1982

January 4: Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), the first community-based service provider for gay men with immune deficiencies in the United States, is founded in New York City.

February: After gay activist Dan Turner is diagnosed with Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS), his physician, Dr. Marcus Conant, suggests that Turner meet with another of his patients with KS, Bobbi Campbell, for support. That meeting marks the beginning of Turner and Campbell’s efforts to organize people living with Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP), Kaposi's Sarcoma (KS), and other opportunistic infections (OIs). That group will become People with AIDS San Francisco, the first support organization in the country to be founded by people living with AIDS.

April 8: GMHC holds its first fundraiser for research on "Kaposi's Sarcoma and other Gay-Related Immunodeficiencies" at the Paradise Garage in Manhattan. The event, titled Showers, raises $50,000.

April 13: California Rep. Henry Waxman (D-24) convenes the first congressional hearing on Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center in Hollywood, California. At the hearing, Dr. James Curran, head of the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Task Force on Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections, estimates that tens of thousands of people may already be affected by whatever is causing the unusual and deadly infections.

May: Rodger McFarlane, a volunteer for GMHC, sets up the world's first information and counseling hotline for gay men worried about PCP and KS on his home phone. He receives over 100 phone calls the first night.

May 5: Dr. Marcus Conant, the California dermatologist who cofounded the nation's first Kaposi's sarcoma clinic at San Francisco General Hospital, joins with attorney Frank Jacobson and businessman Richard Keller to form the nonprofit Kaposi’s Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation. Their goal is to raise funds for KS research and provide information about the previously rare cancer to local gay men. The organization will ultimately become the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

May 11: The New York Times publishes the first mention of the term “GRID” (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency), which some researchers are using to describe the new epidemic. The term will deepen the public perception that AIDS affects only gay men.

May 31: The Los Angeles Times becomes the first mainstream newspaper in the United States to publish a front-page story on the expanding outbreak: “Mysterious Fever Now an Epidemic.”

June 18 : CDC publishes a new MMWR, A Cluster of Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia among Homosexual Male Residents of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California, that makes the first official connection between a potential sexually transmitted agent and the outbreaks of KS, PCP, and other OIs among young gay men.

June 27: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a gay activist group in San Francisco, publishes Play Fair!, the first pamphlet on “safer sex.” They distribute 16,000 copies at the International Lesbian & Gay Freedom Day Parade.

July 13: The first international workshop on the cases of KS, PCP, and other OIs among gay men is held at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

July 16: CDC publishes another MMWR article, Epidemiologic Notes and Reports: Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia among Persons with Hemophilia A. It is the first report of immunosuppression in patients with hemophilia who have no other known risk factors for immune deficiency. Two of the three patients profiled in the report have already died by the time of publication.

September 24: CDC uses the term “AIDS” (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) for the first time in a new MMWR, which includes the first case definition for AIDS: “A disease at least moderately predictive of a defect in cell-mediated immunity, occurring in a person with no known cause for diminished resistance to that disease.”

September 28: California Rep. Phillip Burton (D-6) introduces the first legislation to allocate funding for AIDS research. The bill, which requests $5 million for CDC and $10 million for NIH, dies in committee. Congress will not approve the first dedicated funding for AIDS research and treatment until July 1983.

October 15: At a White House press briefing, conservative journalist Lester Kinsolving asks the first question about the new epidemic. Acting Press Secretary Larry Speakes admits he knows nothing about AIDS, and he and other members of the White House Press Corps respond to the question with laughter and homophobic remarks.

November 5 : CDC’s Current Trends Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS): Precautions for Clinical and Laboratory Staffs lays out the first set of precautions for clinical and laboratory staff working with people exhibiting signs of AIDS.

December 10 : CDC’s Epidemiologic Notes and Reports Possible Transfusion-Associated Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)—California announces that a 20-month-old white infant who required multiple blood transfusions after his birth in San Francisco has developed unexplained cellular immunodeficiency and opportunistic infections. Donor tracing reveals that one of the baby’s blood donors died of AIDS in August. In breaking this story, the New York Times will erroneously report that the infant has died .

December 17 : CDC’s latest MMWR , Unexplained Immunodeficiency and Opportunistic Infections in Infants—New York, New Jersey, California , reports another 22 cases of unexplained immunodeficiency and opportunistic infections in infants. The article states “It is possible that these infants had the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS),” but stops short of making a definitive diagnosis.

December 22 : CDC has received reports of 932 cases of AIDS (PDF, 17KB). Of those cases, 515 people have died—a 55% fatality rate.