ON MAY 20 1983, in a paper published in the U.S. journal Science, a team from France's Pasteur Institute, led by Luc Montagnier, described a suspect virus found in a patient who had died of AIDS.
Montagnier's groundbreaking work (see, The hunt for HIV,Cosmos Online) led to the determination by U.S. researcher Robert Gallo that the virus was indeed the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).
At last, a key had been found to understanding the mysterious immune-ravaging disease – the "gay plague" as British tabloids smugly called it – which had surfaced among American homosexuals two years earlier.
It took another three years to resolve a spat over the pair's rival claims to be the first to discover the AIDS virus, enabling the duo to share equally in the glory. The mood was upbeat.
wow!
ReplyDeleteJean Comaroff is one of the better writers at contextualizing AIDS history "Beyond Bare Life:
ReplyDeleteAIDS, (Bio)Politics, and the Neoliberal Order" published in Public Culture 19:1 2007, Duke University Press etc etc