U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes cases of a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), in five young, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. These men have other unusual infections as well, indicating that their immune systems are not working; two have already died by the time the report is published. This edition of the MMWR marks the first official reporting of what will become known as the AIDS epidemic.

Within days, CDC receives numerous reports of similar cases of PCP and other opportunistic infections among gay men—including reports of a cluster of cases of a rare, unusually aggressive cancer, Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS), among a group of gay men in New York and California.

In response to these reports, CDC establishes the Task Force on Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections to identify risk factors and to develop a case definition for national surveillance.

New York Times publishes an article entitled “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.” At this point, the term “gay cancer” enters the public lexicon.

Bobbi Campbell, a San Francisco nurse, becomes the first KS patient to go public. Calling himself the “KS Poster Boy,“ Campbell writes a newspaper column on living with “gay cancer” for the San Francisco Sentinel. He also posts photos of his lesions in the window of a local drugstore to alert the community to the disease and encourage people to seek treatment.

NBC airs the first national news story on AIDS.

CDC uses the term “AIDS” (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) for the first time and releases the first case definition of AIDS: “a disease at least moderately predictive of a defect in cell-mediated immunity, occurring in a person with no known case for diminished resistance to that disease.”

Rep. Henry Waxman and Rep. Phillip Burton introduce legislation to allocate $5 million to CDC for surveillance and $10 million to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for AIDS research.

CDC reports a case of AIDS in an infant who received blood transfusions. The following week, 22 cases of unexplained immunodeficiency and opportunistic infections in infants are announced.

CDC hosts a public meeting with representatives from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), NIH, the blood services community, gay activists, and hemophilia specialists to identify opportunities to protect the nation’s blood supply from AIDS. Yet participants fail to reach consensus on appropriate action.