San Francisco leaders comment on the 40th anniversary of AIDS on Saturday

National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park virtual memorial plannedNational AIDS Memorial

Saturday, June 5, 2021, marks what is being called the 40th anniversary of AIDS, when the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention first mentioned the disease in its weekly report.

“Today, Americans mark a solemn milestone: forty years since the discovery of HIV/AIDS, a disease that has inflicted nearly unparalleled anguish, pain and devastation on our country and world," said San Francisco Congresswoman and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. "On this day, we take time to mourn the hundreds of thousands of Americans we have lost to this vicious disease and pray for all grieving their tragic loss.  We also pay tribute to the more than one million Americans living with HIV today, who have bravely battled not only the virus but its cruel stigma.  

“In San Francisco, we remember the darkest months of the start of the crisis, when many of us were visiting the hospital constantly and attending two funerals a day.  Today, we are blessed to be able to celebrate the birthdays, weddings and retirements of our long-term survivors.  Despite these achievements, our nation still loses 13,000 Americans every year to AIDS – a toll that breaks our hearts and continues to demand our urgent action.

“As we celebrate the tremendous progress made to defeat this disease, we must recommit to finishing this fight.  As Speaker, I have been proud to lead Congress’s response to HIV/AIDS, including securing billions for treatment, prevention, community-based models of care, and the search for a cure here at home and abroad, as well as providing affordable housing for low-income survivors through HOPWA and expanding access to quality, affordable health care for those affected.  As we carry on the fight today, the Democratic Congress looks forward to working with the Biden-Harris Administration to fully fund initiatives to end this epidemic at home and abroad.

“Today, and every day, let us renew our vow to always support our long-term survivors and work to finally banish HIV to the dustbin of history.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Preventino Director Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, announced on Thursday her personal connection with the fight against AIDS.

"By 1995, when I was a newly trained physician, hospitals across the country were filled with young men and women dying of AIDS," the director said.

"In my first years, all I had to give my patients was my outstretched hand and my presence at their bedside. The epidemic raged in the halls of the hospitals and the streets of Baltimore where I worked. Fifty-thousand people were dying each year. And then we reached a turning point. In December 1995 and in 1996, FDA authorized the first combinations of highly effective treatment. My message at the bedside changed: you can live.

"Today, looking back, I know that we have come so far. A CDC study published today in the MMWR reports that new annual HIV infections decreased 73% from 1981 to 2019. Reductions are due to the decades-long work of and collaboration with scientists, patients, patient-advocates and communities. Targeted programmatic efforts at the federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local levels have translated tremendous advancements in science and medicine into safe and effective interventions delivered to the people at risk.

"Despite our extraordinary progress, the HIV epidemic in this country continues, and we still have much work to do. It is unacceptable that 37,000 people are newly diagnosed with HIV each year in the United States. Disparities in diagnoses and access to treatment and prevention persist. Over half of new HIV infections are in the South, and new infections remain high among transgender women, people who inject drugs, and Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino gay and bisexual men."

The day will be marked in San Francisco with a virtual memorial in the National Memorial AIDS Grove in Golden Gate Park with a virtual ceremony and a display of 40 pieces of the AIDS quilt. To attend that virtual ceremony visit this link: https://www.aidsmemorial.org/aids40

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