Women Pioneers in the Public Health Battle with HIV/AIDS
Image courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
Three remarkable women who fought stigma and saved lives
When the HIV/AIDS crisis began in the U.S. in the early 1980s, discrimination against—and fear of—those diagnosed with the new disease ran rampant. Patients were fired from jobs, evicted from housing, and shunned, both in social and medical circles. But three fearless women helped turn the tide by changing attitudes, destigmatizing sexually transmitted diseases, and working tirelessly to find treatments.
Helene Gayle: The Very Best in Public Health Leadership
Born in Buffalo, New York in 1955, Helene Gayle, MD, MPH dedicated her life to medicine at a fairly young age. After earning a BA in psychology from Barnard College, Dr. Gayle went on to get both a doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. But this was only the tip of the iceberg of all that she’d accomplish.
In 1984, Dr. Gayle joined the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the Epidemiology department where she researched malnutrition, low birth weight, and poor growth in children in the U.S. and Africa. In 1987, she joined the CDC's AIDS Program, serving as chief of the HIV/AIDS Division for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and acted as health consultant to the World Health Organization and the United Nations AIDS Program.
Beginning in 1995, Dr. Gayle was director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHSTP) and she worked nonstop to create and implement programs to prevent these diseases. She helped launch global HIV/AIDS initiatives and efforts to eradicate syphilis and TB. Dr. Gayle was named director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis program in 2001. Dr. David Satcher, former CDC director, said this about Dr. Gayle upon her 1999 swearing-in as assistant surgeon general: “Dr. Gayle exemplifies the best in public health leadership…she has made significant contributions to the international and domestic study, control, and prevention of HIV and AIDS and other infectious diseases."
Today, Dr. Gayle continues her great work as president and CEO of The Chicago Community Trust, one of the nation’s oldest and largest community foundations.
Linda Laubenstein: HIV/AIDS Research Pioneer
When Linda Laubenstein, MD, chose to attend Barnard College in 1965, it was for much more than its academic reputation. At the time, Barnard was one of the only schools with facilities that could accommodate students with physical challenges. A paraplegic due to childhood polio, Dr. Laubenstein let nothing stand in her way—ultimately becoming a trailblazer in HIV/AIDS research.
Dr. Laubenstein attended medical school at New York University where she’d later have a professorship before leaving that post to focus on treating patients in her Manhattan practice. In the early 1980s, she began seeing a strange illness that started as purple spots on the body (called Kaposi’s sarcoma) but ended in a fatal shut down of the immune system. Concerned, Dr. Laubenstein and her colleagues submitted a paper to a medical journal detailing the rise of Kaposi’s sarcoma cases and their connection to a virus that would later be called HIV/AIDS. A decade after graduating from Barnard, Dr. Laubenstein was treating some of the first HIV/AIDS patients in the U.S. She went on to co-found one of the first national medical conferences on AIDS and help create the Kaposi’s Sarcoma Research Fund.
Perhaps Dr. Laubenstein’s greatest contribution was her advocacy for those who other doctors refused to treat due to social stigma and fear of HIV. Discovering that many of her patients had lost their jobs after diagnosis, Dr. Laubenstein co-founded Multitasking, a nonprofit that offered services and employment opportunities to those who’d been fired.
Dr. Laubenstein died at the young age of 45, but her groundbreaking research and treatment of the first AIDS patients continues to heavily influence HIV/AIDS research, social advocacy, and treatment for those living with the disease today.
Mathilde Krim: The Mother of the HIV/AIDS Movement
When geneticist and virologist Mathilde Krim, PhD passed away in 2018 at the age of 91, she was remembered by many as a “triple threat” because of her remarkable ability to move between and connect the fields of public health, science, and social activism.
Born and raised in Como, Italy, Dr. Krim earned a PhD from the University of Geneva in Switzerland before pursuing research in cytogenetics and cancer-causing viruses at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science. There, she was a member of the team who first developed a method for determining prenatal gender.
In the 1980s, Dr. Krim lent her deep scientific knowledge and activist spirit to the AIDS crisis and tirelessly advocated for those who had lost jobs and housing and faced healthcare discrimination due to their HIV diagnosis. She was a regular guest on NewsHour where she’d plead with the public to show understanding and empathy to HIV/AIDS patients. She also had a knack for connecting with Hollywood celebrities who’d support her efforts. In 1983, Dr. Krim and actress Elizabeth Taylor founded the AIDS Medical Foundation, which later became the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR) and raised millions for AIDS research.
Peter Staley, fellow activist, friend, and amFAR board member, said of Dr. Krim: “She just felt compelled to help as she witnessed gay men dying and a government and a people ignoring it. She knew from the get-go that this had the potential to be a worldwide pandemic and that stigma was a big part of it. For many of us, she was the mother of the movement.”
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