June 5, 1981: AIDS Is Identified

June 5, 1981: The Centers for Disease Control identify, without yet naming, the disease AIDS: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

The first news story on "an exotic new disease" appeared a few days earlier, on May 18, in the gay newspaper New York Native. The initial cases were a cluster of injection drug users and gay men with no known cause of impaired immunity, who showed symptoms of Pneumocystis (PCP or PJP, the latter term recognizing that the causative agent is now called Pneumocystis jirovecii), a rare opportunistic infection that was known to occur in people with very compromised immune systems.

Soon thereafter, researchers at the New York University School of Medicine studied gay men developing a previously rare skin cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). Many more cases of PJP and KS emerged, alerting the CDC, which formed a task force was formed to monitor the outbreak. The earliest retrospectively described case of AIDS is believed to have been in Norway, beginning in 1966.

In the beginning, the CDC did not have an official name for the disease, often referring to it by way of the diseases that were associated with it; for example, lymphadenopathy, the disease after which the discoverers of HIV originally named the virus. They also used Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections, the name by which a task force had been set up in 1981.

In the general press, the term GRID, which stood for Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, had been coined. The CDC, in search of a name and looking at the infected communities, coined "the 4H disease", as it seemed to single out homosexuals, heroin users, hemophiliacs, and Haitians. However, after determining that AIDS was not isolated to the gay community, it was realized that the term GRID was misleading, and AIDS was introduced at a meeting in July 1982. By September 1982, the CDC started using the name AIDS.

AIDS devastated America's gay community and its artistic community, visual and performing -- communities with a great deal of overlap. The disease aged people badly before killing them. One person summed it up by saying, "I'm tired of seeing 30-year-old men with gray hair and canes!"

In spite of being neither gay nor an intravenous drug user, I was afraid that AIDS would devastate my generation as badly as any war would have. I joined demonstrations protesting the apparent lack of progress on research into the disease. This included one on May 21, 1990, at the National Institutes of Health, in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Maryland. We believed that the director of the AIDS research project there was the villain, taking too long to develop drugs that might ease the suffering of the disease.

We were right to demand relief of suffering. We were wrong to accuse the director of being the villain. AZT was already being used to treat the disease, under his direction. He ended up being one of the heroes of the fight against the disease. His name was Anthony Fauci, and, 30 years later, he would be leading hero of the fight against COVID-19.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of 2021, HIV/AIDS has killed approximately 40.1 million people, and approximately 38.4 million people are currently infected with HIV globally. Of these 38.4 million people, 75 percent are receiving antiretroviral treatment. There were about 770,000 deaths from HIV/AIDS in 2018, and 650,000 deaths in 2021. So there is improvement.

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June 5, 1981 was a Friday. Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup had been decided 15 days earlier, when the New York Islanders beat the Minnesota North Stars in 5 games in the Finals. The NBA Finals had been decided 7 days before that, when the Boston Celtics beat the Houston Rockets in 6 games in the Finals.

And these baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-5 at Yankee Stadium. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-3 with a walk, before Bobby Murcer pinch-hit for him, going 1-for-2, singling in the bottom of the 12th inning. Larry Milbourne pinch-ran for him, and Rick Cerone hit a sacrifice fly to score Milbourne with the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning, making a winning pitcher of Dave LaRoche in relief of Rudy May. Cerone had hit a home run earlier. Dave Winfield went 1-for-5 with a walk and an RBI.

* The New York Mets lost to the Houston Astros, 3-0 at the Astrodome. Nolan Ryan pitched a 5-hit shutout, striking out 12 and walking only 2. However, those 2 walks made him the all-time leader in that category. It would be another 2 years before he became the all-time leader in strikeouts.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-1 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-4. Pete Rose went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Willie Stargell went 0-for-2 before being lifted for a pinch-hitter.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Montreal Expos, 6-3 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Johnny Bench did not play.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins, 2-0 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Jack Morris pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Diego Padres, 2-1 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Jim Kaat, pitching for the Cards, drew a walk to lead off the bottom of the 13th inning, was bunted over by Tommy Herr, and was singled home by Keith Hernandez.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-2 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-4 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Batting for the Rangers in the bottom of the 12th inning, Mickey Rivers hit a ground ball that Jays shortstop Alfred Griffin booted, allowing Jim Sundberg to score the winning run.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the California Angels, 6-4 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Eddie Murray went 2-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Rod Carew went 3-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Oakland Athletics, 4-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Carl Yastrzemski and Jim Rice hit home runs for the BoSox, and Tony Armas hit one for the A's. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-4.

* And the Cleveland Indians beat the Seattle Mariners, 8-1 at the Kingdome in Seattle.