The American actor Rock Hudson died from AIDS in 1985. Until then, President Ronald Reagan had never uttered the word AIDS in public. Rather, his press secretary had responded to questions about AIDS with jokes about homosexuality. But Hudson’s death gave AIDS a familiar face. His popularity, coupled with the prolonged efforts of activists, spurred the United States to start taking steps to address the issue domestically. In 1985, the U.S. Congress allocated $70 million to AIDS research. This move came four years after researchers at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had proposed allocating $40 million to head off the virus early on. However, the CDC was given less than $1 million.