Wed, 01/16/2019 - 09:52 gkellett
A CDC poster from the 1980s warning of the risk of AIDS transmission from injection drug use involving dirty needles.
Standard
CDC via U.S. National Library of Medicine
Jan 1, 2001

The CDC used the name AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) for the first time to describe the mysterious illness in 1982. Cases had been detected in homosexual people, people with hemophilia (a bleeding disorder), Haitians, and heroin users, leading the public to derisively refer to these communities as the 4-H Club. Health officials also recorded symptoms now believed to be associated with AIDS in patients in Uganda; at the time, no one on either side of the ocean made the connection. It would take until 1986 for even the cause of AIDS, the retrovirus HIV, to be confirmed and named.

Timeline Entry Prefix
Sept. 24, 1982