NIAID] patient got admitted, but I do recall there was a snowstorm, and NIH was closed. - link to sound track Dr. Jack Whitescarver
…when I moved into my house, a neighbor came up and…said, “Welcome to the neighborhood”…and asked what I did. I said, “I’m a nurse. I work at NIH.” “Oh, what kind of work do you do?” “I work with AIDS research.” “If you do, I am surprised you even tell anybody about it.” Barbara Fabian Baird link to sound track
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Last Updated 06/04/2001
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